Eggless Peanut Butter Banana Cake Recipe

I have to say, ever since I tasted my first egg-free cupcake I was COMPLETELY hooked. In my opinion egg-free batters make for a more delicious, soft and moist cake and are JUST as versatile as your regular cake recipes... you can add anything to create the cupcake of your dreams and for some reason they just always work. Now I'm not saying I have anything against the humble egg. I still love my eggies, and I'm certainly not about to start substituting eggs in all my recipes (I love citrus tart too much to do that!!!) but as far as my cake baking is concerned, an egg shalt not grace thy Pyrex bowl from hence forth! Unless you know, there's a really awesome looking one on Pinterest that I just HAVE to make that contains eggs... gotta spread the tasty love right?
So I wasn't entirely sure on the quantities for this to begin with, I kinda just tossed the ingredients in and hoped for the best but it worked! Hoorah! You want to know something funny? For years I had no idea what the difference between baking soda and baking powder was and whenever I found a recipe that contained either, I'd substitute half my plain flour for self raising. Sometimes it worked, but as you can probably imagine most of the time it didn't. I never actually owned any baking powder until recently and now my opinion on it lies somewhere similar to the egg thing.... if you can use baking soda and baking powder in a cake recipe as a pose to self raising I'd definitely recommend it. It just makes the batter fluffier and takes away some of that density that using self raising can sometimes cause. If the recipe actually SAYS to use self raising though I'm going to use it but at least now I can stop skimming over a recipe just because it calls for two things I'd never used or even owned. Foiled by my own ignorance! Haha! But anyway, here's the recipe for a somewhat delicious cakey morsel and I do hope you'll love it as much as I do!

Eggless Peanut Butter Banana Cake

 Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius

1 cup lite milk 

1 tsp apple cider or white vinegar

3/4 cup castor sugar

1/3 olive/canola oil 

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups sifted plain flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 large banana cut into slices

1 large tbs of smooth peanut butter

Grease and line a spring-form cake tin with baking paper, place banana slices on the bottom of the pan. 

Whisk together milk and cider (or vinegar) in a bowl and set aside to curdle a little. Meanwhile mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. After a few minutes take your milk mixture and whisk in the sugar, the oil, vanilla extract and continue to whisk until sugar has dissolved, oil is incorporated and mixture appears foamy. Add your dry ingredients to the wet in two batches, whisking all the time. Whisk until batter is smooth and lump-free. Mix in peanut butter. Pour batter over bananas and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Leave cake to cool for 10-15 minutes before taking it out of the pan. Place cake bottom up (banana-side up) on a cooling rack to cool completely. Don't forget to carefully remove grease proof paper from the bananas, could make things tricky if you forget and ice the paper... you don't want that derp moment, trust me.  

Frosting

125g unsalted butter at room temp

1/2 mashed banana 

1 cup icing sugar

1/2 cup dried banana chips blitzed or crushed into smaller sized pieces

Using an electric beater, beat butter until it's pale and creamy. Add banana and icing sugar and beat together. You may want to use a bit more or a bit less icing sugar depending on consistency. If it's too runny add more icing sugar, if it's too thick add a little more mashed banana. Ice the sides and top of your cake and sprinkle crushed banana chips over the top. Boil the jug, make yourself a cup of tea and have a slice! 

Sweet as Cupcakes!

The oven in our lovely little rental is currently not working *insert extremely unimpressed face* and whilst we wait for the new one I can't actually bake anything. So I made amigurumi fibre art cupcakes instead! Ok so they're not NEARLY as tasty as the real thing but heck they sure are cute! I stumbled across the adorable little pattern at Bitter Sweet, it's free and fabulously easy to follow.... the cherries were my addition but working in rounds it's a simple magic circle, 6 sc in ring, 2 sc in each st around, 1 sc in each stitch around, 1 sc 1 scdec around, stuff, scdec around and the for the stem simple make a chain of 5, sew onto your cherry and sew the whole thing onto your cupcake :o) And to think just yesterday I was complaining about how much I disliked making amigurumi after creating Boris and now look at me! Hooked ;) 

Pie in the sky!

