Merry Christmas

Its arrived! Its here! Christmas!



I hope all of you have the happiest day, filled with fun, family and food...BUT also filled with the reason for Christmas... may your day be filled with the LOVE and WARMTH that only comes from our Saviour - Jesus Christ! I thank Him so much that He came and was the living sacrifice that I can belong to a bigger family, and have a sure and secure future!





May your day be merry and bright!

Three Cheese Muffins

Lunches for Shane are always a challenge. I am not always a morning person (ok, ok, so most of the time) so I like to be prepared for the 6am rush to be ready for 6.30am when Shane wizzes out of the door for work! So I love easy, ready prepared lunch that I can just pop into his cooler bag! I think these make a nice healthyish lunch that works for me!

And they were so super easy! Almost no effort...almost...

Just a couple staple ingredients and cheddar cheese, mozerella, feta cheese and bacon bits...

Mix it all up and spoon into prepared muffin pans...

Once baked, enjoy with a bit of butter! Yum!

 These freeze so well too, which is what I usually do!




 If you have any easy luch ideas, please be sure to post them in a comment here! I love new ideas!

Download the recipe card here:
Three Cheese Muffins

Carrot Cake

Wow! What a whirlwind of 2 weeks has just gone past, while everyone else I know has been calmly preparing for Christmas, my family has been frantically preparing for my baby sisters wedding...and yesterday the BIG day finally arrived. It was amazingly special! Hazel had made a fairytale picnic wedding! Congratulations to Howard and Hazel Wain :) I know you guys will have a very special marriage!

A while back Haz asked me to ice her wedding cake. I almost fainted! I love to bake, really I do, but a wedding cake is something really really special, and has to be perfect. I mulled over what to do for days...and days...and had a couple panic attacks along the way...BUT then Amanda from I am Baker saved me! I remembered this Rose Cake that she has made a while back, I LOVED it (along with ALL her other cakes), so I checked through her tutorial, got inspired, and hauled out some ingredients to make a trial cake so I could get my frosting on!

The ingredient list is pretty short, and no big mixer is involved. So it's really just mixing the dry ingredients, making a well in the centre, adding the lightly beaten wet ingredients and finally adding the ingredients that make this cake a carrot cake - the grated carrot, pecan nuts and the crushed pineapple.

Stir, stir, stir and pop it into a moderate oven. They were nice and moist and held together wonderfully!

For the icing I used I am Bakers best cream cheese frosting, which turned out amazing!

 It was so smooth and tasty and  it was a nice consistancy for piping which, in this case, was essential! First i did a crumb coat and made sure the entire cake was covered!

Then I used a star shaped nozzel to pipe the roses on.

Since it was a practise cake, I wasnt too finatic about getting the roses neat and perfect...

But both Haz and I were pleased with the end result of the exercise!

The combo of the two - cake and cream cheese icing was very nice! The icing was perfect and held wonderfully in our Durban heat for about 3 days (I had to test it to the max!)

The actucal wedding cake turned out beautiful and I iced some cupcakes too with some light green cream cheese frosting, they were also beautiful! I will post them when I get some ( I totally forgot to get a picture of them!Shocking!)

Check here for the Cream Cheese Frosting

Download the recipe card for the Carrot Cake

Christmas Mince Pies

 I love this time of year. Christmas time. I love it because it is such a 'giving' time, we give food and gifts and time to each other and it reminds me of how much a appreciate all my family and friends. It is also a time to remember that God, the creator of the universe, GAVE his only son to us - that through Him, we can have eternal life. This is the greatest gift of all. This is the gift that is the most precious. Every day of the year I have a hope and real life, I have meaning! Thank you Lord!

I don't think that Christmas celebrations can happen properly without REAL Christmas fair...hence, I tried out some mince pies for our Christmas celebrations, which i am REALLY looking forward to! They were VERY easy to make from scratch - no rolling - just pressing and grating.

 

and filling...

and baking...

Seriously, it was that easy. They are not as daunting as they seem in your head, nor do they take hours to make, more like minutes! And I am sure once you have tasted their sugary melt in your mouth deliciousness, you will NEVER buy those tasteless shop bought ones again, EVER (I clearly have nothing against them :) )

These make really thoughtful gifts too!

Download the recipe card here:

Christmas Mince Pies

 Enjoy!

xxxx


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Lemon Meringue Pie

 

   

“Come join Love the Pie with TidyMom  sponsored by Cherokee USA, Le Creuset, Wilton, Bags by Bloom and  Harvard Common Press”







 Today is the LOVE THE PIE PARTY day. I have been waiting eagerly since Tidy Mom put the word out, and since last weeks poll winner was lemon meringue, it just seemed perfect to post my lemon meringue pie!

I am a BIG fan of a tennis biscuit crust for 2 reasons: its really easy and its really really delicious! Just whizz the biscuits in a food processor until fine and mix with melted butter - no baking, no fuss, always turns out good!

