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Bee’s 5th birthday – My Little Pony fun party

children's party, Daily photo, Dessert table, family, Food, gifts Comments Off on Bee’s 5th birthday – My Little Pony fun party

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It took me ages to go through the million pictures we took at Beatrice’s birthday party but I finally made it!

The 11th of April we threw a fun colourful party for Bee’s 5th birthday. I decided that being so fortunate to live in such a big house, it’d have been lovely to celebrate it here, having a big garden and many rooms where the children could play and have fun.

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We had 17 chidren coming so I knew I had to get organised and not only prepare delicious fun food but get together some games to play.

We decided the theme of the party ages ago. To be honest I was quite firm that it would have not been a Frozen party!! Bee was not too disappointed as she’s been into My Little pony for a while now so I only needed to enphasize that the party would have been very colourful with a rainbow cake and she was pretty excited.

First of all  I was desperate to find a tutorial to make a pinata.  On youtube I could only find complicated tutorials so I decided to make one out of cardboard boxes which was easy to make, perhaps a bit time consuming but overall the outcome was quite pretty! I filled it with different sweets, paper flowers and lollipops. I made it cloud shape as this is the cutie mark that the mini pony called Rainbow dash has got on his side.

 

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Then it was the food. I wanted everything to be colourful and fun. So not only a Rainbow cake was a must but cupcakes, jellies, fruits and home made meringues had to match the colours of the rainbow.

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To make the bottles of water go along with the theme, I added just a drop of edible colour in each bottle and they looked so pretty!

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I wasn’t sure how to decorate these vanilla cookies so at the last minute I put these mini pony plastic toppers on top and voila’

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Can you see that there is something missing on this cake? The reason behind it is that (obviously) when we went to place the Rainbow dash made out of fondant, it literally fell apart! 🙁

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Broken pony…

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So we took a few pictures of the cake with no ponies on it and then used plastic ones.

IMG_0572Here again my obsession with paper straws,  I decorated them with pretty happy birthday straw flags.

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If you remember in my previous post I was attempting to make meringues for the first time, here they are again. These little kisses meringue tasted delicious, were light, plus very pretty to look at.

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These were plain vanilla cupcakes topped with vanilla buttercream and rainbow toppers made out of edible coloured fondant.

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After making these rainbow skewers I decided that this is the solution to get kids to eat more fruit. All children wanted one and there was none left!

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I made these homemade lollipops using corn syrup and decorated them with sugar sprinkles. I think they look fun!

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These were chocolate pyramids which I made using a plastic mould

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I underestimated how long it’d take to make this cake. I took me almost a day between baking the different layers, fill it, making the rainbow on top and making the swiss meringue buttercream in 6 different colours to match the outside with every layer of the inside. And when it was ready and I showed it to my husband guess what his reaction was? “Oh, this one, I was expecting something different…” URGH!

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One of the activities I had planned for the day was decorating cupcakes. I had previously baked one cupcakes and one pony cookie for each child. Then I had prepared a fondant layer shaped like a pony that the children had to decorate with all the different colourful sprinkles I put on the table.

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For the cupcakes they had pieces of fondant (each one was a different colour) which they had to roll and make a rainbow to recreate the cupcakes I made for the dessert table.

I have to say the imagination these kids had to create their own pieces of art left me speechless!

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Each child had a My Little pony name tag  so at the end of the party they could recognize their own creations and take them home.

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Then it was the table were all the kids ate their food. I had covered the water bottles with lovely rainbow printables and all plates, and table covers along with the bunting, the gorgeous balloons for the rainbow arch and the other foil balloons were from Partyrama. Great to find the whole themed party decorations in one place!

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The night before the party I found myself making lots of rainbow jellies. I’ve never been a big fun of jelly as we don’t really give it to kids in Italy but after this party I was left with quite a few jellies so my mom and myself started to have one after lunch just to try it (yes I’m not kidding I never had one before!) one after dinner and now we love it too!

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On the big table we had a platter full of colourful vegetables, more fruits, panini, crisps and crackers. Then my husband prepared pizza for the kids and for the parents who were pleased to be offered a beer or two too 🙂

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I spent every evening of the week before the party creating paper tails made out of crepe paper, for the kids to stick on this poster and cut 34 pony ears out of felt so the kids could put them on their head with little clips I had prepared.

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One of the best moments was when daddy started making candy floss! All the kids lined up to get one and went crazy about it!

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Each child took home a piece of the rainbow cake but still we were left with lots of cake, didn’t realised I made such a big one!

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The chilly wind didn’t stop the children going outside and playing in the garden

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And that pinata just didn’t want to break. After a while I just asked the kids to jump on it! lol

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It was the end of the party and I had prepared some goodie bags to give to the children. Each bag was filled with a different My little pony soft toys and the kids faces when I started to throw the bags in the air for them to catch, was priceless!

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After waving goodbye to the children, we suddenly look up and realised that in the sky there was a real rainbow!

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 What a perfect day it was, full of fun, friends, cake and many memories to keep forever.

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We are ALWAYS better with cake

Daily photo, family, Food, Parties Comments Off on We are ALWAYS better with cake

The weather is turning for the better and we have started to make the best out of it by enjoying our gorgeous outdoors and spending more time in our garden.

Easter Monday was incredibly sunny and warm, we could not have chosen a better day for a little treat (or two) outside in the sun.

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We moved the kids’ table and chairs outside, Bee invited her best friend over and all together (mummy and granny too!) we enjoyed some yummy cake.

