baby showers

Gosh, my pregnancy went really quickly. We had to move house about six weeks before my due date, so all spare time for a few months before that was taken up with house hunting and packing. No time for blogging!

I was super fortunate to have had not one, but two baby showers so that I could celebrate and catch up with my friends and family in Sydney, but also here in Orange.

In the theme of an afternoon high tea - we had a lot of cakes and bite sized delicious treats, which were made by some friends and family.
At Sydney, my nan hosted the party and we used her fine tea cups and saucers (from the special china cabinet).
At Orange we used my sets of tea cups and saucers collected from old wares stores and given to me from elderly women.

Here's some of the pretty from my showers!

Mmm, cupcakes and slices....

 

My amazingly talented friend Alex made a red velvet cheesecake layer cake...

I made raspberry jam sealed in mason jars as little thank you gifts for my guests. We got to eat some with the scones on the day as well. Yummy.

I had a lovely day at both baby showers and am still feeling overwhelmed by the generosity and fabulousness of my wonderful friends and family. Such a special treat. x

Rainbow layer cake success!

I’ve been wanting to make a rainbow cake for at least 6 months.

So when my name was drawn for a Valentine’s day cooking challenge at work – I knew this was the perfect excuse to try it out. A little risky given I’ve never made one before, but it all turned out ok.

I searched the internet for recipes – and there are lots out there. 
Unfortunately, there were measurements and ingredients from the USA and all sorts of things that make this cake a lot more complicated than it need be. 
So, in my quest to try and keep things simple, I sort of did it my own way. 
This took me around 5 hours to complete…

Recipe wise – I decided to use a trusty favourite cake recipe and doubled the quantity. I chose a simple Butter Cake, but you could use any vanilla cake or even your favourite packet mix. Just make sure you times your quantity by two.

Once my mix was ready – I split the quantity evenly into  six bowls. I added a half teaspoon of food colouring to each bowl to make the rainbow mixes. I couldn’t buy purple or orange colouring – so I mixed even parts of red and blue for the purple and red and yellow for the orange.

Then I greased and lined the bottom of my tin. I used a heart shaped tin as it was for Valentine’s day, but I think on a normal day I would use a round tin. 
Bake each colour mix separately for 20 mins at about 170 degrees. You could have more than one at a time in the oven if you have multiple cake tins, that would speed things up a bit. 


Allow each cake layer to completely cool.

As for icing, again – there were loads of different kinds of icing suggested when I searched for recipes online.

I decided again to stick with what I know – which is the Hummingbird Bakery’s cream cheese icing.

I made a double batch for the layers and then another double batch, with pink colouring for the outside of the cake.

I tried to do a good thick layer of icing between each cake layer.

For the outside of the cake, I started icing on the sides and finished on the top of the cake. I hid any cake show-through with more icing and a good icing spatula will helped to keep the icing smooth and even.

And then Ta-da – finished.

The best part is the reveal – cutting into the cake and seeing all the rainbow layers come together.

Yum!!!

garden party stylin

Before I moved from old Sydney town, my lovely friend Fiona threw a little garden party for me at her gorgeous house. She's an art director by day and has a great eye for detail.

Just look at the little touches around her home and garden...