Ain't no Party like a Star Wars party (Episode II)

 So you've done a rather successful Star Wars party for your younger son. You've taken both boys to see the new Star Wars movie and they both loved it. Son 1's birthday is coming up. What theme do you think he was requesting??

 Yep, the Return of the Star Wars party. This time, for 10 year olds.

 As the kids get older, I have been aware of things that Were Cool only a year ago, suddenly become Not Cool, or "for babies, mum!!". Luckily Son 1 was at home for Son 2's party, so I could ask "what did you want at your party?" without seeming like a clueless mum. I was already ahead of the curve, as at his party last year, we switched the format to an afternoon-early evening party time, and gotten take-away pizza as the hot food meal (MUCH cooler than party pies and chicken nuggets). So that was sorted and meant less foods to organise.
 Also, amidst all the cool Christmas presents, we got a "Stormtrooper Cookie Kit" - packet mix cookie dough, white and black icing and a cookie cutter. Son 1 was very excited to be making these; I just had to get over my prejudice against Packet Mix (*sniff!* Mine made from scratch would taste Sooooo much better).

 In their defence, the "just add water" instructions were pretty easy to follow. It was easy to roll out and cook (though only made 10 cookies).

Birthday Boy lending a Helping Hand

 But I did run into some issues with icing them. Rather than use the "icing sugar" mix they had supplied, I used some royal icing I had left over from decorating gingerbread men at Christmas. Because that's what it had been used for, it was a bit thicker than you would usually use to ice a large area. I started with Ro's technique of outlining the cookie shape, then filling in and mixing the icing with a toothpick to get a smooth finish, but that ended up with more icing being pulled OFF the biscuits rather than on. In the end I went with the good ol' knife/spatula option. Worked a treat.

 I did use the black icing gel supplied in the box as it meant I didn't have to try and source or color black icing. *  It worked well; the nozzle was quite small so gave a lot of control. I did try and be clever and make First Order trooper helmets as well, but they didn't look as good in my opinion). The lesson? Retro always looks good.

Same design reference, all different. They're like the Seven Dwarfs of Stormtroopers

(apart from the top middle one - this was the first to be "blacked" with the icing. I think the gel has separated in transit and so was a bit runny at the start. I ended up scraping it off and trying again, which made him look like he hadn't cleaned his helmet. For Shame)

 We had chips and cheezels again, but as we had a new movie (and cool new characters), these were now Jakku Chips and BB-8 bits! (thankfully funny food labels are Still Cool).
Galaxy Bread also made an encore appearance; you're never too old for THAT apparently.

 For the cake, I felt it was time to stretch myself creatively; at least a little bit, in the confines of working and having a dinner the night before. A mini stretch maybe? 

 My girlfriend had her daughter's 4th birthday before Christmas and it was (as you would imagine for a girl that age) a Frozen theme. She had seen on Pintrest that people were using the Disney Infinity game pieces as cake decorations: not only did they look awesome but you could then play with them afterwards! We were quite happy to lend her ours (we are big Disney fans as well as Star Wars),  and it looked very effective .

Frosting + fondant + snowflake cutter + candles = awesome cake

 Which got me thinking that maybe I could use the same theory for this cake. There is a fairly important scene in "The Force Awakens" set in a snowy forest (relax - no spoilers, there are scenes from it in the trailer). So I wondered if I could make a snowy forest landscape for my Star Wars-Force Awakens figurines - chocolate frosting as the "ground", mint sticks for the bare tree trunks, and coconut or icing sugar dusted over all as the snow. Sounds good in theory (and looked good in my imagination), let's hope it translated.

 I started well., with a rectangle cake and a heap of chocolate frosting. I quickly realised after my crumb coat that I had to ignore all the Rules of Frosting; forget all the skills I had developed over several years of decorating. This was meant to be a forest, and one where a lightsaber duel had been taking place. So no smooth edges and neat sharp corners, there needed to be lots of texture and uneven ground and piles of .... foresty stuff. So it was quite fun being very haphazard in my frosting application.

 After leaving space for my figurines, I planted my mint-stick-tree-forest, complete with a few chopped off at shorter lengths, and a few fallen limbs here and there. Realising it needed a bit more texture to the terrain, I also chopped up a few pieces of chocolate to make rocks and boulders, and added any bit of cake that had fallen off to look like moss. Too much chocolate?? Never!**

 We then had a blizzard of coconut (both shredded and dessicated for a more textured effect) over everything, before placing our heroes safely in their scene.

