there’s a website where you put in two musicians/artists and it makes a playlist that slowly transitions from one musician’s style of music to the other’s
We have released over a million images onto Flickr Commons for anyone to use, remix and repurpose. These images were taken from the pages of 17th, 18th and 19th century books digitised by Microsoft who then generously gifted the scanned images to us, allowing us to release them back into the Public Domain. The images themselves cover a startling mix of subjects: There are maps, geological diagrams, beautiful illustrations, comical satire, illuminated and decorative letters, colourful illustrations, landscapes, wall-paintings and so much more that even we are not aware of.
Okay but to clarify, the British Library did not put 1,000,000 Images into the Public Domain. The British Library digitized 1,000,000 public domain images.
These images were already public domain. Copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author. Once copyright expires, the creative work automatically becomes public domain, free to remix and reuse.
The British Library did not grant us the right to use these images. It made images we already had the right to use more easily accessible.
If y’all use a decent box mix and use melted butter instead of vegetable oil, an extra egg, and milk instead of water, no one can tell the difference. I sure as hell can’t.
Also, if you add a little almond extract to vanilla cake, or a little coffee to chocolate cake, it sends it through the roof.
This concludes me attempting to be helpful.
yo I can vouch for this I’ve done this for the last few cakes I’ve made and holy crap it makes suuuuch a difference the cake is still fluffy, but it also seems more dense, and it doesn’t dry out like at all you can leave it uncovered on the counter all day after being cut into, and it won’t get all crusty and dry this is an amazing way to take your cakes to the next level
Does this count as cake hacks?
cake: hacked
OK but if you’re adding all that to the mix why not just scratch bake? There are literally only four ingredients you’re NOT adding yourself at this point.
It’s always so baffling when mix hackers give you a whole ass cake recipe. Like there’s some kind of magic to mixes that needs to form the core of the thing instead of just, a couple dry ingredients and powdered milk.
presumably as a step of intermediate complexity between mix baking and scratch baking, when neither of those fits your complexity needs exactly?
In particular, this is a useful technique for people living in dorms, or traveling, or similar situations!
Baking from scratch means you’ve got to buy a whole tin of baking powder and only use a spoonful, and a whole thing of flour, and maybe multiple kinds of sugar, and maybe cocoa powder, maybe spices, and there’s no way you’re going to use up any of those, you’ll just have to pitch them when you move out.
Not to mention that you’ve got maybe one measuring cup, and there’s no way you’ve got a sifter, and you probably don’t have measuring spoons and how sure are you that your eating spoon is actually the right size…
Scratch baking is great if you’re going to do it regularly! But for situations where it doesn’t make sense to invest in all the tools and ingredients, cake mixes are very practical.
Scratch means you have to worry about ratios. Scratch means you have to keep cake flour on hand. Scratch means you don’t get the benefit of some of the CHEMICALS in the mix that are 100% beneficial to excellent cake.
I bake some things from scratch. Anything requiring creaming a mix is basically a sad joke because all the work is the creaming. Standard cake is not one of them.
Of course, me being me, a standard cake is usually just a component – I don’t actually like “just cake” that much and canned frosting is terrible. So while I don’t scratch bake cake, that cake is getting saturated with tres leches, or put in a trifle, or getting add-ins before baking anyway.
But in a larger sense, who cares? Baking is hard and for fun anyway. Why bake-shame someone?
Just FYI… A LOT of professional bakers (probably more than half) in the US at least use doctored mixes rather than scratch ingredients even for their more expensive cakes like wedding cakes. There are whole forums where they talk about this amongst themselves.
In taste tests they’ve found that while customers may ask for a cake from scratch they often end up preferring the taste and texture of the doctored mixes when all is said and done.
Unless you have some particular allergies or some other reason to avoid box mixes they are often the better way to go.
I’ve been looking into opening up a home bakery and part of the task of producing food for the public is making sure your items are standardized so that every person who gets a cupcake (for instance) is getting the same quality, size, etc., etc.
Doctored mixes really help with that since big companies like Duncan Hines buys in larger quantities, can afford to test/discard bad batches and will rarely have a one-off batch of flour or flavoring that are bad or go bad like you can at home.
Nice seeing this going around again!
My standard cake is box mix + milk for water + melted butter for oil + dash vanilla extract + frosting from scratch. This really seems to hit the right spot for people of “mmm, homemade” but also “exactly like Mom used to make.” (Do that for a yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, add candles, and serve to a college student, for the maximum “this is exactly what I didn’t want to admit I wanted” potential.)
Seconding the addition of coffee to chocolate cake; a tablespoon of instant coffee powder in a dark chocolate cake makes it taste chocolatey-er without actually adding a perceptible coffee flavor (I don’t like coffee flavor, personally, and I still do this).
