Strawberry Mascarpone Tart

I hope that by the time this will be published the strawberry season will have begun. You know I write my stuff in advance so it's never seasonal but for your own sake I hope you'll be able to get some nice strawberries - not the tasteless odorless stuff you can get in shops in winter. 

This recipe is super sweet and even people like me (who are constantly on a healthy diet and try to use as little sugar as possible... 'cause sugar is white poison, that's what they say) appreciate its sweetness. The tart looks small (I've made it in a 23x23cm pan) but trust me, you will divide it into a lot of pieces because a big piece would send you skyrocketing toward the nearest planet Oblivion.

You'll need (as far as "cups" go I used the one my mascarpone came in - that is 250g cup):

For the crust:

•  1 cup flour (I recommend plain, because whole grain could make it too hard)
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 6 tablespoons butter (chopped to small pieces)
• 4 tablespoons very cold water

For the jam:

• 2 cups chopped strawberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons lemon juice

For the top:

• 1 cup mascarpone
• 1/2 cup sugar
• about two handfuls of sliced strawberries

1) Let's prepare the crust first. Try to combine all the ingredients together adding the water last. It may get a little difficult because the butter may not be as cooperative as you want (the flour will be flying around your kitchen if you don't cover it while using a hand mixer) but you cannot use melted butter so try to do your best. When it's incorporated, wrap it in a foil and refrigerate at least half an hour.

2) Prepare your pan or baking tray and line it with baking paper or butter it. I used a pan with high sides because I wanted to have 0,5cm sides so that the mascarpone and jam wouldn't feel like going anywhere. But they stay put so you can avoid the sides and still have a lovely tart. Roll your dough on floured surface and make it assume the desired shape - about 4mm thick and enough to cover your circle/square with or without the sides. Then cover it with another layer of baking paper and put something heavy on top (I use beans). Bake at 180°C for 15 minutes, then remove the paper and bake again, rising the temperature to 200°C - it will take about 10 minutes to get golden/brown). Let it cool completely.

3) While baking you can prepare your jam. Combine the ingredients in a sauce pan, bring to a boil, lower the temperature a little and then cook for about half an hour till it thickens nicely - then set aside to cool completely (it will thicken even more).

4) The last step is to mix the mascarpone with sugar. 

5) Once it's all cooled down, take your baked tart, cover it with mascarpone, add most of the jam on the top (let a little - about two tablespoons- of it on the side; you may have prepared even more, so use it on your toast in the morning, it's better to have more than less), cover it with sliced strawberries and smear the remaining jam on the strawberries so that they get even redder shade and are glossy. 

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

If you look at it from the distance, you will feel like this is one of those "barely any plot" movies and you will start feeling like you shouldn't like it. But step a little closer and you will find the plot. So, the people who need plots to function and appreciate stuff should be satisfied because it is about contemplating suicide in the world that is not worth living in. And there is this thousand-year-old love. And a psycho killer. And heck, you even get to meet Christopher Marlowe, so what are you bitchin' about now?

The not so shallow viewers may or may not find the plot essential so they will start digging deeper. Like, say, the actors' performances. Both leading roles have been chosen perfectly. Be it timeless Tilda Swinton or chameleonic Tom Hiddleston. They really portray the vampire couple so well that next time you see them on the street you will be shouting: "Let me help you with your weariness! I wanna be your friend!" or something like that... Not that it's very likely to meet movie stars on the street... but one never knows...

Anyway, the movie gives you the mood. Maybe you will be as weary of life as the protagonist, or maybe you will feel like you haven't seen or haven't learned enough yet and it will make you go somewhere to fix that. But I can assure you you will remember this for a long time. Because the mood and the music will haunt you for a while.

DIRECTOR: Jim Jarmusch

GENRE: drama

FANGS OUT: it brings out the feelings you've been suppressing for so long

FANGS RETRACTING: I have Nothing

TOTAL SCORE:

Coconut Oat Muffins with Mango and "Drunk" Goji Berries

These muffins (just like anything I bake) are super easy to make. Unlike most muffins, however, they are nicely moist. 

Since I only had dry goji berries, I kept thinking what to do with them and decided I'd try my mom's trick to make them moist and yummier (she does this with raisins) - I put them in a jar and kept adding rum (and by rum I mean that Czech thing the EU forbade to call rum 'cause it's made of potatoes and not of sugar cane, but everyone calls it rum instead of Tuzemák) till they absorbed all of it. This gave them nice smell and returned moisture. If you are against alcohol, just add any other liquid - milk, water, syrup...

And since these muffins contain oats, they will not rise as much (only the middle will lift a little, but they won't be over-pouring to the sides), you can fill the muffin cups generously.

You'll need (15 muffins):

• 1,5 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 table spoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup coconut (I used shredded and shaved)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 4 table spoons coconut oil
• 1/2 chopped mango (fresh)
• a handful of goji berries soaked in alcohol

1) Melt the coconut oil if it's solid and add it to the mixture - it's easy, really, keep mixing till all the ingredients are incorporated well.

