For the Love of Baking

A cake made for "Aunty Symon" (Uncle Symon)
by my littliest, Miss H, with some help from me.
Both girls had a great time decorating it.
It's a layered chocolate mud cake - the cheat's version!

I have a passion for cooking that is absolutely unstoppable! It's what gets me up in the morning (like this morning) to try a new pancake recipe (for us). 1 cup plain flour. 1 cup milk. 1 egg. Mix and cook in a warm pan 'till golden.

It's what has me buying new recipe books and trying out the recipes.

And,it's what keeps me up late at night decorating chocolate cupcakes for the next day's function. 11/3 cups SR flour, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 125g butter, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 11/4 cups caster sugar, 2 eggs and 2/3 water. Mix, pour in greased cake tin and bake in moderate oven. (Women's Weekly Kids Party Cakes Recipe Book)

I just LOVE to bake but where my passion is growing deeper is when I'm passing on the great love of cooking to my girls. We read cookbooks, borrow cookbooks, talk about cooking and all the different ingredients. We discuss how things work, what ingredients will do to the taste of the food and then of course, the best part....we taste. Sometimes our cooking experiences are spontaneous and sometimes they are well planned and you'll find our ideas on the shopping list. One thing I've found though is the more we cook, the more I can start to step away from the bowl.

It's such a joy to see the girls love to cook. Will it be a case of "like mother, like daughter"? We'll have to see but for now I'm enjoying this time with my baking beauties.

Do you enjoy baking experiences with your kids? What's their favourite recipe?

Special Delivery

These were for a special friend who wanted some

sweet girlie cupcakes for a High Tea. I love baking!

A "Beary Special" Morning

If you went into the woods (Wendouree Park) yesterday you would have been sure of a big surprise because yesterday was the annual Teddy Bear's Picnic for our mums group. I wish you had been there to see it! Our cute little bunch of kidlets and their teddies (rabbits and dollies too!) came to the park to enjoy a "beary special" morning together.

We had a morning tea filled with "beary yummy" teddy bear treats including the teddy bear cupcakes pictured above. I found this idea in the Woman's Weekly Kids Party Cakes book - how could we not have cupcakes! We did all the favourite bear songs and rhymes like 'Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear', 'Rock-a-bye Your Bear', 'Round and Round the Garden' and 'I Know a Hairy Bear' followed by the "beary scary" story 'Where's My Teddy?'. (It's not really that scary but it's is a favourite in our house!)

Together we all went on a huge bear hunt singing our way round the park to which afterwards one little girl told me that she was scared. It was a lot of fun.....and a little bit scary!

To end our "beary special" morning each teddy who came along went home with a prize and Miss M's "Jessie Teddy" received the Sweetest Smelling Bear award since she smells just like strawberries. I'm sure many little teddies and kidlets went home for a lovely big sleep after their big day out and they may even talk about this "beary fun" morning 'till the next Teddy Bear's Picnic comes around next year! Look out for my blog on Wendouree Park coming up.

Butterfly Biscuits

Much of our weekend was spent baking cupcakes and biscuits for a Thailand Mission fundraiser so I guess I was on a roll when I asked Miss M if she would like to bake biscuits this morning. My little baker had been given the loveliest little bakers outfit for her birthday and so this was a chance to put it to use for the first time. So cute!

I have been told that the simple biscuit recipe I like to use (5 cups SR flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 tin condensed milk, 500g softened butter) could also be used with cookie cutters so I thought we'd give it a go. We had lots of smarties left over from the weekend's cooking frenzy so we made beautiful butterflies which Miss M was able to cut out and decorate herself. Lots of satisfaction for a new 3 year old in this activity!

They turned out well and we saved half of the mixture to put in the freezer for another baking morning. Thanks to Nardi for sharing this idea with me. I'm very keen to give it a go. We have a few special outings this week with our friends and mums group so these biscuits will be good to take and share around. I'm looking forward to eating one myself!

You could extend this activity by.....