Top View

Side View

 I must admit I was pretty happy how it turned out. Possibly because it was such a simple idea, and also because it was one that I was kind of making up as I went along. This does not always go well (there is usually lots of swearing and wishing I had drawn up a Plan), so it was nice to have an end product that vaguely resembled what I had in my mind.

 I got a big "Cool!!" from the birthday boy and lots of other compliments which is always good. In fact the only drawback was one of the kids who "I don't like coconut!". It was alwasy a risk (at least it wasn't an "I don't like chocolate!"), so he got a piece of cake with the frosting shaved off.

 So another successful Star Wars party. And as the next movie is due for release at the end of 2017, there's not harm in putting away ideas for what will be a 9th and 12th birthday party is there?!?!


* although I did realise afterwards that I had black chocolate melts in my cupboard that would have work well. Next time....

** here was another place where the black choc melts would have looked great - different colored rocks and boulders!!

Hot Chocolate

 I do love it when you work out a solution to a problem – especially when it doesn't involve paying someone/buying something/spending hours searching on the internet. It can be as simple as a system for taking washing off the line (Things that needs a hot iron off first so they are at the bottom of the basket and will be ironed last when the iron is the hottest), or for keeping you Tupperware drawer tidy (lids all in one spot people!). Thankfully this was a bit more of an interesting problem to solve – how to keep melted chocolate, well… melted.

 After my recent fondant fetish (click here and here and here!), I had started experimenting with melted chocolate as a decorating tool. It started with plans for Son 2’s Minecraft birthday party, which involved making black shapes for Creeper faces.

This is a Creeper. It explodes if you get too close. Just so you know

 While I was wandering the cake supplies shop, I noticed that black chocolate melts were much cheaper per kg than the black fondant. Interesting. PLUS chocolate could be piped in fine lines for smaller creeper faces (which I was planning to put on green rice krispie squares for taking to school) , where as it would be annoying to cut out very small slivers of fondant. AND it always looked so easy when my You Tube bloggers used it – what could possibly go wrong?

 Well.

 Melted chocolate assumes a liquid form. And the hotter it is, the more liquid it becomes, to the point of it oozing and not making pretty straight lines like you are supposed to. Not good when you are a perfectionist bordering on–OCD.

Not my finest work. They either look possessed, evil or stupid (still tasted yum though).

 Melted chocolate also has a tendency to set when it cools. And this doesn't always happen once it is piped out, it can also happen while it sits in your piping bag. Which leads to lumps of semi solid chocolate blocking up your piping nozzle, and it coming out unevenly. Which leads to much Fiddling and Fixing and Touch Ups and Swearing and Stress.

Like a Monet - good from a distance but a mess up close

 At first I thought it was just the colored chocolate, as it took quite a while to melt and didn't really mix together very well. But when I had the same problem using good ol’ Cadbury that I realised it was a Chocolate Issue.

My Groot Sundaes: more "messy" than "gnarled tree" appearance
(click here for what they were supposed to look like)

 So what to do?? I could use royal icing for all of my future decorating. It pipes nicely, colours well and you can keep it in the fridge between times.

(and a little goes a long way)

 But it doesn't taste as nice. And it’s not chocolate.

 So a solution had to be found. Especially with my plans to make gingerbread trees for my Christmas gifts this year.

LOTS of gingerbread trees!  (this was batch 1 of 3)

 At first I tried microwaving the chocolate intermittently, which worked well. I found I could ice and decorate four trees before it needed a minute in the microwave. But I had to unscrew the metal piping tip and scrape out the solidified chocolate each time. Annoying. And stop piping. More annoying.

 I did think about some sort of hot water bath to put the piping bag in, but I have found the no matter how carefully you seal the bag up or pop it in several plastic bags, water still gets in and ruins your chocolate. Not helpful

 There are cool cups (as in Cold, rather than Clever and Awesome) that you can put in the freezer to keep your drinks cool over summer, I just needed a Hot version .

 So I made one myself! Pour boiling water in a large cup, place a smaller cup inside and voila!

