Birthday Recap

My baby girl turned 7 this week and I may have shed a tear or two. I cannot believe she's seven already but mostly, if she's seven then I really and truly don't have 'little' kids any more.  But she was thrilled to turn seven and when her Nan rang with birthday wishes on Thursday morning the wee girl confided that she thought she had grown a bit taller during the night and was bigger than when she was six. You know. The day before.

We celebrated in our usual epic style. Presents in the morning and a cake to take to school to share with her classmates.

If the cake looks familiar it's because it's the same as the one I sent in for #1 earlier in the year. This has become the cake they both request for school, and I have to say it's a whole heap easier than 30-odd cupcakes!

Thursday night saw the grandparents descend for birthday dinner of the Birthday Girl's choosing - spag bol and garlic bread (of course!!) and a Freddo ice-cream cake.

And today we celebrated just a little bit more with a party at home with her school friends. Ages and ages ago (like six months or more) she decided she wanted a rainbow party so I've been madly pinning rainbow everything on Pinterest and had some pretty ideas to copy. Following our rules of 'as many guests as the age you're turning' she invited 7 little girls to come dressed in their favourite colours of the rainbow and we had ourselves a colourful, food additive laden afternoon. Here are some of the pics...

The birthday girl with her guests

Little Miss 7!

Rainbow cupcakes

 



The rainbow balloon backdrop

Marshmallow rainbow bites

(aka marshmallows with a dot melted chocolate and a smartie on top,

all laid out in the colours of the rainbow) 

Rainbow Fruit Plate

(aka strawbs, orange, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries)

Getting ready to blow out the candles on her rainbow cake

Inside the rainbow cake!

She had a wonderful time and grinned her way through the afternoon. She (and her big brother) are currently coming off a sugar/colour high and I think we're in a for an interesting evening. But that's all part of the fun of a birthday party.

Sort of Easter, Sort of Healthy

Oh alright, I can justify that the inclusion of banana in this delish cake makes it somewhat healthy until the cows come home but we all know that it's not even remotely true. It is totally delicious though - to prove that I have to tell you that this is the third time I've made this recipe and the first time I've managed to get a photo!

We've been putting together a school cookbook as a fundraising project and one of my neighbours offered up this recipe as one of her contributions. In the interests of editing and quality control I obviously had to try it and it has become a firm favourite with the whole household. And now that bananas are cheap again in these parts I usually have at least a couple of old ones turning nicely mushy and black in the back of the fridge. I've made this as a square cake dusted with icing sugar and as cupcakes with some chocolate icing. Both are great, yummy with an evening cuppa or nice as a treat in the lunch boxes. And the fact that this is a dead easy recipe to make just adds to the fabulousness.

Choc Chip Banana Cake

3 bananas, mashed

2 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1 teaspoon bi carbonate of soda

2 tablespoons milk

1/2 cup choc chips

Preheat oven to 180C.

Line a square cake pan with baking paper.

Cream butter and sugar, add egg and mix well.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together.

Pour into cake pan and bake for 40 minutes.

Leave to cook for 5 minutes and turn onto wire rack to cook completely.

Or... spoon into cup cake pans and cook for 20 minutes.

Almost 40!

It's my birthday later in the week and, as most of you know, it's a big one. The big Four-Oh! And in order to celebrate in a way that we'd be sure to remember for years it was decided that I'd have an 80's themed Formal do. Hubby went a little bit crazy on a Chinese website buying all manner of party extras - strobe lights, laser lights, mirror tile stickers and then set to work making the back deck into party central.

People. It was AWESOME!! I haven't laughed so much, danced so much or had so much fun in years.  And since just about every single photo of me has me holding a glass of bubbly I think it's fair to say there may have been champagne involved!

I had my hair done in the afternoon so that it was suitably 80's in style - big curls and all swept upon one side - and slathered on the blue eyeshadow and blue eyeliner.

Hubby made the most spectacular decorations.

My girlfriends frocked up appropriately.

And the boys did their part too. (I made Hubby shave off his beard so he could rock the Magnum mo. I have a thing for Magnum. Hubby's darn lucky I didn't make him wear high waisted tight shorts to go with his Hawaiian shirt and Magnum mo!)

And we took to the dance floor with the seven hour playlist of 80's music, admired ourselves in the mirrored wall, exclaimed over the lights and laughed ourselves silly when we couldn't see each other when someone got a  bit over-enthusiastic with the smoke machine.

A friend of a friend make the special request birthday cake that was a work of art in itself. I was thrilled with it. And it tasted great too.

I had such a fantastic time that I suggested to Hubby we should do it all over again soon. Like maybe for New Year's Eve. He rolled his eyes, shook his head and walked away laughing. I'm gonna take that as a 'yes'!

