Cupcake Travels

After yesterday's post about fairy tales and the next chapters in my story, I thought I would begin a series of posts about all the possibilities ahead of me.

Remember how I blogged about this book here ??

Well, as expected, when the book arrived in the post I fell in   L - O - V - E

In recent weeks I have been dreaming of travelling and have wistful thoughts of Pastries in Paris and Tastings in Tuscany.

I always thought Europe was my destination of choice...
But now I'm strongly considering a trip to the US of A.

Mostly so that I can visit this store in San Francisco :

Images courtesy of Bakerella

It would all be in the name of research.

One day, I will open my own cupcake shop. Just ask Jodie! (I'm glad someone believes in me!)

Until then, I will dream of travels in search of the sweetest treats and the tastiest temptations.

xx

Once Upon A Time..

"When I was a little girl I used to read fairy tales. In fairy tales you meet prince charming and he's everything you ever wanted. In fairy tales the bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is." - Taylor Swift

In fairy tales, the Princess doesn't have to worry about making the right decisions or choosing the right career path and she certainly doesn't question her direction in life. In fairy tales the story line is simple - Meet man of your dreams, fall madly in love and occassionally break into song whilst dancing through a forest.. (There's always a forest in a fairy tale).

Now, I realise that it would be terribly naive of me to believe that real life is as perfect as a fairy tale, but I must admit that it has been difficult to accept that life does not magically become 'happily ever after' the moment you say 'I Do'.

In fact lately I have found myself analysing the possibilities in my life since my story took a swift turn following a very sudden 'I Don't'.

The 'D-Word' doesn't exist in fairy tales. Princesses don't have to divide up the furniture and sell their castle. And admittedly, these are two things I never would have imagined myself doing, which gets me thinking about where I thought I would be in my life in my mid-20's. (Here's a hint : Separated from my husband was never on the list).

Many of my friends have reached their mid-20's and decided it's time to settle down. Some are engaged to be married and others have started their own families. And here I am writing my own fairy tale, which starts well after most stories end.

The question now is what will happen in the next chapter? Where will the next scene be set? The Princesses in traditional fairy tales didn't have to worry about their careers or their life decisions, but the uncertainty is what makes life exciting. I'm living my own 'Choose Your Own Adventure'.

And, I guess I need to remind myself that not all fairy tales are perfect.. I mean, Snow White lived in a house with seven men and Sleeping Beauty married a perfect stranger just because he kissed her while she was asleep.

But Taylor Swift is right - It would be really helpful if the bad guys in real life wore a cape, so you knew to stay away from them...

xx

Words with Friends

Do you have a word that you love to use ?

Or is there a word that when you say it, you can't help but smile because it makes you happy ?

I do.

Mine is Swoon.

I don't use it often, but when I do, I can't help but smile.

It's such an emotive word.

Swoon.

As with most friendship groups, members of the Cool Pod at work have recently discovered that our vocabulary and daily phrases are contagious (including, but not limited to certain swear words that shall not be blogged).

Granted, some of these words are used more often than others but we compiled a list and find ourselves laughing at each other when we use them in general conversation.

Awesome

Ah-Mazing

Swoon

Mantastic

Prococious

Obsequious

Smitten

Daft

Plonk

Totally

and..

Absolutely

Even more recently, I have been considering the importance of (arguably) my most used words - Awesome and Ah-Mazing. And I've decided that Ah-Mazing (and yes, that's how it's spelt because it's all about the pronounciation..) trumps Awesome.

As in : "OMG - Eric looked Ah-Mazing in True Blood last night" (not just awesome.. coz he is soo much more than that....)

xx

Chocolate Baby Cakes

Hello my name's Chocolate Cake Recipe..

You might remember me from such things as this bundt cake post and the recent baby shower...!!

Ingredients :

220g butter

220g dark chocolate, chopped

25g coffee granules

125g self-raising flour

125g plain flour

50g unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

480g caster sugar

4 eggs

7 tsps vegetable oil

100ml buttermilk.

This time, I iced the cupcake with a cream cheese frosting which I could have eaten out of the bowl..

227g cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

4 cups sifted icing sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.

Mix in icing sugar, one cup at a time.

Mix in cocoa powder.

Just a quick note - if you plan on piping this frosting onto your cupcakes, go easy on the icing sugar! I merrily added the entire 4 cups before it dawned on me that I would not be able to pipe the mixture, hence the 'choc-top appearance' of my cupcakes (definitely not the look I was going for..) But it was delicious all the same.

xx

White Chocolate Raspberry Tarts

More Baby Shower Recipes

Today's recipe is bought to you by the letter T for Tart. 

White Chocolate Raspberry Tarts

These were soooo easy. And the end product is soooo cute.

Give them a try if you ever need to take a cute little dessert to an event. These little treats are sure to impress.

Ingredients

165g butter, softened

1/2 C icing sugar

1 + 1/2 C flour

283g white chocolate, melted & cooled

1/4 C thickened cream

227g cream cheese

How to make them ??

First, prepare the pastry.

In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and icing sugar until light & fluffy.

Gradually add flour; mix well.

Press into an ungreased tart pan.

Bake at 180 degrees for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.

Cool on a wire rack.....

For filling, in a small mixing bowl, beat melted chocolate and cream.

Add cream cheese and beat until smooth.

Spread (or pipe) into individual pastry cases.

Refridgerate for 30 minutes.

Arrange raspberries over the filling.

Serve.

xx

The Baby Cake

Here we begin the first of many posts as I recap the sweets I made for Mel's sisters baby shower.