• baking other shaped biscuits
• read 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'
• making butterfly stain glass for the windows
• collage butterfly cut-outs
• do a butterfly hunt
• play with play dough
• look at the life-cycle of a butterfly
• do the butterfly dance off 'Wiggles Safari' dvd
• dress up like a butterfly
• sing 'How does a caterpillar go?' + 'How does a butterfly go?'
• making biscuits to give to others as a gift

Kalinga Park - Fun For Everyone

It seems like forever since we've gone on a girlie outing and chased down a cupcake. Winter time was filled with sickness and other things taking our minds off our usual outing fun. Spring is so lovely for getting out and about and I was inspired to go to the Cupcake Parlour when I read In Search Of the Perfect Cupcake at http://www.ourbrisbane.com/food-and-drink/gallery/cupcakes-gallery Our outing this morning started at The Cupcake Parlour. I don't need to tell you how good this place is as you can read all about it in my previous cupcake blogging. Oh why not.....it is SO GOOD! The girls and I had a special time having morning tea together before taking off to our next destination.

I've been keen to find all the school holiday fun happening around town but for some reason haven't come across much at all except for the Ipswich Art Gallery fun. I've searched online, in magazines and looked elsewhere but nothing within budget + age group has shown up so we made our own fun. During my search online I came across what seemed to be a terrific park in Clayfield so we set out to find it and have a morning of park play.

This amazing park is called Kalinga Park and you'll discover it on Park Avenue in Clayfield. It's set amongst big, beautiful shady trees and has a bike path running alongside it. With school holidays in full swing there were many mums and kids out enjoying the park. Kalinga park is definitely one of the best I've been to. Miss H and I found a shady spot for her feed time while Miss M ventured out (in my eye view) to explore the huge forts. There's climbing and slides for every age and development level so the kids from toddlers right up to the school aged kids were having fun.

The park also has a sandpit with a bridge going over it, three great swing sets with plenty of baby swings and a long rock climbing wall for the kids and adults to master. We'll be telling Daddy that Miss M had a go as he is a keen rock climber!

This is the part that I regret to tell you. My camera stopped working while we were there so I'm afraid that the photos I took will not show you just how amazing this park is. You'll just have to go and check it out for yourself if you live in Brisbane or are visiting our sunny state.

Why not take a BBQ or picnic and enjoy the shade of one of the lovely trees - the kids will be busy for hours. Just don't forget to pack the bikes or scooters. There were scooters everywhere today and my little Miss M loved getting hers out of the inside of the house (doing laps) and scooting along both the big bike track and the one curling its way in and around the play area.

I'm curious to know what holiday fun other families have found. I'd love to hear your ideas.

One for Mum

Sometimes it's just lovely as a mum to go on an outing where you feel like you've been treated too. Often we head to parks and play centres to make sure that our littlies are catered for but today I found out about a place where mum can have some mummy time and the kids can enjoy a play.

This morning we caught up with some special friends at a place called Home Shop and Cafe. It is found at 20 Stewart Rd, Ashgrove. (apparently where Locomotion used to be) It is a beautiful cafe which has both homewares on sale and tasty food on the menu. It was buzzing with people but we were able to book a back room which was specially set up to cater to people with kids. What a treat! Adjoining this room is a small room, with a small door for kids to access and play with toys.

The food was scrumptious! I had a chocolate brownie (highly recommended by my friend) and Miss M had a Raspberry Cupcake. It felt so good to be able to enjoy lovely surroundings and scrumptious food while Miss M had a play - the perfect combination I think.

It won't be long before I return with mums group in tow so we can all enjoy such a lovely place. Just remember though, if you want to use the back room for your next mummy catch-up you need to book ahead. There's a park down the road which would be great for a play afterwards or you could visit The Enchanted Forest park nearby. (check out June blogs or Parks for more info)

http://www.homestorecafe.com.au/ or 3366 6652

Ice-creams or Cupcakes?

It would be easy to make the mistake of thinking these are delicious cold ice-creams but they are actually cupcakes. This is a recipe I've used time and again and it can either be made using a cheap cupcake packet mix or mixing up a batch from scratch. You can refer to the cupcake recipe from my June blog posts or under Cupcake blogs for a very simple recipe. (Australian Animal Cupcakes)

Ice-cream Cupcakes

You will need....

Small ice-cream cones - with a flat bottom

Cupcake Mix

Icing - I buy Betty Crocker's Frosting

Lollies

Follow a recipe for making cupcakes.

Instead of putting the mixture into patty pans, put it in to ice-cream cones on a baking tray.