2) Fill your muffin cups to the brim - they will not over-pour.

3) Bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes.  

Judyth A. McLeod: Vampires. A Bite-sized History

This books looks amazing - silver lined pages, great illustrations, and a pocket size format. Which means it is a shallow-reader friendly material. Which means it could attract younger readers. So, parents, who want your kids to start reading something more mature than Twilight, take notice of this.

Apart from the well-chosen design, this book contains just the right amount of information. Sure, you can guess that given the format it won't overflow with data but it gives you the basics. The author took the vampire myth chronologically and briefly described as different cultures all over the world dealt with it. Basically the most important vampire "incidents" are mentioned in the book.

And apart from the historic events the book is spiced up by short chapter on pretty much anything from how to recognize a vampire or how to deal with it to the vampire brides theme. 

I really like the book because it gives a very short yet interesting listing of all the most important and influential vampire myths and themes in different cultures from ancient times to modern movie-oriented era. 

I believe the book is great for someone who has no prior knowledge of the vampire myth in real world (fiction doesn't count, this is about the real origins) and wants to get a nice and complete view on history of this phenomenon without being bored to death. 

Devil's Food Cake

I had to try it. It looked so good I really had to. So, without further ado, get you notebooks ready to write down the recipe because it tastes as delicious as it looks. 

Ingredients:

• 300g chocolate (I used my good old 70% but you can use sweeter if you want -> the sweeter the better for smearing it on the cake; the higher the percentage of the cocoa content, the harder it's gonna spread but it's gonna be yummier)
• 1,3 cup heavy cream

• 2,3 cups flour
• 0,75 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tea spoons baking powder
• 2 cups sugar 
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup room temperature butter
• 0,3 cup heavy cream
• 3 eggs
• 1 tea spoon instant coffee

1)  If you don't have chocolate chunks, make them and put them in a bowl. Take the 1,3 cup of heavy cream and bring it to a simmer. Pour it on the chocolate and watch it melt :-)=. Stir it till it is nice and smooth, then put aside and let it cool completely.

2) Put the rest of the heavy cream, water and coffee in a pan and again bring it to a simmer. Then put aside.

3) Take the butter and sugar and combine well. Then add the eggs and blend it well.

4) Then start adding the rest - one third at a time. So pour in a part of the water mix with a part of the dry ingredients and so on. 

5) Pour the batter in your cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes at 180°C.

6) When the batter is cool as well as the ganache, you can start with putting the stuff together. Cut the cake in half and put the ganache in between the layers plus some on the top or even to the sides. I decided to go with a decadent look because the Devil wouldn't take his time decorating it so I just smeared it leaving thicker and thinner layer around.

Butter Bisquits

Once I obtained cookie stamps I knew there would be no stopping me. I keep baking biscuits of various types because when stored in dry environment they last more than a month so they are nice to have around in case sudden visitors pop by.

So, this is a recipe for the basic butter cookie which, when one more ingredient is added, can be transformed into some other kind of cookie in case butter is too plain for you.

I like the version with the orange best because it isn't as tough - that is it is almost on the moist side but not too much and the orange is a nice break from all those lemon cookies. But if you like good old crispy biscuits, leave out all the wet parts (like lemons and oranges) and you will get exactly that.

You'll need:

• 350g flour (I use 1/2 wholegrain, 1/2 plain)
• 150g sugar
• 130g butter
• 2 eggs

• for other versions: 70g shredded coconut OR 15g cocoa powder OR zest from 1 orange and juice from a half of it (about 4 table spoons) 

1) Blend all the ingredients well.
2) Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour.

3) Cut into preferred shapes and put on a baking tray which has been buttered or which has a baking paper on it. 

4) Bake for about 12 minutes at 180°C. 

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

As you can see from the title, it's about a girl who walks alone at night. Yup, as if vampires could walk during the day, heh? Anyway, as you can see from the poster, she has designed a cool outfit - totally superheroish cape and then she stole a skateboard. Now we have a girl with a cape skateboarding through the night. 

So, the whole problem is she hangs out in Bad Town. Yup, that's what it's called. Nomen Omen fits this description well. The people in there are mostly prostitutes and drug addicts or their dealers. And they are very scarce. It seems as if the town have left and only these not so great inhabitants remained. Yummy victims for our girl indeed. 

However, you can see the film reeks of loneliness. Everyone is lonely and tries to escape it in their own way - be it drugs or stalking people and scaring the shit out of them. 

The girl is the stalker who amuses herself by observing people and sometimes even helping them. And then she meets Arash, the pretty boy, and she may not be alone again. 

The movie is really interesting. It has this nice vibe to it. It's black and white so that the colors don't distract you and make you feel like the time sometimes stands still, the soundtrack makes you totally feel like one from Bad Town and the almost nonexistent dialogue just amplifies it all. 

DIRECTOR: Ana Lily Amirpour

GENRE: horror/romance/western/noir/pulp

FANGS OUT: nice mix-up of genres 

FANGS RETRACTING: something is missing

TOTAL SCORE: