Its Been A Long Time

I think I last posted at the very beginning of July.... so it's been, to put it mildly, a while.

July was spent drinking my sorrows. Nothing to brag about, but the honest truth was that is what I was doing. February 2011 we (my family) lost someone very dear to our hearts. He should have turned 27 in July. It's hard. I think it always will be, and I can't say that every February and July will rush by in a haze of alcohol, nor can I say that that really means I'm coping, but there you go, my absence for July.

August should have brought on the fun times, with celebrating both my husbands and my own birthdays. Instead we found out we are expecting (due early next year), my husband ended up off work with a back injury and has only just been given the all clear. The baby news is exciting, but everything just came down to timing and it all kind of fell apart.

September, there were no reasons for anything to go wrong, but they say things come in three's. I was fired from my job for complaining about being underpaid. I was then diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia will be with me forever, and has already been with me for quite sometime, although, recently it has been debilitating. I feel relieved to finally have a diagnosis, but it leaves me in limbo at the moment, having to consider every little thing that I do as it could mean I end up unable to get up the next day.

All this brings me to October, which I hope will mean the end of all the bad luck and the beginning of something new. I've decided to take my being fired as a mostly positive thing, I have sought legal action in regards to it, and now with my diagnosis, having time off means I can focus on me.... and my food.

I hope that with the end of this year coming up and the start of a new one, to be able to announce an exciting collaboration with another talented cake decorator/imposter pastry chef. Together we will be able to offer a wider range of treats, look at regularly having market stalls throughout Canberra, and bringing delight to the residents of Canberra :)

I just want to thank you all for hanging round, I'll be updating some more in the next couple of days, with some recipes I've tried out, and more news on market stalls.

<3

Red Velvet Macarons

Nom nom nom. That is probably the best way to describe these. They. Are. So. Good. (hmm... just felt like Christian Grey... awkward) Anyway. These were experimental macarons. I had an idea, executed said idea, and resulted in beautiful, pillowy, deliciousness.

I guess I can blame my husband for the invention of these. He gets orders from his work mates for my cooking, and for this particular week, he'd been telling me cake pops were what the boys wanted. Until Thursday night when I was confirming it and he was just like no, macarons. Damn husbands. But it did result in these! Red Velvet macarons will definitely be on the menu when I'm all sorted. They are to die for. :)

Caramel Popcorn Cupcakes

I love how many different types of cupcake cases there are now. The options are endless as to what you can do with them. I made these caramel popcorn cupcakes. I adjusted a basic butter cake recipe and added caramel to it. Once cooked they got another dollop of caramel, followed by a variation of Zumbo's popcorn macaron filling and then finally topped with white mini marshmallows and yellow caster sugar.

Baby Shower Cake Pops and Pink & Purple Cupcakes

There's not much of a story here, I was asked by a gorgeous friend if I could help out with some sweets for a baby shower. I made 24 "baby" cake pops, complete with little bonnets and dummies, and, since it was a pink and purple themed baby shower, and I was trying out some new paper Eskimo cups, sent her off with 9 choc raspberry cupcakes as well :)

THE MACARON

At work I was asked if I could make a giant macaron. I accepted that challenge. The above macaron is about 6inches, both are vanilla buttercream with caramel drizzle. The bottom was my second attempt, and as you can see I've added more filling to give it some more height. Changed the colour a little as well, so it was a bit warmer. It also ended up being closer to 8inches.

They really weren't that hard to make. If you can make normal macarons, then you can make these. Its exactly the same piping process, just pipe the one circle for longer :)

Painted Cookies

Was feeling creative the other week. I'd always admired these from afar, certain that they would be much too complicated for me to attempt.

Not so!! Although time consuming, it was delightfully therapeutic to sit there and paint royal icing flowers. Plus they look absolutely stunning. Our Paper Eskimo rep gave us some of their straws to try, so I colour matched my cookies to the straws. Will definitely be doing these again :)

All Things Giant

Seems that the time is here for giant things. I'm enjoying making giant cupcakes and out did myself with giant macarons! My first attempt at giant cupcakes is the above, its a raspberry cake with a blue candy shell and vanilla buttercream. Ended up being my mums birthday cake.

The second cupcake (below) was for fun. It is very, very, very rich. A dense, moist chocolate mud cake wrapped in raspberry buttercream, placed in a dark chocolate case. OMG. The husband took this to work as we just wouldn't have been able to eat it all!

Down the Rabbit Hole

I was lucky enough to be asked to make some macarons for a Mad Hatter themed 21st birthday party. I love Alice in Wonderland, so I jumped at the chance to contribute.

The birthday girl requested 3 types of macarons, red with black raspberry filling, light pink with white vanilla and blue salted caramel. Aside from the black raspberry (it tasted great according to my taste testers, but I just couldn't get around that the black colour was actually raspberry, too weird for me) I think that they turned out wonderfully, and tied in well with the rest of the party food (bottom pic)

Would love to do more themed macarons, they were heaps of fun :)

Moving Right Along

I've been absent, again, for quite a while. Sorry!