Well it's Friday, another week bites the dust! If only I felt up to celebrating! Yep, you guessed it! The morning sickness is still hovering around making life miserable...I was given a few days grace and TA DA it has returned. 14 weeks and 1 day...here was I thinking I'd be free and clear after 12 weeks...bummer right! Even though eating is the furthest thing from my mind today I'm *somehow* shuffling around the kitchen doing some baking. Hubby and I thought we'd have a little dinner party tonight, okay so there is only one person coming..and it isn't really a 'party' as such but SHHHHH I'll call it what I want! On the menu is my famous-ok-so-it's-from-a-recipe-but-I-totally-rock-it Chicken Cacciatore full of tomato-y goodness...very delicious! That of course goes with fresh crusty bread and steamed broccoli :o) I was going to cook my equally as loved homemade fettucine carbonara but my stomach and rich creamy things don't agree at the moment Grrrrrr
For dessert I thought I'd go for something classic that I've never tried before..I'm making a 'Pie in the Sky' high top apple pie made in a springform cake tin rather than a pie dish, and made with custard powder in the pastry. Sounded pretty tasty! It took me almost 2 hours pottering around our tiny kitchen preparing the pastry but I got there eventually...the pie is now in the oven and *fingers crossed* doesn't explode. I thought I'd give my ice cream maker another go and make up a vanilla bean egg-free ice cream to go with said pie too...it had better be worth it! The darn single vanilla bean cost me $14! I have had to take alot of breaks mid-cooking and preparing to sit down and wait for the nausea to pass but I'm determined to get it all done! I am so tired of toast and lemonade! I am having something delicious for dinner tonight damnit! (stay tuned for later tonight when I eat my words and wish I'd had toast instead!)

Pie pre-oven... Ok FINE I used tinned apples too...VERY unlike me but the cost of the vanilla bean cut into my apple budget. Cooking on sweet f/a cash means sometimes you have to cut a corner. Nevermind, I'm sure everything will be delish anyway. Also I don't know why but as soon as I started working on the pie this song got stuck going round and round in my head..so now I'm going to stick on yours haha! Happy Friday! I certainly have High Hopes of getting all this done.

Oodles of gingerbread, another lovely scarf and a huge trip to plan!

I told you I loved this pattern! :o) I've made another one in this really gorgeous green as a gift to a close friend of the family. It's lovely and soft and I really hope she enjoys it!

 

These past few days have been a bit hectic here at Shmoogle Bean HQ... me being sick on and off (cause still unknown!) makes for slow progress! I recently made up my annual batch of gingerbread men and sent them in with my husband to work to share with the staff he works with and the lovely librarian ladies. From what I hear they were well received :o) I always make extra for the cleaning ladies, the grounds keeper and office staff as I really don't feel like many people give them thanks at the end of each year for all the hard work they do. Last night saw yet another Christmas gift finished and checked off my list.... I am running VERY low on time to get them all done!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!! But I'll manage :o) I'm not even going to think about how many I still have to do because I may fall over but swords up and charge onwards! The trick is not to look down!
I call this, my Bubblegum Hat hehe

Pretty neato right?

What are you doing for Christmas? Going anywhere?

We are!! To Albury in fact ^.^ Yup, on the 22nd of December hubby, myself and our two fur babies will pile into our clunky old car at 3am and head off from Armidale for a 13 hour drive. The whole of my husband's family (his 4 other brothers, their wives/girlfriends, his sister, nephews..everyone!) will be at his parent's house this year so we're making the great annual migration to join in :o) Previously our funds weren't going to allow us going anywhere but it turns out we get a bit of holiday loading from last year *jumps up and down with glee* and we will make it! Hoorah! I'm not entirely sure whether I'm looking forward to the drive itself though... although we're planning every stop, fuel refill and snack break it's always nerve wracking to travel anywhere over the Christmas period...especially over a long distance. Plenty of music for us, chew toys for the fur balls and we'll be alright. Needless to say we're both pretty damn excited!!!!! Now if only I could be sure I'll have all this pressies made in time! Eeeep! Oh and I guess I'm also a little nervous coz well, let's face it... I've gained a few kg's since the last time everyone saw me and I guess *shuffles feet* I'm just really self conscious. I'll live, it's not the end of the world... but it haaaas been bothering me just a tinsy bit.