Another good option is a box lemon cake mix plus maybe 3 lemons. Zest the lemons, set the zest aside, then juice them and use that in place of the water; then use the zest to flavor the frosting. Adds a nice fresh kick.
Chocolate chips can be dumped straight into chocolate cake mix without fussing with anything to compensate. Sprinkles can go into white cake mix to make your own “confetti cake” with any specific color combo you like. Any kind of dried fruit can be chopped to raisin-size, soaked in hot water (or, better yet, hot juice with a couple of citrus peels added) for an hour, drained, and then added to batter.
Replacing part (up to maybe 1/3) of the water with yogurt (and then the rest with milk as usual) will give you a denser cake; make sure to check if it’s cooked through, and bake a little longer if necessary.
Swirling things through batter for that fancy marbled look is easy. Consider melting chocolate chips with butter, or mixing brown sugar with cinnamon and a little melted butter, or making up two different cake mixes and swirling those together.
I swear by the Cake Mix Doctor’s two cookbooks (one’s general, one’s specifically for chocolate cakes). I think every birthday cake I had as a child was out of those.
Are you tired? Bored? On enough pain meds to incapitate a horse? May I recommend: The Bear Cams.
The Bear Cams are live steams from Katmai National Park in Alaska. There are 6 livecams, 3 highlight reels, and 1 meditation reel. There are live Q&As with park officials, a very dedicated comment section with people who can seemingly magically identify which bears are which, blogs, weather, etc.
But most importantly: Bears.
Bears!
Baby bear!
Bears!
…Fish? (Sometimes with bears.)
If you’re not interested in bears (who are, at the end of the day, bears and thus prone to eating salmon in gruesome ways and occasionally killing other bears), explore.org has a number of other livecams such as: turkeys, sheep, kittens, dogs, alligators, and jellyfish. But the bears are in peak season right now, and they have a fat bear competition later on in the year, so I highly recommend them.
I especially like the “zen cams” of sunsets or waterfalls and the like, very soothing.
The food bank gave me a hand-out about how long you can safely eat unopened foods past their expiration dates, and I thought other people might find it helpful.
DAIRY:
Milk, cream: within 10 days past expiration date
Soft cheese, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese: consume within 14 days past expiration date
Butter, hard cheese: consume within 3 months past expiration date (personal note: if cheese gets mold you can cut off the moldy parts the rest is still fine)
Frozen butter: consume within 12 months past expiration date
Eggs (in shells): consume within 1 month past expiration date
Egg substitutes: consume within 10 days of expiration date.
MEAT:
Fresh: consume on or before expiration date
Frozen: defrost in fridge or microwave, and eat immediately after defrosting.
Not do eat: meat with severe freeze burn, discolored meat, and meat not frozen before expiration date
MEAT & DAIRY SUBSTITUTES:
Liquid products (rice milk, almond milk): consume withing 10 days past expiration date
Shelf stable liquid products: consume within 12 months past expiration date
Margarine: consume within 6 months past expiration date
Meat substitutes (tofu, etc): consume on or before expiration date
Frozen meat substitutes: consume within 12 months past expiration date if frozen before expiration date
DRIED & CANNED FOODS:
Dried beans, pasta: consume indefinitely
Dressings, mayo: consume within 12 months past expiration date
Cereal, crackers: consume within 12 months past expiration date
Canned foods: may be consumed indefinitely (except for pineapple and tomato)
Jarred foods, canned tomato and pineapple: consume within 18 months past expiration date
OTHER:
Fresh juice: consume within 3 months past expiration date
Fresh bread, pastries: consume on or before expiration date (personal note, I find that sandwich bread is good to eat so long as it’s not stale or growing mold)
Frozen bread: consume within 6 months past expiration date
Fresh produce: ripe, edible, and mold-free
Sliced melon: consume on or before expiration date
Deli items, packaged by store: consume within 48 hours of expiration date
Pre-packaged prepared foods packed by manufacturer, fresh: consume within 14 days past expiration date
Pre-packaged prepared foods packed by manufacturer, frozen: consume within 12 months past expiration date
DO NOT EAT:
Food that is stale, has insects, or mold
Food in open, punctured, bulging, or seriously damaged cans
Food in a jar that is leaking or has a broken seal
Food that is discolored or has an off-odor
Product has been thawed then re-frozen
Please use your best judgement and when in doubt, throw it out.
