Category: Food

Hubs’ birthday cake (one of them anyway!)

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I don’t have a lot of spare time at the moment, so I’ll just give you a quick run-down on the cake. I wanted to do another layer cake, but didn’t want to have to spend the whole day making it, so I made 2 cakes – one vanilla cake (double the recipe) and a chocolate cake (a Green’s Choc Mud Cake with an extra block of chocolate thrown in for good measure.)

I then divided the vanilla cake up into 4 equal (ish) amounts and coloured them. And then I put big blobs of the cake mixture into the cake pan. (I used a brownie tray for this cake.)

I then attempted to smooth the top down. Rainbow Paddlepop anyone??
Once it was baked and cooled, I put it in the fridge overnight for 2 reasons. 1. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. 2. Cakes are much easier to work with (icing etc) when they are cold. So the next day I got it out of the fridge and cut it into 2 layers. The colours were lovely!

Next time I must remember to give the tray a good bash before baking the cake, to get rid of the air bubbles! I then trimmed all three cakes/layers so they had square corners and straight edges. Then I iced in between each layer with the vanilla bean icing from the vanilla cake recipe.
I then iced the outside with the same yellow frosting.
I knew I wanted to put the ganache on top again, but wasn’t sure how. I looked outside at the crappy weather and then it hit me: Drizzle!! HA HA HA!!!
I was very happy with the overall effect. And the taste? Well I’ll let you make one for yourself and you can decide. But here’s a hint…
Yum yum yum yum yum yum!!!

Happy 30th Birthday Hubs continued

/ Renae / 1 Comment

After Hubs’ exam on Friday, all the med students in his year based at Wang (15) headed back to one of the students’ houses to be greeted with this:

It was officially time to party! We had a nice afternoon with yummy treats, cold beers, and of course, tasty tasty caaaaaake!

(More info on the cake to come)
Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Huhhhhhhbssssss,
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuu!

(Oh okay. Here’s a sneaky peek!)
And of course, being Friday, Hubs and Chance had their best Friday shirts on!
And so continues Hubs’ birthday month!

Happy ??th Birthday Hubs

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Since Hubs is celebrating a bit of a milestone this year, we’re having a birthday month! It started on his actual birthday, last Thursday (the 23rd of June, for those playing at home.) I had planned to give him a big sleep in, brekky in bed, and present opening to follow. What actually happened, is that Hubs was the one who gave me a sleep in! That’s just the kind of Hubs I have. An awesome one. Once I got up and showered, I did make him brekky – bagels with cream cheese and we ate together on the couch. Then it was time for prezzies! Unfortunately, it was also time for Chanbe’s nap time. So once he was settled, the opening commenced!

He received some lovely cards from family and friends in Brizzie, as well as a package from his Mum that took him for a lovely trip down memory lane. He also received…

… as well as…
… and then there was this!

Hubs had asked me a month or 2 ago if I could make him a jacket. The thing is, he thinks I’m much more clever on the ol’ sewing machine than I actually am, so I enlisted the help of my dear “Aunty” Heather (who is one of my Mum’s besties, as well as my brother’s Godmother) who is a wizz on the sewing machine, and after running all around Brisbane to find the right material, Aunty Heather did an amazing job turning Hubs’ ideas into reality!

Rather dashing if you ask me! After a leisurely morning lazing around home, we popped down to our favourite coffee shop for a celebratory coffee and cake.
We then had a lovely evening at home, as Hubs had an exam the next morning that he had to prepare for. And I had a party to prepare for! More details to come!

30 hours

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In the last 30 hours, as well as having 7 (interrupted) hours of sleep, I have been busy in the kitchen making the following:

Shepherd’s pie
Bolognaise
Lamb stew (slow-cooked)
Chicken stew (slow-cooked after the lamb)
Pasta bake
Orange polenta cake

Oh yes. I’m taking the next month off cooking. Maybe not baking though. I may whip up a batch of either chocolate or oatmeal cookies tomorrow, depending on time. I still have to pack for Brisbane, as well as send a few emails and run a couple of errands, and spend time with Hubs before we depart early Wednesday morning. Unlike last time, we will drive from Wang to Melbourne airport. The thought of all the “legs” was too much this time around, and I’m relieved about that decision.