 (I shall add a picture here when I take one at this weekend's piping session)

Pop your piping bag in it in between sprinkled sanding sugar or carefully placing cachoos and you are ready to for your next set of trees. So simple, so cheap, so effective, so clever (well, I think so).

Oh! Christmas tree (s)

 So I hope that this has helped you to keep your chocolate hot and your piping pretty.

In other Kitchen News, I received a kitchen blowtorch at the weekend, so look forward to a creme brulee post in the future (which will hopefully not be entitled “What can go wrong with a Kitchen Blowtorch" or "Effective Ways to put out a Kitchen Fire")

Baking it 'til you Make it

 My Hubby jokes that every time I try a new recipe, I always miss one (or three) ingredients. This can be due to the "I'm sure I have enough coriander/pesto/palm sugar etc in the fridge or cupboard" wishful thinking, or just totally misreading the ingredients list. I say this proves what a resourceful and experienced cook I am, in that I can always adjust or adapt to make something that closely resembles what it is supposed to. Hubby says it proves that I do things too fast and don't concentrate enough. He might have something there...
 But I do find that this can be one of the fun parts of cooking. Recipes are all well and good, but there aren't many in my receipe book that haven't had one or tweaks by me after the official First Bake (where I do really try to follow the receipe to the letter). And some people (like my sister-in-law) don't even use receipes at all! (which rather scares me) She calls herself an Instinctive Cook - a bit of this, a bit of that, trying to recreate dishes she's seen. I have had some amazing salads from her, but she is also the first to admit that she isn't a baker. Which makes sense, as there is a lot of Science and Measured Ingredients in baking, and if you gets one thing wrong you can often end up with Sludge. Sometimes delicious Sludge (like my many failed attempts at Chocolate Mousse), but looking nothing like picture.
 And THEN you can have a plan or receipe that you follow to the letter (and even have ALL the ingredients) and it's still not right. Or you decide half way through to change (either by force or choice) and it turns out better than the original plan. It's like the old performing adage: If you keep smiling, no one will know that you've stuffed up (or Fake it til you Make it). So here follows my latest baking adventures - for better or worse.

 The first one was another Nerdy Nummies inspired baked off. She did two "roll cakes", which I think in Australia we would call it a Swiss Roll. But the clever thing was that she baked a design into the cake! A plain one and a chocolate one. So clever, and a little bit fiddly but looked really impressive. So with Valentine's Day coming up (where Hubby and would I both be working, so no chance of a romantic dinner or date night), I thought I would bake something for Work.

 I decided on a chocolate heart cake and so created my own template.

 The decoration batter was mixed and coloured pink, piped in hearts and popped in the freezer.

 I then set about making the actual cake batter; which didn't seem to go quite far enough on my tray (I had decided to make a half batch as I had a smaller tray than Ro). So in the spirit of We Can Fix This, I decided to make another quarter batch of cake to fill the tray.

 I then realised that my cake was a very lovely shade of white. Hmmmm. Must have missed the Adding the Cocoa step. It is the only disadvantage of getting a recipe from a video is that most times there isn't a written step by step instructions. Ro is great as she does have an ingredients list in the information section. What I had done was written down the ingredients (including the 1/4 cup of cocoa) but then followed the Plain Roll Cake instructions and forgot to add the cocoa with the flour. Not to be daunted, I knew there was a way to salvage what was becoming a bit of a cooking disaster: I scraped the entire cake (pink batter and all) into a bowl, added the cocoa and then added the other one-quarter chocolate batter I had made. After re-piping and freezing another load of pink hearts, I added the batter, which seemed to at least fill the tray. A quick burst in the oven and it came out looking really cool....

 Hooray! I fixed it!
(well, apart from forgetting to bang the tray on the bench pre-baking which accounts for the extra air bubbles)

 I rolled the cake up and left it cool over night; rather then adding the cream and strawberries then which would make the cake soggy overnight.

 Valentine's Day morning I unrolled my cake and was a bit dismayed to see that it had cracked; had I left it to cool too long in the rolled up position? Had the run of warm weather we have had in Melbourne lately dried it out too much? It still looked rather cool, and with a few well placed toothpicks, it still did kind of look like a roll.

 Thankfully it tasted yummy and everyone "ooohed" and "aaahed" and "how did you get it looking like that?!?". So that was positive and saved it from what may have been a total disaster.

 However.

