The Hungry Caterpillar

I do a bit of quilting....in no way am I an expert but I like to play around. After completing an "I-Spy" quilt for Master 4's birthday I have been waiting for the fabric for my next project to arrive. After a two month wait I was able to pick it up last week. It is Eric Carle's "The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar" by Andover fabrics. It is gorgeous and bright and depicts the scenes from the book. I loved this book as a child and I now enjoy reading it to my children.

So here is what I have managed so far. It is a fairly simple design - pretty much cut and sew - once I get a bit more confident I might attempt something a bit more complicated. For now, it is nice to indulge in a bit of sewing in between cooking, cleaning and kid rangling!

Prehistoric birthday cake

It was Master 4's birthday last month and he asked for a dinosaur cake! Thank goodness I have a stash of Donna Hay Kids mags - full of cake and party ideas. I found a design for a Stegosaurus cake and thought I would give it a bash!

I used a round cake to construct the dino - you just cut it in half to make the main body and cut the remainder to make the head, feet, tail and spikes. Then I iced with butter cream icing and darling hubby did the final sculpting and decorating (who would have thought that he would be so handy with a hot palette knife!)

The recipe for the vanilla cake is as follows -





Melt and Mix Vanilla Cake


2 1/2 cups (375g) plain flour, sifted

1 1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted

1 3/4 cups (275g) caster sugar

250g butter, melted

4 eggs

1 1/4 cups (310mL) milk

1 tsp vanilla extract





Preheat oven to 160C

Whisk the flour, baking powder, sugar, butter, eggs, milk and vanilla in a bowl until smooth.

Pour into a lightly greased 22cm round cake tin.

Bake for 1 hour 25 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.




A great recipe....gotta love a one bowl cake that doesn't require the mixmaster!



And the butter cream icing.....


Butter cream Icing


250g butter, softened

2 cups (320g) icing sugar mixture, sifted

2 tblsp milk



Beat the butter with the mixmaster for 6-8 minutes or until pale and creamy.

Add the icing sugar and milk and beast for another 6 minutes or until light and creamy.

You can add colouring to the icing at this point. We used green for the dino

Mmmm....chocolate

I found a recipe whilst Googling the other day..... for a Chocolate and Port cake! Well I just HAD to give it a go...and it is great! I have made four so far....one as a test run (using Tawny port), two to sell on the weekend (using Liebich Ruby Grenache) and another for our own dessert consumption. The recipe itself is easy...I guess my only complaint is that I end up using a saucepan and two separate mixing bowls so there is a bit of washing up to do at the end. And it is easily converted to a Gluten-Free option if you use gluten-free plain flour or substitute the flour for some almond meal. The two I baked to sell on Sunday were Gluten-Free - I used gluten-free plain flour (available at the supermarket now) and they turned out really well. I cut each cake into eigths and sold each piece for $3 (so $24 for the cake). The cake will keep well for up to a week in the fridge...the port flavour will intensify. and i think this is one of those cakes that would work well no matter what alcohol you used....if port isn't your thing you could use rum, whisky, kahlua, muscat etc.

Chocolate and Port Cake

4oz (120g) butter
½ cup port
5oz (150g) dark chocolate
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
¾ cup plain flour (substitute glutenfree flour or almond meal)


Preheat oven to 180C.
Grease and line the base of a 24cm springform pan.

Melt butter and chocolate together in small saucepan. Add wine gradually, stirring slowly until thoroughly incorporated. (If you go too fast it will split!)

Combine sugar and egg yolks in bowl and mix on medium speed until pale yellow in colour. Add melted chocolate slowly, and beat until smooth.
Add flour and beat on medium speed for 1 minute. (You can do these steps by hand if you like)

In another bowl, beat egg whites on high until stiff peaks form.

Gently fold in 1/3 of chocolate mixture into egg whites. Fold in remaining chocolate carefully.

Pour into cake pan and bake for 30 minutes.


The cake will not rise much and is quite dense and moist. Enjoy with a dollop of double cream or a scoop of ice-cream.

More little cupcakes

I just had to share a picture of these. I have been playing around with decorations for cupcakes and managed to make some cute little piggies! Amazing what you can do with some marshmallows and a few M&Ms! The kids think they are great and I made some for Liebichwein's Fortified Fest on Sunday and sold them all! I was quite pleased :)

Nigella redeems herself...

Well after my last Nigella recipe effort and failure I was hoping the Domestic Goddess would redeem herself with the next recipe that I tried...and she did!


I was looking for a biscuit recipe to use with cookie cutters - one that was easy to roll and cut and that had a decent flavour. I tried the Butter Cut-out cookies and my search was over.


My lovely neighbour J came over on Sunday to see how my wisdom tooth op went and brought me some car shaped cutters. I just had to give them a try!




I used M&M for wheels and the boys thought they were wonderful.



I also did some Australiana biscuits with Master 4 - note the M&M over SA on the map biccie!

I am really pleased with this recipe - most definately a keeper - and I will be making a double batch for the weekend!

Butter Cut-out Biscuits

175 g soft unsalted butter
200 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
400 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy, then beat in the egg and vanilla.

In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and eggs, and mix gently but surely. If you think the finished mixture is too sticky to be rolled out, add more flour, but do so sparingly as too much will make the dough tough. Form into 2 flat discs, wrap in plastic wrap, and let rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Sprinkle a suitable surface with flour, place disc of dough on it, and sprinkle a little more flour on top of that. Then roll it out to a thickness of about 1/2 cm. Cut into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go, and place the cookies a little apart on 2 parchment or silpat lined baking sheets. I find it easy to roll the dough out on some baking paper - then it doesn't stick to the board and it can be easier to remove the cutouts.

