Week 2 Wilton Cake Decorating Course....

This week we had to come to class with a multi layered pre-iced cake that was ready to decorate.
I opted to test out a recipe from my Planet Cake book and made 'White Chocolate Mudcake'
I baked one cake and used my new 'cake leveler' to cut it into 2 and also trim that funny 'dome' bit that can result from the rising agents in self-raising flour. So I had two perfect flat round layers. I wanted a third layer to add a bit more height but knew the white chocolate mudcake was going to be huge so I made a half quantity of a traditional butter sponge cake which baked to just the right size for one more layer and made it that the cake wasn't as rich in taste.
In between each layer I firstly piped a steady ring of buttercream icing to prevent the filling from being squished and flowing to the outside of the cake. Inside the ring I placed just plain freshly whipped cream as between the butter cream icing and the white chocolate mudcake layers this was one sweet cake!
I then covered the cake in bright blue (yes I have a bit of thing for my Wilton blue colouring!) icing and endeavoured to get it as smooth as I possibly could. This was as good as it got...

So by Monday morning I was all ready for class that night. Oh and I was stoked that I was right about the girl next to me accidentally picking up my 'tips'. She looked at me a little strange at first then opened her kit and realised. Was just relieved I hadn't lost stuff on the 1st night!
This is how my cake looked coming home that night......

I really really didn't want to even have a piece of this! But when I got home from class and the house was nice and quiet...couldn't help but have a piece with my Troy whilst watching a bit of '24' on DVD. This is what the inside looked like....

 And the remainder went off with Troy to work to share around with the crew at his office.

And to tag a bit of an update about my training for the 10km and losing weight. I haven't managed to shift any more weight but I have been hitting the pavement on a regular basis with Huddo in the jogger pram. My endurance fitness is definitely on the increase but the time I will complete the run in is a bit of worry! I personally am finding running whilst still breastfeeding quite difficult but I'm managing to get around it and get my fitness up which is making me very happy.

Cheese Bikkies...

Here is the most simple savoury biscuit recipe I have ever done thanks to a recommendation from my lovely fellow-mummy friend Jenna..

Ingredients:
50g parmesan cheese finely grated
50g tasty cheese finely grated
25g unsalted butter
50g wholemeal flour

Preheat oven to 180oC. Line a tray with baking paper. Combine all ingredients well. Roll into small balls.
Place onto tray and gently press down (I use back of a fork). Bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes.
Makes about 12.
Before going into the oven....

Coming out of the oven...

 

 To make them a bit healthier next batch I'm going to add 25g of grated carrot and 25g of grated zucchini.
But they were definitely a hit with both Hudson and Dallas.

Hitting another 'Wonder Weeks Leap'

Hudson is currently approaching his next Wonder Week Leap and as the book describes coming up to the next leap your bubba may be a little more irritable, fussy or clingy than usual. As noted in this blog Hudson is always a great eater and generally eats whatever I make him but he can be a little fussy for a week or so in these lead up periods. For this post I am attaching a list of the 'Never Fail' meals that Hudson will always eat regardless!!

Chicken with Sweetpotato, Apple, Pear & a pinch of ground ginger.
Pasta with beef bolognaise (I put my bolognaise through the food processor and always have about 5 or 6 veg in there)
Atlantic Salmon with sweet potato, broccoli, cauliflower & parmesan cheese sauce
5 Beans Mix with pumpkin, peas, zucchini, cinnamon & cumin.

Last Friday Hudson started showing the signs of the next leap and I made sure in the grocery shop on Sunday I included all the ingredients for these meals and pre-froze them. And meal-wise he hasn't skipped a beat. His sleeping however is a bit out of the ordinary. I'm lucky that he generally doesn't wake more than 2 times a night in phases like this or unless a new tooth has cut but yesterday he did skip his big day sleep and only power napped for 20 minutes at lunch. He was getting a little grumpy at 5pm so I put a mattress down on the floor in his room and gave him a  breastfeed and thought I'd have a little powernap with him myself to get through until bed time.. Well we both fell asleep and I woke up hearing Troy come home at 7pm! Hudson didn't even stir. I put him into his cot and thought "Well this is a bit weird but hey....never wake a sleeping baby I say!"....
I then proceeded to make dinner and Troy and I relaxed and watched some telly. Then at 10.30 Huddo woke up. Troy had been asleep for over half an hour, so Huddo and I did our usual night routine....just 4 hours later than usual. By midnight he was back in bed, snug in his jammies and up at 7 this morning like usual.

Some little treats! ...yummmmm...

In the last 2 weeks I've made some yummy little treats!
First up is my minimuffins of last week. The basic recipe is the same as that in the post Blueberry & Ginger Minimuffins however I used 1 apple (grated) and half a punnet of diced strawberries. The fresh strawberries created a jam-like swirl through the muffins and was really very delicious.

Then there are my little vanilla cupcakes I made to practice some piping techniques. I just did a basic layer of buttercream icing on some but practiced decorating on others. I used a vanilla cupcake recipe from the Planet Cake Book. This is how they turned out...

On Sunday I went down to the Caloundra markets and Huddo and I shared a plate of Dutch pancakes. Well out of a plate of 12, I got 4! So yesterday I made him some little 'Mickey Mouse' piklets. (He LOVES Mickey!)
The recipe for them is:
Beat together; 1 cup self-raising flour, 1 tbsp caster sugar, 3/4 cup of milk, 1 egg, half tsp ground ginger.
Heat some butter in a fry pan. Pour tbsp amount of mixture into the fry pan and cook until bubbly then flip and cook on other side for 45 seconds.
I used a Mickey Mouse aluminium shape cutter for mine.

