Monthly Archives: February 2012

Another Barossa Breakfast Rave

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This morning we made the drive up to the Barossa again for my second Breakfast Rave. In Breakfast Rave history, it’s the fourth they’ve held, but the second I’ve made it to. Two of my nieces came along for the morning.

Last Rave I went to was held at the Old Angaston Railway Station, this time was at the beautiful Collingrove Homestead. As usual beans & mushrooms were on the menu, each topped with a poached egg. Other goodies included muffins, fresh juice, brownies, biscuits, and macaron pops.

Of course the nieces wouldn’t eat anything up for offer, and they ate their sandwiches before we left the house. Next time I think we’ll be more prepared. It’s all vegetarian (and I’m pretty certain vegan if you hold the egg), but it’s a warming start to the day. Unfortunately their top egg poacher wasn’t around for this Rave, and so all of our eggs were over-cooked. Not something I’d usually be fine with, but for me the best bit of the Rave is the atmosphere, so I can deal with a poached egg that isn’t quite runny.

The badminton net was set up, the girls definitely need some practice, but we had a fun time. Miss E was very enthusiastic, and even managed to get the shuttlecock over the net a couple of times. Miss M, not so much, she was a little disheartened after the first few misses and so she stopped trying.

Instead of the seedlings we took home last time, this time bags of cherry tomatos & spring bulbs were free to take home. The girls loved this touch. They also just loved being outside and exploring the place.

Afterwards we popped into Tscharkes Winery, before heading back into town for a Fringe Show. The Breakfast Rave has made me fall in love with the Barossa, an area I used to know nothing about. I can’t wait for the next Rave, and the next chance I have to get back up to the Barossa.

Rainbow Hot Air Balloon Party: Party Envy

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I love kids’ birthday party styling. Although I don’t think they should be reserved for kids, everyone should be able to enjoy a fun, bright birthday party. I’d seen a picture from this party ages ago, but only just came across the full party. Check out all of the pictures and information here.

The first thing that drew me would have to be the cake pops. Seriously? Hot air balloons. I think this is the correct time to use a word like ADORABELZ! Okay, maybe not, adorable will probably suffice.

I’ve been wanting to try these hot air balloons for a while, and I’m thinking I may have to give it a go for friday’s market. I think mine are unlikely to be quite this perfect, but I do think that it is something I could recreate.

Eggless Dessert Cafe

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Tonight was spent at Eggless in the wonderful company of my food buddy Sam. It’s been months since I’ve been to Eggless, a place that used to be a regular haunt, but it was also Sam’s first time.

Peach Mille Feuille, Scraping Plates, Clipboard Menus. 

There is something about Eggless that always feels to warm and homely. Perhaps it’s the always amazing staff, or the mood lighting and happy chatter that can be heard throughout the cafe. It always remains one of my favourite places.

Of course we couldn’t choose tonight. Sam had narrowed down to two dishes before we came, as had I with two different dishes of my own. Instead of picking and choosing we were very happy to find the tasting platter had three out of our four dishes, and we ordered the Peach Mille Feuille  as well.

Tea Pot for One, Tasting Platter, & Lanterns. 

Everything was yummy, although the Tiramisu was a bit much for me. I’m not a coffee person, and so it’s just a personal preference, I know I would have loved it if I was a fan of coffee flavouring.

Eggless can be a strange place, usually there is a line outside, but they still make you feel completely welcome and you don’t feel like you need to vacate your seat at the nearest possible moment. The food is always great, but I honestly think that the staff are the reason this place has so many die-hard fans.

Eggless on Urbanspoon

A Real Summer Friday

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After the confusion with this market (will we or won’t we) I’m very happy to report that last night was a roaring success! We had such a great time, my niece M came along and some of the rest of the family joined us later in the night. I debuted my new caramel cupcakes (topped with caramel popcorn) and brought back all the flavours from last week.

Wow. I just couldn’t be happier. We sold a huge amount of cupcakes, and all the remainders are being used as dessert for our barbecue on Sunday.

Unfortunately I had no cards printed up (darn printer decided to refuse to feed the card paper), so I had to try and awkwardly direct people here. Goal for next market: Get cards printed!

