Well another Saturday night done and dusted.

It was Lily's birthday tea tonight, so we had  a party tea with homemade sausage rolls,  pizza pinwheels, party pies, cocktail frankfurts and some tortellini carbonara for the adults.

For dessert tonight we had choc orange whoopie pies, caramel wafer slice again and of course a birthday cake. A pinata cake.

whoopie pies.

With much complaining, I left the man of the house babysitting while I set to in the kitchen decorating the birthday cake and making the whoopie pies.  I made the birthday cakes last night so they cooled properly.
This morning I just had to trim them down, cut the middle out of the bottom section, fill it with lollies, join them together and then decorate it.

I wanted to use fruit sticks for the cake but couldn't get them anywhere so I used sherbet sticks instead.
Didn't look like what I had pictured in my mind but the kids were happy.  sherbet everywhere lol.

So i cleaned up all the mess, made the kids some lunch and had a well deserved cup of coffee.  The man disappeared outside so I took over babysitting duty till he reappeared.  Took a while, think he was hiding.

Once he was back, It was time to start on the sausage rolls and pinwheels.  I don't know how I do it, but the mess is back again, only 3 times as bad. Of course everyone arrives and you can't even see the kitchen for the mess  hence my sign....

Anyway, I get everything cooked and on the table, (the mess can wait )  and of course it all tastes excellent lol.
The mini food critic was happy as per usual and she wasn't sharing with anybody.

Home time comes for everyone and after waving them all goodbye its time to go back into the disaster area.
The man got there before me and started the dishes.."thanks Hun" so i cleared tables, put food away left him to it and here I am.

Now I think it's time for a coffee, a few games on facebook and off to bed cos tomorrow's another day..babysitting, washing school uniforms, vacuuming floors cos there's sherbet and god knows what everywhere and blah blah etc.
I'll be cooking again next weekend.  See you then.

PINATA CAKE

large cupcake mould needed

preheat oven to 180 c 350 F)

2 packets cake mix (anything you like)
assorted lollies (i used freckles and jelly beans)
2 packets sherbet sticks
blue cachous


make cake mixes as directed in seperate bowls.

pour  1 of each mix into each piece of the cupcake mould.

cook for about 45 mins or until skewer comes out clean.

cool completely.

make butter icing.

trim cakes if needed.

take middle out of bottom part of cake.

fill with lollies.

sandwich top to bottom with some icing.

cover all of cake with thin layer of icing.

press sherbet sticks all around the cake.

pipe icing around top of cake.

sprinkle with cachous.

BUTTER ICING

250 gm butter softened
3 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons milk.

beat butter in electric mixer till pale and fluffy.

add 1/2 the icing sugar and beat on low till combined.

add milk and rest of icing sugar and beat till combined.

for strawberry icing add strawberry essence to taste and  pink colouring.

cupcake mould

EASY CHOC ORANGE WHOOPIE PIES

preheat oven to 180 c (350 F)

grease whoopie pie tin, round bottom tin,(pics below) or can be made in patty cases.

cake

1 pkt duncan hines devils food cake mix

make as per directions on box.

drop about a tablespoon of mix into each hole or 1/2 fill patty pans.

cook about 10 mins for tins, 15 mins for patty pans. til skewer comes out clean.

orange filling

100gm cream cheese room temp
100 gm butter softened
zest 1 orange
2 cups icing sugar

beat together butter, cream cheese and zest.

add icing sugar 1/2 at a time.

beat till smooth.

chocolate top

100 gm dark cooking chocolate
1/4 cup thickened cream
25 gm butter

melt all together in a heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water.

cool

makes 24 pies (48 halves) If using patty pans, I just cut the cakes in half and fill.

evenly distribute the orange filling over 24 bottoms.

cover with top.

using a teaspoon, cover tops with chocolate.

PIZZA PINWHEELS

PREHEAT OVEN TO 200 C

2 sheets puff pastry thawed
approx 4 tablespoons pizza sauce (enough to cover both sheets)
1/4  green capsicum finely chopped
1 1/2 cups ham chopped
1/4 cup pineapple chopped
1/4 cup champignons chopped
1 cup tasty cheese grated

spread both sheets of pastry with pizza sauce.

on one sheet sprinkle half the ham, the pineapple and half the cheese.

on the other sprinkle the ham, cheese, capsicum and champignons.

roll each sheet up like a swiss roll and cut into 1.5 cm slices.

arrange on a lined baking tray.

cook approx. 10 mins or till golden brown.

eat hot or cold.