A Princess Party

Offspring #2 officially celebrates her birthday next week but, like all true royalty, she has her subjects celebrate on another day. In this case, she had her birthday party this afternoon. She'd decided on a princess theme so we hosted a Princess Afternoon Tea Party and had a few of her little friends around to help celebrate and the girls all dressed up in their princess finery. Here's our little Princess ready for her party.

We dressed the table appropriately.

And baked up a storm with fairy cakes and lollies, party pies and sausage rolls, and of course our favourite honey joys. This year we had a honey joy tower. Yum.

The birthday princess had a throne at the head of the table.

And she held court for the visiting princesses.

We drank special fruit flavoured tea (ie, juice) poured from the Queen's beautiful teapots. And each princess had their own special teacup, along with a party bag, to take home as a little memento of the day.

The Crown Prince, aka Big Brother, aka Offspring #1, entertained the princesses. He delighted them with games such as pass-the-parcel and musical statues. He helped to organise the princesses and was an all round wonderful helper and was mightily praised by the Queen and King as well as the visiting princesses parents.

And the afternoon was rounded off with a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday and the ceremonial cutting and eating of the birthday cake.

It was an afternoon of much merriment and was enjoyed verily. And as all the tired little princesses waved goodbye, our own princess was heard to remark that it was the best birthday party of her whole life. And the Queen rejoiced for her hard work, baking and cleaning was all worth it to see the shining smile on the face of her favourite princess.

Dessert, In A Hurry

Finally my energy has returned. I had a hectic day at work, raced out the door just after 2pm, pulled into my driveway at 3.02pm, raced inside and changed clothes then trotted off around the corner to collect the kids from the school bus for 3.15. I'd already done my 4km walk this morning but figured that another 2km's or so would definitely help shift the last few kilo's I'm trying to get rid. The bus is a new development for us - I'm the anxious one who worried needlessly while they loved the bus ride and grinned like lunatics as soon as they saw me waiting at the bus stop.

We wandered back home where I got on with the house cleaning and the kids got on with some play-dough. I managed a couple of loads of washing, cleaned the house and got dinner on and they, amazingly, kept their fighting to a minimum. Wins all round. We were most of the way through dinner when the question came up. Is there any dessert? Despite all the sweet stuff you see on this blog we don't actually have dessert all that often. And they knew the Daddy of the house had finished the last of the ice-cream in a late night freezer raid earlier in the week. Hmmm... what could I do for dessert. An idea slipped into my head and, with a wee bit of help from Google, dessert was created. This is a recipe that did the rounds a couple of years ago but I never quite got around to trying it. There are literally hundreds of different versions and the one I followed was good but I've made a few changes to the recipe that will make it fabulous. Offspring #1 scored my efforts a 9/10 so I think that means he liked it! The recipe is for one cake - I made two and we shared them between the four of us. In my opinion one serving of this recipe is waaaaay too big for one person. I had some cream in the fridge so had some with this but ice-cream would definitely be the way to go.

3 Minute Chocolate Cake In A Mug

You'll need:

1 large coffee mug

In the mug place 4 tablespoons plain flour, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon cocoa, 1 tablespoon chocolate chips and mix them together.

Crack 1 egg into the dry mix and stir well

Add 3 tablespoons milk, 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, dash of vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly, making sure all ingredients are combined.

Microwave on high for 3 minutes.

Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

Busy Day

I think I'll be glad to go  back to work tomorrow for a rest! It was my day off and , although I didn't venture past my front gate, I haven't stopped all day. Actually I did go past the gate. I did my walk first thing this morning (well first thing after I had a nice little sleep in.  Still loving the school hol's!). I've cooked and cleaned, gardened and washed and an nicely worn out after all my efforts.

I saw this Easy Pear Tea Cake over at Not Quite Nigella yesterday and knew I'd have to make it. It tastes as fabulous as it looks and I can't recommend it highly enough. It was super easy to make, looks very impressive and tastes delicious. You totally need to make this.

I'm most pleased that I finally got around to doing a bit of weeding and tidying up in the yard. With the cooler temps and the little bits of rain we've had the weeds have sprung up and had pretty much taken over the tiered flower bed at the front of the house. I got in there today and ripped out weeds leaving the plants looking much nicer and me feeling much happier with how it looked.

I also got in with my secateurs and attacked the roses. They've had a good pruning and I'm looking forward to lots of lovely blooms.

And now, despite it being barely 9pm, I'm heading for the shower and then bed. I'm plum tuckered out!

Banana Bread. With A Twist.

No massive intro here, just an instruction: Make This Now!

This banana and raspberry bread is out-of-this-world delicious. I've made it a few times and it gets gobbled down so quickly that I've not yet managed to have any left for lunches the next day. Although that's not all bad. It tastes good when it's cool but it's fantastic when it's warm. We've  enjoyed it for morning and afternoon tea and I think it would go down a treat for breakfast (or brunch) if you were up and functioning early enough to throw it together.

