The Quandong Tree

My Last Post

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:43:00 +0000

Hello all!

Well, I'm finally back online after 2 weeks of living in 1995 (long story), but in my absence I decided to discontinue with my little blog. I think my work here is done. I got to write about random geeky stuff, squee over funny pictures, bake lots of goodies, and share it all with strangers on the internet. I've lived the dream.

So big thanks to all who had a wander through these pages, it's been a blast :)

Internet Awesomeness

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 00:44:00 +0000

So, still sorting out rental issues (grumble, grumble) and probably will be for a while, so I have a sneaking suspicion I won't be baking or creating anything new any time soon :/

So... More random pics from the internet!!!

Doctor Who meets Optimus Prime, anyone?

This picture is possibly one of the strangest I have ever found:

And I love it.

Hunger Games and Harry Potter?!

Yes please.

How about a little Discworld?

And a Harry Potter alphabet?

Ok all you Harry Potter fans out there, can you figure out who each letter is? :P

Renters Beware!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:16:00 +0000

Hello all,

I'm afraid everything's going to be a bit quiet on the Blogger front for a little while due to some unforeseen rental issues...

See, my husband and I recently (and by recently I mean less than a week ago) moved into a new rental. On the surface it looked perfect. Nice flat, good location, close to work - it was even furnished.

And then we moved in...

LOOOOONG story short I'm going to be tied up for a bit sorting stuff out, so until I get time to post again, here's some awesome Doctor Who pics:

This just reminds me that I need to get a cat. And call him MacGuffin. Or Arty-Morty.

This very nearly made me cry. Oh Captain America! Stop making me all weepy.

Spider-Man: On the Weekends

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:42:00 +0000

A good friend of mine recently did me a favour, so I paid him back with a cartoon of his favourite super hero, Spider-Man:

(Apologies for the potato quality)

I've always been kind of intrigued by the idea of super heroes doing mundane domestic stuff. I mean, who washes super hero outfits? Do the heroes have some sort of dry cleaning service or do they do it themselves? You'd assume the latter - what with them having to maintain a secret identity and all. And how do they spend their down-time? Who cleans their house? (Ok, with Batman we all know the very obvious answer to that one. But not every super hero has an Alfred, do they?)

How do you even wash the Bat-Suit? Now I'm on a Batman tangent I'm seriously wondering. Off the top of my head I'd say soap and water, but it must get pretty musty in there.

Anyway, so my friend loves Spider-Man and I drew him this silly little picture.

Cat, cats and more cats...

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 12:50:00 +0000

As per the promise I made to myself in my last post, I'm sticking to random cat pics and other interweb awesomeness for awhile :)

So to get the ball rolling, here's some of the coolest and geekiest cat related pics I've found recently. They're all made of awesome.

Ok, this is just brilliant.

And actually, so is this. I mean, a soft TARDIS bed for your cat? What could be more awesome??

A giant TARDIS for your cat to play in. That's what.

KITTY AVENGERS!!! LOVE.

And that's just about enough cat related geekiness to last me til my next post :)

Kids Birthday Party Theme: Western - The Details

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 08:57:00 +0000

So, now you know how to make your own western invitations and party food - it's time to top everything off with decorations, games and of course, party favours :)

Decorations

Here are a few simple yet affective ideas to turn your house into the Old West:

Cut an old cardboard box into saloon doors and masking-tape to your door frame

Draw badges, cowboy hats, boots and cactuses on paper, colour in, cut out and blu-tack onto walls

Here's some to print if drawing's not your thing :)

Dust off any old rope you might have in the shed and arrange on your table with a bandanna or cowboy hat as a centrepiece, and use upside-down cowboy hats to serve food

Games

Mess with the Classics:

Transform classic party games by giving them a western spin. Instead of 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey' have 'Pin the Tail on the Horse'. Change 'Musical Bobs' into 'Bootscooting Bobs. You get the idea :P

Tin Can shoot:

Place some old soft drink cans up on a ledge or table, line up the children, arm them with water pistols, and have them try to shoot the cans.

Pan for Gold:

Hide gold coin lollies in the sandpit and have the children pan for them using old sieves.