So if you were at the market, and are interested in cupcakes for an event then head to the contact page. I’m more than happy to discuss any possibilities with you.  Also, you can check out my Facebook page, more info to come soon.

 

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**EDIT** 16th Feb Received some fantastic news today, and will be back at Summer Fridays in the East End on Friday and until they finish in March. It does mean that I’ve got to get baking now to make sure everything is ready in time, but I’m very excited for another market. I’ve even got a new cupcake that I’m trying. **EDIT**

I had a bit of a disappointing set back today. After getting such a positive response after the last Summer Fridays in the East End I was really excited to bake my cupcakes for the next week. Unfortunately mum received an email today that the other cupcake sellers felt two cupcake stalls at the market was too much.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt a little. I’d been really excited, and I couldn’t wait to go back for the next week and hopefully till the end of the market. I came up with a name, a logo, and I even bought some more containers to sell the cupcakes in.

My nieces were also going to come down to this market, and I was really excited to have them see me and see my stall.

I loved the vibe of the Summer Fridays market, and selling cupcakes is something I’ve wanted to do for so many years. I finally thought I’d found the right place to start off, so it’s a real blow. I don’t know if I’ll start selling again, because I’ve gone with mum to a few other markets and they just didn’t feel right.

Things could turn themselves around, but for now I’m just a bit disheartened.

The Skydeck Longtable with Cole Thomas

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Saturday night I went along to the Skydeck Longtable with mum, dad, and my sister. How I managed to convince them, I’ll never know. Usually me suggesting a degustation dinner is surrounded by a lot of laughs and one of those ‘oh Tash is being funny again’ looks. Somehow I succeeded, so I booked the tickets without double checking (so no-one could back out) and we made our way into the city.

The Skydeck Longtable is organised by Cole Thomas, someone I’d read a bit about in the past but really didn’t know too much about. After we met him we were soon to find out that he is charismatic, funny, and a really lovely guy. We were introduced, poured our champagne, and then went to stand around the Skydeck balcony.

This was the point in the night where no one knew anyone they hadn’t arrived with. It was a bit like a middle-school dance, with the boys on one end and the girls on the other end. We weren’t separated by sexes, but no one quite had the courage to start up a proper conversation.

After finding out that the two remaining guests would be a no show, we then sat down at the table. The basic concept of any ‘longtable’ is that it is one table for communal dining. There are plenty of restaurants that use this style of dining, and Adelaide’s most famous is probably Mesa Lunga. This is when things started getting interesting. Not only were we about to be served a carrot cocktail that’s measurements were by the bottle rather than ml, but we were also face to face with complete strangers. Soon connections were made, stories were shared, and then came the food.

Anejo Bunny Cocktail, Rum cured salmon with carrot marshmallow, carrot gel, & caper leaf, Blue Swimmer Crab with pea puree & dehydrated popcorn, & Smoked scallops in white tomato broth with wakame. 

Forgive me if I can’t quite remember the names of all the dishes. Basically if Stewart Wessen (our fabulous chef for the night) didn’t tweet the names, chances are I didn’t remember them completely. All in all the night consisted of 5 courses + an amuse-bouche + a cocktail + plenty of wine. We all felt a little spoiled for our $90, especially when the company was so great.

It’s hard to pick a favourite dish of the night, but I think mine would have to be the lamb (not pictured). Unfortunately Stewart didn’t tweet the name of this one, so I’m left trying to describe it from memory. It was basically lamb with onion, but it had spring onions, onion puree, pickled onions, and grilled onions, with a dab or garlic aioli. I’m definitely an onion girl, and the flavours and textures were brilliant in your mouth. Also not pictured is the wild hare in pickled beetroot with cucumber granita and shaved duck liver.

I also loved the second dish, as it meant Cole said ‘umami‘ a lot. If there is one word in the food dictionary (this may or may not be a mythical book) that I love, it’s umami.

More drinks were poured, the night went on, and we were back to the balcony to wait for dessert. The scene was far different to when we first arrived. Instead of our 6 different groups we were split evenly in two, mixing and mingling between the two groups. The night had quickly evolved from an awkward first date to a dinner party with old friends.

