Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting.

          

Hi guys,
This is a follow on from my Red Velvet Cupcake recipe that I posted a few days ago.
This is a very simple frosting and contains more cream cheese and less butter than a usual cream cheese frosting.
Its has a lovely light texture but still has the lovely tang on cream cheese along side a hint of vanilla.

          

Firstly as you may know you have to give frosting the time to whip, if you don't your frosting will not be light or fluffy it'll be grainy and quite possibly too sweet and difficult to pipe. 
You have to firstly whip the cream cheese and butter together until they are combined and pale, this will take around 5 minutes, if you see the yellow of the butter you must keep going. Scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl the whole time.  
Measure and sift or whisk your powdered sugar and on a slow speed begin to add the powdered sugar by the tablespoon. When you have all the sugar in and combined then you amp it up to high speed and whip for a further 5 minutes, adding the vanilla halfway through.
After 5 minutes this is where you will know if it is just right or if you need to add a teaspoon or 2 of milk in to thin it out a little. 
You want it thick and creamy for piping and a little thinner for filling and icing a cake.

{INGREDIENTS}
250 grams Cream Cheese at room temperature.
5 & 1/2 Tablespoons Butter softened
5 & 1/2 cups Icing Sugar 
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1-2 teaspoons milk (if needed)

Cream butter and Cream Cheese until pale and combined, slowly add in the powdered sugar on a slow speed and whip on high for 5 minutes until light and airy adding the vanilla halfway through.
Add 1-2 teaspoons milk if needed to thin frosting to desired consistency.
Pipe onto Red Velvet Cupcakes and enjoy. 

Until next time 
Stacey xx

Family Update...

          

Hey ya'll!
It's been a while. We've had a fair bit going on it the Clark household.
Let me fill you in on the catastrophe that I call parenting. Beetle is now 5 1/2 going on 15. Emotionally fragile and dealing with quite a few complex emotions I can't even begin to understand.
We've had breakdowns at parties over cake, after school because she didn't want to leave the classroom for active reading time and at home because well.... We looked at her. That's right people, we LOOKED at her.

So we look to be coming out the other side of this, don't ask me how. I don't even really know what was going on for a lot of this phase, seriously I was 5 minutes away from calling a therapist. 
We had a week off school with a cold, Lots of cuddles, favourite dinners and just major down time and would you look at that. Back to "normal". 
Phew! 

Now, Husband is stuck in job he quite frankly would like to see the back off but we are in the middle of a mining slump and if you've still got your job you are one of the lucky ones. So we soldier on, we wait for fly in day like it's the holy grail and when we see Daddy come out of the terminal we all cheer for joy and get ready to have whole week with Daddy. Yay!
Today is day 6, we are all tired the weather is terrible and we have 1 more sleep until Fly in day. Best day of the week! 3 seasons of My Little Pony and coffee mornings spur us on, we will survive we will get there. 

Monster is turning 4 in October and is the complete opposite of Beetle. She is how my sister would say "A rager" my little rageoholic! The two major things she has control over in her life, food and toileting, she has chosen to use against me. 

       

Now I have to say we have implemented a rewards chart and I don't want to get ahead of myself when I say "I think it's working" (knock on wood) but "I think it's actually working" 
When it was looking like she was never going to use a toilet again. Never going to eat and or feed herself again. 1 little stuffed "Pinkie Pie" MLP has changed the game. 
She wants that Pony, she wants it bad. I have the power! YES! 

          

Throw in the power of a rainbow coloured lifesavers ice block as a treat for going number 2's and we have a formula that cannot fail!! (knock on wood again).
You see I don't want to jinx myself but I m pretty confident.

So you see it's all been a little bit stressful around here but we've been soldiering on. 
It's nothing that a thousand other families are struggling with also. So if I've said it once, I'll say it again... ask your friends and family how they are doing regularly. Sometimes all we need is for someone to just listen. 

           

Until next time, be good to one another.

Stacey xx 

Roasted pumpkin soup

It's been awhile since I've posted and a lot has been going on.

Firstly and most importantly we've moved! I'm not talking just down the road either, we moved from Perth in Western Australia to Leinster which is located in the Goldfields of WA. 

It's been a huge transition, it's a very small mining town with very limited facilities. So organisation is the key to living out here. But so far we are really loving it. 

The reason for the move was so that we could see Hubby every day and it's been great. The kids are loving it, the school is great and we are fitting into life out here really well. 

Now this recipe has been in my drafts for a while, inspiration and desire have been running low and I thought I'd do some housekeeping and finish the things I've started. 

So I give you the worlds easiest roasted pumpkin soup. 

3 ingredients and you are done. 

1 litre of chicken stock and halved and roasted butternut pumpkin and a couple of roasted onions. 

It's as simple as scooping out all the deliciously caramelised pumpkin flesh and squishing the onions out of there skins. 

Adding them into the stock and using a blender or immersion blender to make it smooth and delicious. 

That's it short and sweet. 

Add seasonings and spices as you wish. 

It doesn't get much easier than this and although it's missing a final picture and a bunch of effort, I've finished the post and I feel good about finishing what I started. 

There may or may not be more recipes to come. I hate to just leave my blog sitting here unloved so we will see.

Enjoy guys. 

Stacey xx