Party Favours

Every party needs a take home lolly bag, so here's 2 ideas:

Make simple brown paper bags (you can use my feed bags as a guide) and draw big dollar signs in black pen. Fill with gold coin lollies and tie with string

OR, if you're going with a western theme because the birthday boy or girl is a Toy Story fanatic, why not try something like this:

"There's a snake in my boot!"

:)

Make cowboy boot paper bags...

Use this pic as a guide:

(Measures just under 14x18cm)

Simply draw 2 boots touching like so; cut and glue/staple edges together

... and fill with lolly snakes for a very Woody party favour :)

And I think that just about covers everything!

Phew. I'm tired. I think I might stick to posting random photos of cats and such for a while :P

Kids Birthday Party Theme: Western - the food edition

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 07:33:00 +0000

The other day I posted part 1 of my Western Birthday Party Theme. Today I'll be covering the food. The glorious, glorious food.

If throwing a western themed birthday party for a little cowboy or cowgirl, awesome western food is an absolute must. For my theme I made a cactus birthday cake with matching desert sand cupcakes and sheriff badge cookies:

And they're all actually super-duper easy to do.

So here's what you'll need:

12 patty-pans

Greased 10x23cm rectangular cake tin (well... Any rectangular cake tin, really)

Basic Cake Recipe

3 - 4 cups icing sugar

2 heaped Tbsp's butter (say NO to palm oil!)

Milk (extra)

Food colouring: yellow and blue

5 tsp's shredded coconut

Bol's Rainbow Laces ($2 from K-Mart)

Basic Cookie recipe

Star shaped cookie cutter

Raw sugar (to decorate)

The cactus cake and cupcakes were made using one batch of cake mix (just to make life a little easier and keep the kitchen a little tidier). I made them using my basic cake recipe, filling 12 patty-pans just over a third of the way full and pouring the rest of the batter (plus a few drops of mixed yellow and blue food colouring to make the cactus cake green) into a greased 10x23 rectangular cake tin.

Bake the cupcakes and cake at 180ºc (around 15 minutes for the cupcakes and around 30 - 45 minutes for the cake).

Leave to cool entirely and whip up some buttercream: 3 - 4 cups of icing sugar, 2 heaped tablespoons of softened butter and milk (extra) should do the trick. Mix everything together and keep adding (small amounts of) milk until the buttercream is nice and soft and spreadable (and delicious). Colour the icing yellow and spread a thin layer on top of your cupcakes.

Put 5 teaspoons of coconut into a cup and add a few drops of yellow food colouring. Mix until the coconut is yellow and sprinkle on top of cupcakes for the 'desert sand'.

Cut a small length off your rectangular cake (about 1/3). Cut that piece again like so:

To make the cactus arms.

Place the pieces together. Add blue food colouring to the remaining buttercream to make it green, and spread liberally onto the cake, covering all sides.

To finish off the cactus cake, cut a few green and blue rainbow laces to size (these are lollies btw, in case you're not familiar) with scissors and arrange on top.

To finish off your western themed party food make the cookie dough, roll out thin on a floured work surface and cut out star shapes for sheriff badges. Place on a greased/baking paper covered tray and then, to turn your star shaped cookies into sheriff badge ones, roll out left over dough into tiny balls and press flat onto each star point (you may want to wet the points slightly to help stick). Finally, sprinkle a little raw sugar onto each sheriff badge and cook at 180ºc for around 10 - 15 minutes. This dough makes HEAPS of cookies (up to 30 depending on how thin you make them) so excess dough can be stored in the fridge for later use).

So that's how you make western themed party food!

If you want to keep with the theme for all your food, why not throw a BBQ? (With all the fixins, of course!) and serve popcorn and corn chips in upside down cowboy hats?

My next post will go through the final bits and pieces to create a proper western birthday party - the decorations, games and of course, party favours :)

Kids Birthday Party Theme: Western

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 01:36:00 +0000

Yee-haw!

It's been ages since I posted my Cheeky Monkey Party Theme, and I had so much fun with it that I thought I'd start posting more kids birthday party theme ideas :)

Our next contender is the Western Theme, made super popular at kids parties right now thanks to Woody from the ever amazing Toy Story movies. So if your child is a bit of a Toy Story fanatic (like a certain 26-year-old blogger I won't name) then this party theme is definitely one you need to try.

