Back to basics

People often ask me what my favourite cake is.  I suppose they're expecting something really exotic and complicated, and maybe because I know how much work goes into cake, actually the opposite is true.  

In the immortal words of Cake (no pun intended!), 'The ornaments look pretty but they're pulling down the branches of the tree..' 

A cake can (and should) be no less delicious once you strip away all the ganache, buttercream, sugar fondant, colouring and the rest of it and maybe I take after my dad this way but I really love just a plain butter cake.  Don't care if it's round, square or in a loaf pan - that soft, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth goodness is just so homey and comfy for me.  

We celebrated my dad's 61st birthday last night and though some might've expected something fancy I decided to go back to basics and give him something I know he would enjoy.  

This Country Buttermilk cake recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible (which is a really great read with terrific recipes and instructions - I highly recommend it) is one of my hands-down favourite butter cake recipes.  It may look overly cooked on the outside, but the inside is just deliciously fluffy, light and (yes I'm going to use that dreaded word that so many cake artists hate to hear) MOIST.  It's not overly sweet or rich and I'd happily devour it just on its own, but to make it just a little bit more special it's perfect with creme fraiche and fresh berries (my local grocery store only had overpriced - $9 - raspberries in this case).

We had some cinnamon-vanilla sugar to hand, so I whipped my creme fraiche with about 3 tbsp of the sugar.  The result is a subtle floral fragrance and the sweetness of the sugar cuts the sourness of the creme fraiche just a little so it's almost like sweetened natural yoghurt.   Add that to this light butter cake which is almost like a sponge and oh god just thinking about it now I want more!!

To block or not to block

I often take lunch at my desk at work and one day a work colleague of mine walked past and said to me, laughing, "you're such a nana - look at you, knitting away at your desk while you're watching a video of someone rolling dough!"  (I was watching a craftsy class).  It's so true.  

I love knitting in winter, as it keeps my lap warm and my fingers occupied, and I love baking and decorating cakes year-round - why not combine the two?  

Anyway, back to knitting - I've always been a self-proclaimed lazy knitter.  If something can be knitted in the round I will knit it in the round.  I hate sewing seams.  I would rather fiddle with knitting socks 2 at a time using magic loop, rather than run the risk of losing my mojo midway through sock 2 (or, in one instance, picking it up so much later that my tension changed and the two socks wound up being different sizes).  If something needs to be blocked, it will sit in the cupboard, sometimes for years, before I ever get around to blocking it (I have 4 lace shawls that I've never used simply because the lace needs to be opened up). 

I was choosing out a Christmas gift for my boyfriend's mother late last year and thought, as she's an avid knitter of children's clothing, I would buy her a pattern book.  I stumbled across the MillaMia range of children's knits.  I love the designs - they're modern but timeless without looking dated.  I love their colour range and how comfy the clothes look.  Heck, they're clothes I'd buy for me!  

And that's how I ended up getting the Wonderland book for Steve's mum and the Close Knit Gang for me.  When I saw the Cecilia Coat I thought it was so cute wanted it for myself haha 

I've never completely knitted anything larger than a cardigan or bolero for myself (I once knitted the whole back of a jumper and got halfway up the front... about 17 years ago.  By the time I picked up the project again 5 years on it was so out of date and besides which I couldn't remember where I was up to) so I knew this was going to be a challenge.  Worse still, it is knitted in flat pieces and then seamed together.  My pet hates. I considered modifying the pattern to be knit in the round, but I decided not to tempt fate (I would be making significant modifications as it was) and to just follow the instructions for assembly.  

One thing I've learned thus far (I have knitted the back and both front panels - so I'm already 100% further than I've ever been before) is that all the advice I've read about blocking pieces - even if it's just flat pieces of stocking stitch - have merit:  

On the left: unblocked right front panel.  On the right: the left front panel after a light blocking.

I didn't really block this piece fully - I was lazy as usual, and after a light wash, squeezed out as much water as I could with towels, then laid it flat to dry.  With my shawls and wraps I will usually pin them out to open up the lace but I didn't want to stretch this one out too much as it already looks plenty long enough as it is.  Even so, you can definitely tell the difference between the tube on the left and the panel on the right, and (though I didn't take a picture of this), it really does even out the stitches - it almost looks machine knitted!

