Muffin Tin Monday and... Boo! Bonus Bentos!

Hallowe'en is one of the most fun times for Muffin Tin Monday!  Here's what The Muffin had in her tin this Monday:

Top Row:  Bat cookie eating chopped Papaya;  Witches Brew (green sauce - basically a pureed cucumber raita with added spinach for vitamins and green-ness);  Naan bread Witch Hat with string cheese and purple carrot detail.

Bottom Row:  Rice tinted green;  Star-shaped Egg;  Witch Broom (piece of banana dipped in yoghurt, sprinkled with shredded coconut, with a pretzel stick handle).

The After Shot:

The Muffin loved her Banana Broomstick!  She was very pleased with this dinner all round, really, although she didn't love the papaya (this was her first time trying it).  She ate some, and said she quite liked it, but wouldn't like a lot of it.  Fair enough (I felt a bit the same way about it, actually).

To see what other spooky treats were dished up this Monday, check out The Muffin Tin Mom's blog.

But Wait - There's More!  Bonus Bento!

The Muffin wanted Hallowe'en-themed bentos on Monday and Tuesday this week, as well as on Hallowe'en itself, so here's what she had yesterday:

Spook Bento!  The Muffin has four ghost-shaped tortilla sandwiches (stacked - one cheese, one ham, one Promite, and one thick home-made applesauce) - I got eight ghost shapes from a total of two regular sized tortillas.  She also has a ghost pear (I am so in love with these - you should totally try this, it's really easy.  Pears seem to be a naturally perfect shape for slicing a ghost-shape from!)  The eyes of both ghosts are black sesame seeds;  the mouths of both were made from one chocolate chip - the flat part for the tortilla sandwich ghost, and the tip for the pear ghost.  Her snacks are a "Boo" marshmallow, three prunes (with a ghost sticker pick), and vanilla yoghurt.

On Monday, The Muffin had this for lunch:

This is not as neat as the spooks, but I really like the idea of slicing the top few millimetres of crust off the top of a bread roll, to make a flat surface for decorating (desperation being the mother of invention - I had run out of sliced bread!)  She also had chopped pineapple, and a little gummy heart lolly as a Hallowe'en treat (yes, an anatomical heart-shape, not a love heart).

My poor little vampire honestly looked WONDERFUL when I first made him, but this photo was taken after he'd spent the night in the fridge, and he looked a little washed out.  The sprinkle bow tie seemed to have bled its colour into the cheese a bit, and the eyes aren't quite right either...  Still, The Muffin was amused by him, and liked that there were raspberries "bleeding" into her yoghurt!

I'm linking this up with Halloween Bento of the Week over at Bento Blog Network - check out all the Hallowe'en Shininess!

I'll be back in a little while with The Muffin's actual Hallowe'en lunch, so I hope to see you back here soon!

Muffin Tin Monday - Waiting For Hallowe'en...

The Muffin is very much looking forward to Hallowe'en.  As it's on a weekday this year, we're not having a party or anything (and trick-or-treating is not much of a thing here in Australia), but we still like to have a bit of fun, even if it's just a spooky cupcake or something.  :o)

Anyway, the point is, we decided one Hallowe'en-themed Muffin Tin wasn't enough - so we started this week:

Top Row:  Half a pear, with a ghost-shaped piece of skin cut away (and a "boo" pick made with a toothpick and a sticker);  Cauldron full of popcorn;  Spinach leaves.

Bottom Row:  Ghost bread and butter (with choc chip mouth);  Eyeball lolly;  Pea and prosciutto frittata.

The pea and prosciutto frittata was a recipe we found in the newspaper over the weekend, and The Muffin wanted to try it.  So I made them for dinner tonight, and they were yummy.  The prosciutto slices are pressed into a muffin tin as a sort of casing for the frittata filling.  So some of this meal was cooked in a muffin tin, too!  The recipe can be found here.

The After Shot:

The frittata was met with unqualified approval - she didn't even pick any peas out!  Hurrah!

For next week's tin we're planning something witchy...  Until then, why not check out The Muffin Tin Mom's blog, and see what other people did this week?

Muffin Tin Monday - Hallowe'en (and Bonus Bento!)

It's Hallowe'en! The Muffin has been so excited about it this year, which is actually pretty funny, because most people here don't even celebrate it. But The Muffin figured out early on that Hallowe'en = Lollies And Cookies. And she was totally sold.

So this tin really isn't the healthiest one ever - but hey, it's Hallowe'en.

Top Row: Cadbury Screme Egg; Twisties Ghosts; banana slices.

Bottom Row: Carrot ghosts; Strawberry Ghost (a whole strawberry dipped in white chocolate, with mini choc chip features); Jelly orange (the juice from the orange is made into jelly, and then put back into the scooped-out orange skin halves to set).

The After Shot:

She ate everything except two carrot ghosts and a smidgeon of jelly.

To see what other mummies made for their little monsters today, check out The Muffin Tin Mom's blog.

