2012 January » Blog | Farmgirl Writes

Cappuccino Swirls (recipe)

Jan 302012

There’s something magical about baking. Yes, any teenage girl with a sweet tooth and a cookbook could tell you that. In my opinion, the true magic lies in who you’re baking with.

Yesterday, instead of going straight home after work, I went over to my sweet friend J’s house. Last night we were both deliriously tired, but still decided to bake cookies. Thank goodness we chose a fairly simple recipe.

These cookies are quite amazing, actually. They have the lovely flavour of coffee, but it isn’t overpowering. The white and dark chocolate on top makes them utterly delectable. They’re light and sweet – perfect for accompanying tea, milk, or coffee.

Ingredients

2 tsp instant coffee

2 tsp boiling water

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature (diced)

1/4C superfine sugar (to make superfine sugar, pulse granulated sugar in a food processor for about a minute-ish.)

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 tbsp cocoa powder

(for the top)

1/3 cup white chocolate (chopped or in chips)

1/3 cup dark chocolate (chopped or in chips)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Put coffee powder and boiling water in a cup together and stir. Essentially, you’re making really thick coffee. Sift the flour, corn starch, and cocoa powder together. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy, then add the flour and coffee mixtures. I would recommend using an electric beater to beat them together. It will take a few minutes of beating for the consistency to look right. Ideally, the batter should be about the consistency of mashed potatoes and look a little bit like chocolate frosting. Spoon the batter into a piping bag and use a large tip to pipe it into 18-20 circles on a parchment-lined pan. Bake for about 10-12 minutes.

Melt white and dark chocolate in separate, heat-proof bowls. For the sake of efficiency, I recommend a double-boiler, or a heat proof bowl inside a small pot of water. Once melted, use a spoon and drizzle one kind of chocolate onto the cookies. Then, drizzle the other kind going the opposite direction.

Note: the white chocolate was a little thick, so we ended up piping ours, but the dark chocolate liquefied much better and we were able to drizzle it.

Enjoy!

(recipe reprinted from The Cookie and Biscuit Bible)

Dear College: Spam Mail

Uncategorized 3 Responses »

Jan 292012

This, my friends, is the result of saving mail. Saving college spam mail, specifically.

Here’s a quick background if you’re new to my college ramblings. I’m a senior, graduating this spring. I’ve applied to and been accepted to three colleges – I’ll be attending my top school next fall.

I really despise waste. Honestly, I’m not an absolute environmental junkie, but I really hate to see tons of unsolicited letters and college look-books arrive at my house. This past summer, I decided to save all of this mail, just to see how much I’d get.

The box on the left is mail from colleges that I did not apply to. The stack on the right is mail from the three colleges I applied to. The box is absolutely deceiving. Take a look at this picture.

Okay, do you have a better idea of how big that box actually is? It’s really full. There are hundreds of letters and other promotional materials in it, literally crammed to the top.

In comparison, my second pile includes all of the official communication, including acceptance letters, scholarship letters, and honors letters. (No, I still haven’t heard about the important honors program. I should know by the end of February, probably.)

I have no problem with emails from schools. Hey, I can delete those if I don’t want them. But honestly, why do colleges insist on bombarding potential students with mail? My parents and I have joked that many of these colleges could create scholarships if they simply cut down on their mailing costs.

Colleges, if you’re reading this (you probably aren’t, but still), please knock it off with the mail. Not only could you actually help more students pay for school, but you could also help the environment. Even if you don’t stop the mailing campaigns, consider more environmentally friendly packaging. Something inside of me dies every time I receive a college lookbook wrapped in plastic that my area doesn’t recycle.

A couple of fast facts: only one piece of mail I’ve received has used packaging that is totally environmentally friendly.

Most of my spam mail is from Radford University, Muhlenburg College and Southern Weseleyan University.

Over 60% of the mail I’ve received has been unsolicited.

Quick note to colleges: If you like sending unsolicited spam mail to seniors after January 1st, you are wasting your money. I’m still receiving somewhat copious amounts of mail.

