Friday Food – Fair Baking

The plan: chocolate cake and coconut ice + maybe another cake.
The result: one burnt burnt and broken mud cake.
The inside tastes pretty good, but it’s not suitable for School Fair selling or consumption. So we get to eat it. Shame about that.

The plan (take 2, its now Friday, Fair day): Coconut and Raspberry Loaf, Chocolate Fudge Brownie cake and coconut ice. (I’m stuck on this since I decided and I will make it!)
The result: Coconut cake is cooked, with strawberries instead. Smells divine. The brownie cake is in. And the one thing I didn’t get from the supermarket is the one thing you need for coconut ice – copha!! – so a friend will pick some up for me while out. It will be made!

Coconut and Raspberry Loaf. see recipe here.
My changes were strawberries instead of raspberries, and made it a cake rather than a loaf.

flour, egg and sugar and strawberries.

coconut and coconut milk

Chocolate Brownie Fudge Cake. See recipe here.
I omitted the nuts as I didn’t have any and added extra chocolate.

ready to bake

egg and vanilla and chocolate and butter

flour and lots of chocolate

And Coconut Ice. Rainbow Coconut Ice. See recipe here.
I doubled the recipe and didn’t quite leave it long enough as it was a little crumbly, but still looked pretty good.

way too much icing/powdered sugar, coconut with a colour selection, egg whites and melted copha

All three ready to go.

And a few shots of the school early on before the crowds turned up. All those empty spaces – full with lots of happy people with food and drinks and kids with their purchases.
There were horse rides, a jumping castle, the local fire brigade, sushi, Thai food, bbq, milkshakes made by riding a bike, and even Halloween pumpkins.
My dinner consisted of sushi, chicken satay and waffle with ice cream for dessert.
How cool is it to go to school in a place like this?

Have a great weekend 🙂
Jennifer

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Happy Birthday Mr T

My apologies for the mistake this morning with this post. I did it on the phone and then the photo didn’t come out so I sent it back to the drafts folder.
The below is what I had written.
(Nine years ago I was worrying that “it’s gonna hurt”. It had been five years after all. From what I’m told, over the next 90 mins or so I enjoyed the gas a little too much before my little bundle of joy devil arrived. And a devil he is.
He is a whole ‘nother child altogether, but so funny. He has a way about him that the other two never quite got to.
As is our way, he got to choose his dinner, and picked Pizza Hut. But we couldn’t do it for lunch, “it has to be dinner, but not Sunday coz that’s a school night” How can you argue with that).

So that was my first thought post about Mr T’s birthday. We had our pizza dinner (yay, I didn’t have to make pizza) after I spent the afternoon making a double batch of peppermint chocolate cup cakes for him to take to school on Monday. There was also a yummy recipe on the front of a magazine I decided to cook – jelly marshmallow slice. It took all day and I was still finishing it at 11pm.
This morning I was up early ready to make a birthday cake, another slice and then do lunch.
All was cruising along nicely, I was busy and I was loving it. It’s been awhile since I’ve done this amount of cooking and I’ve gotta admit it, I miss it. Things changed shortly after.

It was bright and sunny, Mr T and his friend were outside on the trampoline, and then it happened. He came in crying and holding his head. A drink, some panadol and sent to bed to rest for a minute results in several vomiting incidents and then a sleep. Mild concussion was what came to mind. My eldest played Xbox with our visitor while Mr T slept.

We sat down to lunch – hotdogs and pizza swirls – minus the birthday boy. Oh yeah, Happy Birthday!!

It was around 2 when he decided he was better. I know this, mainly by the fact he came charging into the kitchen with his block of chocolate wanting to scoff it down right then.

A water balloon fight was then ordered and later we took two little men to the pool. Mr T was more than well enough and had a ball. On the way home we stopped at Maccas, boys had a happy meal and I decided I badly needed a coffee. I wasn’t going to ask, but if we were going to call in then i would have one. I was told I deserved it – after all that hard work this morning and then having the man of the moment not even being able to enjoy it!

On going to bed this evening, he proclaimed it “nearly the best birthday ever”
Well I’m happy with that 🙂

Jennifer

Merry Christmas

Wishing all my friends and followers a very merry and safe Christmas – whether you’re travelling or staying at home.
Enjoy the time with your family and friends, and please don’t drink and drive.

Jennifer 🙂

Mr 8, the Devils Food Cake & baking gone bad.

Remember the other day when I mentioned I would be making that chocolate cake…. yeah, you gotta read the recipe. One wrong ingredient and it .. well, it was flat. Did not rise. It has been awhile since I have made this one, but that’s no excuse really… really 🙂

So, I start again, this time reading the recipe properly.  What did I do wrong. On the list it said plain four, so I assumed the next one was baking powder (to help it rise), Wrong!, It was Bi-carb soda. Apparently that makes a huge difference.  Then the cake started to burn.  Like the first one.  What was wrong this time? I covered it in foil and turned down the oven a bit.  Then figured I’d check the temperature. Using my new gauge I noticed the old one was way off and the oven was too hot.
Got it sorted and this one at least looked 90%  like it was supposed to.

Trim the top and split in half to add thick whipped cream.  Yeah right.  Checking the remainder in the fridge and I found my problem.
As I grabbed the cream that morning in the shop I paid no attention to the fact it was lite cream!  Lite cream does not whip.  It gets thicker, but you cannot whip it into shape!

So for dessert we had cake with thickened cream poured over instead of whipped and sandwiched between layers of rich chocolate cake.

A lovely birthday dinner with good company finished with an average cake…
Keep smiling 🙂
Jennifer