{Celebrate} A Little Backyard Sweetness!

It has been a very hectic few weeks here and obviously some sort of astrological  force is in my house of health!!  We seem to be on a bit of a merry go round with sickness circling around us and wondering when it will end??

My poor little girl Kaitlyn got terribly ill with her Asthma 2 weeks ago and suffered one of the worst attacks yet but now she is on new medication and is breathing easy!!  It was rather scary when she was not responding to the medications and l was dreading that she might be hospitalised but with many trips to the doctor she is now 100% better!

Unfortunately she had to have a week off from school to recover but this gave me an excuse to have a little picnic in the backyard!!  Audrey really loved having her Big Sister home and had been nagging me for quite a while to have a picnic in the backyard but this was back in winter and finally the sun came out so l indulged in the idea!!

Unfortunately it was a little too hot and after about 10 minutes of eating yoghurt with raspberries and sipping on Pink Lemonade we decided it was time for some sprinkler fun!!

I was so happy to capture these photos of the girls having fun in the sun!!  We ended the day with some yummy mini cupcakes with frosting out of a can and chocolate chips of course!!

The Girls loved it!!  A SWEET Day indeed! Pitty Byron wasn't able to join in on the fun but we managed to save him some sweet treats to eat!

So remember to Bake, Create and Celebrate!
Bye for now...
Larissa

{Celebrate} The Charm of Hentley Farm Wines - Where the Winery comes to YOU!

A couple of weeks ago we had a wine tasting at my brother's house, where our favourite vineyard came to us with their wonderful wines!!  It was a great night shared with our red wine lover friends and Matt from Hentley Farm.  I thought it was quite novel for me to create a savoury table for the evening but of course l could not resist putting in a couple of sweets!!

I wanted to create a rustic yet sophisticated atmosphere so l decided on a brown, beige, cream and gold colour palette and found a lovely textured fabric to use as runners on the buffets and cut strips to tie bows around the vases.  I also used an old brown suitcase as a riser to put the desserts on and l thought it was rather a nice touch since they were travelling to us!!  I used my faithful canvas and covered it in various papers and then used the brown glitter alphabet stickers from Merci to write " The Charm Of Hentley Farm Wines" to set the scene!  I also used the free "Thanks Giving" printables by Love the Day for the food labels which really complimented my colour scheme and l loved the elegant damask pattern. http://blog.catchmyparty.com/2010/11/15/free-thanksgiving-party-printables-from-the-love-the-day/

My sister in law (to be) and l created some wonderful finger food to accompany Hentley Farm's Big, Bold & Beautiful Wines!!  There were 11 wines on tasting and we created a dish to compliment each wine so ... yes ... we were in the kitchen all day but we worked so well together that l even had time to go home and get ready and attempt to take some photos of the table before everyone arrived! (I really need to learn how to take great photos so if anyone is out there and wants to teach me please .... pretty please let me know!!!)

The dishes we created were:

Cheese & antipasto platter with stuffed pepperdews
Crustini topped with chicken liver pate
Pastry cups with smoked trout mousse
Crustini topped with smoked salmon and creme friache
Stuffed mushrooms with ricotta and herbs
Goats cheese and caramalised onion pastries
Seared beef fillet with spinach & pesto
Redcurrant pork belly with an apple, craisin and almond slaw
Mini fillet mignon
Lamb shank filo pastries with pepperberry yoghurt dipping sauce
Lamb cutlets with fig paste glaze
Dark chocolate truffles with a gold dust
Chocolate caramel brownies with damask chocolate topper

It was a Fabulous evening!  Maybe a little on the warm side for a red wine tasting (I blame my hangover on the warm weather!!) but it was AMAZING nevertheless! Thanks to Deb & Al who opened their home for the evening and thanks to Matt from Hentley Farm who allowed us to share their wines with our wonderful friends and thanks to everyone who came to share in an evening of great food, great wine and great friends!

I will be back soon with another fun post of the girls backyard picnic but for now I say Bye Bye! 

So remember to Bake, Create and Celebrate!

Larissa

{Celebrate} Halloween Cupcakes and Spider Web Chocolate Tart

Last week l got into the Halloween Spirit and created some yummy treats for a lovely evening shared with my gorgeous friends and their families!  Halloween is not normally a tradition we celebrate but l had so much fun getting my spook on this year and getting a bit spookalicious in the kitchen!  I also had a bit too much fun turning Byron into a Zombie complete with fake blood and ash skin!!

It was a great night and the kids had such a great time trick or treating!  It is definitely not like it is in America but still a lot of families participated in this FUN Tradition this year, so the kids came home with a nice goodie bag of candy and even some licorice which l think was a trick!!!

For Dessert I made some chocolate cupcakes for the kids with a chocolate ganache and pumpkin and red back spider toppers made out of white chocolate fondant which l had a lot of fun sculpting!!  I then made my easy chocolate ganache tart for the adults http://sweetonparties.blogspot.com/2011/09/deliciously-easy-chocolate-frangelico.html and topped it with Wiltons white chocolate fudge pen and another red back spider!!  

So remember to Bake, Create and Celebrate!!

Take Care & Bye for now!
Larissa

{Bake} Sweetapolita's Chocolate Stout Cake was a Crowd Pleaser!!

Last week l was inspired by Rosie from Sweetapolita and her Divine Chocolate Stout Cake and jumped at the chance to bring dessert to my brother's place on Saturday night just so l could try it!!

This cake really did live up to it's reputation with it's rich moist centre and deep intense Chocolate aroma's which the stout seemed to enhance!  Best of all l didn't even need chocolate!!  This recipe calls for the use of Cocoa powder and from my experience cakes made with cocoa powder tend to be not as rich and moist like those made with melted chocolate, so yes l was pleasantly suprised with the results of this recipe!

I also had been itching to practice my rose piping skills so when Rosie used Donna Hay's Vanilla Buttercream Recipe that was the clincher!!  I knew that this cake would be DELICIOUS and l had the perfect medium to create a very pretty rose swirl cake!