New challenges!

Aside from the Daring Bakers and Daring Cooks challenges that have been going on I've also entered a challenge with someone I've met through the Daring Kitchen. It turns out that we live down the road from each other and both of us bought the same cookbook recently.

So last week we picked a section and the challenge was to back 2-4 recipes from it and post on Sunday. At the moment it looks like I'll be doing it all on the weekend and stocking up my freezer.

I generally need to stock up my freezer anyway. What to add other then pasta and curry?

The other news is that my partner and I split up last week and all I want to do is eat my weight in pomegranate frozen yoghurt.

This is so gross

I've been put onto a tv show called solitary. So I'm watching season 1 episode 3 and they have just had to eat a crap load of food. Watching them eat it all made me want to chuck. Thankfully someone on the show did.

Recap of the last week

The housewarming went swimmingly. Everyone loved my potatoes and the random bean salad I made. I haven't tasted it yet but it looks good.
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tin borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
2 tomatoes, diced
1 carrot diced
chives, diced
olive oil.

Stick everything in a bowl and drizzle olive oil over the top.

My potatoes were the twice baked potatoes from PW. The changes I made were to omit the cheese and milk from the filling and to flavour it with chives and thyme. I've made it before with everything in there and they came out very soupy. I also made my favourite coconut cake recipe, omitting the lemon curd filling and whipped cream. I just made sure that the coconut was very toasted for maximum flavour. It still tasted great 3 days later.
Unfortunately I have no photos.

I do have photos of cake though. Lots of cake.

Housewarming 3.1

Okay so third house in 2.5 years so it's time for the third housewarming. If you're wondering why it's version 3.1 then listen whilst I explain.

3.1 is friends
3.2 is one set of family
3.3 is the other set of family

C's family housewarming will consist of parents, siblings, grandparents and uncles. Mine will be parents and maybe my sister. Hence 2 different parties.

We specified byo grog and meat for the bbq so hopefully this will mean that we only have to provide salads and our own protein. I'm expecting to have to provide basic snags anyway as there are always people who forget. The best part is salads!!!! I love a good salad.

At the moment I'm thinking the veg version of twice baked potatoes from PW. I use thyme instead of bacon. As well as a basic green salad and a chickpea/bean with roasted capsicum and greenery of some kind. I'm hoping to avoid providing bread as C doesn't eat it and I don't want it in the house. I'm trying to avoid it. Sweets will most likely be a fruit platter of some sort or some cupcakes. Depends on what I can whip up after my nap. I'm making a lot of cake that week.

Friday is a going away bbq at work for someone I actually like and seeing as work is funding the bbq I asked him if he would like cake as well. I got an astounding YES! Seeing as I don't really know how many people will be going I think I'm going to supply a coconut and lemon slab cake, cupcakes and possibly choc dipped strawberries or brownies. I am known for my brownies at work. The issues is that I'm taking my car in to be serviced on friday morning so transporting everything to work is going to be difficult unless I drop it all off on thursday or really early friday morning. Really early Friday morning might be best I think. Then I can drop my car off early as well before hopping on the bus back to work/uni. Looks like I will be spending most of thursday morning baking. 6am start here I come!

Where I've been.

I know that I promised to update regularly but it seems that this has fallen by the wayside. Depression does that. Turns out that my hectic lifestyle of full time shift work and part time study has left me stress, anxious and depressed. We're trying to fix this.

In the mean time I have a new project for Monday. My partner and I are moving in together in a couple of weeks and his current housemates are throwing him a farewell dinner. I'm making the cake. This cake to be precise

I can't remember the site I stole this picture from but the design is from a book called cartoon cakes. I should probably start making some of it this weekend so that it has enough time to dry, namely the flag. I'm actually looking forward to it.

Will let you know how it turns out.

Baking plans for this week

It seems that I am incredibly slack at blogging. I haven't given up baking, I just haven't blogged about it yet. The list so far involves my shiny new kitchen aid mixer. I can't remember if I've posted photos of her yet. her name is Toffee

here is a photo

Yes. She is the 90th anniversary edition Candy Apple red artisan mixer and my new baby. So far we have found made many things

This is my first birthday cake. It's a chocolate mud cake with banana flavoured swiss meringue icing. The mud cake is from a womans weekly book and the icing is from howtoeatcupake. It's completely fructose friendly, made with spelt flour instead of wheat, and was well accepted by the band.

Birthday cake number two is a butter cake with a chocolate cream cheese mousse filling and a  chocolate swiss meringue icing. The sprinkles were the best bit and I made myself sick on the mousse filling the night before.

Two weeks later my man C celebrated his birthday. At his request I made my chocolate raspberry mud cake and took it into band so we weren't left with butt loads of cake.

I made him out of marzipan and he was delicious. C did complain about having a skewer up his bum but he would have fallen off otherwise. Yes, my man is a redhead.

What else has happened....

Well there's this

MY GODSON HAS ARRIVED!!!!

He's so cute and adorable.

Back to the point of this post. I've got a couple of things to bake this week. Firstly is my favourite cherry pie. The only issue is that the book that has my go to recipe for pie crust and cherry filling is sitting in in someone else's house. I loaned it to a friend and he hasn't returned it yet. Thankfully I managed to find the recipe online. I'm also planning on making a blueberry cobbler/crumble fructose friendly so that C can eat it.

Then for Thursday night I said I would provide dessert for a bbq. There's meant to be 20-30 people so I was planning cupcakes and brownies. Or I might just churn out a couple of batches of different cupcakes. So far I'm planning on bringing back my lamington cupcakes or maybe turning them into coconut with lemon icing and then having a separate chocolate thing. To make sure that I get everything baked and ready in time I may have to do some of the baking on Tuesday.

Will post photos of things as I go.

I promise I'm still here!!

So the last few months has lead to me being pretty absent from my baking blog. I've completed the last few Daring Cooks/Bakers challenges but just haven't gotten around to blogging them yet.

The biggest news is that I went out and bought myself a new shiny kitchen aid stand mixer last week. She's the 90th anniversary candy apple red edition and so called Toffee as here in Australia we have Toffee apples, not candy apples.

I have so far made 2 cakes, 2 frostings and a chocolate mousse in her. Next week will mean another cake gets whipped up, providing I can find my 6 inch cake tin, otherwise I'll have to use the 3 inch tins and they will take forever! The reason I finally splurged is that it was my birthday on Monday and every year I normally treat myself to some kind of baking/cooking course. However, I didn't get my arse into gear early enough and missed out on what I wanted so I spent the money on a mixer instead. She's perfect and takes the hard work out of beating butter and sugar together. My electric hand mixer will still be used. What else will I take with me when I go to other peoples houses.