Though I haven’t eaten them in years, I felt an incredible urge to make butterfly cakes today.   It is my birthday tomorrow so maybe thinking of these morsels of childhood is more appealing than thinking about my actual age at the moment, and anyway, Ella & Phoebe were certainly enthused about the plan.  I decided to add a bit of a twist by making blueberry sauce to use instead of jam and we thought they were pretty tasty!

My main memory of these little winged cakes is from when I was about four years old and going to a dress up day at kindy when the night before I changed my mind about what I wanted to dress up as & decided I wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood and of course butterfly cakes were the only acceptable thing to carry in my basket.  So Mum (and she reminds me of this semi-regularly) had to come up with a costume and red cape and stay up making butterfly cakes for my basket.  I do remember leaving the house the next morning feeling  very Red Riding Hoodish and being sure that she would have carried nothing else in her basket but but these butterfly cakes covered in a red checked cloth.  Thanks Mum!

2 Comments | In: Food Stuff | tags: baking, butterfly, cakes. | #

1 Comment | In: Family Stuff, Food Stuff, Uncategorized | tags: Christmas, xmas. | #

It was the end of Ella’s first year (well nearly) of school and I had not realised what a blur of assemblies, morning teas, productions, shared lunches, picnics and prizegivings this would be!  Not that I didn’t enjoy it all but it has put me behind a little in my crafting schedule.   I tried jellied oranges for the shared morning tea and was quite happy with how they looked and tasted and they all got gobbled up so apparently the kids found them acceptable also!

While I often think it would be nice to have a white christmas – building snowmen, sitting in front of  a warm fire etc, but a trip to the farm always reminds me that there is nothing not to love about a fabulous summer christmas – digging up fresh potatoes and picking fresh peas and raspberries and the gorgeous flowers that bring so much colour to this time of the year.  Harvesting our own vegies and berries has become a bit of a family tradition in the weeks before Christmas and the girls favourite things to do.  Only seven sleeps to go!

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I must say that although I did see the Star Wars movies as a child, when Dan requested a Han Solo frozen in carbonite cake for his birthday, I didn’t really know what I was letting myself in for!  Here is the original from the movie for those of you who, like me, may not be able to instantly recall what it looks like.  The cake is hardly an exact replica and lots of things went wrong but Dan was happy enough!

It was very much a ‘figure it out as I go’ thing and of course now I have done it once I know how I could do it far better but I am not definately not keen enough to do it again.  The cake inside was also grey (resulting in many black tongues) and had a layer of buttercream icing, covered in marshmallow fondant.

After my first attempt with fondant icing here, I have had several requests wanting to know which recipe I used.  Since this is only the second time I have used it , I am no expert with fondant and there may be better recipes out there but here is what I used.

Marshmallow Fondant

450gms (approx 16 ounces) of marshmallows

1kg (just over 2 pounds) of icing sugar

2Tbl water

1/3 cup shortening

• Put marshmallows and water in a bowl and melt in the microwave, stirring every 30secs.
• Grease your work surface and hands (very well) with the shortening and sift about 1/2 the icing sugar onto the bench and tip the melted marshmallow on top, then sift about half of the remaining icing sugar onto the top.
• Knead well (this is the fun gooey bit) until it becomes smooth and elastic, adding more icing sugar as needed.  You will need to keep regreasing your work surface and hands regularly or things will get very sticky!
• Knead in food colouring if you are using it, I use the gel colouring since it makes a nice bright colour without adding lots of liquid.
• Cover in shortening, wrap well in gladwrap and store in the fridge for a week or two if needed.

It is not hard to make but the kneading is a little time consuming and remember to use white marshmallows unless you are making pink icing.

4 Comments | In: Food Stuff, Recipes | tags: baking, cake, han solo, marshmallow fondant. | #

This month has flown by and I don’t seem to have done any of the things I have planned, lots of half finished projects & projects that have only got the the buying fabric stage!  It has been a pretty chilly winter here so far so for dinner tonight I made one of my favourites, a slow cook carrot soup.  It is a Gordon Ramsey recipe which is yummy and just the colour brightens me up and makes me feel cheery.

