Author Archives: Johan Ho

Or “Ananas bread”, as Anna called them. Even though I said that it’s called pineapple in English. *checks* Hmm, seems that ananas somewhat correct too, although less used in English.

For those of you unknown to this Chinese specialty, pineapple bun or bo lo bao is a popular sweet pastry in Hong Kong. It doesn’t have any pineapple in it, rather, the pattern on the top of the bread looks a bit like the fruit, hence the name. Ah well, then surely it means that things like turtle jelly (gwai ling go) and bird’s nest soup doesn’t actually contain any turtle or bird nests? Unfortunately, the last two really do, unless you’re being scammed. Turtle jelly has turtle shell in it, and bird’s nest soup has bird spit in it, although hopefully not any other parts of the nest. But pineapple bun doesn’t actually have any pineapple in it. That’s Chinese cuisine for you.

Anyway, the reipe I got for the pineapple bun was one of the weirder bread recipes I’ve ever followed. The dough doesn’t really start out looking like a dough at all, and the amount of liquid in the recipe made the dough rather large. Even though I didn’t get it to rise very well, I still ended up with almost three large boxes of buns. Also I think it turned out too sweet… You don’t really notice it while eating it, but after the second one you’ll start feeling a bit sick. Eh, try lowering the sugar amount. Anyhow, I’ll post the recipe as it was given to me, translated to English though:

Anna super-mega ananas bread recipe!!!
The cookie dough

• 5 dl flour
• 2 egg yolks
• 220g margarine
• 1 teasp baking poweder
• 2 tablesp vanilla sugar
• 3 dl sugar

Mix everything and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes

The bread

• 200g melted margarine
• 1 pack quark cheese (about 250g?)
• 2 eggs
• 50g yeast
• 5 dl milk
• 3 dl sugar
• lots of flour

Instructions

1. Melt butter and add milk. Dissolve the yeast in the mixture and add eggs, sugar and quark cheese. Mix untill everything is dissolved.
2. Add flour untill the mixture forms a dough. Let the dough rise for 30 minutes.
3. Make small balls of the dough and put it on a plate. Let them rise for another 30 minutes.
4. Beat some eggs for “gluing” the cookie dough to the bread. Brush some egg on the bread, then take some cookie dough, shape it to a round ball and then flatten it and put it on the bread.
5. Bake in middle of the oven at 235°C for 20 minutes.

As I mentioned, the recipe gives a rather huge dough, so you may want to halve the recipe if you just want to try it out. Also you may want to lessen the sugar amount, if you’re afraid it’ll turn out too sweet. However, I’m not sure if the reason it got to sweet was because it didn’t rise properly…

Other than the sweetness, and the fact that my buns feel heavy because they didn’t rise, they turned out quite okay! I still prefer the egg tarts though.

One of the things I’ve been doing lately is writing in Wikipedia and Wikibooks articles. My school project has finally fully started though, so I shouldn’t really have much time for that… In any case,
Wikibooks: Jump Superstars (guide) is the article I’ve worked most on, and I’ve also created an article for SCCC. Other than that I’ve written a little on the Jump Superstars and Kirby articles. Oh, and for those of you who doesn’t know what Wikipedia is: It’s an online encyclopedia where everyone can write and edit articles.

Last weekend I went to my brother Vilhelm’s confirmation. The church was completely full! My family had to stand near one of the walls because we arrived too late to get a seat, and I didn’t actually see anything, so I just had to listen. It was also way too warm inside the church, with all the people in there. But other than that, I guess it’s somewhat encouraging to see so many people in the church.

Oh, there is also the fact that I actually missed two lectures in a subject (Design as a creative process) because it was impossible to find any info about it on the internet. I didn’t know that the subject had started before I sent an e-mail to the school asking. You could say that I should’ve done it earlier, but actually I tried sending a message to the subject’s lecturer first. He has never replied, of course. I guess maybe only lecturers in the Computer Engineering courses care about using computers…

Other than that I kind of like the subject. The first two exercises for this subject is to draw a drawing or make a collage for a short story, and to make a perspective drawing based on some flat drawings. Haven’t gotten time to start on those yet, because of the main project for this semester, but I look forward to doing them in the weekend. At least for now…

Another thing I’ve been doing lately is to make a script to log what I actually spend time on doing. I have only used it for a few days now, so the statistics aren’t quite representative yet, I guess. The script and the chart it makes is kind of neat, but I’ll have to see if I manage to keep updating it.

Also, here’s a new koma avatar:

Maybe some time I’ll change the horrible design of this website. But, erh, not today.

I ordered Jump Superstars from YesAsia.com, and received it a week ago. It was definitely worth the wait and the price, it’s just too cool seeing all the different characters from manga series that I’ve seen fight against each other!

I’ve always had a fascination for so-called crossover ideas, where characters from different series interact. I have this very old comic with Spiderman and Superman, and there’s this drawing I posted in an earlier post. Also there was a comic series in Oslo a few years ago called Gigant, where superheroes and/or suppervillains from different American comic series fought against or with each other. I was rather disappointed that it stopped, really. Anyway, that’s basically why I really like this game (and Super Smash Bros), although there isn’t much of a story behind the game.

Another crossover thing which is kind of cool: PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi is a fanmade mangastyle webcomic with the PowerPuff Girls and other Cartoon Network characters. The “worst” part of the comic may just be that it’s updated quite slowly, but seeing how detailed the art is, I guess I can understand why.

Enough about that, maybe I should write a bit about what I’ve been doing since my last (real) post… Well the summer camp was a blast! Lots of people and fun. And learned a bunch of stuff that I really should try to use/do, but haven’t yet. Go here to see all the photo galleries that’ve been posted so far!

Oh, I mentioned something about t-shirts in the last post, didn’t I? Well, basically, the teens in Oslo bought everyone a pink t-shirt, made an Oslo logo on the front of each of them, and everyone got a different Chinese nickname on the back of the t-shirts! I was, hum, Kirby.

The week after the camp my family was in Holland, which was somewhat warm and humid, so it was really not such a comfortable trip. But we got to pick and eat oysters (they were cooked before eating of course), and the room we got at the hotel had a separate floor for the bed, kind of. Don’t now what something like that is called, but it was kind of cool. I think I want a bedroom like that when I buy a house.

After that I’ve been in Oslo, and I’ve spent lots of time with the youth there. It’s too much! I think I’m almost looking forward to going back to Trondheim, where I get more time for myself. I’m going to Trondheim tomorrow, by the way… Last year of University. Don’t really look forward to finishing and having to find a job, but oh well, that’s life.

I guess that’s enough for this post, I’ll however put in two avatars I recently made to prove that I’m really a geek: