In the Quest for Easily-Baked Goods

Today is not a very nice day. It is dark, dreary, windy, rainy, and cold (well, colder than I'd like it to be). As if nature hadn't ruined this day enough, it decided to start throwing a temper tantrum at about 3am that was so loud it shook the house and woke me up with some seriously spooky sounds.

And so as a result of all this craziness I decided to do one thing I know that almost always makes me feel better: bake something. It has been far too long. Since I was feeling extra tired I knew it would have to be a recipe requiring minimal effort on my part. I found the perfect one thanks to my Twitter friend Russel van Kraayenberg (@rvank) of the wonderful dessert blog Chasing Delicious.

The Classics: Chocolate Chip Cookies | Chasing Delicious

I followed that recipe to a T and the result was some cookies that were pretty delicious, but not perfect, on account of a few mistakes I made:

- I used a coarser grain of salt, which means that the salty taste of the batter is pretty obvious and overpowering and lingers in your mouth after swallowing the yummy cookie you just ate. Not good. Next time in a recipe like this I'll use my salt grinder as it puts out some pretty powdery salt. Not sure what I was thinking there. Was probably not thinking.

- I preheated my oven as I was starting the recipe, when I should have done it closer to the end. My butter was too hard and so I wanted to get some heat into the ceramic mixing bowl I was using to help facilitate the softening and mixing or the butter and sugar. Result: oven was closer to 425C than 375C and the edges of my cookies were already a really dark brown 3 minutes into the baking time. Woops. They ended up only staying in there about 7 minutes for the first batch, 9 minutes for the second after letting the oven cool off a bit. Both batches were pretty dark, but thankfully not burnt.

- Not enough chocolate. I only had about 1/8 cup of chocolate chips, and about 2.5 squares of dark chocolate left over from one of those large thin slabs of 70% cocoa bars. Luckily this was a pretty small batch of cookies, so every cookie has at least a few chunks of chocolate, but... still not enough for my liking. But hey, that's impromptu baking for you.

And so a last-minute baking adventure was pretty much a success. These cookies should last me a little while... like until tomorrow. Happy baking!

For the love of tech.

I love this time of year. Not because of the weather (I hate the cold). Certainly not because it's the start of a new semester (my classes have yet to show up in my schedule, and I have been loving the extra sleep I've been getting over the holidays).

It's a new year. And it's time for new announcements about new technology to be released in 2012. That is what I love about Q1.

I'm not sure how to describe my love for technology. In some ways it's similar to the love you can feel towards another human being, in some ways not. There is a physical aspect to it. That excitement you feel when unboxing your new toy. The despair and anguish you feel when it gets its first little nick or scratch. The intellectual stimulation, the feeling of wonderment experienced while engaged with your beautiful new object d'art is like no other feeling in the world. There's just something about it that I can't get enough of. Within months after getting a new piece of technology, the itch starts to grow again. With all the announcements, all the posts about leaked phones with fuzzy pictures and uncertain spec lists, I start to dream. To wonder. Really? Is it possible? A dual-core phone with AMOLED display and 3GB of RAM? Suddenly your once-loved piece of tech looks not-so-shiny anymore. And when did that scratch get there? WHY DO YOU TAKE SO LONG TO TURN ON and etc.

Technology is wonderful. I love the things it can do for me. My phone is like my own personal computer that I keep in my pocket for instant access to entertainment and knowledge. Have a question about anything? Give me a few moments and I'll look that up for you. No, I haven't seen that new hilarious video. Let's watch it. I can connect with anyone, learn anything, experience everything, with just a few swipes. All it costs me is some electricity at the end of the day. A recharge and a wipe-down every once in a while, along with a reasonable monthly bill, is worth it for sure.


So let's talk about some of the more exciting tech announcements I've seen recently.

Sony Ericsson says “something big is coming” next week http://bit.ly/zzj4Rw
This is one of the first announcements I read, released last week when everyone was all abuzz about CES. I predicted that SE would be announcing a tablet, since that would be a "big" thing for SE as they normally only deal in the phone market. And besides, SE has been announcing a new phone what seems like every week! So a tablet would definitely be a change of pace. However, Sony already has a tablet out, so I'm curious to see if SE would come out with one of their own, especially after just being bought out by Sony. We'll just have to wait and see!


Huawei breaks out two new smartphones, including world's thinnest http://bit.ly/whzTaX
This one came at me just this morning, and announces two new super-thin smartphones with giant screens and dual cores. Just how thin is super-thin? We're talking 6.68mm thin. That makes the phone I'm currently using (the Xperia Arc) look bloated at around 9.8mm thin. I thought that stat was a mistake when I first read the spec list for the Arc last year before it was released. Complete with 1GB of RAM, this is a surprising announcement for Huawei, who have been the underdogs of the smartphone world until now. This could be a huge game-changer for them.

Acer launches Aspire S5 ultrabook http://bit.ly/w2Qq35
Now THIS is exciting. Last week my boyfriend bought himself a lovely little Christmas present: the Asus Zenbook. It was the first time I'd heard of such a thing; not a laptop, not a netbook, but something in between, and much more special. Super-thin, super-light, and super-powerful. The ultimate in portable computing. And now Acer is announcing one of their own. Just 15mm thick and boasting a boot-up time of 1.5 seconds, it promises to be the most beautiful and powerful piece of tech in your collection. What's more is the presence of a solid state drive for maximum storage capabilities, which is impressive. SSDs are still pretty rare in the laptop market these days. This one hits close to home for us, as we love Acer's line of little netbooks. They're cheap, reliable, and work well enough for everyday internet use (and are also easily given a boost by the addition of some extra RAM). By the time one breaks, its successor is already out and has a nicer screen and a bigger hard drive. So we can't wait to see one of Acer's more high-end efforts in real life.

I can't wait for CES! How about you? Anything in particular you're looking forward to?

For more buzz and announcements from CES, click here.
CES on Twitter: twitter.com/intlces
For Tech Buzz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/hannahxb/tech (sparse at the moment but I will be adding to it over the next little while).

On The Internet.

I tend to comment a lot on recipe pages. Not to make witty quips so people on The Internet will think I'm cool (that's what my Twitter feed is for), but for feedback and to let the blogger know that their work is appreciated. I thought back to the first ever recipe that I looked up on The Internet and commented on, in which I had a brief but lovely conversation with the OP. I'm so glad I was able to find it! The look of her blog has changed a bit but it's still a great source for recipes and other fun things. She was so nice that it encouraged me to keep trying new variations on her original recipe, and I guess I've always taken that "let's try it out!" attitude towards cooking. And it's interesting to see it again as a little time capsule of my web presence. Yay for nostalgia!