For once I didn’t bake but took some yummy Kipling cakes out of the cabinet and laid them on pretty cake stands.

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 I had troubles keeping the kids away from these delicious cakes while I was setting them on the cake stand.

We had Cherry Bakewells, French Fancies and Viennese Whirls.

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These pretty colourful little cakes made the afternoon snack a delicious break.

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After having played for hours the kids were hungry and clearly delighted to be in for such a treat.

Plus they could not believe mummy was allowing them to eat so much cake!

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 Look at their faces! Sooo happy!

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 What a brilliant afternoon we had and  I enjoyed the cake to the fullest as for once I didn’t spend time baking it!

*This post is an entry for #betterwithcake Linky challenge,  by Mr Kipling. Learn more over on the Mr Kipling facebook page!

Get creative with chocolate – Vanilla and white chocolate choux buns

family Comments Off on Get creative with chocolate – Vanilla and white chocolate choux buns

Pretty often my friends ask me where I find the time to bake. Easy! The recipes I make may look pretty but they are fairly easy and quick to make. I’ve always loved creating even the simpliest recipe but presenting it in a pretty way and I guess that makes the difference.

With the new year I didn’t have any particular resolution but promised myself I would have started to bake/cook a different recipe every week so here I am.

This week I was inspired by Dr. Oetker  chocolate challenge which aims to encourage more people to get experimental by trying new chocolately bakes never attempted before.

I had a look at the yummy recipes on Dr. Oetker website and I was pleased to see a wide range of easy to follow recipes.  I picked a different version of a dessert that I used to bake when I grew up in Italy: Vanilla and White Chocolate Choux Buns (in Italy we call them bignè )

chocolate treatThere aren’t many ingredients you would need to make these and you can find them all at your local supermarket in the baking aisle. Dr. Oetker has a great range of products and tools to help you make a great chocolatey bake. You can choose between several varieties of cooking chocolate, chocolate decorations and powders available which will help you to create a delicious chocolatey bake with your own twist.

choux buns ingredientsI think I was about 8 years old when I first made profiteroles filled with cream and covered with dark chocolate. I remember my mum had different recipe books and every now and again I picked a new recipe to see if I could do different baking techniques. For some reason Choux buns have a reputation for being difficult to make…trust me if you follow the recipe step by step, they are easy to make and ready in just over an hour (included baking time).

bigneIf you want to give it a go I read a good tip which will give you great results! Just remember that the initial steam created in the oven will help the choux pastry to expand and will reduce cracking too. But when the buns have reached the desired size you should slightly open the oven door to let the steam escape and allow the pastry to dry completely. Come on, give it a go!choux bunsChoux pastry is light and crispy and once is filled with delicate cream it tastes divine. And to make choux buns look pretty sofisticated you  just need to create a linked heart decoration on top of each one (easy to do with a toothpick) and voila’ the perfect treat for an afternoon tea or  a dessert at the end of a meal is ready.

On Sunday we met up with some friends so I prepared some Vanilla and White chocolate choux buns that we enjoyed with tea and coffee after our lunch together.choux bunsIf you would like to try it,  you can find the recipe to make 12 Vanilla and White Chocolate Choux buns on Dr. Oetker website.vanilla choux bunAnd to get you baking Dr. Oetker is running a Twitter competition throughout March. To enter simply tweet @DrOetkerbakes a photo of a chocolate bake you’ve made and tell who you would like to share it with for a chance to win a deluxe hamper of chocolate products from Dr. Oetker using the hashtag #evenbetterbaking.white chocolate choux buns

This is why I love so much baking!  I get to spend more time with my daughter (who loves helping me preparing yummy recipes) and then I get to share my food with friends and family: a great way to enjoy life!

 

 

Coloured Mini Meringues

Daily photo, Food Comments Off on Coloured Mini Meringues

I’m all excited these days as I’ve started to organise Bee’s 5th birthday party so I’m super busy getting ideas from Pinterest, deciding what to bake, what games to do, how to organise the mini cupcake decoration session which I’m planning do to in between cake and games during her birthday.. many many things, and obviously I am loving it!

So far we only got the theme of the party and NOPE it’s not Frozen!!!! HURRRRAAAAYYYY!!!sweet meringuesBee has developed a liking for My Little Pony which I think it’s a fun, colourful and well… different cartoon! So the theme is set! Good! Now because of this theme I found myself googling rainbow cakes, rainbow decorations, sweets and while in the process, I came across of a picture that totally captured my attention: rainbow meringues!

They look loovely and super inviting so I decided to give it a go this week-end as I had some egg whites left in the fridge. I have to admit that in the past I’ve never been too keen on meringues as I think the texture is a bit funny for me.. I mean I get a weird feeling in my teeth when I bite meringues (just me?!!?)

BUT because they look sooo good, I had to make a batch!

colourful meringuesI found a great video tutorial online which I followed to the letter to see if I could really achieve the characteristic outer crispness typical of a meringue and the gooey bit in the inside. It worked!

I honestly never tasted meringues so delicious in my life! They are sweet but not sweet enough to stop eating them! Once you bite one you would NOT stop! Super yummy!

The recipe again, very easy, you just need to weight your egg whites and double the amount of sugar. Whisk them until you get a shiny consistency with hard peaks and you are ready to pipe them.crunchy meringuesDelicious! I’ll definitely make diffferent colours meringues for Bee’s party as they will look good on the dessert table along with other fun coloured desserts I’m planning to bake. Let’s get working!

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