Our fabity trip to Cradle mountain

Hello poppits, I back from my lovely weekend way to Cradle mountain and boy was it nice not only did I not have to cook, do day dished or tidy up after Edie too much ( all of which I missed doing ) we had a lovely thick blanket of snow on our last evening yip eeeee 

Edie came down with a pretty heavy cold whist we were away so she was a bit miserable hens the photo below .... the cold just got to her. ( I personally thought that this picture is pretty funny so I had to nab it from my sisters blog hope she doesn't mind to much) 

Hope you had a nice weekend like we all did ,

TTFN,

Lili xxx

BEE sting cake

 Hello Poppits,

Just a quick post about a fabbitiy dabbity cake ( wow I haven't done a food post of ages ... my bad) that I made recently that goes buy the name of a Bee sting cake how wonderful is that ??? 

This cake was amazing it was lush and light and filled with a scrummy custard which we all love. 

This is a must try if you a) love nutty flavours b) love custard and c) love a darn fine bit of cake!

I found the Recipe @ Cuisine I followed the recipe pretty much to  a tee but i'll give you the recipe any way :) ( copy and paste hehehe)

• Cake
• 75g unsalted butter, soft
• 75g castor sugar
• 1 egg
• 250g self-raising flour
• a pinch of salt
• 6 tbsp milk
• Topping
• 100g whole almonds and hazelnuts75g unsalted butter100g castor sugar
• 1 tsp milk
• 1 heaped tbsp honey
• Custard filling
• 30g custard powder
• 250ml milk
• 50g sugar
• 
  
• 100g butter, soft

Chef: Brigitte Hafner Photo: Marina Oliphant Source: The Age Tuesday June 7, 2005 German, 45 mins plus, Dessert

These are my mother's recipes. Save them for a birthday or special occasion, as they aren't your simple throw-everything-together afternoon cake.

Method

For the cake 

Preheat oven to 170C. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and thick. Beat in the egg, then gently fold in the sifted flour, salt and milk. Combine until you have a soft dough. Grease and line the bottom of a 26cm spring-form tin. Spoon the mixture into the tin and level it. Don't expect a high cake - even with the topping and filling, this cake is all about the custard and nuts and is fairly thin.

For the topping 

Grind the nuts until quite coarse. In a frying pan, gently heat the extra butter, sugar, milk and nuts together. Stir until the butter has melted and everything is combined. Remove from heat and stir in the honey. Allow to cool slightly then pour over the cake batter and bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

For the custard filling

In a small bowl, combine enough milk to dissolve the powder and make a liquid paste. Now combine the custard, milk and sugar in a small saucepan and cook, stirring, until it thickens and boils. Cook for another minute, remove from heat and allow to cool a little. Beat butter until creamy and when the custard has become lukewarm, whip it with the butter until combined and fluffy.

NOTE - the custard should not be too warm as it will melt the butter.

To serve 

When the cake has cooled, slice through the middle and fill with the custard. Put back together and serve.




Enjoy like I did,
TTFN,
Lili xx

Our Trip to the mountain

Hello Poppits, how has your week been ??

I thought I better get around to posting the pictures form our trip to Ben Lomond before we get going on our next Mountain trip ( Which is tomorrow !!! but this time to the lovely Cradle Mountain)

 So the day started our really quite well, we left home mid morning meaning we got to the mountain by lunch time( it's only about 2 hours fro where I live) the trip up was really nice Edie slept the whole way and I got to listen to some Eva Cassidy which I've been really enjoying of late.

 Then it was time to unpack and have some lunch to eat.... lunch was lets say slightly burnt as I has forgotten it in the oven when I was baking it the day before so I wont mention that :(

Next we checked that all our gear was there for the up coming ski season ( hopefully we actual get one this year unlike the last 2-3 because of lack of the icy white stuff that falls from the ski)

 Next on the agenda was a brisk walk up to the top of the summit and boy let me tell you that, that was hard work caring Edie up there in the front pack.... Mum had to take over for a bit as you'll see later on.


Any way the rest of the night was going really nicely until about 8pm when a horde of noise people turned up to stay the night and thought it would be fun to have a pit of a party... lets just say we didn't get much sleep and left for home very early... oh well we had a great few hours before they turned up....




Now for some smashing photos of our trek up the mountain.

Only in Tasmania would you find a toilet in the middle of nowhere 

Edie about half way before she fell asleep form the cold :) 

Hope you enjoyed the picture and the little rant,

TTFN,

Lili xxx

Little Vintage Edie style ...

Hello Poppits,

I've been really look forward to posting this weeks link up with Hart+Sew and Mamma loves Papa, I guess that because I really like the clothes that both Edie and i are wearing.

  Winter is officially here in Australia, but the Autumn colours are still hanging around in the trees and on the grown. 

And we had lots of fun playing in the leaves.

 Oh and we love Romi's Dress as well and how helpful she was taking the photos for us. 

 Oh and Edie loves to going swinging, she laughs and giggles she has a ball, its so nice to watch. 

What we wore...

