food photo essay....

well as promised here are just a few of the food delights i managed to experience over the last festive week (give or take a few days on either end) ... no explanations needed i dont think?

  

 

you can fit alot into a week....

well... no blog post in quite some time, i have been busy soaking up the napier sun, eating christmas food, opening presents, hosting my dad and driving the country :D

we had 6 days in napier including christmas day...

highlights included; getting all my hair cut off into a cute katie holmes esque bob and and managing to sample my favourite crumbed snapper fillets from westshore fish shop more than once! i had put in a special request to my lovely for martha stewarts baking handbook but we couldnt find it anywhere in stock, i then requested the next best thing... nigella lawson's how to be a domestic goddess! i had wanted it for quite some time and its such a well put together book with one easy/great baking recipe after another.

so the book turned up under the christmas tree with other goodies! of course i had to try one of the recipes out straight away! well... on boxing day

it was the blackberry galette on pg 115 although it said you can use any berries so i chose raspberries! it has yummy creme fraiche in it and is super easy! the only alterations i made to it were adding maybe half a tablespoon more of the creme fraiche and some sliced almonds on top, swapping the vegetable shortening (hard to find in nz) for margarine... oh and the berries of course

here is the recipe

Ingredients.....

for the pastry:

• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons polenta or fine cornmeal
• 1 scant tablespoon sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• scant ¼ cup cold butter
• 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening
• 1–3 tablespoons ice water or enough to bind

for the filling:

• 150g blackberries
• approximately 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 heaping tablespoons crème fraîche, plus more to serve

Instructions....
 
In a food processor, pulse the dry ingredients, then add the butter and shortening diced into small pieces. Pulse briefly until it resembles coarse bread crumbs, then add enough ice water to form a dough, pulsing gently to mix. Form it into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator to rest for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Roll the pastry out into a rough circle, transfer to the baking sheet and scatter blackberries on top, leaving a good 3-inch margin round the edge. Sprinkle with 1–2 tablespoons sugar, to taste, then dollop with crème fraîche. Sprinkle a further tablespoonful of sugar over, dampen the edges with water, then wrap them over themselves to form a knobbly, ramshackle rim and put in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the pastry is cooked through.

here's what mine turned out like.....

 

i served it with custard which was a really delicious combo!

we headed back to auckland for a second christmas celebration on the 27th... more food and another galette! i baked another due to its initial success, this time with blueberries ... certainly a lot cheaper! i forgot the almonds but didnt effect it much haha

 

anyway thats about it although id thought id treat you to some pictures of the culinary delights that we experienced over the past week (in photos ....)

but you will have to wait till tomorrow as im off to watch where the wild things are!

dear santa...

oh god im addicted to twitter! i set it up to be another arm of my cupcake promotion but it has ended in me being glued to the home page looking for people im following to run competitions i can enter or looking at my @bakemycupcake page seeing if anyone has tweeted me!

give me strength! no one told me there would be daily give aways and all sorts of treats to be had on the bloody thing.....

i have won a turkey, a case of antipodes water and 50 airpoints so far... haha

my mums birthday is on the 23rd but as i will be in napier i will be missing the day of celebrations so i thought we would have a pre birthday celebration this sunday! of course i am going to bake a cake and as i seem to be on a martha streak at the moment i will doing another one of her cakes, this time a devils food cake with chocolate mint ganache! yum....... looks slightly tricky but hopefully easier than the sponge cake!

today was the last day of work which is great news! tomorrow is our end of year christmas lunch which i had to buy a new dress for :/ luckily farmers had a sale on and i got a super cute dress and leggings for $45, its going to be at a bowling club... the theme is celebrities... for some reason i hate dress up parties when they are not needed! why do we need people dressing up when we are having a christmas lunch? maybe im just a stick in the mud but i reckon it would be more fun if people just dressed up in black tie!

i know im 8 not but i still have a pretty big xmas list in my head.... so for no reason except my own titillation i thought id blog it

1.

yup its a martha book! this book is truly amazing, it has fantastic cookies in which i want to start getting the hang of as my cookies usually end up tasting ok but looking terrible


2.

ira where the wild things are toy :> to go with my max toy! these are super cute and i just <3 them so much!! (and yes i know... im not 8)

3.

this amazing collapsible cupcake holder / carrier... so cute and great for carrying the cupcakes around and eliminates the worry of them slipping and sliding around or getting squashed by an over zealous chihuahua in your car :P

4.

another toy! oh no am i turning into one of those creepy women that are obesessed with soft toys and have 20 of them on their frilly duvet covered bed?!?! i hope not :/ but when in farmers today i came across a rudolph the red nosed reindeer toy .. similiar to this but even cuter! i have put in a request with my boyfriend... it wasnt met with much of a warm response but hopefully the request MAY come to fruition?


