latest Birthday cake

My oldest son requested an ice cream cake for his 8th Birthday. He gave me free reign on how to decorate it, so I went with a spy theme. With a little help, I made a bunch of fondant spy tools that I was able to place on top at the last moment. Ice cream cakes are pretty easy really. I baked a plain vanilla cake, split it in half and filled the middle with ice cream. Old School Frozen Custard was having strawberry as the flavor of the day, so I had them do a Neapolitan style....3 stripes, 13 scoops in all. I frosted the cake with a very simple whipped cream icing, with a bunch of powdered sugar in it to stabilize it. I was pretty pleased with the result. I reminded me how fun and easy it is to work with fondant. It really is edible play dough.

All things crazy

It has been a busy summer. Hubby has worked non stop, we are in the process of trying to buy a house and the daily life of 3 small boys is a chaotic ride. Birthday season is now upon us, so I will hopefully update with cake photos very soon. My son has requested an ice cream cake. I am down with his....nothing better than ice cream and cake in one glorious creation. I have talked with the folks at Old School Frozen Custard, and they are going to fill up my cake pan with their seriously awesome ice cream. I'll have a layer of cake already in there, then I'll turn the whole thing out and frost it with a powered sugar infused whipped cream.

Isaac is very into spying right now, so I am going to attempt some spy like stuff with fondant. This could be tragic. Ice cream cakes don't lend themselves to intricate decoration as they melt, thus I must have stuff that I can just throw on the top. Results to follow!

Best Birthday cake ever.

When I was a kid...this was the Birthday cake I most often requested.

It is a classic. I made it for my eldest son's first Birthday as well.

If you have kids, then you simply must own "The Australian Women's weekly Birthday Cake Books". My boys pour over them on rainy days. My brothers and I can tell you every cake we had from them, and Birthday parties we went to that featured a Women's Weekly creation. It is hard to find the original from the 70's but well worth the search. I'd lend you mine, but it is too treasured to part with for even a day.

Best pound cake ever. Thanks Elvis!

I did a ton of cooking this past weekend, and one thing I made for the second time was Elvis's favorite pound cake. I got the recipe from Gourmet- back in the day when it was still around. I am a lover of pound cake...so simple and so comforting. This one is the King of them all (bad pun I know).

Take the time to sift the flour 3 times. It is important. The cake is a very fine, dense crumb, quite sturdy and spongy. I like to serve it with strawberries or even a yummy ice cream. It also has a yummy 'crust" that forms on the top of the cake that is almost chewy. Maybe Elvis was onto something here. Watch me if I start to fry up PB&J sandwiches though.

It's a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll

One of the things I miss about my home country,(and there are many-but that is another post), is the ability to go into any bakery and buy a sausage roll. So flaky and hot, with a weird film of fatty goodness that coats your tongue for hours afterward. Sometimes I get a hankering so bad that I simply must have one, so I came up with my own recipe. They are always a huge hit, and are super simple to make. I use ground turkey cause hubby won't eat the red meat...but you can sub in a mix of beef and pork if you like.

SAUSAGE ROLLS

Ingredients:

2 full sheets puff pastry (pepperidge farm or Aussie puff is good)

1 package of ground turkey-standard size

2 crusts bread -or regular slices if you don't have crust

4tbs milk

1 small onion

4 cloves garlic

1tbs Worcestershire sauce

3tbs tomato paste

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp celery seed

2 tbs Dijon mustard

egg wash if you like....not necessary.

Method:

*Oven at 400 F

*defrost pastry while making filling

*whiz up the bread crusts in a food processor until fine crumbs. Mix with milk in a large bowl to form a panade and set aside.

*chop onion and garlic fine in a food processor, add to bread panade

* add in rest of ingredients (not pastry) and mix very well.

* open up pastry sheet and divide into 3. Roll each piece to form a nice rectangle....lay a line of turkey sausage mix down the center and fold over to make a roll. Wet pastry seam with water to seal. Cut into inch long pieces and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, an inch and a half apart.

*Bake for 25 mins or until golden.

Serve with ketchup.....mmmmmmmm.

I always make the recipe up as I go along so this is an approximation. Feel free to add spices.

Bake Sale Love

This past weekend, my oldest son's school held a fun little art festival, and the PTSA held a bake sale at it. I am co-chair of the PTSA, and a bake sale is what I live for!

It was a smashing success. At the end of 2 hours we had sold all but a few lonesome bundt cakes. We even made pretty good money considering it was all donated goods, and cookies were going for a buck a piece. It was more than the money though that made it so great. It really built a sense of community. It was so lovely to be able to point across the room and say "there is the person who baked that cupcake", while kids hassled their parents to buy them one. It was also nice that even though what was being sold was definitely not health food, it was food made from scratch, with real, honest ingredients. Food has great power. It can enrich us and it can destroy us. It was nice that for an afternoon anyways, kids were being bought a treat that was made by real hands and wasn't able to be supersized.

As a passionate baker, it also thrilled me to see lots of other people getting in on the act. Now I am daydreaming of holding multiple bake sales, bake sales that span whole city blocks, bake sales that bring world peace....one cupcake at a time.

Hot cross buns!

Easter would not be complete without these delicious treat. I baked them from scratch and they were quite easy! I used the recipe in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living.

There is a big article about the importance of breastfeeding in the news today. I am pleased to see that both the Seattle Times and CNN were carrying it. I have very strong feelings about breastfeeding, and I think it is time that women were educated and knowledgeable about this important topic.

