Cucumber Love

This is my bristlenose catfish (Ancistrus sp.) called Mörkö. She is a lovely lady who takes care of her health by including lots of veggies in her diet, such as cucumber and zucchini (and the occasional sword plant, much to her owner's dismay).

She really loves cucumber. Here's the heart-shaped proof, fished out of the aquarium the other day:

Tuesday Finds: Science

Today I picked up my Master's thesis in printed form from the printery. It took a while, but it's finally done. Wohoo! To celebrate, I will fill up this blog with wonderfully nerdy science things for this week's Tuesday Finds.

First up is a necklace I've had my eye on for a while now. It's a caffeine molecule in jewelry form by Raven Hanna from Made With Molecules. Mmmm, pretty coffee. Perfect for this coffeeholic.
($85, molecularmuse.etsy.com)







I suppose it's wrong of me to want kids for the sole purpose of making them as nerdy as me with the help of Tiffany Ard's Nerdy Baby ABC flash cards. Yeah, it probably is. Ah well.
($18, electricbogaloo.etsy.com)

The one thing that deserves to be called 'awesome' is the cell, methinks. The complicated inner workings are just fascinating. The cell section necklace from discomedusa designs, showing layer upon layer, reminds me of the complexity.
($95, discomedusa.etsy.com)

A sneaky peek

Owls and a triceratops; both creatures I've been wanting to make for quite some time and now the perfect opportunity showed itself.


These little ones are all spoken for, but I suspect there are more to come!

Choco Swiss Roll with Strawberries, yum yum

A group of people came to visit the other day and I had the hardest time figuring out what to bake for them. It's summer, which means our tiny place gets HOT, especially when there's more than two of us here, so I wanted something I could make the day before. Preferably something that is at its best when served the next day.

Suddenly, it hit me. A swiss roll! Perfect! Plus it gave me an excuse to get some fresh strawberries. Even better!

For the filling I used something that Wikipedia claims is quark in English. I remember trying to explain it to my New Zealander husband in our early days and he had no idea what I was talking about ("What? You put elementary particles in your food??"), so I don't know how familiar people outside of Europe are with it. It's a type of soft, sour cheese that hasn't been aged, if that helps. Wikipedia also gives the name "Fromage frais".

It's been aaages since I made one of these and I had forgotten how easy they are to make. I think I have a new love in baking. Sorry, muffins!


Choco Swiss Roll with Strawberries (about 18-20 slices)

3 eggs
1 1/2 dl (3/5 cup) sugar
3/4 dl (~1/3 cup) potato flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Filling
2 dl (4/5 cup) whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tbsp sugar
250 g (~9 ounces) quark
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) fresh strawberries

Beat eggs and sugar until thick and creamy. Mix the dry ingredients together, then fold into the egg-sugar mix. Pour into 30x40 cm (12x16 in) pan covered in baking paper. Bake for 5 minutes at 225 °C (437 °F). Turn out onto baking paper sprinkled with a thin layer of sugar. Peel off the baking paper the cake was baked on and let the cake cool.

For the filling, whip cream with the sugars until stiff. Fold the quark into the mixture and spread onto cooled cake. Chop the strawberries into suitable chunks and sprinkle on top of the cream mixture. Roll up the cake with the aid of the sugared baking paper. Cover the roll with the baking paper and plastic wrap, then place in fridge overnight. Cut the roll into slices right before serving and enjoy!

Busy times plus a front page feature!

I guess I've been busy this week:
Most of them will show up in my shop(s) eventually.

So, my mind's been preoccupied with work and other stuff this week and this morning was no different. I was quite lost in my thoughts. Imagine my surprise then, when I went to the Etsy front page and saw my gloves right there in the middle of the page! Thanks so much, artish!

The treasury list will be up for a few more days, if you'd like to take a look:
f r o s t y

Tuesday Finds: Jellyfish!

The Tuesday Finds are back! Well, at least for now, as I'll take my summer vacation in the near future and may not get around to using the computer much during that time. If the weather is nice, that is. *peers out at the falling icy rain*

Anyway! To make a long story short, this week's theme is jellyfish, because they look cool. So there. There's something truly fascinating about invertebrates.

I'll admit to being a bit lazy and not digging much to find the first item of the week, because I happened to see this Jellyfish Lamp by 1015 Designs on the front page of Etsy the other day. I immediately knew I had to show it off here. How could I not? It's awesome!
($975, 1015Designs.etsy.com)

Frost Indri offers purely decorative, ceramic jellies, such as this one, and even promises they won't sting. ;) Such a lovely surface and colours.
($28, frostindri.etsy.com)




If 2D art is more to your liking, how about a sweet watercolour painting called 'Jellyfishes in the sea' from Uluka Shop?
($24, uluka.etsy.com)

Mmmm, chocolate-banana muffins

Behold! I bring you moist and yummy muffins!

I had overly ripe bananas at home and figured choco-banana muffins would be the perfect thing to do with them. However, it turned out I had no chocolate at home and too little cocoa for the whole batter. I then had the fantastic idea of making marbled muffins.

The problem, it turned out, was that it was also a very messy idea. Especially as I enlisted the aid of Mr Morrgan, in order to divide the batters into the muffin cups quicker. Too many chefs spoil the, uh, neatness of the kitchen? Fortunately not the muffins, in this case.

Eventually we did get most of the batter into the cups, but at that point the mess made me wary of trying out the marbling. Hence, they ended up as layered muffins. Feel free to marble them yourself to your heart's content, however.

Banana-Chocolate Layered Muffins (makes 12)

4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
3 eggs
3 tbsp cocoa
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 ripe, mashed bananas

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add melted and somewhat cooled butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide the batter in two even halves. Mix in the mashed bananas and the vanilla sugar into one half and the cocoa into the other (if needed, add a bit of water to the cocoa half). Layer the batters into 12 muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes at 175°C (347°F).

As usual, the less you mix the batter(s), the better they'll be.

Enjoy!

Gerbera's Dream

Why hello hello. It's been a while, but things are calming down now and I've actually had time to do some knitting this past week. Goodie. However, for my return I want to show off photos of flowers, not knitting.


For the first week of June, citizens of Turku were able to enjoy a sea of flowers by the Turku Cathedral. This piece of environmental art, Gerbera's Dream by Kaisa Salmi, was a fantastic start for the summer season. It consisted of a hundred thousand Gerberas, in more different colours than I have ever seen.


As you can see, I even managed to drag Mr Morrgan over to enjoy the colours on this beautiful, sunny day.


There were many paths to follow through the flowers, with benches here and there to sit down on and enjoy a moment of peace. It was almost enough to forget I was in the middle of a city.

If only there was something like this to enjoy all summer!