Cupcake Cuties

Have you heard of Pinterest? It is an awesome site full of cool pics. You can create your own virtual "pinboards" with pictures you find on the net. It is a great place to go for inspiration, but also just as a "happy place". I love it. Today I thought I might share a few cute cupcake pics I found on there.

This one makes me want to get out in the garden and start digging!

Source: img580.imageshack.us via Orara on Pinterest

Talk about elegance plus!

Source: flickr.com via Orara on Pinterest

These definately bring out the inner child!

Source: etsy.com via Orara on Pinterest

Now THAT'S what you call an apple for the teacher!

Source: google.com via Orara on Pinterest

I WANT!! I WANT!!! I WANT!!!!

Source: 2.bp.blogspot.com via Orara on Pinterest

Kiss me honey!

Source: williams-sonoma.com via Orara on Pinterest

What cool cupcake finds have you stumbled across lately?

Left Over Cake

What to do with left over cake?  There are a million and one different things that you can do, but this one would have to be one of my family’s favourites.  I often have trimmings left over from my sculpted cakes, and after events like the Annual Nana Glen Market Day, I usually have a heap of left over cupcakes (over catering is in my blood!)  Sometimes I freeze them for the girls’ school snack or afternoon tea, other times I make cake balls, but now that the weather is cooling down, cake pudding is well and truly back on the menu!  It is super easy, super yummy, and microwaves up a treat for breakfast if I  really feel like spoiling the kids!

First of all, preheat your oven to 180oC, then grease a deep baking dish.  Next break up all your left over cake into chunks.  If it is plain cake, I like to throw in chocolate chips or jam dollops to really make it delicious!

Now all you need to do is make a quick baked custard mix.  I do this by whisking together 4-5 eggs, 3 tablespoons of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch of salt.  Once they are mixed in really well and the sugar is almost dissolved, add 900ml milk.  Mix it in thoroughly then pour it over the cake.

Finally, take a larger baking dish and put a tea towel or cloth in the bottom, place the dish with the cake inside, then pour boiling water into the larger dish until it comes halfway up the sides of the smaller dish to make a water bath.  Place them in the oven and bake for 45 minutes to one hour, or until the custard has set.

 

All that’s left to do now is serve it up and tuck in!  It is especially yummy with whipped cream or ice cream!  The bits on top that are poking out of the custard go all crispy and crunchy while the rest of it is a beautiful pudding consistency.

 

Super quick, super easy, and super yum!

PS Sorry the photos aren’t very good, but it was late on a school night and I was rushing!

What is your favourite way to use up left over cake?

Harmony Day 2011

Having spent 9 years of my childhood living overseas in various countries, multiculturalism is a subject very close to my heart.  I was fortunate to grow up with friends from all over the world, many of whom I still keep in touch with today.  At the International Schools that I attended, United Nations Day was one of the biggest and most anticipated celebrations of the year.  We all wore national costume (there were almost 70 nationalities at the schools) and the parents set up stands with traditional foods from their own countries for all us kids to try.  (Funny how few people actually enjoyed our vegemite sandwiches though!)  Now that I have 2 young children of my own, I work hard to instil empathy and appreciation of other cultures in them.  I really think that understanding other cultures helps to prevent cultural disharmony, and I think that food is one of the best vehicles to cross the divide.

Two years ago when my youngest daughter was at the Nana Glen Preschool, I was introduced to Harmony Day when they put on a special lunch.  The Mum’s were asked to bring in a plate of food from their own heritage.  Not having grown up on traditional Aussie tucker, I decided to take in mini cupcakes each with a different coloured person on top, in keeping with the Harmony Day posters.  Being cake, and brightly coloured, they were a big hit with the kids.

This year, I was lucky enough to be able to provide the Coffs Harbour Library with mini cupcakes for their Harmony Day Family Morning Tea and Story Time.  Also, a very dear friend of mine who works at Southern Cross University invited me to be involved with their celebrations.  Another big fan of cupcakes (let’s face it…who isn’t!) she thought that cupcake decorating would be a great way to bring people together.  So, I baked 100 chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, made a mountain of icing and we went and bought a stack of lollies and sprinkles.  We set up a couple of big tables and let the students go for it.  It was fantastic!  They all had a ball.  It was such a hit in fact, that we made the local news with NBN reporter Clare Deligny even decorating a cupcake for the camera!  Check out the video here!