I know bananas here in Australia are hideously expensive at the moment but, if you have any lurking at the back of the fridge and you're cursing the kids for wasting them, curse no more. Or if not, put this recipe to the side and come back as soon as the banana prices go down!

Banana and Raspberry Bread

from Thrifty Kitchen by Suzanne Gibbs and Kate Gibbs

2 egg whites, lightly beaten

2 large ripe bananas, mashed

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups plain flour'

1\ 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 1/4 cups frozen raspberries

butter, to serve

1. Preheat oven to 160C and butter a 21cm x 14cm loaf tin. Line the base and long sides with baking paper.

2. Combine the egg whites, mashed banana, sugar and oil in a bowl. Sift in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda, and fold together until just combined. Fold through the raspberries, then spoon the mixture into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 1 1/4 hours, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes or so before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Slice, toast and serve with butter.

Happy Birthday To The Hubster!

Hubby finally joins me in the 'old-age' stakes and hits the grand age of 39 today! We're in the final year of our thirties. Eeeek!! We had a low-key family bbq lunch with both sets of parents (and a fly-by-night cousin who was in town for the weekend!) yesterday and will be having a special birthday dinner with just the four of us tonight.

I feel bad that he's not actually getting a birthday present. We decided that Betsy the puppy would count as his pressie and then I spent last week wallowing in the depths of a cold from hell and didn't get out to find him any little extras. I did rip the add for the new Harry Potter DVD out of one of the junk mail mags yesterday and gave that to him this morning - it's not on sale 'til Friday so he has to wait. I couldn't even tie a pretty bow around Betsy's neck - she kept trying to grab it and run away - so I gave up and tucked some ribbon in her collar, handed her to hubby and told him that was the best I could do. Very bad wifeliness I'm thinking.

But... I have spent today (along with caring for two sick kids home from school, taking Spike to the vet for his needles, chasing after a puppy who is adorably gorgeous except when she's weeing all over my house, doing two loads of washing, finishing the week's ironing and, now apparently losing my voice despite feeling that I might actually finally be getting better!) preparing a delish special dinner in honour of the birthday boy. I've got slow-cooked lamb shanks on the go and a very yummy chocolate cake cooling for birthday cake/dessert.

So, Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband. I love you more than all the leaves on all the trees in the whole world. And that's a lot! xx

Edited to add:
Here's our seriously fab lamb shanks with cauliflower mash dinner -

And Hubby's birthday cake. The recipe is here and it is totally worth making. Delish!!

Sunday Baking

I stumbled across a delicious looking chocolate cake over at Trish's place yesterday. She's revamped her blog, Eat Shoot Blog,  and it's all rather fab so do yourself a favour and go have a little look see. You'll find the recipe for the cake here.



This household very much enjoyed the before and after versions of the cake mix and, having just polished off a piece for afternoon tea, (okay, very early afternoon tea!) I feel that I'm in a position of authority to say GO. MAKE THIS CAKE NOW! Yum.

Just a note, mine took a bit longer than the suggested 40 minute cooking time, closer to 55 minutes really.

Cheesecake With A Twist

I'll freely admit that while this recipe had me excited it also had me a little perplexed. How on earth do you make a cheesecake without gelatine, or some sort of setting agent? Without a crust? And as for serving it warm? Well, that's just plain weird. But... this is easily one of the best desserts I've made. I took it to our Christmas in July dinner and it was absolutely delicious, perfect for a wet, cold winter's night and totally simple to put together.

Sticky Date Cheesecake

from The Australian Women's Weekly Cheesecakes Pavlovas and Trifles

This cheesecake can be served warm or at room temperature

1 cup (170g) dried dates, pitted, chopped

3/4 cup (180ml) water

3 x 250g packets cream cheese, softened

2 eggs, beaten lightly

2/3 cup (150g) firmly packed brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon mixed spice

1/2 cup (40g) flaked almonds

1 teaspoon cinnamon sugar

2/3 cup (150g) firmly packed brown sugar, extra

1/2 cup (125ml) cream

100g butter, chopped

Grease a 23cm springform tin; line base and side with baking paper

Combine dated and water in medium saucepan; simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes. Strain dates over medium saucepan; reserve liquid, cool dates.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to moderately slow (160C). Beat cheese in large bowl with electric mixer until smooth; add egg, sugar and spices; beat until combined, fold in dates.

Place tin on oven tray, pour cheesecake mixture into tin. Sprinkle with almonds and cinnamon sugar. Bake in moderately slow oven about 1 hour, or until firm. Cool in oven with door ajar.

Stir remaining ingredients to reserved date liquid in pan, stir over heat until butter is melted; simmer, uncovered , 2 minutes.

Serve cheesecake with warm sauce.

