Today, for some reason, I thought it would be interesting to track the ‘things I learn’ each week. My other half though, has just asked me what happens if I learn nothing that week? Well, I said that would be a learning experience anyway, and I would have to wonder why had I not actually learned anything.

So, onto the list of things I’ve learned… it’s obviously not a comprehensive list, as I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things already. But here goes…. (in no particular order of learning)…

1. The most common bird in New Zealand is not the sparrow, it is in fact the Blackbird (yes I was surprised too)
2. Blackbirds will sometimes pick up ants and put them into their wings so they will eat the mites
3. Blackbirds, will spread themselves out over a section of ground with ants, as the ants spray formic acid onto the blackbird as an insecticide – or as my pun-loving man has just told me, ‘ant-acid’
4. Since typing number 4, I have since Googled this blackbird behaviour, and learned that is called ‘anting‘
5. Enough about birds, here’s some backing lessons… making spun sugar is not easy if you don’t really know what you are doing and watching countless videos on the interweb just confuses you even more
6. Boiled sugar can crystallise really quickly and is a mess to clean up
7. Glucose (or corn syrup) stops boiling sugar crystallising and proved to be the only way I was able to make caramelised sugar decorations
8. The original banoffie pie recipe was developed by a restaurant in the UK called the Hungry Monk
9. That yet again, my guy is right about something. I seriously think I must be the only woman in the world prepared to admit that my man is right a lot of the time
10. The Bonoffie pie recipe I found on the internet of a New Zealand recipe site that uses meringue on the top, really sucks and is yucky
11. Gingernuts ground up with melted butter are too delicious
12. Ground gingernuts make a nice base for an alternative bonnoffi pie recipe, but I much prefer the pastry
13. How to make shortcrust pastry from scratch
14. I learned how to blind bake pastry and now own those funny little white balls you put in to keep the pastry down
15. That it really is important to keep pastry cool between working with it
16. How to caramelise pecan nuts
17. That pecan nuts go really well with banoffi pie
18. The UK has a wonderful thing called double cream, but New Zealand does not. The difference is the fat content – our cream has about 20% less fat than the UK’s double cream
19. The Anchor thick cream you can buy in NZ is a pretty darn good alternative to double cream
20. You can make amazing cupcakes without having to first ‘cream butter and sugar…’ see recipe here
21. When it comes to baking, doing everything from scratch and going the extra distance really pays off with a superb food outcome
22. People love caramel and bananas

Well, I think that’s all… I’m sure I probably learned some work related stuff too, but it’s Sunday night and who can remember what they did on the Wednesday!