Microblog: A very long article Wikipedia article on the orientation of toilet paper [Jun 7th, 22:52] [R]

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

15 Minutes Microwave Chocolate Cake

Categories: [ Cooking ]

Inspired by Julie et la Chocolaterie.

Ingredients

  • 100g dark chocolate
  • 3 tbl. spoons water
  • 100g butter
  • 2 tbl. spoons crème fraîche
  • 100g powdered sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 50g flour
  • 1/2 tea spoon baking powder

Tools

  • salad bowl that goes to the microwave
  • (wooden) spoon

Preparation

Put the chocolate broken in pieces in a salad bowl that goes to the microwave with the water. Heat in the microwave at maximum power for 1 min. Add the butter cut in cubes, heat again for 1 min. Stir well until all the butter has melted. Add the crème fraîche and stir again. Add the sugar, stir. Add the eggs one by one, and stir well after each egg. Add the flour in a small heap on the top of the preparation, add the baking powder on top of it and stir the preparation in small circles next to the heap of flour. The flour will be incoroporated bit by bit without making lumps. When most of the flour is incorporated, stir by making large circles again.

Put the salad bowl with the preparation in the microwave and cook at maximum power for 6 – 7 min. The cake is ready when a knife's blade stuck into the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool down. You can alternatively turn the salad bowl upside-down on a plate to unmould it while it's still hot; the cake should come off easily.

Comments

  • The cake is quite light and rubbery (a texture you may like or not, I do)
  • More flour may make it less rubbery
  • Hazelnut paste may be a great addition (with less butter, then)

[ Posted on May 6th, 2009 at 19:03 | 3 comments | ]

Facebook is the new AOL

Categories: [ Grumbling ]

Many years ago, AOL was providing users with online services, but kept them well isolated from the Internet. It took ages until AOL finally opened itself to the rest of the Internet. Nowadays, such a provider of online services is unthinkable. But this situation still exists for mobile online services (think i-Mode) and social networks. I was about to write something about it, but the Appleseed project did it already. They also propose a solution, which is technically accessible with nowaday's technology (and was also already accessible with yesterday's). If this project (or one of the other distributed social network projects) succeeds, maybe ten years from now we'll have real open social networks.

The next step will then be to find a use for those (other than the “my network is bigger than yours” contests).

[ Posted on May 6th, 2009 at 17:47 | no comment | ]