 It wasn't what I'd call a total success.

 So with a piping bag still half-full of pink batter, I resolved to try again. I had a family lunch the next day which gave me a chance to be creative and try "freehand" drawing without a template.

 Again, came out of the oven looking really clever.

But AGAIN, it cracked after cooling, even more than the chocolate one! Thankfully again, it held together and still looked really clever.



 And luckily, Family are very forgiving and enjoyed it regardless of the cracking. "Tastes great Mum!" said Son 1 helping himself to his second slice.

  

 So two yummy and cool-ish looking cakes. But it did leave me a bit unfulfilled in that I hadn't got either of these cakes to look as good as Ro's. In mulling over this, I may have had the cake too thick which caused the cracking: for the second cake I made the full cake mix but put it on a tray nearly half the size. So IF I ever try this again, I will ensure that I get the right size tray. It is a cute technique that could easily be adapted to a traditional round cake; kind of "icing" it before it bakes!

 The next Baking Adventure was a birthday cake for me! This was inspired by another You Tube channel that I had been put on to by a baking buddy - My Cupcake Addiction. I may have stumbled across this amazing channel previously but had been scared off by her abundant use of fondant. However in my post-fear-of-fondant baking days, I was very excited by what I saw (I think I even squealed). I had seen her work before; I had Pinned a Christmas wreath cake made out of cupcakes as a potential work Christmas treat. I then saw the Christmas Tree cupcake cake, which led me to all sorts of clever Cupcake Cakes. Its such a simple-but-effective idea (bake cupcakes but ice them to look like a whole cake) and I wondered why I hadn't come across it before! So I decided to  make a Star cupcake cake.

 I used empty cupcake papers to decide how many cakes to bake and duly baked them. As my electric oven is not the worlds greatest, and I baked them in three different tins there were not all beautifully and uniformly rounded as they always look online. No matter - frosting will hide all manner of problems!!

 I had made white chocolate ganache and was going to pipe it onto each cupcake (and fill in the gaps) but quickly realised that Piping used up a lot more ganache than the frosting method! In fact I had only piped half the cupcakes before I ran out: What to do?!? Did I do the mad run to the store to buy more cream to make more ganache that then had to be cooled as quick as possible to allow it to be piped? Or adapt?

 I adapted.

 So it changed from a swirly-piped cake to a ganache-as-frosting cake. It still looked like a whole "cake" which I guess is the idea, and considering how rich the white chocolate ganache is, less was probably a good way to go!

 Next, to make the edges of the star I was going to pipe with left-over red frosting from the Lego block cake, but again it didn't look red enough, especially compared to the red cupcake papers. So I used the frosting to stick the cupcakes to the board, and used the red fondant that I still had in the cupboard from the Marvel cupcakes, which looked much more effective.

 Looking good, but how did it go on a practical level? The kids loved it as they could just pull off a cupcake and eat it (well, lick the icing off the top anyway!). It was a bit weird "cutting the cake" at Happy Birthday tine; I ended up cutting half-way through one cupcake (no touching the bottom with this cake!). But overall - a success.

 So there you go - two examples of Best Laid Plans going astray, which turned out all right in the end. Hooray!



A Marvel-ous birthday

 One of the great things about being a Foodie, and thus reading lots of recipes/food articles and following blogs and flogs and such, is that you are exposed to sooooo many Cool New Things that fellow cooks, bakers and Domestic Goddesses are whipping up in kitchens around the world. The downside of this is the limited time I have to potter around in MY kitchen to recreate and reinterpret the awesome things I see. So I do end up with quite a long list of  Recipes and Techniques to Try, which I then have to mull over every time I have a dinner or event to cook for, and try and decide which one I am going to try next. Dramas!

 So when I had a chance to combine two or three things recently, it was a bit exciting:  As Hannibal (from the A Team) used to famously say, “I love it when a plan comes together.

