Red Velvet Cupcakes......

This week it was one of my very special friends Jennilee's birthday. I work with Jen at the market and she has the most amazing clothes which I have become quite the fan of ...for those that are interested here is her link to her website. So yesterday when I went to work at the market I took along a little box of cupcakes that I made as a little gift. Jennilee is a gorgeous woman who loves all things feminine and loves wearing various shades of pink! So with this in mind I made red velvet cupcakes topped with ivory, pale pink and dark pink flowers.

The Recipe for the Red Velvet Cupcakes.... courtesy of Iris at How to Cook is:
Now please keep in mind as I was making cupcakes I have halved the original quantities.
To make 3 x 20 or 2 x 23cm cake pans do double the quantities mentioned.

Ingredients:
125g Unsalted butter
1.5 cups of caster sugar
3 eggs
1.5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
15mLs red food colouring
1/2 cup of buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon bi carb soda
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar

Method:
1. Preheat over to 180oC
2. Line cupcake tray with desired cases.
3. Beat butter, vanilla extract and sugar in a bowl until white and creamy. (about 5 minutes)
4. Add eggs one at a time and beat after each addition
5. Slowly add food colouring with the eggs and beat till combined
6. Add sifted flour and cocoa alternately with butter milk
7. Combine vinegar and bicard in a separate small bowl and combine the until frothy (note: you will feel a bit like a mad scientist as this fizzes.. :) )
8. Add vinegar mixture to the cake batter
9. Pour into cupcake cases (or cake tins)

Cupcakes will bake in approximately 15-20 minutes.
Cakes will bake in approximately 28-30 minutes.

The icing I made for the buttercream that I list the recipe for in the post 'Cakes Cakes & More Cakes..'
but this time instead of just a teaspoon of vanilla essence I did
-1/2 teaspoon of  clear vanilla essence
-1/2 teaspoon of  clear lemon essence
-1/2 teaspoon of clear butter essence

All of the flowers were made on Thursday and kept in the freezer overnight.
The cupcakes I baked on Friday and once cooled I decorated Friday afternoon popped them into a cute little pink cupcake box and took to the market on Saturday.

(Oh and as for what happened with the other 8 cupcakes of the batch.....Huddo has 2 uniced ones and I gave the remaining ones to my neighbours who have 2 school-aged boys for their afternoon tea) ...

I got this box from 'How to Cook' but generally the cupcake boxes I use I get off eBay.

A Variety of Breakfasts....not just for little people!

Recently I posted about the Toddler Power Pancakes. Tonight I'm going to post about the other 2 brekkies my little man has been enjoying of late. ....And they aren't just for little people.

First up I give you his:
Poached Egg on Toast with Salmon.
As simple as it sounds this consists of a piece (or 2) of multigrain toast, one (or 2) poached egg(s) mashed over the toast, topped with a piece of smoked salmon and cut into little squares. ...The salmon is always the first thing to be eaten. ...What can I say he's a kid after his mumma's heart!...and makes me feel good about the protein and omega 3's he's getting.

The other breakfast is a bit of a modified long-time favourite. Since early on last winter I introduced Huddo to porridge with my fruit purees mixed in. Now I like to make it a bit more nutrient packed....I like to call it ...
Porridge with The LOT!
1/2 cup of porridge
1/4 cup of fruit puree (generally mixed berries & apple....I still am a fan of freezing the fruit purees into icecube trays. ...They just come in handy for adding healthy little flavours to various things)
1 tablespoon of yoghurt
1 teaspoon of flaxseed meal (aka linseed meal)
1 tablespoon of protein powder

The protein, fibre and other vitamins make this one nutrient packed bowl.

Throughout the week the breakfast meal plan generally looks like this over the last couple of months:
Sunday: Power Pancakes!
Monday: Power Pancakes (remaining mixture)
Tuesday: Eggs & salmon on Toast
Wednesday:...now this is the day we work at the markets and he generally has a plate of little Dutch Pancakes (definitely more sugar in this than the ones I make but hey it's one day of the week!)
Thursday: Porridge with The Lot!
Friday: Porridge with The Lot.
Saturday: Eggs & Salmon on Toast.
 
Also I often get asked about what liquids Hudson is having these days. When he was a few months old I was experimenting with different juices diluted, water and breastmilk.
Now I find he just doesn't particularly care for juices which doesn't phase me. He does however consume alot of water over the course of the day (generally between 600mL to a litre...some really hot market days it's much more) And he is still going strong with the breastmilk. However on Saturdays market day when he is home with Troy he has cow's milk in a cup with 3 teaspoons of protein powder shaken in.