In the article it says that only 12 to 14% of babies in the US are breastfed up to 6 months of age. This is appalling. I almost did not believe it...until I thought back on all the Moms and babies I know. A great number of women that I admire, that are highly educated and very invested in parenting, did not make it past 6 weeks. Sometimes they supplemented with formula unnecessarily. Breastfeeding was difficult and inconvenient and tiring. They had formula as infants...and they turned out just fine. What's the big deal anyways? I can't tell you how many times I heard this.

I think it needs to be said that it is a big deal. I feel we should stigmatize bottle feeding. It should be the norm to breastfeed your child...and if you don't, people should assume that something went horribly wrong. For too long, breastfeeding has been something out of the mainstream. Something those hippy, crunchy Moms did with a self righteous air wafting around them. Sure it was great if it worked out, but no biggie if it didn't.

I have breastfed all my boys, and am currently still nursing the youngest. I nursed the other two until they were older than 2. I had a very hard start with my first son, and was almost unprepared for how difficult it was. I stuck with it because I honestly felt it was the most important thing I could do for him at that time of his life. I never gave any of them a drop of formula. When my first was born, I had a series of nurses coming into the room slapping down the bottle of formula on the table - telling me I was going to have to give it to him. I refused. I was prepared to pump every hour and jam it down his throat with a tube if I had to.

I was inspired by my own Mum, who pumped every 3 hours for a month so that I could have her milk while I was in the ICU in the hospital. If she could do that for me, then I could buckle down for my boy.

If you read the facts about breastfeeding, it is actually very rare that a woman cannot nurse. With the right support and education, most hurdles can be overcome. It is also very very rare that a woman does not produce enough milk - 2 to 5 %. I have probably spoken with over a hundred women who claim to not have produced a sufficient supply. This is indeed the most common response given as to why they stopped nursing.

I resolve to be more outspoken about breastfeeding. I won't keep quiet.

Breastfeeding is the hardest thing I have ever done. It is also one of the very best.

Lets put those formula companies out of business!

Mag Hag

I am addicted to magazines.

Wow, it felt good to say that. This is not a recent thing. I remember as a teenager desperately wanting my Mum to let me buy "Dolly", a type of Aussie teen Cosmo. She wouldn't, and thus the obsession began.

Over the years I have always had subscriptions to at least 5 magazines a month and sometimes as many as 20. I have gone through periods where I try to whittle them down and then six months later my mailbox is stuffed again. My main love is cooking magazines. The death of "Gourmet" was very tough on me and I still tear up when I receive my substitute "Bon Appetit" in the mail. I also get "Cooks Illustrated", "Cooks Country"and "Everyday Food". I am a proud subscriber to "Martha Stewart Living". The photography and styling in that mag is just gorgeous.

I went through a long period of getting "Harpers", but I never had enough time to read all the articles, and I often found myself getting depressed by them. I read the whole magazine. I am not a flicker. I read every page, and sometimes "Harpers" just did me in. I also have several years worth of "National Geographic s" stuffed in my spare room.

I could go on and on. So many magazines that I have once welcomed into my home, or still do.

I think I love magazines for the possibilities and mini motivational pep talks they give you. I always feel inspired, for a brief moment, to turn my life around. I will organize that closet. I will bake that 7 layer truffle cake. I will launch into a month of awesome weight loss and hard core fitness. It all seems so doable laid out on those glossy, friendly pages. Never mind that the craft projects and cooking adventures never quite come off as fabulous as the photos. For that brief moment one can luxuriate in the possibility that they will, and that your house will look sparkly and oh so perfect while you are doing them.

Magazines are also tailor made for my Mum life. I often have 5 mins to sit and read. But no more than that. A book would be far too dangerous to pick up. I might get sucked in. I might neglect my children. A magazine however can be set down with ease, and I can still feel like I have read something.

I must confess. The one type of magazine I never read. Parenting Publications! Can't stand them. I usually disagree with so much they have to say that I get quite worked up and start firing off letters to editors. Best to leave them alone.

And lastly, the best local magazine is "Edible Seattle", edited by a dear friend of mine. Do yourself a favor and check it out. I'm signing off now to go read what the best figure flattering skirt for me is....seriously.

Cooking Contests

I just entered my first cooking contest. I don't know whether to be elated or worried. My entry was pretty slap dash and I haven't actually cooked the dish in a long time, so I was going from memory. I am simultaneously excited and repulsed by the cooking contest world. It seems almost like playing the lotto, such big prizes at stake, and yet it is not the kind of cooking I normally aspire to. I just finished reading "The Ungarnished truth" by Ellie Matthews about her Pillsbury Bake-off win. It was an OK read, though I got the feeling that Ellie is a pretty underwhelmed person, and thus I had trouble mustering up enthusiasm when she seemed to lack it as well. It got me to thinking about food contests, and how for years now I have entertained the notion of entering Pillsbury. I get all fired up and then sputter out when I see all the rules and regulations. Not to mention I never actually cook with biscuits in a can and ready to go pie crust. I always kick myself when the entry period is closed. So, I've resolved to start taking action and tonight I entered the Dole California cook-off. I could win a 4-day, 3-night trip to California to compete for cash and a chance to have my recipe printed on 1000s of DOLE Canned Fruit or Juice labels! (as the flyer so nicely pointed out). That is if I have filled out those submission forms correctly! Stay tuned, and if I don't win I'll put the recipe here instead.

Back again

So it seems I got locked out of my last blog.....and then life conspired to stop me from doing anything about it. Never fear. I am back! I've got things I need to say, absolutely no time to say it, and friends who deserve better than listening to me prattle on. Thus I will send these thoughts out into the internet void...and to you dear reader, whoever you are.