More cupcakes

These are the cupcakes I made for the girls at the mums vs dads netball game. They disappeared in 5 minutes.
I've been having heaps of fun making marshmallow for the icing instead of buttercream. I've discovered this is great for those with a dairy or egg allergy and is fun too!
Making marshmallow is easy. I've put the recipe below.

2 tablespoons gelatine
1/2 cup water
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
any colour and flavours such as peppermint, strawberry or vanilla.

Add first measure of water to gelatine, mix and set aside for a few minutes to absorb. Then heat second measure of water and sugar and dissolve in a saucepan. When the sugar is dissolved, heat the the gelatine mix quickly (I chuck it in the microwave for 20 secs) and pour into the sugar mixture. Bring to the boil and boil it for 15 minutes. Set aside to cool to lukewarm.
Mix the syrup (a mixer is the best, using the whisk attachments) until white and thick and then add your choice of colour and/or flavour.
If you want to make the marshmallow into little treat sizes then pour the mixture into a tin which is wet with water (makes it easier to get out later) and refrigerate.
If you want to use it to top cupcakes then make sure you do this straight away as the mixture starts setting rather quickly. Spoon it into a piping bag and have some sticky fun!

Delissilinks

Check out this entry on divorce cakes from Cake Wrecks. This is one of those blogs I check everyday for a really good chuckle.

Meatini anyone?

Or this breakfast for real men?

Carrying on this theme if you are interested in food and travel and strange meat products the check out this blog weirdmeat.com. I know Owen loves his meat but I reckon this octopus beak would be pushing it. Blech!

60th Wedding Anniversary

This is a vanilla sponge cake with lemon cream filling and a buttercream finish for a 60th wedding anniversary. Sorry the photos didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.

This cake was made rather awkwardly as Owen and I played in a mums vs dads netball team yesterday (dressed as princesses and pirates) and lets just say it got rather competitive! Owen got a bit carried away and at one point decided to kick the ball and instead kicked my hand. So now I have a broken finger. My revenge is this....


Don't they look pretty?? Owen is the stunner in silver looking so coy!
Here's our fabulous mums team who won 10-9!

That's me prior broken finger playing centre.

Date and cashew loaf

Today I made some date and cashew loaf. Deeeelicious! The cashews made a nice change from the usual walnuts.

Grandma Betty's Birthday

Today was the birthday party day for Grandma Betty. This is a light vanilla sponge with four layers and a rich chocolate ganache as a filling. The outside is a rich buttercream.




It came out quite moist and chocolaty but the 4 layers meant it was a tricky and messy cake to eat!




The small cupcakes are chocolate fudge with a marshmallow topping for the kids and were very popular with the kids (and some adults too).

Guitar cake

This is a 2 layer chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing. The birthday boy was getting an acoustic guitar for his birthday so this tied in with it. The guitar is made from fondant and the side decorations are made from white chocolate.


The pics aren't great as the lighting was a bit sucky, so this is the only shot I got that was decent.

Ginger cake

This is a small gingerbread cake with a whipped cream filling and a rich chocolate buttercream icing.

The birthday girl this is for is Owen's grandmother Betty who is AMAZING. She is 96 today and only 2 years ago gave up driving! Her grace, humour, generosity and love for her 8 grandchildren and 9 (nearly 10) great grandchildren has resulted in her being a very important part of all our lives.
Happy Birthday Grandma Betty!

Leavin' on a jet plane...ummm jet planes...

A tiered lemon cake with white chocolate ganache filling and fondant finish.

The jet planes were dipped in dark chocolate which was a bit experimental. Next time I will dry them on a flatter surface so they stick to the cake better! These ones required a bit of royal icing "glue" and sadly it wasn't as polished as I would have liked.

Peanut Butter

Peanut butter! It's so easy! Well the last part is anyway.

I had a big cheap bag of peanuts which were cheap because I bought them with the shells on still. For the first few it was fun shelling them and eating them. Then it got messy, tiring, and a lot of work went into the shelling for a small bowl of peanuts!
Once I had convinced Katie it was fun to sit and watch Playhouse Disney and shell peanuts at the same time she was right on board and I got a full afternoon of child labor while I went and had a nap (if only).
I also discovered making peanut butter requires just a food processor as long as your peanuts are roasted and unsalted. So we chucked our hard work into the food processor with a pinch of cinnamon and Katie wanted some milo in it too. Here's the result:



A beautifully peanutty very crunchy paste with a hint of cinnamon and chocolate and so much more flavoursome than supermarket bought (which has tons of salt and sugar added to it).


Madeline, who is our household peanut butter expert declared it "yum". How can I go back to buying from the supermarket now? All you need is a good bag of roasted, unsalted peanuts, a four year old to shell them and a food processor and any spices/flavours you want accompanying your creation. I should mention I added a small amount of rice bran oil to mine purely because my mixture was a little dry, but you don't need much.

Bran Muffins

Boring boring boring I thought. But the kids were hungry, it was an easy recipe and actually they turned out really yummy. Best served warm with a dollop of honey butter!! Hmmm hmmm.

Recipe
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups bran
1 tblspn golden syrup
1 tblspn butter
1 tspn baking soda
1 cup milk
1 egg

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Mix in sugar and bran. Melt golden syrup and butter together. Dissolve soda in milk. Add these with the egg to the dry ingredients. Mix quickly, just enough to combine (else they end up rather heavy). Spoon into muffin tins either greased or lined with muffin cases. Bake at 220 deg Celsius for 12 mins or until golden brown.
Makes 12
Recipe courtesy of Edmonds

Honey Butter - self explained in the title. Mix a dollop of honey in with some softened butter and plonk inside a nice warm muffin!

Delissilinks

Just a couple today...

This is the last week of the Threadcakes competition and it's so worth a look. I love this cake! The detail is so so so cool. Click here to see the slideshow.

















Check out this Asian inspired cake. Pretty. That lotus flower is awesome.

If you have any cool pics or links to cakes etc please send it to me and I'll chuck it up here on delissilinks. My email is ojwill@ihug.co.nz

Enjoy your week!