I'm in the process of completing the ribbed button bands and have started one of the sleeves (which I am knitting in the round - I couldn't resist!).  I can't wait to put this one together.  Fingers crossed it will turn out!

When life hands you mandarins..

One big surprise I got when I moved into my new house was the huge mandarin tree at the front of the house, and better still, it was already laden with mandarins!  We've been picking them off the ground for weeks now.  These were from our very first harvest - almost a kilo in all - and I thought I'd have a go at making mandarin marmalade.

It seems people are polarised about marmalade - you either hate it or you love it.  I love marmalade of the bittersweet, citrusy, home-made variety.  Am not such a huge fan of the sour, chunky rind jello-like variety often found in the shops (have thrown away many bottles of marmalade in the past!).  I've never tried mandarin marmalade before and thought I'd give it a go, especially as some of the fruit that fell from the tree were still greenish and quite tart.

I found this recipe and wanted to try it straightaway - I liked the idea of wrapping the pith and seeds in a separate 'bag' so that the pectin could still be made use of, but then removed prior to bottling.  So away I went!

I took as much of the rind off as I could (as I love rind, hate pith) before peeling the lot:

Nekkid mandarins

The recipe calls to just wrap the pith and seeds in a handkerchief or in my case, cheesecloth, but I don't really like eating the skin, so I wrapped them in the cloth as well:

Pith, pips and skin

The flesh is cut into halves and put in the pot with the rind:

Pieces and rind, ready for the boiling

.. and then I forgot to take more pictures! hahaha I couldn't get mine to quite set firmly, so I added some jamsetta at the end (just a little) to get it to thicken it a little (it was previously the consistency of cordial).  I don't know if this was because my skin was very thin, or maybe I shouldn't have wrapped it in the cloth, but anyway, it didn't matter in the end, I would've still eaten it, watery or no!  It smelled amazing!!

I whipped up some scones using my favourite recipe:

Fresh from the oven!

Unlike some other jams I've made where I've had to boil it so long that the fruit in the jam seems to lose its freshness, this marmalade still tastes just like fresh mandarins - so bright and fruity!  It is bittersweet and not too runny and not too jelly-like either, just the way I like it.  It is a little pulpy, but I don't mind.  Yum!!

Marmalade!

Oh great. Now I want more!

Cupcakes.. of the mini variety

This May has been a busy baking month for me - I was lucky enough to be asked by the Melbourne Hotel to provide cupcakes for them for their Mothers' Day May high tea special to be run every weekend in May. About 400 mini cupcakes over the whole month - which is a lot for a little home baker for me, so I had to keep the designs simple.  

Apple sauce cupcakes with vanilla custard frosting and (not pictured here) vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla buttercream 

Red velvet with cream cheese frosting and almond vanilla with salted caramel buttercream

Orange poppyseed with lemon cream cheese frosting and spiced mocha cupcakes with mocha buttercream

Only one more weekend to go!  I have to confess: I'll be a little relieved when it's over.  I miss my Friday nights!

Lace in action!

With all the cupcake baking I've been doing of late, and May being quite the month  for birthdays and things I have to admit I was a little exhausted when it came to the thought of doing a cake for my mum for mothers' day.  Luckily I had a lot of leftover cupcake mix and double luckily my mum's not a big cake eater, so I could throw together another Frankencake without too much guilt. 

I used mothers' day as an excuse to indulge in my lace mold obsession and finally use my 30cm mold.  I had also recently purchased a brooch multi mold that I wanted to play with.  I've seen so many lovely brooch ruffle flower things (I really should learn what they're called) and I wanted to have a go for myself. 

Love the cake stand - don't love how flimsy it is though

I love the look of my shabby chic cake stand, but I really should've taken the description more seriously when it said 'lightweight'.  Honestly, you wouldn't want to put a cake any much bigger or heavier than that 15cm one on there.  As it was, with all the turning I did of the cake to capture it under different lighting, it was clearly lopsided by the time I was finished with my photos.