like you get those ‘i hate to cook! 101: easy meals for the kitchen novice!’ and it still wants you to make a three-cheese spinach casserole
mine would be like
did you know you can put chocolate chips on a spoonful of peanut butter and obtain the perfect snack
did you know if you crack some eggs into your pasta sauce and stir there’s more protein in it so you can go longer without having to make another goddamn meal
did you know you can mix a cup of cooked rice to any condensed soup instead of water and now you have dinner and breakfast
also put cheese on it
put cheese on fucking everything
and finally here’s a list of things you can microwave in a short enough time that you won’t walk out of the kitchen, go back to bed, fall asleep for four hours, and totally forget you attempted a lunch
frozen pizza is expensive but! biscuits in a can + last dregs of jar of tomato sauce + some shredded mozzarella cheese = EIGHT MINIPIZZAS
dump all your chinese delivery into a hot pan and crack two eggs into it, stir, now it is soft and good
if you add a kraft single to mac and cheese from the box it’s magically more delicious (and if you also add hot sauce then it’s spicy)
nachos: chips + shredded cheese + salsa + rummage in fridge in case there’s other things? and then under the broiler for a minute or two. if it’s hot it counts as a meal! works good on stale chips.
an incomplete list of vegetables that won’t instantly rot on you: anything frozen, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes (they get wrinkly but u can still eat them), carrots, onions…i throw away a lot of veggies that have gone soft 😦
i love parchment paper. $4 for a roll but lay it down on ur baking sheet and know you’ll never have to scrub cheese or cookie crumbs off it again. perfect for cooking with low spoons. nothing sticks to it!
also: mug cakes
also also: if you cook rice you might as well dump some canned tomatos and canned beans in it. TADA NUTRITIONALLY COMPLETE MEALS
in the list of foods that last: apples. apples can last an entire fucking winter.
also also also: cottage cheese + bell peppers + crackers = what I ate for dinner for like a year
1. You cook the rice in a pot. No spices, no nothing, just water oil and rice.
2. Just before it’s ready, when there’s about a pinkie fingernail’s worth of water on the top, add in a tablespoon of peanut butter.
3. Stir. Cook the rest of the way.
4. It’s a meal! It has carbs and protein, it’s filling, it tastes good and it looks and feels like a legitimate dish, which is great for lifting the spirits a bit.
5. If you feel fancy, add a teaspoon of honey or a handful of crushed peanuts.
Alt., mix the rice with lentils. Cereal (rice, wheat) + legume (lentils, beans) = complete protein. Most people’s bodies will accept that in lieu of animal products.
Since no-one explained how to cook rice: (1) put bit of oil in pot,
heat up on medium flame, (2) add 1-1.5 cup rice, mix up and add a bit of
salt (you may need to reduce flame), (3) while you’re doing that, boil
water in an electric pot, (4) add 2 cup water for each 1 cup rice;
reduce flame a few seconds before you do that and mind the steam won’t hit you, (5) cover and set a 20min timer.
Pasta: (1) boil water, lots of water (covered pot goes fast; you can also use an electric pot for a shortcut and bring to a full boil on the stove – experiment), (2) up to 100 gr pasta per 1L water will work, but the more water per pasta the better, (3) reduce flame to medium (light bubbling), add pasta, set time to 10min, (4) check and add time as necessary – you may not need to.
Egg or bean noodled cook faster than pasta – like, half the time.
Easiest pasta sauce: 20-50gr of butter, melt; 1-2tbs lemon juice,
homogenize; dump in pasta (and possibly peas, boiled from frozen). Taken
5min or under and will liven up pasta that’s been sitting in the
fridge.
Easiest cream sauce: 1 standard (250ml) cream carton, 1
tsp shredded cheese (keeps well in freezer) or more, 1 tbs cottage
cheese, spices to taste. Heat in a small pot on a small-to-medium flame
while stirring constantly (if it’s too hot to stick a finger in, it’s
too hot). Takes maybe 5-10min. Will keep in fridge up to 1 week.
Rice freezes well. Pasta doesn’t. Plain pasta (and most noodles) will last for up to a month in the fridge, though, and just dump it in the pan with some ketchup/tomato paste(+oil + water) and you’re good.
…nobody said that dry onion lasts? Dry onion lasts. Fried onion freezes well and keeps forever. So does diced garlic. If you
like ‘em but worried about them going bad/don’t always have the time or
spoons to deal with ‘em, there you go.
Fresh bread freezes well. Keep emergency bread
in your freezer, sliced. It’ll thaw in the fridge/on the counter
overnight, or you can stick a slice as-is in the toaster (just turn it
up 1 notch relative to your usual preference).
Potatoes in their peel are the single most nutritious food. (You can, actually, survive on mashed potatoes.) A boiled potato will stay good in the fridge for a couple days. Boil partway (should still somewhat resist a fork), turn over/toaster oven on 150C (350F) or higher while you do the rest, slice potato(s), spread like deck of cards, brush oil over (with the sort of silicone brush one uses for eggs – costs next to nothing and you’ll be glad you got it), bit of salt, stick into oven and come back 20-40min later. Will re-heat well.