Because I want to go into my western theme in detail, I'm going to post it in sections. So, first thing's first: the invitations.

You can of course buy western themed or even Toy Story themed invites from card shops and the like, but if you're itching to get creative and make them yourself - or even better, make them with your child - here's an idea to get you started:

You can make these lasso invitations yourself by saving this template:

(Measures just under 21cm x 14cm - so fits 2 to an A4 page)

And adding your own text in Publisher or Photoshop - I used Algerian font for 'Yee-haw!' and Playbill font for the rest of the text. Then all you need to do is print and colour! The colouring part makes for a fun activity to do with the birthday boy or girl.

For an added western touch to the invitations, use a candle to (carefully!) burn the edges, OR, if making them with small children, tear around the edges and colour with brown pen.

To really top off the theme, you can use diluted instant coffee and tissues to 'paint' your envelopes and give them an authentic rustic look.

Provided you're using your own printer and paper, the entire cost for making these western themed invites and envelopes can be as cheap as $3.26 (for a pack of 50 standard sized envelopes).

Not bad, huh?

In my next post I'm covering party food - so stay tuned for some yummy looking photos!

Awww heck, here's a preview:

Sheriff badge cookies, desert sand cupcakes and cactus cake! How-To Guide in my next post :)

Well, I'll be.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:46:00 +0000

On our last trip to Melbourne Zoo my husband and I actually read the plaque in front of the Lion enclosure for once, and what we read really made us think.

Apparently there is a very small number of endangered lions indigenous to India.

I looked at Rob and said, 'So The Phantom isn't wrong after all - you really can get lions and tigers together.' And he just looked at me and said, 'that is exactly what I was just thinking.'

And this is why we're married. Because we both automatically think of super hero connections when reading animal facts.

The Asiatic Lion:

Proof that comic books are educational.

The Mousetrap

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 09:58:00 +0000

Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap is now in its 60th year, and to celebrate the Queen of Crime's classic mystery has been put on tour for its Diamond Anniversary. The all-Australian production is 1 of 60 professional productions celebrating 60 years of 'whodunnit' worldwide. This production also marks the first time ever that The Mousetrap has toured Australia.

So, pretty awesome stuff. A must-see for not just any Christie fan, but theatre lovers everywhere. And today my husband and I were fortunate enough to see The Mousetrap at The Comedy Theatre in Melbourne.

And as it happens, I'm extra fortunate: I also went to see the show last year in London while on Student Exchange. Both shows were amazing, and very different in lots of little ways. I feel so privileged to have seen the play both at its home in St Martin's Theatre (where it plays every day of the year) and at my home in Melbourne for its 60th year.

I only had my rather busted up mobile phone with me, but I managed to take a few pictures to remember the day:

A very blurry set.

Don't worry, I wasn't snapping away during the production - this was taken during intermission :)

The Mousetrap is a classic 'whodunnit' that will have you suspecting everyone - but watch out for those red herrings! It's funny, oh-so-very-English, and just a little bit silly. And it's the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

But the best bit for me is the ending. Not the revelation of the murderer; but after the show has ended and the actors have taken their bows, and the character of the detective informs you, the audience, that you are now partners in crime, and asks you so very nicely to keep the secret of The Mousetrap locked safe in your hearts.

And the funny thing is - I will :)

Doctor Who Awesomeness

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 10:09:00 +0000

To celebrate the new season of Doctor Who, I thought I'd shower this post with some of my favourite Doctor Who pictures I've found on the interwebs...

Let's start with some Doctor Who/Disney cross overs -

The 10th Doctor meets Monsters Inc.:

And the 11th Doctor meets Toy Story:

This one actually made me laugh out loud...

And now for some random Doctor goodness:

And finally, my personal favourite:

*Sigh*

It will always be the dream. (Sorry, Husband). That being said I have the feeling Rob would run off with the Doctor should the opportunity arise, so I don't feel too guilty about it :P

Fondant Motorbike Cake Topper

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 09:30:00 +0000

One of Rob's work colleagues recently celebrated his 40th birthday, and I was asked to make a fondant motorbike to go on top of his birthday cake.