After preparing the pie crusts, I mixed some lemon juice, condensed milk and egg yolks with my electric mixer until smooth and glossy and poured it over my pie crusts.

Then I used the egg whites and sugar to make a meringue topping. To get a really nice meringue, always ensure there is NO grease in the bowl or beater and there is NO egg yellow that slipped in with the whites - both could potentially ruin your meringue! I pipped the mixture on and then whirled the meringue with the back of a spoon to get a couple of effects on the topping.

I prefer the "messy twirl"  rather than the uniform twirl...

Then they got popped into a moderate oven...

...and baked for about 20min until the meringue was a nice light brown colour...

...mmmmm...

*Just a side note here, you can devour it as soon as it has cooled, but I really recommend leaving it in the fridge for at least a couple of hours, it enhances the lemon tang ( I am convinced) and the whole pie is just so much firmer and more enjoyable!

 
Dig in and ENJOY!


Download the recipe card here:
Lemon Meringue Recipe Card

Chocolate Cupcakes

Where has this week gone! Its Friday already and I haven't posted anything yet..EEEKKKK! So here i am - finally ready to share my next post with you. Part of the reason I haven't posted yet is that I registered my domain (if you noticed :) ) www.bitsofsunshine.com! I had no idea what it all entailed, so I have been back and forth with the guys that registered it and finally got it right! So because I had to lose the "little" in my domain name, I decided to revamp my header and that lead to the revamp of my entire blog...VERY TIME CONSUMING (all that code makes your head spin)- but I am very pleased with the outcome :)

So, now that my BIG news is out of the way, here is some more big news (for me), my younger sister is getting married in less than a month! I cant believe how time has flown. In that respect, we held a kitchen tea for her. Her wedding theme is green hearts and bird, so I made some chocolate cupcakes....

mmmmm...

the mixture was sticky and dark

 
which made sticky and dark cupcakes!

 ... and iced them  with chocolate icing and green vanilla icing

I made these cute tags to match her wedding invites.

I was so please with how they turned out, they were moist and delicious and sooo cute! I am hoping to get a design side to my blog running soon, then I will post these cute toppers and the game cards that we used at the kitchen tea. They were a winner!

Hayley, Hazels soon to be sister in law, made Haz this totally awesome cake - 

I wish I had managed to get a better shot of the cake, it was the sweetest thing ever - literally! Well done on such a gorgeous cake Hayley! Hayley has promised to share the recipe of this soft, light vanilla cake with us soon! 

One last thing - this was just too cute not to share: Josh, my sweet little nephew, clearly thought the highlight of the day was the green icing!

Thank you for stopping by! Until next time ...

Brownie Tiramisu

Part 2 of the brownie project:

I had bought some mascarpone cheese and cream to make Shane some Mozart Cake, but without my Kenwood (which is now fixed :) ) it was impossible. So with the need to use them up before they went bad and with a combination of these ingredients, what choice did I have?

This was a first time for me, I had always thought of making tiramisu, but never got around to it, so I checked it up on Joy Of Baking (fantastic site, all their recipes are tried and tested)...

*Isn't today's technology awesome :) *

First I made the custard stuff, then soaked the biscuits, then did the assembling part...this is where I added my twist to the tiramisu... I added a layer of crumbled brownies!

After all this assembling - I left it to set over night hoping that the next day it would be nice and firm, but when I took it out of the container, it stood for about 2 minutes before slowly sliding apart...

I am not sure what went wrong that made the custard part too thin, I am pretty sure I followed the recipe exactly (except for the rum, which I left out), but you never really know...

I was still divine! The brownies added a totally new level to an already awesome dessert!

I will definitely try this again, more carefully next time!

Find the tiramisu recipe here:
Joy of  Baking

Wicky Wacky Cake

I have no idea where this name came from! But this cake is a classic! It takes a bunch of everyday ingredients,  one bowl, 30min and VOLIA - you have a cake!A dark, moist, delicious cake...

Just sift the dry ingredients, throw in the wet ones, mix it all up - and pop it into the oven...

I got this awesome heart silicone mold from Shane, and have tried various cake in it. Not all the cakes have done too well, but this wicky waky cake came out moist, tasty, and cooked through.

I really couldn't help it - I had to test it - so just ignore the nibbled corner!

I literally had a FULL HOUSE when I was icing this, so I went the easy route and melted some chocolate, let it cool and folded it into some fresh cream. MMMMMmmmmm! No other way to describe this moussey topping...

The cake was flattened by my family in a matter of minutes (when you have a family as big as mine, its more like seconds), except for this one, poor, little abandoned piece.

This is a well-worth-a-try-cake. I  (once again) added a little bit more cocoa then prescribed in the recipe - just to ensure that extra chocolatey experience.

Enjoy!

Download the recipe card here:
Wicky Wacky Cake Recipe Card

P.S -I haven't forgotten about the other brownie pudding - it has something to do with an Italian pudding - brownie style :) will post next!