 Son 1’s birthday is in January and that means a Kids Party to plan and produce. The Party Boy gets to pick the theme (with veto right from me to ensure I think I can work within said theme) so over the years we have had various Superheroes, Star Wars, cars and such. Never one to have a broad theme, this year we’re having a Lego Marvel Superheroes Party. Yes, it is a party based on a Play Station game where all of the superheroes and villians from the Marvel Comic universe are rendered in Lego (check it out if you're into games, its heaps of fun)

Son 1, being quite a intuitive one, requested the usual party food as well as, “Mum, can you do some cupcakes too?”. Hmm, an opportunity to play with more decorating techniques? Well, as you asked so nicely, of course!! A quick Pintrest search of “Marvel Cupcakes” gave me a host or heroes to choose from, as well as various ways to create an Iron Man mask (though the Nerd in me did get miffed to see them alongside Batman and Superman cupcakes – they are DC Comic not Marvel, people!!). A quick review of the fondant and frosting colours available helped me decide who would make the grade and off we went.

I can't work out how to rotate this pic!!

 For Hulk I used green frosting, the rest had red fondant bases, with black fodant details or yellow and blue frosting, with the ol' faithful black (and white) writing icing for the detail.

 For The Birthday Cake, I was at a bit of a loss. In past years, I have done a Spiderman (see here ) as well as an Iron Man cake, so I was loath to repeat myself. The trusty printed Cake Toppers that have served me so well in past years were no help, as this game was only released 3 months ago and I don’t think the Cake Topper (or party decorations) people had caught up yet. Hubby suggested creating a scene from actual Lego figurines on top of the cake which was a great idea, but I wanted the kids at the party to actually Play with Captain America and Loki and such, so another idea was needed.

 Thankfully Ro at Nerdy Nummies came to the rescue with a cake that was so simple in its execution but looked so fantastic (my kind of cooking!) – a Lego block Cake

  And while I was re-watching how to make a Lego Brick, I was reminded of another cool technique I had seen her use: A Zebra Cake. Kind of like a cooler version of a marble cake, but I thought it was something that might really impress a bunch of 8 year olds.
 Now although I am a huge fan of Ro and her “nerdy themed goodies”, I do despair at her regular use of Box Cakes. I’m sure it an American thing, but I have about 3 or 4 cake recipes that are probably just as quick and easy (and yummier) than a packet mix. So I decided to use one of these. My standard Birthday Cake is a buttermilk cake that I found in Delicious magazine – it was a recipe for Cannoli cupcakes (you use ricotta cheese instead on cream cheese in your frosting), and I found that the cupcakes were nice and solid without being too heavy, and that if you combined the mix in a cake tin, you also got a lovely solid (not too heavy) cake that stayed moist for a day or two. This is very helpful when you are icing cakes over several days (which I often have to do due to work and child-minding time constraints!). To make a chocolate version, I just added 3 TBSP cocoa powder to my flour and off we went.

Chocolate and vanilla ready to go

 As I started alternately pouring the mixes into the prepared pan, I was reminded of how thick a mixture this cake makes; great for cupcakes and cake tins but not so good for mixing together in nice concentric circles.

  Hmmm – might have to find a runnier cake mix for next time. But it did still look zebra-ish as it went into the oven so that boded well.

  The loaf tin did make it take a looooong time to cook; over an hour in the oven, and the edges were getting quite browned, so perhaps runnier mix and round tin for take 2. But was looking good otherwise...

  Onto the decorating!!

  The first difference I noticed between mine and the Nerdy Nummies cake was the colour of the frosting. No matter how much of the colouring I added, I couldn't get it to that nice brick red colour (and I was using the proper cake food colouring). I think the frosting Ro used is bought pre-coloured, which would explain the vivid shade. As I had red fondant, I did toy with the idea of using that instead, but I couldn't get my head around how to cover the marshmallows. So I stuck with my red-but-slightly-dark-pink frosting and hoped that Son 1 wouldn't mind!

 Icing the marshmallows for the brick "bumps" was also a challenge. Ro dipped hers in the frosting, another example of where the pre-bought frosting was easier as it is much runnier than mine (I have used it once on a cake and actually found it quite difficult to work with!). The butter frosting was quite thick and tricky to get onto the marshmallow; I tried holding it on a skewer and covering it but that just ended up gouging out its centre. The technique that I had the most success with was loading up the curved edge with fostering, putting it on the cake and tidying up the top.

It worked pretty well, but I still got a bit of frosting on my fingers. But it still did the job and looked quite impressive.

 The party day arrived and we have five 8 year olds running amok for a few hours, eating fairy bread and such. They were all quite impressed with the cupcakes, arguing over who was going to get which hero. "Happy Birthday" and blowing out the candles all went fine, and so we headed to the Cutting Of the Cake; which did look suitably zebra-ish.