FYI, Rob's work didn't just have cake to celebrate. Everyone had fish and chips for lunch, more party food than they could handle, and a Wii and Kinect were set up in the back office. I arrived just in time to fail miserably at Kinect tennis. These damn kids with their hula-hoops and Pac-Man video games...

Anyhoo, I asked Rob what kind of motorbike his colleague had - a 2012 Bonneville Triumph, apparently. Which means nothing to me (I just know it looks black and pretty and shiny) but I'm sure bike enthusiasts will be able to relate - and we googled some pictures and found this:

So we blew up the picture as big as we could and turned Rob's mighty computer screen to face me, where I sat on the couch and attempted to re-create the bike in fondant by copying the image from the computer.

Here's the finished result:

I tried to make it as close to the model as I could - while keeping it all in one piece! It's not exactly as, erm, sleek as the real thing, but I've been assured it looks like a bike. Which is important when you're making a bike cake topper. I say 'assured' because, much like when you say a word over and over and it begins to lose all meaning and you start to wonder if it's even a real word, the longer I worked on this bike the more sure I was that it looked like a nondescript blob. But the birthday boy was well chuffed so I was very flattered :)

I also added a few little details, like indents for 'padding' on the seat cover, and red and orange food colouring for the back lights:

The motorbike cake topper was also the début of my first ever edible food pen - which turned out to be a very lacklustre experience, indeed. (For those unfamiliar, edible food pens are like textas/sharpies you can use on fondant). Well, I managed a few details with my pen, but nothing like I had envisioned. It seemed to be constantly running out of 'ink', and wasn't nearly as miraculous a baking companion as I had imagined.

Sigh... You live and you learn. I may just have to save the pen for fiddly eyes and such - I'm sure it could handle that :)

Doctor Who Desk Companions

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 11:02:00 +0000

It's the end of August. And that can only mean one thing:

New Doctor Who.

I'm sure it probably means many other things, but that's what it means to me.

Now it just so happens that both my husband and I are HUGE Doctor Who fans.

And by Doctor Who fans I of course mean 'obsessed geeks', just like every Doctor Who fan is. There really is no middle ground. You either hate it, or love it to the point of mania. And we are happily nestled in the latter.

Anyway, it was recently my husband's birthday, and for my gift I thought I'd revamp his computer desk with a little Doctor Who awesomeness.

So, I changed his desk from this:

To this:

I made the stand-up characters by drawing a cartoon adipose, ood, cyberman and 11th doctor on thick paper, then cut them out with 'tails' attached. I scored along the bottom of the characters and folded the tail over to make a stand, then blu-tacked them to the monitor.

I made the TARDIS pencil holder out of an old milk cartoon. I just cut it to size then covered with plain paper, drew on the TARDIS front on one side and painted the rest blue.

I painted the Doctor Who logo onto an old black mouse-pad with acrylic paint, and the paperwork holder (not Doctor Who themed, admittedly) was made with an old, and I must emphasise clean, pizza box.

I also have to add that I had this totally elaborate birthday surprise planned. I was going to put all my Doctor Who goodness in a box and lead Rob on a scavenger hunt to find them... But he surprised me by coming home early the day I was making everything, and walked in on me attacking a pizza box with masking tape and wrapping paper.

I heard the lock go and froze, scissors in hand. Rob entered smiling and I yelled, 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING HOME? I'M MAKING PRESENTS, GET OUT!' and he promptly exited backwards into the hallway. But of course, it was too late. My TARDIS pencil holder lay drying on his computer chair, my character sketches were scattered about the room and the floor was littered with paper debri. There could be no sufficient hiding of his presents at this point. The irony was that Rob purposely didn't tell me he got the afternoon off to give me a 'nice surprise.' It was more a 'panic attack' than anything else, but I appreciate the gesture :)

Serenity Now!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 08:30:00 +0000

As a crazy huge fan of Firefly and a massive cake enthusiast, I squeed a little when I found this online:

Serenity cake!!!

