For Spring Open Day at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne this Sunday 4th of October 10am-6pm. Lots of activities for the kiddies as well as grown ups, live music and a selection of market stalls.
We will be there, not sure if I will be behind the market stall all day or doing kids activities, may have to take it in turns with Mr m.e...so much fun.
Also checkout the gorgeous bloggy gift I was soo lucky to win from the fabulously talented The Princess & the Monkey ,pop on by for some gorgeous crafty goodness as well as an amazing collection of tutorials I could even follow. They are craft as you go needle/embroidery holders but I actually think they would make my key ring a little bit happier with them on :). Thank you so much L ♥ Hope you are having a good day, it is ABSOLUTELY beautiful in Melbourne today. Checkout here to see who else is playing along. ✗ ♥
It has been unbelievably cold and wet and the littlies have been getting a little crazy indoors...so what to do, tempt them with baking, cookie cutters, chocolate and lots of sprinkles*.
Very simple recipe and you probably have everything in your pantry.
Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat with electric mixer until pale and creamy, a few minutes. add egg and mix to combine. Sift together both flours and the cocoa and stir into mix
Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. Flatten and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180 deg C, 356 deg F. Grease trays
Roll dough between 2 sheets of baking paper until 3-5mm thick. Cut shapes and place on trays.
Bake for about 10 minutes, do not overbake these as they will harden. Cool on wire racks.
When cool, melt chocolate using double boiler method, bowl ontop of saucepan with hot water . Spread tops of each cookie with chocolate and sprinkle with hundreds & thousands. Allow to set.
Hope you enjoyed this recipe, as I mentioned it's great for kids and especially great for school holidays! ♥ *I just realised that I like using alot of sprinkles in things..hmmm, maybe it's because when I was little we never made anything with sprinkles, we used to make things like baklava and rice pudding and olive bread, all of which contain NO sprinkles :) (I'll just ponder that a litle longer)
Hope you are having a good day. We decided to have a lazy day at home as the weather in Melbourne has been windy, rainy and very cold. Kids are playing dress ups, modelling clay, had heart eggs for lunch and we are about to bake some cookies.
Hope you are having a great Friday, if you're in Melbourne, then it's a rainy Friday.. and I ♥ rainy days! Yay for the weekend, yay for dads being home, yay for doing family things and yay for no market tomorrow.
I have had a few requests from people for a recipe with berries, so I thought I'd share a yummy rich tart recipe which you can use any seasonal berries you like or use frozen berries as I have.
preheat oven to 190 C (375 F). roll out the pastry to line a 23cm tart tin. chill for 20 min
line pastry shell with baking paper and some rice or beans and blind bake the pastry for 10 min then remove paper and rice/beans and cook for a further 5 minutes or pastry is just cooked but still pale
in the meantime make almond filling, beat butter and sugar and vanilla together till pale and creamy, this will take about 5 minutes
beat in the eggs, one at a time and then fold in the almond meal and flour.
spread the almond filling into the pastry shell
top with berries of your choice, I used frozen blackberries this time. press the berries slightly into the almond filling with your hand
bake for about 30 minutes or until filling is golden and firm
when it's slightly cooled I just brush tart with an apricot glaze which is made by putting a couple of tablespoons of apricot jam and a couple of tablespoons of sugar and about 1/3 cup of hot water and simmer on medium to low until it reduces and thickens.
Sorry for the delay in drawing a winner, but I couldn't do it with the absence of my camera. She was kindly returned to me today after spending a couple of nights away in a very, very lovely new outfit, so I thought that I would use my gorgeous new bag as the decider of the winner. All your names were written on these white paper hearts and placed in the lovely new bag where my beautiful little sous chef pulled out the winner and because we made you wait, we pulled out two more hearts .
So the winner of the lovely apron & cookie cutter set is Ms Curlypops (now, this amazing lady makes the most incredible aprons herself...I feel nervous sending her one) and the two winners of the cookie cutter sets and rolling pins are Nikki and Kate.
Congratulations ladies, I'll send you an email soon.
Thank you all so very much for the recipe requests and questions and I will get to them all soon. Stay tuned for a berry tart recipe in the next few days.
...to pull a winner out of the hat, but you'll have to wait till tomorrow...sorry. I cannot believe it, but I left my camera at a friend's place yesterday and she spent the night without me! I can't even understand how I could ever forget my 3rd child like that.
So, until she's back I am pictureless and can't possibly function without her. does that happen to you with anything? or just me and my obsessiveness over my camera..
until then, check out here to see who else can't wait for Tuesday. ♥ ✗ ♥
Thank you for all your questions and recipe requests, if you still haven't put one through you still have till tomorrow.
I will get to all of them in the next couple of weeks but for now I thought I'd try a variation on our porridge as the little ones are wanting a little more of an adventure with their breakfast.
Cinnamon & Raisin Toasted Muesli
ingredients
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup raisins
method
Preheat oven at 180 C
in a large bowl combine oats and coconut and set aside
in a small saucepan, combine brown sugar, oil, honey and cinnamon and bring to the boil. remove from heat and stir in vanilla
pour over oat mixture and stir till coated
spread in a large shallow baking pan and bake for about 25 minutes or until golden, whilst stirring occasionally.
cool and then add raisins or whatever dried fruit you like, I added dried apricots as well.
store in an airtight container
This toasted muesli mix is also good to add to some plain yoghurt as an afternoon snack.
Hope you enjoy it, please let me know if you give it a try ♥ ✗ ♥
Well, my sewing skills are pretty much limited to sewing on buttons at the moment, but how could I pass up a coffee & chat craft session organised by the threelovelyladies at Northside Makers.
If you haven't stopped by their blog for a visit, why don't you pop by for their whos who craft wrap up as well as useful information on markets, event roundups, tips and meeting more Northside Crafters.
The first Northside Makers market will be on the 10th of October at the Uniting Church in Northcote. Hope to see you there.
For Spring Open Day at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne this Sunday 4th of October 10am-6pm.
They are craft as you go needle/embroidery holders but I actually think they would make my key ring a little bit happier with them on :). Thank you so much L ♥
♥