All of the following are good in eggs, just (1) dump them in the pan before the eggs, (2) the more you fluff up the eggs the betters: cubed semi-boiled potatoes, sliced/cubed tomatoes, tinned garbanzo beans (<-legume), tinned/frozen corn. Tinned and frozen stuff lasts forever. A pre-boiled potato and a couple eggs will save your ass on a cold, miserable morning.
3 shortbread cookies + 2 glasses of milk = 500kcal balanced dinner. Or breakfast.
1 cup cooked pasta + couple fluffed up eggs + shredded cheese (from
frozen) to taste, in a stove-top pan or in the oven for ~20min = full
meal.
Black lentils, cooked, will last nicely in the fridge – and
unlike other legumes, they don’t need a pre-soak and only take 20min to
cook. ½ bowl + 3 tbs oil + 2 tsp lemon juice + ¼ onion = dinner so
nutritious you won’t believe it.
Cottage cheese and honey. No really. You only need a couple tsp honey for 250gr cottage tub.
1tbs peanut butter (flat as you can make it) + 3 tbs soy + 2 tbs maple/honey + 1 tsp vinegar = marinade for ~500gr of whatever. Takes ~5min to mix, 20min-2hr to soak, 5-10min to fry (non-stick pan and you don’t need oil). This + pot of rice (<-make while chicken/meat soaks) = lunch for a week. (Or dinner, if dinner’s your main meal.)
A tin of mayonnaise will last for months in the fridge. Hardboiled eggs last a nice while, too. 3 hardboiled eggs, chopped + 1tbs mayo + 1/3 onion chopped = 5min of work and egg salad for a few highly nutritious meals.
Ever make yourself hot chocolate? Make it with milk instead of water, for fuck’s sake. A large cup of hot chocolate is a legit small meal.
Buy broccoli and green beans frozen. For a couple dollars you can get a big enough bag of either to get at least 8-10 servings out of it and it keep for at least 6 months if you keep the bag closed. Buy a jar of chopped garlic in olive oil as well. That’ll keep in your fridge for months and adding a little bit to a handful of broccoli or green beans and sauteing(lightly browning them in a pan or pot on the stove) them together until everything is warm is a cheap, easy way to have a flavorful snack or meal.
Also, ramen, drop an egg and a handful of some kind of frozen veggie(the previously mentioned ones or even some mixed carrots and peas) it adds a lot of nutritional value to your ramen, makes it so much more filling, and makes it have way better flavor than plain ramen.
Buy a jar of Better than Bouillon. Amazon has them for as cheep as $2.99 a jar and one jar has enough in it to make a couple gallons of broth. Just one teaspoon of this stuff added to 1 cup of water will give you a deliciously broth for soup. Pick your flavor and drop whatever veggies or noodles you’ve got leftover in the fridge and you’ve got dinner. It’s also great to add to the water you’re cooking your rice in to give it some flavor as well.
Don’t buy boxed Kraft mac and cheese. It may seem like an easy approach but there is a cheaper approach. A 3 lb bag of macaroni noodles is only a couple dollars and you can get a 1 lb bag of the powdered cheese just like in Kraft for $10 on Amazon. I bought a bag of cheese powder that size and it lasted me more than a year and I made mac and cheese once a week. You can also mix it with milk and broccoli and you’ve got a great dinner of broccoli cheese soup.
My biggest tip for saving money on food is to make things that will freeze well. Say you make a pot of spaghetti. You could get 5 or 6 servings out of a full pot easily, if not more, but you’ll get tired of spaghetti before it’s gone. Stick servings in plastic baggies(which are fine to rinse and reuse!) and freeze them! Then you’ll be able to take out just the amount to eat for a meal and have some back up meals for when you’re loaded down with work, homework, etc and have no time to make a meal.
I… Really, reeeeally wish I’d seen this about 5 months ago. So rebloggin now so I can find it again.
apparently ppl don’t know about waifu2x??? despite its… concerning name it’s literally the most convenient website i’ve ever come across as an artist
it allows you to resize artwork without it becoming pixellated. this is a MASSIVE help if you, for example, make lineart too small or something. it works best with things that 1. have no textures 2. have smooth lines 3. have cel shading, but it still works really damn well for things that don’t fit that profile
here’s an example:
normal size
2x in paint
2x in waifu2x
so like, there’s that. go wild
Original:
Photoshop scaled:
Waifu2x scaled:
It’s legit!! Tell your friends!
waifu2x-multi is the newer version. It allows for rescaling multiple pictures at a time and to scale them up to 10x the original size.
bongdanceking 