It was obviously created by some mad cake genius, and I am in awe of its absolute perfect perfectness.

And now I think I need to go and watch ALL the Firefly episodes and Serenity in order to quench my Space Cowboy thirst.

Paper Craft: Magnetic Picture Frames

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 02:32:00 +0000

Living on, let's say 'humble' monetary resources, means when it comes to gifts I have to be a little bit creative...

So the other day I made this:

Paper cupcake magnetic picture frame... Thing!

So if you're after a new paper craft idea that you can use for gift giving, these are fun, easy to make, and look adorable.

Here's what you do...

Start with a page of thick paper, and cut it so that it's 9cm wide and 20cm long:

Mark with a pencil to make 9x9cm squares and a 2cm tail:

Use a scalpel to score along the lines and gently fold:

Draw a cherry on the bottom of your 'top' square (the one without the tail) and cut out with a scalpel:
(Sorry, forgot to take photos at this juncture. My bad).

Fold at the creases to bring the squares together, tuck the tail underneath and glue together:

Leave to dry, then draw the outline for your cupcake:
(Again no photos. I suck).

Trace around something circular and cut out to turn your cupcake picture into a cupcake picture frame:
(I swear to God I will one day learn to use a camera for every step of a craft project).

Colour your cupcake in, glue a magnet to the back, and you're done!

NOTE: I used colouring pencils and black pens to colour my cupcake, and violated a fridge magnet in order to provide my picture frame with a magnetic strip. You don't need a strong magnet, so if you have a regular rectangular fridge magnet (like the ones you always get free in the post from real estate agents and the like), a small strip from one of those will more than suffice.

And that's how easy it is to make a cupcake magnetic picture frame! So why not make a whole bunch and give your fridge a bit of colour? :)

Or photoshop them for the purposes of blogging :P

Bug Cookies!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 10:39:00 +0000

I seem to recall (vaguely) that after I made my Futurama Meme Cookies I said my next adventure in cookie flooding would be in making South Park themed cookies...

I made these instead:

Bug cookies!

I made them with the lucky last of the left-overs from my Pac-Man Cookie dough, and I am so in love with how cute they are!

And they were pretty simple, really: just circular cookie cutters (overlapped for the caterpillar) and mooshing the dough into vague diamond shapes for the leaves.

I used icing sugar, water and food colouring for the flooding, and while it's not as effective as royal icing I think they still turned out really well.

And I also think I should definitely make more cookies...

Oh Doctor Who...

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:31:00 +0000

How I love you :)

I'm counting down the days til the new season of Doctor Who starts (omg, omg, omg, omg) but in the meantime this totally adorable and completely awesome Doctor Who rhyme is helping to keep me sane:

Less than a week now til new Doctor Who!

Soon, Doctor... Soon.

The Dark Knight Rises

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 05:58:00 +0000

And seriously impresses.

Today I finally went to see The Dark Knight Rises at the movies, and it was so worth the wait.

Ok, it was long...

Ok, there were a few pretty obvious plot holes...

And ok, if I'm totally honest, I can't take Christian Bale's Batman voice seriously after watching 'The Coon' episodes of South Park...

But it was AMAZING.

And I can forgo any less-than-super-perfect moments simply for the fact that it's a super hero movie, and certain allowances must be made.

I think, in order to celebrate this awesome film as only I can, I need to make some Batman themed goodies. Problem is I'm going to be kind of swamped with other projects this week, so they might have to wait awhile. But I'm hoping, just like my wait to see The Dark Knight Rises, that they'll be totally worth it :)

Tom's Birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 07:59:00 +0000

Last weekend my best friend Belle and her other half Paul celebrated their little boy Thomas’s first birthday :)

Since Belle resides in Perth and I in Melbourne, I sadly couldn’t make it to the festivities :( though I was definitely there in spirit... And on Skype for the cake cutting :P

Speaking of cake...

Belle so loved the Cheeky Monkey party theme that she decided to use it as inspiration for Tom’s first birthday party! (Flattered, much?) And WOW, did she do an AMAZING job.

The house was fully decked out like a jungle – green streamers hanging down and animal balloons, plus Belle managed to find some super cute bits and pieces to keep with the theme – like these totally adorable jungle themed patty pans and candles:

She even printed off the cheeky monkey themed invites to send out!