Hope you are all having a great weekend! :) 

Beach Cake....

Last week was my cousin Jerry-Lee's 12th Birthday and for the occasion I made her a beach cake for her love of surfing and the beach. Also she has much admiration for the movie 'Surfer Girl' so I couldn't help myself and put a shark fin in the water also.

To talk you through a bit about the techniques I used for this cake first up I give you the recipe link for the Caramel Mudcake.
I doubled the quantities mentioned and made 2 rectangular cakes with the mixture.
Allowed both cakes to cool and used one as the base and the other to carve the 2 waves, the shark fin and the surfboard.
I covered all parts of the cake in buttercream icing and covered the waves, surfboard and shark fin in appropriately coloured fondant.
For the sand I used a packet of Arnott's Nice biscuits and put them thoroughly through the food processor.  (I also added a teaspoon of edible glitter to the sand too to give it a bit of shimmer)
Over the top of the blue fondant for the water I swished around with a spatula a tub of 'Wilton Piping Gel' that I had coloured blue to give it a real water glossy-like effect.
Finally I used buttercream to decorate the surfboard, create the foam in the waves and write her Jerry-Lee's name in the sand.

From my favourite cooking shop How to Cook I got the shells which are made from sugar and give the finishing touch to the cake. This therefore made the entire cake edible and very much loved by my cousin.                                                                             

Toddler Power Pancakes....

People that read this blog regularly will know aside from my love of baking and cake decorating my other food passion is breakfast! It's the meal of the day that I don't mind making something different for Troy, Huddo and myself to meet our needs and preferences to start the day.

Something that Huddo absolutely LOVES is pancakes. I came to realise this one Sunday morning a few months back when we did a rare visit to McDonalds and I ordered him hotcakes. ....He devoured all 3 in the same time it took me to eat a Bacon & Egg roll.

So with this I got thinking about pancakes and what to do to increase their nutritional value so that I could incorporate this fav on a weekly basis. This recipe is what I came up with:

Please note that I do specify gluten-free self-raising flour in this. For my baking at home I have switched to gluten-free plain and self-raising flours as I find it is a little gentler on the gut. However, the recipe works perfectly well with common flours.

Ingredients:
150g Gluten-Free Self-Raising Flour
250mL milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons of Protein Powder
1 tablespoon of Chia Seeds
1 teaspoon of Flaxseed meal (aka Linseed Meal)

1/2 cup of frozen mixed berries
1 tablespoon of maple syrup
bit of butter

Method:
1)In a bowl mix flour, milk and egg.
2)Add protein, chia seeds and flaxseed meal.
3) Have a fry pan on high with a bit of Sunflower oil or butter in the pan.
4) Pour in a tablespoon or 2 of the mixture onto the hot fry pan. Make the pancakes however big you like. I tend to make them more pikelet size.

5)Once several bubbles are occurring in the mixture then flip and cook until both sides are golden.
6)Repeat until have desired serve. I find that this mix makes about 16 pikelet size pancakes and Huddo has 8. Which means generally once, I've made 8 I cover the mixture with glad-wrap and use the rest the next morning.
7) Put frozen berries into a bowl and in the microwave for a minute or until they are very soft and easily mashed with a fork.
8) Add maple syrup to the mashed warm berries.

9)On plate with cooked pancakes, spread a little butter over the pancakes and drizzle the berry syrup. (I find that have the berries with the syrup gives a great amount of flavour without too much sugar from syrup).

Just a little note and reminder to all readers.... if you are enjoying this blog...please have a little click on any of the ads you see on the side toolbar or below the post as clicks on these earn me a little $$. Thanks in advance for any clicks and continuing support. Also, please 'like' the facebook page. I post links to the blog when I do up a new post. :) Have a great day.

'Bejeweled Cake' ...

Since Christmas and with being quite busy with all Huddo's activities, getting fit....and moving house...I haven't made many cakes of late but last month I made a cake for my very good friend Melinda for her birthday and this week I made one for my little cousin Jerry-Lee who turned 12.

