The 'help'

My family is full of Leos. While I don't really buy into horoscopes, the strong-willed natures (translation: sheer stubbornness) of me, my mum, my dad, and now my daughter, can sometimes be a recipe for disaster. But it does mean that July and August are chocca full of cake and pressies. And now, very sadly, with the end of August, comes the end of birthday cake season for my family.
I saw Mum's birthday cake as an opportunity to try a cake I've been lusting after in my new 'Best of British Bake-off' book (thank you, Gem - I love it!). It involved making a paste which was swirled on baking tins, freezing the tins and then covering with chocolate sponge cake, baking, then lining a cake tin with the swirly pattern facing outwards, filling with a rich chocolate mousse and then topping with more more swirly sponge mix. Fiddly and time-consuming, but not as hard as I imagined and tasted fantastic!



So I now need to turn to different chapters of my recipe books and learn new things. Starting with pastry. With a beef, mushroom and red wine filling already made (I know, scarily close to domestic goddess territory here) I made some beautiful pastry simply out of flour, butter and icy water that looked great (even closer to goddess-ville) but tasted....bland. Next time I'm definitely seasoning more, herbing up and possibly going to add a few dollops of cream cheese. Then I'm going to move swiftly on to sweet pastry. I'm not really into savoury baking - in fact it even sounds a little paradoxical to me. There's a scene in Miranda where Gary brings her a savoury muffin and she loses it, saying "isn't life hard enough without savoury muffins?" I am in total agreement. But anyway, I digress. Here is my pie:

Dan and Emily are complete baking fans. They hear so much as a rustle in the kitchen and Emily has her apron on (thank you Aunty Kylie), Dan has a mixing bowl and an array of wooden spoons out and they are there to 'help'! Pikelets are the all-time fave because they don't require too many ingredients, are sweet, are cooked in minutes and can be served with lashings of jam (to go all Enid Blyton on you).

This post seems to have gone downhill... from complex cake, to ho-hum pastry, to child's play...but in actual fact, there are few things that make me happier than baking with my kids! And on that note, I'll say TTFN x

The epic birthday cake week

Emily's second birthday gave me ample opportunity to hone my cake decorating skills. That may sound like I used my daughter as an excuse to practise my baking. Actually, that's fairly accurate. 

First there was the Play Centre birthday cake, which happily coincided with our name appearing on the morning tea roster that week. I believe I have solved that age-old question of how to simultaneously feed a dozen hungry sweet-toothed parents, practise your fondant icing techniques and celebrate your daughter's birthday...the answer, as it so often is (or should be), is cake.

Cake 1: Play Centre party

Just in case this blog isn't nepotistic enough, here is a clip of the Play Centre birthday!

Then of course, Emily's pre-school needed a birthday cake. When I asked whether I should bring in a birthday cake, I was told "No, you don't have to; we can give the children a play dough cake instead. Most parents bring a cake though." I know my daughter. She is not stupid. Nor is she likely to humour her pre-school teachers if presented with a play dough cake in lieu of something with pink buttercream icing. I suspect I'm coming off as one of  'those' parents... but with this baking challenge also in mind, it was a no-brainer. Pink buttercream icing it was.

Then of course, there was the big '2' party - not really a party, more of an adult-friendly day out in Rotorua with the family and grandparents, including Nana Barback, all the way from England. With 'pink' as my guide, and Emily's penchant for cats, this was the result...

I was very proud of this effort, although credit must be given to Neil for very reluctantly helping me roll some of the strands of 'wool' - surprisingly tricky and time-consuming. Actually, Neil, would rather I didn't mention that he helped with cake decoration, so I'm doing this partly to pay him back for his remark that the cat looked more like a possum. I am not a fan of possums, so this was highly insulting. I breathed a big sigh of relief when Emily exclaimed - "it's a cat!"

So yes, three cakes. I know. I went a bit overboard, but I learned a lot in the process. And of course, every stir of the mixture, every curse at the fondant icing, was delivered with the greatest of love.

It doesn't end there though - my dad's birthday (27th July), which has played second fiddle to mine (24th July) for the last  - cough - 30 years, and was further relegated by the birth of granddaughter Emily two years ago (26th July), is often overlooked. So I was determined he should get a cake. What sort of cake should you make a 56 year old dairy farmer?

Well, naturally, a cow cake. Not, as my dad said upon seeing it, "a cow with milk fever" cake. Up there with the possum insult, I tell you. Men.

So that was birthday cake week. What a week. Dan has put in an order for a "tractor with a trailer with a quad bike on the trailer" as his 4th birthday cake. Thank goodness his birthday isn't until November...

TTFN x