Hello Kitty comes to party at Becca Towers

Our kids have winter birthdays (well, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere they're in winter), so never really get to play outside during their parties.  It never seems to matter, but I'm aware of the lack of opportunity.  So I fancied giving the girls a party for going back to school.  It's Mini-2's first year of school, and today is the end of her first week of full days at school (they went only half-days for the first few weeks, to ease them in) - what more excuse does one need?

I also happened upon a really, really cute boxed party set of Hello Kitty.  The box had 8 matching paper plates, cups, napkins, party hats, and horns.  So fun, right?  And 3 months plus was a long time to wait to use it.

So I decided to challenge myself a little bit and try out a two-tier cake again (my birthday was the last, and first, one) and to match it to the napkin colours.  A local cakey friend, L, had Hello Kitty cutters that I borrowed (and have since bought my own) and I used them to make the little faces for the sides of the cake, and to make the cookies.  But first the cake...

I tried to match the colours of sugarpaste, and was quite pleased.  I made the pink myself, but bought some green sugarpaste and added in white until I was closer to the shade required.  The top of the cake looked quite bare, and wasn't perfectly flat and tidy.  So I remembered learning this trick for making ribbon when I was at cake school, and thought it would look perfect on top of the cake.  The girls loved it!

The top tier is chocolate cake coated and filled with chocolate ganache - another challenge.  The Aussie's seem to use ganache almost exclusively, in place of buttercream, but I found it quite difficult to manoeuvre and get smooth.  So if you look too closely, you'll see the bumps in the green cake.  The lower tier was vanilla cake with buttercream, at which I have more practice - so looks a bit smoother.

Now, the cookies.  Here they are naked, ready to be baked.

 And deliciously golden, out of the oven.

 And finally, dressed in their matching green and pink outfits :)

Here is the table all laid and ready for the party guests (we have 6 chairs, so the girls were able to choose 2 friends each), set with the matching paper crockery at each place and the co-ordinating snacks (red grapes an fresh green peas)

 And finally a close up of the cake and cookies in situ - welcome to school girls!!!

(an update - the girls never played outside during this party either!! ha ha. they were having too much fun messing about indoors)

Choc chip cookies for the first day of school

One of the ladies in the American cake forum to which I belong on Facebook makes cookies for her kids every first-day-of-school.  She had mentioned it in a post and I thought it sounded wonderful.  The reason she had posted her pic and info was because her son is a senior this year (and daughter in college), so she wasn't planning to make the cookies, thinking he was too old for them.  Then he surprised her on his way out the door, saying I hope you're baking cookies today Mom! 

Sadly I had missed the girls' first day of school, but really wanted to instigate the tradition.  So I figured I could do it for Mini-2's first full day of school - any excuse, right?!  

I chose to use the Carnation recipe, as it was so good last time and you can keep any uncooked dough for up to a week in the fridge.  It needs to be refrigerated for about half an hour or more before cutting, so I wrapped it in foil first time, and cling film this time.

And then got to cut nice, thick slices of cookie - ready to be baked fresh for their arrival (well, for me to go and collect them as us all to walk home)...

 Mmmm, fresh-baked choc and peanut chunk cookies with a tall, cold glass of milk.  Hungry yet?

 (This last photo is another batch, made almost a week later when friends came to visit.  I've included it because this post is being written some time later ;)  )

Red Velvet hits the spot

B had eaten some of our goodies before, and was after something special for his wife for her upcoming birthday.  She fancied Red Velvet, and I was only too happy to assist.  He hadn't given me much direction with regard to the decoration, except that he wanted it to give her name and age on top.  Fair enough.  I wanted to try the rose swirls all over, because it looks so pretty - like you could just dive into a pillow of cake (mmmmm), and I thought pink for the accents, because red is hard to achieve, and pink would give a hint as to the richness of the interior colour.

He said, on collection, that the decoration was just what she wanted - as she'd seem similar on my Facebook page and loved it - woo hoo!

 

Rocky Road please Mummy

I know, I know - I've been very remiss and not updated you for a good few weeks.  I promise, it's not intentional.  June was a busy month in our Kitchen and I had planned to bake no more until I'd got you up to date...

Then the school holidays came round and we went away for a week (to a wonderfully hot and sunny land, woo hoo) and now we have a week to ourselves before my in-laws come to visit for a long weekend, then my parents come to visit for the remainder of the holidays.  So we're very busy this week, entertaining friends and visiting friends whilst we can.  To this end, I wanted to make a traybake or two so that we'd have something to bring with us, or offer to our visitors.  Mini-1 piped up, Rocky Road please Mummy, so here it is.

 First we had to crush up the biscuits, but not too small so it's more fun to eat each piece...

Then decorate it with white chocolate stars (thus technically making it a triple chocolate Rocky Road) and pink sanding sugar.  Well, it is for the girls and their friends...  ha ha