TropicalSoup

The Cakes

I wanted to share the cakes I made for Cole and Immy's penguin birthday party - I'd be lying if I said I wasn't quite tickled with them! Unfortunately these are just about the only photos I have of the whole party - the term blue-arsed fly springs to mind, ha! I do have a few of the kids blowing out their candles, and cutting the cake, but poor Immy was feeling so rotten by that point that they all look a little sad(we ended up with a trip to the ER the next day for this horrendous virus that struck midway through her party, poor wee mousie).

 

I also completely neglected to take any photos of the insides of the cake - it never occurred to me both cakes would be completely gobbled up on the day! Each cake had 4 layers in varying shades of blue (or pink - I am sure you can figure out who requested what!) with the darkest colour at the bottom, up to the merest hint of colour in the top layer. Each layer was separated with buttercream frosting. I was so annoyed at myself for not getting a photo because it came out so well (both of them!!!) and decorated cakes are a bit hit-and-miss with me! At the end of the day though, I guess the real compliment is that the birthday kids were happy with them, and that people ate the cakes and liked them...at least, I haven't found a stash of it behind the sofa yet!

The icing/fondant penguins were great fun to make - a bit like playdough for grown ups!

 

 

Ways to spend a Monday...

~Making sure there are plenty of homemade sausage rolls*, samosa puffs (pumpkin and sweet potato) and mini muffins (dark choc and raspberry!) for the lunch boxes and the parents' committee meeting at school;

~and starting a new quilt! I'm very excited to see how this one evolves...there was a bit of circuitous mental tangent-jumping to get to the design point where I am now!

 

How did you spend your day?

 

 

 

*(this recipe that I found via Pinterest worked a treat - I used beef cocktail sausages since that's what I had to hand, and simply cut the pastry smaller - I managed to eek out 12 wraps per square of pre-rolled pastry)

Sweetening up the coaches...

 

Cole and Immy spent a few days over these Summer holidays at a holiday programme run through their beloved gymnastics centre.They had a great time there - to the point where they didn't want to leave at the end of the day. Unfortunately, they also had a really tough time with me leaving in the mornings...6+ months of being home with mama and little outside interaction in the form of wee friends and regular preschool (like they were used to in NZ) has taken its toll, and there's a bit of separation anxiety. I'm sure it's something that we'll be able to gently work through, but there were a couple of tough mornings involving tears. Mine included (but I managed to keep them in until the kids couldn't see me!) And the coaches were so lovely and kind and understanding, that I figured we needed to find a way to say thanks...

I saw a cookie gift idea on Pinterest (here) for a Valentines treat, and decided to modify it a little for the coaches. This is what I did:

I split the cookie dough into 5 balls once it was made, and added a little food colouring to 4 of them - Immy had overseen the colour choice (much!) earlier in the piece. I then rolled each ball out and used a star cookie cutter to make a gajillion little shortbread stars. (there were also a few hearts as you can see - a special request from my heart loving wee lass)

I used the recipe in the link above, but ended up annoyed at myself for not using my tried and true shortbread recipe, as the cookies seemed a little bland (that may have been user error on my part since I seem insistent on baking at 1am!!) Rather than make more (1am, remember?) I melted some dark chocolate and partially dipped each star.

And then it was just a matter of packaging them up - 5 stars in a small cellophane bag, tied with twine, and a wee label attached. The kids coloured all over a piece of A4 cardstock with every colour crayon in a random patchworky manner until there was no white remaining, and then we used a scalloped round punch to cut out tags. A single hole punch, a little writing, (each coach's name on the front, and *you're a star!* on the back. Cheesy but hopefully forgivable!) and voila!

Next time I think I'll type up the message and names on the cardstock pre-colouring, but I didn't think of it this time round until after the punch was being well used!