So first up to give a little backstory on my friend Melinda we have known eachother since we were 6 years old. We lost touch with each other after high school but thanks to Facebook over the last few years we have reconnected and now both each have a child, a love of baking and a strange addiction to the game Bejeweled. Therefore for her birthday I thought I would be funny and make her a birthday cake with it's decoration centering around this game. I predominantly used fondant icing and wanted to create a swirl of irregular jewel shapes in the colours from the game. (Those that are fans of the game will notice there are some other shapes in there too that I ad-lib'ed)
The cake itself is coconut sponge (just use a basic vanilla sponge cake recipe but as well as putting in a teaspoon of vanilla essence add a teaspoon of coconut essence) with milk chocolate ganache inbetween the layers. I also decorated with baker's buttercream icing I make myself and edible glitter.....lots and lots of edible glitter.
The end result was this

 However, I finished this the morning that I was going to meet up with Melinda. Huddo was ready. I was ready. "Just wait a sec matey Mum mum has to go to the loo".......within 30 seconds I heard this little thud.  ......Turns out my now 91cm 18 month old can fully reach our kitchen bench and was a little intrigued by the sparkly thing on the bench.....this is what became of my cake:

So I cut the smooshed third off, chalked the whole situation up to a parenting fail and vowed to never underestimate my son's height and what his little fingers can reach again and took the rest along with my camera. With Melinda having a toddler herself she found the humour and appreciated 'Huddo's touch' to her birthday cake.

A few little changes for a big result!..

So after I returned home from our road trip I did the usual thing you would do after you unpacked, did all the washing and just generally enjoyed the comfort of being home......I looked at the photos I had taken. There was a particular pic of myself (undecided whether to post it yet or not!)...that I nearly died when I saw myself. Not to mention that on more than one occasion (despite the fact I had actually lost a few kilos before going on holidays) I was asked if I was pregnant again. So as I feel that I have done a few times in the past year I took the opportunity of being home and getting back into routine to look at my eating and exercise and what else I could do to change the body I had but really didn't want.

First up, I had been very eager to go and have acupuncture to assist with aligning my general health and assisting with my ongoing problem of poor digestion (I'll spare you the details that go with that one). So I went and had a treatment with an acupuncturist who is also a naturopath and spoke about what she recommend for an effective eating plan. To cut a long story short and give you the highlights. I pretty much eliminated sugars, dairy and wheat/gluten for a month. I went for a treatment each week for 3 weeks in a row to assist with my sugar cravings and now I go fortnightly.

So the food was in great shape (I have a little bit of wheat probably once a week but I'm still pretty much off dairy and sugar) and starting to have some great results.

On the fourth treatment of acupuncture I was asked if I was a member of a gym and what I was doing for exercise. My response "No, I used to years ago but not since living up on the Sunny Coast and I don't have the time to fit it in with Hudson." ...her response "Have you ever considered joining a gym with a creche?" Basically this conversation ended with it being established that I had a problem with this as I felt that I was being slack if I put Huddo in any sort of care so that I could take the time to do something for myself. But when you are devoting all your time to your child is it really that bad to take an hour to an hour and a half a day to go and workout so that you are taking care of yourself?? This was the magic question. After quite the discussion with Troy and basically establishing that it wasn't going to be a matter of Hudson not liking it, it was going to be a matter of me not being a sook and letting go a bit to basically stop me from letting myself go!

A few days later I joined the awesome gym up the road and as Troy thought (and deep down I knew too)...Hudson LOVED it! He had so much fun and now when I get my gym clothes on he gets this little smile on his face and gets himself his water bottle that he takes and is nearly standing at the door waiting for me so we can go.

In terms of what I do at the gym, well I pretty much am happy to try whatever class is on when I get there. (Les Mills classes mainly)...BodyPump, BodyStep, you name it I'll give it a crack. But my favourite would have to be RPM or 'Spin Class'. I get on that bike and pretty much just punish myself for 45 minutes and oh I feel great at the end of it.....exhausted, sweaty and near death but great.

The last change has been that I have basically swapped my facebook time for My Fitness Pal. A place where you can calorie count and not just look at total calories you consume but a breakdown of carbs, fats and proteins and insert your exercise to see roughly how many calories you have burnt in exercise sessions and how that goes for you for the day compared to your consumer calories.  I have really enjoyed tracking this as I know I've mentioned before but due to still breastfeeding I'm always very conscious of not disrupting my milk supply.

So, my first Acupuncture treatment was on the 12th January.....since then, I'm coming up to 8kg lost. I'm no longer being asked if I'm pregnant again which is great. And my size 14 clothes are swimming on me and somehow I seemed to have bypassed size 12 and a comfortable size 10 again...........Size 8 here I come!

Back from my blogging holiday....Road Tripping with a Toddler!