Fun In The Kitchen

Offspring #2 had a friend to play today and, as it's school holidays I thought we'd do something a bit special and fun. I'd promised her that when this particular friend came to play we could do some cooking and when I came across these gorgeous little cupcakes I knew we had to make them.

These were so easy but looked fantastic. I cheated and used a cake mix for the cupcake part - chocolate, of course. Then it was a simple matter of topping them with some green icing, rolling the edge in a little tinted coconut, popping in a lollypop 'flower' and using a halved spearmint leaf lolly as the leaves.

The girls had so much fun decorating them and were, justifiably, well pleased with their efforts.

Swirl

The recipe for this delicious, though not without it's moments, cake has been torn from one of the recent foodie mags but I neglected to note which one on the page itself, so no credit given here. Sorry.

While I was making this I was pretty much convinced that it would be a disaster. The cake batter seemed to be too thick. The recipe stated that I should 'pour' half of it in the tin but this was just not of pouring consistency - more like scoop it out and shake it into the cake pan. Then I was supposed to swirl the jam through - really hard to do with a batter so thick it moves with the knife rather than letting the jam be dragged through it. But.... But! The end result was completely worth all the agonies I suffered - this is moist, delicious and wonderfully more-ish.

My whole family have fallen in love with 'the pink cake' - as you can see from the photo I overdid the icing just a wee bit LOL. I would suggest that you use a runny-ish sour cream, mine was very thick and I think that might have led to the difficulties I found with the cake batter. Otherwise, just persevere and trust that it'll all end up okay. Because it will, I promise.

Strawberry Swirl Cake

Melted butter, to grease (or canola spray, like I used)

150g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs

2 cups self-raising flour

300g carton sour cream

1/2 cup strawberry jam (raspberry jam worked great)

2 cups icing sugar mixture

15g butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons hot water

2-3 drops pink food colouring

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Lightly brush a 2.5L (10 cup) capacity bundt tin with melted butter.

2. Use an electric beater to beat the butter, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Use a large metal spoon to fold in the flour and sour cream, in alternating batches until well combined.

3. Pour half the mixture into the prepared pan. Spoon over the jam. Use a skewer to make a swirl pattern. Top with the remaining cake mixture.

4. Bake for 45 minutes (mine took another 10 or so minutes) or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Sift the icing sugar into a medium bowl. Add the butter and water, and stir until smooth. Stir in the food colouring. Spoon icing over cake. Set aside until set.

Husband Trickery

Hubby is not a fan of baked cheesecakes. He thinks they are dry and crumbly and generally not very nice. He's quite vocal in his dislike of them refusing to order a baked cheesecake off a dessert menu and generally making rude comments if I so much as suggest making one. Luckily for all of us I quite often pay no attention at all to his moaning and whinging and go on my merry way making whatever takes my fancy. And so I present for the you the creamiest, smoothest, yummiest baked cheesecake I have ever tasted. It was easy to make, looked spectacular and impressed all who tasted it. Even Hubby. It impressed him so much he wants me to make another one really really soon.

Baked Cheesecake with Passionfruit Topping

from Good Taste magazine, June 2009

1 x 250g pkt plain sweet biscuits (I used Arnott's Nice biscuits)

125g unsalted butter, melted

2 x 250g pkts cream cheese, at room temperature

155g (3/4 cup) caster sugar

2 tsp finely grated lemon rind

2 Tbs fresh lemon juice

2 Tbs plain flour

5 eggs

125ml (1/2 cup) pouring cream

1 Tbs cornflour

80ml (1/3 cup) water

1 x 170g can passionfruit pulp

55g (14 cup) caster sugar, extra

1. Release the base from a 20cm (base measurement) springform pan and invert. Line with non-stick baking paper, allowing sides to overhang. Secure the base back into the pan.

2. Place biscuits in the bowl of a food processor. Process until finely crushed. Add butter. Process until well combined. Transfer to pan. Use the back of a spoon to spread and press firmly over the base ands side of pan. Cover with plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.

3. Preheat oven to 160C. Use an electric beater to beat cream cheese, sugar and lemon rind in a large bowl until smooth. Add the lemon juice and flour. Beat until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the c ream and beat until well combined.

4. Pour the cream cheese mixture into the biscuit base. Place on a baking tray. Bake in oven for 1 hour 10 minutes or until the cheesecake is just set in the centre*. Turn the oven off. Leave the cheesecake in the oven, with the door slightly ajar, for two hours or until cooled completely (this prevents the cake from cracking). Place in fridge overnight to set.

5. Combine the cornflour and water n a small bowl. Transfer to a saucepan. Add the passionfruit and extra sugar. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture boils and thickens. Set aside to cool slightly. Pour over cheesecake. Place in fridge until set.

*Don't worry if the cheesecake is slightly wobbly in the centre when you turn off the oven - it becomes firmer as it cools.