Anyway MOVING on from that delicate (or chunky lumpy) topic..

oh look!
GINGERBREAD HOUSES! Sorry for the totally LAME-O photos but they are being stored in a giant blue plastic tub at the moment to keep them safe until they're delivered to my Armidale buddies this arvo :o) Seriously you open the lid and it smells like heaven in there... OM NOM NOM I made gingerbread houses last year too... from my own recipe actually ;) (smug face) haha but really if you'd like the recipe you can find it by clicking >>>HERE<<<
Ok so I'm not the most skilled decorator in the world, and my construction skills are a tinsy bit dodgy but they are holding together! Thumbs up! I could have taken them out of the box to take a pretty picture but it would disrupt the Tetris-like harmony inside the box and I'm too scared I'll break one haha









Now my icky sick self is going to hole up on the lounge for a while and watch Alien 2.

:o)

Willow trees and 3-day cupcakes

I love willow trees...they're my favourite kind of tree. They're beautiful! We have one over hanging our backyard :o) I actually found a lovely little nook of Armidale yesterday with willows all around.. it was so beautiful! Ok so I had to navigate across built up debris and kinda sank into the mud a fair bit but I got to where I was going eventually! Worth it!


Ours provides lovely shade, gives a gorgeous green glow when the sun filters through the tendrils...ours has recently become home to a family of ravens. Two very young birds sitting on a bough outside my house happily carolling away waiting for mum to feed them. They sound a bit like Velociraptors from Jurassic Park (which by the way, scares the beejeebies out of me!)

I guess it wouldn't be so bad if my little dog, the protector of the universe didn't feel the need to bark at them. My little dog feels the need to protect the yard against ANYTHING at ALL costs. He has little man syndrome. Completely harmless, just thinks he's a big tough Doberman.

He's not exactly terrifying! He may lick you to death but that's about it!

Hmmm. the 3-day cupcakes. No, it was not some insane multilayered difficulty of 1000 cupcake recipe...in fact it was just a cupcake recipe on Junior Masterchef for cryin' out loud! But they still took me 3 days.
This is basically how it happened:
Find recipe with intentions of making awesome cupcakes to consume with gusto. Lose enthusiasm. Find butter cake packet mix in pantry...regain some enthusiasm and proceed to make cupcakes the cheat way. I.e. not from the actual recipe

Scoop out a little of the centres, and put them away for the day. The next day I make the lemon curd and stick it into my cupcakes.... then they go back in the fridge...still unfinished. Why I couldn't finish them all at once on day one I have no idea. Anyhoo... day three (late last night) I pulled them out and finally made the meringue for them. The meringue for once in my life actually reached the right consistancy, but I burnt them under the grill....  I then ate 4 in a row they mustn't have been that bad; then again my standards for my own baking aren't that high and really I'll eat anything. So no problems eh?

Pinterest you failed me again!

Source: tonispilsbury.com via Tash on Pinterest

See that???? Put a marshmallow ontop of nearly cooked cupcakes and get instant yummy toasted marshmallow topping.....  You would think it would be easy....and you know, actually WORK but nooooooo.

I try it and get this.

-.- not impressed Pinterest, not impressed.

Rainbow Swirl Cookies!

Hiya guys! Happy Saturday morning! Truly the best part of any weekend I think :o) During the week I had a bit of fun and created RAINBOW cookies!! They sort of make me think of Hypno-Toad from Futurama... Hypno-Cookies? ;o)

INGREDIENTS

• 150g unsalted butter, at room temperature (nice and soft!)
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 egg
• 1½ cups plain flour

OTHER STUFF YOU'LL NEED FOR THIS BIT 

• 1 x mixing bowl
• An electric beater
• A flour sifter
• A wooden spoon
• 4 x brekky bowls (or four small bowls)
• Cling wrap
• Extra flour for kneading/rolling etc
• Four colours of food colouring (I'm using yellow, green, blue and red).
• A large cutting board or flat (CLEAN!) bench surface

It will also help if you have a kitchen sink full of warm water ready to rinse your hands in as you go....

MAKING YOUR BISCUIT DOUGH
In a mixing bowl  place your softened butter and sugar and using an electric beater, beat butter and sugar together until it looks light and fluffy! Add in your egg and vanilla and beat it all together so everything is all mixed in. Sift your flour into the big bowl with the butter. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the flour until it's mostly combined (just so the flour and butter mixture is stuck together)

COLOURING YOUR DOUGH!

