Top o' de mornin' to ya.

Well... Happy St Patrick's Day!

I think I've probably only said it once to a friend this morning, as it isn't really a day that our family makes a big deal out of... We don't dress up in fancy green dress, go out to festivities, drink Irish beer or whisky, or try and find 4 leaf clovers for 'luck'...

But, heck - why not make the most of having a 'green' day, and get creative in the kitchen (my usual way to celebrate occasions)!

I have a green 'shamrock' cookie cutter, that really is the kind of cookie cutter that you can only use for this occasion, so I made some shortbread biscuits, in the shape of shamrocks. With green royal icing, and using (for the first time with royal icing) a piping bag with a nozzle, I piped around the outline of the biscuits.

And then, why not grab a green platter and put some green grapes on it, too :) ... Presentation is an important part of being creative as well!

Now, this next creation, I wasn't going to make... I wanted to, but wasn't going to. I had all the ingredients (minus one), but was trying to be realistic with the time that I had available this weekend, and decided (wisely), that I probably didn't have enough time to do these justice... I may have even promised my husband that I wouldn't make them!

But... Some things were shuffled around, and it turned out that did have time... Just enough time! And the missing ingredient -M 'n' M's- just happened to be on special, so it was clearly meant to be:

RAINBOW CUPCAKES!

I made my butter cake mixture, and just like I did with the rainbow waffles I made yesterday, I divided the mixture into 6 containers, coloured them, and then put them all into piping bags:

Originally, I wanted the whole 6 colours to go into the one cupcake, but (perhaps because I made the same mistake of cutting the hole too big), by the time 3 colours were in, the cupcake was at capacity before I knew it would overflow while baking - so I made the 'cool' version using purple, blue & green; and then I made the 'warm' version using red, orange & yellow :)

With a simple buttercream icing (made with solite to make the icing whiter), 3 green M 'n' Ms, and some leftover green royal icing from the shortbread shamrocks, I made these rainbow, Irish, St Patrick's day cupcakes!

And a close up of the (unlucky) shamrock:

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Irish.

Irish, who?

Irish you a Happy St Patrick's Day! :)

Rainbow waffles!

This weekend, with St Patrick's day on the calendar, I felt inspired to make something colourful to celebrate (as that would pretty much be the only celebrating we would do)!

I had seen 'rainbow waffles' on Pinterest, and well - what other occasion than St Patrick's day would I be able to make rainbow waffles (without having to cater for a bazillion people which is both stressful and time consuming)?

So after the decision to make these on Saturday morning, I made my batch of waffle batter, divided it into 6 different (coincidentally, also rainbow coloured) bowls, and added food colouring (and a bit more, and another bit more) to make the colours bright and contrasting enough...

I prepared 6 piping bags by putting them inside glasses and folding the tops over the edges (I did trim the piping bags so they were smaller, as there wasn't a heap of batter to go in). Then I was ready to have a go at making rainbow waffles!

Attempt #1: I started with purple, as there somehow seemed to be more of that colour; and with the piping bags, used the colours one at a time making circles, getting closer and closer to the middle...

The result was a very thick waffle, with some of the colours merging together and overflowing...

... With the original purple circle underneath!! 

I took a photo of the waffle broken into its designated 'hearts', as I thought it looked pretty cool when you could see the layers of colours in the waffle.

Attempt #2: I didn't have my wonderful husband to take photos of each and every step (in case it didn't work out again!) but I started from the middle of the waffle this time, and then drew circle after circle with the waffle batter, until I reached the end (running low on the blue and purple colours, so they shared the outer circle):

The result:

I was happy that you could actually see all the colours on this one!!

The tricky part of these was that there's just so much waffle batter, which made the waffles really thick! If I try these again in the future, I will cut a smaller hole in the piping bag to hopefully ensure a smaller and more precise rainbow :)

All in all, though, these were fairly easy to make! My kids loved eating them for breakfast, and now knowing the mistakes that I made (starting from the outside & cutting the piping bag hole too big), I can see the potential of these being a wonderful success!

Butterflies in my... Tummy!

I like butterflies... Sometimes, butterflies remind me of one of my youngest son's (current) favourite book: The Hungry Little Caterpillar... But most of the time, they just make me smile when I see one fluttering by as I'm walking swiftly, usually to get somewhere in a rush because I'm running late due to various reasons/children... Their wings and weightless appearance often inspire me to stand still for just a moment and take a fresh breath of life...

Unless I'm really in a rush, in which case I don't often pay that much attention, and their presence is gone within a few seconds anyway!

