White Velvet Cake for Marilyn's 90th Birthday

On Wednesday, 1 June, it was screen goddess Marilyn Monroe's 90th birthday.  Can you imagine the timeless Marilyn at 90? 

Unfortunately I did not have time to make something for the day, but I did get around to my Marilyn tribute cake a day later.  While the likeness is not perfect, you can see the resemblance, I think:

Her lips are a little bigger than I'd like, but I was constrained by my candy mould, which produced a very voluptuous pair of closed lips.

I used Rose Levy-Berenbaum's recipe for White Velvet Cake from Heavenly Cakes - you  can find the recipe online here.  Why White Velvet?  Well, I had never made a white velvet cake before, and it sounded rather luxe, like Marilyn herself.  Here is the cake before frosting:

My inspiration for the cake design came from these cookies and this wall sticker.  Originally I had been going to cut the black parts of the design out of black fondant, but my black fondant had dried up, so I decided instead to draw a free hand design and transfer it into the fondant, then fill it in with black edible ink.  When I transferred the design, of course it came out as a mirror image of what I had drawn, hence why Marilyn's face is in the reverse orientation to the way she was mainly photographed. 

As mentioned above, I made the lips by pressing red fondant into a lip-shaped candy mould, then putting it in the freezer for a while so I could pop it out.  Even then, it was quite a struggle to get the fondant out of the mould.

I frosted my cake with vanilla buttercream from my faithful Primrose Bakery recipe.  To assemble, I lifted my fondant drawing onto the buttercream, making sure I was happy with the position before smoothing it down.  Next, I wet the back of the fondant lips with a little water and placed them onto the face.  Finally, for Marilyn's beauty spot, I used a little choc coated rice crispy ball from some Coles sprinkles that I had in the cupboard.

Here's a peek inside:

I was pretty happy with my artistic efforts.  Happy birthday to Marilyn.

EwE - Pork Tenderloin with Fennel and Grapes - Put Some Pork on Your Fork

For Eating with Ellie this week, I chose the theme of "Put Some Pork on Your Fork". For this theme, I am sharing Ellie's Pork Tenderloin with Fennel and Grapes, from Weeknight Wonders.  It seems that I am a creature of habit, as I subsequently discovered that I also chose this dish for EwE on February 19, 2015.  Oh well, good dishes are worth a revisit, don't you think?

Pork and fennel are a match made in heaven, and this dish features both ground fennel to flavour the pork and fennel bulbs on the side.  The grapes add sweetness and further flavour to the dish.

Pork tenderloin is not the cheapest cut of meat out, but it is very good.  I enjoyed this dish with Ellie's Warm Bulgar Salad with Grapes and Feta (coming to this site soon!).

If you like healthy, tasty dishes, check out Ellie Krieger's recipes - I have really been enjoying them.

To see what Ellie pork dishes the others made, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

Baby Shower Cupcakes for Wendy - Vanilla Magnolia Bakery Cupcakes with Fondant Shoes

Recently, a lovely lady called Wendy in our finance team left on maternity leave.  It is her first baby, and her Mum is coming from Korea to be with her during the birthing process.  It is a very exciting time for her.

A morning tea was held at work in Wendy's honour.  I like to bake for such occasions (surprising, eh?) and decided to make some cupcakes for Wendy.  I initially thought I should go for fancy flavours, but in the end, decided to make vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing. The classic always go down well.  Wendy is having a little girl, which made the choice of icing colour for my cupcakes a doddle - pretty pink!

I made these cupcakes over there nights.  On a Tuesday evening, I made the little fondant shoe cake toppers while incongruously watching Seinfeld on the TV:

The mould that I used is this one, in case you are interested in getting one yourself.  I stretched my shoes a little when they came out of the mould, which is  why mine look a little different to the ones in the mould photo.  But hey, I am not going to freeze the mould for a few minutes in between making each shoe, especially when I am making 24 of them at night after work.

To mix things up a bit, I used Magnolia Bakery's vanilla cupcake recipe for the cupcakes:

I bought the Magnolia Bakery cookbook from the Magnolia Bakery in NYC last year, so it has special significance for me.  However, the recipe is also online here. 

I used my favourite icing recipe - the Primrose Bakery vanilla icing recipe - and coloured it pale pink.  It just seemed less over the top than the Magnolia Bakery recipe, which uses tons of icing sugar and butter.  I piped the icing on the cupcakes in a rose pattern (which uses way less icing than the "icecream" swirl), then placed a little shoe on top of each cake, with a few strategically placed pastel coloured cachous: 

I think they were very pretty, and Wendy seemed to be delighted with them.  I also got some rave reviews from my colleagues, so these were a winner all round.

Feijoa Jam

Feijoas are odd little green fruits that I had never heard of until I met a person with a feijoa tree.  You can see what they look like here.

Those people that knew about feijoas seemed to rave about feijoa jam, especially Kiwis. I was curious to try it, and I got my chance when I walked past my local fruit shop and they had feijoas out the front.  I bought some with feijoa jam on my mind.