As for a topping I used a fine scraping of raspberry jam. Please note that all treats mentioned in this post are each 1 or 2 mouthfuls in size so therefore a great small size without giving your bub too much sugar.

Wilton Cake Course: Week 1...

Monday night I started my cake decorating course at How To Cook. I thoroughly enjoyed it and got many helpful tips which I am going to practice and most of all find very useful when I make Hudson's 1st Birthday Cake at the end of the month.
This week we had to take some flat biscuits and icing (the icing was a recipe specified in the training book) and in regards to the biscuits there was the option of making them yourself or taking store-bought ones. I opted to bake my own and did so on Sunday evening. I used a basic Butter Cookie recipe I found online.
I was very happy with my biscuits and the consistency of my icing was just as described in the training manual so so far so good.
With my kit all packed by Monday morning and keeping in mind that class was starting at 7 I was armed with my checklist of the day. Monday's I take care of my friends Shaun & Chanelle's little boy Dallas and I wanted to make sure that I had Hudson bathed and fed before Troy came home from work and I left for the course.
I was right on schedule and amidst bathing Huddo and Dallas was standing next to me outside the bath while I was washing Huddo. Dallas was getting a bit cranky and I knew what was going on here...someone thought he was missing out.....so in he went also!



Chanelle arrived to pick up Mr Dallas just as it was time to get out and then I gave Huddo his dinner of Chickpeas w/veg and a tub of yoghurt. Huddo bathed and in his pjs...check, Huddo fed....check, bottle of expressed milk in the fridge ready to go for Troy to give Huddo before bed......check....6.35pm: Time to leave....hmmmm.

Huddo saw me getting my shoes on and quickly running the ghd's through my hair. Could see his mind ticking over "Hey, I'm in my pjs and she looks like she's going out. I don't like that" ....As I was saying good bye he was crying very hard and Troy was cuddling him. My excitement for the course quickly disappeared and I felt horrible as I was now running late and left. :(

The course itself was very informative and there was a good demonstration of how to ice a cake properly and with 25 minutes to go we sat at our work station and commenced piping practice on our biscuits. I only got one biscuit done before it was time to pack up. But I felt confident on practicing at home. I went to practice this morning only to find that the lady sitting next to me has picked up my 'tips' for different styles of piping by mistake. So I only had the one tip in my box to practice with until next class. This was what I did briefly this morning...

 I'm pretty proud of the love heart one....

Next week the instructor is away so I won't be going for lesson 2 until the week after. But that lesson I have to take an iced cake that is ready to be decorated....I'll post pics before I go.

Enjoy your day everyone and please 'like' the Facebook if you are enjoying what you are reading for updates on future posts!

Beef, Beetroot & Broccoflower....

The Woolworths I shop at, as Kawana Waters has a great selection of Australian grown fruit and veg. I really like having a good wander and shop with my Huddo and pick out the different fresh produce I'm going to use for the cooking in the week ahead and this week one in particular caught my eye....
Broccoflower. Now I do understand from reading online this is by no means something new but I just found it interesting and thought I'd give it a whirl in some cooking this week. It tastes very similar to cauliflower like cauliflower is a great source of fibre, has decent protein content and with the additional phytonutrients and green appearance it is actually a great source of vitamin C.....sounds good to me.
The next thing I got was 'Dutch carrots' they are similar shape to carrots but are purple in colour. Taste is slightly more bitter than an orange carrot and very tasty. A little carrot fun fact that I was not aware of .....carrots were originally purple for centuries before the Europeans began cultivating them as orange.

So with my new vegies in mind I made Huddo a beef dish....

Beef, Beetroot & Broccoflower

Ingredient:
200g Premium beef mince
1/4 head of broccoflower, broken up into small florets
1 beetroot, peeled and diced
half a sweet potato diced
1 cup of sliced mushrooms.
2 dutch carrots peeled and diced
1 zucchini diced.
half a head of broccoli, broken up into small florets
1 cup beef stock
1 cup of cous cous

Method:
1)Cook beef in a splash of olive oil until brown.
2)Pour in beef stock and all vegies. Simmer on low-med heat until vegies are soft.
3)Add cous cous. This should absorb excess liquid. Cook on low until cous cous is soft
4)Mash until desired consistency...

It's a very bright coloured looking dish while cooking....

And very purply when mashed..... Huddo was quite fascinated with the colour and I wasn't sure if he liked it but he ate it all but just stared at the bowl the entire time. Due to the mince and beef stock it has quite a heavy savoury taste but the sweetness of the beetroot gives it really nice after taste also.

When I studied natural medicine I did a subject on Colour Therapy and how varying the colours of your meals can be energising. Well I don't think Huddo needs any additional energising but it's good to know that he's getting an array of nutrients from all the varied vegies.

My Breakfast these days.....10km Event Part 2

I have been a good girl for the last couple of weeks and sticking to training for the 10km and I feel my fitness is definitely getting better.... just thought I would share the brekky I have been making myself each day to ensure I'm starting off the day on the right foot

A glass of V-8 juice (I got for the low sodium one) and 2 poached eggs on a piece of multi-grain toast. (Forgive the dodgy look of my poached eggs...I'm still trying to master that skill!)
Definitely yummy and keeps me full for hours. For morning tea I've been having a hit of my 'supergreens' in some yoghurt and that is great to get me through until lunch.
Depending on how much time he has in the morning I've been making eggs for Troy for breakfast too and keeping his office stocked with nuts and healthy snacks to tie him over until he gets home for lunch.

My Mr Hud-Unit though...he eats almost as much as us!

An average day will look something like this.... a piece of peanut butter on toast, porridge with 3 cubes of fruit and about 120mL of bubba apple & cranberry juice. And all of that gets eaten! Nothing like a good brekky to get you going.