Edie: Amber from Amber for sale

cardie Seed

Vintage Dress from Poppy and Bean

Tights made by me.

Me: Pants thrifted and alter by me

Vintage top from No carnations 

TTFN,

Lili & Edie xxx

Little Vintage Edie style ...+ 9 months old

Why Hello Poppits,

The weeks are just flying by of late... it seems like only yesterday that I was writing last weeks post and now it's time to link up with Hart + Sew again as well as small style over at Mama loves Papa YAY 

This week has been felly full on, with a trip up to our ski lodge that we have shares in to check our gear for the up coming season( the trip warrants a whole post for it's self.... maybe tomorrow hmmmm) with some yummy cooking thrown in there, a winter jacket for me finished off and LOTS of disturbed nights on Edie's behalf.

In all that we managed to get some photos take( well my sister did :) thanks, Romi) Oh and Edie turned 9 months old today yay :)

 This little romper was a nice rare find at a local op shop I scored it for 50 cents from memory(lack of sleep so I could be wrong) It was missing a button which was easily fixed, the big problem was finding a button I liked. This romper is a truly 80/90s baby look and is very different from what I would buy online but i'm super glade I got it, it's just so aghh what's the word cute/fun.

I'm really in love with this last photo, I only just saw it before I uploaded this post but thought it was very  un-Edie at the moment seeming she's always either crawling or pulling herself up on everything and everyone. But that said it is also show the other side of her and  how she is always taking every little bit of the world and what she sees in.

Romper: Thrifted

long sleeves: Best and lest

TTfN,

Lili xx

Chocolate Custard Pie

Hello Poppits,

This was an amazing combination find of mine.

So if you in need of a slight need of a chocolate fix you'll find it here, that's for sure.

 I had left over chocolate custard form the Brooklyn blackout Peanut butter  cake combo that I made for my brothers birthday at the end of April. 

I left the custard in the fridge for about a week trying to work out what I could do with a whole heap of custard, some of it went into hot cross bun, by the spoon and pretty much every other way you can think.

 I had been talking about making this for a few days before I got around to making it so it was much anticipated. And Boy did it do the job . It was not overly rich with the chocolate and the biscuit crumb base complimented the textures .  

Finely I toped it off with some grated white chocolate to contrast the darkness of the chocolate custard.

Recipe:

Biscuit base:

1 pack of milk coffee biscuits or any other that you like wizzed into a crumb 

100g of butter melted 

Chocolate Custard: For a full batch ( It's pretty massive )( recipe from humming bird bakery)

500g cater sugar 

1 tbs Golden syrup

125g cocoa sifted

200g corn flour , Sifted 

85g butter, cuber

1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

For the base mix together the two ingredients and then press into a pie pan. Put into the fridge and leave to set until needed.

Custard:

Put the sugar, golden syrup, cocoa and 600ml of water into a large saucepan and bring to the boil, over a medium heat . Stirring  to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom.

Mix 120-200mls of water with the corn flour whisking briskly whilst adding the water. The mixture should be a glue consistency, add more water if needed but don't go past 250mls of water.

Gradually mix into the cocoa mixture in the pan over a low heat, bring back to the boil whisking constantly. Do this until you have a thick mixture, being careful not to let it catch on the bottom of the pan. Remove from the heat and mix in the butter and vanilla until melted then cover with glad wrap and put in the fridge until luke warm.

Now pour the the custard into the curst and leave to  cool before eating it. Top with white chocolate shavings.

Now you only need about half of this custard if that so you'll need to either half the recipe or just eat the rest... I know what I would do.

Enjoy !

TTNF,

Lili xxx

bits and bobs for other people

Hello Poppits,

Hows your week been , filled with lots of achievements I dearly hope :)

I'm starting a new section in my blog about things that I've made for people other than Edie or I. Mainly these people will be my sister  and my mother but sometimes there could be a surprise in there.

It's not going to be a super regular( as in weekly) post. But I felt it needed it's own topic. 

And Away  we go ....

I made this Amour skirt for Romi towards the end of last year and had never gotten around to blogging about it so I thought this would be a grate place to start. 

The pattern came from the  Make it perfect Book that was released at the end of last year. This was a lovely simple skirt to sew and was a great project the introduced me into to realm of zippers... I know a lot of you out there aren't big fans of them but I find them really quite nice and easy to deal with, I only had one problem and that was to put the zip to low.... Oh well that's what skirt slides are for. The pattern actually called for press studs??? I think or was it Hook and Eyes. Any way I used what it said but since then have discovered skirt slides and they work so much better and leave a smoother finish to the garment.

 It had been awhile since I had sewn any major clothing piece as I had been more in the flow of cooking at the time and not so much sewing. I really enjoyed making this Skirt and would make it again in a flash.

Romi picked out the fabric she wanted it to be made out of and she did a lovely job doing so, My only complaint is that she is a bit like a young child who choses a fabric they like but then never seems to want to wear it once it's made. At lest she's not going to out grow it like a toddler would, so it will get some wear at some point.

Hope you enjoyed this first post of Bits and Bobs for other people.

TTFN,

Lili