Bake for 8 to 12 minutes (mine where in for 10). When they're ready expect them to be tinged a pronounced gold around the edges; they'll be softish still in the middle, but set while they cool.

Remove the biscuits with a flat, preferably flexible, spatula to a wire rack to cool.

You can ice the biscuits when they are cooled if you feel like it or you can add M&Ms before you bake them.

Little chocolate cupcakes

I don't know about you but I love a good cupcake! I have been looking for a good chocolate cupcake recipe for a while and stubbled upon this one in the launch issue of delicious. - I must tell you now that I have EVERY issue of delicious. I love this magazine....beautifully photographed food and recipes that I use over and over again.

Anyway the recipe for these cupcakes initially included rum (for a adults only treat) but I decided to leave that out because my children were sure to want some! They turned out well - moist and chocolatey and I iced them simply with some butter cream icing.

Chocolate Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup buttermilk ( use 1 cup of milk with a good squeeze of lemon juice if you don't have buttermilk)
1 egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180°C and place the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl. Add 1/2 tsp salt and stir to combine.
Place buttermilk, egg, oil, vanilla and rum in a separate jug then mix into the dry ingredients. Beat well to combine.
Line a muffin pan with paper muffin cases and divide mixture between them. Bake for 25 minutes. Set aside to cool and then ice.

I liked this recipe too because there was no creaming of butter and sugar - just mixing of wet and dry ingredients together. Master 4 helped me with this and he was able to help sift the flour as well as crack the egg and mix the wet ingredients and of course....lick the spoon at the end!

Rainy days

We have had a few days of grey wet weather this week. The rain has been much appreciated! We have been enjoying the Queen's Birthday long weekend - so nice to have 3 days together!

On Saturday I worked in the Cellar Door at my neighbour's winery (www.liebichwein.com.au). It was such a learning experience and I am still trying to get my head around all their wines, ports and other fortifieds! I have alot to learn! But it is great to meet new people and have a chat.

Sunday afternoon we went and visited a few wineries for some tasting. As you can imagine we are spoilt for choice here in the Barossa and we haven't even been to more than 10 of the wineries here. We thought we would expand our horizons a little. We visited Torbreck at Marananga first. Lovely reds and some interesting blends. We came away with some Shiraz and a GSM. Friendly and knowledgeable staff too :)

We then headed to Murdock at Light Pass. We have driven past this winery many times on the way to the Farmer's Market but always thought that it was probably a bit too exclusive and not child-friendly. How mistaken we were!! A beautiful cellar door and restaurant...and a children's alcove with toys and books!! Wine was great too. Murdock also have a vineyard in the Coonawarra so some of their wines are a blend of both the Barossa and Coonawarra. Again we failed to leave empty-handed and came away with a Shiraz, some Rose, a Shiraz/Cab Sav blend and a "dos trios" - a blend of Grenache, Temparnillo and Shiraz.

Today I have been cooking in preparation for the week....am having my wisdom tooth out on Thursday so am expecting to be a bit orally challenged in the food department! I whipped up a batch of Roasted Pumpkin and Garlic soup that I will pop in the freezer.

Also made some chocolate cupcakes from a Nigella Lawson recipe that were a disaster! All sunken and ugly....but I still got a thumbs up from the kids for taste!!

More quince paste anyone?

This is a recipe for my friend B who told me yesterday that she had a container full of quince paste that she didn't know what to do with and that it was a couple of years old. I think it should be still ok to use...the quoted shelf life is two years! This is the kind of cake that I think B would like...and I wish we lived closer so that we could share a piece with a cuppa!

Quince Paste and Olive Oil Cake

150g quince paste, diced

1 lemon, rind finely grated

150g castor sugar

225g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

125mL olive oil

3 eggs

50mL orange juice

Place the sugar into a bowl and grate the lemon straight over it. Rub the zest into the sugar to release its natural oils.

Sift together the plain flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar mixture until well amalgamated.

Break the eggs into a bowl and add the olive oil and orange juice. Whisk until combined and then pour into the dry ingredients.

Stir well to form a smooth batter.Butter and flour a 4 cup capacity loaf pan.

Pour in a third of the batter into the pan and top with a third of the quince paste cubes. Cover with another third of batter. Sprinkle over with another portion of quince paste cubes. Cover with the remaining batter and dot the remaining cubes over the top.

Bake in a preheated 170°Cuntil golden and cooked through - about 40 minutes. Let it rest for a 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Winter is here

Well it is June 2nd so winter is officially here! The nights are growing cooler and we are making use of our wood fire in the lounge. The countryside has been transformed by the rain we received in April....everything is green and lush now...such a contrast to when we arrived in February!

Quince Paste Cup Cakes

125g butter

1/2 cup castor sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

zest of 1 lemon

1 1/4 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tblsp milk

quince paste

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a 9 hole muffin tray with paper cases.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Beat in the eggs, vanilla and lemon zest.

Fold in the sifted flour and baking powder along with the milk.

Divide half the mixture amongst the 9 cases. Top the mix with a 1cm square of quince paste and then cover with the rest of the mix.

Bake for 25mins.

Allow to cool then ice. To make the icing melt 1 tblsp of quince paste with 2 tblsp lemon juice. Mix in 1/2 cup of icing sugar.

The quince paste I used is homemade. When my mum was here we managed to make both quince jelly and quince paste. The paste is great with a nice sharp vintage cheddar and you could use it solely for that but I thought I would try and experiment a bit with the sweet side of things!