I provided a dessert table including -
White Chocolate Raspberry Tarts;
Raspberry Jelly Slice;
Choc Caramel Slice;
Melting Moments; and
Chocolate Cupcakes.

But the Main Attraction of the event was of course -

The Cake

O R A N G E   A N D   A L M O N D   M E A L   C A K E

(This is a version of the birthday cake I made for Miss Pip.)

125g butter, softened
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 large orange, rind finely grated, juiced
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup self-raising flour
3/4 cup almond meal (ground almonds)

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease cake pan.

Using electric hand beaters, beat butter, sugar and orange rind for 5 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift flour over butter mixture. Add almond meal and 1/4 cup orange juice. Gently fold to combine. Pour mixture into pre-greased cake pan.

Bake. Timing till vary. (The original recipe is for mini cupcakes, in which case bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean.) 

If you're baking one cake, the total time in oven will be approx 1.5 hours.

I frosted it with an orange frosting :

1/3 cup butter

1 + 1/2 cup icing sugar

2 tbs orange juice

1/2 tsp orange zest

xx

Sugar Baby

So... I catered the sweets for a Baby Shower on Saturday

(Remember how I blogged about being asked to help out and then collected some of my ideas here?)

Well I took Friday off work and spent some quality time in my kitchen.

First of all, let me say I do love to bake. Most of you know that already..

But there is definately an increased pressure when you're doing it for

A) Someone you don't know very well (I have never met the Guest of Honour of the Shower) and;

B) A special event (rather than just because I had a craving for a particular cookie or cake).

Rather than go into too much detail about how and why, let me show you the end result. Because despite an entire cake sinking in the middle like a donut everything turned out well.

Ta-Dah....

Three cheers to Miss Pip for being a lifesaver and making me a cake bunting and cupcake flags - Aren't they the cutest decorations you've ever seen ?! (And a BIG thanks to Jodie of LukaMish who donated her fabric scraps to this project. BTW - Jodie makes amazing products with her fabric so check it out.)

And just so that you can fully understand the mayhem that was my kitchen, here's a pic to show how much stuff I can have spread across my kitchen bench at one time -

I will be doing individual posts about each of these sweets complete with recipes. Stay tuned.

xx

Just a Spoon Full of Sugar...

Last  weekend (yep, a whole week ago, but it's taken me this long to blog about it) I went to Sydney to catch up with my gorgeous sister and to see Mary Poppins!

The show was fabulous. Matt Lee (one of the judges from So You Think You Can Dance) totally stole the show as the Chimney Sweep and his dancing to Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious was incredible.

Tempting as it was to buy a Mary Poppins umbrella, we didn't buy any merchandise, but we did succumb to cocktails in these light up glasses - How could we resist ?!

It was an amazing weekend, although not nearly long enough time for shopping and hang out by the Harbour.

We did however, pop into the Lindt store and sample some of their macaroons and chocolates..

Which went well with a glass of champagne and orange (at this point, Bree and I could not bring ourselves to drink the champagne by itself..)

And, despite the weather forcast predicting rain for the weekend, we were lucky enough that the rain held off and we even got to enjoy a little sunshine.

Had to throw this pic in too - We ventured into the Christian Louboutin store.... OMG - the shoes are stunning.

This particular shoe Bree's holding is worth $2,772.50 

($5,545 A PAIR - eeekkk!)

Two days is definately not long enough...

We're already planning our next Girl's Weekend.

xx

BTW - Sorry about some of the terrible iPhone photography...

It's Raining Babies

Baby Showers..

The mere thought of one has me feeling a little unwell. When presented with an invitation to such an event, my mind goes into over-drive, desperately trying to think of a reasonable excuse for why I can't go along and play games that include tasting baby food and guessing the size of a pregnant belly.

Don't get me wrong - babies should be celebrated and I do enjoy shopping for the perfect baby shower gift.. but at a typical shower there are usually lots of children running around demanding attention and the tacky games make me cringe.

I heard Melanie Brown (aka Scary Spice) on the radio over the weekend describe her recent baby shower, which she referred to as a party in celebration of her baby - she hired nanny's to take care of her guests children and put on an amazing spread of both gourmet and finger food. She wanted a party atmosphere - "People take baby showers way to seriously... At the end of the day, I want to sit down, watch my friends get drunk and have a bit of fun". If only all new Mums-to-Be had an attitude like Mel.

So at this point, you're thinking - "Why are you blogging about baby showers if you have such a strong opinion about them," right?!

Well, I have been asked to assist with the catering of a baby shower in a few weeks. Including the cake.

What a huge responsibility.

As you know, I love to share my baked goods with people (usually those I work with) but aside from family gatherings, I have never baked for a specific purpose before.

So imagine my fear excitement when I received a text from Mel at MOSC asking if I would make the sweets for her sisters baby shower later this month. (On a side note - If you live in Adelaide and ever need your hair and/or makeup done for an event, Mel is Ah-Mazing!! Tell her I said HI!)

Mel's request was simple (or so I thought) - Cake and sweet treats required. 20 guests. Sex of the baby unknown. No theme.

Turns out that having such creative freedom can be a bad thing. Where do I start ?!

Enter my latest Pinterest Board!!



I'm now merrily pinning inspiration for cakes, cake bunting and cupcakes..

Which has me thinking - Maybe this whole baby shower thing isn't so bad?!

But I'm at a loss as to what else to make. I bake alllll the time and yet I suddenly can't think of a single baby shower appropriate treat to make.

In the hopes of finding some ideas, I'm off to do some more pinning!

xx