AND she made an incredible cheeky monkey cake and matching cupcakes!

Super impressed.
And the outlining, unlike mine, was done using M&M’s, and the monkey 'fur'? Crushed Tim Tims. Drool... (way to take my idea and make it better, Belle. Sheesh).

She was even gracious and good humoured enough to send me some ‘in-progress’ pics – which were hilarious and awesome.

See, the cake didn’t bake flat...
And my suggestion to just flip it and ice the bottom was dismissed when Belle sent me this:

Hmmm....

So she got herself a knife and she made that bad boy flat.

And then, as any normal, dessert loving woman would, she ate the excess :P

Come to think of it I may have suggested that bit, too...

The party was a huge success and everything looked AMAZING – a perfect first birthday party for a very special one-year-old boy.

Happy birthday, little man xxx

It's pictures like this...

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 23:31:00 +0000

That make my life:

Bwahahahaha! Get it? Cos Star Wars. And Office Space.

You're all laughing so hard right now.

And I love so much that this guy, Gary Cole:

who plays this guy, Lumbergh:

is also this guy:

Harvey. Freaking. Birdman.

And it's also facts like that that make my life :)

UPDATED
I just realised that this is my 100th post - and as if the interwebs knew to celebrate, the blog had 100 views yesterday! Thanks, all :)

Geocaching! Garrgh!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:29:00 +0000

Mini Berry Meringue Pies

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:11:00 +0000

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that the Lemon Meringue Pie recipe I use makes more pastry than you need. So here's what I did with the excess:

Mini Berry Meringue Pies!!!

Since I already had the pastry, all I had to do was pervert the original Lemon Meringue Pie recipe. This was surprisingly easy.

So, here's how to make Mini Berry Meringue Pies...

Mini Berry Meringue Pie Recipe

What you need...
Pastry (link in yesterday's post)
3 Tbsp corn flour

1/3 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup orange juice

1/2 cup frozen mixed berries

1/4 cup water

40g butter

1 egg (separated)
Caster sugar, extra

What you do...

Pre-heat the oven to 180ᵒc, grab a stick of refrigerated butter and go to town on a 6 pan muffin tray. Roll the pastry out thin, cut into circles, and gently press into the now greased up tray. Place small oven weights on each pastry - or, in lieu of oven weights, do what I did: fold a few teaspoons of rice into al-foil and plonk them on top of each pastry. Bake for around 10 minutes, take out of the oven and discard rice parcels (or oven weights if you're normal).

Combine the corn flour, sugar, juice, berries and water in a saucepan and stir constantly over a moderate heat until, like with lemon meringue filling, the mixture turns transparent and thick. Leave to cool slightly (I transferred my mixture into a cool container because I'm impatient), then mix in the butter and egg yolk. Spoon into prepared pastries.

Whisk up the egg yolk with a few teaspoons of sugar (make sure you add the sugar slowly and only after the egg white has started to thicken). Once stiff (and sweet enough for your tastes) spoon on top of filling and spread to the sides. Bake for around 10 minutes or until the meringue and pastry has browned slightly.

And there you have it.

Unlike Lemon Meringue Pie, these Mini Berry Meringue Pies are quite sweet - but just like Lemon Meringue Pie they are incredibly morish :)

Adventures in Lemon Meringue Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:45:00 +0000

My husband brought home some lemons the other day from one of his colleague's tree's. (I should point out the lemons were given to him, he didn't scale their fence and nick them or anything).
And my reaction was naturally: Lemon Meringue Pie.

I LOVE Lemon Meringue Pie.

It's all kinds of goodness, and I haven't made one in years, so Lemon Meringue Pie making has been well overdue for awhile. I actually made 5 in a day a few Christmases ago - one for each Christmas party.
Time consuming. And totally worth it.

Anyway, the recipe I use can be found here from exclusivelyfood.com.au.

