Last year James decided to make a mocktail for our Billy Idol Day feast!
You need:
Lemonade
Candy canes
Ice
Raspberry/Cranberry grenadine
Bitters (optional)
To make the grenadine, boil a large bottle of raspberry/cranberry on the stove with 1 cup of sugar until it was reduced by half.
Of course you need fancy glasses to have this in! Start by adding in a few ice cubes.
Fill the glass 80% with lemonade.
Gently pour in the grenadine, it’s important to pour very slowly and to sort of drip it down the side of the glass otherwise you won’t get the cool gradient effect.
Gradient! At this point you can also add a few drops of bitters or actual alcohol if you are thusly inclined.
Lastly, add in a candy cane as a stirrer.
After a few minutes, the candy cane will melt into the drink and make it even more delicious!
I have a lot of friends with birthdays around this time of year so I always struggle with little things to add to their gifts. This year I’ve been making a lot of filled chocolates using my tray from Daiso.
You can get these little trays at any cake shop but I like this one from Daiso because it is silicon and therefore easy to wash and get the chocolates out of.
This tray can only do two chocolates at once, one macaron shape and one heart shape but it’s really cute so I don’t mind having to do them in batches.
You need:
White chocolate
Gel food colour
Icing sugar
Flavours, I’m using strawberry
Step one is to melt the white chocolate. I just do it in the microwave in a ceramic container rather than a double boiler. If you’re using the microwave then heat it to about half melted, 10 seconds at a time and then just stir until it’s fully melted. The ceramic retains heat so it will easily melt the rest of the chocolate.
Add a drop of food dye and mix it really well. As white chocolate contains more fat it will separate with liquid more easily so make sure to use gel not liquid colour and mix very vigourously.
Now pour chocolate to the line in the tray. My tray’s lines are quite inaccurate so I usually ignore it.
While the chocolate is still hot add the top part of the tray and press it down until the chocolate hits the top.
Refrigerate until it’s totally solid again.
In the mean time let’s make a simple filling. Pour out some icing sugar (maybe 2 table spoons) and add a drop of flavouring.
Mix well and add a few drops of water. Mix between each drop of water so you can be control of what consistency the filling has. Chocolate ganache makes a delicious filling too for something a little less sweet. You want it to be a fairly thick consistency but not lumpy and hard.
Pull out your chocolate halves and fill each with icing.
Add a tiny amount of white chocolate with a toothpick to the halves so they stick and then press them together.
Back in the fridge to set a little more and they are ready to eat!
Yum yum, I prefer to eat the left over melted chocolate still in the bowl, there’s nothing better than melted white chocolate 😀
These make perfect little gifts and it’s always nicer to get something handmade with some thought in it!
Less of a tutorial today and more of an adventure in baking! A while ago, Kim came over with the idea that we could try our hand at baking together. Craziness ensued but we managed to product a perfectly good Japanese style deco cake roll out of it. We went with a strawberry theme inside and out!
The basic process is fairly easy, the recipe is for a basic swiss roll batter which is divided into various colours and then piped. First you draw all of the little details onto baking paper in various colours. Kim was clever enough to print a template to use under the baking paper.
So we piped on the spots and stalks of the strawberries and baked it for a few minutes so it was dry.
Then we piped the rest of the strawberries and baked that too. Lastly we added the rest of the plain batter to make the full roll. In the end when you turn it all out you can see the pattern really clearly.
Once it’s all cooled down you added whipped cream and strawberries to the inside and then wrap it up.
Once it’s set in the first it should look something like this!
Omg so yummy! These are the perfect amount of sweet without being too much.
They go perfectly with a nice cup of tea!
Of course some extra strawberries don’t hurt either!
Now that I understand the process I really want to experiment with more designs and recipes! Seriously SO yummy!
Another yummy recipe from my childhood! Today we’re going to make Honey Joys ^_^
Out of all of the childhood foods I’ve been eating lately, these are definitely my favourite. They are sweet without being too sweet and they are crazy cheap to make.
For this tutorial you will need:
4 cups of corn flakes
1 tablespoon of honey
1/3 cup of sugar
100g of butter
You will need a bunch of these little cupcake wrappers. Mine are extra tiny because they are for holding chocolates.
Preheat your oven to 150C.
To begin with, melt the butter, sugar and honey together in a pan
Heat it until it start to bubble. Make sure you keep mixing so it doesn’t burn or stick to the bottom.
