May 04 2008
Baking and Haskelling
Helen wasn’t feeling well yesterday so we didn’t get go anywhere. Instead I made a chocolate cake. It didn’t turn out quite right though — it split in my hands as it came out of the tin and is quite sticky inside. I don’t know where the fault lies — either with me or the recipe or the oven. It’s alright if you want to eat it with a spoon but not so great to eat in your hand.
Today I made a loaf of white bread. It takes quite a while but there’s something very therapeutic and calming about kneading dough. Especially if you get into a rhythm and just blank your mind.
I left it a little long on the second proving and so it has rather outgrown the loaf tin. At least this one rose at all — my last attempt was a bit like a sack of gravel to look at. Tasted a bit dull too!
The bread’s cooling now and there’s some cheese sitting out to warm up. There’s been a round of Camembert in the fridge for a wee while, waiting to assault the nasal passages whenever the door is opened. We’ll show it who’s boss this time.
In between the baking I have been playing with some of GHC’s type extensions to Haskell. In particular, generalized1 newtype deriving and phantom types.
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You’d think a tool called the Glasgow Haskell Compiler would let you use British spellings. Alas it doesn’t recognise Generalised with an ‘s’. ↩
The oven was too hot and so the the outside would be cooked or even over cooked but the inside undercooked. Turn down heat of the oven and the inside will be cooked before drying over and possibly burning the outside.
K