Bethany's Birthday...

So I have a beautiful niece (and an equally handsome nephew)! I am such a proud little Aunty haha! Anyway it was Bethie's 2nd Birthday at the end of April and so I made her the cutest (and quickest) cake ever before driving the hour to my sister's place to celebrate with them :-)

I thought I would do a little bragging and show you the marbled pink cake I made for her! I've really been getting into the marbling thing recently! I love it... So easy but looks so good :-) ill do some rainbow cakes soon and (hopefully) remember to take some cute pictures!

Hope you enjoy!
Peace x.

Mothers' day...

So for Mothers' Day we had a big family lunch with the grannies and one of my aunts :-) it was so much fun and I even made a cake for the occasion! It was a pink Rosewater marbled cake with those pogo stick biscuits, marshmallows and white chocolate over the top! It was so so yummy if I may say so myself!!

I hope it's inspirational to somebody! Maybe I'll get around to blogging the inspiration for it one day... No promises though as I seem to struggle keeping them recently!!

Peace x.

Times flying...

So things have been pretty hectic lately! I've had the flu. I've had laryngitis. I've also been cold (and probably very lazy) so haven't been posting on here! It's been more than a month since my last post! I should get on top of this all one day :-)

Unfortunately I'm not able to cross off my surprise because Superman ended up getting sick so the weekend never went through :-( but I'm sure I'll be able to plan some amazing surprises over the next 12 months!

I have just signed up to Cupcake Day for the RSPCA 2012 so am super excited thinking about food, invitations, food, location... did I mention food? I promise I will add lots of bits and pieces on here about my planning and prep! I'll hopefully have lots of things to tick off my list in the process :-)

Hmmm... what else has been happening? I'm having trouble recounting the last month it has been so busy! I've bought a huge bunch of materials to make a few aprons for friends and family (as well as myself) and even managed to make a pattern to follow from newspaper - Nanny style! My Nanny (grandmother) is an absolutely gun when it comes to sewing... she doesn't even need something to copy when she makes a pattern - just pulls the idea from her head and starts snipping away at newspapers with pins and tape measures going everywhere!!

I have come to a bit of a stop on the apron front due to having to pull my sewing machine out of the clutter we have in our laundry... but that shouldn't take too long to do and I'll turn into Queen of Aprons! I'm thinking it will be an amazing production line of cute materials, scissors and pins!

I'll post a few more pictures today from my phone so you can see what else I've been up to (baking wise)!

Otherwise I wish you all a truly amazing and magical Winter Solstice (Yule)!

Peace x.

Surprise...

I am super excited to be in the process of crossing something new off my list :-) I am currently planning a surprise for Superman. He knows who he is if he ever gets around to reading this blog (which thankfully he doesn't know about yet)!

So I have him from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon... and to be honest he won't know what hit him! I will (hopefully) take lots of pictures to share with you all as I think it's going to be the best surprise! So far it is still in the works but it will start off by visiting the beautiful Festival of Light in Circular Quay which runs from Friday 25th May 2012 until Monday 11th June 2012. It's set to be absolutely amazing!

I'm still deciding where we should do dinner but my personal favourite is definitely Pancakes On The Rocks only because my family used to visit here once a month to go to the markets on a Sunday and enjoy a lazy breakfast of pancakes! We'll be doing public transport in and out of the city as I find parking to be a nightmare and considering it's the opening weekend of the lights display I'm sure it would be even worse than normal :-)

So Sunday is the bit I'm excited about! I'm thinking it'll start with a lazy breakfast as we meander on up to Bilpin from my place :-) I took my girlfriend to a beautiful little place to have breakfast on her birthday this year in Kurrajong. It was so cute and has a beautiful garden. It's called Bellbird Echo Cafe and is well worth a visit if you're ever on your way past (or even for a special visit to wander the gardens and eat the tastiest food!).

Finally, I've decided we're going to spend the afternoon picking apples at Bilpin Springs Orchard (this part he may not be so impressed by but it will definitely be my favourite!). I'm looking forward to all the things I will be cooking the following week... from Apple Strudel to crumbles and cakes (I'm sure he'll get super excited about this part!) - Yummo!

So I will definitely get back to you about how the surprise goes and will finally be posting my Peanut Butter and Choc Chip Cookie recipe and bragging pictures of my Mothers' Day cake too tonight when I get home from work :-)

Peace x.

