Red Velvet Cupcakes

       

Today I am doing some baking for a close friend, I wanted to do something special and at the same time something quick that I can make whilst still keeping and eye on my 2 monsters. 

Red velvet cupcakes are usually reserved for a special occasion due to being quite technical to make.

I have tried many, many, many different recipes and they always seem to have a vinegary taste to them. This recipe doesn't call for vinegar so it always tastes delicious and you just throw it all in your mixer and mix the crap out of it. They still have the wow factor that you would expect for a special occasion with out being difficult to make. 

Now you do need to add quite alot of Red food dye to this recipe today I am using Wilton Gel colouring in "Red (no taste)". I purchased this from my local Kitchen Warehouse store and it cost my $4.99 AU, I have used Americolour "Red Tulip"before and found that i had to use the entire bottle which exceeds 2 Tablespoons.)

You can omit colouring and just have the flavour without the colour and that is perfectly okay. You will just be missing out on the beautiful colour of these cupcakes.

Whilst we are on the subject of colouring, if you are throwing a party with a theme you can add any colours. I have made them yellow with red and blue frosting for a Snow White party before and they were a huge hit.

Before I start I like to put all my dry ingredients into a large bowl and give it a good whisk, this save me having to sift it all. You can do the same with your wet ingredients if you like but I just like to have it all measured and ready to add in. 

Whisk dry ingredients to remove and lumps and to combine well.

          

{INGREDIENTS}

2 & 1/2 cups Self Raising Flour

1 & 3/4 cups sugar 

1/4 cup Cocoa powder

1 Cup Water

200 grams Butter softened

3 Large Eggs

1 TB Red Gel Colouring (you can add more or less as you desire or omit completely) 

1 Tsp vanilla 

2 TB oil (I used rice bran oil)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Add all ingredients into your mixer and mix on low speed until just combined. scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and continue to mix on high speed for 5 minutes, the mixture will look like and fluffy,

Fill Cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 15 - 20 minutes. 

Looks delicious doesn't it? Throw it all in and turn the mixer on. 

           

Wilton "Red no Taste" gives a gorgeous colour as you can see in the background.

            

This is a super easy and delicious recipe especially when topped with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting that will be in my next post. 

I made these cupcakes with alot of love and I am so happy they could bring a little joy to a sad day. 

This recipe Yields 2 dozen cupcakes. I under baked my first batch so I only actually got 12 :)  

           

Please try it out for yourself and enjoy.

Until next time 

Stacey xx 

FIFO: {saying goodbye again}

                                               
Fly out day. Ugh it's disgusting actually. 
Not only am i cleaning up a weeks worth of sweeping the housework under the carpet, I'm dealing with the emotional aspect of being apart for another swing. 

We should be used to it we've been at it long enough, the kids are old enough to understand where Daddy goes and what he does when he gets there.
It's a lifestyle that when done right can work really well. We seem to be a bit out of sync with it all at the moment. Budget falling apart, routines all over the place and I'm a routine kind of girl.
So we spend our week doing the school drop offs and pick ups. We have the odd coffee morning and we try to find things to fill our weekends up without spending to much money or getting in the way of every other "normal" families time with their husbands enjoying their weekends off. 

Today after dropping Hubby off at the airport, the girls and I had our usual chat about how we will miss him and how sad we feel when he goes away and I  had a little sniffle and surprised myself with how sad I felt and how I hadn't felt that way since we first started dating 8 years ago when I would be alone for 2 weeks while he was away for work. 
I feel miserable and lonely, putting the kids to bed and feeling completely alone. Oh woe is me. 
I guess we are all allowed to feel a little sorry for ourselves at times and I guess I should consider the other feelings I have.

1) I feel incredibly grateful. I can stay home and take care of our children and give them the time and love that they deserve. I have a wonderful husband who works hard to support us and get us the things we need, a place to live, food to eat clothes on our back.

2)Pride. I have 2 gorgeous little girls who are well adjusted and more often than not they are happy. They are healthy and smart and they love each other and us, their parents.

3)Anxiety. Am I doing this right? Am I raising my children the right way? Do I give them nutritious meals? Will they grow up and be successful?
Also, am I safe here? As a part time single Mum, are we safe staying here without a Daddy/ Husband to protect us? Is the fire alarm working? What do I do if our elderly fur baby decides it's time to cross the rainbow bridge? 

Being away from the family has got to be harder for hubby than it is for us and can't be easy living so far away from anything, eating camp food that is neither exciting or tasty and just plain old missing your family, home, pets and your own bed. 

Are we gonna be okay? Yeah. Are we gonna be happy about it? Nope. Are we used to it? Most of the time. 
Fly in Fly out is not for everyone but we make it work most of the time and the rest of the time we just have to make sure we send extra texts, Facebook messages and phone calls. 
Making sure we tell each other that I love and miss you is the easiest way to make everyone feel special and it's always heartwarming to hear that you are being thought about.

So if you are with your family today give them a hug, be thankful that you are all together and if you have anyone in your life who's family does FIFO, call them, text them or better yet give them a hug and tell them that they are doing a great job. 

                         

It's not easy but someone has to do it.
Until next time....
Stacey

Lily's 3rd Birthday and Finding Nemo Party

                      
Last Year in October my baby turned 3, much to my dismay, there she goes growing up without my permission.
We wanted to throw her a big birthday party and we wanted to theme it with her favourite thing on earth at the time, Finding Nemo.
Lily is obsessed with Nemo, Dory, Marlin and Bruce. She can't get enough. We even did her room up as part of her birthday present, painting it a gorgeous shade of blue and decorating it with her favourite characters.