Our attention was then drawn, and it was time for dessert.

Okay, you’ve got me, another joy I get in life comes from liquid nitrogen. I love science, and when it’s mixed with food it’s even better. We got a fun demo of how liquid nitrogen works, and while this happened dessert was ‘plated up’. It really was a communal table now, we were all eating straight from the table, and there were definitely times when spoons darted across the table to steal from someone else’s dessert.

Dessert? Well it was amazing. Chocolate, honeycomb, peanut butter, caramel. Could you really go wrong? It looked and tasted amazing. As the night continued Cole opened another bottle of wine, the lolly jars were opened, and my iPod was hooked up to the speakers to listen to some Spank Rock. In the car ride home my family couldn’t stop thanking me for one of the best nights out any of them have had.

Not only was it a great night, but I’m also hoping it means next time I suggest an interesting dinner I’m taken a bit more seriously.

Cupcakes @ Summer Fridays in the East End

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For the last three weeks mum has been going along to Summer Fridays in the East End with her jewellery and sock monkey stand. If you haven’t heard about Summer Fridays, they’re a market that happens in in the city on a Friday night. I went at the beginning of January, and there was barely anything to be seen except, of course, the huge line up outside of Burger Theory. Since then they’ve managed to get a heap of market stalls on board, and now it has a really great atmosphere. So last night I decided to tag along, with some cupcakes in tow.

The baking session starting on Thursday at about mid-day. After a late-ish dinner at Haus, I didn’t make it back home to Moana on Wednesday night, so on Thursday on the way home mum and myself popped into Creative Cooks for a few extra supplies, and after a quick kitchen clean up I got to work. Unfortunately the early start still didn’t mean I was early to bed. I was overambitious, as usual, and decided to have some macarons made as well. Unfortunately at about 1am after having a faulty thermometer and legs that just couldn’t carry me anymore, I decided they would have to stay a personal project for the other day. I was armed with four types of cupcakes, cake-pops, and little chocolate moustache pops.

Summer Fridays Cupcake Stall
 I think setting up the stall may have been even more fun than baking. I made up some signs with prices on Friday before we headed out, and added my cupcake stands and styrofoam to the pile of stuff in the car. I’m still looking for the best way to make styrofoam look good, but I was pretty happy with these square blocks with just a small banner around the middle. We stopped off at the Adelaide Central Market on the way in, and I quickly grabbed some fresh figs and bananas to top off some of the cupcakes.

The cupcakes, in order of popularity, were:
Banana cupcakes with a maple cream frosting 
Chocolate Guinness cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting
Fig cupcakes, filled with fig jam, and topped with cream cheese frosting and a fresh fig
&
Carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

I was a little sad to see the carrot cupcakes get a poor reception (they are probably my favourite), but I’m thinking it could really be down to the lack of eye catching topping. I’ve thought of carrot shaped chocolates or something along those lines, but they don’t seem right. I do like the idea of these candied carrot curls, and I think I might have to give them a try. After some interesting uses of carrot last night (at the Skydeck Longtable, I’ll get to that later) I think I’m going to have to get creative.

The reception to the cupcakes was great. Friday was such a miserable rainy day that the markets were quieter than they have been for the last two weeks, but I still managed to sell out of the banana and chocolate cupcakes, and only come home with about six of the others.

The main disappointment with the market was that after baking all night I could barely stand the sight of sugar, let alone actually eat anything. This meant that for another week I had to pass up on trying anything from La Waffle, and we had the smell wafting over for most of the markets. We were lucky enough to be handed two packets of waffles at the end of the night to enjoy in the morning. They were popped in the toaster, only quickly, and then topped with marscapone and strawberries. Honestly, they were the best waffles I’ve ever had. So fingers crossed I’ll be enjoying some with ice cream next Friday.

Selling the cupcakes was just going to be a once off thing for a bit of fun, but after the long line of people asking if I’ll be back next week, I think I might just keep this up. The hardest part, working out the best ones to make, and keeping it a cost effective (and possibly also profitable) venture.

The Summer Fridays in the East End Markets are on every Friday until the 31st of March.