Monday, November 11, 2013

Asia Night

We decided every now and then we'll theme our dinners to get a taste of the world. On this special night we picked Asian food. Not only do we get to taste new cuisines it also gave us the chance to learn how to make it.

So for starters we went Japanese, this was a real task cos it was Sushi! Making sushi could be easy, if you're a professional! Which we're not, so here's our first time sushi!

Not bad for beginners hey?

For the mains, boyfriend picked it, we went with Chinese! Now I don't know how Chinese this really is, but... It was..... Sweet and sour chicken and noodles! Yum!


For dessert we would have done something Indian or Korean.. Who knows? But we were so full from the first two courses we skipped dessert and went straight to..... Yup you guessed it, fortune cookies! 
:)



So... What says you? What theme should we go for next? I was thinking Iranian or Lebanese... 



Friday, October 25, 2013

Halloween cupcakes

Check out these cute little Halloween cupcakes I made recently!
Maybe you can get ideas for your Halloween parties next week :)
Fondant Pumpkins 
Fondant Witch Hats


They were super easy to make!
More coming soon! I have a great spider cake you might want to see :) 

Saturday, July 20, 2013

2D Lightning McQueen Cake

I had a request to make Lightning McQueen cakes. So I made a simple square cake and put fondant on the top with buttercream round the edges.




Then, using edible pens, we drew the McQueen onto the fondant using a template  from a colouring book.


And... 




Once we completed that, we did the outlines with royal icing and filled it in. It looked great and the requester was more than pleased with it! :)




Monday, June 24, 2013

Veggies for Dessert Series: Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes

Another great recipe that can be used as dessert as well as a helping of vegetables. These cupcakes taste nice and chocolatey but contain zucchini. The zucchini make the cupcakes really nice and moist plus add an extra dose of vitamin for your daily intake. This is a great way to get kids that don't like zucchini to eat their share of zuchini without them even knowing it!




Ingredients
1 1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup yogurt
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup grated carrots
chocolate frosting

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until light. Then add the eggs one at a time and mixing well in between. Mix in the vanilla. In a seperate bowl combine the flour, salt, cocoa and baking powder. Add the grated vegetables and mix them in well to coat them in the flour mixture. Then add it one cup at a time to the butter-egg mixture. Then add the yogurt and combine it well.
Line a muffin tin with cupcake paper cups and fill them with the mixture. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick put in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool then frost and enjoy :)

Friday, June 21, 2013

The Smartie Project: Lusaka International Community School


  

We just had a sale at  Lusaka International Community School (LICS). They had set up a little entrepreneur day, which was fantastic. We arrived at the school and prepared to set up, before we had all our containers open little people had crowded around the table insisting on buying what they could grab. They especially loved the small cupcake decor we made of the LICS logo.






We had a wonderful selection of cupcakes for this sale. We decided to add strawberry flavoured cupcakes to the collection. These young babies were loved by the kiddies. Even more so with the strawberry decor placed on top.















Another big hit were our cake pops. Who doesn't love cake on a stick?! :)

We owes huge thank you to the LICS community. Not just the faculty for allowing us to sell during their entrepreneur day, but also the student body for buying our goodies and helping us raise the money we need to help Kyle. So, thank you!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Smartie Project: International School of Lusaka

Our bake sale was a huge success! We sold almost everything we had. We were left with 4 mini cupcakes out of 100s of baked goods. To this we owe a huge thank you to the International School of Lusaka for letting us set up a table and sell our cakes. We owe an even bigger thank you to the students and parents that came to buy our cakes. We hope you enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed making them. This is definitely a good start for our fundraising project. We hope to get a little further with it. So thank you to everyone that came to buy cakes and thank you to those that assisted in the making of the cakes.

We managed to take some pictures of the preparations of the cakes so you can get a good look at what was on offer during the bake sale.
Preparing MiniCupcakes


Green & Yellow MiniCupcakes
Making the cupcakes colourful was our way of making them more appealing to the children. We also added sugar decor such as, footballs, crowns, Bloo (from Fosters Home of Imaginary Friends) and Lady Bugs. They loved them all.














Chocolate Cupcakes


We also appealed to the chocolate lovers by adding chocolate cupcakes.









Selling Cakes


The children loved our cake sale and we got very busy. It was a great sale and all the children were fantastic. Thanks for the help!















Cake Sale

Thanks so much for all the help we got during this bake sale! We hope to see you all again soon!









Monday, June 10, 2013

The Smartie Project: Baobab Fun Fayre

Our first sale went fairly well. We managed to sell a few baked goods and come out with a small profit. Although only small, every bit counts. I'd like to say thanks to those that came to our stall to buy our goodies. Our mini cupcakes were a raging success! I'd also like to say thanks to those that helped with the baking and preparations, it was much needed! Take a look at some of the pictures we took!





