This week I received a package from Kristy S in Queensland. It was a most lovely and unexpected gift.
I wasn't expecting any parcels so I was surprised to see the postman holding a package at my door. I turned the parcel over in my hands, saw the 'from' address and I instantly had a jolt of excitement run through me. I guess without being conscious of it, my mind had worked out by the size, dimension and weight of the box what was inside. I'm glad I was alone because I tore the paper off like a woman possessed.
My very first temari gift. I have made many temari to give for gifts but I've never participated in a GITS (Great International Temari Swap) through TalkTemari so I have never received one from another temari maker. Kristy took some beautiful pictures which are posted at her website. Please click here to have a look... you will link to Kristy's blog. The base thread is a gorgeous shade of deep blue (Kristy knows blue is my favourite colour) and the purple toned threads used for stitching the design are just divine.
Thank you Kristy you made my week!
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Ice-cream Feast
I bake a lot at Christmas and my assigned course for our movable Christmas Day feast is usually dessert. The last few years have seen the weather in Perth get more extreme, the cold is colder and the heat is hotter so it is particularly nice to have something to cool down with during a hot Christmas Day afternoon.
Today I'm making some of my family's favourite Christmas goodies and I'm going to share them with you. These recipes are quite quick to whip up (especially if you can find skinned nuts) and they are almost always the first things I make because they can keep for weeks in the freezer. Let's begin shall we...
Hazelnut Fudge Ice-cream Layer Cake.
You will need:
400g Hazelnuts
150g Butter, softened
1C Pure Icing Sugar
3 Eggs
250g Dark Chocolate
1/4C Kahlua or Tia Maria Liqueur
2-3 Litres of good quality creamy Vanilla Ice-cream
Here's what you do:
Step One:
Heat the oven to 200C and roast the nuts on a sheet tray in the oven for 10 minutes until the skins begin to loosen. Remove from the oven and place a clean tea towel over then a thick towel, this will insulate the nuts and help the skins to come off more easily. When the nuts are cool enough to hold, rub them in the tea towel until the skins come away. Roughly chop about half of the nuts.
Timesaver: Buy your hazelnuts pre-roasted and skinned.
Step Two:
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until the colour becomes pale. Add the eggs one at a time, beat well. After you add the eggs the mixture will split, but don't worry because it will mix back together when you add the chocolate and Kahlua.
Step Three:
Melt Chocolate by you favorite method (I microwave on 50% for 30 second bursts) and stir with a dry metal spoon until smooth. Stir the warm (but not too hot we don't want to scramble our egg mixture) chocolate and liqueur into the butter mix. Try not to eat all this yummy mixture.
Step Four:
Sprinkle the chopped nuts over the base of a baking paper lined spring form pan. Pour half of the chocolate mixture over the nuts and freeze for 30 minutes. [You can use any size tin but the smallest I'd use is about 26cmX7cm round. If using a bigger tin you'll just have a thicker ice-cream layer.]
Step Five:
Stand ice-cream at room temperature until soft (I use a 4 litre tub and it takes about 15 minutes to soften on my kitchen counter). Spoon ice-cream over the chocolate layer and press down using the back of a spoon, fill until there is about 2cm of space in the tin. Pour over the remaining chocolate mixture. Freeze for about 30 minutes and then use the remaining nuts to cover surface. You may need to gently press them into the topping. Cover with foil and plastic wrap to keep out frost crystals. Freeze at least six hours before serving.
To serve: Use a platter preferably with a slightly raised edge to contain any melting ice-cream. Remove cake from freezer to counter for 5 minutes and just before serving gently open the spring to release the pan base, peel back the paper as you slide the cake onto the serving dish. Slice with a sharp knife, serve immediately and return remaining cake to the freezer before it melts away completely. I usually store it back in the spring form tin or in an empty ice-cream container.
Raspberry and Meringue Ice-cream Cake.
You will need:
2 litres good quality creamy Vanilla Ice-cream
500g Raspberries (use berries of your choice fresh or frozen)
100g Meringue nests
Here's what you do:
Step One:
Line base of a spring form tin with baking paper. I seem to have lost yet another one of these tins so I am showing a regular cake pan lined with two pieces of plastic wrap to help the cake come out of the tin at serving time. Note: this would look nice made in a pudding tin too.
Step Two:
Scoop softened ice-cream into a large bowl. Add berries and gently crushed meringue nests. Stir until well combined. [I don't have a bowl big enough to do this all at once so I usually do this in two batches.]
Step Three:
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and press gently to smooth the top. Cover with plastic wrap and foil to exclude frost on the surface. Freeze at least six hours before serving. The last pic shows how much is left from 4 litres of ice-cream after both recipes are made.
To serve: Use a platter preferably with a slightly raised edge to contain melting. Remove cake from freezer to counter for 5 minutes and just before serving gently open the spring to release the pan base, peel back the paper as you slide the cake onto the serving dish. Slice with a sharp knife, serve immediately and return remaining cake to the freezer before it melts away completely. I usually store it back in the spring form tin or in an empty ice-cream container.
