Wedding Cake Deco

This was a Wedding cake my workmate's friend was sampling. Its very hard to describe it as it falls along the lines of Valentiney, wedding, romantic with the chocolatey topping it off with the touch of island. i have a feeling it will make you homesick. Hope it inspires you. Happy Valentines Day from Fiji!

The never ending cough!!!....grrrrr

Last Saturday, well actually it started on Friday, I developed this sore throat and it seems like it doesn't want to leave me...lol. It has been the longest four days of my life trying to get rid of it. Anyways, so last night, I started coughing like every other five seconds or so. I just felt like shoving my fingers down my throat and pulling out whatever it was causing the itch, even though I spat out whatever I coughed up...grrrrrr. No matter how much I tried to get comfortable and sleep, I couldn't, the damn itch in my throat wouldn't go away...lol. Finally, towards my husbands time to get up, then I was able to find sleep....oh man!!!!! And knowing me, I cannot sleep for long once the sun is up :( ,so by 9ish I was awake. Today will be another long day for me, but I thank God for the lovely sunshine, probably take a walk once hubby is back from work, hoping he finishes early. Oh and by the way, I haven't coughed again since I woke up lol...amazing I guess it's still asleep lol.

Anyways, hope you all have a lovely day, cheers xx

An Easy Whip Up - My pancake mix

Some mornings I just love the smell of pancakes wafting from the kitchen and mind you I can smell this from the bedroom because my husbands the one making them....lol. That's how easy it is to make. It can be done in minutes and especially when it's with my favourite jam....well it's our favourite jam now..lol, black currant jam or sometimes with blueberry sauce. I just thought of sharing it here. Now, I can't take the credit for the Homemade Instant pancake mix because it is a Nigella Lawson recipe :-) but I can take credit for the pancake recipe :-)
Cheers xx


Homemade Instant Pancake Mix
600g plain flour, sifted
50g baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1 tsp salt
60g caster sugar
Mix altogether and store in a tight sealed jar or container until ready to use.
I usually double this mix and have it in my container for any time I wanna have pancakes.
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Pancake Mix
Ingredients:
300g pancake mix
2 eggs
400ml milk
30g melted butter

Method:
Lightly whisk the pancake mix, egg, milk and then add in the melted butter and do a final whisk.
Cook the batter.
Serve it with jam or any sauce. I like to use blueberry sauce.

A birthday cake for Makelesi Caqusau :-)

A family friend's daughter was turning 5. I had decided to pipe rosettes all over the 2 tier cake. The cake was a coffee cake with a coffee swiss buttercream filling which went for the outside frosting as well. The two colours on the frosting are peach and beige. Unfortunately, I did not take photos of the process but a small pic of the finished cake :-)

My Nenna(maternal side)

My nenna and I, love this woman. We live in two different countries and I miss her a lot :(

Decorating a cake order

So I happened to receive a cake order for Father's Day one weekend. I thought to myself, what type of decoration should I use? Mind you, this was my first order for Fathers Day. Thank God for YouTube :-) because I happened to start watching videos on decorating skills and just any ideas that would inspire me for this particular cake. The cake flavour was coffee with chocolate ganache filling and a coffee buttercream frosting. The cake was 12" square with two layers.

Here's a pic of when I started pipping the first side of the cake:

It wasn't to what I had expected then but then again my kitchen was really hot that night and I had to place it in the fridge now and then to firm up the frosting. Everything afterwards turned out really well.

Now, I hate to pipe my letters and this s something I need to practice more on so I decided to put the words all on the photo icing.....how clever is that!...lol.

For me, this was my basic ruffle cake and it is a technique I would love to improve on for future cake orders :-)

My Coconut Buttermilk Scones

Just so happened to be craving coconut scones one morning so I thought of making up a recipe. Well, what do you know! It came out scrumptious and my husband was there to taste. It's been my go to recipe for scones ever since. If I want buttermilk scones, I just omit the coconut.

Here's the recipe :)

Coconut Buttermilk Scones

Ingredients:

2cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed

4-5 tbsp sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 heap tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced

1/2 cup cold buttermilk, shaken

1 cold extra-large egg

1 cup dessicated/shredded coconut

1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water or milk

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Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius

Place 2 cups of flour, sugar, the baking powder, baking soda and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low, add the butter and mix until the butter is the size of peas.

Combine the buttermilk and egg in a small measuring cup and beat lightly with a fork. With the mixer still on low, quickly add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and mix only until moistened. In a small bowl, mix the Coconut with small handful of flour and, with the mixer still on low, add the coconut to the dough. Mix only until roughly combined.

Dump out onto a well-floured board and knead lightly about 6 times. Roll the dough out to a rectangle 10 by 5 inches. With a sharp, floured knife, cut the dough lengthwise in half and then across in quarters, making 8 rough rectangles or you can use a round cookie cutter to shape out circles. Transfer to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops with the egg wash, sprinkle with salt, if using, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the biscuits are cooked through. Serve hot or warm.