Closeup of the lace

Mothers Day banner

As before, I'm so happy with how fine the lace detailing turned out.

Ruffle brooch flower thingummy

I love vintage themed cakes - if it had been for a cake order I wouldn't have tried to mix in the ruffle brooches and the banner together with the lace on one tiny cake, but I just couldn't resist the temptation to play with all my new toys!

So, you may ask what makes this cake a Frankencake - I had no ganache and only a smidgeon of leftover salted buttercream left.  I rolled the fondant (home-made MMF!) quite thickly to accommodate not having a really smooth surface to go over and I was quite lucky in that it seemed to turn out ok.  My mum would usually only eat just the cake and leave the fondant and ganache anyway, so it was perfect for her! 

Top layer: red velvet, bottom layer: almond vanilla

Tundra

Urk I have so much cake stuff to catch up on, but I've had to put aside my off-set palette knife for a paint palette!  About 2 weeks ago after a very irritating settlement procedure we finally got to move into our new house!  It's been a very busy time - trying to fit in renovations and unpacking around working full time and my other classes and activities.  

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not much of a handyperson - the first time I used a spirit level was when I bought one to make sure my cakes were level! (speaking of my spirit level, don't ask me where it is lol) So doing things like taping up walls, climbing ladders, using hand sized paint brushes (as opposed to tiny fine brushes) and paint rollers.. not in my comfort zone!  

Worse still - laying laminate flooring!!  Talk about learning curve!  We were originally going to keep the upstairs carpet, but after we finished painting decided to continue the downstairs laminate up to the second floor, so off that carpet went (and yuck - I've never been a carpet fan but I'm even less of one now when I can see all the dirt and stains underneath it even after being professionally cleaned!!) and down went the underlay.  

The Ikea tundra flooring is very cheap at only $12.95/sqm.  Our upper floor (which is really only 2 rooms) is only about 33 sqm so with all the materials included and an extra allowance for mistakes the total for materials was less than $800!  So affordable.  We figure hey it's Ikea, it can't be THAT hard, right? 

Ikea Tundra with maple effect

So while I'll never win any prizes for being a handyman or be accused of being a contestant on the Block, here are my tips for anyone considering giving this a go themselves:

• Measure the length of your room first, then divide it by the width of each board so you can work out how many rows you will need.  This way you will be able to work out how thin your last row will be and adjust your first row accordingly.  We didn't do this, and our last row was going to be only about an inch wide.  We had to 'fudge' it by using the matching $5 Ikea edge moulding as a 'row'.  Fortunately most of that last wall is covered by our wardrobe so it's not terribly noticeable unless you really know to look for it. 
• Get a jigsaw. The Ikea one was only $40 and we used it to cut the end of every row and to cut around the door jamb. 
• Have and use a set square with a spirit level. 
• We taped our underlay to itself (side by side) but we found that it seemed to move a bit with us stepping all over it, so I kinda wished we had taped at least one edge of it down to the floor. 
• Work in rows, locking in short end to short end for the current row, then lay the whole row lightly over the seam of the previous row.  When they're aligned, lift and lock in each panel until the whole row is locked in.  In some of the more difficult areas, I used my left hand to push the previous row in towards me while I used my right hand to push the current panel into the groove.  Some panels may be slightly raised or there may be very small gaps.  Grab a mallet and a tapping block and carefully tap (making sure not to damage any of the grooves) each panel into the previous row until there are no gaps between the rows and the short seams are smooth.  You will find that any raised panels will drop as you tap the adjoining panel or that panel in.  
• There is a multipurpose tool that you can get that will allow you to cut into the door jamb so that you can slide your laminate underneath it to get clean doorways.  We didn't bother with this because we didn't have time to go and find the tool and we weren't fussed about the finish in a small part of the door being pristine.  If people are peering down on the floor at your door hinges then something's dreadfully wrong with the rest of your room.
• For getting around the door jamb we got a piece of paper, held it against the door and drew around it with an exacto knife.  We checked the cut out against the door and then traced around the edge onto the panel.  We cut it with an allowance so yes, there is about a 5mm a gap where you can see the underlay around the door. Not pretty but we're not trying to win awards. 
• You can use a pair of garden pruners/secateurs for straight parts of the edge moulding. We used a mitre block with a hand saw for the rest, but found we got better cuts if we cut the moulding upside down (flat edge up). 
• If you can, remove the skirting from your room before starting.  We had already painted the room and our skirting was nailed in, so we didn't remove ours so as not to ruin our finish.  I know I could potentially be flamed for this, but despite all online advice, in my experience yes you can install laminate flooring without removing existing skirting.  It is just fiddly.  Because we had skirting, we couldn't use the normal spacers for the expansion allowance that you would remove later, so what we did was laid our first two rows, allowing the flooring to slip under the skirting (which was about 2cm deep), then we pulled those rows out and aligned them to where we would like them to be ordinarily.  We marked a reference point for pulling them out from under the skirting and after fitting and knocking in every row, we would pull it back out from under the skirting so that we could accurately mark our next cut. Everything else was measured and cut as you would for a normal flush wall, but with a smaller expansion allowance (basically we cut flush to the skirting because we knew the planks would be able to expand into the gap under the skirting). Obviously this wouldn't be possible in a larger room (our room is about 3.7m x 3.9m) - by the final couple of rows we were standing with our backs to the first wall and using our feet to push the floor out from under the skirting.

