Ellie's second birthday party

In the weekend it was my friend, Jenny’s, daughter, Ellie’s second birthday. I was very excited to be asked to join in the celebrations. Ellie loved the icing flowers I made at my last cake decorating class and so as my contribution to the birthday spread I made these cute little miniature cupcakes – pink of course, because what else for a two year old girl! I used another crabapple bakery recipe for the cupcakes – they had only egg whites in them instead of whole eggs which gave them a lovely light flavour. I also added a dash of violet syrup which you couldn’t really taste. I added the violet syrup into the cream cheese icing as well –once again you couldn’t tell it was there, but it just added a hint of something.



I also made these # 2 biscuits, using my shortbread recipe that I use when I am decorating as it has a firmer texture than my other shortbread recipe (250g butter, 1 c icing sugar, 1 c cornflour and 2 c flour). They look cute with the little pink sprinkles.


A photo of the birthday girl about to blow our her candles

Over the weekend the latest Taste magazine arrived. There was a recipe for pommes Anna which I tried out on Saturday night. This is basically thinly sliced potato (I used agria which I love for when a floury potato is required) layered with butter and cooked on the stove top until cooked and crunchy. We had it with hot smoked salmon, baby spinach salad and vanilla sauce – essentially a mayonnaise flavoured with vanilla bean seeds, as demonstrated by Jason Dell at Savour NZ. The vanilla sauce sounds unusual but was perfect with the smoked salmon.