I took lots of photos of all the marvelous cupcake creations and their artists, so if you were there on the day, have a look here for your photo and feel free to send a link to all of your friends!  Also send me your name and I’ll tag you in the photo.

Happy Harmony Day everyone!

SCU Harmony Day Cupcakes VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Yes, I love cake!

Okay, I admit it, I love cake.  I’m not a big cake eater, but I am still a cake lover.  They are such beautiful things to look at and I love to dream about all the different flavour combinations out there.  They are lots of fun to make and can be decorated in a gazillion ways.  I’m guessing I’m not alone in my passion, whether you love cake to eat, to look at, or to bake, use cake lovers come in all types!

Look what I found by Easy Cake Ideas!  The perfect way to declare your love to the world!  You can choose from t-shirts, bags and aprons and they have heaps of cool sayings too, like “A Life Without Cake is No Life At All”, “Save The Earth, It’s The Only Planet With Cake”, “Love, A Temporary Insanity Cured With Love”, “Is Life Worth Living?  It All Depends on The Cake” and “Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Cake”.  Or, you can keep it plain and simple with

 

Which one is your favourite?

The Importance of Sharing a Meal

I come from a family who sits down and shares a meal together every night.  No TV, no balancing plates on your lap, and no shovelling grub in to your face.  We all sit around the table together and no one starts until everyone is seated.  We don’t say Grace, but we do always thank the cook for their hard work.  As we eat, we chat together and discuss our day.  We talk about school and work and what we want to do on the weekend.  If there is something the family needs to talk about, it is a comfortable environment to bring it up in.  Fears can be resolved and accomplishments celebrated.  At the end of the meal, no one leaves the table until everyone has finished eating.

This is a tradition that I was brought up with, thinking that was how everyone ate.  I’ve since found out it isn’t so.  I have however tried to instil its importance in my own children.  As my husband is a shift worker, we see it as a treat when he can sit down and join us for a meal.  It turns out that this special family time shared over a meal is actually of significant cultural importance!

Last year, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) recognised the cultural significance of the French Gastronomic Meal.  It has been designated as a cultural icon alongside flamenco and acupuncture as significant components of a culture to be protected.  Incorporating 5 or so courses of food, carefully matched to wine, it is about so much more than just the meal on the table.  It recognises the importance of loved ones and family preparing and sharing a meal together, and the role of food in celebrating major milestones in life such as weddings, baptisms, birthdays and the like.

The French do not lay sole claim to this prestigious cultural honour, the Mexican Michoacan cuisine and the Mediterranean diet have also been recognised and protected for future generations.

Where does the importance of food fit in your family’s traditions?  Do you only eat certain foods at particular celebrations?  Do you have rituals around the food you eat?  Or, do you think it’s a whole lot of nonsense over something you do just to sustain yourself?

Our Smallest Egg Ever!

For those of you who know us, you might remember our HUUUUUGE chicken egg laid by one of our Ancona hens just over a year ago (December 2009).  For everyone else, here is a photo of the whopper…

It was something ridiculous like 8cm long!  Now, for the other end of the scale.  Just when we thought we had seen just about everything, Matthew returned from the hen house the other day (no, not the dog house…this time…) with this little cutie in tow.

 

Yep, that’s 3cm folks!  A mere 1.18 inch!  Here it is sitting in his wedding ring and with some other “normal” chicken eggs:

 

And for comparison’s sake, here it is in my hand, side by side with the whopper!

 

I’d love to hear about your most unusual “garden produce”…

Making Sausages

Okay, so this week’s write up is not cake related, but is still all about food.  Last Tuesday Matthew and I were invited to Evan and Shelley’s property out at Copmanhurst on the other side of Grafton.  The boys work together and we are all super passionate about food.  Like us, they are trying to get their own veggies growing and fruit trees in.  As they have 100 acres, they are also raising animals for meat which brings us to today’s post.  Evan kept the hind half of his first pig for making sausages.

So, once the kids were on the school bus, we piled into the car with a mountain of salt, a variety of spices, my Kenwood mixer (with mincer and sausage extruder attachments) and loads of enthusiasm.  As we turned into their property we were amazed at the recent storm damage which had carved massive holes into the road and parts of it had caved in.  Lucky we took the Pajero!







