Next time won't you sing with me

A few months ago, my sister poster on her blog about a slightly OCD need to count things.  After borrowing first my mother-in-law's and then my sister-in-law's (yeah, shout out to Jammy) cars, I realized that I have another OCD tendency...

My favorite driving passtime is to find letters of the alphabet on my drive.  And I get really excited if I can get through the whole alphabet in order before I get to my destination.  Then there are the extremely righteous days where I can get through A-Z, 0-9 then 9-0 and Z-A.  Let me tell you - it's almost a religious experience.

Now, there are some rules to make it harder... in my mind, the alphabet game must be repeatable.  I.e., once I complete the alphabet, I have to know in my head that the next time I drive that route, I don't have to find the letters again, because I know they're all there... So, that means license plates are not allowed, nor are temporary construction signs, banners, those sign boards with moveable letters, etc...  Street signs and business names are really the only safe bets.

And the hardest letter to get?  Definitely J.

You'd think it would be one of the other oft-forgotten letters like Q, Z, X, V - but there are a lot of Zs around - Oversize loads, Loading Zone, Zellers... and X is on every speed limit sign (Maximum 60).  V is on every Avenue sign.  Yes - you get to know the tricks when you play the game as much as me.

And I loved when they renamed Highway 2 to Queen Elizabeth II - There's a Q, Z and U in there.  Awesome!

Speaking of the drive to Calgary - there's a sign for the turnoff to Joffre and one for Majteka road.  That will get you both Js for the double-alphabet game.

Pink and Yellow yumminess

Growing up, one of my absolute favourite things to eat was Battenburg cake.  I used to have it all the time at my grandma's house.  She used to get it at Marks & Spencer's, when it was still open at Heritage Mall (when Heritage Mall still existed).

For those who don't know, it looks like this:

And it's basically pink and yellow cake with some jammish filling, wrapped in marzipan and then dusted in sugar.

When you eat it, you can actually feel your teeth falling out with the sweetness of it.  A lot of people hate it, but I really love it.

Living as we do in Canada, we can't get it here anymore (see above, re: Heritage Mall).  So I decided that I would make one myself.  With Google in hand, I found this recipe, which didn't really look all that hard.  I thought that the hardest part would be making the almond paste, since you can only buy it here around Christmas time.

Turns out making the almond paste wasn't really all that bad.  The rest of the recipe, however.......

I made the cakes, and froze them so I could work with them easier (I thought "how smart of me").  Then came the time to glue them all together with warm apricot jam.

Yeah, it sucks when your gluing material has chunks of fruit in it.  I should have known better, but I needed to maximize my jam usage, since I only had a small jar.

Ok - cakes glued, nice little checkerboard pattern.  Then came the time to roll out the almond paste.

That was terrible

It would either

1) stick to the rolling pin (which, by the way, has lost its handles, so you have to kind of grab it with your palms and avoid the dough)

2) stick to the counter - I didn't want to put flour down, because I don't want flour-y cake

3) both - and at the same time.

So, in my best immitation of my mom - who never really had the patience for detail, I crammed the paste in flaky, jammy chunks all around the cake.  Then I had to "roll it in sugar" - which really meant mashing the sugar into the paste, which was doing its best job of not letting it stick.

I wish that I had taken a picture of my franken-burg cake for your amusement.  In the end, it was horrible to look at, but was twice the size of the M&S cake (and the recipe made 2!!) - and tasted wonderful.