Cindy's Snowflakes: Orara Valley

Showing posts with label Orara Valley. Show all posts

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

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?

Monday, 28 March 2011

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

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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