How to serve:

You can most definitely refrigerate these scones and microwave them for around 15-20 seconds on a weak setting. These are pretty plain alone, so I’d suggest you spread some jam & butter on them to get that tart taste!

Ingredients:

250g cake flour

30g sugar

5g baking powder

1g salt

80g butter 

3g hojicha powder/loose leaves

60g milk 

1 egg

Recipe:

1. Mix in your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, hojicha) into a bowl until all ingredients are evenly mixed.
2. Cut your butter into small pieces and put into the dry bowl. Begin to rub the butter into even smaller pieces with the powder. You want to rub in all the butter until the mix looks like fine crumbs. This’ll be a bit of a messy process!
3. Mix 60g milk with an egg in a separate bowl. Do this until the mixture becomes a light yellow colour. 
4. Pour little bits of the milk and egg mixture into your dry mix to slowly form a dough. You won’t need to use all of the milk and egg mixture. Just stop adding it when it forms a dough that isn’t too chalky but it shouldn’t be WET and STICKY. 
5. Remember to save the milk and egg mixture for later! Store it in the fridge.
6. Take the dough and wrap in saran wrap so that all of its sides are covered. Shape the wrapped dough into a semi-flat square-like shape, then pop it in the refrigerator to let cool for an hour. 
7. Preheat the oven to 180C. 
8. After an hour of cooling, take the dough out of the fridge and unwrap it, then, on baking paper and a baking tray, cut the dough into 4 pieces by cutting it horizontally and vertically. Place the pieces a bit farther apart. Then, take the milk and egg mixture from earlier and brush it on all sides of the dough.

9. Pop the tray into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
10. Take them outta the oven and let cool or eat STEAMING HOT. Though, this isn’t a method on how to get first degree burns on your tongue or something so I’m not liable for you but thanks for reading.

Tamanduas are mostly active during the night, nesting in the trees when the sun is up. It covers its small eyes and poor vision with its excellent sense of smell and hearing, avoiding predators by using its powerful claws for defence. The tamandua often fends off predators by hanging onto tree branches with its hind legs, allowing its arms and claws to be free to defend itself with. It can also use its tail for leverage as a balance when it needs to stand upright, using it as a tripod. Many of the tamandua’s opps roam the forest, searching for a source of food.

There are several potential predators such as jaguars and other forest cats, but the tamandua has a special trick up its furry sleeve. A smelly scent has deemed the tamandua to be the “stinkers of the forest”, as they have the ability to spray a foul-smelling odour, said to be around four times more powerful than a skunk’s. 

“Lil bro think he a crossing guard“

Recently, a TikTok video uploaded by the user @bepiz.man, a user with over 500k followers and a fanbase fueled by funny videos, has gained traction for its comical depiction of the animal that many may not be too familiar with. Over 1.3 million users have viewed the original TikTok upload, with 1.7 million views on Instagram. The video does not provide original information of its origins or where the video was taken, but from looking at the tamandua in the video, we can assume that it is a northern tamandua because of the depicted large black band covering its sides and coarse fur that can be colours of light yellow, tan, brown or grey. 

In the video, the tamandua is on a road with vehicles passing by. Upon further viewing of the video, we can notice that the tamandua is swinging its arms around, which can be interpreted as the tamandua defending itself in a situation it deems to be dangerous. 

The video itself is lighthearted, and is captioned with the text “Lil bro think he a crossing guard”, suggesting that the tamandua’s stance shares similarities to the stance of a crossing guard and that the tamandua looks as if it is conducting traffic. However, it has also garnered a fair share of concern for not only the tamandua, but the person recording the video:

“Bro needs to get out the road, ik he feels threatened but I think the cars got him outmatched”

“Get bro off the road”

“Until you walk close to it and get your intestines removed swiftly”

“That’s what they do before attacking (found out the hard way)”

Netizens and internet users seem to be familiar with the tamandua’s potential lethality towards humans and the ability that the northern tamandua has to easily claw through anything that it sees as a threat. 

Controversy 

This video poses the question of whether or not we, as humans, can coexist with animals in areas where we have urbanised the natural environment. The comments shared on the video pose a discussion of what animals, in this case the tamandua, are capable of doing and the harm that they may cause to individuals who may not be very well-versed with their behaviours and what to do in the situation where they encounter wildlife. To prevent any harm from happening to both humans and wildlife, people must be educated and must know what to do and what to avoid when in the given situation. 

Bibliography

Tamandua or Lesser Anteater | San Diego Zoo Animals & Plants. (2023). Sandiegozoo.org. https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/tamandua-or-lesser-anteater

to, C. (2006, August 7). genus of mammals. Wikipedia.org; Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamandua
bepis on Instagram: “HALT!” (2020). Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cpqt8fwpewd/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D