“if You Have A Bit Of Stress Then You Can Use This, But If You Have A Lot Of Stress Use This One”

Summer Calls For No-Bake Desserts

Some Summer days, it’s too hot to even consider baking. But even the greatest heat waves shouldn’t stop you from satisfying your sweet tooth. With puddings, panna cotta, cheesecake, and lots and lots of fruity options, there’s no reason to turn on the oven when you have the choice of these 25 no-bake desserts.

Sweet and salty dessert fans will love these frozen mojito cakes. The salty pretzel crust is topped with a frozen mojito and cream cheese filling.

Freeze yogurt and fruit together for these delectable bites.

Make a giant Oreo icebox cake, and watch people flock for a bite.

There’s no need to raise your eyebrows! Salty saltines add tremendous flavor when used inice cream sandwiches.

It looks like cake on the outside, but slice it open to reveal a whole watermelon!

As it turns out, speculoos makes for a spicy no-bake cake.

No campfire? No problem! Drizzle melted chocolate over graham cracker cereal and garnish with mini marshmallows for an on-the-go s'mores snack mix.

For those who prefer sour to sweet, try ginger limeade granita, a frozen dessert with flaky, tart ice chips that will awaken the palate.

There’s actually no cake at all in this icebox cake. Chocolate wafers soak up the moisture from whipped cream to create a soft, cake-like texture. Watch the video to see how it’s done, and then print out the recipe.

With an Oreo crust and minty marshmallow filling, mini grasshopper pies are a cooling, colorful way to end a meal.

Giada De Laurentiis is all for effortless desserts that can be enjoyed on the couch. Her chocolate trifles feature chocolate cake cubes and a chocolate custard dolloped on top.

Crema Catalana is a lemony, refrigerated custard. It’s coated in flame-torched sugar, similar to crème brulée.

Beginning bakers should spring for this ice cream cake with whipped cream, ice cream sandwiches, coffee liqueur, and crushed peppermint candy.

Let’s be honest; almond chocolate spread is dessert. Spread it on toast or cookies. Better yet, just grab a spoon.

Make a large batch of this salt-flaked fudge, cut it into bite-size pieces, and keep it in the freezer for convenient grabbing.

Sometimes the best desserts are the ones that are thrown together last minute. Freshen up store-bought sorbet by topping it with citrus vodka and lime zest.

Like the decadent cake but cooler and lighter for warm weather, these German chocolate pudding cups are layered with a coconut pecan custard.

Sometimes you don’t want to go through the trouble of making ice cream. This strawberry semifreddo is the ultimate “lazy” person’s ice cream recipe.

A blackberry fool with Calvados only contains four ingredients, so it’s as easy as it is light.

No need to heat up the oven to make cheesecake. This no-bake cheesecake is made with graham crackers, cream cheese, and condensed milk. There’s no raw egg involved, which means there’s no need to bake!

Nanaimo bars, the legendary bar made famous by Vancouver housewives in the 1950s, is similar to a seven-layer bar with graham cracker, almonds, coconut, and chocolate. Rather than condensed milk, this bar has a creamy pudding layer.

Gelatin and cream set to create these creamy strawberry panna cotta cups.

What’s not to love about the classic pairing of peanut butter and chocolate? We imagine that peanut butter and chocolate pudding cups would make great frozen pudding pops too.

Melt-in-your-mouth grape gelatin with blueberries is a refreshing dessert that won’t weigh you down with any heavy cream. Add a splash of Champagne or vodka for a spiked version.

The Eton Mess originated in the 1800s at a distinguished British public school. The strawberry, heavy cream, and meringue cookie mixture was originally served after an important annual cricket game.

Really nice recipes. Every hour.

Show me what you cooked!

AS A PILOT SEES THE WORLD......

A Lake in Pomerania, Poland

Amsterdam

Athens

Bac Son Valley, Vietnam

Barcelona

Bern

Cape Town

Central Park, New York City

Chicago

Dubai

Dubrovnik

Giza Pyramids, Egypt

Mali, Maldives

Mangroves in New Caledonia

Marina Bay, Dubai

Maze at Longleat, England

Meskendir Valley, Turkey

Mexico City

Moscow

Namib Desert, Namibia

Niagara Falls, U.S.A.

Paris

Rio de Janeiro

Seattle

Shanghai

Terraced Rice Fields, China

Tulip Fields, The Netherlands

Vancouver

Vatican City

Venice

sky painter

(just doodlin to relax)

I am majorly impressed by the edits in this video. It's just so pretty!

♫Butterfly (Fish) Kisses! ♪

Still not sure what else to do to this one either :P

Companion piece to this one

Survivorship Bias

I have posted about survivorship bias and how it affects your career choices: how a Hollywood actor giving the classic “follow your dreams and never give up” line is bad advice and is pure survivorship bias at work.

When I read up on the wikipedia page, I encountered an interesting story:

During WWII the US  Air Force wanted to minimize bomber losses to enemy fire. The Center for Naval Analyses ran a research on where bombers tend to get hit with the explicit aim of enforcing the parts of the airframe that is most likely to receive incoming fire. This is what they came up with:

So, they said: the red dots are where bombers are most likely to be hit, so put some more armor on those parts to make the bombers more resilient. That looked like a logical conclusion, until Abraham Wald - a mathematician - started asking questions: 

- how did you obtain that data? - well, we looked at every bomber returning from a raid, marked the damages on the airframe on a sheet and collected the sheets from all allied air bases over months. What you see is the result of hundreds of those sheets. - and your conclusion? - well, the red dots are where the bombers were hit. So let’s enforce those parts because they are most exposed to enemy fire.  - no. the red dots are where a bomber can take a hit and return. The bombers that took a hit to the ailerons, the engines or the cockpit never made it home. That’s why they are absent in your data. The blank spots are exactly where you have to enforce the airframe, so those bombers can return.

This is survivorship bias. You only see a subset of the outcomes. The ones that made it far enough to be visible. Look out for absence of data. Sometimes they tell a story of their own.

BTW: You can see the result of this research today. This is the exact reason the A-10 has the pilot sitting in a titanium armor bathtub and has it’s engines placed high and shielded.

The only real enemy is the water

So I found Doug Dimmadome at Dragon Con

Hey, um, I know that wasps are generally known as the jerks of the insect world, but just so you guys know, they do give a little back.

For example.....

1) They eat bugs. Yay! Less leaf beetles eating your crop!

2) They pollinate figs. MmmMmmm. I like fig Newtons. I want them to continue long into the future.

3) They carry yeast in their bodies which helps allow the yeast to survive the winter. In case you didn't know, yeast ferments grapes and is used for baking. AKA next time you have some wine or enjoy some leaven bread, begrudgingly thank a wasp.

I'm not saying that you have to like them. Heck no. Wasps are scary; howeeeever, just like the wonderful bee, they help provide us with some amazing things.

(x)<--yeast link    (x)<--bug link   (x)<--Fig link