Well hello there!......I've taken quite a break from blogging in the last few months but have been taking lots of 'mummy stuff' notes and plenty to come. To start at the beginning:

Our Christmas Road trip. When Troy and I told our friends and family we were going to have a 3 week holiday driving from the Sunshine Coast to Gold Coast to Warrnambool to Melbourne back to Warrnambool to Adelaide and then home to the Sunshine Coast (About 5 200kms round trip) with our 16 month old toddler we got a lot of 'Good Luck with that!' (sarcastically)..."You two are mad!" and other various similar comments. But we were pleasantly surprised with every hundred kilometres we drove that Huddo was just amazing.

In the 5000+kms he cried once. On the leg from the Gold Coast to Warrnambool we left at 5pm and drove straight through the night and day to arrive in Warrnambool by 6pm the following evening. The cry (which lasted less than 2 minutes) was at 2am when Huddo woke in a fright that he was still in the car. But all we did was stop at the next McDonalds. I gave him a nappy change, a breastfeed and let him have a little run around in the McDonalds playground for 20 minutes. Yes, a little strange at 2 in the morning but like us adults were dying to stretch our legs I thought Huddo would enjoy the same. And sure enough within 5 minutes of being back in the car, he was back to being sound asleep.
With each leg of the trip we were nearly expecting or waiting for him to 'have had enough' and just lose the plot. Nope. He soldiered on. The only difficulty of the trip was the first night we were at a new destination. Considering I can't remember the last time Huddo woke through the night (think it was somewhere back at 10 months old) the first night in each place was very unsettled and would wake several times upset.
So with so many kilometres of 'toddler travelling' I give you my tips to road tripping with one!

1)If you have enough drivers. (on the way to Warrnambool my inlaws travelled with us so there were 4 drivers) Start a big leg in the late afternoon after you little one is bathed, fed and comfortably in pjs. Basically think of what you would feel most comfortable in if you are travelling for long stretches.

2)When you are driving thru the night and if your toddler's car seat is placed in the middle of the backseat tie a blanket or jacket between the back of the 2 front seats to create a darkness in the back to block out street lights and headlights from cars coming passed you. This consistent darkness is very relaxing.

3)Car temperature! Like at home keeping your car not too warm or cold can be key to your little one having the best sleep.

4)DVDs! Although it is frowned upon and not ideal to have your child watching too much telly day to day.....for road trips it is a saviour. We are fortunate that our car has and inbuilt dvd player but an inexpensive portable one would do just as good. Huddo has become OBSESSED with 'The Little Einsteins' and his one dvd with 3 x 20 minute episodes of this show nearly got worn out on this trip.

5)Surrender to the backseat of your car being COVERED in a vairety of books, toys, stuffed animals.
I spent the majority of the trip in the back seat with Huddo reading to him, stabilising his colouring-in book on his lap whilst he coloured, passing him various toys and doing my assorted range of voices with particular favourite stuffed animals.

6)Having a steady supply of snacks on board! And ensuring that the usual routine of eating times, milk times and nappy changes occurred. For your snacks I do recommend going with as low-sugar as possible. As when you think about it you are aiming to contain your toddler for extended periods....no need to hype them up. Things such as 'Rafferty's Garden Fruit Bars'. Ready-chopped fruit salads, rice crackers, vegemite sandwiches and kid's yoghurt sachets (beware of high sugar tho. I favoured the Vaalia ones). When we were staying at family members' homes I would make Huddo meals that I would make for him at home and when we were at hotels I would order him room service meals like 'spaghetti bolognaise' or go and get some tuna and avocado sushi rolls and chop up into small pieces. Whilst frequently going to Coles or Woolworths and re-stocking snacks. However there were a handful of times where McDonalds McBites (small chicken pieces) and chips were allowed. The fact is you are on holidays. Nothing is perfect but it doesn't mean your child has to live on Maccas for the entire trip!

7)Water! Water and more water!!! Troy and I were constantly aware that due to being the car with the air-conditioner on for so many hours it is crucial that you drink water in abundance to stop yourself drying out. So Huddo constantly had his water bottle in reach.

8)Finally. Ensure that you and your partner and other travel companions stay relaxed. Like any other time if you are organised, relaxed and in a great mood. Your child is bound to be too! :)

We had a great holiday and wonderful Christmas.
Looking forward to sharing more about the last few months with you soon.

The funny part of doing a 3 week road trip at Christmas and seeing both sides of a very very large family......the amount of presents your child gets!
Let's just say the kid did alright....