Monday
Jun012009

Scone Recipe

DateMonday, June 1, 2009 at 01:30AM

I have had a request for my scone recipe and I figured I would post it for anyone who wants it:

Start with a scale - much easier than measuring out the ingredients.

Put the food processor bowl on the scale. 

  • Add in 560 grams of flower
  • 120 grams of granualated sugar and about
  • 25 grams of baking powder and about
  • 5 grams of salt.

Place the bowl back on the food processor and blend the dry ingredients together for about 30 to 40 seconds. cube 152 grams of cold butter and add it one cube at a time and pulse the food processor for about 5 seconds and resting 10 seconds (this is to cut the butter into the flour mixture but keep the blades from melting the butter - melting the butter bad). 

After adding the last of the butter, keep pulsing the food processor for 1 second on and 5 off until you don't hear any of the large chunks of butter hitting the blade. 

in a large measuring cup,

  • pour in 240 ml of heavy whipping cream,
  • 2 large eggs,
  • rum and vanilla extract (1tsp each, but I usually just pour until it looks right) (I will use almond extract instead of vanilla - other extracts work too - in fact now I want to try a mint extract with chocolate chips, but I digress). 

Beat all the liquids together with a whisk. Pour the dry ingredients from the food processor bowl into a glass mixing bowl. It is at this point where you can add the candied ginger, dried apricots, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, nuts, etc.  I usually try and limit the mixing to two ingredients, one soft and one crunchy.  200 grams total for both ingredients (or 100 grams of dried apricots and 100 grams of candied ginger, etc).  Also, chop the ingredients up to where you want them.  make a well and add the liquid ingredients. fold in the cream/rum/vanilla mix into the dry with a spoon until it starts to form a ball that you can get your hands into without being too sticky. Don't over mix - over mixing bad.  Once you have a large ball, divide into three equal size balls (about 1 lb each).  I then spray Crisco on a cookie sheet and place the round ball on the sheet.  Flatten it down until the thickness is about 1/3" thick (or about 6" in diameter).  then cut it into 1/8 scone shaped pieces.  Break them apart and into the oven they go (pre-heated, 375 F) for about 16 to 18 minutes. Slide off of cookie sheets onto a cooling rack and enjoy. A note on ingrediants - have fun - try and come up with two things that sound good - Ginger/Pecan, Blueberry/Pecan, Ginger/Apricot, Coconut/Chocolate chip - Chocolate Chip, Ginger and mint extract instead of vanilla -- just let me know what you try that works.

AuthorBadcowboy | Comment1 Comment |
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Friday
May012009

Change your prespective (Part 2)

DateFriday, May 1, 2009 at 12:07AM
In the first post, I combined vacation photography with just changing your perspective.  In this post, I wanted to take a picture of the same item within a few minutes while changing the perspective and backgrounds to change the feel of the image.

This is a yuca plant near Big Mac lake in Nebraska.

This image is what I would call boring.  There is a lot in the background, there really is no definitive subject (and it is centered which is another no-no).  To get a little different prespective on the plant, I dropped down and put the sky in the background:

I thnk this is a little better because now the sky adds some feeling to the picture.  The plant stands tall against the background.  I still feel that there is too much distraction with the rest of the grasses.

This one is a lot closer to what I think is a good picture.  The plant is more isolated and the 'clutter' in this case adds to the picture because it is isolated along the bottom third of the picture.  Overall, not to bad, and if you compare the pictures above, you can see how changing your prospective can change the image greatly - these pictures are all of the same plant and all the pictures were within three minutes of each other.

The last image changes the dynamics - just get in close and focus on what is interesting about the plant.

Out of all the pictures I took of the plant for this demonstration, this is the one I like the best.  It has the grain in the seed pod, the background is completely blurred and the colors are rich in the golds.  Still the same plant and still within the three minute window.  The moral of this lesson/post is to look for that shot that you will want to put on the wall.

There is one more thing I should mention - keep an eye out for hazards when shooting.  I sometimes get lost in the moment and don't notice things I should, like this little girl - She posed for me, and was just a young rattlesnake, but I would have hated to lay down on the ground to get some of the above shots only to find her sticking her tongue out and shaking her rattle at me...

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Wednesday
Apr292009

Bay To Breakers

DateWednesday, April 29, 2009 at 01:54AM
3480
I love bay to breakers.  I normally don't like crowds, but this is a moving party from one side of the city to the other.  Where else can you see a Samari, a fat lady in a tutu and a banana all getting along in perfect harmony?  There are a multitude of people in (and out of costumes) and they come from all over the world to participate. The event is broken into a foot race - and those people for obvious reasons go first.  The second wave is the people who walk, jog, trapse and streak their way through the city early on a Sunday morning.
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I love to take pictures while walking along in the crowd. For those of you brought to this website by doing a name search and are wondering how i knew who you are - the bay to breakers website has a cross reference of number to names. Since I didn't hand out business cards with the website name, I figured that it would be the only way for you to find these pictures. The several hours spent crossing the city passes quickly while mingling with the other Bay To Breakerians (if I say its a word, its a word). It feels like everyone who is participating in the event is enjoying themselves, and as long as you get through the park by about noon, you don't have to deal with the more rowdy drunk crowd that arrives.
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There is one point that I would like to make that some people will not want to hear, there is a natural law that places age and weight limits on nudity. Yes, you can walk naked, but should you?
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Tuesday
Apr282009

Change your prespective (Part 1)

DateTuesday, April 28, 2009 at 03:56PM

Vacation photography is nothing less than interesting.  The biggest problem that people face when taking pictures on a trip is you are going to see the same things that others have already seen, and most likely you are going to be places at times when the light isn't always the best. Take the Eifel tower for example.  There are over 54 Thousand pictures in the area that are geotagged.  I have to admit some of them are more interesting than others, but enjoy the towers and take a quick snapshot to remember it by - preferably with your friends and family in the picture. Now that being said, I love to take pictures.  It is very difficult seeing something that my eye wants to save and not taking a picture.  The difference that I like to add when taking a picture is to get a different angle.  When were touring the Greek city of Delphi's museum,  I got a chance to do an experiment that I want to share with others. The following pictures are all of the same statue/bust.  If I showed them to you one at a time, they would like like different statues.  The key thing is to look at what you are taking a picture of and try and capture in a 2D world what the 3D artist might have been trying to convey. By simply changing your perspective, you can get a wide variety of interesting images that even people who were with you will not recognize until you tell them where it was.  Have fun.  
   

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Tuesday
Apr212009

How to Relax

DateTuesday, April 21, 2009 at 01:09AM
I have to admit, Santorini Greece is one of the most relaxing islands I have visited.  There is not much there, although there is more than meets the touristy eye when you arrive by cruise ship. The villages that view the caldera are as breathtaking as their iconic pictures you see everywhere (just do a google image search on Santorini), but you don't get the sense of relaxation until you actually get there.  Just picture yourself getting up in the morning, leisurely throwing on some clothes and heading out to sip your morning coffee in one of these loungers. [singlepic id=122 w=450 h= float= center] Then walking through the cobblestone streets to find a restaurant where the waiters are never in a hurry to turn the table. [singlepic id=123 w=450 h= float=center] Maybe take a relaxing drive on a four-wheeler out to see the lighthouse - not a lot of tourists on this end of the island. [singlepic id=126 w=450 h= float=center] This is a place where I want to go back to for a week or two and just let my mind go blank while sipping Ouzo - and trust me, although I like to think I take great pictures, the pictures do not do this place justice.
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