This week, completely unrelated to those feelings towards butterflies, and more related to a huge amount of shortbread dough I had left over after making Omnitrix ones for Jonathan's birthday, I made some butterfly shaped ones :)

With coloured royal icing and some silver cachous, I decorated them,

making up what I did and where I put icing/cachous as I went along:

Sticking with a pink and purple theme (probably chosen because I had pink and purple silicone cupcake moulds - clearly a well thought out and totally non-spontaneous idea), I made some matching cupcakes, because I wanted to make those as well (initially, the cupcakes were going to have chocolate butterflies on top, but in the rush that I was in that afternoon -funnily enough- I ran out of time to properly make them), so instead, I drizzled some white royal icing on top of the piped pink and purple icing :)

Stay tuned for the chocolate butterfly cupcakes that will appear on this blog...

... Eventually! :)

He's no ordinary kid, he's Ben 10.

When my eldest kids (now 9 & 8) were 2 years old, they watched TV shows like Play School, Sesame Street, Hi 5, and the Wiggles...

My youngest at 2 loved... No... Obsessed over shows like Spiderman and Ben 10... The fazes swung from one to the other, but has currently been on the Ben 10 faze for at least the last month. Well, today is the day that he is no longer 2. Today is my little Jonathan's 3rd birthday! And it felt right to make some Ben 10 related edible items to celebrate :)

With the Omnitrix in mind, I made some short bread biscuits... Then using green royal icing, silver cachous, melted chocolate, and chocolate fudge frosting, I did my very best to recreate the thing my little Jonathan would (almost daily) pretend he has on his wrist as he raced through our house, making sound effects, and claiming to be turning into the various aliens that Ben 10 turns into on the show that he asks to watch as soon as he wakes up every morning...

Ah, the joys of children and their obsessions!

It is amazing that even at such a young age, when you wake a child up and tell them that it's their birthday, they straight away ask where their presents are! ... Clever kids.

I'm not sure whether to be encouraged or dismayed when I showed Jonathan the Omnitrix biscuits that I'd made, and he said "Ohh, cupcakes!"

He must know about my obsession as well ;)

Happy 3rd birthday, Jonathan!

So you're from Canada, eh?

This week I've been thinking of friends of ours who live in Canada, and decided to spontaneously make Canadian themed cupcakes!

With a traced and cut out picture of a maple leaf, I rolled out some red fondant, and cut around the maple leaf picture a few times... I'm sure you can get maple leaf cookie cutters, but this creation was a bit too spontaneous to drive to a cake shop and look for one!

With a solite buttercream mixture (to make the icing a bit whiter.), I piped icing onto the cupcake, and then placed one of the red maple fondant leaves on top :)

I wonder if there's white on the Canadian flag

because of all the snow and ice (hockey)...?

If I was to re-create these, and spend a bit more time thinking of what to make - I'd either make red velvet cupcakes OR somehow figure out or look up a maple syrup flavoured cupcake/icing creation...

Perhaps on the day when my Canadian friends can actually taste the cupcakes I will be more creative with flavours :)

Need more sleep?

I'm certain I'm not the only person who feels sluggish and tired on a Monday morning, whether it's because weekends are jam packed full of family adventures, parties, late nights, and hanging out with friends, or perhaps because there's a baby in the house, and a decent night's sleep is still a bit out of reach...

Well, for yet again another Monday morning needing potentially a whole extra day to sleep just to catch up on the weekend, and to possibly imitate the way I feel on Monday mornings (especially today), I made some 'Sleepy Cupcakes' :)

With melted white chocolate, I traced a dream bubble and some 'ZZZZ's onto baking paper... To get the 'icing' dark like a night sky (or perhaps it was because I was too tired to make actual chocolate icing?), I piped Nutella onto the (choc chip) cupcakes:

Happy sleeping! :)

EYE see you...

Eyes are pretty amazing parts of our body...

Researching some facts about eyes recently, some interesting thing's I've found out include:

- A human eye ball weighs approximately 28 grams.

- Our eyes stay the same size from birth.

- The average person blinks about 12 times per minute

- A shark's cornea is similar to a human's cornea, and so has been used in eye surgery.

- People (generally) read 25% slower from a computer screen than from paper!

On that note, I will continue!

This term at a play group I attend, we are learning about different parts of the body. This week (if you hadn't worked out yet) we learnt about the eyes! Of course, with a working oven again, I shot my hand up for the opportunity to make cupcakes!

With eyes as the theme, I wondered how I could make eyes on a cupcake... Then, it occurred to me that perhaps a single M 'n' M, with some chocolate fudge frosting could work!

Step by step, here's how I made them:

And of course, my daughter having a bit of fun with her food:

EYE can still see you!