Finished!

A note on the product itself - it looks great overall, but 3 of the panels that we took out from the boxes were defective.  One had a bright green spot on it that couldn't be removed (from manufacture), another had a big circular dent in one side and it was from the middle of the box - none of the other panels in that box were similarly affected - and the third and worst defect was that the edge of one of the panels was ragged so it looks as though there's a gap between rows when in actual fact it is the finish of just that long edge of the panel itself.  

Aside from that, it has really brightened up this room and we finally got our bed set up last night.  First night in a week not sleeping on the floor!! It's no wonder I struggled more than usual to get up this morning (Monday notwithstanding haha). 

Aloha!

My bestie gets married in less than a month.  Eeek!!  I still remember late nights after partying when we would sit in one of our cars at a park and watch the stars and talk about boys.. what was going to happen in the future, what we hoped would happen.. what we feared would happen.  There was so much that was unknown.  In some ways it feels like it was just yesterday (I'm not all that old, right?) but in other ways (mortgages, bills, living away from our parents) it feels like a whole lifetime ago.  I couldn't be happier for her in her choice of partner - they have truly found a perfect match in each other and when she announced their engagement I'm pretty sure the general feeling was less of surprise and more of "well it's about time!" (my mum actually said "I thought they got engaged ages ago!")

This Easter weekend we celebrated her hens in Hawaiian style.  There was lots of colour, dancing, laughing, giggling, feasting and fun to be had.  Along with leis and hibiscus hair pins, the girls each got to take home a cupcake:

Pale pink frangipanis and lace panties - ooh la la!

 

In the words of Yoda: "Evelyn To Be Bride"!

There were a selection of leis, frangipanis, panties, coconut cup bras and grass skirts.  I tried to keep the colour palette bright but not too busy, given there is a lot going on with the textures as it is.  I think they turned out really well!

In keeping with the tropical theme, these cupcakes were coconut and pineapple - from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.  From reading the other cupcake recipes, it is basically their vanilla cupcake recipe with dairy milk replaced by coconut milk and a few pineapple pieces thrown in the bottom of each cupcake.  Easy peasy!  

I'm sure I must have tried their vanilla cupcake recipe at some stage (I got this book some time ago) but I'm now really keen to give them a go.  These cupcakes were feather light and moist - just a subtle hint of coconut and the pineapple was a nice touch!  I tried making the recommended coconut frosting but let's face it - one tbsp of coconut cream across 12 cupcakes isn't going to pack much of a punch, so I grated in some lime rind and added a dash of malibu - well it's a hen's after all, right? 

Light, fluffy and moist - the perfect cupcake!