First Hints of Spring

Last year I took some photos in the streets of Vienna, presenting the work of the municipal gardeners:

April 2010

This is what the flowerbed looks like today:

March 2011

Last week the gardeners finally removed all the twigs which had been covering the tulip bulbs during the winter months.

April 2010

and this morning:

March 2011

One more month to go. I think I like the time while we wait for something to arrive. I hope this posting did not make you too hungry today, compared to the postings before.

I changed the labels to the right into a "cloud". I really like the clouds where something grows larger when it has more importance. It motivates me to focus on aspects I have not been taking care of lately, such as scrapping and Easter. Ok, Easter is a rare occasion.

Dylan's Brioche , My Pleasure

For the last days, I have been making excessive use of the herbs I've recently bought and the cow has been busy ever since, watering them:

The cow is happy it may stay, now it is in charge now that the herbs arrived.

Time for something new!
The recipe origins from Dylan's blog. Unfortunately he does not seem to be online anymore, his recipe still is: Brioche heaven for rich men (or women)

Here you can see the dough right after mixing the eggs, butter, flour, yeast, vanilla ...

What would work better to demonstrate the proportions who large the bowl is like an apple

The apple is NOT a tiny apple but the bowl is the huge IKEA bowl

After kneading the dough rests in the fridge over night: (Dylan recommends to let the sponge rest over night, too, but since I wanted to have the brioche ready by breakfast, I reduced the sponge-time to 2 hours). Sponge = yeast plus a bit of flour and milk

2 forms should be enough to hold the dough

Thanks to the lots of butter and the long chilling-time, the dough was not sticky at all!
The next morning, I put little balls of dough in the forms:

ok, 2 forms were not quite enough:

You can tell, I did not really form the balls with care but vite vite ... what do you expect from me at ...

8.14am on a saturday!

The essential egg for the tan

The dough rises to its double-size and you preheat the oven:Bake at 200°C for the first 10 minutes

This is what they look like after ten minutes ...

... then reduce the heat to 180°, rush into the shower, wash your hair but leave the conditioner out, because this would take too long and after another 15 minutes the brioche is done and the hair is fresh:

Any leave-in conditioner will be finde for your hair, as long as you did not spend the extra 5 minutes in the shower, conditioning and rinsing your hair after washing because the good brioche would have turned darkbrown, a tan that does not suit any brioche at all.

Let it cool down in the form for a while, then let it totally cool down on a grill or just on the workplace.

Test 1, 2 ... yes, it's done!

On this photo it looks way too much like bread. It does not have the conistency of bread at all!

Friend T proves the real nature of the brioche by ripping it apart

Friend T helped modelling the brioche

It comes in handy, Japanese people never wonder why you would take a photo of lets say, ripping a brioche! While typing this, I have the smell in my nose, amazing. As I mentioned above, I do not recommend using the 450gr of butter, it turns out too rich. I might also leave 1 of the eggs out. Then I imagine it to be the perfect brioche that stay fresh for days. Today, day 3, they still taste like new.

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Today I've taken a look at my postings from March 2010, because I wondered if spring was already aroung that time of the year one year back. Looking back I remembered how close I was with a blogger back then, who was the reason why I started the blog (I did not want to comment anonymously any more). Turns out she actually never comments, nor follows. But what did I gain in return! I "met"so many witty and special people over the last year online. I catch myself telling friends about bloggers and what happens to them (to just name a few: Louise and her entourage, including birds and dog-heroes, Blighty, who met Louise IRL and once worked late night with this quite intimidating Chinese co-worker who would always reapply her lipstick, even when it was 10pm. Lisa, who encouraged me to try pearls and is reachable via email for more private matters. Jen with whom I share the passion for the kitchen. The Hostess Leslie, who is unbelievable young at heart.Vix, who introduced me to The Closer and apparently lives with a very handsome Mr Vix, Kristin, who speaks out what I want to read and listen to (on blogspot radio), Beate, who is geographically the closest to me and delivers such warmth, janet who is the rebirth of the cool and Faux Fuchsia, who activated this blog. Seems as if your intent is not always your destination.

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As long as the weather behaves like this:

Tje sky over Vienna, last saturday, lunchtime, 8°C, wind from northwest,

... I prefer continuing my projects in the kitchen, sorry, no Viennese outdoor impressions meanwhile, only Viennese Gugelhupf & Co:

My kitchen bible, the Sacher Kochbuch

to be continued

SCHANEL

Mr Paula and I used to go through the VOGUE magazine during breakfast. Mr Paula was always busy studying the advertisments. What amused him most were celebrities who work as testimonials - mostly for cosmetic companies and the companies place the name of the celeb in the corner of the ad. It just proves these celebs might not be such big stars at all. I mean compared to Cindy, Linda and Naomi, who became replaced by Penelope, Julia and Sienna long ago.

Mr Paula is very attentive and knows any woman would enjoy a CHANEL paper bag, to bring her lunch to the office ... or maybe just carry a plain yoghurt and an apple.

Well, the Stefanel-typography as seen on this bag actually does look a lot like the Chanel-typo.

The "sch" in German is pronounced like the "sh" in "shower".