Vanilla Slice

I will post the recipe that goes with this picture in the coming weeks, but I just though this photo was too cute to not post immediately!!! I hope you have pets like this adorable budgie to enjoy! His name is Pip and he just turned 9yrs old. Still as cute and FAT as ever!

Blood Orange Cheesecake

Recipe and Images by Yasmin

I had some left over cream cheese in the fridge today and I thought it would be a nice idea to make some cheesecakes for dessert. As I raided out fruit bowl for something to add flavour to the cheesecake mixture I saw and orange. I thought that was perfect to go in my cheesecake but when I cut it in half to juice it I saw that it was actually a Blood Orange. I still used it and the end result was delicious! I would recommend this recipe to anyone - it is one of my best!

Ingredients:

• 225g Cream Cheese, softened
• 2/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 blood orange, juiced
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten (room temperature)
• 1 tsp. vanilla essence
• tart cases (can be bought at local supermarket)
• Fresh fruit, to decorate (optional)

Method:
Preheat your oven to 180C. Beat the cream cheese with the sugar. With the mixer running, slowly add the eggs, blood orange juice and vanilla. Arrange tart cases on a tray. Fill 3/4 (1-2 tblsps) of cases with the mixture. Bake for 15 minutes and leave to cool. When completely cooled (or after refridgeration), decorate with fruit (optional). Serve for afternoon or morning tea or dessert with a bowl of mixed fruit.

Scones

Recipe from NMAA Cooks
Images by Yasmin

I love having scones, jam and cream with friends. It is such a delight to catch up in the holidays and have good, simple food to jumpstart the conversations. I wish everyone a happy holiday and to keep safe.

Ingredients:

• 250g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tblsp powdered skim milk (optional)
• 1 tblsp butter
• 1 cup milk
• milk or egg yolk for glazing
• jam and whipped cream, to serve

Variations:

• Yoghurt: Use yoghurt instead of milk or 1/2 yoghurt and 1/2 milk
• Cheese: Add 2 tblsp grated cheese
• Date: Add 1/2 cup chopped dates and 1 tblsp sugar
• Egg: Crack an egg into measuring cup, fill to 1 cup with milk, beat together before mixing into flour
• Wholemeal honey: Use wholemeal self-raising flour, omit butter and add 2 tblsp honey dissolved in the milk
• Savoury: Add 2-3 tblsp finely chopped cooked bacon, 2 tblsp finely chopped cooked onion, 1 tsp curry powder, and 2 tblsp finely chopped parsley

Method:
Heat oven to 220'C fan forced. Grease scone tray or oven slide. Sift flour, salt and skim milk. Cut butter into flour and using fingers rub in lightly. Mix to a soft dough with milk. Turn on to a floured surface and knead slightly. The less the dough is handled, the lighter the scones will be. Flatten out with heel of hand to approx 2-3cm in thickness. Stamp out with scone cutter or glass dipped in flour. Place scones touching each other on tray, glaze tops with milk or egg yolk. Bake 8-10 minutes. Serve with jam and cream.

How to make a Dolly Vardon

Recipe and Images by Yasmin

These are the two cakes I made for Cultural Festival, one of which one 3rd Place! This type of cake is called a Dolly Vardon. The skirt or base of the cake is actual cake, while the top is the torso of a Barbie doll or a Kelly (Barbie) doll. For these two cakes I used Kelly dolls for the ease of fitting it in the cake. If you use a Barbie doll you must remove the legs and just leave the torso to fit into the cake. Below are some simple instructions on how to make your own dolly vardon cake. Have fun!

How to make Ariel:

Step 1: Bake a cake in a deep bowl. It will take longer to cook because the cake is more dense and the bowl is acrillic not tin. It is always a good idea to slightly overcook the cake (until it is 'dry' in taste) to make it sturdier for the ease of cutting and icing.

Step 2: Cover some carboard, a bread board, a cake board etc. with aluminium foil and seel on the underside with sticky tape. This becomes the 'stand' or 'presentation board' for Ariel.

Step 3: When completely cool cut a small hole slightly off centre (to allow for the piping of the tail).