SAUSAGE ROLLS

preheat oven to 180 c

4 sheets puff pastry thawed
500 gm sausage mince
1  small carrot very finely chopped ( or processor)
1 small onion very finely chopped (or processor)
3 slices bread processed into breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper


1 egg mixed well

mix together the sausage mince, carrot, onion, breadcrumbs, tomato sauce and salt and pepper until well combined.

cut each sheet of pastry in half.

lightly dust a chopping board with flour and roll sausage mix into 8 sausage shapes the same length as the pastry.

sit the sausage just off the edge of one side of the pastry, wipe some milk along the edge with your finger and fold the other side of the pastry over the top of the sausage and seal down with a fork.

brush with the egg. can sprinkle with sesame seeds if liked.

cook till golden.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU...HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

 Out for tea tonight. A rare occurrence for a Saturday night.  Lizzy Lou's birthday. (daughter in law).

So me being me, after being shown a pic of a fancy looking cake says "I can do that, I'll make it for your birthday"  I mean how hard can it be?

This is the cake..26 eggs worth of cake..

But we don't like the white butter icing and the hearts are a bit valentine's dayish and why do you have vanilla cake in there when more chocolate is so much better.  Chocolate everything it is.

"I can do this"

Friday night , make the chocolate cake for the top and bottom.  Make the roulade for the middle..24 egg yolks, 8 egg whites,  lots of stirring and folding. Cook , cook.  Take out of oven and leave over night.

So I still have all these egg whites left.  Brain wave, make 2 forgotten puddings.  So easy.  Put in the oven and forget about them till tomorrow as well.

Sleep.

Saturday morning is here.  Grandaughter arrives to be babysat.  She's not so well...falls asleep.

 I look at all the cake bits...scarey.

I'm going to make something else, the cake can wait a bit longer. But of course I don't have everything  I need so I send the man out shopping while I have a coffee and ponder my next moves.

He's back.  Grandaughters still asleep.  I'm off to the kitchen to make citrus jelly slice.  I get that all made but have to wait an hour for the jelly to cool.

I guess I have to tackle the cake.

We decided just to go for whipped cream in the roulade instead of buttercream.

So of course the roulade doesn't roll cos it sure looks more risen than the one in the pics (there's a step by step picture guide for making this)  its splits in places,  but I followed all the directions so I don't know.
Keep going anyway cos I mean 26 eggs!!

So I assemble my cake, ice it with chocolate butter cream and use lots of after dinner mints and chocolate curls to decorate.  Its  the highest cake I've ever made.  But its done.

Sure looks like the original lol.

Oh, and somewhere in between I finished off the citrus slice.

Just to be on the safe side (cos I'm really worried about the inside of this cake) I send the man out to the cheesecake shop ( a bit of a plug for them) to buy a strawberry fields cake.  We love these.  We have 1 every birthday.

And because I have nothing better to do, I whip up a snickers  slice just in case we don't have enough food.

(top pic is from my recipe file).

Lizzy arrives to pick up grandaughter and I get ready to go out.

We have main course and get down to the business of dessert.   I cut up the slices and decorate the forgotten pudding.

I decide to go with the bought cake as the birthday cake.  Now I'm too scared to cut the damn  tower of chocolate.

Happy birthday Lizzy.

The time has come,  I have to cut the cake.......here goes.

Well all things considered...................lol

Looks not too bad,  tastes not too bad,  but really hard to cut because it's so big.  Wouldn't make it again.

All in all another successful Saturday night and I couldn't go before the mini food critics had a look in..

She thought the cake was just fine lol.

Also through the week I made a choc bottom banana slice which was really yumm

see you next week.

FORGOTTEN PUDDING

6 egg whites
1/2 tsp salt
250 gm caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla

preheat oven to 220 c

beat egg whites and salt till peaks start to form.

gradually add the sugar, then the cream of tartar and vanilla.

beat till thick and glossy.

spoon into lined swiss roll tin.

smooth out.

put into oven, close the oven door and quickly turn the oven off.

DO NOT LOOK OR TOUCH...MOST IMPORTANT.

leave overnight or at least 10 hours.(mine sat in the oven from 8.00 pm friday night till i needed it at 6.00 pm saturday night.)

this is similar to a pavlova, so decorate as such.

i used cream, banana and passionfruit.