Take 4 brekky bowls, and divide your mixture evenly between each bowl. Pour a little flour onto your flat surface then tip the mix from one bowl onto your bench and knead it until it forms a soft dough.

Poke your finger into the dough to make a small hole and add in 5-7 drops of your first colour. This is the fun part.... put a little flour on your hands and squish your dough between your hands (like playdough!!) until all the colouring is mixed into the cookie dough!

Next take some cling wrap and tightly wrap up your ball of dough.

Repeat this process for the other 3 other bowls of cookie dough mixing in a new colour to each batch.
Place all your wrapped up balls of dough into the freezer for 10-15 minutes until it firms up enough to roll out. You could put it in the fridge but I find it takes a little long that way... the freezer is much quicker! Just be sure to set a timer so you don't forget about them! You don't wanna do that, trust me hehe!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED FOR THE NEXT STEP

• Baking paper or Greaseproof paper
• A rolling pin
• Extra flour for kneading/rolling etc

Preheat oven to 160 degrees (Celsius guys!!)

For the next bit, before taking the dough of the fridge, make sure you have your rolling pin handy, a bit of extra flour for rolling and a large sheet of baking paper.

Take your dough balls from the freezer. Unwrap one and sqeeze it a little between your hands to re-soften it just a little bit. Roll out one colour on your floured surface about 1/4cm thick.

Repeat with the other three colours. As you roll each piece out, lay it on top of the last cookie dough sheet on the baking paper til you have a flat stack of coloured doughs. Using the rolling pin, roll over the layers a few times to get them firmly pressed together. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes to let it firm up a bit.

ROLLING UP AND BAKING YOUR COOKIES!
Take out the sheet of dough from the fridge and using a sharp knife trim up the layers into a rectangle.

Starting at one end, begin to tightly roll up the layers til you end up with a big coloured rolled up sausage of cookie dough! Roll up the cookie sausage in cling wrap tightly and pop in the fridge for 5 minutes. Unwrap the dough and using a sharp knife, cut off slices about 1/2cm thick and place slices onto the baking tray.

Bake cookies for 20 minutes. The cookies won't brown and they will be very soft when you take the out at the end of baking time, that's perfectly fine! They will harden up as they cool :o) Leave them on the baking tray a little while before using a spatula to transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling completely! And guess what? We're done!!

Spiced Candied Orange Cupcakes

The sweetness of orange, thick juicy syrup, the sharp bite of ginger and hint of cointreau... You definately can't go wrong!! The smells coming from kitchen at the moment are simply to die for! So what am I doing? Experimenting!! I had a lot of oranges that were nearing their useful life and decided to try something a little different with them. Today I am making Spiced Candied Orange Cupcakes! OH MY are they delicious!

Now I need to fess up here before I go any further...this isn't purely down to my genius cooking skills (as much as I'd like it to be!) meaning it isn't ALL my recipe. It's a combination of a few I've found online (will post links back to the original as I go) BUT I have added my own little twists to make them unique and truly DELICIOUS! It combines some of my favourite flavours and I think for an experiment I can say it was a success! Enjoy!!  

For the candied oranges:

(click here for the original recipe) 

• 2 oranges
• 1 shot (30ml) Cointreau
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 sugar

In a small frying pan, combine the water and sugar and bring to the boil. Cut and segment your oranges as best you can, try not to have pieces that are too thick...I found this tricky so mine are various shapes and sizes! Haha Im not too much of a perfectionist though so it's all good.





I suck at segmenting!

Once your sugar syrup is boiling, add your orange slices, cointreau and ginger. Stir gently to combine and let simmer for about 1/2 an hour, stirring occassionally (carefully). The original recipe says 20 minutes but I found mine needed that extra 10 minutes. Your orange slices should be nice and tender but still intact when done. Remove slices from the syrup and let cool/drain on a wire rack. Pour the remaining syrup into a bowl and set aside... taste a tiny bit on a spoon....isn't that divine!?





NOM NOM NOM candied oranges!!!

For the cupcakes

Use your favourite basic vanilla cupcake recipe for this stage... there is nothing new or odd you need to add, just make and bake as usual! I've use the Taste.com Basic Cupcake Recipe today. Just a note if you do use this recipe...the batter will be very thick but when you cook it they even out and the tops round quite nicely :o) Mine are more giant muffins sized than cupcakes but oh well hehe!

