Adele's first birthday party

Finally a quiet moment to do some blogging.

We had Adele's first birthday party last weekend. She had a blast. She really does love having people over to play at her house.

She was so spoiled with all her gifts, I'd love to say what her favourite is but to be honest she's been playing with pretty much all of them.

As for the cake. Ahhh, butter cream icing you still elude me... And the cake itself ended up a bit dry cause Adele and I went outside to play while it was cooking and I forgot to take it out of the oven. Ooops! Totally still edible though and didn't look too bad after all.

Creation a week #15

Can you believe that my little girl is one?

Her party is coming up this weekend so I thought I'd better have a practice run at baking a cake & icing it. The baking part went fine. But the icing... why does my butter cream icing always split? Noone I've talked to seems to have this problem. They just look at me like I'm a freak. Apparently butter cream icing is easy. Sigh.

For the actual party I'll be attempting a teddy bear!

So anyway, I forgot to photograph it before coffee group - here are the remains.

Creation a week #6

Back after an absence! Busy week - colds, birthday, lenten blog taking up lots of my free time...

So I missed a week of creating. I did bake a ginger slice which is pretty yum but seeing as it is a recipe I've done a few times before I didn't think it counted.

This week's creation however is something new!

Caramel popcorn

It is sweet, and caramelly and salty. I think I'll be making this a lot. And taking it out places when I need to take junk food to share cause it is super dooper cheap to make :)

Here is the recipe. I googled Caramel Popcorn and found it on nzfavouriterecipe.co.nz

4-5 cups of popped popcorn

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 T butter
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda (press down on it break up any lumps)

1. Put the popcorn into a large lightly oiled heat resistant container.
2. Place the sugar, water, butter and salt into an, at least two cup capacity, heat resistant glass jug (the jug should be uncoloured as you need to keep an eye on the colour of the caramel).
3. Microwave the mixture on high for 2 min, then stir it until all the sugar is dissolved.
4. Microwave on high, watching carefully, until the mixture turns a light brown (in my microwave this takes 3 - 3 1/2 min). Be vigilent, it can burn very quickly after starting to turn brown!
5. Add the baking soda and quickly stir to mix well.
6. Immediately pour the mixture over the popcorn while still bubbling, and mix well with a large spoon to coat.
7. Break the popcorn up into another bowl while still quite warm.
8. Store in an airtight container when cool.

Yummy yummy scrummy!