Cindy's Snowflakes: Mid North Coast

Showing posts with label Mid North Coast. Show all posts

Saturday, 10 March 2012

We're Up For Sale!

We finally bit the bullet and put our gorgeous home up for sale. It will be sad to say goodbye as it is certainly the most beautiful home we have ever lived in, but it is just too far for DH to travel to work (120km) with the price of petrol going up so much.

Here is a little glimpse...

I'll start with my favourite room in the house - the kitchen! It is only about 18 months old as we put it in when I started Orara Valley Cakes. Compliments of my crappy shoulder, I've had to give up my dreams of a super yummy cake business, but now the kitchen is there for someone else to make their own. I love, love, love the induction cook top. I am DEFINATELY putting one in my next house! For someone who absolutely swore by gas, I never thought I'd like an electric stove, but they are truly amazing. No more double boilers, yep, I can melt chocolate straight in the pan, and water comes to the boil faster than in the kettle!

The big work bench is awesome, and having the tempered glass panel on the benchtop is great. I can cut straight on it, roll out dough and use a dough scraper, use metal cookie cutters and not have to worry about making any scratches or chips in the bench surface. Pretty important if you had of seen the mess I made to my last counter top! It also doesn't stain if you spill food colouring!

Down the other end of the kitchen I have my double fridge space - big enough for 2 full size fridges, 2 full size wall ovens so I can be cooking 2 things at different temperatures at the same time, more bench space and storage, and best of all, 2 pantries!

I am REALLY going to miss my big walk-in pantry!

The glass splashbacks, I have decided are an absolute must too! No more grout getting gungy, and it is so easy to keep clean. Everything just wipes off without staining - even bolognaise sauce! I chose the red because DH has planted waratahs all along the front of the house, so when they are in flower, the red colour carries through from the kitchen out the window and into the garden.

Tune in tomorrow to check out the swimming pool and the living areas....

Monday, 26 September 2011

Super Moist Chocolate Cake

This particular cake is also known as Devil's Food - I'm guessing because it is so wickedly delicious!!!

Super Moist Chocolate Cake

Recipe Type: Cake

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: 24

Ingredients

2 cups Sugar

1 teaspoon instant coffee

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup Cocoa

2 cups Gluten Free Plain Flour

1 teaspoon Gluten Free Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda

250ml Hot Water

250ml Milk

250ml Oil

2 Free Range Eggs

5ml Vanilla Extract

Instructions

Place sugar, salt and coffee in a mixing bowl. Add sifted cocoa, flour, baking powder and bicarb. Add water, milk and oil. Mix on slow to wet the ingredients, then increase speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes.

Add eggs and vanilla, mix on medium for a further 2 minutes

Place into cupcake cups and bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Cool on a rack. Enjoy!

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

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?

Monday, 28 February 2011

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?

Recipe–Grape Pate de Fruit

Last year we planted a vine to run along our front verandah. The idea was that it would shade the kitchen windows in summer with its foliage, and let the winter sun through to warm us up when the leaves dropped. As we like to have multi tasking plants where possible, we decided to put in an edible grape. We opted for a green one so that we wouldn’t have to worry about the wooden decking getting stained from falling fruit.

This summer we have enjoyed our first crop. The vine has grown like crazy and does a fantastic job of keeping the direct sun out of the front of the house, not to mention that the greenery right outside the large windows looks lovely from inside the house, and softens the look of the building from the street too. The vine was so heavy with fruit that we had to cut off many of the immature bunches which the chooks were more than happy to gobble up! Unfortunately, although they tasted beautiful, the texture was a bit spongey. Having never grown grapes before, we weren’t sure if it was something we had done wrong or not, but put it down to the crazy weather we have had this summer. Our days have been fluctuating back and forth between 42^oC with 80% humidity, to 20^oC only 2 days later! It’s put some of the chickens off the lay and is definately taking its toll on the kids’ tempers too!

As a result, we had a couple of kilos of fruit that tasted great but weren’t any good to eat, so what to do? Once again, Google to the rescue! I found a few references to Canelle et Vanille, one of my favourite food blogs. I figured they would definately know what they were doing, so I converted their recipe for Strawberry Pate de Fruit to Grape Pate de Fruit.

It was a weekend, so I had my two trusty helpers home to lend a hand, so we pureed the fruit, boiled it up with the sugar and pectin then let it sit. Luckily it didn’t take any where near as long to set as I thought it would (but much longer than Madeleine wanted!). It turned out of the silicon pan beautifully and we coated it with just normal white sugar. Next time though I think I’ll use caster sugar as it is just that little bit finer. They tasted beautiful, you could really taste the grape in them and the texture was lovely, not at all rubbery. You can find a printer friendly version of the recipe here. The girls and I can’t wait to make them again and were thinking raspberries will definately be worth trying. Have you made these before? What flavours do you think would work well?

Monday, 14 February 2011

Raspberry Mousse

This Raspberry Mousse is absolutely divine! It is sweet, yet tart and the most gorgeous colour! The Raspberries can be replaced with juice or puree of any fruit you like. I have also made it with both lemons and limes, both of which were just luscious! Anyway, without further ado, here is this week’s recipe.

Ingredients:

Part 1: Italian Meringue

¼ Cup Sugar

½ teaspoon Glucose

20ml water

1 Egg White

Part 2: Raspberry Mousse

550g Raspberries (fresh or frozen)

1 ½ teaspoons Gelatine

10ml Raspberry Liqueur

200ml Cream

Procedure:

Part 1: Italian Meringue

Combine sugar, glucose and water in a small pan.
Heat gently, stirring until sugar dissolves.
Bring to the boil and stop stirring.
Continue to boil until liquid reaches 16oC.
Remove from heat and allow bubbles to subside.
Meanwhile, beat the egg white to stiff peak.
Slowly add hot sugar syrup to egg white while beating on low.
Continue beating until the bowl has reached room temperature (approx 5 minutes)

Part 2: Raspberry Mousse

Bloom gelatine in 1 teaspoon of water.
Heat raspberries until they liquefy.
Pass raspberries through a sieve to remove the seeds.
Return raspberries to pan with liqueur and heat to just below boiling.
Add gelatine and mix thoroughly.
Cool.

Fold raspberry mixture into Italian Meringue.
In a separate bowl, beat cream to soft peaks.
Fold raspberry mixture into cream.
Chill.

Monday, 31 January 2011

Cool Gadgets–Measuring Spoons

Okay, I know what you are thinking, what’s so cool about measuring spoons? They’re just spoons right? Not any more! Measuring spoons have entered a whole new dimension! They’re not just the white Tupperware spoons thrown to the back of the draw any more, they have become a fashion statement in their own right!

Now like shoes and handbags, a girl can never have too many sets of measuring spoons. I only have 2, but I need more. You need 2 because how often are you measuring out one ingredient and it sticks to the inside of the spoon (yeast and turmeric ALWAYS do it), so it has to be washed before you can measure out the next ingredient. Only problem is, you can’t dip the now clean but wet spoon into the next food, so you dry it with a tea towel which brings in static, making the next ingredient cling too! And so on, and so forth! I have a metal set and a plastic set. I find that things tend to stick less to the metal spoons, but I don’t like using metal for acidic ingredients. Plus my plastic ones are a really pretty pink.

The fact that I like my pretty pink measuring spoons, brings me to the next subject – how cool have measuring spoons become? Uber cool I tell you! So cool, they are even being made out of sterling silver to hang around your neck!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/62713152/sale-the-original-baker-charm-necklace?ref=sr_list_10&ga_search_query=kitchen%2Bjewelry&ga_search_type=handmade