Leptospira interrogans

After another long absence... Spirochaetes.

Leptospira interrogans is somewhat hard to draw, on account of being helical and having hooked ends. These MSPaint sketches were the result of trying to get a feel for this bacterium's unique topology. (It still isn't quite right - I neglected to include the periplasmic flagella - but we progress.)

Recipe: Cherry Pie

I return after a long time, bearing pie! No photographs, yet again - I literally just finished consuming the last of it, and it didn't occur to me even once that I should gather some pictorial evidence of its existence. No matter, it will be appear again! Sometime.

I brought this pie to work for Pi Day, and it was declared the best of all the baked goods I have prepared so far. In the face of such high praise, who am I to withhold the recipe?

Cherry Pie
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated and various other sources

Ingredients
Crust
2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour blend
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbs raw sugar
225 g unsalted butter, cubed
2 eggs
Ice water

Filling
6 cups halved and pitted cherries (requires about 1 kg fresh cherries)
2 red plums, halved and pitted
1/2 cup raw sugar
Pinch salt
1 tbs freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 tbs ground instant tapioca
Pinch ground cinnamon
2 tbs (25 g) unsalted butter, cut into 1 cm squares
1 large egg, beaten with 1 tsp water

To make the pie dough, mix flour, salt and sugar with a fork. Add butter; rub into the flour mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in eggs. Gradually add a little cold water until the dough comes together; it will be quite crumbly and slightly sticky. Split dough in half; flatten each half into a 10 cm disc. Wrap each disc in cling film and refrigerate for 45 minutes to up to 2 days.

Process plums and 1 cup of the cherries in a blender until smooth, about 1 minute. Strain the purée through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl, pressing down on with a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard any leftover solid material. Add remaining 5 cups of cherries, sugar, salt, lemon juice, tapioca and cinnamon. Mix well to combine. Allow to stand for 15 minutes.

Place a baking tray on the lowest rack of the oven; preheat to 205 degrees C. Dust 2 sheets of baking paper with corn starch. Remove one round of dough from the refrigerator and allow to warm slightly; roll out evenly between the sheets of baking paper to about 1/3 cm in thickness. Remove the baking paper and loosely wrap the dough around the rolling pin to lift it. Line a 23 cm pie or tart pan with the dough, leaving a 1-2 cm overhang. 

Fill pie pan with cherry filling. Scatter butter pieces evenly over the filling. Roll out second round of pie dough between 2 well-dusted sheets of baking paper, as before, and place on top of filling. Pinch the pastry edges together into a fluted pattern; trim the excess with a sharp knife or kitchen scissors. 

Brush the top of the pastry evenly with the egg wash. Using a sharp knife, cut 8 evenly-spaced slits in the top crust. Place pie in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Transfer pie onto the preheated baking tray in the oven. Bake at 205 degrees C for 30 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees C and bake for a further 30-40 minutes, until the crust is golden-brown and the juices are bubbling up. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack. Cool to room temperature, about 2-3 hours, until the filling is set. 

Notes

Frozen cherries (about 900 g) can be used instead. If fresh plums are unavailable, use 3-4 canned whole plums.

Gluten-free pastry crumbles easily and is difficult to work with. Plain flour can be used instead, but the crust will not be as flaky. There is a well-recommended pie dough which uses vodka, but I haven't tried it before.

On Growing Up

Apparently, the ultimate adult is calm, rational and intelligent. The Ultimate Adult, we may emphasise, is always right. Not by virtue of knowing everything - no one can - but by being able to admit when they are wrong. Morally right, if you like. The Ultimate Adult does not lose their temper, does not hurt the feelings of others, is never caught out not knowing what to do.

We strive, all our lives, to this ideal. "Grow up!" is a common admonishment. "Childish" is an insult. Our favourite superheroes rescue the helpless - clearly, being one of the helpless is an undesirable state, we would rather be the superhero. 

But, you know, I think part of growing up is realising that hardly anyone so much as approaches the ideal of the Ultimate Adult. One need not look far to find instances of legal adults - as determined by age and ability to contribute economically, politically and socially - exhibiting typical "childish" behaviours. Even the accumulation of knowledge is not guaranteed with age. Ignorance, sometimes shocking quantities of it, is prevalent even among those who have had both the time and the opportunities to know better.

Do "adults" really exist? Or is everyone frightened, lost and fumbling on the inside, while putting up a collected appearance on the outside? Is this whole business of the Ultimate Adult just a complex game of one-upmanship?

I can speak for myself, that I don't feel like an adult. I'm old enough to decide on national issues, operate mobile mechanical deathtraps, and purchase orally-ingested mind-altering chemicals. I have an income, I pay rent and taxes, I plan and cook my own meals. If I fall ill, have to apply for a visa, have to apply for anything - I handle it, all by myself. I have to teach people who know less than myself. I am personally in charge of work which could cost my boss a lot of money, if something went wrong. I have responsibilities. 

And I'm still such a child on the inside. I'm frequently frightened, often lost, often helpless, often  anything but calm and level-headed. I'm silent at the wrong time and speak when I shouldn't.

They don't give you a handbook, about being an adult, but maybe there's nobody to write one.

Recipe: Raisin Brioche

I bake almost every week now, but they have mostly been dishes which I don't need to type up a post for, since I used the recipes without modification. Well, other than substituting raw sugar and Dutch cocoa at every opportunity.

(FYI, that chocolate tart is delicious, and the spiced oranges are wonderful sans tarte or even, if I may continue to indulge in gratuitous French, when served à la mode.)

(Edit from the future: The chocolate tart link is now gone, wayback machine link here.)

But when a colleague at the lab requested raisin brioche, I had to perform some actual research. The recipe below is the result of careful Internet-based research (step 1: avoid any websites affiliated with cooking shows) and educated guesses. The delicious result, judging by the speed at which it was consumed. This recipe also contains some tweaks to my older brioche recipe.

Raisin Brioche

Ingredients

Dough
1 sachet (7g) active dried yeast
1/4 cup warm milk
1/5 cup caster sugar
2 4/5 cups bread flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs, lightly beaten
125 g butter, softened to room temperature

Raisin filling
1 cup raisins or sultanas
1 cup hot water
2 tbs. rum essence
1/4 cup raw or brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1-2 tbs. melted butter

Topping
1 egg
1 tbs. water
1-2 tbs. raw or brown sugar

Place the raisins in a bowl. Cover with hot water and gently stir in rum essence. Cover bowl and set aside. If soaking the raisins overnight, place in the refrigerator.

Combine yeast, milk and 1 tbs. of the caster sugar in a small bowl. Allow to sit for 5 minutes until frothy.

In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and the remaining caster sugar. Make a well in the centre and stir in the yeast mixture. Gradually add the beaten eggs and stir until just combined. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface; if the dough is too dry, add water a tablespoon at a time. Knead for 5 minutes until smooth.

Add a little of the butter and work into the dough. Continue slowly working in the butter. The dough will soften and gain a yellowish tinge. Place the dough in a bowl and cover with a lightly-floured sheet of cling wrap and allow to rise at 30-40 degrees C for 1 hour, until doubled in size. Punch down the dough and knead for about 5 minutes until smooth. Return dough to the bowl, cover with lightly-floured cling wrap and allow to rise again, either at 30-40 degrees C for 1 hour, or in the refrigerator overnight.

Grease a standard loaf pan (for a non-stick pan, skip this step). Punch down the dough and knead for 5-10 minutes until pliable. Place on a lightly-floured surface and roll out into a 18'' x 11'' rectangle. Brush the dough with melted butter. Mix cinnamon and sugar; sprinkle on top as evenly as possible. Drain the raisins and scatter them over the dough, making sure that they are spread evenly up to the edges.

Fold over one of the longer edges of the dough. Roll up the dough as tightly as possible. Gently bend the roll into a U shape. Twist the roll into a braid. Place the shaped loaf into the pan and allow to rise for 1-2 hours, until the top of the loaf is 1-2'' above the edge. 

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Lightly beat eggs and water to make an egg wash. Brush the top of the loaf with the egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Place in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 190 degrees C. Bake for 10 minutes and then, without opening the oven door, lower the temperature to 160 degrees C. Bake for 20-35 minutes until the bread is a deep golden brown. It will also sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Turn out the loaf onto a wire rack. Rest on its side for 5 minutes, then turn it onto the other side and allow it to cool completely.

Notes

I use 2 tsp. instant yeast instead of active dried. I still add it to the warm milk first, just to check that it's still alive. I may be slightly paranoid.