5.

oh god im not looking very mature am i? but im desperate for this! ever since we got the ps3 i have wanted it and hopefully it will be under the xmas tree for me :>

6.

general baking paraphanalia! metal tarts cases, madeliene baking pan, collapsable cookie cutters, a decent apron etc etc


7.

a podgypanda rwar! tshirt... i have been eyeing them up since i saw these UBER cute designs at armageddon....   also on twitter


ANYWAY you get the picture, this list could go on for ever and i dont want to seem to greedy haha

oh and i handed out my little noodle boxes of xmas mince pies to their recipients at work today, they seemed to go down a treat, here are the photos from round two... sieved icing sugar and cute cut out lids made them look a little more attractive

 

 

xx

what day of christmas is this???

so its the last week of work thank god and a pleasent surprise came my way when my boss said that for the rest of the week i could start at 9am rather than 7am, it makes a huge difference (trust me)! things at work are so quiet it reminds me of the last week of school before summer holidays..... nothing is happening and everyone is pretty relaxed....

i wish i was relaxed though as apart from the 9am starts i have been pretty stressed out, my car was making horrendous noises and with a trip away scheduled for sunday to napier for the first part of the holidays impending i thought i should get it sorted.... worn break pads and rotors (?!?!?) apparently and $376 apparently! as i have splurged on christmas shopping i am broke till next pay day which happens to be NEXT thursday (christmas eve). too late to get the car fixed and too late to travel to napier! luckily my mum said she could help me out, lend me the money and hopefully we will have it fixed by the weekend.... all things going to plan

amongst all of this i have decided its time to slim down, i have put on around 6kgs over the last few months and have really started to feel it and look it! it has been consuming my thoughts for quite some time, frustrated with myself for even letting it happen! but i realised its all in my control and if i just stop eating when i dont need to (mars bars, packets of chips, biscuits etc etc) and get a little more active then hopefully i can reclaim my body!   ................  sounds easy right? i will let you know how it goes......

anyway on the topic of food i successfully made my own christmas mince pies! the first round was a trial and tonight i am going to make them again so i can give them out as presents on my last day of work to my work mates! i got an easy and yummy pastry recipe from the nestle site... it is as follows

Ingredients:

75g butter (softened)
1/4 cup of icing sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp cornflour

for the fruit mince meat i have to admit i cheated! it was too expensive and time consuming to get all the different fruit etc etc so i got some good old earnest adams, added 1/2 cup of dried cranberries and a few tbps of whiskey and let it soak for a day or so....

the rest of the instructions are from the same recipe as the ingredients (i left out a few things they said, like adding chocolate to the mincemeat mix etc) and they are as follows

Instructions:

preheat oven to 180°C and grease mini tartlet tins

cream butter, add icing sugar and beat until mixture is light and fluffy. beat in egg yolk and vanilla essence.

sift flour and cornflour together and gradually stir into creamed mixture to make a smooth dough. place rounded teaspoons of dough into the tins, then press evenly over the bottoms and up the sides, making an indent in the bottom of each.

bake tart shells in preheated oven for 10 minutes. remove from oven.

fill with fruit mince meat, cut little rounds or xmas shapes for tops and pop them over each tart and return for 10-15 mins

remove from oven and allow to cool in tin.

once cooled, dust with icing sugar

now for the pictures....

they arent the prettiest of pies but they have the home made charm i guess! next time i will sieve (which i need to buy) the icing sugar over so it doesnt look so patchy and thick

noodle box lined with serviettes and a texas cupcake paper ready for the pies to be put in

pies in the box, gonna put four in each, thats all the boxes can really fit unless you want to really squash them and then risk the pastry breaking! disaster!

after closing the boxes up i thought they probably needed something christmas-y as they were just plain white boxes, so chucked a ribbon round and attached a little tree decoration with a cute paper clip and i was away laughin! a easy home made and cheap gift thats so cute i doubt anyone could resist....

happy birthday to me...

well yesterday was my birthday, i turned 28... a pretty unspectacular age but a birthday is always reason to celebrate... or perhaps i can only say that because im still in my 20s hehe

T got me a where the wild things are max toy which i had been lusting after for so long and the cutest antique pot/jar/something holder which i had seen in a trader store in sandringham..... then it magically vanished from the window after i displayed my interest in it to my lovely boyfriend :P oh! and some tiny tiny cupcake cases :D

 

we went to white at the hilton for lunch, lucky for us we got to sit on the balcony with the most beautiful view of the harbour! i had linguine with pesto, roasted baby tomatoes and feta.. it was delicious and the service was friendly ... id really recommend it!

speaking of restaurants we had spent the previous 2 days in wellington, we went down to see jason alexander and to have a mini mini break! we went to logan brown  which is supposed to be fantastic but i found it completely over-rated! the service was shocking.. well the waitress was rude! and the serving sizes were tiny! i thought that the little dot in the middle of the plate days were over but apparently in wellington thats still acceptable! the tiny bits of food that we did have were actually nice but i would never go there again or recommend it...

after seeing jason alexander in wellington T convinced me to wait around the side door so we could meet him.... haha i was completely against it of course but went along with it and this was the result...

 

anyway! back to yesterday.... as promised i attempted an old fashioned sponge layer cake... it turned out pretty well looking home made and retro, i got the recipe from my new favourite book (i have one every week haha) martha stewart's baking handbook. so i baked 2 9 inch sponge cakes as per her recipe and cut them down the middle, creating 4! i also made strawberry meringue buttercream (from my brand spanking new martha stewarts cupcake book) plus normal cream and layered them on top of one another

 

then i sliced up strawberries and covered the cream with them..... then did that with the next 3 layers, stacking them 1 on top of the other

 

 

topped it off with the same plus more strawberries and some blueberries..... and just to add to the cute factor, got some of those little chocolate lady birds and popped them on :)

 

 

so yea... wasnt the most polished looking cake but it had some charm and retro chic! and best of all it tasted delicious :)