Add in the corn flakes and mix thoroughly so they are totally coated.
Spoon the mixture into the cupcake wrappers. I like to heap them so they are nice and tall.
Bake them in the oven for around 5-10 minutes depending on your oven. You don’t want to burn them, just heat them enough so the liquid gets into the corn flakes.
Now allow them to cool and then pop them in the fridge to store… or eat them all straight away >_>
Yum!
Enjoy! They won’t be around for very long!
I like to make them a little bit fancier by dusting them in some edible glitter. You could also add some sprinkles or cachous for more sparkles.
Let me know if you give it a try, they are so yummy!
Spending more time thinking about my food is something I’ve been trying to do with my whole Lazy Inspiration thing but I tend to only gravitate towards cute sweet foods rather than savoury things too. It’s really stupid because I actually don’t like that much sweet food, I prefer savoury in general -_-‘
One thing I’ve been trying to get into the habit of is having better lunches. When I’m working I tend to just forget to have lunch or if I do have lunch it’s something quick, easy and terrible like reheated pasta nonsense.
I want to be a bit healthier and have more variety in my diet now so I’m trying to have more bentos for lunch. I find that having a set number of spaces makes me think about what I’m going to eat and fill each one accordingly!
So this is a totally random one I put together for lunch a few days ago. I bought this Hello Kitty box from a random import shop in Brisbane years ago but I never really used it much until I started this.
Inside it has two big spaces and 3 small ones. I aim to have one big main food, one big salad and the small ones are for sweet things, fruit and sauces.
These were left over things I just scrounged out of the fridge.
I set an egg to soft boil while I was working on the other parts.
I used a rice press to make little mini onigiri with tuna and cream cheese in it.
Yum!
Next I sliced up an apple for the fruit portion.
I wanted it to be well presented so I used some icing flower cutters to cut out cheese flowers.
The only thing more beautiful than flowers: cheese.
Then it was a matter of putting things together.
Top left: Tuna onigiri Top right: Crushed noodle, apple and soft boiled egg salad with furikake seasoning
Bottom left: Special Greek candy from Cel (YUM!!) Bottom middle: A strawberry with cream cheese Bottom right: Cut up apple
This is probably a quite a bit more than I would normally eat but having a good combination of reasonably healthy ingredients stops me from feeling so full and bleh in the afternoons.
Also, totally pretty and fun to make.
I thought that doing this would be more of a chore than it turned out to be. I actually really enjoy trying to find new things to put in each space.
And having cute things like the bunny soy sauce container doesn’t hurt!
So there you go! It takes a bit of effort but the amount of happiness that it brings is totally worth it! Do you have any recipes I should try and include next time??
Cute food time! Today I’m going back in time to make chocolate crackles. This was such a staple of childhood party food and they are still delicious!
You know the stupid part about this, I spent this entire time looking at the photos, looking at the crackles, eating the crackles wondering why they didn’t look like they did when I was a kid. It was driving my crazy. Today when I’m writing up the recipe it clicks: because when I was a kid we used coco pops not freaking rice bubbles.
-________________-‘’’’’’’’ Oh my god so stupid!! But at least they tasted really good anyway so I guess you can do either.
You need:
4 cups of rice bubbles
1 cup of icing sugar
1 cup of desiccated coconut
3 tablespoons of cocoa
250g/1 stick of copha
In a bowl, mix up the icing sugar,coconut and coco powder so they are well combined.
Add in 4 cups of rice bubbles (or coco pops) and mix that through too.
Set up a bunch of cup cake wrappers ready to go because you will need to be quick in the next steps.
On the stove top, melt the copha in a pot. You can cut it up first if you want but I never bother. Don’t boil it, it just needs to be liquid.
Once it’s totally melted, pour the copha into the rice bubble mixture and stir it through.
You want it to be really evenly coated.
Spoon the warm mix into the patty cakes so they each have a bite sized amount.
Leave them on the bench to cool to room temperature then pop in the fridge to set. If you’re in a hurry just put them in the freezer.
Once they’re cold they are ready to enjoy! I like to add sprinkles or a little extra dusting of cocoa powder or even a drizzle of chocolate to the tops.
Delicious and a fun walk down memory lane, even if my memory is apparently a little fuzzy on the exact recipe!
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
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