First birthday cupcakes

One of the babies at play group turned one this week, so naturally he needed a cake. I still had plenty of purple and green fondant left over from hubby's welcome home cake, and I wanted to trial run an idea for another birthday I am doing cupcakes for this month, so that's how these lovely cakes were created.

I kneaded some CMC into the fondant before cutting out the shapes, to help them dry out quicker. I did the cutouts and let them dry overnight, then glued them together with sugar flower glue and let that dry overnight before putting them on the cupcakes.

The cakes themselves were the recipe from the Planet Cake book. Normally I would use the Crabapple recipe, but it makes 24 cakes and I didn't want to make that many. The Planet Cake recipe made 12, which was a much more managable number. However, I didn't have any lemons so I had to leave out the lemon zest. The frosting is the Crabapple Cupcake Bakery's vanilla buttercream, but I made a half quantity (and still had heaps left).

I love this cupcake recipe. It's really easy, and the cakes had a lovely dome on top, which made the soft-serve frosting effect really easy to achieve. They tasted pretty good too, as did the frosting. And I loved how the number stars turned out - they reminded me of Toy Story. Though I'm seriously considering switching to vanilla extract instead of vanilla essence - I found these tasted a tad chemical. I'm also thinking of trying an Italian meringue buttercream in future, because the frosting is rather gritty.

Welcome home cake

Hubby went on an overseas business trip recently, and I wanted to give him a special surprise when he got home. So I took a whack at the Exploding Stars cake from the Planet Cake book.

The cake itself is chocolate mud, from the Planet Cake recipe. This cake was surprisingly easy to make, but next time I plan to leave out the coffee. I found the coffee flavour too strong.

Under the fondant is a layer of ganache, which is supposed to help the cake keep its form under the layer of thick fondant. Honestly, I think I may have used too much. Once the fondant went on the surface of the cake became like play dough, the slightest touch left a dent, so I couldn't get the sharp edges that Planet Cake is so famous for, and on the whole my cake looks a but smushed.

Also, hubby returned home a day early to surprise me! This meant I never got time to fully complete the decorations. That said, the cake he was surprised with still looks pretty good, and I'm quite proud of it :)

Fun times with baby food

I have a confession to make. Annabel Karmel is my hero!

Little Princess is now ten months, so has been on solids for some time now, and it's been quite adventure. Early on I was petrified of starting her on solids, jusst because I had no idea what I was doing. So I bought a book recommended by a friend called What Do I Feed My Baby? By Leeane Cooper. Full credit to this book, it gave me a lot of confidence with solids. It gave me a rough schedule of what to feed her and when, which I didn't follow perfectly, but it really did help. The only problem was it told me what to feed her, but not how to cook it. I had never stewed an apple before in my life, so I was still a bit lost.

And to be honest, I don't think I was doing too well at it, because very soon Little Princess was refusing anything I cooked, and only eating purees from a jar. She never knew it was from a jar because whatever I fed her was always in a bowl, she just preferred the jar foods. By the time she was 7 months she progressed to jars of things like spaghetti bolognese and shepherds pie, and I started to wonder if Heinz had a recipe to make such things, surely there were recipes out there I could use too? So I marched into Dymocks, and a very kind shopkeeper went through all the baby food books with me until we found one that suited my needs. It ended up being The Complete Baby And Toddler Meal Planner by Annabel Karmel.

This book has been brilliant. It took all the guess work out of making baby food, and meant I could try her on things like fish and beef, which I hadn't been brave enough to try before because I didn't know how to cook it for a baby. At ten months Little Princess has now hit a fussy stage, but I'm proud to say it's now the jars she turns her nose up at. My cooking she eats by the bucketload.

Here are some of the dishes she has liked best:

• Cheese and vegetable pasta
• My first bolognese
• Tomatos and carrots with basil
• Sweet potato with spinach and peas
• Cauliflower cheese
• Tasty fish with cheese sauce and vegetables
• Fish with spinach and cheese
• Chicken in tomato sauce
• Fruity Chicken with apricots*
• Apricot, apple and pear puree
• Apple, strawberry and blueberru puree
• Apples and blackberries
• Tasty brown rice
• Zuchini and tomato pasta stars'

She wasn't so keen on Lovely Lentils or Fish with Sweet Potato. Soon I'll be making the tasty rice with meat and vegetables, and the chicken and apple balls. I love this book, and any of my friends that have babies in the future will be recieving a copy at their baby shower.

* The Fruity Chicken with Apricots, when made to the exact directions in the book, I found to be far too wet and saucy. It was almost a soup. So I twaeked it a bit, and now we have a dish that Little Princess just loves. It also freezes really well in ice cube trays :) Here is my tweaked recipe:

• 3 tsp light olive oil
• 1/2 smaall onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 250 g chicken breast mince
• 9 dried apricots, chopped
• 300 ml Passata
• 150 ml Campbells Real Stock reduced salt chicken stock
• 1/2 cup brown rice, washed then cooked until soft

Heat the oil in a saucepan, saute the onion and garlic until soft. Add the chicken mince and cook, stirring, until cooked. Add the apricots, stock and water, bring to the boil then simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes. Add the cooked rice and stir through.