Stepped back from things for a little bit, to re-assess where I want to be going, what I want to be doing..... Plus its winter, so I've been hibernating :)

So, I've come to the conclusion that Sweetness Is will be an up and running business by October, as long as it all gets approved.

What does this mean for my blog? It means mostly that there probably wont be as many recipes, as I can't give away all my secrets. It does mean though that you'll be sharing in my adventures as I travel down the road of setting myself up. I'll still be sharing all the orders I do and any markets I attend. I'll still randomly post things just to make you laugh.

Thanks for taking the time to check out Sweetness Is <3

Chai Tea Cake with Spiced Maple Syrup Buttercream

I was feeling creative over the long weekend. I'm not entirely sure why :)
I wanted to make a delicious warming cake to cheer me up through the cold winter days. I think I did it!! This is completely my own recipe and this time I even wrote down measurements as I went. Yay for learning.

I love chai, I guess I technically cheated by using tea bags, but I was thinking about ease.... and that's what I had in my cupboard.

CHAI TEA CAKE (makes a lot! I made 15 muffins and a 6inch cake, plus 1 6x1 inch test cake)

Ingredients:

Cake

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

250g butter, softened

1 1/2 cups milk

1 vanilla bean, seeds only

4 eggs

1 teaspoon mixed spice

3 chai tea tea bags

Syrup

150g caster sugar

100g water

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

2 chai tea tea bags

Ingredients

Before you start, place the milk and 3 tea bags in a pot and bring to an almost boil. Remove from heat and let infuse until cool.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius

Butter and flour your cake tin or muffin tray.

Double sift your flour, baking powder and mixed spice then set aside

Chop up butter and place in a bowl. Beat until light and fluffy.

Add both the brown sugar and caster sugar a little at a time beating well between each addition.

Add eggs one at a time. Beating well between each addition

On the last egg addition, also add the vanilla bean seeds.

Beat well.

Add 1/3 of the flour mix.

Beat until well combined, remembering to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Remove the tea bags from the milk.

Add half the milk. beat well.

Continue with another 1/3 of the flour mix, beat well

Then the other half of the milk, combine

Finishing with the last 1/3 of the flour mix.

Beat until combined

Pour mix into prepared tin and cook for about 1 1/2 hours. Check it after an hour, just in case.

Whilst the cake is in the oven, combine all the syrup ingredients (tip out the tea from the tea bag into the pot) in a pot, place on a medium heat and stir until dissolved and just starts to boil. Once sugar is all dissolved pour through a sieve to strain out the tea leaves and set aside to cool.

Once the cake has cooked, remove from the oven and straight away pour some syrup over the top. Leave for half an hour or until the tin is comfortable to touch, then turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

SPICED MAPLE SYRUP BUTTERCREAM (makes enough to fill and cover 1 layer 6 inch cake)

Ingredients:

1 chai tea tea bag

75g water

175g egg whites

200g caster sugar

50g brown sugar

300g butter, cubed, softened

2 teaspoons meringue powder

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

 Place the water and tea bag into a mug and let infuse for 10 minutes

In a bowl combine the egg whites and meringue powder until soft peaks form.
Place the caster & brown sugar into a pot, add the tea infused water and place on a medium heat. Stir gently until dissolved then turn the heat up to high and let boil until it reaches 120 degrees Celsius.
Remove from heat, start whisking your egg whites again and slowly pour the sugar syrup in. Once all the syrup is in turn the mixer up to high and beat until firm glossy peaks form and the bowl has cooled.
Turn mixer down to low and slowly beat in the butter a couple of cubes at a time until smooth and creamy.
Finally add the maple syrup and cinnamon, beat a little more.

You can either slice the cake in half and fill the middle then ice it, or just ice it.
I filled it and then piped roses onto my cake. My first attempt at roses on a cake lol

Quilted Heart Cookies

I wanted to make a simple cookie over the weekend. I thought hearts are gorgeous and simple. Cupookie posted at the beginning of June some beautiful monochromatic cookies that inspired me to try it out. Minus the lustre spray.... and the perfectly neat icing. But it had me thinking simple but stunning. Maybe not so simple. Each little diamond was piped one at a time and then left to dry then dusted in rainbow dust, then the other little diamonds were piped in. I enjoyed it, but I may have eaten a few too many cookies in the process of icing them :)

Macarons for an Engagement Party you say? On Saturday? Oh dear!

I'm still not sure how I ended up, on a Thursday night, making 90 macarons for a Friday pick up for an engagement party on Saturday.

I felt a little bad for the woman? She'd been quoted almost $500 for 120 macarons. I never realised just how lucrative the macaron business was. I totally need to jump on that bandwagon!

Anyway, so that is how I spent my Thursday night, cooking cooking cooking. The lady for whom the macarons were being made was just lovely. She was happy to have one flavour, and the colours were nice and easy. I even had a bit of fun with the pink ones, adding a bit of glitter to them :)

So she got salted caramel macarons in 3 flavours. All boxed up. Hope the engagement party goes well.