Easter Treat

I made Red Velvet Cupcakes with Chocolate buttercream icing to look like nests, and added a few Cadbury Easter eggs.

They were yummy and looked great but i could not find my piping bag so the presentation could have been a wee bit better.

I told the boys in the morning what I was doing and they promptly requested cupcakes for their teachers and friends after school. We had school interviews so I thought the teachers might need a wee boost and went along with their idea
When I rocked up at school with a tray of these there were many an admiring glance and when Jakob took them into his class they all wanted one. To say he got a pile of instant friends was an understatement!!

I got the idea as I had been watching the latest Rachel Allen Cake series on TV. So I used her Red Velvet Cupcake recipe - click and it will take you straight to the recipe. Although there are a lot of ingredients in the recipe it is just things you would find in your pantry and is a very quick recipe to do. I did not make her meringue frosting I just used a buttercream icing. I will be making these again.

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Bouncing off the walls

That is what Aaron is doing tonight. We bought this machine on trademe..........

 and collected it after swimming lessons this evening. Once home we had to try to perfect our coffee shot. So we tried about 8 different shots. Different thickness of grinds through the inbuilt grinder, different tamping, different amounts of grinds etc etc. I took a couple of sips of the better looking shots whereas Aaron could not see past the waste of coffee until about shot 6. (When I swear he was due for palpitations!!!). Whereas I just saw it as part of the cost of purchase. What is half a bag of coffee beans to get the coffee operating perfectly??

Looking forward to many a good coffee.

Today I did some Scavacise

Yes I did. That is scavenging which is also exercise. A very good way to make your exercise enjoyable. There is nothing better than free stuff. I was trying to think of an american version of my word as they would say I was dumpster diving. So it would be dumcise, dumpercise....

So this is what my boot looked like at the end of half my exercise. 67 more bricks for the garden edging that I am going to try and mortar myself (we will see how that ends up!). These were in the work hard fill skip (dumpster) and it was getting picked up tomorrow so I had to be all action stations. 

Some of the new garden, though not quite as it will be. We were making last minute tweeks on the design over the weekend and now there will be a little less path. This is a long journey for us. Pottering on doing a bit here and there.

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Home made Marshmellow

Well still being on the lookout for work means I have a lot more time at home at the moment. One of the side benefits is I get to try a few new things. So I made homemade marshmellow. There are so many recipes out there and it is so easy to make, but I was unsure how my family would view the home made sort.

All recipes use a stand mixer but I just used a hand beater. I used a recipe from online but cannot remember where fromm (oops). It was super simple to do and Aaron and Jakob loved it but Eli spat it out!!

We tried toasting it over the fire as this is what we love to do when camping. But it just fell apart (or rather oozed and melted off the fork) so we will still have to buy them for campfires.

18 down 7 to go!

Yes I now have 18 quilts for the orphans. Only 7 more to go and all the kids at Hope Homes International will have a quilt. Slowly getting there.

So I made this ages ago but have finally quilted it all. I posted about the making of it here.

As there were a lot of different styles of blocks I decided to quilt in an overall flower and loop pattern as anything that was rigid lines or diagonals would clash with various blocks. I used a quilting pattern that Crazy Mum Quilts had put on her blog one time. I am pleased with the result.

The back of the quilt is in a 1970's flannel that was donated and the binding in a black and white spot. Also donated.

Happy to be finished. 

I link up to these places and finish it up friday with Crazy Mum Quilts.

School lunch box

My oldest son struggles with food at breakfast and lunch and tends to eat from 3pm every day. I am trying to get my boys to pack their own school lunches and this is what Jakob made for himself. He does not like bread or cereal so that does not help either! sigh. He is either a seriously healthy eater or just eats cakes!!! today it was a mixture but I was impressed with his good balance.

2 slices of cold roast beef with cracked pepper and salt. Two pieces of Jumble made the other day. 7 cherry tomatoes from the straggly vines left in the garden. 3 slices of cucumber picked from the glasshouse that night.

Taking time out for tea

Every so often we like to have a proper afternoon tea on the weekends. This weekend was one such time.  We had Earl Grey tea and Ginger Gems.

