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!

Raspberry Cheesecake

Okay, so first of all:  I'm Sorry.  I know, I know.  These are the Worst Photos Ever.  But here's the thing.  I would like nothing better than to spend all my time making beautiful, photogenic desserts, and taking photos of them with various gorgeous props, from several angles, under ideal light conditions.  While sipping a glass of Dom Perignon, and laughing gaily at the incredibly witty remarks being made by the terribly efficient person who is cleaning my house.  For free.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, I actually put the finishing touches on this cheesecake five minutes before leaving the house to take it to a friend's house for dinner, after having spent all afternoon at my daughter's friend's sixth birthday party, after having spent all morning making a stuffed elephant for said daughter's friend's present.  Yeah....  Gorgeous, well-thought-out photography is not something I often get a chance to do, especially for what I like to call "right-now" desserts.  Cookies I can keep for a few days until I have a chance to take a few snaps of them.  Cheesecakes not so much.

So anyway.  When The Hungry Australian announced the theme of this month's Sweet Adventures Blog Hop - "Berry Nice To Meet You!" - I was thrilled.  I love berries, and I especially love  raspberries.  Plus I'd been wanting to make a cheesecake for ages.  There are an awful lot of raspberry cheesecake recipes about, but strangely enough, I find that most of them are actually plain cheesecake recipes with a raspberry puree swirl.  And there's nothing at all wrong with that, but it just wasn't what I had envisioned.  I wanted my cheesecake to have a dark chocolate base, a contrasting pretty pink filling, and a sweet raspberry tang all the way through.  And it did!

Raspberry Cheesecake

Ingredients

Base
370g plain chocolate-flavoured biscuits (eg Chocolate Ripple)
120g butter, melted

Filling

2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
3 teaspoons powdered gelatine
60mL water
500g cream cheese
1/3 cup caster sugar
300mL cream

Topping

1 cup extra raspberries
1 tsp icing sugar
1 Tbsp water
1 tsp powdered gelatine

Modus Operandi

First, line a 20cm diameter springform cake tin with plastic wrap (this makes it easier to get out later).

To make the base:  Process the biscuits in a food processor until fine crumbs.  Add the melted butter and blitz again briefly until combined.  Press the mixture onto the base and sides of the prepared tin, and refrigerate one hour.

To make the filling:  Heat the 2 cups of raspberries in a saucepan until they boil, then press them through a sieve to remove all the seeds.  Set aside.  Mix the gelatine into the water in a heatproof cup or bowl.  Stir over a small saucepan over simmering water until the gelatine has dissolved.  Let it cool for a minute or two and then stir in 3/4 cup of the raspberry puree.
Beat the cream cheese and caster sugar in an electric mixer until soft and smooth.  Beat in the cream, then stir in the raspberry mixture.  Pour filling into the crumb base and refrigerate overnight.

To make the topping:  Pick over your raspberries, and set the best ones aside (about half of them).  Heat the remaining raspberries with the icing sugar, then sieve them to remove the seeds.  Mix the water and gelatine as was done for the filling.  When dissolved, cool slightly and mix into the raspberry puree (you will probably only get about 1/4 cup).  Pile the photogenic raspberries onto the top of your cheesecake, and pour the gelatine-y puree over the top.  This step may be done just before serving (in which case the puree will behave a bit like a sauce), or ahead of time (in which case you will pop the cheesecake back in the fridge and the raspberry puree will set into a jelly.  This also "glues" the pretty raspberries to the top, which is useful if you are transporting it to someone's house for dessert).

To serve:  Simply open the springform tin, peel the plastic away, and lift/slide the cheesecake off the base onto a serving plate.


Be sure to check out everyone else's Berry Nice Desserts, too - just check out the links below!

Muffin Tin Monday In Wonderland

It's Muffin Tin Monday - and it's Book Week!

The Muffin's school has a dress-up day for the Monday of Book Week, and The Muffin went as Alice.  So I thought it would be nice to do an Alice in Wonderland theme for her dinner Muffin Tin.

Top Row:  Bananas with coconut, lemon & yoghurt (with an "eat me" sign);  Chocolate chip cookie (which prompted a discussion as to whether or not the cookies in the White Rabbit's house actually were chocolate chip or not, the book being non-specific on this subject);  two Naan bread teapots.

Bottom Row:  Ham "rose" (use your imagination);  Green sauce in a red Heart cup;  White Rice Rabbit.

The "green sauce" is a sort of pureed raita:  yoghurt, cucumber, spinach leaves, lemon juice and salt.  The Muffin likes it on her rice.

Incidentally, what you're looking at here is a curry night.  Husband and I love hot food, and The Muffin can't tolerate it at all.  So when we fancy a curry, we have one - and I also make a selection of side dishes (either yellow rice or coconut rice, naan bread or paratha bread, green sauce, the banana/coconut mixture, etc).  The Muffin is quite happy to sit down to a meal of just the side dishes, and that way Husband and I still get to have our curry!  It works well for us.

The After Shot:

It kind of looks like she didn't touch the green sauce, but she did actually eat quite a bit of it (although maybe a little less than usual) - the picture is a bit deceiving.  She usually scoffs this coconut rice, too, but to make it rabbit-shaped I put in in a sushi rice mold, so I had to serve it cold.  She said it was fine cold, but really I think she likes it better warm.

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

But Wait - There's More!  Bonus Bento!

This is what Alice The Muffin took to school for lunch:

The "Eat Me" cupcakes are made of apple.  The brown heart-shaped thing is a pile of three pikelets, spread with Nutella (and sprinkled with red edible glitter).  The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

She also had a label on her drink bottle:

We love Book Week!  Does your school celebrate it?

Muffin Tin Monday - Small Potatoes!

Yesterday was Muffin Tin Monday, and this week The Muffin wanted a Small Potatoes tin.  Small Potatoes is a very cute three-minute TV show for little kids.  To be honest, I think it's intended audience is a little younger than The Muffin, but it's awfully cute, and she has fallen for it hook, line and sinker.  I like it because it's fun and cute, but also I like the messages that are put across - clearly this is a show that has been put together to help build kids' self-worth, and to help them learn about their feelings and their place in the world around them.  It also exposes kids to a wide variety of musical styles (each episode contains a song on a theme topic).  Worth checking out.  So here's the tin:

Top Row:  Olaf (bread and butter with sprinkle eyes and spinach... hair?);  Nate (sausage with sprinkle eyes.  He had a leaf too - not sure what happened to that);  Baby Potato (two white chocolate buttons pressed together back-to-back, with Gourmet Writer details)

Bottom Row:  Ruby (dried pear with sprinkle eyes and spinach leaf);  Chip (home-made apple sauce);  Potato salad.

The After Shot:

She was very pleased with this tin, aesthetically and taste-wise.   I knew she'd eat most things in this tin happily, but the dried pear was new for her (and she doesn't really like fresh pear) - but she loved it!  This is good as it's another option to go in her school lunchboxes - I like sending unsweetened dried fruit for snacks as The Muffin thinks they're delicious, they're not junk food, and they don't contain nuts (which aren't allowed).

To see what else was served up in a tin this week, check out The Muffin Tin Mom's blog.