Cook in a moderate oven until golden. It's really important to check that the cakes are cooked on the inside. To do this stick a skewer down the centre. If it comes out clean they are ready.

Cool cakes on a cooling rack.

Decorate with icing and lollies.

Eat!

These are great for a morning baking activity together or for children's parties. Kids will have fun making, baking and eating these sweet treats.

A Grand Plan

Sometimes I don't know where our week will take us. Some weeks I plan ahead for various activities and outings and then of course there are our usual scheduled outings to Mums on the GO and the library. This week started however with a surprise outing which was planned just after waking up.

To begin our outing we did a return trip to Nourish on Racecourse Rd, Ascot to buy two yummy take-away cupcakes for a picnic in the park. (couldn't resist!) Then, we took ourselves to the Portside Wharf area at Hamilton to try out a different park. I'm going to call this park Portside Park because I can't find the name of it anywhere. You'll find it on the corner of Hercules St and Remora Rd, Hamilton, just across the road from Portside Wharf. (approx 15 mins from Brisbane CBD) I'd eyed this park off once before and stored it away in my memory as a good park to visit one day. Finally we went there for a play and it was excellent.

What I liked about this park was its variety of play equipment for kids both big and small to try. A lot of the equipment is not like equipment I've seen at other parks. It's set up with a nautical theme to fit in with it's locality so there's lots of water play things, without the water.

This is definitely going to be a park that we return to with Daddy as it has all his favourite activities - rock climbing, surfing and skate boarding. The surf boards and skate boards were really just balancing boards. Miss M found the skateboards to be a little tricky which was great for her to practise her balancing on all by herself and she was keen to give the rock climbing a go next time when Daddy comes back with us. We also discovered that the park has a road area complete with road signs for kids to ride bikes on and a massive obstacle course which tests all kinds of skills. Miss M had her most fun on this trying out the flying fox, stepping stones and the part where you had to weave your body in and out of the poles.

There was the usual slides, a fort, a cubby house and a wobbly bridge too which catered for little kids. We made mention that next time we would have to come with our sandpit toys to play in the sandpit and bring along Miss M's bike for the bike track and road. There was almost too much to do in one morning.

We finished our park visit with a walk to Portside Wharf to look at the Brisbane River and then devoured a lovely lunch of fish and chips which we bought at Portside for $10 - it was enough to feed our little family. All in all it was a great outing. Miss M told me it was the best lunch she'd ever had which made me giggle on the inside. 'Twas a grand plan to start our week!

Caring With Cupcakes

This is the face of my little baker after we finished baking some chocolate fudge 'n' flake cupcakes last week. Don't worry Miss M is not allowed to lick the spatula until the cooking process is done! She loves to lick the "patula" and as she does she makes a pretend licking sound just as if she was pretending in a game in her own little kitchen. I have to giggle.

My husband and I are keen for our girls to grow up with a veiw of others in the world and the needs they have. We try and keep our eyes open for opportunities to let the girls be part of caring for others. Baking seems to be a way that we can easily help out while the girls are so little and Miss M really enjoys cooking and dropping off the finished product to where it has to go. These cupcake were for some leaders who we think are pretty special. Although they're not people in need these leaders take a week of their holidays to care for 380+ kids at a holiday program in our church so we thought they might like to eat some chocolate cupcakes and some yummy vanilla freckle ones too. Caring with cupcakes is a little ministry that our girls can do along with me. There are lots of other opportunites out there, we just have to find them. Is there something you do with your littlies to care for others? I'd love to hear some ideas. While you think, here are the cupcakes.

A Search For the Perfect Cupcake

I have so much to blog about after such a wonderful weekend full of outings in Brisbane with family but let me share about today's outing first as it was just so exciting. If you've been reading my blogs since the beginning (not so long ago) you will know that I love cupcakes. I love to bake them, I love to go to places that sell them but most of all I love to eat them. One of my friends suggested that I was on a hunt for the perfect cupcake. Maybe I am and today I think I came the closest ever!

I used to work with a beautiful friend who shares an interest in lovely girlie things so I knew that if she liked a cupcake shop it would be a wonderful place to visit. The girls and I were catching up with a special school friend of mine and her two girls today. (Our littlest girls are a day apart in age as they were due on the same day. Miss E came first!) I asked my old work friend about one of her favourite cupcake shops called Nourish and where we would find it. My school friend and I and our beautiful girls went on a trip to discover for ourselves the amazing cupcakes Nourish had to eat. My old work friend was right...as I knew she would be!