Out comes the pretty china, the silver cutlery and the tiered cake stand.

All set and ready for us.

The boys getting stuck in. 

Ginger Gems and family time. A happy recipe.

My gem irons are really heavy cast iron ones. They are at least 80 years old. My Nana married when she was 16 and they were given to her as a "must have in the kitchen". If my Nana was alive she would now be coming up 100. So every time I make gems I think of her. It was her legacy to me when she died - along with an amazing gridle.

Ginger Gems

Preheat your gem irons in an oven at 200oC. This mixture will fill the irons 1 1/2 times.

50g butter and 1/4 cup sugar - cream well.

Add - 1 egg and 2 tablespoons golden syrup.

Then add - 1 cup plain flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger and mix in.

mix together 1/2 cup milk and 1 teaspoon baking soda then stir it into the gem mix.

Take gem irons out of the oven. Put a dot of butter into each cavity and place 1 tablespoon of mixture in. Do this quickly as mixture starts cooking. Put into the oven for approx 10 minutes until well risen and golden brown.

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Jumble

My mother used to make this slice recipe. It is really easy to make and reminds me of my childhood. I don't know why it is called Jumble but it is a very appropriate word in my life at the moment.

A lot of things have been jumbled up. Two very close relatives have been very sick and the job I had agreed to start I backed out of due to various issues. So when I thought all was going smoothly it all got jumbled up on me. So I have gone through a huge range of emotions, ended up exhausted but am now feeling that I am coming out the other side. God is a good God.

Here is the recipe as it comes from my mother.

Jumble
4oz butter
3/4 cup sugar - cream together
then add 1 egg and stir.

Sift in
1 Cup flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Cinnamon
2 tsp Cocoa

If the mixture is not wet and soft then add a little bit of milk. Put a baking sheet on the tray you are going bake this on as you put the mixture on it and roll it out to about .5 cm thick. Make sure there is a lot of flour on your rolling pin as it sticks easily. Do not roll right to the edges as this does expand a bit.

Bake at 400 deg F for 20 minutes (sometimes it does get a bit dark around the edges)

While it is baking get icing ready. Make a water and icing sugar and cocoa powder icing quite thick. As soon as the slice comes out of the oven use a sharp knife to cut it into squares (just do the cuts - do not separate it), then pour the icing over the hot slice. It will run and melt. Sprinkle on 100's and 1000's and press it slightly into the icing. Cool and eat. Yummy.

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It might look like it but it is NOT a quail egg.

Look what I found in the chooks nest today. The cold weather has definitely affected one of the chooks!!!

The egg on the left is the normal size, the other two chooks have also gotten slightly shrunk eggs but the one on the left is about 1/4 the size of the others. It will be interesting to see if there is a yolk in it.

It took a while but I have loved doing it.

Well after the last quilt for charity where crafting was a grind, I started this as something that I had wanted to do for a long long time. It is a paper pieced pattern that I got off the internet.

I finished the piecing last weekend

then sandwiched it together and started quilting. I completed a little bit every night.

Finally finishing the quilting today. I am really thrilled with the pattern. I tried using loops around the edge for the first time and quilted a lot more closely than I normally do.

Trying to take a photo of it finished and on the bed when a slightly hyped up boy (typical of a Friday after school) jumps in the photo. It had been book week this week at school which ended in a character parade. Eli went as Goldilocks (he has a wig he bought two years ago that is attached to a hat and plaited as two pigtails) and won the prize for the best costume in his class. It takes a confident boy to carry that off!!!!

Instead of using a zip closing in the back I used domes so that it is easy on and off and easy to wash.

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New Anti Bullying song written and sung by a 14 yr old New Zealand girl

Nakita has been working on this for a couple of years. Researching by interviewing hundreds of school kids about their bullying experiences. Her voice is amazing. At the end of assembly last year at school she sang and I have not heard such an amazing live voice for a long time. She has such a bright future ahead of her.

Bullying is such a massive issue, it can destroy some kids lives forever, and it seems that although nearly every child has been bullied at some stage they still turn around and do it to others. This is such a powerful message. I think she should get onto Ellen, and Oprah etc!!! Nakita makes me feel proud to be a NZ'er.

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