I also whipped up a banana & blueberry loaf this afternoon which is a great snack for the girls & holds up well in lunchboxes so here is the recipe for anyone who is interested.  You could really substitute the blueberries for any other berries you like but blueberries are always a favourite in our house.

Banana & Blueberry Loaf

2 cups flour

2t baking powder

1t ground cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar

2 free range eggs, beaten

125g butter (melted)

1-2t of good quality vanilla extract

3 largish bananas (lightly mashed so there are still a few chunks)

1 cup blueberries (frozen is fine)

• Grease a 10 x 20cm loaf tin & line the base with baking paper.
• Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl & then stir in the brown sugar.
• In a seperate bowl, mix banana, egg, vanilla extract & melted butter.
• Fold blueberries & wet ingredients into dry ingredients mixing only until just combined, do not over mix.
• Scoop into the loaf tin and bake at 180°C (350°F) for around 55 minutes.  It is ready when a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

This can be served cold or warm & is great with some butter.

I have also made an update to my Favourite Kids Books page – Never Too Little To Love & Poppy Cat’s Farm.

2 Comments | In: Food Stuff, Recipes | tags: banana, blueberry, books, loaf, recipe, soup. | #

It is a long weekend for us here in New Zealand and despite having a long list of things I was going to get done this weekend, I have achieved very little today just hanging out at home.  Ella and I had fun baking some rather rustic looking afgan biscuits which are topped with heart sprinkles intead of walnuts which taste pretty darn good if I might say so myself!   I have done absolutely no crafting today but I did come across the fairy doll I made for Ella for her birthday (which she named “Star Belly”) & realised I had never put a photo up, so here she is.

She is rather different to what I had planned in my mind & I just could not get the head the way I wanted it but I decided to forgive myself as it was the first time I had attempted anything like this.  I am really fond of the body shape which is very satisfying to hold & I love the little feet sticking out the bottom.  I may attempt another some day and see if I can get that head right.

I am working on a couple of little broches for etsy tomorrow and am planning a giveaway in the next couple of weeks to thank all of you who have taken the time to read my ramblings and have left some really lovely comments.  I am having trouble choosing what to give so it may end up being a series of giveaways if Istill can’t make my mind up.  I hope everyone else is enjoying their weekend!

4 Comments | In: Crafty Stuff, Food Stuff | tags: baking, biscuits, cookies, doll, fairy, sewing, toys. | #

A few images from Easter at our house.

The Easter Egg Hunt in our back yard.

Homemade Hot Cross Buns – minus the crosses which I didn’t quite get around to doing this year.

Some details from an Easter Drawing I did for Ella to repay her for all the lovely pictures she makes for me!

The girls had a great time, even Phoebe who, despite an intolerance to cows milk, managed plenty of loot in the form of little marshmallow fondant eggs I made for her out of left over icing from Ella’s birthday cake (it stores very well in the fridge), dyed boiled eggs & a little Dora tin filled with Fejoas (her favourite fruit of the moment).

Ella even organised her own egg hunt for us grown ups & lead us around the back yard with “hot” & “cold” to help us find them all – she really doesn’t like anyone to miss out!

I hope everyone else had a great easter!

1 Comment | In: Family Stuff, Food Stuff, Kids Stuff | tags: baking, drawing, easter. | #

I forgot to put a photo up of the no bake birthday cake that Ella made in my last post & had this promptly pointed out to me so here it is!  Ella’s actual birthday was the day before her party & naturally she wanted a cake & candles to blow out but as I was busy with the party cake, I let Ella make this herself & she was very proud of it.

It is chocolate chip biscuits dipped in orange juice & sandwiched together with whipped cream into a log shape, which was covered in more yellow whipped cream & topped with sprinkles.  After being in the fridge for a few hours, the biscuits go soft & it is like a chocolate biscuit cake in texture & very tasty.  One of my favourites when I was little & simple enough for a child to do with minimal supervision & resulting in extreme pride in doing something “all by myself” – very important when you are five!

For a slightly more grown up version – leave out the food colouring, replace the sprinkles with grated chocolate & replace the juice with sherry or peach schnapps, yum!

2 Comments | In: Food Stuff, Kids Stuff | tags: baking, birthday, cake, recipe. | #