So a Nemo themed birthday seemed like the best idea and we ran with it.
I was on ebay and etsy for months leading up to the event, buying table cloths and ordering invites and trying to keep it within budget.
I wanted to make the perfect cake, and I had been working with fondant a little more regularly and I felt confident enough to tackle this cake that I had found a tutorial on spoonful for.

                  

It took me around 12 hours to make this cake from start to finish including making my own marshmallow fondant. The tutorial for the top tier of this cake is here.

It wasn't big enough for all of the guests so made a bottom tier, surrounded by cookie crumb sand and gumpaste seaweed.

Very easy but time consuming. I was really very proud of my attempt. 

                  

I kept the food very simple opting for healthier food where possible whilst still trying to please the conventional guests happy with sea themed cracker biscuits and blue jelly with little fish lollies inside, cupcakes with little Nemo rice paper toppers I found on eBay for around $3.

                  

                  

This watermelon shark was super fun to make, I found a youtube clip that me and my Mum watched over and over until I felt confident enough to get in there and make it without chopping my fingers off or stabbing myself in the eyes.

We had halloween candy hanging around so we swiped 2 jelly eyeballs out of it and hey presto you have Bruce. 

                    

Miss 3 was so happy and had the best time! The party went off (almost) without a hitch and I would only make a few changes. First being, don't inflate the helium balloons until the day of the party and secondly, look for that perfect back drop earlier to avoid disappointment. It would have improved my photos and really capped off how great the table looked with the shells and all the blue bits and pieces that made it look amazing.

                    

This was the first party I have ever put together like this and I now know that it is all about organisation and simplicity. You don't have to go overboard and spend alot of money, pick your theme early and start collecting things early. 

Thanks to Mum and Dad for providing the venue when I didn't have a suitable place to hold it. 

I'm glad everyone had a great time and I look forward to organizing Miss 5's Monster High themed birthday in December. 

Also a very happy Mother's day to all the mum's out here being spoilt today, have a wonderful day.

Until next time...

Stacey xx

Frugal Friday : {Health Conscious Easy Mac 'n' Chicken}

        

Thank God is Friday! Woot!! Woot!!

Oh Wait I'm a parent and I don't really get a weekend. Bummer!

Oh well chin up and soldier on is what i say because I have a solution to the Mummy guilt we get when it comes to the end of the week and you know what!? We're all tired and can't be fluffed making dinner!

Wait! Don't reach for that Box of Kraft Mac and Cheese just yet. You know the one i mean in a dark blue box with that powdered cheese or chicken flavouring aka "chemical shit storm". 

                              

You can make your own in 10 minutes! 

4 Ingredients. 

I've done the experimenting, the kids have done the taste test and you know what it's Easy and it's YUM! 

Take 2 Tablespoons of Plain flour and 2 tablespoons of butter, put them into a saucepan and turn the heat on. grab your wooden spoon and stir it as the butter melts. 

                   

Did you make a paste? Is it lump free? Yes? awesome! you've made a roux. No? keep on stirring, you'll get there! 

Ok so you have your nice smooth roux, stir it over a low heat, you have to cook the flour out, meaning you don't want the taste of raw flour in your sauce. 

At this stage you might wanna switch to a whisk.

Get 2 cups of Chicken stock, Homemade, out of a carton, concentrated paste, I don't care just don't use powder that stuff is disgusting! 

                   

Now pour the stock over your roux whilst whisking, don't go too fast you want to incorporate the stock into the flour and butter mix, once you've added it all in keep stirring until your sauce is thick and smells amazing!

                   

Guess what that's it! 

Wait! What's the fourth ingredient? Macaroni of course. 

Cook 1 & 1/2 cups macaroni according to packet instructions.

At this stage I decided that I wanted to add some broccoli so I threw in 1 & 1/2 cups of broccoli florets in with the pasta with 5 minutes left of cooking time.

                      

I drained the broccoli and pasta and poured them into a casserole dish and stirred the sauce through. You can eat it like this or you can take it a step further and add cheese and bread crumbs to the top to add some delicious crunch. 

                     

Cheap, easy and tasty. My kids will eat the entire thing themselves if I let them. I served it with Roast Chicken, carrot and beans. 

                   

After having my husband home for 3 weeks (and we didn't try to kill each other once! FIFO wives, you know what I mean.) we all feel a bit sad and this makes for great comfort food. It's so much better for you than eating out of a box (Even though we all still do sometimes), 

{Ingredients}

2 Tablespoons butter

2 Tablespoons of Flour (Gluten free works well too) 

2 Cups Chicken Stock 

1 1/2 cups Macaroni

Optional ingredients: 1 1/2 cups broccoli florets, 1/2 cup cheese, 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs. 

{Method}

Boil a large pot of water. Once boiling add in Pasta.

In a separate pot add butter and flour and put over a low heat. Stir together a butter melts to form a paste or a roux. Cook the roux for a further 3-5 minutes to "cook out the flour".

Slowly pour in the stock whilst whisking to form a smooth and thick sauce. Cook whilst stirring for a further 2-3 minutes on low heat. 

Once Pasta is cooked remove from heat and drain. Pour the sauce of the pasta stir through and enjoy. 

Serves 4 as generous side or 3 children as a meal on it's own. 

Enjoy! 

Until next time, have a great weekend! 

Stacey xx