However.

The cake wasn't cooked through.

 I will admit that I wasn't surprised; the cake had fallen in the middle quite a bit when it cooled which is never a good sign. But I basically had a crisp shell surrounding liquid cake - argh!! I think there must have been something wrong with my oven that day as my cupcakes had a few uncooked bits as well and I have made that recipe many times.

Not my finest hour...

 Thanks goodness this Baking Disaster was with a forgiving audience, who went "Wow!!", ate the icing and then went back to playing. I ended up throwing the whole rest of the cake out and feeling like a bit of a Domestic Duffer for the rest of the afternoon. Thankfully Son 1 didn't care as he got to have one of the Deadpool cupcakes ("My favourite, mum!").

 But I will not let this beat me. Obviously the buttermilk cake is not a good option for the zebra cake technique, and definitely not a loaf tin. I think the next time I try will be in a round tin, and using a chocolate mud cake recipe which I know is runny mixture; I will just have to check that my white chocolate recipe is of a similar cooking time.

Or maybe I'll just use a packet mix...

Happy Hoppy Christmas

 Like many Foodie-Crafty-Industrious type people, I love Christmas. Not only is it a fun family time with lots of food (and presents!!) but it gives us like-minded people a chance to shine and flex our collective creative muscles. From hand making presents, to new riffs on classic dishes, to clever effective decorations, there are so many way to get into the Spirit of the Season.

 However.

My December related shenanigans took a different turn this year, when, while trampolining wth Son 2 in November, I landed awkwardly and broke two bones in my left foot and well as "destroying" (the surgeon's words, not mine) the ligaments that run across the top of my foot. Which meant surgery to put it all back together again. Then a cast for two weeks. Then 4 weeks on crutches. Which did put a serious dent in what I was able to achieve for and in the run up to Christmas Day.

 But being the determined (or "stubborn and pig-headed" as Hubby would say) person that I am, I  knew that I would find a way to do at least SOMETHING festive around the home. As the pain in my foot (and my reliance on medication) decreased, I was able to get up and move about more. We also purchased a little stool on wheels which meant I could move around the kitchen fairly well. But, I was still trying to be aware of my limitations and not create too long a list of things to do. One thing I did have plenty of time for, was sitting on the couch and browsing the internet for ideas. Thank goodness for sites like Pintrest, where I could search things like "Christmas cookies" and "Christmas table" and find all sorts of ideas that I could adapt. It also (thankfully) helped stave off the boredom

 First up was the work Christmas present. Last Christmas was the Year of the New Icing Techniques and they got a batch of festively decorated cupcakes. Scaling it back for this year, I thought I could come at gingerbread: simple to make but very yummy. Add a batch of royal icing and I could still get creative with decorarting.

 So my lovely work colleagues, who had had to deal with me not being there for the month before Christmas, got a batch of "Kim-gerbread Men" - complete with cast.

 ... and their smiles were similar to the ones on their gingerbread men.

 I also found this cute idea for pancakes on Pintrest, which gave the Son 1 and 2 a nice pre-Christmas breakfast...

 ...  bacon for antlers, blueberries for eyes and a raspberry nose.

 Christmas Day posed its own list of challenges. In our family, we rotate who hosts lunch on Dec 25th and this was my year to host. There were quite a few discussions post foot-break as to whether that would still be a viable option. I knew I wouldn't have to slave away in the kitchen as everyone brings something along and really, the only specific job of the host is to provide the table/chairs/plates/glasses etc and the crackers (which I had already bought at last year's post-Christmas sales). So Hubby convinced me that we would be fine, and as he would be doing the majority of the "heavy-lifting" work wise, I took his word for it. And it probably made more sense as I was quite good at moving around our house  by this stage. But it did require a re-think of how to run tae day.
 First thing was to confirm the meal as Cold Meat and Salad. Much more sensible when Dec 25 can be a scorcher to have this rather than the full roast and trimmings. So we had ham, (cold) roast chicken and a roast pork, which was more because Hubby had become such a whizz with his pork and crackling that is seemed a shame not to share it with the family. I made a yummy (and healthy) quinoa salad that is made in layers and looked very festive with a  layer of baby spinach leaves and layer of chopped tomatoes. We did bow to tradition and have a Christmas pudding for dessert (as my aunt makes a fantastic one), but I also whipped up a Christmas ice cream (with nutmeg and brandy), and we had a fruit platter as well (not the Christmas tree ones I had seen online -maybe I'll do that next time...)

