Birthday Cake

With this weekend being one of my Best friends 21st Birthday, it was the perfect opportunity to do some baking. After seeing this post on Cupcakesandcashmere I really wanted to have a proper go at a layer cake so I headed over to Smitten Kitchen for some layer cake tips. One thing that I have never done before is frozen my cake before working with it, but when making layer cakes Deb from Smitten Kitchen suggests freezing each layer to make it easy to cut it.  

I was so happy with how it turned out and everybody enjoyed it.

Photos from My friends Birthday dinner Via my Instagram

Ouch.

Last year I never really got into the whole pinterest thing. I got the account. I played around with it for a couple weeks but then never really went any further with it. This year (yeah I know new years resolution ha)I aim to get a bit more into it. I mean its as simple as clicking a button right? 


Ouch, get it now? Im pretty Punny hey. Okay Ill stop now. Oops I totally just got distracted reading Chrissy Teigen's blog. But I'm back now. And more to the point here are some of my fav finds on pinterest.

1. 2. 3. 4.

I love 1. Just because its true, and number 4. how can you not love that cute baby, it's in a shark suit. And I think that 3. is the coolest idea if you had the space and the decor to go with it, which I don't.  

5. 6. 7. 8. 

Pinterest is also a great place to find recipes and get cooking inspiration. I quiet often find myself heading there when I have a birthday cake or a speial occasion to cook for. I've actually made number the cookie monster cookies and posted about it here. They were a raging success. 

So if you haven't got pinterest get on it. And if you have, well follow me. Let's get pinning. (Ha when I frist typed that it said punning, lets get punning, get it, okay sorry, its really hot)

xx

Spoons: Berries and cream meringue layer cake

Me and my Ma spent boxing day this year cooking up a storm in my nans kitchen. After having Christmas day at my nans place we were driving to our cousins place the day after boxing day for another Christmas dinner. We made cinnamon scrolls and this amazing layer cake. 

I followed this recipe from Women's Weekly with a couple of little alterations. 

1. Preheat Oven to about 120°C

2. Draw a 20cm circle on baking paper, use this paper to line 2 baking trays, grease paper and dust with some cornflour

3. In a small bowl combine two egg whites and 1/2 cup of sugar, beat with an electric mixer on high until thick and glossy then stir in an extra teaspoon of cornflour

3. Divide the mixture between the two baking trays, spreading to cover the circles

4. Bake for about one hour or until meringue is firm and dry, cool in oven with door ajar (this part is important because if the meringue cools down too quickly it may crack)

5. repeat steps 2 through 4 two more times giving you a total of six meringue rounds (you may want to make an extra one too in case you have any meringue mishaps) 

6. Whip your cream and vanilla until it forms soft peaks

7. Peel your first Meringues away from paper, spread cream on top and layer with berries, repeat for remaining layers

8. Arange remaining cream and berries on top of cake and 'dust' with grated chocolate flakes

You'll be amazing at how easy this actually is to make. The only thing is that it does take a long time because you have to make the six meringues. It also doesn't hurt if you make the meringue the day before you plan on making the cake, I did and it was perfectly fine.

Believe me when I say it even tastes better then it looks... 

Spoons: Christmas desserts

This is just a little peek at the desserts me and my mum made for our second Christmas family dinner this week. Cinnamon scrolls and berry meringue layer cake. We spent the whole of boxing day baking and making (being at my nans in the country meant no Boxing Day sales). I'd made the scrolls before but the layer cake was a first try. They both tasted amazing! I'm actually eating one of the last scrolls now with a cup of apple tea whilst watching pleasantville. Pretty good hey.

I'll post the recipes. One tomorrow and one next week. When you see how easy it is you'll make it straight away!

Did you make anything yummy for Christmas?

xx

Procrastination nation

EVIL TWIN - The Righteous-Few-tunic - $158

Inspiration for this weekends DIY project. Went to the thrift store the other day and got some nice shirts to try this out on. I will make sure to post about it before next week. I have been meaning to do the whole cut out shoulder thing on a shirt for a long time but haven't got round to it because of uni or other things. I did it the other day on a t-shirt in about 10 minutes because I decided that's what I wanted to wear whilst my best friend was on the way to pick me up. 

Also made some yummy vanilla and passionfruit cupcakes yesterday here is a sneak peek. I shall post the recipe and more photos later this week when I have finished this yucky assignment. 

Well I best get back to this assignment. Be sure to keep an eye out for this DIY and recipe in the next couple of days. 

Spoons: Mini Passionfruit Meringue Pies

Passionfruit is one of my all time favourite fruits, favourite anythings really. So when my mum came home from my great aunties with a large shopping bag full of them I was in heaven, heaven until I realised that my great uncle has picked them before they were ripe, so there was still a couple of weeks to wait. So this weekend we found that almost all of the passionfruits were ripe and we now had an overabundance of them sitting in my kitchen, I'm talking like 30 or 35 passionfruits. 

Naturally my instinct was hmmm what can I make with these, having made some lemon sorbet the night before (I'll post the recipe later) passionfruit sorbet was definately on the menu. However I wanted to make something else as well hence enter the Mini Passionfruit Meringue Pies. This recipe is adapted from a nestle advertisement recipe cards and is just one of the yummiest things ever.

             

What you'll need:

• 3/4 cup of sweetened Condensed milk (I try to look after my hips and use light condensed milk
• 1/4 cup of passionfruit pulp (or just over)
• 2 eggs, seperated
• Mini pastry cases (I'm not gonna lie I bought them instead of making them
• 1/3 cup of caster sugar

Now you should do this:

1. Preheat your oven to about 180°C. You know how your oven works so you can change this if you need too. 

2. Mix your condensed milk, passionfruit pulp and egg yolks together in a bowl. Make sure to mix well at this stage and set aside for later. 

3. To make the meringue you need to beat the egg-whites until they form stiff peaks, once this occurs you can gradually beat in the sugar until it is all dissolved and the mixture looks thick and fluffy and lovely, kinda like clouds oh and that picture below. 

4. now that you have all parts of the pie prepared, (oh and if your a little less lazy than me you should have already had your pastry cases made) firstly spoon the passion fruit filling equally into the cases first, followed by the meringue mixture on top. It's a good idea for the meringue to use a little scraper to help you 'sculpt'...sculpt?... yepp lets go with sculpt, sculpt your meringue.

5. Bake for about 10 or 12 minutes or until your oven makes those cute meringue sculptures (yes sculptures) light and golden

6. Enjoy!!! 

7. Confess to your blog that you ate all the pies before you thought of taking a photo to show people. Sorry they were just too yummy!!