Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Octonaut's to the HQ! A Photo Essay

Noah Turns 5!

Way back in February, just a couple of weeks into the school term, Noah announced he was having an Octonauts birthday party this year, and that he had already invited his entire class. His Birthday is in December!

Well, over the course of the year, and a fair bit of too-ing-and-fro-ing on Noah's part, we managed to whittle him down to inviting only his cousins and 5 of his "crew" from school for his Octonaut's party. We spent countless hours making a Giant Kelp Forest, Giant Jelly Fish, Baby Octopus', Sea Anemones, and Paper Plate Fish for decorations - the best part of the decorations was that they used up all the leftover decorations from previous parties, whether that be paper lanterns from the Baptism, Hungry Caterpillar Party and the Mexican Fiesta, or paper plates and cupcake holders from the same.

We set about creating Octonaut Invitations and making paper Octonaut hats for all the guests. For the food we made blue bowls of jelly with fish swimming in them, marshmallow pops and chocolate dipped Oreo cookies with the Octoalert symbol on them. 

My amazing Sister-in-law offered to help with decorations and did she deliver?! 3 foot Octonaut figures complete with all the details and nuances that make the characters come to life! My boys were blown away. So we used these as a backdrop for an Octonaut photo booth.

We booked a reptile show, Walkabout Reptiles, which was a huge success and all the kids were so brave holding lizards and snakes and even a salt water crocodile! We played a "Peso's Rescue Mission" game where all the kids were given "creature cards" and had to rescue their animal from a huge fishing net, and we had a treasure hunt for Calico Jack's hidden treasure.

Here is my photo essay of how the day went.




















Anybody need any Octonaut Decorations?

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Happy Birthday Pop!

It is cake making time! Pop's birthday in addition to minding my nephew for a few hours created the perfect excuse for some cake making. Being that we have a "gluten-intolerant" family member I am constantly on the lookout for recipes which accommodate everyone's dietary requirements. So when my Norwegian/Los Angeleno friend posted a photo of a pavlova cake she had made it ticked all the boxes - though it is ironic that I received a Norwegian recipe for an Australian cake. Thankfully the recipe came in both Norwegian and English.

What fun we all had making Pop's birthday cake - and eating it!
 


Pavlova with Mascarpone Cream and Raspberries
The ingredients:
4 egg whites (room temperature)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp white wine vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar as that was all I had)
1 tsp cornflour (the gluten-free variety)
1 tsp vanilla extract
255g mascarpone 
3/4 cup double cream
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar (I used a vanilla bean and 1 tsp extra icing sugar)
285g fresh raspberries

The recipe:
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. 
Draw a 22cm circle on a baking sheet.
In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed, add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until the mixture resembles glossy shaving foam (We used the Kitchenaid for this step - so easy! I love my Kitchenaid).
Whisk in the vinegar, cornflour and vanilla extract together.
Line a baking tray with the marked baking paper.
Spoon the meringue inside the circle making a slight dip in the centre of the meringue so that the outside edge is higher than the centre.
Bake for 1 hour. 
Turn off the oven and leave the meringue inside to cool with the door just ajar.

Whisk the mascarpone with a wooden spoon until soft.
Whip the cream with 1 tbsp of icing sugar until soft peaks form.
Mix cream with the mascarpone, a little at the time.
Add the rest of the icing sugar and the vanilla.
Taste to see if you need more sugar.
Spoon cream onto the top of the cooled pavlova.

Use a fork to lightly mash half of the raspberries and pour over the cream topped pavlova.
Scatter the other half as garnish on top of the pavlova.

The result:
Gorgeous. Delicious. Decadent. I may have overwhipped the cream and I fear it was more butter-like than was desirable, but it was still delicious.

Happy Birthday Pop!

Do you have any favourite recipes that cater for certain dietary requirements?