3 octobre 2013

Feeding the Troops

Last weekend was the Euro Steam Con, a continentwide series of gatherings for like-minded people.

The French edition, in Paris, involved a picnic on the Saturday. Not living there, and with limited access to load-bearing minions at such short notice, the Ministry limited its offer to the public to a Large Bag, which would be filled with biscuits in order to offer as many calories as possible.
Considering how fast they disappeared, despite the doubts of people as to the biscuits really being free of charge or funny substances, people seem to have liked them.


We felt that variety would be better, and six different recipes were used, but the most challenging biscuits were, without a doubt, the product of the ProfessorsFoglio's imagination,
The Mechanicsburg Gingerbread Trilobites.
The gingerbread part was not too difficult, apart from finding Golden Syrup, which can be tricky in France. Once that was found, a slight hurdle remained. Making them into trilobites. Surprisingly, we could not locate a single cookie cutter in that shape. Off to the lab, then.
Step 1) Draw the pattern.
Step 2) Transfer said pattern onto a block of wood.
Step 3) Deeply engrave the lines, here by using a pyrography tool.
Step 4) Using some low melting point plastic, create the stamp itself by rolling the melted plastic onto the design, with as much pressure as possible.
Step 5) Wait for the plastic to cool down before adding the final touches (sanding, smoothing)
Step 6) Make a ring from the same plastic in the proper shape, so the biscuit will be the proper shape and ready to be stamped.




The gingerbread recipe was foundon the BBC website,
We only added a pinch of ground clove, and did not use any icing



Once ready and cool, roll the dough and get cutting and stamping.

This is the only known picture of the Gingerbread Trilobites before their disappearance.

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