Survived...if anyone's interested!

Well I survived my mid-year PDR (Personal Development Review) with the conclusion that I'm a "glass half empty" kinda person. Seriously if it's taken him nearly 18 months to work out that I'm a Presbyterian Scot who's also a hugely cynical chemist then he really needs to work on his observation skills. He spent most of it trying to make me admit that I hate my job and I think he's a twat (this was all done with both of us being very jokey and polite). I managed to skirt the personal issue but did admit that my job is not mentally stimulating and I feel isolated in the organisation. Just to explain my job entails much travelling alone (in case you hadn't noticed) and thus I'm not included in a lot of meetings and working groups etc as I'm not around a lot. He really doesn't want me to go as recruiting for my position is horrendous apparently and the work still has to be covered if they don't get someone. He did give me a bunch of tasks for the summer period (I've done a couple already and nearly half way through another). Like my PhD boss he's starting to realise that when I'm asked to do something I start immediately and I don't stop until it's finished. I'm about to invite myself to a bunch of events over the summer - yes I know I just spent months bitching about the travelling but these are all events that I can sit in on real Chemistry chat!!! I'm also going to use the opportunity to network my ass off to see what I can get out of it personally.
Whinge over (MrT didn't even ask about my PDR today as he was too busy recounting his own day) so on to the baking:

I used one of my cooking bibles (Nigella Christmas) to make some Empire Biscuits and Inverted Jammie Dodgers. I used her basic Gold Dust Cookie recipe to make the biscuits for both:

90g soft butter
100g caster sugar (I only had granulated and it was ok)
1 large egg (I think mine were medium)
Vanilla Essence
200g plain flour
0.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp fine salt

Method: Cream butter and sugar together (I used an electric mixer) then beat in the egg, vanilla, flour, baking powder and salt and continue mixing to form a dough. Split into 2 discs and wrap in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for 20-30min (I left them over dinner and they survived). Roll out to ~5mm then cut into shapes and bake in a preheated oven at 180 C/gas mark 4 for 8-12 min.

Since I was going to double them all up and they were for an office of biscuit monsters I did 3 times the recipe and there were tonnes. You can also swap the vanilla essence for 1 tsp ground ginger to make them a bit more interesting which I did at Christmas and they were yummy.

Here's the finished products:



The Jammie Dodgers were inverted as they were heart shaped with a round hole (real ones are the other way round). I used crappy big supermarket (stripy) raspberry jam in all the biscuits and they tasted fine. The Empire Biscuits had the jam in the middle and then plane water icing on the top with a jelly sweetie for excitement. They were much appreciated by all and I have to say that they kicked ass!

I have just discovered Bakerella and I think I'm in love!

I'm now going to spend Easter weekend making a load of muffins and cupcakes which I'm going to ice in as many different ways as possible all inspired by Bakerella. I've always been jealous of what I consider to be American ways of icing so I'm going to give it a go. There will be many pictures so prepare yourselves. She's got a recipe for an amazing 14-layer (yes that's not a type 14-layer) cake which I'm going to make and photograph and blog about at a later date.

Finally one of my friends suggested that we do a "come dine with me" with the 4 of us at work who live in the same village - I may be suggesting menu ideas and I will need comments.