Peanut Butter Ganache Sandwich Cookie Pack





Mini Cupcakes

Cupcakes


Red Velvet Cupcakes

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mini Cupcakes

Polka Dot Cake


Set Up of Our Stall
For our Polka Dot Cake, we actually had polk dots within the cake, we didn't manage to get a picture of how they looked because one very lovely and lucky customer bought the WHOLE cake from us :)
Watch this space to see how the next sale goes! We're so excited and can't wait to see how it goes. Wish us luck and send us some new ideas or suggestions for our cake sales :)

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Veggies For Dessert Series: Carrot Cake


If you have a tot that doesn't really like to eat veggies, I've come up with the veggies for dessert series. I'm going to find recipes for cakes and puddings that include veggies so you can get your tot to eat those veggies.
For the first post of the series I've chosen to make a simple, yet popular veggie cake; carrot cake! My little one usually hate carrots and I've struggled to get her to just eat one slice of carrot, until now that is. She loved her dessert and got her helping of carrots. It's a great way to get her to eat carrots.

Ingredients
200g carrots, peeled and grated
170g brown sugar
200g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
150ml sunflower oil
50g soft butter
75g icing sugar
200g cream cheese

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and prepare your baking tins.

Separate the eggs and whisk together the egg white and sugar until light and fluffy. In a desperate bowl mix together  the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda mix well then add the grated carrots and coat them in the mixture.

Then combine the flour-carrot mixture with the egg whites and mix well. Add the egg yolk and sun flower oil. Combine everything well to create a batter. Then divide the batter between the prepared baking tins. Bake for 20-25 min or until a toothpick stuck in the centre comes out clean. When the cake is ready allow to cool before frosting.

In the meantime you can prepare the frosting by mixing the butter and icing sugar until light and creamy. Then mix in the cream cheese until smooth. Spread the frosting over the cake, serve and end enjoy.

Monday, May 27, 2013

The Smartie Project: Introduction

Over the next few weeks I'm going to have a series of posts following my progress of a new project I've taken on. I'm going to be raising money for a little boy that has been abandoned by his parents and left with his grandparents. Kyle was born and raised in Zambia and has hopes and dreams like many other children. My aim is to try raise as much money as I can to help him achieve those dreams. I'm going to start by selling my cakes and baked goodies at schools and try to work my way up, getting help from others to reach the goal of my project.

I call this project "The Smarties Project" and the progress of my project will be in my posts. I hope to succeed with my project and ultimately make the little boy happy.




Thursday, May 23, 2013

Chocolate filled Profiteroles


I know I haven't posted a blog in a while now, but I'm pleased to say I'm back in my home country visiting my wonderful family! My parents always love it when I surprise them with yummy desserts, so I decided to make them some profiteroles. Now, I've seen tons of cooking programmes which make it seem like these little critters are difficult to make! But I thought I'd take up the challenge anyway! They didn't quite look as professional as the ones on T.V. nor the ones in the pictures, but they were still delicious and everyone enjoyed them!

Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
125g butter
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 packets instant chocolate mousse, or whipped cream

Method
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees celcius.
Prepare the mousse as instructed on the packet and leave in the refridgerator.
Heat the water and butter in a saucepan and allow to boil. When the butter is melted and the water is at boiling point remove from heat and add the flour and sugar. Mix until smooth thenretutn to heat and mix until the dough forms a ball. Remove from heat once again and add the eggs one at a time and mixing well in between. You can use an electric beater at this point, but I find it makes the mixture too creamy. The mixture should be smooth, but realativelythick. Spoon or pipe the mixture onto prepared baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 180 and bake for a further 15-20 minutes. Remove the profiteroles from the oven and put a slit in the side then turn the oven off and return them to the oven for 5 minutes. Then take them out and allow to cool before piping the chocolate mousse into them. If they are too hot the mousse will end up melting. You can decorate them with a bit of melted chocolate if you desire. Serve and enjoy!
 

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Happy Mami's Day!

To all the mums out there, this is your day! Time to take it easy, relax and be spoilt! Happy Mother's Day! You deserve it :)

If you want to show some love to your mama why not make a very yummy strawberry tart :)





Enjoy your very special day if you're a mummy! :)

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes

If you like chocolate you're probably going to enjoy these. They're cupcakes that have an ooey gooey chocolatey centre and topped with melted chocolate. Mmmm... Chocolate heaven!

Ingredients
1 egg white
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
50g flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon milk
3 teaspoons chocolate spread
Melted chocolate

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Beat the egg white and sugar until it forms soft peaks. Then add the sour cream and vanilla and mix
well. Slowly add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix until nice and smooth. Then add the milk, make sure the mixture ins t too runny, if it is add a bit more flour, if you feel it is too thick add a bit more milk. Fill 3 muffin cups half way then add a blob of chocolate spread and put the rest of the batter of and bake for 10-12 minutes.

When the cupcakes are done top with melted chocolate and enjoy :)