So much to do! But right now, it’s sleepy time. And by that, I mean I’ll be sleepy while Chanbe keeps me up 🙂

The Cake

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Step one: find an awesome vanilla cake recipe

Step two: mix ingredients and choose colours

Step three: bake first layer, which happens to be blue
Step four: break layer when getting it out of pan

Step five: be sad about this

Step six: be happy about your new hair cut and colour! (where applicable)

Step seven: watch as the other layers come out wonderfully!

Step eight: make your ganache and frosting, and colour to your heart’s desire!

Step nine: start layering

Step ten: keep layering!

Step eleven: frost the outside of the cake (be generous with this “layer” of frosting)

Step twelve: whack the ganache on top.

Step thirteen: take a cute photo of your son.

Step fourteen: decorate your cake as desired. Don’t tell your friends, or whomever you’re eating the cake with, what’s inside, and enjoy their oooohs and aaaahs!

Yum yum yum yum YUM!!

Any questions? I’ll be happy to help if I can. (I got most of my help from the internet.)

Also, there’s 14 steps because I can’t stop on 13. And I noticed I have 13 followers on my blog. This is not sitting well with me. Maybe someone could help me out? 🙂

Happy 500 posts Wifey

/ Renae / 6 Comments
What better way to celebrate, than with delicious vanilla bean cake!
Delicious vanilla bean cake with vanilla frosting, topped with ganache!
Delicious vanilla bean layer cake with vanilla frosting, topped with ganache!
Does it get any better than this? Happy posting to meeeeeeeee!

Music gets the best of me

/ Renae / 1 Comment

(I love that Sophie Ellis-Bextor song)

If (when) you come to visit us, you’ll notice a few things: 1. There will often be the smell of freshly-baked goods in the air; 2. I will probably apologise for the chaotic mess that will greet you; and 3. There will be music playing. Nothing loud or fancy, just something playing in the background to add a little ambiance and atmosphere to the place.

Why am I talking about this? Besides the fact that I needed a 499th post (the next one’s the big one!) we have been to a couple of social events lately that have been okay but really could have benefited from some background music. Music is the ultimate ice breaker and helps to lighten any mood in any situation. This is definitely one of those things that Hubs and I can’t understand why other people don’t think the same way as us.

I’ve even been at people’s houses and suggested “Hey do you want to put a CD on?” Is that rude? I’m not saying that these events have been awkward or boring, I’m simply saying having music on as well can make a social situation even better. Like adding a spoonful of milo to your coffee, or putting butter on your corn. It just adds that little something that makes it extra good.

That’s pretty much all I have to say about that. And now, to keep you excited, here’s a fun video we took of Chanbe on Saturday night (oh yeah, we’re party animals) feeding himself. And my voice is in there as usual, laughing my guts up. Oh, and see if you can pick the song/band playing in the background!

Enjoy! And I’ll see you soon at number 500!

Our local

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Ever since I moved to Edinburgh for a year when I was 22 years old, I’ve wanted a local coffee shop. One where I can walk in, greet the owners by name, have them do the same in return, and ask “the usual, Wifey?” After almost a decade of wanting this, it has finally happened, and it’s everything I hoped it would be. The only difference is, I don’t have a “usual”.

Introducing, the Bead Shop (previously mentioned here.)

I first went to the bead shop not long after we arrived in Wang, when it was just a bead shop. It’s on the way in to town and I do love beads! They have some really beautiful stuff in there and it was always worth a look. And then came the coffee… Our friends introduced it to us back in October but it wasn’t until this year that we started going there regularly. After about half a dozen visits, the owner, Eric, introduced himself to us while he was clearing one of the tables outside, and asked our names. After that he would always address us by our names and give us a big welcoming smile.

Now I like to think we have even become friends. He and his wife Lauren run the place brilliantly. Lauren is the Queen Bead (see what I did there?) and also helps out in the cafe at busier times, and Eric does a bit of everything – makes coffee, cooks lunches and slices, and on Saturday mornings, he makes these:

I was going to take photos of the bagels before we ate them, and the coffees before we drank them, but they were just too delish and I forgot! The secret to their cappuccinos? Real chocolate sprinkles on top, some of which can be found at the bottom of your coffee cup at the end. (I had already eaten them before I took the photo!)

Lauren couldn’t believe how big Chanbe is getting, and brought him out a high chair so he could “have coffee” with us. It’s the little things that make the big impressions at this place.

Chance isn’t quite ready for the babycinos yet, but he was pretty taken with Dadda’s bagel!

