Cinnamon Bun Pancakes

On Sunday morning, my little Masterchef made these Cinnamon Bun Pancakes from the "How Does She?" Blog.

And everyone loved them. THIS much.

So , here's the recipe (click for larger image), or, for a beautifully photographed list of ingredients and method, go across to the How Does She blog and have a drool.

Strike a pose

I have to confess that pettiskirt kit has not yet been made - I ended up getting this gorgeous one from here (online shopping in the middle of the night) - and S wore it to Steffi's birthday party yesterday...

 
that kid's got personality.

So's this kid -

and she's walking now - leading to my favourite parenting moment -

What's yours?

Dressed to impress

Today's ensemble - top by Target, bloomers by Kmart, shoes from my room, styled by the big brother who was home 'on strike' like his teachers. Hmmm. The pup was enamoured.

Love these tees

I recently ordered these two t-shirts for my girls and they arrived last week and they're terrific!

The names are made of some sort of transfer, not screenprinted, and they're crisp and lovely and totally made in Australia (even the t-shirt is sewn in Melbourne). The quality is excellent and the owner, Kris, a former lawyer, has worked hard to come up with this lovely method for the shirts. To see for yourself, visit www.playingchasey.com.au.

What a great fair!

Here are the lovely apron-clad ladies on Steffi & Mary's Afternoon Tea Stall. Every apron sold. And the cakes were pretty great too.

And here's Therese, who refused to take hers off (which made her husband very happy), my poor hubby in the "Dunk the Teacher" cage - it was freezing!, and a shot of the fantastic fireworks finale. A huge congratulations to all the organisers and to the Man Upstairs for holding the morning showers off til today.

Mulberry Crumb Cake

We have a terrific mulberry tree in our back yard. Planted by my husband only a few years ago, it's fruiting beautifully. But what to do with the berries? With the crazy dust storms we've had they couldn't be eaten straight off the tree (but try telling that to the kids!).

Anyway, yesterday I made this, and it's really yummy.

I've adapted the American recipe from here, http://www.fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=170032 and didn't use any jam. It makes a small, but very special, 'afternoon tea' type cake. (Although I actually had it as my lunch yesterday. Yum.)

Mulberry Almond Crumb Cake

Process in food processor until it looks like crumbs:
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup sugar
Pinch salt
¼ cup butter

Reserve ½ cup to use in topping.

Then put in a mixing bowl with:
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp bicarb soda
1/3 cup sour cream
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
½ tsp almond extract
1 egg
And beat at medium speed until blended. Then spoon into cake tin.

Then beat up
90g cream cheese
2 tbsp sugar
1 egg white
And spoon over top of first batter.

Top with
1/3 cup mulberries (I didn't measure these actually, I just dotted them on)

Combine reserved flour 'crumbs' with
2 tbsp blanched almonds (chopped up in processor)
And sprinkle on top.

Bake 50 mins at 180 degrees celcius.

Yum

Emergency Cookies

My boys needed to 'take a jar' to school today. It was a free dress day and the 'price' was a jar full of something, to be sold at the school fair in October (I can't believe that's next month already!). This is on top of the money that's been sent in for show bags and ride armbands, major raffle tickets, class stall donations, and soft drinks (another free dress day for the drinks van stock). But it is the major fundraiser for the year and it's a fantastic community day. This year they're even having fireworks!

So, inspired by the amazing Bakerella (her photos are SO much better than mine), I put together these jars of 'Emergency Cookies'. After spending some time researching (ie. blog surfing) this idea seems to be happily American, but I have to say, having now made 2 batches straight from the jar (testing my recipes), it's pretty catchy!

Bakerella's recipe fitted in a 1 quart jar (I have no idea how big a 1 quart jar is) but I wanted to use jars i already had, and minimise the cost of the ingredients wherever possible. I'd happily put heaps of M&M's in a jar for a friend, but at nearly $4 a bag I was trying to be sensible here. And I used the bag of orange flavoured M&Ms which really added to the taste. The pink ones that are in the shops in October will look really good too. I'll definitely make some jars up when they come out.

I made a couple of batches and ended up prefering the batch that included cocoa and included more butter so spread out while cooking. Now, I'm no Masterchef, but this is the combination I settled on.

EMERGENCY COOKIES
to fit in a 750g Paul Newman's Pasta Sauce bottle

1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb soda
pinch salt
1 cup oats
1/3 cup M&Ms (more would be better if you're feeling generous)
2 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar

Pack it all down in layers (if there's space I'd add more nuts or M&M's if you have them).

When you're ready to cook, mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Then add combined wet ingredients:
1 egg (lightly beaten)
125g butter (almost melted)
1 tsp vanilla

Once it's all combined, roll into balls about 1 tbsp each, leaving room for spacing, and bake on baking paper covered trays at 180 degrees celcius for about 12-15 mins.

I needed 2 trays because one jar made about 30 cookies.

They were a big hit with the kids, and I enjoyed the alchemy of it all, and making up the labels.

I'm not sure how to offer you a link to download the labels I made, but if you're keen, just leave your email address with a comment and I'll send my pdf file to you. I printed it out on gloss photo paper and glued to the jar. The fabric was 15cm square and the cord was about 60cm in length for each jar.

If you've got some ideas on how to improve this recipe, I'd love to hear them too.

Now I'm off to bed, I need an early night for a change. Lots of painting to do tomorrow as it's the only day of the week I have a few hours of daycare for the lovely Sophia.

A Little Sewing Project

Sophia has had this blank Target jumper for a couple of months now - I always planned to screenprint something nifty onto it.
Well yesterday a bit of "freestyle" applique happened instead.
An elephant from fabrics I had in the house (main stash is up in the studio) and because it didn't take long I don't mind when it gets dirty.
Ah, another thing out of my head and off the list!

Cousins

My boys had a great holiday with their cousins recently. These are sincere smiles!

My baby is 10 on Wednesday!

James had a brilliant ice cream sundae/playgym/DS party on Saturday, and his cousins were here to join in the fun, which was great. So my creative energies went into an extra special Spongebob cake. Decorated with 4 batches of buttercream frosting (that's 6 cups of icing sugar!) and of course, it was a sponge cake on the inside! The kids were all terrific, the weather was a bit dodgy, but all up, a wonderful event!