For the Icing

One cup of plain 'ole icing sugar with 1/2 a tsp of ground ginger mixed in will make you a divine glaze! Now that syrup you set aside earlier? You'll be using that to mix your icing...Start with one tbs of syrup and combine with water little by little with the icing sugar slowly adding more liquid if needed until your mixture is at the right consistancy. You want it thick enough to coat the top of your cupcake but not so runny that it just falls straight off. Add in a tinsy bit of yellow food colouring... just for the aesthetics!

Top off each cupcake with a candied orange slice and CONSUME PEOPLE CONSUME! I'm not the best cupcake decorator... I'll admit! But they are DEFINATELY tastier than I've made them look here :o) Trust me!

I find they're the perfect combination of everything... love them!!!

Xx

Retro rollerblading, zombies and too many drinkies

Goodmorning guys!!
Be warned, it's a rambling post!



What a morning I've had! I forgot how much a few drinks affects me :p I only had 5 and I was so sick thismorning! Oh well...spose it has been a while :p I seriously needed the night out though, everything was getting to me the way everything usually does and it all just sort of melted away.. it was nice :o) Let's face it, every now and then you just need a drink or two. So to catch up on my weekend so far:

#1 My baked goodies were very well received on Saturday! It was a lovely little get together! It turns out my friend Tiffy is between 9-12 weeks pregnant :o) She is so excited to be a mum it was rubbing off on me a little!!

I love these! Whisk eggs, oregano leaves and cooked bacon bits together, poor into puff pustry inside a muffin pan. Bake for 30 minutes... TA DA! Except the wax paper stuck to them because I didnt have any greaseproof paper... so we ate a lot of it, but oh well :p

#2 Last night was Retro Rollin' in the 'Dale night at the indoor recreation centre... and I TOTALLY won best dressed!! I won a free movie pass, so that will be literally my ticket to Magic Mike next week tee hee! I most DEFINATELY suck at rollerblading....I'm not too keen on having wheels for feet but in saying that it had been about 12 years since I last gave it a shot, and I didn't fall over so I guess I wasn't tooooo bad. It was good exercise! I might head back next week and try and get a little better methinks... honestly I was embarrassing haha! It didn't help that a certain SOMEBODY kept skating past me making fun of me :p Then my hubby showed up and proved how awesome he was at the whole skating thing...and scared the pants of some poor girl on skates for the first time whom he whizzed past at some stupid speed. She squeeled and clung to the wall..It was a little funny.

This is the only photo I have of me before I went out...Im sure there will be more where I can show you my whole (prize winning hehe) outfit when the others upload their photos :D I went to Maccas for a coffee beforehand in my outfit... So many eyeballs look at you when you wear a swing dress in public!

And here is me taking a goofy shot of myself before I went to bed at midnight when I got home. Whilst drunk I had at the pub taken out my victory rolls and had super springy curlies..hehe! It was awesome!

#3 I will be finishing the AMAZING zombilicious prize for our 50 likers giveaway celebration today SQUEEEEEE I can't wait!!!!!!!! Stay tuned for that one peeps! I'll keep you updated on the fan page as to when that will happen.
#4 I seem to be coming down with a cold. I would attribute that to walking home in stockinged feet at midnight in an Armidale winter last night but I could feel it coming on yesterday morning, the walk probably didn't help though hey?
#5 I got woken up thismorning by the guy next door who decided that using a wood mulcher first thing on a Sunday morning was perfectly ok. GRRRRRRR man next door GRRRRR

 How was/is your weekend Beans??

When you'd rather be getting baked instead of baking

Let me be the first to say that so far TODAY HAS SUCKED CAMEL BALLS! I was happy, then I was sad, then I was ok, then I was depressed, then I lost focus, then I lost all will, then I gave up, then I ate junk food, then I went out and socialised a little and now I am ok again. Does that sound like a normal range of emotions for one person to go through in one day?? That's basically what I go through everyday...it's absolute bollocks. I felt like my mind and my actions weren't connecting and on more than one occassion I wanted to cry. At one point today I got extremely angry and then felt so lost because I didn't know how to handle it and that in turn led to more frustration. I tried playing music, I tried having a shower, my usual calming methods weren't having any effect :( I really wanted to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers but then I'd just feel even more frustrated that I wasn't doing something productive :/ Such are the stupid inner workings of my mind! I really wanted to be honest with you about my feelings and thought processes today, but the words are getting jumbled in my head and won't come out right, ARRRRRRRRGGG!!!!!!!