This was the first time we went for bagels and they didn’t disappoint! Hubs and I probably have coffee there once or twice a week (at least!) and the coffee is so good. Every Time. And they’re ALL good. Whether you want a cappuccino, iced coffee, affogato, iced chocolate, hot chocolate, chai tea, chai latte….

So come on down and we’ll take you there some time!

Bumper weekend

/ Renae / 2 Comments

You know those weekends that you have every now and then where you get to Sunday night and you just can’t imagine how the last 2 days and nights could have been any better? I’ve just come off one of those. It started on Friday night when, although we watched the worst movie of 2010, (and one of the worst I’d ever seen!!) I did some maintenance work on Hubs’ dreads. It was a nice relaxing evening with Chanbe asleep in bed, and us spending quality Hubs and Wifey time together.

Saturday came around and we decided to go for a walk in the morning to check out a couple of garage sales. We only ended up with a couple of things (a book for Hubs and a beanie for Chance – see next post) so we decided to head to our favourite place for coffee in Wang – Cafe Derailleur aka the bead shop. But more about that little gem of a place later. After enjoying yet another top-notch coffee we headed home. It was lunch time and our bellies needed filling.

Dinner Saturday night was to be at our new friends house. I know Kyra through mothers group (more about that later too!) and we really hit it off once we got to know each other. The more we chatted the more we realised how much not only we, but our hubbies had in common! (like they both have dreads! More about that later too too!!) Anyway, we’ve really missed being able to have people over for dinner so I put a zany idea to Kyra – could we cook a meal and bring it over to have at their place! And she was all for it. So I put the rabbit stew on around midday, and headed over to their place at 3 to prepare the gnocchi. Once that was done (and after a cuppa) I took Chanbe for a walk in the pram for over an hour, as I wanted him to have a good sleep before our night out.

We headed over for dinner and had the stew and gnocchi with home-made foccacia courtesy of Kyra. It was all utterly delish.

We then juggled our little boys (not literally – but what a show that would be!) and tried to get them to sleep with not much luck. They both wanted to stay up and party with the big kids (us). We had some home-made apple pie for dessert and topped it off with some choc-coated glazed oranges I had made. It was so nice to be amongst such wonderful company and to feel completely at home in someone else’s house. We walked home (they live just around the corner) and I was absolutely shocked to see that it was 11:30pm! We just had such a great night that the time flew by. It’s so lovely to be making new friends, but it’s also bitter sweet as we’ll be leaving Wang in just 6 short weeks. But hopefully there will be more dinner parties to come – at our new place!

Sunday’s fun will come soon…

Happy Mothers Day…

/ Renae / 1 Comment

… to meeeeee!

I “suggested” to Hubs that since it was my very first (official) Mothers Day, that if he wanted to make a bit of a big deal of it, that that would be fine by me. And boy did he come to the party. I had mentioned a couple of things that I would love (stove-top espresso pot, bundt cake tin, massage) but ultimately left it up to him to buy something for Chanbe to give to me. He purchased the gift on Friday afternoon, and forbid me to go into the spare room. I do love a good surprise!

Sunday morning rolled around (after a bad night with Chanbe Saturday – teething + blocked nose does not make for a happy baby) and Hubs took Chance at about 9am so I could have more of a sleep in. Obviously I count this as present number one. At 10:45am, in came my 2 favourite men, armed with a massive present and an amazing looking breakfast! Oh, and the most beautiful card.

I was so excited as I unwrapped the beautifully wrapped prezzie:

Oh. My. GOODNESS!!!!!!! My very own Kenwood Mixmaster!! I have been wanting one of these for so long, but we haven’t been able to afford it. But Hubs got a great deal and just couldn’t resist. Woooooo!!! (Can you see the card in the bottom right corner?)

And the breakfast! Poached eggs, tomato, mushrooms, bacon and toast. It was SO delicious! Of course I had to take my new toy for a test drive immediately, and Hubs had a hankering for fancy chocolate mousse. How could I say no?!

It was deliciously decadent and we had some for dessert last night:

All in all, an absolutely amazing day. We went for a walk in the afternoon and actually ran into one of the midwives who helped deliver Chanbe! We had a little chat to her and ended the day with some leftovers (I wasn’t cooking!) and a few (7) episodes of Nurse Jackie. Hubs sure has set the bar high for Fathers Day!

Thank you Hubs and Chanbe for making my first Mothers Day so special!