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February 2011
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April 2011

March 2011

raspberry and cream cheese custard cup cakes

Hidden-Berry-cup-Cake-on-board

The last few months of natural disasters have been devastating...floods in Australia, earthquakes in NZ and now Japan and the helplessness of us onlookers. Our hearts and prayers go out to those who are hurting.....

To cheer us up, I've reached for my favourite happy fruit, raspberries. Luscious, velvety, juicy raspberries. Yum. Hide raspberries and cream cheese into custard and cake batter makes for the most delicious recipe

Raspberries

Rose-molds-280 I used these fun rose silicon molds. Each cake yields more than enough cake for two or make 10 smaller cakes

Raspberry and Cream Cheese Custard Cup Cakes
100g unsalted butter
1/2 caster cup sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup custard powder
1/2 tsp salt
cream cheese
handful fresh raspberries
icing sugar, lemon juice and pink food colouring

1} Pre-heat oven to 175oC
2} Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one a time
3} Stir with wooden spoon sifted dry ingredients
4} Grease and flour cake molds
5} Spoon in small amount of batter and add raspberries and small chunks of cream cheese. Cover with more batter
6} For icing, mix icing sugar, lemon juice and a drop of food colouring and drizzle over cooled cakes

Hidden-berry-cake-stack


marzipan fruit

Marzipan-Fruit

Marzipan-fruit-strawberries,-pears,-lemons-and-limes

You may know that we are demolishing our little cottage to make way for a new (much needed!) house. In the process of rationalising the mountain of storage boxes in our garage, I came across some rollerboards to make marzipan fruit. I used these for our daughter's christening cake a decade ago (it was a carrot cake with a marzipan garden and picket fence for decoration). In a lovely turn of events, yesterday my daughter used the rollerboards to make these little marzipan fruit of lemons, limes, pears and strawberries. I think she did a great job!

How-to-make-marzipan-fruit-x-3-steps


macaron cookbook giveaway via Tartelette blog

Meyer Lemon Cream & Meyer Lemon Macarons

My favourite food blog, Tartelette, is offering a fabulous giveaway: "Macarons: Authentic French Cookie Recipes from the Macaron Cafe" by Cecile Cannone. All you need to do is leave a comment on the blog. I really shouldn't be telling you because I want to win and have the cookbook all to myself. I desperately need help with macarons as I've never been able to meet the challenge. Though, I am good at eating them...


{go make me} simple ribbon bracelets

Master-ribbon-bracelets-how-to

Ribbon-and-hands

Do you have mountains of ribbon off-cuts and one-off buttons? If you're like me (you know....not organised), you have a drawer bursting with a tangled mess of ribbons eager to spring from their confines. Every time I strive to close my ribbon drawer, I nearly loose fingers attempting to tame the ribbon beast that lives within. Well, it's time to take action.....

Ribbon,-buttons,-old-letters-lighter

Here's two very simple ideas to transform left overs into must-haves. Convert rebellious ribbon into a pretty bracelet by adding glitzy buttons and other embellishments, a button hole or wire to hold it together. Very easy

Bracelet One (design two below)
Ribbon should be at least 18mm wide. Fold back one end and sew buttonhole to fit button width. Measure wrist and add 3cm to length at the opposite end. Cut ribbon. Fold back on itself and size on wrist. Sew on button. Ta-dah!

Simple-ribbon-bracelet-with-crystal-button-1

Antique-letters-with-bracelets

Bracelet Two
Again, ribbon should be at least 18mm wide. Fold back one end and sew keeping edges open. Cut 12cm length of wire (I used 26ga) and thread through open end. Thread tiny Swarovski crystal beads or glass beads until large enough to slip over button. Twist off wire and trim wire ends (make sure to use safety glasses). Measure wrist and add 3cm to length at the opposite end. Cut ribbon. Fold back on itself and size on wrist. Sew button

Simple-ribbon-bracelet-with-crystal-swarovski-button-2

Antique-letters-and-ribbon-bracelets


new Autumn collection from Helen Kaminski Australia

I have a few laovely hats in my wardrobe by Sydney based hat designer Helen Kaminski and am so excited to see their Autumn/Winter collection including handbags and mens hats too. The collection features luxury materials of sculpted fur felt, plush wools and hand-woven leather bags. It's not nearly cold enough here yet, but I'm looking forward to the cooler weather around the corner