Trouble in paradise...

I have so much to tell you all and cross off something else from my wonderful list but unfortunately I put my trusty laptop in for a service and don't get it back until Friday!

I can tell you all that I went to. See John Butler the weekend before last and it was nothing short of amazing! He is the most talented man with such compassion :) I think I'm only a little in love :p

Anyway I hope that photo worked!! I promise to do some catch up posts when my laptop is returned :)

Peace x.

Neglect...

I must apologise for my neglect of you dear blog and blog readers! I have been super busy recently getting through a few more on my list :-)

I am super excited to announce that I bought a townhouse so can cross that off my little list! I also went on enough of a date with 'Superman' to cross that off my list - he is a bit more of a story for another day I'm thinking tehe!

Since my last post I have also been able to wear red lipstick a few times... Once on Easter Thursday when my girlfriend and I went to a local hot spot dressed as bunnies and the second when I went to a Pirate party last night.

I have a few recipes to upload over the next week and a bit so stay tuned :-)

Peace x.

Mars Bar and Snickers Slice...

So I've been a terrible blogger recently... I did promise you the recipes and following phases to my care packages... And yes I have been terribly slow but hopefully I can get at least the recipes out of the way today and follow up with my care package post over the weekend :-)

Firstly... I love mars bars - almost as much as I love snickers and marshmallows :-) put them all into a bowl and heat... my favourite treat! Everyone has their own little way of making mars bar slice and I won't claim that mine is any different or any better - I just add snickers! So the origin of this recipe has been with me since about year 4 when I went to the movies with a friend and her mum let us mars bar slice to sneak into the theatre!! And it goes as follows...

Ingredients:

3x Mars Bars (the normal bar size)

3x Snickers Bars (also the normal bar size)

60g butter (any cooking butter will do)

3 cups of Rice bubbles (or some cheap variation as I did)

1 cup of halved marshmallows

1/2x Cadbury block of chocolate (for drizzling over)

Some sprinkles (cos everything needs sprinkles!)

Method:

1. CHOP IT UP! This recipe does involve lots of chopping I will admit :-) I slice my snickers and mars bars width wise and fairly even so they melt really well. The butter I cut into cubes - again to make sure they melt really well :-) Marshmallows are halved or close enough for the same reason... just watch out for your knives - they get super sticky!

2. After everything is cut the fun begins! Melt the butter in a pan (in a big pan because you're going to be adding a lot of rice bubbles!). Once melted add the mars bars and snickers. Once that is almost melted add your halved marshmallows...

Knowing what the melted parts look like is helpful (so I've happily been told) so the following pictures are of melted:

Butter / Mars bars and Snickers / Marshmallows

3. By now it looks like a sugary, chocolatey, yummy goo. This part is more of a tried and tested method. I normally put 2 cups of rice bubbles into the melted goo and then see how the mixture sticks. Everyone likes their slice a little different. One of my friend's loves it to have way more chocolate and much less rice bubbles as he is of the opinion rice bubbles are too healthy for his body... I however, generally like to stretch the mixture enough to make a tray and a bit so that if it's being used for something (i.e. a care package) I will still have some left over to munch on - or take into work! Moral of the story - use 3 cups as a guide and employ the concept of give or take a little :-)


4. Tip the mixture out of pan and into your baking paper-ed tins (I use a simple rectangular slice tin and half of a regular square tin - dimensions unknown). Press the mixture around to flatten it out to an even thickness. It can get a bit tricky because the mixture is still warn and your knife / wooden spoon tends to want to take the sugary goodness with it... I find it easy to use a large blade butter knife and dip it in a bit of boiling water works :-)

5. Melt half a block of cadbury's chocolate in the microwave (I have a fairly powerful microwave to did 30 seconds followed by 2x 10 second bursts with a good stir in between to utilise the uneven melting). Drizzle chocolate over the slice... I'll leave designs up to you depending on the occasion - I have drizzled a 'B' into more than one of my slices previously!

6. Most importantly... throw as many sprinkles as you can at your design and hope it sticks because in the end we all know that sprinkles are the best thing man ever invented (apart from edible glitter of course!)!!


So happy cooking little munchkins and please share with children... This was one of my favourites when I was younger and a square of this is really much better for you than a whole chocolate bar (so I keep telling myself)!!

Peace x.