My creative space - the creature feature

 

Tootling through cyberspace yesterday I was catching up on a blog (I can't remember which, ack!) when I came upon the link to these Icebox penguins on the Diamonds for dessert blog. Commence squealing from cuteness overload. Cole, Imogen and I had a go at making these, and it all was going swimmingly, until it wasn't. Basically, my brain fell asleep and I put way too much in one lot of batter and not enough in the other and we ended up deviating rather dramatically from the original intention at that point. I ended up putting all the batter together (which resulted in exactly the right amount of flour!) and so instead of inset penguin tummies, we just had tealish cookie dough. No problem - white chocolate buttons popped on top before baking took care of the tummies, and edible googly eyes and teeny tiny edible pumpkin sprinkles (hooray for finding those in the pantry!) stood in for beaks and feet.

The munchkins were responsible for adding the ingredients into the mixer, kneading the colour into the dough (I love the marbled effect that 4-year-olds-tiring-of-the-task created!), placing the cut cookies on the baking sheets, and attaching the eyes, beaks and feet. And quality control. Lots and lots of quality control at every step.

Today I've sent 2 very happy and pleased-with-themselves little people off to preschool with cookies they all but made themselves. And we'll definitely be doing this again - maybe one day even the way the recipe intends!

 

 

I find myself continually wandering past to get a glimpse of them, they are so cute. And then I rip one of their heads off with my teeth. I can say with certainty this batch has no hope of long term survival!

~~~

Visit more delicious creative spaces over at Kirsty's.

ps. we had Ammalissa for dinner the other night. Cole took great delight in telling his sister that her baby was delicious, and then falling about laughing!

Feijoa and White Chocolate Muffins

Good grief, the rest of last week sped by so quickly I think I have whiplash!

As I mentioned last week, I figured out a recipe for feijoa and white chocolate muffins that will knock your socks off...they're good. 

Sift together:

~2.5c flour

~3tsp baking powder

~0.5tsp baking soda

~0.5c sugar (I use castor sugar)

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

~70g melted butter

~1c milk

~2 eggs

Add 1c roughly mashed feijoa innards and stirently into dry mix with 1c white chocolate buttons*. Stir just to combine, spoon into muffin tins and bake at 180C fan bake for about 12 minutes.

It's hard to find photos of the finished item, since they have a tendency to grow wings the instant their temperature dips below scalding, and - completely of their own accord - fly straight into your face. As a mere mortal, I am powerless to withstand their witchery.

*I like to use the big chocolate buttons whole, though you could break them up if you wanted to. I like the decadent edge that big chunks lend to a simple muffin, plus it stops the chocolate from over-saturating the flavour, since you get fewer (more potent!) hits.

 

It also works really well as a pudding-style cake - just cook for 20-25min (depending on the size of the pan), and serve warm with ice cream. Good grief, that is a seriously R18 moment!!

I want to try this with stewed rhubarb in place of the feijoa as well...

Yum

Sometimes the only thing for it is to make and enjoy a couple of margheritas with your kids. It's hard sometimes to think of a better combination than flavour-packed berry tomatoes, basil leaves and a hunk of mozzarella all piled on homemade dough. Okay, so they're not cocktails, but oh goodness were they delish! These rushed shots were the best I could get as I was fending off ravenous wild animals being gently requested to share the bounty at this point!

Run run as fast as you can...chomp!

 

Thanks for the love guys! Really, apart from resisting the job of unpacking all that bloody inventory (more a reflection of me being me than any emotional fluff!) all's great! You know, a bit of humble pie probably isn't such a bad thing every now and again (and maybe a valuable lesson in double checking the target market of fairs etc!). Besides, moving right along, people to bake, heads to bite off. You know, the usual!

We've been baking a few gingerbread men lately...and stars and hearts and other creations. (Note to self: need more cookie cutters!!!) I have quickly discovered that this recipe is entirely too delicious, which means that we keep running out of the ginger ninjas by the time they're cold, and no chance whatsoever for me to freeze a few each batch to stockpile for Christmas pressies for teachers and whatnot. Thankfully, the recipe is ridiculously easy - and not too heavy in taste, either...hence the mass munching! By the batch yesterday we had run out of brown sugar, and if you find yourself in the same predicament, I can assure you - after rigorous testing, quality control and oral inspection - that 2/3 cup of packed brown sugar and about 2TBSP golden syrup works as a great alternative to the 1 cup of sugar!

I love the difference in design aesthetics that my sous-chefs have...give a kid some icing and toppings and watch their personalities emerge!!!