Step 4: Place the Kelly Doll into the hole and then ice the cake (which will become a rock for Ariel to sit on) with chocolate butter icing.

Step 5: Smooth the icing over so the rock is completely covered.

Step 6: Colour some of the butter icing green and place it into a zip lock bag with the end snipped (the hole must be very small) or in a piping bag with a small nozzle. Start to pipe the tail; small piping for the tail and larger piping when it connects with the torso of the Kelly Doll. When you reach the part of the tail which the fins start, outline the fins and then proceed to fill them with long strokes of piped icing rather than small blobs.

By now the butter icing will have softened greatly so put the left over icing and cake into the fridge for 5 minutes to set before moving on with the other steps. Because this cake takes a few hours to complete to perfection, the cake and icing will need to be placed in the fridge a few times to set.

Step 7: Begin to decorate the board and rock with different coloured icing. I made some smaller rocks amongst the big rock Ariel is sitting on. On these I made Sebastian the Crab and also different types of seeweed. Also decorate Ariel's rock with seeweed and maybe some shells, as well as piping a purple bra on Ariel. Then place it in the fridge again.

Step 8: Make some blue butter icing and place it in a zip lock bag with a fairly small hole in one corner, or a piping bag with a small nozzle. This will become the sea surrounding the rocks which are breaching the water.

Begin by piping dots around the rocks and then place icing randomly on the board. Using a fork, spread the icing (without damaging the piping) around the board until it is mostly covered by blue.

Be creative and don't make the fork imprints occur in straight line, make them randomly curve like waves.

Step 9: Place the finished product back in the fridge to set.

Now that you know the fine details of making a Dolly Vardon you can use the ideas in these steps to make another Dolly Vardon of another character such as Snow White.

 When transporting the cakes it is easiest to put them in a box if you have a few and put that box in the boot of the car, or if there is another person in the car, let them hold it on their lap.

Cultural Festival Cakes

Hello everyone!

It is this time of year again where having fun and enjoying everyone's talents has arrived... it was Cultural Festival on Thursday 15th!!!! Last year I posted some egg decorating skills and creations of mine, and on the Designer Cakes for Parties and Competitions page majority of the cakes are from last year's Cultural Festival. This year the theme of the event was 'Disney: Dare to Dream' and every cake suited this theme, as a result there are many Mickey Mouse faced cakes. I am proud to say that my Ariel Cake won third place! I am very pleased. Also the eggs that my friend and I created, the Royal Wedding Balcony Scene, won second place! In the pavement art section, I won first place for my Eeyore chalk drawing! On Cultural the various activities and competitions gain points that contribute towards your House score as well as your individual scoreboard. At the end of the day, the points are tallied and an overall individual winner for the Junior section and Senior section are announced and then the winning house is announced. Last year I was awarded third place in the Senior section, but this year I am the Cultural Festival Champion!!! I received first place for the Senior section!!!! Early next term there is a school Awards Night where various trophies, medals and ribbons are awarded to students for various reasons, such as academic excellence, dux of a subject, AND Cultural Festival Champion!!! This means I will receive a trophie and certificate as I walk onto the school stage!!! I am so excited and cannot wait!

In this post I will show you all of the competetors in the cake and egg decorating competition. On the next post I will provide step by step instructions to help you make your own award winning cake! Look out for next years last post about Cultural Festival, hopefully it will be another winning year!!! Enjoy baking all of those cakes and be creative as possible. I find it easy to just google a cake design and take ideas from various cakes to create your own masterpiece! Look at what others have done and just give it a go!

Happy Holidays!!!

Cheers,
Yasmin

Cultural Festival 2011:

Cake Decorating Entries:

(1st Place)

(2nd Place)

(3rd Place, Ariel by Yasmin)

(Snow White by Yasmin)

Some of the Egg Decorating Entries:

(2nd Place, Royal Wedding Blacony Scene by Yasmin and Zoe)

 (Harry Pottegg by Yasmin)

Pavement Art:

 (1st Place Senior Devision, Eeyore by Yasmin)

(1st Place Junior Devision)