Rob's Blog - February 2009

Links for 2009-02-19

• BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | The mystery of Ireland's worst driver The Irish Cops hunt for the elusive Prawo Jazdy

Links for 2009-02-13

• At the third stroke, the Unix time will be 1234567890 - Times Online perl -e 'print time'

No Trains To London Today

The heavy snow today has caused the cancellation of all trains from Eastbourne to London today.

It's interesting to note that both Southern Railway's website and the National Rail Enquiries website are both down with internal server errors.

Even my local BBC radio is having problems, and the BBC iPlayer for Southern Counties Radio is down.

Easy Honeycomb Recipe

I made honeycomb yesterday, and found it to be a surprisingly easy recipe with great results.

You will need

• 100g caster sugar (I used golden unrefined)
• 3 tablespoons of Golden Syrup (I used Lyles from a squeezy bottle)
• 1 teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda

1. Mix the caster sugar and golden syrup together in a pan
2. Put the pan on a low heat
3. Slowly stir with a sugar thermometer until it reaches about 300F / Hard Crack. I found this took about 10 minutes
4. Add the bicarbonate of soda and stir very quickly and very well
5. Poor onto a pan with baking tray covered with baking parchment
6. Leave to cool

When you add the bicarbonate of soda the runny mixture will start to bubble furiously. It's really important to make sure the bicarbonate of soda is well mixed in else your honeycomb may taste a bit salty.

When the honeycomb has solidified, just break it off and eat.

One thing I noticed after cooking was how the last of the honeycomb in the pan seemed like rock and I'd never be able to clean it. No problem, all it needed was to soak in water for a few minutes and it came off leaving the pan spotless.

Enjoy!