Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Field Guide to Typestaches


So I'm pretty sure I need this print! You can buy it over here.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

My Birthday Wish




I love birthdays. Everyone is always happy. I love choosing or making presents and wrapping them just as much as I like receiving them, maybe even more.
What's your favourite thing about birthdays?

Lovely photos by Mario Leko.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Bedroom Prettiness







The incredidbly pretty bedroom of Jessica. I never ever tire of looking at photos of bedrooms.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Rainbow Cake




I've been wanting to attempt this cake for a while now, and my friend's birthday was yesterday, so...I made her a cake :). I was a bit worried about how it was going to turn out, since I'm not exactly known for my baking skills, but it actually looked and tasted pretty good!

If you have time you should definitely try it out, cause the end result is pretty cool!

Here's the recipe I used, which I found along with the video over at Whisk - Kid. Things in italics are what I've written.

White Cake
2 sticks (226 g) butter, room temp
2 1/3 cups sugar
5 egg whites, room temp
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 cups (355 g) milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple GEL food coloring. Liquid will not be vibrant enough! I actually just used normal liquid food colouring, and it still turned out really well, so don't fret if you don't have gel food colouring.

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Oil and line how ever many 9” cake pans you have (I have three and I just reused them).

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites (I cracked them all into one bowl) and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.

Divide the batter amongst 6 bowls (I did it by weight. Weigh your mixing bowl before you begin adding ingredients and then subtract the weight of the bowl from the final measurement after the batter is completed. Divide that number by six and add that weight of batter to each bowl), and then whisk a fair amount of the appropriate food color into each bowl. Pour into the pans and bake for 15 minutes each.

When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes. Then flip, cover, and stash them in the fridge to cool quickly.

Lemony Swiss Meringue Buttercream
You're meant to use this to fill the spaces between each of the six cakes and to frost with. I didn't use it at all though, I just 'stuck' the cakes together using whipped cream, and frosted with ordinary icing. Still, I thought you might like to try it :).
I made this recipe twice today because I underestimated the amount of buttercream I would need/ I would recommend that you do the same because you would need a HUGE bowl to make this much buttercream at one time!

To fill and crumb coat:
9 egg whites
1 ¾ c (350 g) sugar
4 sticks (532 g) of butter, room temp
2 tsp lemon extract

To frost:
5 egg whites
1 c (200 g) sugar
2 sticks (226 g) butter, room temp
1 tsp lemon extract

Cook the egg whites and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved (test by rubbing some between your fingers. If it's completely smooth, it's done). Pour into another bowl (a stand mixer is preferable) and whip on high speed until room temp. Then, on a medium-slow speed, add the butter, waiting until each piece is completely incorporated before adding the next. After all the butter has been added, turn the mixer back to high speed and whip until it has come together, about five minutes. Add the extract, beat briefly and then use.

If the buttercream seems soupy after all of the butter is added and does not come together after whipping, refrigerate for 5 to 7 minutes and continue whipping until it becomes fluffy and workable.



This video is kinda like a very quick how to..

Monday, July 5, 2010

Another Day, Cloudy Memory





A couple of weeks ago my Mum and sister spent the day in one of those little historic towns, and they brought me back this lovely diary :). Just as well as the one I'm using at the moment is about to run out. I love it, looks like an old book don't you think?

Sorry about my dodgy photos. Last two by me and first via here.

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