Vintage German Apple Cake and Biscotti

Today is a day off for me, as I don't have exams. So I decided to do some baking after sleeping in for an egregious amount of time. My first stop was the apple cake from the Girl's Own Paper, which worked ridiculously well. Here it is in its finished form:

The Girl's Own Aepfel-Kuchen

I have made biscotti once before. It's easy to make, but rather labour-intensive. You end up popping these biscuits in the oven three times to make sure that they're nice and crispy. The last time I made them was with white chocolate and almonds, and they were sooo good. This batch is made with almonds, cranberries, and milk chocolate. They promise to be just as good, and also just as badly sliced.

Biscotti rhymes with yummy... in my head, at least.

In other news, I'm readying for an exam tomorrow, and then for the Tartuffe meeting, which I'm terribly excited for still.

Sandman Volume One, otherwise called Preludes and Nocturnes, was magnificent. My favourite parts were the cameo from Martian Manhunter (!), Death's first appearance, Dave McKean's trippy and intricate covers, and certainly the chapter set in Hell [with the Thin White Duke-esque Lucifer], though now that I think about it Neil Gaiman's mastery of mythology and prose should definitely constitute a favourite part too. The writing was great and the art was great too, something I rarely see in comic books. I'm conspiring to get my mitts on the next volume, and soon.

I watched Superman: Doomsday, which is possibly the greatest direct-to-video feature film ever. Scratch that- it's possibly the greatest Superman movie ever, breathing life into a character that can too easily become cardboard or caricatured, capturing the Lois Lane/Clark Kent dynamic perfectly, and making Lex Luthor someone to fear. It tackles a really difficult story from the comics and makes it unexpected somehow (as though we didn't know Superman would come back from the dead). This praise, by the way, is coming from a hardcore Batman fan.

I hope Zack Snyder, the director of the next Superman live-action movie, has seen Doomsday...

Buy it, Zack Snyder. Watch it till your eyes roll out of your sockets. Please don't make another Sucker Punch...

Also filling out forms for university courses. Exciting stuff... D: