shadenfreuden

This morning all of Australia is waking up to the shocking news: Starbucks is shutting most of its Australian stores, including all of its ones in Adelaide.

Oh my god. Where will people go if they need some ridiculously over sized very milky coffee with some strange sugary syrup in it provided buy some money hungry multinational giant trying to gain a monopoly on the global market while pushing local businesses out of work??? How will we all cope????

Well, I guess we'll have to go to some Australian owned chain. Or perhaps even one from Adelaide.

Or, mercy, here's an idea. Just go to a cafe. One owned by the people running it. They may even be bringing their kids up in the business. The other staff being part of the family may not be a 'motto' it may actually be a reality. And the money stays with these people, who have pride in creating a high quality product of their own. And so the money stays in their community. And multiplies to benefit that community.

Outrageous idea.

They probably also have some really lovely, home made cakes. Colour me crazy......

pecans and well hung frenchmen

i've seen a post somewhere for pecan cupcakes. do you think i can find it now? can i hell. did find one on batspit, which i have adapted. whilst they were baking i watched this rather strange short film i found on her site too. it's very very french, even though it seems to have been made by a bunch of englishmen. I love the women too. even though they're not all really beautiful per say, they're all so glamorous and attractive. that's france for you!

pecan cupcakes
125g raw caster sugar
125g butter
125g self raising flour
2 eggs
vanilla extract
approx 1 1/2 tablespoons sour cream
50g pecans
1 tablespoon brown sugar
a shake of cinnamon

cream the sugar and butter together until smooth. add the flour, vanilla and eggs, then add sour cream half a tablespoon at a time until the consistency is right. meanwhile crush pecans with the brown sugar and cinnamon in a mortar and pestle until the nuts are crushed.

place half of the mix in 12 paper lined muffin tins. sprinkle with the nut and sugar mix and cover with the remaining batter. bake for approx 15-20 mins at 180 degrees, or until a skewer comes out clean.

when cool ice with 100g butter creamed with 200g of icing sugar, then mixed with 1 tspn instant coffee in 1 tblspn of boiling water.

here they are, already in their container, ready to take to work for morning tea tomorrow