December Daily - 4th

Otherwise known as RYAN'S BIRTHDAY.

HAPPY 4TH TO MY LITTLE BOY, the exciting story of 4 years ago is here.

This is my foodie blog version of the cake I made.  I used the following recipe of Vanilla Cake and added heaps of sprinkles to make it a funfetti cake.  

I made two rounds and a ring cake

Trimmed and then smoodged them together with icing

Filled the middle with M&Ms

Topped with the second full round cake

Then iced the whole thing

When cut, it becomes a piñata.

The day started with a very excited boy asking for a present!  The present was yet to arrive, so thankfully we had some Matchbox cars and he was very happy to get that.

Off to school with grand announcements all day of "its my birthday" they had a cake and he requested PINK icing, and got it.  The whole class sang Happy Birthday and he was made a fuss of all day.

Then the big news came in the form of a text message "call asap"  The present was at the Post Office and we needed to get it.

opening the gifts

Excitement of a BIG car

Is this remote really MINE?

I can do it Dad

Zooming along

More zooming

One happy little boy.

FOOD

Grocery shopping today.  I do love to grocery shop.
If my printer was plugged in, I'd have a full menu plan.  Why did I not just hand write it.
Tonight it something delicious that I am going to find at LaManna

Some things I need to make, summer veg and haloumi salad.
A roast of some sort
I need to finish that lemon slice.

OK time to get the boys up.  Daycare today.  A free day for me.

Against the rules.

Baking rules, or baking blog rules. Everyone raves about Swiss Meringue Butter Cream icing. But I can't stand it. We put it on the rainbow cake that Connie and I made for Jamie's birthday, and I thought it was awful.


I will never make it again, so much more effort than normal butter cream icing. I make a really good butter, milk and icing sugar icing that I will stick with that. One day I'm going to take a course in cake decorating so I can learn to do piping, but until then, my RUSTIC look will have to suffice.


This rainbow cake is so much easier to make than it looks. It takes time, its messy and requires quite a bit of space, but its worth it for the WOW factor that's for sure. I borrowed the recipe from the Whisk Kid, ours again is a bit more rustic, but as I didn't like the icing, I'm sure glad we didn't use as much as the Whisk Kid did!

WHOOPIE PIES

Today, I'm trying something very very new (to me). Its an old Amish recipe called Whoopie Pie. So far so good. The batter is pretty yum.

I'm about to put 4" circles of batter onto my pan and get 6 cooking.

That step has worked well. Hmm, not enough batter, will only end up with 6 pies :( The second batch are in the oven as I type. They sure spread a lot eh?


Have to wait for them to cool before I can "fill" them with the marshmallow filling. Am rediculously excited about this baking process and am very disappointed there aren't more.

This is the marshmallow fluff icing/filling. Very very sticky stuff. And delicious.






Taste test... soon.

Gluten Free Banana Cake

2 cups rice flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

250g butter

1 1/4 cups sugar (I used 1/4c brown sugar and a cup of white sugar)

23 oz bananas (I use 3 average sized ones)

4 large eggs

4 tbsp icing sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350

Sift flours with baking powder and salt (yeah right, I never sift)

Beat the butter, sugar and bananas together until smooth and then briefly stir in the eggs.

Stir this into the flour mixture until blended.

Pour into a large loaf pan and bake for about 1 - 1 1/4 hours or until a skewer comes out clean and the cake is just firm.

Cool for 10 minutes and then mix the sugar with the lemon juice and drizzle over the top. (I like it lemony so I use more lemon juice)

That's all there is to it!

This cake is lemony and moist and delicious, and will keep well for several days. Even if you have no problem with gluten, you should try this fantastic recipe.

New Obsessions

Not really new as such, but more pronounced.

I love baking and to some extent... cooking.

Over the last couple of weeks I have made:
Hedgehog (was told that I was worth marrying just for the hedgehog - not by Jamie)
Chocolate Cake
Sultana Cake
Banana Bread

Last night for dinner I made a delicious beef roast with a mustard crust - which appears to be our favourite. I want to try a pot roast, or one done in the slow cooker.
Tonight is Potato and Leek soup which I've done in the slow cooker, looks amazing (for potato soup!)
I search the internet for my recipes, really must stop buying cook books, but its a hobby in itself.

Whilst I've been writing this, I have RUINED a whole pot of Ryan's food. Half a pumpkin has been burned :((

Mmmm baking.

Another love of mine is baking. Last year I went through a HUGE cupcake "thing", but its not very practical for school lunches etc... especially when on a diet. So this year I will do my baking to give away, like tomorrow at Mark's cricket match. We will be partaking in "SUGAR COOKIES"


Now for the method
To start with I creamed the butter and sugar. I would have loved to use butter, but I only had margarine, so that is what I used.


Four eggs. My mother knows that I have a thing about eggs, it is my dream to own chickens and use their eggs, but until that time I only use free range. It is my little bit for the goodness of the chooks

All mixed in!

Stir in the flour

Roll out on a flour dusted bench

Cut out in the shape you desire... I got some star shaped cookie cutters, so that is what I made. As an aside, it is difficult to maintain the shape of a star, so some were a little wonky.

After they were cooked, sitting on my wonderful oven.

Now they are iced. I used a glace icing, which is just icing sugar, food colouring and a little hot water. It didn't spread like I wanted it to, so I flicked the icing all over the cookies, and I do like the way it has turned out.

January and a tiny bit of Feb

This is a delicious lemon pie I made. It was from one of the Annette Sym's books. It was VERY yummy and suprisingly low in fat (a little high in sugar, but what the hey)


More grown up tummy time. He was enjoying himself this time. In a Peter Rabbit outfit.


Just hanging out on his mat. I think was getting a bit sick of the camera at this stage. I took a couple of videos (which ended up being 118Mb) and lots of photos. Taken 2nd February 2010.


First day of Year 6 at Mayfield West DS. Mark has started his career as a "bus kid." After a nervous start, he is very confident and polite - he always thanks the driver.


After the bath!




At Merewether Beach with Aunty Jo. Remind me not to wear that hat in photos, but it was a windy and sunny day.

Enough said!