The plan was that I was going to get up thismorning, have a coffee, then get into the baking I wanted to do today. I knew something was wrong when I had no desire WHATSOEVER to cook anything! Normally cooking is my emotional safety net, it gives me comfort and calms me down; didn't work like today!!! Nothing turned out like it should have, which I HATE because less than perfect isn't good enough. AND I didnt even get to have my coffee! Some would say that was the problem and my day may have worked out had I not missed my caffeine fix. I doubt it though.

It was definately a good thing that my darling husband managed to escape work a little earlier today, I so desperately needed his comfort today. It's so fantastic when everything seems to be falling apart around you, nothing makes sense and you feel at sea that one person can turn the sun back on in your heart! It didnt help the fact that I was still pissed off at myself for my baking efforts though!

Those are my tim tam truffle pops. I have made these a million times  before but did they want to work out today???? NO! I have had no problems in the past making a white chocolate ganache as an undercoat on my truffles, it's always been perfect consistancy and covered beautiful. TODAY however, it was gloopy, yellowish and frankly looked like a form of bodily fluid (sounds great right?)

 
I managed to slop shop bought cake mix into bite sized patty pans relatively normally....

My cupcakes were a little less neat but hey, the batter mostly made it into the cups so ALL GOOD as far I was concerned.

My butter cake then proceeded to dismantle itself upon attempting to leave it's pan. It obviously no longer wanted to live and offed itself. Which was of no help to me!!! Hubby enjoyed eating the bits of cake anyway, so not a total loss.

This is my table BEFORE I started icing everything. My table is now covered in bowls of coloured cream cheese, icing sugar and crumbs. It's also 12.05am in the morning and I am not really in the mood to clean it. Looks like I get to make a mad cleaning effort first thing in the morning! I hate that!! I hate not being organised when I was meant to be!!

I made my mini cupcakes all pretty with blue and purple cream cheese icing

By this stage it was 5ish in the arvo, and I was going to make fondant roses for my bigger cupcakes but ran out of time and will power...so I made rainbow cream cheese icing instead.

These are my truffle pops in the fridge. I could only do half because the ganache kept dripping off so I needed them to harden before I could do the rest. I have not yet done the rest :/ So I guess I do that tomorrow too! I actually made them on sticks for the first time. And I had no styrofoam to stick them in so they're in a florist brick instead. The chocolate covers the horrid yellow white chocolate... so problem solved as far as I'm concerned.

Rainbow-ness!

So yeah... I dont even know where I'm really going with this anymore... Im uber despondant, my brain is frozen and the pinched nerve in my right shoulder is giving me hell. I am going to bed, that was my day basically, I'd elaborate, or be less vague and more descriptive my ability to formulate sentences has temporarily scampered. I should have given up around midday and had a beer instead.

Night all!



BEHOLD! my craftroom! you can actually SEE it!

Ok so it's currently 12.30am at morning...hubby is engrossed in a new book (who knew World of Warcraft had a fiction novel?? Apparantly they do..and it's not bad) two hours ago I decided I couldn't sleep so I donned some gloves and armed myself with bleach and totally just cleaned the bathroom to within an inch of it's life (providing it had one of course) AND cleaned/tidied and reorganised my craft room! YAY! There IS a floor in there!

see? FLOOR! and FEET!  

and look, there's actually room on top of my dresser now!! Ignore the bottles of lotions and potions, I have terrible skin and feet and both require a lot of TLC in the form of creams and stuff. In those drawers are my misc. crafting supplies such as twine, hair clips, spare bits and bobs, glitter collections etc. My scrapbook papers and embellishments, and one of those drawers is jam packed with ribbons, trimmings and lace! Pure heaven really!

Behold! My desk! And believe it or not this is clean! My crafty room isn't very big so to save on space I put a bookcase on top of the desk to give myself some shelves. On top is my chocolate mould collection, then it works down progressively from hot glue sticks to staples, to blank cards to jewellery making stuff, crochet doodads, and a Cosplay in progress. Plus my wig that lives on my lava lamp. Oh! And don't be afraid, that thing on my chair is just Larry, my posable felt furry plush spider I bought back from my honeymoon :o)

I even sorted through all my makeup and made it all neat and prettiful. And hey there's a reflection of me in the mirror in my moo cow jammies!