When I rubbed the skins off my hazelnuts today I made sure I saved them. I'll add them to some rice hull for a special Christmas temari. Let me know if you try either of these recipes and what you thought.
Enjoy your day.
Today I'm making some of my family's favourite Christmas goodies and I'm going to share them with you. These recipes are quite quick to whip up (especially if you can find skinned nuts) and they are almost always the first things I make because they can keep for weeks in the freezer. Let's begin shall we...
Hazelnut Fudge Ice-cream Layer Cake.
400g Hazelnuts
150g Butter, softened
1C Pure Icing Sugar
3 Eggs
250g Dark Chocolate
1/4C Kahlua or Tia Maria Liqueur
2-3 Litres of good quality creamy Vanilla Ice-cream
Here's what you do:
Step One:
Heat the oven to 200C and roast the nuts on a sheet tray in the oven for 10 minutes until the skins begin to loosen. Remove from the oven and place a clean tea towel over then a thick towel, this will insulate the nuts and help the skins to come off more easily. When the nuts are cool enough to hold, rub them in the tea towel until the skins come away. Roughly chop about half of the nuts.
Timesaver: Buy your hazelnuts pre-roasted and skinned.
Step Two:
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until the colour becomes pale. Add the eggs one at a time, beat well. After you add the eggs the mixture will split, but don't worry because it will mix back together when you add the chocolate and Kahlua.
Step Three:
Melt Chocolate by you favorite method (I microwave on 50% for 30 second bursts) and stir with a dry metal spoon until smooth. Stir the warm (but not too hot we don't want to scramble our egg mixture) chocolate and liqueur into the butter mix. Try not to eat all this yummy mixture.
Step Four:
Sprinkle the chopped nuts over the base of a baking paper lined spring form pan. Pour half of the chocolate mixture over the nuts and freeze for 30 minutes. [You can use any size tin but the smallest I'd use is about 26cmX7cm round. If using a bigger tin you'll just have a thicker ice-cream layer.]
Step Five:
Stand ice-cream at room temperature until soft (I use a 4 litre tub and it takes about 15 minutes to soften on my kitchen counter). Spoon ice-cream over the chocolate layer and press down using the back of a spoon, fill until there is about 2cm of space in the tin. Pour over the remaining chocolate mixture. Freeze for about 30 minutes and then use the remaining nuts to cover surface. You may need to gently press them into the topping. Cover with foil and plastic wrap to keep out frost crystals. Freeze at least six hours before serving.
To serve: Use a platter preferably with a slightly raised edge to contain any melting ice-cream. Remove cake from freezer to counter for 5 minutes and just before serving gently open the spring to release the pan base, peel back the paper as you slide the cake onto the serving dish. Slice with a sharp knife, serve immediately and return remaining cake to the freezer before it melts away completely. I usually store it back in the spring form tin or in an empty ice-cream container.
Raspberry and Meringue Ice-cream Cake.
You will need:
2 litres good quality creamy Vanilla Ice-cream
500g Raspberries (use berries of your choice fresh or frozen)
100g Meringue nests
Here's what you do:
Step One:
Line base of a spring form tin with baking paper. I seem to have lost yet another one of these tins so I am showing a regular cake pan lined with two pieces of plastic wrap to help the cake come out of the tin at serving time. Note: this would look nice made in a pudding tin too.
Step Two:
Scoop softened ice-cream into a large bowl. Add berries and gently crushed meringue nests. Stir until well combined. [I don't have a bowl big enough to do this all at once so I usually do this in two batches.]
Step Three:
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and press gently to smooth the top. Cover with plastic wrap and foil to exclude frost on the surface. Freeze at least six hours before serving. The last pic shows how much is left from 4 litres of ice-cream after both recipes are made.
To serve: Use a platter preferably with a slightly raised edge to contain melting. Remove cake from freezer to counter for 5 minutes and just before serving gently open the spring to release the pan base, peel back the paper as you slide the cake onto the serving dish. Slice with a sharp knife, serve immediately and return remaining cake to the freezer before it melts away completely. I usually store it back in the spring form tin or in an empty ice-cream container.
When I rubbed the skins off my hazelnuts today I made sure I saved them. I'll add them to some rice hull for a special Christmas temari. Let me know if you try either of these recipes and what you thought.
Enjoy your day.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Gingerbread things
Over the years I've learned that perfectly Martha Stewart moments only truly exist when kids are a bit older (or possibly not actually helping). On Wednesday night after dinner and tree decorating Mr W and Miss D decorated the gingerbread house. My brother did the house frame construction and then the kids went all out covering the rooftop with as much candy as the structure could support. Here is how it turned out. The top image is Miss D's roof side. I think she ate a fair amount of her candy before it even had a chance to get stuck onto the roof.
This side of the roof is Master W's. I did try to explain that his bears would be upside down when the roof was put on the house but (almost) 9yo's know so much better than their Mother. His writing in icing is better than mine of course so maybe he does know better.