Inspiration Scrapbook (DIY)

Uncategorized 2 Responses »

Jan 242012

There’s a bit of a blogging obsession with inspiration notebooks lately. I love the idea, but to be honest, finding a super-large notebook and gluing things into it never appealed to me. Part of my resolution this year was to keep at least some sort of journal. I’m terrible at keeping journals, as they mostly tend to implode from lack of use and get covered in dust. I generally only write things down when I’m angry or upset, which isn’t very inspiring, nor is it something I want to talk about a lot. I came up with a solution when I found this scrapbooking kit in my closet. A gift from over a year ago, I hadn’t decided what to do with it, and therefore had forgotten about it.

Now friends, I’ve turned it into my inspiration scrapbook. Because my life can get very busy, my goal is to complete one page each week. As you can see from the picture above, I clip out pictures from magazines and tag each clipping with what I liked about the photo.

Two secrets here: I filled out two pages last week with Disney photos. + Most of my inspiration photos contain food.Shhh… don’t tell anyone. *wink*

How to get started1. Obtain a scrapbook. I prefer a scrapbooking kit, since I don’t have time or money to buy tons of individual components and create each page from scratch. I got mine from Colorbok (one almost identical to mine can be found here).2. Make a goal for yourself. Tell yourself that you will do at least (insert amount here) page(s) a week. If you’re like me, you need this step.3. Find magazines/newspapers/other. My collection consists of magazines like Southern Living and InStyle, with an occasional King Arthur’s Flour catalog mixed in (what did I say about *coughfoodcough*?). Find magazines that inspire you and clip those. If you want, add some personal elements. Poetry, words, journal entries, you name it. 4. Enjoy. The loveliest thing about an inspiration scrapbook/notebook is that you can flip through it when you’re feeling down or out of ideas.

This isn’t really a do-it-yourself that is complicated. I’m pretty sure all of you could have figured it out without the instructions.

But hey, why not?

Mondays are Droll

Uncategorized 1 Response »

Jan 232012

Hello friends. How are you? Anything exciting going on in your lives? Do tell.

If you’re confused about where to comment, look at the top right corner of this post – just click on that link.

It’s been an insane start of the semester for me. Two weeks into it, I took a week to go south, as you all know. I’m back now, however, and am starting another week in school. Let me tell you about my classes right now.

I was hoping to take community college classes this semester, but God had other plans, I think. The admissions office lost my paperwork, and I finally enrolled in three more classes with my online high school. Some things aren’t worth fighting too hard, especially when you’re so close to the finish line.

I’m currently enrolled in Business Writing, Psychology, and Digital Video Production, in addition to my two classes from last semester – AP English Language and Health. To be honest, I love my English classes. They’re amazingly fun, and I grow so much when working on them. They’re also (admittedly) tiring. I do so much writing in both AP English Language and Business Writing that the thought of writing for pleasure after school makes me cringe somewhat.

My favorite class outside of my English classes is Digital Video Production. It’s a half-credit course, and in it, you create two short films (one is 15-30 seconds long, and one is 2-3 minutes long). Out of all five classes, it’s truly the fun one. Psychology is a bore that I must finish to graduate.

Life is insane, but fantastic. In addition to my regular school classes, I’m involved in a life coach program that’s starting this February. (I shall tell you more at a later time.) I have some homework to start for that that is staring me in the face as I type this. No, it’s not a pleasant feeling, having homework stare you down. I’m sure every one of you students know exactly what I’m talking about.

The word “droll” means “dryly amusing”. This Monday is certainly that. Outside, rain drizzles down, dissipating the snow and ice from this weekend. Thankfully, school is over for the day. In a few minutes, I shall prepare to go to work. I’m so grateful that I have work to brighten up my Mondays.

Tell me friends, how is life going for you right now?

Epcot |edition 2 – Disneyworld pt 4|

Uncategorized 1 Response »

Jan 232012

You must pardon me with the amount of photos that I am vomiting upon you all from my trip. Honestly, I’m so excited to share them, not only because I enjoyed myself, but because I feel I grew as a photographer. You know when you can look at something you’ve done and realize that you’ve grown? This is what I’ve gotten out of the trip to Disneyworld.

This is the final set of pictures from Epcot. As I’ve said before, Epcot was my absolute favorite park. The photos from those days are some of the best from the trip, which is why I’ve taken up two posts to show you them.

|Morocco Pavilion|