But Wait - There's More!!

Bonus bento: this is what The Muffin had in her lunchbox today:

Pumpkin cookie (somewhat overzealously decorated by The Muffin herself - for some more of her Hallowe'en cookies - and mine - see the other post I wrote today);
Ham and cheese sandwich Ghost, and string cheese ghostlets.
Ham and cheese sandwich Witch Hat;
Sliced apple with Jack-o-Lanternish face, which I quite accidentally arranged into a head-and-body shape (I was just trying to fit it all in), and then added sultana hair after I noticed.

Hallowe'en Fun

Happy Hallowe'en everyone! Or, you know, everyone who celebrates it. Actually Hallowe'en is not that big here in Australia. It's after eight pm as I write this, and we've only had one set of trick-or-treaters knock at the door...

The thing is, a lot of people here dismiss Hallowe'en as "an American thing" that is "not relevant to us". I find this kind of funny, because a) Hallowe'en did not originate in America, and b) having fancy dress parties and eating cute and funny-looking cookies is Completely Relevant to me, at any rate! Others object to Hallowe'en on religious grounds, which is fair enough.

At our house, we do celebrate Hallowe'en. We don't take it at all seriously, and we don't even always have/attend a party - we just think it's a bit of fun. And an excuse to make these:


I got the idea for these from the Donna Hay feauture in our weekend newspaper, but I lost the picture before I made these, so I have no idea how close mine are to the original...

Also:
Awesome, brilliant idea from LilaLoa, executed somewhat haphazardly by yours truly. You should check hers out, they're great.

The whole set:
I didn't do lots of different types this year. We weren't having a party or anything, so these were pretty much made for Husband to take to work, plus some for us to eat. The green "eyeball soup" cookies are a Sugarbelle design, although I decided to make my eyeballs out of sugarpaste so that I could have all different sizes. Check hers out here. For the pumpkins, I just kind of did my own thing (not that it's very original or anything, but I kind of like them).

Oh, and these are some of the cookies The Muffin decorated:

I was quite impressed with her Jack-o-Lantern, especially since she used a piping bag (usually she uses a squeezy bottle, which is much easier for her to control).

So the moral of this story, ladies and gentlemen, is this: No matter what your beliefs, no matter what you think of All Hallow's Eve and those who celebrate it, remember this: Life Is More Fun When It Involves Cookies.

Thank you.

Happy Hallowe'en

So, we have gummi "horror mix" lollies for the guests, a bagful of marshmallow eyeballs for trick-or-treaters (yeah, just the one bag - not that many people celebrate The Spooky Season here. We'll probably have significant leftovers), and the Muffin is getting about in a witch hat.

It must be All Hallow's Eve.

Huzzah! Yet another excuse for baking!! The Muffin and I made these cute ghostie cupcakes - chocolate mud cake with an oozy strawberry filling (made by pureeing fresh strawberries and adding a little gelatine), chocolate frosting, and a sugarpaste spook (made with a cookie cutter).

They bleed in a very satisfactory manner when you bite them.

We also made fruit mince pies with little pumpkin faces on. See? Pumpkin faces = not Christmas food! Really!! (that's what I'm trying to tell myself, anyway...)

Happy Hallowe'en everyone!

Three Months of Cake

Wow, I am really bad at this blogging thing...

Yes, it's been almost three months since last I posted, and I guess you're wondering "gee, did the wedding cake turn out THAT bad?!" Well no, it didn't - actually the bride was very happy, so I have not had to go into witness protection or anything of that nature. I've just been lazy. The trouble is, I promised you photos, and like an idiot I forgot to take my camera when I went to set the cake up. Luckily however, I did have my phone, so whilst these may not be the best quality photos ever, at least they're here.

The top cake and most of the individual cakelets were dark chocolate mudcake, the rest of the cakelets were white mudcake. There was also a white mudcake sheet cake, which was cut in the kitchen for the wedding guests to enjoy with their coffee.

Each cake and cakelet was crumb-coated with vanilla buttercream and then covered with white sugarpaste (rolled fondant). The bow and monograms were also made from sugarpaste, dusted with silver lustre.

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So that was my second ever wedding cake - it was a lot of work, but in the end I was happy with it, and more importantly, so were the bride and groom!

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On to Hallowe'en!

As you may recall, our next-door neighbour and I had decided to co-host a Hallowe'en party, and we had lots of fun making all sorts of delicious spooky treats for it! Here are a few samples:-

Cupcakes with fabulous spiderweb wrappers... shortbread fingers... cream cheese mummy...

spidery jellies... and our piece de resistance - the pannacotta brain with gory cranberry glaze! It might have looked kinda revolting, but damn, it was yummy!

A good time was had by all the witches and ghouls in attendance - including the two-year-old Muffin in her pink fairy costume, who was a bit freaked out by the other costumes until she realised how many lollies were in the house. Then she decided she liked Hallowe'en. A lot.