  Next up were the decorations. The last time I hosted, I had gotten very excited and done the full Christmas table set up, with decorations and bonbonierre for each guest.

 I think it took me about an hour to set that table, not including the baking and boxing up the cookies in the noodle boxes!
 This year I went for simplicity and a Serve Yourself mentality. Instead of the full table set-up, I had all the plates on a separate table, and I had bundled up a set of cutlery with a napkin and cracker and placed them on each table.: the theory being that each guest could grab their plate, fill it and sit anywhere at the table and go from there.

This year's more streamlined table

 But I still wanted something for my guests, as much to say "thankyou" for helping out and putting up with a more low-key Christmas. After the gingerbread was so well received at work, I though that could be the magical Simple-but-Effective again.  I was going to make individual gingerbread men for everyone, but realized that would mean about 2 batches to make and roll and cook and decorate. I did find a smaller gingerbread man cutter, but, as a few family members have 6 letters in their name, I knew it would be a tight squeeze. So I settled for my favorite shape (which is luckily still Christmas themed) - stars.

  This meant every guest that was coming to our house on Christmas Day had their own gingerbread star that they could eat whenever thy liked, or take home for a quiet Christmas night cuppa.

Christmas breakfast table

 So how did my one-legged Christmas Day go? Wonderfully well. Sons 1 and 2 were great little helpers, getting things out of cupboards and moving things into place. Hubby dutifully completed the list of tasks that seemed to keep extending as he neared the end. Family brought delicious food and helped out with serving and tidying up and it was a lovely relaxing fun day, just like I had hoped it would be.

 And it now gives me just under 1,100 days to plan and get creative for the next time I host Christmas!

Let Them Eat (Decorated Cup) Cake!

  So here is my latest Thing; where “Thing” is loosely defined as That Which I am currently Getting Excited over, which consumes my Thinking Time and often ends up with spending money.

 Cake Decorating.

 Which has kind of been a simmering Thing for a few years now, but has recently gone to the full rolling boil.

 There are a few sources from which this Well of Enthusiasm for the Icing and the Piping may have sprung. Firstly the many childhood hours spent pouring over the Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Book (the original with the train cake on the cover – all good 80’s mums had one!) and deciding which of the amazing cakes I would have to the next 5 birthday parties. I never did end up getting The Castle but O Joy! O Rapture! the year my mum learned how to make a Dolly Varden ice cream cake!!
 Or maybe it was the rather impressive cakes my girlfriend made for her daughter’s parties (she was the first child born in our group of friends). The cakes in the first few years were good, but then she really hit her stride and we were treated to an Emerald City (for a Wizard of Oz themed party; it was The Castle! In green!!), a merry-go-round, and even a foray into rolled royal icing with a moulded sleeping child. So the bar had kind of been set high.
 
 My own personal forays were what I’d call Simple But Effective; they didn’t take hours to make (some of the above-mentioned took up to four hours to create, baking not included!) but still looked good.

 We had Mr Hankey (from South Park) ...

  … Mud Cake cut into shape with licorice arms and mouth, marshmallow hands and hat trimming and a red roll-up (how that stuff is termed  ”fruit” I have no idea) for the hat.

  Got a bit more creative for a Murder-Mystery Birthday party; props, different colored icing, “piping” and even food coloring fingerprints.

 Then I became a mum and had two annual (and sometime up to 4) birthday parties (and thus cakes) a year. Before I discovered cake toppers (the amazing printed icing sheets that kids think are waaaaaay more impressive than anything you take hours to make, and only take 10 minutes for you to decorate your cake! Win-Win!!), I did the number-cake thing for a few years. But I did refer back to the WW Cake Bible to make a Mickey Mouse…

…as well as a Spiderman. Hint – the ‘writing icing’ you can buy at the Supermarket is a godsend!!

 So all not-too-tricky, looked quite good and everyone happy.