Finding a recipe for feijoa jam was easy enough - I used this one and scaled it down for the number of feijoas that I had.  I was a bit lost as to what to expect from a feijoa when peeling it - the skin is quite hard and it is difficult to see where the skin ends and the fruit begins.  I have subsequently learned from reading other sites that to get at the feijoa flesh, it is better to cut them in half and scoop out the flesh with a spoon.

I was really pleased with how this jam turned out - it set perfectly: 

Feijoa jam tastes like lemon travel sweets.  I do like it, and it is quite different to what I imagined.  I tried it spread on a pikelet - very tasty.

If you do run across some feijoas, I recommend giving this jam a go - I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Date and Banana Energy Bites

I seem to always fall behind with eating my bananas, and frequently end up with bananas that would not be the greatest to eat as is in my fruit bowl.  Not wanting to waste these bananas, I am always on the lookout for good recipes to use them up.

On one of these recent searches, I found a fabulous recipe for Date and Banana Energy Bites on The Betty Stamp.  These bites have lots of good things in them, and even better, I would always have these ingredients (dates, bananas, oats, butter, vanilla extract) in the house.  Accordingly, there is no reason why I can't always make these as a quick snack.


I have had lots of issues with old links becoming broken, and this is a recipe I don't want to lose, so here it is:

100g dates (dried dates are just fine)
2 ripe bananas
200g rolled oats
75g coconut oil or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 ~100g chocolate for the topping (I used Old Gold 70% dark)

Preheat  your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Grease and line a 20cm square baking tray.

Place the dates in 100ml boiling water and soak for 10 minutes.

Melt the coconut oil (or butter).  Pour the dates, the water you soaked them in, the melted coconut oil or butter, bananas and vanilla extract into a blender or food processor, and blend or process until smooth.

Put the oats  into a mixing bowl and pour over the banana mixture, and combine well.  Spoon the mixture into your prepared baking tin and spread out evenly.  Place into the oven and bake for 25 minutes.  Remove the bites from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Melt the chocolate and pour over the top of the cooled bites. Once the chocolate has set, cut into bars. Voila!

Scones for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea!

On Thursday this week, it was the official day for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea, the fundraiser for the Australian Cancer Council.  Our work hosted a morning tea on the day, and we had a smashing turnout, raising $660 all up.

I knew lots of other people were bringing baked sweets, so I mainly steered clear of those for my contribution.  Instead, to even up the offerings, I bought party pies and sausage rolls, and made scones with jam and cream.    Most people like these salt of the earth Aussie favourites, so I figured they wouldn't go to waste.

To make the scones, I used Margaret Fulton's scone recipe, which you can find here.  You can watch Margaret herself make them here.

Here is a shot of our morning tea nearly all set up, but before it started:

And here are the tables of goodies - you can see some of my scones at the back of the first table (all made up for ease of eating):

Two of my favourite dishes were Elena's salted caramel and popcorn cheesecake:

and Wayne's sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce:

Here is an action shot of our morning tea - it was a very pleasing turnout:

If you are in Australia, there is still time to host your own Biggest Morning Tea (before the end of June) - visit the Australia's Biggest Morning Tea website to register. 

EwE - BBQ Pulled Chicken Sandwiches with Traditional Coleslaw - Indy 500 Lunchbox

It's Indy 500 weekend this coming weekend.  On Sunday, Indiana hosts its 100th Indy 500 race meeting.  Kayte, our resident cook from Indianapolis, has suggested this week's Eating with Ellie theme, Indy 500 - What's in Your Lunchbox?

I turned to my new Ellie book, So Easy, for my lunchbox pick.  I made BBQ Pulled Chicken Sandwiches with Traditional Coleslaw.   Sandwiches are a logical lunchbox choice, and the coleslaw easily packs into single serve plastic dishes for one, or a large dish for sharing on paper plates. 

The BBQ chicken was a revelation - take one run of the mill supermarket rotisserie (BBQ) chicken, shred it and warm it up in a homemade BBQ sauce packed with tomato passata, spices and molasses.  (I skipped the liquid smoke - I wasn't shelling out for an expensive one use item.)  Pack the chicken into a wholemeal bread roll topped with a lettuce leaf, and lo, you have one tasty sandwich.  I can vouch for the fact that the filling is also great on a wrap.

The coleslaw involves just using store bought coleslaw mix and dressing it with a homemade dressing comprising chiefly of yoghurt and mayo.

I really enjoyed this dish, and proved that it is lunch worthy by taking it in to work for lunch myself a few days.

To see what the others have in their Indy 500 lunchboxes, visit the LYL section of the Eating with Ellie website.

And today, my blog turns 9.  I can't believe it's been 9 years - blogging has become such a part  of my life that I don't remember what it was like pre-blog.  I started blogging with no plan other than, "I like reading what other people write, and I can do this too!"  To all my friends in the blogosphere, thanks for enriching my life - I have enjoyed sharing your adventures and sharing mine with you.