A few things when adventuring in Lemon Meringue Pie making:
1) I find the recipe makes an excess of pastry, almost enough for 2 pies (just FYI).
2) Meringue can be a cruel temptress: make sure your mixing bowl is clean and cool, avoid plastic bowls, and make sure no remnants of egg yolk sneak through.
3) Make sure your filling has cooled a bit before adding the butter and eggs - you don't want your egg yolk to cook! I transfer my filling from the hot saucepan to a cool container to speed up this process.
4) Since meringue can be so temperamental, to avoid wastage break each egg into a different cup, so if yolk sneaks through you're only down 1 egg instead of 3.

Here's the end result from our adventure in Lemon Meringue Pie making:

And now here's the rest of the story...

It really must have been awhile since my last adventure in Lemon Meringue, because when my first meringue (that's right, first) failed to stiffen or really do anything more than make a silky sludge, I continued to harbour the misguided hope that it would thicken 'any moment now'.

For over half an hour.

Over half an hour of my husband and I (mainly my husband) whisking the egg whites and sugar by hand. Eventually we had to admit defeat and I googled the crap out of meringues and how to make the peaks 'peak' - or in my case, make peaks at all. That's when we discovered that a cool glass bowl should, for whatever reason, be infinitely more effective than a plastic one (like we were using). And oh yes, it was. I broke and separated 3 new eggs (in individual cups, of course) and whisked them for all of a minute in the glass bowl before they starting changing from transparent goo to white froth. Within 10 minutes the meringue was done - the pie was saved! - but what to do with our failed first attempt??

My husband had the solution: he was going to fry it up and eat it.

Now I'd like to point out here that I told him, in no uncertain terms, that this was a bad idea. Bad enough to fry up 3/4 cup of caster sugar and 3 egg whites - worse still when your husband insists on adding the 3 left-over egg yolks and a cup of soy milk.

But he insisted it would be tasty.

But even Rob in his delusional state thought of exactly the same thing I did when he started cooking. And that was this meme:

So much so that he donned his own pair of goggles to wear while he cooked:

(Note the beautiful looking Lemon Meringue Pie in the background. And ignore everything else).

His weird concoction of failed meringue, egg yolk and milk frothed and nearly exploded over the sides of the fry pan, only to shrink into a yellow, blobby mess, which he then ate with jam on bread...

And when the jam and bread ran out, he finished the rest off with tomato sauce.

And it wasn't until he'd eaten every last bit of this sugar drenched omelette monstrosity and banged his plate down that he said, 'Well. That was disgusting.'

Some days I really just don't get how my husband's mind works.

Mad Piping Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 04:53:00 +0000

After mindlessly surfing the interwebs looking at cakes and such, I have decided I need to hone my piping skills so I can create awesome stuff like this:

How's THAT for mad piping skills??

I mean, a Star Trek Borg cake? Who thinks of this??! And who's talented enough to pull it off??!

I have no idea who the baker is, but kudos to you, anonymous baker. You are super awesome.

Farm Fun :)

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah :)) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 03:25:00 +0000

I've finally finished the picture I've been working on for the past week:

Ta-da! It's a farm :)

Oh, and there's a black and white version for the blog:

I actually chose a farm theme for a few reasons:

1) It's really cute.

2) It works as a fun and interactive picture/colouring page (note each animal comes in a different number: 1 frog, 2 cows, 3 birds [or black cockatoos to be specific], 4 chickens and 5 ducks) so you're learning numbers and animals at the same time. I'm such a visionary :P
3) It helps me learn Polish.

That sounds random and unlikely, but let me explain...

I'm trying to learn (some very basic) Polish, seeing as my Dad's family is Polish and all. (Considering my Mum's family is English I get off easy on that side).

Anyway, I downloaded this awesome free language learning software thingy from Byki, and I'm learning some basic phrases and words - like animal names, for instance.

So drawing this picture I kept thinking to myself ptak (P-tuk) while doing the birds, krowa (Crow-va) while doing the cows, kurczak (Cool-chack) while doing the chickens, kaczka (Kudg-ka) while doing the ducks, and żaba (Ja-ba) while doing the frog. And those animal names are firmly lodged in my brain now :)

I'm learning!

When reading that last line you have to envision Ralph from The Simpsons when he comes out of his room with his onesy on upside down saying, 'I dressed myself!'