Hoot Cupcakes

Geekling's 2nd birthday is near, so I had to send cupcakes in to daycare so the kids could celebrate.  These are what were made:

They are little owls decorated with halved oreo biscuits, halved malteasers and orange jelly beans.  They look a bit like Geekling's favourite character Hoot, from ABC's Giggle & Hoot.

It took 3 packets of oreos to get enough halves for a dozen cupcakes, but the remaining bare sides are sitting with the left over malteasers waiting to go through some home made ice cream, perhaps with a touch of my home made Baileys - mmmmm.

Confession: I used packet cake mix.  I normally make everything from scratch, but my mother-in-law made the most amazing cupcakes and when I asked for the recipe she confided that it was ALDI 'Hillers' brand vanilla cake mix.  That stuff is only 75 cents a box!  And it makes the most divine cupcakes!  So its my go-to for cupcakes now.

I did however make the frosting and it was awesome - creamy, buttery but not too sweet.  I posted the icing recipe on my new Thermomix blog I am going to use to post my fave recipes and my own conversions.

Lumpy's 2nd Birthday Party

Yesterday Geekling and I helped Lumpy celebrate her 2nd birthday - what a lovely party!  Thank you Mara and Lumpy for having us!

 Adorable teacup treats

Geekling LOVES to play with sliding doors

Check out the cake - a joint effort between Lumpy's mum (who baked the six different coloured cakes) and friend Jaime who is a cake decorating queen and came up with the awesome marbled fondant.

 SIX layers of bright rainbow colours!

There was also had a DIY cupcake table that the kids just loved.  Geekling did a decent job of applying his own icing with a spoon and dotting it with m&ms and jellybeans before toddling off to eat it.  I was very impressed he didn't try to over-load it or sneak a few lollies in the mouth while decorating.

 Spreading his cupcake with icing

 Decorating his cupcake

 Ready to devour his masterpiece

The birthday girl decorates her cupcake with lots of crumbled oreo - yum!

I was also very impressed that he was able to communicate his need to go to the toilet in an unfamiliar environment and didn't get 'stage fright', including a stop on the way home just before jumping on the highway (which I was very grateful for).

Vegies are tasty!

This post ties in well with my recent guest posts over at  Brisbane Kids - creative food play and my favourite pizza base recipe.  Brisbane Kids is also on Facebook and are a great way to keep up with cheap and fun activities around Brisbane such as expos, fetes, festivals and other celebrations.

We're having a little trouble convincing Geekling to eat vegetables at the moment.  The frustrating thing is that he will eat the same vegies in one form (on a pizza, pureed, mashed or in another dish) but then not in another (whole or chopped).  We don't want to take the developmental step back into purees all the time so here are a few of the things we've been trying to overcome this:

Muffin Tin Meals

We try to give Geekling a muffin tin meal once a week, and challenge ourselves to include one food he hasn't eaten before.  He will usually try something from each of the six compartments but we must admit he doesn't often go back for a second mouthful of vegies.

Dip-Dip

We tried lightly steaming some carrots and broccoli, and adding some yellow capsicum and cherry tomatoes, then serving with a home made cheesy dip (recipe below).  He loved this but tended to just dip the vegies, suck the dip off and dip again.

Our floor cleaner (dog) Mr L waiting patiently in the background for any dropped vegies or drips of dip

Cheesy dip: simply mix and microwave lightly to warm

2 tbsp cream cheese
1/4 cup cream
1 - 2 heaped tbsp grated cheese
1/2 tsp french onion soup mix

I threw this together using leftovers, but you could also use store-bought cream cheese spread or combine corn relish, gherkin relish or even tuna to cream cheese.

Vegie Tempura

Since Geekling is a fiend for fried potato chips we thought we'd try tempura.  He had a little bit, but it wasn't the success we'd hoped for.  He'd had a big afternoon of grazing at a birthday party and had some fresh bread while I was frying up so we might try again soon.

 Geekling gets started while Mumma continues frying

We used calamari and prawns, sweet potato, spring onion, green beans, red capsicum, broccoli, mushroom ans zucchini.

We wound up with two full plates of tempura left over after hubby, Geekling and I had finished and had to call in reinforcements to help eat it!

On our list of things to try is baked vegie "chips" and American-style pumpkin pie or muffins (both of which I LOVE).  Geekling loves vegie pizzas and fritters, so we do have some back up plans, and we tend to sneak grated veg into lots of other meals like meatballs, pasta sauces etc so we're sure he's well enough.

Making bread

One of the many grocery items that hasn't graced our shopping list in a while is bread - we make our own!  We cheat and use a breadmaker that was gifted to us, and even though bread is quite cheap at the shops (sometimes as low as $1 per loaf) I still believe we save money making our own.  Besides, nothing beats the fresh stuff, slathered in butter and spread thinly with vegemite!

Geekling loves helping around the house at the moment, including making bread.  Hubby often measures out the ingredients for him to tip in to the tin.

Here is the recipe we use and love:

1 1/4 cup water (room temperature - approx 15 - 20 degrees)

3 and 1/4 cups plain flour 

2 tbsp butter

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tsp salt

1 and 1/2 tsp bread improver (optional)

1 and 1/2 tsp dried yeast

Throw it all in the machine and turn it on!

The recipe can be adapted to baking in the oven - you just have to mix, knead and prove yourself.

You can also use 00 flour or breadmaker's flour if you want to get fancy, but plain flour works just fine!

We've been meaning to experiment with cheese and herbs and all manner of delicious add-ins but have been too busy enjoying it as is!