On arrival, we were welcomed in.  First we had to unload the Muscovy ducks and Naked Neck chickens we had brought for their flock.  Once inside though, the hospitality was really turned on.  Evan supplied us with glass after glass of thick, luscious coffee with an amazing dense crema on top.   We had been hearing all about his coffee machine for months, so it was quite a treat to finally get to sample it’s coffee!  It was certainly everything he said it would be!







After a little trepidation, and standing around looking at each other wondering how we were going to go about it all as none of us have ever made sausages before, we finally dove in.







The boys took charge of carving the meat off the bones and us girls chopped it into pieces small enough to put through the mincers.







Matthew was the first to cut himself – slicing his finger right through to the bone.  We picked on him a bit for doing anything to get out of the work, but figured he could sit and watch once we realised it wasn’t going to stop bleeding!  I was next as I nicked a chunk out of my knuckle.  Luckily with a really tightly applied bandaid, I was able to soldier on.  To Evan’s credit, the knives were incredibly sharp – I didn’t even feel it when I cut myself!

Once the meat had all been diced, we cleaned up and Shelley served up a gorgeous lunch of pickings.  We had grilled Chorizo and another spicy sausage, cheese, and fresh fruit, all washed down with an icy cold beer!   Just as Matthew and I looked at each other and thought if they keep looking after us this well, we’ll never leave, it was back to work.









We set out two mixers up side by side on the stainless steel trolley.  I have a Kenwood Chef and Shelley has a Kitchenaid.  I was really looking forward to seeing the Kitchenaid in action as I have heard so many rave reviews about them – and lets face it, they come in so many pretty colours and are lovely to look at!  The first thing I noticed was that all of the Kitchenaid attachments (including the mincer) were plastic as opposed to the Kenwood’s alloy fittings.  The Kenwood also had 3 different sized mincing discs to the Kitchenaid’s two.  While they both did a great job of mincing, it was much more fiddly with the Kitchenaid as the feeder tray was just too small to be practical.  You pretty much had to feed the meat straight into the tube of the mincer.  With my Kenwood, you were able to pile up a heap of meat on the feeder tray which made life much easier when operating it on your own.







Once the meat had all been through the coarse grind, we added our seasonings to the first batch to make a coarse grained Fennel & Chilli salami.  We had put aside some diced fat which we then folded through at this stage also.







Next job was the casings.  Shelley had bought a big pack of natural pig casings from their local butcher which were already prepped.  All we had to do was soak them in water and lemon juice and change the water a few times to get rid of the excess salt from the brine they were preserved in.







Once they had been soaked sufficiently, we threaded them on to the extruders on the mixers.  I must say, Matthew was quite adept at this particular manoeuver!  Must have been all those years in the Navy! lol!  Yes, there were lots of giggles and snide remarks flying around the room as we stood back and watched!







When we turned them on and started stuffing the casings, we really saw the difference in the two mixers.  The Kenwood was pushing out the meat at a very steady rate (which can be adjusted with the speed dial), while maintaining the textural integrity of the meat.  The Kitchenaid however was emulsifying the meat at turning it into a smooth paste, so we abandoned use of the Kitchenaid and only used the Kenwood for stuffing the casings.

We were all amazed at how easy this part of the operation was.  We all thought that stuffing them would be the most difficult part, but it was really quite straight forward.  And, I have to say, I was quite impressed with my sausage twisting and bundling capabilities – must be in the blood (my grandfather was a butcher).







As these first sausages were a salami style and had to be air dried, we tied them off with natural fibre string between each sausage where they were twisted, and pierced any air bubbles that we could see.







The final stage is to hang them up to dry for 6 to 12 weeks.







The next batch we made were a spicy Italian sausage (to be eaten fresh) and our version of a Chorizo.  The Chorizo is supposed to have a high salt content for drying and preservation, and the addition of a bacterial culture to ferment the meat, however being our first attempt at sausages, we didn’t want to hang them all to dry in case they didn’t work out, so we reduced the amount of salt and omitted the culture all together.

By the end of the exercise, we had about 75 sausages for each family, and oh my, don’t they taste awesome!  I was amazed at how easy it all was, and really can’t see myself buying sausages from the shops again knowing how good they are when you make them yourself.  We were also discussing the idea of making up the spiced mince and then making it into hamburger patties if you couldn’t be bothered stuffing them.



Last but certainly not least, I brought home half of the bones and made THE most delicious bolognaise sauce ever!







All in all, a wonderful adventure!  I really hope we get invited back for their next pig!