This place had me at "hello" as all the decor was red, chocolate brown and light blue, my favourite combination in decorating. Displayed were the yummiest cupcakes you will ever find and they are made from scratch from a family heirloom recipe. (You can tell!) I chose a chocolate one and Miss M chose a strawberry surprise one which had jam in the middle and went perfectly with her strawberry milkshake. Not only did I love the cupcake I ate, every mouthful was divine but the service was beyond great. This is a must try place! You can find Nourish at Shop 3/68 on Racecourse Rd, Ascot. (Just near one of my other favourite places - Gourmet Haas + almost across from Woolworths)

We couldn't resist bringing home a cupcake for Daddy to devour too. It came home beautifully packaged up in a white box with string along with two little cupcakes inside for Miss M and for me. What an added little surprise! We'll definitely be back for another cupcake date - very very soon!

Check out http://www.nourishcupcakes.com.au

To Market...To Market to Buy a Fat Pig

Today's little adventure was to a favourite pick-me-up spot of ours and since Miss M has been sick since the weekend it was lovely to be able to bless her with a special cupcake treat. The Cupcake Parlour is found at Shop 5/60 Vulture St, West End, Brisbane. There are special cupcakes of all kinds but today we picked up a pink pig for Miss M and I couldn't go past trying a Toblerone Topper to take away. Yum!

The Cupcake Parlour is very pink which is just perfect for a mother and her two girls. Next time we will dine in on their lovely furniture and discover some other yummy cupcake designs and flavours. We highly recommend you do too.

http://www.thecupcakeparlour.com.au

Tea Cups For Tea Parties

What a lovely way to spend an afternoon, playing ladies at a girlies afternoon tea party. This occasion was a Grandma's Girls Afternoon Tea which was for all the girls on my mums side of the family. My cousin and I had fun organising this event together. We asked everyone to bring a plate so I made little tea cups. I thought you might like to see them and find out how they are made. Note how I also made sure to get my cousin's beautiful flower cupcakes in the photo too. I was in cupcake heaven! This simple tea cup recipe was passed on to me by my beautiful sister-in-law. It doesn't involve any cooking just sticking together.

Tea Cups

You will need...

Arnotts Tic Toc Biscuits

Icing made to a paste or use Betty Crockers Vanilla Frosting

Pascalls Marshmellows

Musk Lifesavers

Allens Freckles

Use your icing as the glue to hold the tea cups together.

The biscuit will be the base/saucer. I like to use a different colour to the cup.

Stick a marshmellow in the centre, it will be the tea cup.

Add a freckle on the top for a froth effect.

Cut the musk lifesavers in half and stick one to the side as a handle.

These sweet tiny treats are as cute as can be. They are perfect for little girls parties....and as I found out yesterday, the grown up girls like them just as much!

Australian Animal Cupcakes

With my new Woman's Weekly Kids Little Party Cakes book I am now ready to create kids cupcakes of all kinds - hooray! I just LOVE to make cupcakes. Since we were off to Walkabout Creek today I thought it would be a good idea to take 24 little cupcakes to match the theme of the day. Here's just a quick pic to show you how the koalas and cockatoos turned out. The cupcakes in the WW book were bigger so I had to put my thinking cap on to make these work. Medium sized cupcakes definitely work better for little mouths!

As a mum I find it easier to have recipes that don't require much work. These cupcakes are just a throw it all in and mix it round recipe followed by some very easy assembling. Here is the cupcake recipe I like to use....

Cupcakes

1 cup SR flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup caster sugar
90 gr softened butter
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees.
Line medium sized cupcake tray with patty pans.
Mix all the ingredients in a mix master until smooth.
Spoon into tray.
Bake in the oven until golden.

Cool on a tray before decorating.

The secret (or not so secret) ingredient is Betty Crockers frosting found in the baking section of the supermarket. It is every mums dream! I always have some ready to go in the fridge.

These cupcakes used...Mini M+Ms, Natural Confectionery Jelly Beans, Nestle White Chocolate Buds, Black Jelly Beans (from the Chemist) and Queen Writing Fudge.