Purple Cake Day

On the 1st of March it was Purple Cake Day. I had never heard about this until I was in Nelson for a wedding a couple of weeks back and saw posters and displays advertising it everywhere! It is pretty much a day about celebrating children and rising funds for children in need around the world. This year they focused on the children of Haiti and also Christchurch post quake. Read more about it here.

I decided to make a cake I've alway wanted to make: Red Velvet Cake. But with a twist, a purple twist.

Recipe-
CAKE:
2&1/2C Flour
1/2C Cocoa
1t Baking Powder
1t Baking Soda

225gr Butter - room temp/softened
2C Castor Sugar
5 Large Eggs

1C Buttermilk (If you don't have this, use one T of Lemon Juice or White Vinger and fill the milk up to 1C. Leave for 5mins to curdle)
1t Vanilla
Red & Blue food colouring

ICING:
100g Butter
4C Icing Sugar
1/4C Milk
1T Vanilla

Sift dry ingredients together 2/3 times.


Cream butter for 2 mins. Then add the sugar in 3 separate lots. Creaming for 2 mins after each.


Add eggs one at a time, beating for 1min after each.

Add 1/4 of the dry ingr to the butter mixture, mixing well. Then add 1/4 of the buttermilk and mix well. Repeat this process.


Now add vanilla and as much colour as needed to make mixture turn purple. (If doing red velvet, leave out the blue!)
Mix well.



Pour into cases


and cook for 20 minutes on 180c


Cool them for 10mins+ before icing.


Make the butter cream icing by creaming butter for 2mins and then slowly adding other ingr, mixing well.


Now I will show you a simple icing-bag-free way to ice the cupcakes. (My icing bags are still in my flat in the cordon)


Put a large dollop of icing in the middle of the cake


Flatten it down to the edge of the cake with a knife


Next, starting from the outside of the cake, slowly, with the tip of the knife, push the icing back towards the middle as you spin the cake. (I find it easier to spin the cake if it's sitting on the bench). Spiral in towards the middle.


It may take a few tries practice, but you should get it in the end!

Then decorate the cupcake straightaway, before the icing starts to dry.


I decorated with pearl dust and purple nerds!


With a little luck, the cake should be purple-ish on the inside...


And there you have it!

I hope you enjoy and I hope you are all safe after the earthquake. Take care, and look out for more posts up soon. I've been making something new everyday during the post-quake blues, since I can't go to my flat or Uni!

x

A beachy number... PASSIONUT

So I had been invited to a hen's party, baywatch themed, and was asked to bring a sweet treat... So thus these Passionfruit and Coconut Cupcakes were born... I call 'em Passionut.






And what you all want... the recipe!
YOU NEED:
3/4c Dried Coconut, very finely processed
2 & 3/4c High Grade Flour
2t Baking powder
6 Eggs (only use 3 of the yolks though)
200g Butter slightly softened
1 & 3/4c Castor sugar
4T Passionfruit pulp (you can buy this in the baking isle at the supermarket, or use fresh stuff)
3/4c Milk

Oven:170c

In a bowl, add coconut to the sifted flour and baking powder. Mix until combined.

In another bowl, mix eggs together with a fork (don't beat yet)

In a BIG bowl, cream butter 1-2mins
Add a third of the sugar then cream for 2mins. Do twice this again (for the last 2/3rds)
Beat until light and fluffy.

Slowly add eggs, a quarter at a time, beat for 1min after each time.

Mix the coconut milk with the passionfruit pulp.

Add a third of the flour to the creamed mixture, beat it in slowly.
Add half the coconut milk mixture and combine.
Repeat.
On adding the last lot of flour, make sure it is well combined, but don't over mix it.

Spoon into cute cupcake cases. (Approx 24)

Cook for 15/20 mins

When cool, it's time to ice them!

YOU NEED:
100g Soft Butter
1/4c Milk or coconut milk
2T (or more) Passionfruit pulp
4c Icing sugar (or more, if you are adding more pulp.)

Cream butter for 2mins.

Add milk, Passionfruit and half of the icing sugar, any colouring you may want and then beat for 3mins.

Add the rest of the icing sugar beat for another 3mins.

Ice cupcakes, and sprinkle big flakes of coconut on top.

I made little Life-Saver rings out of fondant for the decoration on the top of mine too.
-Simply pick up pre-made fondant from your supermarket and roll into rings. Colour some of the fondant with red food colouring (adding icing sugar too keep it solid) and add strips around the white rings to complete the look!

YUM



I made wee nautical pennant flags in Illustrator, which I put the Bride and Groom's names on too.
Here is a free printable download!

At the party...




Good luck!
Might get onto some rabbit-related crafts now...

Clay stop motion

This is was my first experiment with clay stop motion... I have a book about it called 'Cracking Animation' by Peter Lord and Brain Sibley.

Sorry it's so short, it takes ages to do! But it is awesome fun... I hope to get into some more of it!

I've still got a long way to go until I am up to Aardman standards...

Vegies of the moment

If you remember, way back when, I did a post about my vegie garden. I have since added a new planter box and filled it up with goodies.


My vegies of the moment


The 2 planter boxes


What am I growing?
In the back planter, L to R are:
Tomatoes, Courgettes (Green and yellow), Broc, Cauli, Spinach, various lettuces (mostly all eaten now!), Beetroot, Purple Onion and Carrots.

In the front we have L to R:
Pumpkins, Gherkins, Pak Choy, Potatoes, Garlic, Beans (Green and yellow), Watermelon (not doing so well), Capsicum and Corn!

So delish.

Photoshop me baby

Today I have been photoshopping pix for my sisters makeup portfolio. As well as that I made some delish sorbet, which I will hopefully post up tmrw.

Here is one of the pics, with before and after. (Click on it to make it bigger)



How fun it would be working for a magazine!

Story continued...

This is my completely unedited story, continued from here and here
I started writing it for NANOWRIMO. But didn't manage to finish it in time. But it still lives on...

Please note that this is copyright!

And the winner is...

ANNA!
I wrote all the names out and picked one out of a hat and ANNA was the lucky winner.

Here is her prize!

A limited edition Hobby Horses 2011 calendar, a handcrafted sleeping mask, three cute bows, a DIY cupcake kit, a chalk board and a horse tote bag to hold it all in!



Congrats!
You will get your prize very soon.

For everyone else, thanks for entering! I will try and do more giveaways this year, cause it is fun! Yippie!

Happy New Year everyone!