And you can just imagine how clean and shiny my bathroom is... I don't think you need photos of that haha! It also smells strongly of Exit Mould, Bleach and Ajax Bathroom but it is literally sparkling! Much like an unrealistic pussy Vampire named Edward.

So now I'm thinking I should haul my butt into bed! We have guests over tomorrow night and I intend on cooking up a storm! Polla alla cacciatora, crusty breads, tart au citron and other little goodies! And fear not for my healthy eating and weight loss plan, it's not in any danger. I just NEED to have a cooking bonanza! Being in the kitchen makes me a happy shmoogle bean! My hubby knows this, so he bought me the Season 3 Masterchef Australia cookbook and 4 mini individual tart tins for my cookware collection SQUEEE!! One VERY happy shmoogle bean!!!


There's that productive insomnia at work again! :p


Night night! (or goodmorning...or whatever!)

Wordless Wednesday ~ Cake Fail

Be sure to let your homemade ganache fully thicken before spreading it on your birthday cake ;o) It was still delicious though!

A bit of baking and a bad mood

Let me just state a very simple fact that I have learned today....

Baking + A Bad Mood = Guaranteed Disaster!!

I have an absolutely awful day, stress galore and just a tad moody and upset and it hasn't been progressing well. It's 11pm at night and I feel like bed is miles away from me, Im just so strung out! I do have herbal sleep assist pills that I can take but I try not to unless things are unbearable. I guess that's the fun of living with anxiety and depression! But anyway...

So I decided this afternoon after doing a bit of pinterest perusing (how neat is that word?) that I was going to make cupcakes. I wanted to make a few to share with our neighbours who I think are a bit shy, but seem very kind so they're sort of an ice breaker. I hope they like cake! So I decided I wanted vanilla bite sized cupcakes with tiffany blue icing, silver cachous and handmade seashell ganache chocolates on top... and thankfully despite the mood issues most of them turned out wonderfully and just how I had pictured! Probably a bit too over the top for their purpose, but inspiration must be made reality when the urge takes you!

Though of course, some kept falling over due to being a tad top heavy and the icing got ruined, and the chocolates wouldnt come out of their moulds despite a lot of frustrating banging on the bench (which probably annoyed my poor neighbours as we share a wall)...and one cupcake MIGHT have been flung at high velocity at the walls at some stage leaving a very artistic blue spatter on my white walls. Luckily at that point my wonderful husband came to the rescue and took over for me, while I very childishly stormed off to hide in our room and brood on my frustrations. And so here I am now! Reflecting on my terrible day and crankiness (is that a word?). It wasn't ALLLL that bad though, parts were good! For example I got hooked to watching a series called 'Spaced' which stars two of my all time favs Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, and I am absolutely loving it! And I also discovered that my strawberries which I may have forgotton about for a few weeks, and were looking very brown and 'crunchy' got some good watering yesterday and low and behold they have bounced back!! They're sprouting new leaves and going for gold the little fighters! They are very understanding of my lack of garden experience I think! Ohh, I almost forgot! My EXTREMELY naughty foxy decided he was going to make a load of havoc today and did everything he could to annoy me including ripping open a rubbish bag we had yet to take out and spreading it's contents all over my newly vacuumed loungeroom floor!! The little devil got kicked outside on his chain for a few hours after that, but then after dark fell we fell sorry for him and gave in to his whimpering and let him back in. He's been very sheepish since then, I think the lesson finally sank in!

I realised also that I am a bit behind in my 'Journey of Autumn' posts, I have a few for the coming days already drafted (you'll love them!) but all the trees turn so fast here that I'm going to need to work fast these next few days and get some snaps before there's no leaves left!! Just a note here...while Autumn in Armidale is just lovely, once Winter kicks in the place looks a bit like Russian winter. Bleak, grey and not a leaf to be seen! And did I mention FREEZING! It seriously baffles me as to why it doesn't snow here more often! I have some lovely paintings to show you, a few songs I've found (not mine, good Lord you don't want to hear me sing!) and there may be a short story in the making too.

So now that I have made my confessions and thankfully picked up on the bright sides of today, and started to ramble I definately think it is time for bed!