Mexican Party Cake

 This is a cake I made for my friend's Mexican-themed 40th birthday party a few weeks ago:

 Here's a closeup of the figure on top:

 My friend is known for her big sunnies, bright red lippie, curly hair and obsession with Doctor Who...

Inside, the bottom layer was chocolate mud cake, and the top layer was Margarita Madeira cake.  The Margarita Madeira was SO good - I will definitely be making it again!  I used my regular Madeira cake recipe, and added lime zest and a little lime juice to the batter, then layered it with Tequila lime syrup and Cointreau-laced French buttercream.  Yum....

Hope you're all having a good week - there'll be lots more sugar around here very soon, as I am currently in the process of making my goodies for the Royal Show - wish me luck!

Muffin Tin Monday - Rainbow Magic

The Muffin is a great reader for her age, and recently she has fallen madly in love with the Rainbow Magic fairy books.  These are short novel-style books (or "chapter books", as she calls them).

This week she wanted a Rainbow Magic Fairies theme tin, but she specified that it must only contain references to the fairies she has so far read.  So here goes:

Top Row:  The Pot At The End Of The Rainbow (here represented by a black silicon muffin liner, containing sausages);  Ruby The Red Fairy (strawberries, one of which is cut into a flower shape, even though you can't really see it in the photo.  In the books, each fairy's magic fairy dust turns into something as it falls to the ground.  Ruby's turns into flowers).

Middle Row:  Amber The Orange Fairy (carrot circles - Amber's dust turns into orange bubbles);  Bertram The Frog (bread and butter frog with mini M&M eyes.  There is carrot and apple salad underneath him, too).

Bottom Row:  Saffron The Yellow Fairy (potato casserole with a little cheese butterfly on top - again, you can't really see this very well as it had begun to melt!  Saffron's dust turns into butterflies);  Fern The Green Fairy (spinach leaves.  Fern's dust turns into little leaves).

Plus:  Two sets of rainbow chocolate chips.

The Muffin helped a lot with this tin, as she was very excited about it.  She decided where everything went (ie in strict order of when we discover each thing in the series), and she loaded most of the food into the cups.

The After Shot:

'Nuff said.  To see what other mums did for MTM this week, check out The Muffin Tin Mom's blog.

Muffin Tin Monday - Jamboree

My daughter's latest musical obsession is The Muppets.  When I was a kid, my best friend had The Muppet Show Musical Album on vinyl, and we loved it.  Now, The Muffin is loving it too.

So for this week's muffin tin, we decided to use one of the songs for our theme:  Jamboree, sung by Gonzo (go check it out, it's so cool!)  The Muffin likes this song because of all the fun, nonsensical things Gonzo "sees", but there's a nice message here too, about making the best of what life gives you, and the importance of imagination.

Here's our tin:

Top Row:  "Cows playing cellos, with bananas where their horns should be" (represented here by a piece of banana);  "Flags being waved by ducks in buckets"(Pasta in cream sauce, bacon duck, red capsicum flag);  "Pigs drinking lemon tea" (water with lemon juice and a little apricot juice mixed in - with an egg cup pig).
Bottom Row:  "Penguins throwing popcorn" (that pick is a penguin - unfortunately I didn't notice it wasn't cooperating when I took the photo);  "Chickens on a well-dressed moose" (apple moose, chicken pick);  "Well you go run from thunder, and you stay away from rain - but I'll be lookin' for the colours in the puddles, to see my jamboree!" (pale blue yoghurt puddle, with rainbow sprinkles and a few mini M&Ms).

The Muffin was THRILLED, and she ate the lot, apart from the capsicum flag.  She hates capsicum - but she did take a tiny bite out of the corner of it, so I consider that a success!  I was really pleased she ate all the pasta, too, as she's usually not a fan of cream, and this was a full-on cream sauce.

To see what other lucky kids got in their tins this week, check out The Muffin Tin Mom's blog!

Doctor WHO?

Okay, so are we all excited that Doctor Who is back?  Yes?  Good.

I wasn't going to bother about the whole Doctor-Who-bento thing, considering that my daughter has never seen Doctor Who.  Now before you sci-fi geeks out there get all judgy, she's really really girly, and she's really really sensitive to scary television, and oh yeah - She's Five.   So give us a couple of years, hmmm?  I did think about a fairly neutral-looking one with a "Hello Sweetie" built in, but honestly?  It didn't seem worth it.

But then we actually saw the first episode of the new series, and I was feeling all inspired.  And then I remembered:  I Have A Husband!  And He Eats Lunch!

So here's my quick little homage to the episode that got even the Daleks asking the eternal question...

(yes, that's a question mark hiding there).

I was quite proud of my Banana Dalek.  The fairy bread Dalek is kind of hilarious, I know, particularly in the lunchbox of a grown man, but there was already kind of a lot of cheese in there, and frankly it was midnight before I started making this lunch, so I ditched the painting-on-cheese idea.  He also has strawberries, and a piece of chocolate brownie.

Luckily Husband is almost as childish as me, so whilst I suspect he found his lunch slightly embarrassing, I think that deep down he also kinda liked it.   :o)

I'm linking this up to Bento Blog Network's Doctor Who theme, so go check it out - there are some awesome entries!