A Few of My Favourite Things !

I’m heading to a surprise baby shower for a dear old friend this afternoon. I’ve just realised that I am without a car , it’s a windy Melbourne day and I have to carry a cake and present with me. Luckily, another dear friend has kindly agreed to pick me up on her way – whew, it really is blustery out there and I can just see a gust of wind snatching the cake box out of my hands and dumping it on the foot path.

We were told by J’s sisters to bring a dish so this is what I’m bringing:

It’s a four-layered cake (alternating hazelnut-buttermilk and strawberry-buttermilk) sandwiched with a Tokio jam and buttercream frosting as it holds better than whipped cream. I made two double batches of Nigella’s buttermilk cake, adding hazelnut meal to one double batch and strawberry puree to the other. The addition of hazelnuts has made the cake even better as it’s holding it’s moistness very well. I didn’t add enough strawberry though so the other batch is lacking in that soft pinkness that I was aiming for. I guess there’s enough pink in the frosting to make up for it. The baby blocks are sandwiched with Nutella. I’m not sure that it’s a very cohesive design but that may be because I made it up as I went along. I was going to make 3 baby blocks and have the last one sitting on atop the bottom two, but ran out of marzipan. Anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to close the cake box if I’d done that.

Off to join in those baby shower games…

I’ve been a slack little blogger! I have been doing the occasional surfing through the Australian blogs but honestly there are simply too many for me to keep up with everyone now. Of course, I’ve still been taking the odd picture here and there – either of something I’ve cooked or when I’ve been out for dinner. I just haven’t been putting any of it here.

Then this week, I took my 2 year old to Prahran Market and saw someone peeling apples in preparation for her demonstration of A Thousand Layered Apple Cake. I had seen her before on Masterchef and a photo from I can’t remember where, and just this week was reading about the gourmet sandwich bar that she and her husband were about to open up on Bourke St. It was none other than Jackie Middleton, who also confessed that she had fallen off the blogging bandwagon, although not nearly as badly as I had.

I’ve been distracted by all the things you do with a toddler but I have been doing some important baking which is due in 2 months. Yes, a rather long time in the oven isn’t it?

I got to do some cooking for little people this week as our playgroup has decided to do a foodswap on Monday. I figured that there would be a few meatballs and frittata recipes so I went with fried rice, cooked with peas, corn and good ol’ spam – the way I remember it from my childhood. I used to dash on some tomato sauce for additional flavour….. mmmmm. To accompany, chicken nuggets marinated overnight in yoghurt then dipped in beaten egg and flour peppered with five spice powder – enough to tantalise but not overwhelm delicate taste buds. Some of the chicken nuggets were dredged in dessicated coconut instead of the five spice mixture. Either way, they turned out great and one piece even obligingly too on the appearance of a drumstick.