Rainbow surprise cupcakes

I had to make cupcakes to take to school for Julia's birthday. Inspired by ideas and pictures on Pinterest, I made these rainbow cupcakes which the kids loved! 

Happy Birthday Julia! 

Lots of cupcakes ready to take to school. 

Here's the surprise! 

Recipe: You can't go wrong with a cake mix! Take 1 or 2 packets of vanilla cake mix and follow the directions on the packet to make the cake batter. Divide mixture into three bowls, add food colouring to each bowl and mix well. Put one spoonful of each colour into patty pans and bake. When cool, cover with frosting and sprinkles. 

P.S. The cupcakes I made for school didn't have quite as much frosting on them... that was the one I saved for me! 

Christine xx 

Delicious chocolate cake - dairy and egg free!

I like to bake something special to share with friends when they come to my house. I have quite a few easy recipes that I can usually whip up quickly, like pikelets, brownies or muffins. 

But some friends have various food allergies, which gives me a bit of a challenge.

Last week I made this dairy and egg free chocolate cake. You can find the recipe here. I used icing sugar mixture, cocoa and a bit of water for the icing.

The cake was moist and delicious and you wouldn't know it was milk and egg free. I will definitely be making this again, for all my friends who visit!

Christine xx

Strawberry pikelets

If you liked my apple pikelets, here is something else to try: 

Using the apple pikelet batter, just cut thin slices of strawberry and place a slice into the batter of each apple pikelet whilst the first side is cooking. When you flip them over the strawberry will cook too. Delicious!

Enjoy!

Christine xx

Apple pikelets

I posted this photo on my Facebook page last week after making a batch for Julia's school lunches. There were several requests for the recipe, so here it is. Pikelets are so quick and easy to make! 

Apple Pikelets
Makes about 30

2 tsp butter or margarine, melted
1 egg
1/2 cup apple puree
1 cup self-raising flour
1 tbs sugar
2/3 cup milk (plus extra if needed)

Beat egg lightly with butter in a large mixing bowl. Stir in apple puree. Add flour, sugar and milk and stir well to make a thin batter. Heat a non-stick frypan. Drop tablespoons of batter into the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes each side until golden brown and cooked through.

A few tips:
You don't really need the butter in the batter, but I think it gives pikelets a better texture and a bit more flavour.
The pikelets will keep a lovely round shape if you don't make the batter too thick.
I use a Swiss Diamond frypan. I don't have to use any oil or butter in the pan and they colour evenly due to the even heat distribution.
If you have a mushy banana that needs using up, these are great as banana pikelets too. Just mash the banana and use instead of the apple puree.

Enjoy!

Christine xx

Happy New Year to you all ♥

Here is the recipe for Vanilla Kipferl. I should perhaps have included the recipe in my last post, but I was so busy in the week leading up to Christmas! I hope you will enjoy these delicious traditional Austrian Christmas treats with your own families.

Vanilla Kipferl
Makes 36

1 vanilla bean, halved
250g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar mixture, sifted
2 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
1/2 cup caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan forced. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
2. Using a small sharp knife, scrape seeds from 1 half of vanilla bean. Set aside. Finely chop remaining bean half. Set aside.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, vanilla seeds and 3/4 cup icing sugar mixture until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks. Beat to combine.
4. Sift salt and flour over butter mixture. Add almond meal. Using a wooden spoon, stir until just combined and a sticky dough forms. Turn out onto a floured surface. Knead gently until smooth. Using 1 tablespoon mixture at a time. roll into balls. Roll balls into 6cm logs with tapered edges. Shape into crescents. Place, 2cm apart, on prepared trays. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes or until firm and golden at edges. Cool on trays for 3 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, process caster sugar and reserved vanilla bean half until finely ground. Sift sugar mixture into a shallow bowl. Stir in remaining icing sugar mixture. Roll kipferls, one at a time, in sugar mixture. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Super Food Ideas magazine. Here is my secret to success - this is one of the few recipes for which I will always buy real vanilla beans!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Christine xx

Christmas traditions

I usually do lots of Christmas cooking, but this year I just made a double batch of one special recipe.

These are Vanilla Kipferl, a traditional Austrian Christmas cookie, but known to my family as Oma's biscuits. My mother-in-law would always bake a huge batch of these every Christmas, but as she is no longer with us I now try to keep up the tradition. I hope that Julia will continue this each Christmas when she gets older. 

Best wishes to you all for Christmas and the New Year.

Christine xx

Santa - The Christmas week

The final days of the Christmas Advent calendar were taken up by Christmas baking and preparations for a family Christmas lunch.

Julia (Miss Four) enjoyed some more Christmas cooking this week and a few simple crafts. We made lemon shortbread stars (recipe from Huggies), choc-coconut Christmas balls and mini chocolate puddings. An easy craft was lolly baubles (from Spotlight), we made Christmas crackers (inspired by All Things Kids) and Julia helped with wrapping the presents by making colourful handmade gift tags.

Christmas Day with the family was wonderful - my brother and his family travelled to Canberra from Sydney and Julia had such a lovely time with her cousins. My Mum made the best pavlova ever and the cheesecake was awesome too :)

I would like to share a few Christmas quotes from Miss Four:

• Listening to Christmas music - "Mum, is this song Away in the Danger?"
• Talking about the people in the nativity scene - "I know a song about Mary - Mary had a Little Lamb".
• Singing Jingle Bells - "Bells on cod-tails ring".
• "Mum, do you think that Wee Willie Winkie could be a helper for Santa? He could tell Santa when all the kids are in bed."

 Getting ready for the new year now!

Santa
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$21.50 each with free shipping for delivery within Australia only.
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Santa - Christmas Advent Calendar (Week 3)

Incredibly the enthusiasm for the Christmas Advent calendar hasn't waned although the chocolates are mostly being left for me to eat - it seems that when you are four years old there is such a thing as too much chocolate!

Julia (Miss Four) has been having lots of fun with some easy crafts and more Christmas cooking this week. She did some ornament decorating - a Santa plaster ornament and some wooden frame ornaments (all from Spotlight). I think Santa looks like he's been down one too many chimneys! Then she had some friends over to play so we made some more Christmas angels.

Christmas cooking included marshmallow puddings which we wrapped up for gifts, shortbread, gingerbread shapes and some more Vanilla Kipferl.

Now we're on the home stretch for Christmas!

Santa
Deluxe Personalised Children's Book
$21.50 each with free shipping for delivery within Australia only.
Available now from Jelly Bean Books.

Santa - Christmas Advent Calendar (Week 2)

The Christmas Advent calendar is still in motion - Santa's elves haven't yet forgotten to load up the stocking each night and I have somehow managed to fit in a Christmas activity each day.

Julia (Miss Four) has been bouncing out of bed to find her activity card and chocolate each morning and this week we have done some craft and some Christmas cooking.

We started the week making a Christmas bauble, then some decorations for the tree using Crayola Model Magic (it's really wonderful - not messy and it airdries). We decorated some boxes to be used for gifts, and made some decorations from beads and bells.

Some Christmas cooking finished the week - traditional Austrian Vanilla Kipferl and my favourite White Christmas - with marshmallows, mini M&Ms and chopped up jelly snakes. I'm not sure how much of this will make it to Christmas!

I wonder what the elves will have in store for us next week?

Santa
Deluxe Personalised Children's Book
$21.50 each with free shipping for delivery within Australia only.
Available now from Jelly Bean Books.