The older brioche recipe suggested cutting up the butter into cubes, but I found it easier to let the butter soften and then grab a bit of it by hand to work it into the dough. Of course, if you live in a warm country, the cubes are probably going to melt in a matter of seconds anyway.

For flouring surfaces, corn starch works really well.

I like to use my oven as a makeshift incubator to get the dough to rise in a reasonable duration. I'm a microbiologist, you see.

My black silicone loaf pan allows the bread to expand sideways, resulting in a slightly ballooned loaf, but the dark colour ensures that the side and bottom of the loaf are nicely browned. The lesson here is that the ideal loaf pan is both rigid and dark in colour.

Why are half my measurements in metric and the other half in imperial? Well, you see, I know how to measure 8'' and 6'' spans using my hands.

• 8'' - distance from the tip of my thumb to the tip of my little finger, if I stretch them apart as for as possible.
• 6" - distance from the tip of my thumb to the tip of my little finger, if I fold in the other three fingers in a "phone call" gesture.

Also, inches are easy to estimate by eye, and uh... No, it's actually my father who taught me to estimate in inches, from a time when the imperial system was slightly more popular. It just stuck, I suppose.

The bread is rather flimsy and soft, so I recommend either toasting it or refrigerating it overnight to stiffen it up a little. Or simply stuffing it into your mouth like that much cotton candy, whatever works.

Concussion

I hit my head on a wall pretty hard, feeling dizzy, sleepy and nauseous by turns and there's an abrasion right below my eyebrow, but no blurred vision or memory loss, thank goodness. The first thing I checked was whether my glasses were alright, which should tell you about my priorities.

I went to call my mom just in case, because if I get some sort of internal bleeding and die it'll be pretty poor if I didn't speak to my family first. She said she couldn't talk because she was cooking dinner for my brother who wanted to leave the house early, and I should call back in an hour. I didn't have the energy to explain precisely why I was calling, so I hung up.

You know, I think that hurt more than the actual head injury. Crap.

Messin' Around in Paint

The Windows 7 version of MS Paint is all sorts of fun!

It's, uh, a sun. And some sort of futuristic spacecraft. Which are headed straight for previously-mentioned sun.

Or maybe it's a ball of colourful shredded paper, and - no, I got nothing.

Calico dinosaur.

Through the Fire and Flames - in LEGO

Through the Fire and Flames is already the darling of Guitar Hero enthusiasts, but you have to admit, this stop-motion LEGO version is pretty rad.

Parallel Parking

Too precious!

 

30 Million

...Dollars, that is. What would you do if you unexpectedly received $30 million, tax-free?

I brought up this question among my lab chums. The answers tended to stay in the sensible range (buy a house, live off the interest, invest...). One friend said she would go on holiday, then decide what to do with the rest later.

That much money is a degree of responsibility, isn't it? People will watch how you spend it, even if it's all yours fair and square. If you have a windfall, you're expected to give at least a proportion of it to charity, never mind that charity is meant to be an act of altruism.

Which leads me to another point - if you're expected to behave in an altruistic manner, and you do so, are you really acting in a morally upright manner, or are you really being selfish because your actions are engineered to make others think well of you? Should we be judged on what we do or on what we'd rather be doing?

Hmm.

Take a Breather

It seems that I've barely been back home, and now I'm off again. First post of the year, by the way. Are less blog posts a good thing? I can't tell. There's no real pattern to previous years, not one that I can see.

While at home I baked bread, made nasi lemak twice and successfully attempted what is possibly the most difficult of Viennese pastries - the apple strudel. (Recipe forthcoming once I write it up.) Also, in my absence my household had acquired a large flat-screen television, so I showed my appreciation by watching large quantities of Doctor Who on said television. (I eventually returned to procure seasons 1 and 3. I refuse to feel shame.) Have I had a productive holiday? I think so. I'll have you know that watching Doctor Who is hard work. (No it isn't.)

So, you know. One more year in Australia, if all goes well. It's going to be a tough year. I'll be constantly thinking about the fact that I'm leaving, not just my second home, but also my childhood, for good. I've been in school since 1995 (eighteen years ago!) and it'll be over soon, to be replaced by working life. It's a new era. I'm obliged to feel nervous, but you know, after that there's no more scheduled changes until retirement.

I'm almost ready to settle down. 2013, bring it on.