Soldier, Painting
Thomas Wilkinson
How to Paint: Zhufbar Dwarfs

In which I get ready for Dawi to return to The Old World...

With The Old World bringing back two of my white whales from my childhood in the form of Bretonnians and Dwarfs I’ve had a lot of fun projects this year. I wanted to do a slightly different Dwarf scheme than the old green and gold I remember seeing in White Dwarf as a kid and settled on the old Zhufbar livery of white and light blue. It makes for a striking force on the table top and is relatively speedy to paint up as detailed below!

How to Paint: Zhufbar Dwarfs
Soldier, Painting
Thomas Wilkinson
How to Paint: The Dead of Dunharrow

In which I finally start delivering on the promised painting guides...

I have been sat on a fully constructed Battle of Pelennor Fields box for just about a year after purchasing it as a Christmas present to myself at the tail end of 2021. Having signed up to a few "slay the grey" style challenges in the New Year I thought it was time to start with a nice easy paint job.

How to Paint: The Dead of Dunharrow
Puddings, Sponge
Thomas Wilkinson
Vegan Christmas Puddings

In which I modify an old family recipe to be vegan friendly...

After successfully turning my hand to vegan Christmas cake I thought it was high time I adapted my old Christmas pudding recipe to be vegan too.

Vegan Christmas Puddings
Tinker, Web, Python
Thomas Wilkinson
Dominant Colour Extraction in Python (for a ...

In which I discuss getting the dominant colour from an image quickly...

I have recently made a Discord bot that searches for online versions of board games to help people find games to play remotely. This link will add it to your server.

Discord embeds have a colour bar down the side that can be manually set. I thought it would be cool to have this display the 'average' (i.e. dominant) colour of the board game box and decided to investigate the best way to do it.

Dominant Colour Extraction in Python (for a Discord Bot)
Tinker, Productivity
Thomas Wilkinson
The Holiday Do List

In which I plan my holiday tasks…

So it may just be because it is 2020 or perhaps I'm just a bit lazy but I’ve found that I often start holiday breaks with a list of things I’d like to do and by the end of the trip* I’ve not achieved most of them. Whether it’s odd jobs or relaxing activities I wanted to get through I just accidental sit around and don’t do them. This holiday season I decided I needed a to do list and though I’d try out the new Todoist Boards feature.

*Or, let’s be real this year: sitting on the sofa at home.

The Holiday Do List

pumpkin

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Cherbluple Cake

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Cherbluple Cake

In which I make my own take on the Turducken of desserts...

So for those of you that aren't aware a Turducken is a duck-inside-a-chicken-inside-a-turkey. Otherwise known as meatception! Following along this line of crazy ridiculous food Charles Phoenix invented the Cherpumple cake which is three different pies (cherry, pumpkin and apple) baked inside three different cakes (yellow, white, spiced). I decided to make my take on this crazy dessert as my final CAOS cake before stepping down as Social Sec. I didn't have access to pumpkin so I decided to make a Cherbluple - cherry, blueberry and apple pies baked into a chocolate sponge, a plain sponge and a spiced sponge.

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Pumpkin Pie

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This week I bought many pumpkins and made pumpkin pie :DDue to the cheapness of ASDA pumpkins (2 for £2) this week I bought 12 pumpkins (mostly for carving!).

Pumpkins!

Ingredients

  • 1lb prepared pumpkin flesh

  • 3 oz brown sugar

  • 1 large eggs plus one yolk

  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon

  • ½ level teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

  • ½ tsp ground allspice

  • ½ tsp ground cloves

  • ½ tsp ground ginger

  • 10 fl oz double cream

  • sweet short crust pastry case*

*Yes I had to cheat this week and get ready-made

How-to

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C

  2. To make the filling, steam the pumpkin then place in a coarse sieve and press lightly to extract any excess water.

  3. Whisk the eggs and extra yolk together in a large bowl.

  4. Place the sugar, spices and the cream in a pan.

  5. Bring to simmering point

  6. Give it a whisk to mix everything together.

  7. Pour it over the eggs and whisk it again briefly.

  8. Now add the pumpkin pureé.

  9. Whisk to combine everything thoroughly.

  10. Pour the filling into your pastry case and bake for 35-40 minutes.

  11. Leave to cool

The Finished Article

Sadly this week I made my icing way too runny but here's a picture I took last time I got this right :)

Pie!