Random Recipes is a challenge I have long been aware of, but my inability to take a recipe as it comes has stopped me from taking part before (the general concept being to pick a recipe at random from a book, make it, then blog about it. This month, Dom at Belleau Kitchen has challenged everyone to show their cupboards to the world and possibly talk about something from it. This looks like a lot of fun, and also feeds the nosey/inquisitive person in all of us. (It also means I can go a weekend without baking, since once again I am extremely busy having fun and working - not necessarily simultaneously.)
The picture above is my main cupboard. The bottom shelf is mostly full of things for baking (you might have noticed I have a bit of a thing for it...). Behind the flour and sugar is a box of mulling spices, some leftover ground almonds, more sugar, baking powder and an assortment of half-used things I've forgotten about. The top shelf serves a few purposes: on the left are my hot drink supplies; in the middle is my chocolate store - you can make out a malteasers fun size pack on top of everything - which has shockingly not gone down much over the past few weeks; on the right are my spices. I have so many spices. I often forget which ones I have, but my most used ones are dill, paprika and basil. Yep, that's right - I do actually consume savoury foods, though this blog would have you believe otherwise.
Not pictured is my massive box of baking supplies, and that's really what I think I should talk about (please excuse the poorly labelled photo - I'm a chemist, not a graphic designer!):
I'm actually quite glad I took everything out of the box (just seen on the left next to the unsightly plastic bag full of gel food colouring) because I didn't realize quite how many elastic bands I'd accumulated. I've just been throwing them in there whenever I find one, but maybe I have enough now. I use the elastic bands to keep the icing in the piping bag while I'm doing other things. I also didn't realize that I had two bottles of liquid yellow food dye; I've not used liquid dye for at least two years, so I might actually be safer just throwing them out. The leftover icing and marzipan are both over a year old, but they'll be fine to use still, right?! The frugal student still lurking inside me doesn't want to throw them out, just in case I need them. The toothpicks are mostly used to transfer gel food colouring to icing/cake batter because the pots are slightly too small for a teaspoon, and they take out just about the right amount of colouring 90% of the time.
Finally, I thought at least a few of you would be interested in seeing my alcohol supply, seeing as I host a challenge that revolves around having such a thing:
A few bottles belong to my flatmate, and the two on the bottom right with sticky notes stuck to them are home made banana liqueurs. There is so much sugar in them that there is absolutely no bite - awesome, but tooth-decaying!
Thanks to Dom for hosting the challenge, and I look forward to seeing what everyone else's cupboards look like. I'm working up until the night of Christmas eve, so I'll take the opportunity now to wish everyone a very merry Christmas!
Please note: horrible curtains came with flat, not there by choice...
