'Tis the season with my new friend

Not for jolliness, no.... well, not Christmas jolliness. It seems the birthday season is kicking in... not that there really is such a thing. But maybe people are emerging from the Christmas/holiday season, rubbing their eyes in dismay that the real world is here once again with winter (seemingly rapidly) approaching and feel the need for something a little gorgeous and happy in front of them once again.

So, I have a new kitchen friend, rapidly becoming my best friend. I am barely scratching the surface of its potential, but its yellowy gorgeousness alone makes me happy all over every time I walk into the kitchen. My lovely husband ordered this for me off Amazon for my birthday... check it out. I think she (yes, I'm pretty sure its a she) deserves a name, I haven't come up with one yet, so let me know if you have any suggestions:

The power and magical abilities of the mixer are still quite incredible to me, for a girl that used to mix nearly all her cakes with a wooden spoon, I've done the hard yards and this feels like luxury.

As I mentioned, I've had a couple of birthday cakes over the last two weeks. In some respects birthday cake designs are quite challenging.... the design options are fairly endless, there are certainly less traditional boundaries than for a wedding cakes. You have to find the right balance of not making it too big or over the top (or too insignificant) for the occasion, AND people are far less fussed on the design for a birthday... and are more inclined to just leave it up to you. There is some great freedom in that, I get to try new things I've been thinking of, but naturally I start questioning myself quite a lot.

Here is a cake that I did for my aunty's 60th. I've done a bunch of ribbon and gift type cakes but this was my first attempt at making it look like a gift box. Admittedly it wasn't as perfect as I wanted it to be, but it was still lovely and most importantly she was really happy with it:

I got to try out even more new skills on this next cake, which I told my friend part way through making the cake... 'hey, by the way, I've never done this before'. No pressure. I also learned that making a cake at someone elses house is far more relaxing than at your own... I don't even know why, no explanation.

I've never really done much piping work, to me it is far more daunting and difficult than working with fondant... in my head anyway. This cake has proven to me that I was wrong, for basic piping anyway... now I'm wondering what other fabulous things I can pipe!

This cake was for a 1st birthday cake, which I find incredibly exciting... first birthday EVER!!! It doesn't matter that they probably won't remember or that its absolutely chock full of sugar that they don't really need at that age... none of it matters, it is the FIRST EVER birthday cake! So we just wanted it to be colourful, simple and a vision of pink loveliness inside and out, I think we achieved:

I'll leave you with this final picture than my husband took at the 1st birthday party. This picture is why making cakes is so great sometimes.... Seeing this:

Japanese Noodley Goodness

Yes, today I am sharing a recipe. Lets say right up front though that this is not my creation, I was taught this a few years ago by my most gorgeous sister Junko and it has been a summer BBQ and 'taking a pot luck dish' staple.

I guess you would call it a noodle salad and I guess you would call it some kind of asian fusion - if we really wanted to categorise it in western terms.

But really it is the simpliest and tasties and quickest noodle dish around. I recently made it for a Christmas Eve party and was instructed that this must go on my blog. Yes, it is THAT amazing!
There are only a few ingredients you need:

- 1 packet of udon or soba noodles (soba is the preference but udon works just as well) - about 270g. Here is the brand I normally use:

- 1 pottle of good quality basil pesto (250g)

- approx 1-2 tbsp of olive oil

- any green vegetables you like, in whatever quantity you like (snow peas, baby spinach, broccoli, green beans, zucchini etc)

- approx 1/2 - 1 cup of special Japanese sauce (photo below so you can find it in the supermarket, usually in the international foods section).

So there you go, ingredients sorts. Now for the preparation:

- Prepare your vegetables to be steamed/blanched and put a large pot of water on to boil. In this case I just used what I had - some zucchini from out of my garden:

- Mix the pottle of pesto with the Japanese sauce. How much sauce to add is really based on taste and consistency. I like it to be like a fairly thick dressing with a distinctive taste of the sauce. So start with half a cup and add more as required after tasting it. As your adding more sauce it also helps to add a little olive oil to just bring the sauce together - again, just go by instinct.

- Add the noodles to the pot of boiling water and cook as per the packet instructions. Now for the vegetables, you have two options; either steam them separately until they are just al dente or add them to the noodles in the last couple of minutes of cooking time (add them dependent on their size and time required to cook). If using spinach, this can just be tossed through after cooking. I'm lazy and I like to just add them to the same pot as the noodles.

- Drain and noodles and veges and run them under cold water until they have cooled to room temperature.

- Add the sauce to the noodles and veges and stir through.

There you have it, my noodle wisdom has been shared.