I can almost feel myself slipping into a diabetic coma from the sight of it. My brother wrote the kids initials here on the end of the house. The 'curtains' are interesting... very jailhouse chic. The kids (young and old) all enjoyed making this gingerbread mansion... it is a fun tradition that I hope will continue for many more years.
On Thursday we made gingerbread men. I had intended to just have W and my DH making them as a family activity but somehow we ended up with 2 of the neighbourhood kids helping out too. This meant that my tiny kitchen was too full of people so hubby got kicked out. Sorry no pictures of these as they all got nibbled up before I could take pictures, just as well too because some of them turned into conversation men after Wesley and I got tired of talking about whether or not he could have another cookie. Some had 'no' others had 'yes' and one had 'please' iced on them. Here are some gingerbread snowflakes we made yesterday to use up the icing and left over dough. The one with the lime tictac stuck on top used up the very last of the icing.
Happy stitching/baking/shopping/decorating/other to you until next time!
On Thursday we made gingerbread men. I had intended to just have W and my DH making them as a family activity but somehow we ended up with 2 of the neighbourhood kids helping out too. This meant that my tiny kitchen was too full of people so hubby got kicked out. Sorry no pictures of these as they all got nibbled up before I could take pictures, just as well too because some of them turned into conversation men after Wesley and I got tired of talking about whether or not he could have another cookie. Some had 'no' others had 'yes' and one had 'please' iced on them. Here are some gingerbread snowflakes we made yesterday to use up the icing and left over dough. The one with the lime tictac stuck on top used up the very last of the icing.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Christmas temari finished
I've been stitching merrily away this week and I've finished my temari for the neighbours. It has been a fun project and I finished it just in time for December 1st.
I don't know what the rest of the world does but I know many Aussies use a simulated (fake) tree for Christmas. When I was a kid we used to have a real pine tree that my father would go cut down from the forest about a week before Christmas. Most years we were lucky to get it to survive the 7 days in the heat despite watering it every day. In our home we now use a fake tree... I like to think the real tree can stay in the forest to keep the air we breathe cleaner for everyone. This also means we can do a December 1st tree decorating get together. For many years my family have gathered on Dec1 for dinner and tree decorating and tonight will be no different. It is usually just a simple meal and then we spend the majority of the evening decorating and finalising plans for our Christmas day celebrations. We will also make the gingerbread house tonight... this is a new tradition we began last year so the grand kids can have some fun... we make two, last year one got nibbled on the night and the other lasted to Christmas day.
But before I send my son and maybe my niece down the street to hang our gifts on all the neighbours doors... here they are all stacked up on the plate.
And hanging individually on my mini tree. Cute huh? But not quite special enough so I decided to string them together with a tassel. I also added 3 rondell (I think that's what they're called) swarovski crystals to add a bit of bling.
And how the neighbours will receive them all strung together. I will use a paper clip bent open to place them on everyone's screen door with a little note.
Sorry this last pic is a bit fuzzy but I've got to run and get other things organised for tonight... or dinner might be even more simple than usual.
I don't know what the rest of the world does but I know many Aussies use a simulated (fake) tree for Christmas. When I was a kid we used to have a real pine tree that my father would go cut down from the forest about a week before Christmas. Most years we were lucky to get it to survive the 7 days in the heat despite watering it every day. In our home we now use a fake tree... I like to think the real tree can stay in the forest to keep the air we breathe cleaner for everyone. This also means we can do a December 1st tree decorating get together. For many years my family have gathered on Dec1 for dinner and tree decorating and tonight will be no different. It is usually just a simple meal and then we spend the majority of the evening decorating and finalising plans for our Christmas day celebrations. We will also make the gingerbread house tonight... this is a new tradition we began last year so the grand kids can have some fun... we make two, last year one got nibbled on the night and the other lasted to Christmas day.
But before I send my son and maybe my niece down the street to hang our gifts on all the neighbours doors... here they are all stacked up on the plate.
And hanging individually on my mini tree. Cute huh? But not quite special enough so I decided to string them together with a tassel. I also added 3 rondell (I think that's what they're called) swarovski crystals to add a bit of bling.
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Update on Chrismas baubles
Earlier this week I posted about the temari balls I've been making for the neighbours in my street. I am about half way done with this project now. Here is a new progress shot. I can see from the finger marks on the plate how many times this project has been moved around the coffee table.
All the small size temari are completed. Three of the medium size are also done and another has the obi band done and is awaiting the pole designs. There is still only one large temari finished, I am saving the large ones to stitch last. I still can't decide whether to string the sets of 3 together to make one graduated bauble or if they would be better as 3 separate pieces. I am leaning toward the prior but I've never strung temari together before so I need to work out the best way to do it, also I am trying to decide if they would look better hanging smallest to largest or largest to smallest... and lastly would I use a tassel and which thread would I used to make it?
The more I stitch these tiny temari the more I am falling in love with them... they're just so darn cute. I've been chanting to myself 'I am making these for all our lovely neighbours' from time to time as I stitch but truthfully the neighbours could possibly end up with baked goods for Christmas instead of these temari.
Happy stitching!
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