 Then I had the delightful opportunity to go along to a Mamma Bake Cake decorating class (www.mammabake.com.au). They come along to your house and bring EVERYTHING necessary (cupcakes, icing and ganache, piping bags and tips, patient instructor) to learn how to make amazing looking cupcakes! Brilliant!! They also sold all the tools required so I came home with six beautifully decorated (if oddly coloured) cupcakes, a new set of piping equipment (sorry Tupperware, your set was just not cutting it) and Enthusiasm to make hundreds more cupcakes.

  But where precisely was I going to use these fabulous new skills? Being a mum of two boys meant I wasn’t going to be called on very often to make roses and flowers for their cakes. In fact, Son 2’s response to my cakes? “They’re very girly ...” So I knew I had to get creative to use my new creativity.
 Luckily Christmas was coming up, and with it, lots of Catch-Ups and Dinners and Bring-a-Plates. Excellent.

 First up were some Rudolph cupcakes straight from the Mamma Bake website. I did tweak them a bit so I only had to make one lot of ganache, but as this meant there were more lollies involved so I didn’t hear any complaints!

   
 So we had piped chocolate ganache, pretzel antlers, white chocolate button with MnMs for eyes, and a half marshmallow with a half jelly baby (because I had them in the cupboard!) for the nose. They looked great and the kids (of which there were 9 at this particular gathering) devoured them with great joy. Well, they devoured the icing at least (though I’m proud that my son was one of the only to eat the cupcake as well – a good kid who appreciates good baking).

 So this was a great First Experience that taught me a few things: ganache takes a LONG time to cool/set before it gets to a good piping consistency (chilling it in the fridge helps but it still takes a few hours). And I really needed to invest in a cupcake carrier! There were quite a few large roundabouts to navigate on the way to The House, which I took at a very slow and sedate speed (Must Protect Cupcakes!!).

 Next up was a Christmas Family Gathering. I had been inspired by a photo on the Mamma Bake website of some very cute themed cupcake designs which would enable me to use more of the piping tips and techniques I had learned. So I created a few more designs of my own, baked a batch each of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, dipped them all in white chocolate ganache, coloured my butter icing (red and green of course) and I was Ready to Pipe.

 Two not-as-frustrating-as-I-thought-it-may-have-been hours later, I had these….

 Not too bad methinks. There was lots of practising first and remembering the techniques (“ohhh, you hold it the Other way!”) and switching back and forth between colours and tips but I was pretty happy with my effort.

 And so was everyone at the party – lots of “oooohs” and “aaaahs” and “did you make those???” However, no one seemed to want to actually Eat any of them! Apparently they DID look too good to eat. Hmmm, a problem perhaps? But I did manage to send everyone home with one for their morning tea the next day, which was great as it meant I didn’t have to eat 20 or so cupcakes!

 My most recent foray was more exciting as I got to make flowers and decorate pretty girly cupcakes. My girlfriend's little girl was having her first birthday party the weekend before Christmas, and if a First Birthday isn’t the time to go all pink and flowery (especially as she has two older brothers) then I don’t know when is!! I had pretty pink proper cupcake papers (try saying that three times fast!) from her mum which made things a little interesting, in that they made taller and thinner cupcakes than the traditional concertina papers. This changed the cooking times and meant I had less “area” on top of the cupcake to work with. As I had done my previous “practice” on larger diameter cupcakes I was a little concerned about whether there would be any issues with the smaller space. Plus I was piping ganache with a smaller tip which we hadn’t been shown in class (so I wasn’t sure how it would turn out or if it would work at all). PLUS it was the first time I was making Proper Flowers since the class. So after a few deep calming breaths, I waded in.

 The flowers went alright….

 And the rest of them turned out pretty good as well!

The 6 different designs

Close up of The Rose
 

Ready for the Party!

  But again, hardly any were eaten at the party! Whether the papers made them too tricky to eat (you have to rip them away from the cupcake; much trickier than the normal papers), or people were put off my too much icing/decoration on top (I try not to pipe too high or too much as this is something I don’t like about a lot of cupcakes; when there is more frosting than cake!), or again they were “too pretty to eat”, even though I had made some “simpler” designs (such as the ‘1’ and ‘A’)  that would be easier to eat. Hmmm … this is not a good pattern developing here. But I still had fun doing them (and I’ve got to get value for money from my piping set) so I will carry on!

 Next Up? I’m looking for inspiration for some Lego related cupcakes for Son 1’s birthday.

Pipe on!