How to make a strudel

Hello Everybody

Today I am going to show you how to make Strudel,
this is because we went to a Strudel making party on Sunday
organised by Zeky's mum Jane.

Strudel comes from Eastern Europe so this is the link with Jane's family, and she used to make them when she was a girl in the USA.

The recipe for Strudel is:  

100g self raising Flour (normal flour plus baking powder)
55g butter
1 egg

Mix flour and butter together (we used a food processor) -  then stir in egg. Knead dough until smooth. Rest oiled for 2 hours. This gives the gluten in the dough time to get stretchy.

Then the fun bit - sprinkle flour on a tablecloth and S T R E T C H the dough so thin that you can see the tablecloth underneath. Here's some pictures. 

Can you see the tablecloth under the dough?

Once the dough is very big and thin you can add the apple mix. This is how to make it:

2 Jin of apples (1kg) slice very thinly.

Raisins - 22g - Jane soaked her in baojiu (alcohol - yuk)

Brown sugar - 2 teaspoons

Cinnamon - 2 teaspoons

Butter - 25g melted

Mix all together. Then put onto the dough, wipe over with butter and then pull the tablecloth to make a big sausage shape. Then wipe over the top with butter again.

This is how it looks in black and white.

Then bake in the oven at 220 degrees Centigrade (C) for 45 minutes - 1 hour.

This is ours, nearly eaten. Delicious.

THANK YOU JANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    

My Townend city

Hello everybody

Today I am going to show you what I have been making in the last 2 months since I arrived here. In Chengdu there is a lot of packaging on everything (even worse than Brighton) so I collect it and use it to make things. The people who live in my city are our friends called the Townend Family - we stayed with them just before we came to Chengdu, and Emma (my friend) gave me a play mobile Townend Family.

Next week I will make a stop motion animation using the city and family. 
I hope to upload it to the blog soon.

This is a picture of the whole city on my window sill. The tree outside is a gingko tree - the national tree of China.

This is a boat that they go on, its called the Sea Dog Ship. It is made of plastic, so it floats. It is named after Seth the dog (can you see him onboard?)

This is Cambridge University, it is huge!

This is where the students sleep. 

This is typical of Dawei's making of a WC.

This is another picture of the Sea Dog Ship.

This is where Eden (my friend) lives. 

It's huge, and it's even got a lift!

This is Emma's (my friend) farm.

This is where Caroline and Stuart (my friend's mum and dad) live.

This is what it looks like inside.

This is where the king and queen lives. Stuart performs here.

This is an aeroplane.

This is a shopping place.

It is called Lineda.

This is a bus.

It's destination is Certen Road.

This is the market...

where you can buy pictures...

sticks...

and maps.

This is the whole of my city done. Soon I will make lots more things and I will show you them when I can.

How to make crystals

Today I want to show you how to make crystals. I was interested in crystals because I found some inside an Igneous rock in my garden.

This article tells you all about crystals and how to make them http://chemistry.about.com/cs/growingcrystals/a/aa012604.htm
It's so easy,  quick and just involves mixing kitchen ingredients with water to make a saturated solution. THE RESULTS ARE VERY GOOD!!!!!!!!

The pictures below show the steps and results. 

This is me preparing all the ingredients in our kitchen 

This is me making a saturated solution with sugar 

You need to make sure all the sugar dissolves

Heating the solution makes it absorb more sugar

I did the same with the bicarbonate of soda

This is me showing you that you need to weigh down the string  

This is my crystal garden on the left and my crystal on a string on the right

This is the size of the crystal (it only took one day), my finger shows the scale

We are now going to make a BIG crystal by using one little crystal above,
you can learn how to do this on the bottom link 

This is the recipe using bicarbonate of soda, you can also use salt or sugar.
http://www.chemistry.co.nz/growing_crystals_string.htm  

I also used sugar to make a crystal garden or geode (this takes longer) but I will post the results when I have them.

I am now planning to make a BIG! crystal by using my little crystals as "seed crystals" if you want to do this have a look at this link http://chemistry.about.com/od/growingcrystals/a/seedcrystal.htm

It's so different here

I have put some of the most interesting and funny pictures here.

Some of them are about how Chengdu is different to Brighton. 

Below is Yeye's (my grandad's) Gift's cupboard. In China lots of people give gifts either for business or kindness.

Most of these bottles are baijiu (extremely  strong wine made from rice) "YUCK!"

Here is Yeye, he looks scary 

but he's not.

Above is the centre of Chengdu at night. Chinese cities are very colourful at night.

When me and some of my friends went to Diyi mountain, Kate took a picture of a BIG spider.

This is my friends and I at Diyi. Left to right - Abby, Gangsen and Ziki.

This is old China and new China together.

This is a local menwei (gateman). Uniforms are everywhere in China.

There are many large, weird buildings, this is the local meteorological office.

My life in China

Hello everybody

Welcome to my new blog. I hope you will find it interesting reading my posts. 
I will write about lots of things - my family, my flat, my friends, my city and my travels. 

At home I've  done a city made out of junk, and I am planning to do a Animation with it! On weekdays I do homeschooling, I learn Chinese with Dawei 
and English with Kate. Also we do Mathletics. Most of my friends go to Chinese school so I only see them on weekends. But I have met a girl called Harper who is homeschooled too, she is coming to play on Tuesday. Sometimes I go swimming in our new indoor swimming pool. It's fun in the swimming pool but you have to wear a hat,  luckily I have one with Team China written on it.




With love 

Anna Z