Di-licious

The internet gods have not been kind to us this past week.  Apparently a static-y phone line can interfere with our ADSL connection, putting to bed any hopes I had to bring you this tutorial and Mr Di-licious completing an online test for his law course.  Sigh. At least I had my iPhone - I was still connected to the world so to speak, even if in a limited, small screen kind of way. But I digress. As promised, here is a 'tutorial' to help you make the cute as a button sugar carrots for the carrot cupcakes I made last week. They are embarrassingly easy to make.  Before you know it you'll have a carrot patch that's the envy of Don Burke (sorry, Aussie joke). Tutorial: Making sugar carrot decorations To make the sugar carrots, you will need: orange fondant (I used Americolor Orange to colour) green fondant (I used Americolor Avocado to colour) a skewer or pointy modelling tool to make a dent in end of carrot small, fine paintbrush water ...

"Mummy, I'm hungry. Hungry for something sweet." Sound familiar?  If only it were "Mummy, I'm hungry for green vegetables!" Sometimes getting kids to eat something healthy is a battle.  The harder you try, the more they resist. We've been pretty lucky with Olive - she devours fruit.  And while she's adamant she'll never eat a tomato (too many Charlie and Lola bedtime stories), she will eat green beans, peas and corn (and sometimes raw broccoli!) without fuss.  The one veg she absolutely adores though are carrots. A carrot stick is a great snack for a hungry preschooler but when they're pining for something sweet, why not make them something healthy and sweet and bake some mini carrot cupcakes? These mini cupcakes are based on Stephanie Alexander's Simple Carrot Cake from The Cook's Companion . I like this recipe a lot because it uses olive oil which has lots of health benefits. If you have a food processor, you could ea...

A few weeks ago I was given a wonderful gift - a bowl full of freshly picked backyard apples, via my sister-in-law Kaz.  We're not sure what variety there were, heirloom perhaps? But they were crisp and sweet and I thought they'd be perfect for baking. They sat pretty in a bowl for a week or so, filling the dining room with their gorgeous apple scent while I decided what to bake. An apple pie was inevitable but I really wanted to make some little cakes too.  I consulted my bookshelf and put on my thinking cap and voilà; gorgeous mini apple-almond cakes. The almond meal made the cakes quite dense - almost a hybrid of a slice and cake, and kept the cake di-liciously moist.  The glaze of apricot jam and sugar syrup was a master stroke! And the thin fan of apple slices just look so darn pretty.  Great job I thought! I made copious hand written notes and snapped away ready for a future blog post.  Then I did a quick pack up of the house before Mr...

I love getting feedback from Di-licious Cupcakes readers.  Every time a new comment comes in I feel a surge of  cake love spreading across the blogishpere.  It seems I'm not the only one who thinks that life is too short to eat bad cake! And the cake love isn't just limited to the blog site.   Di-licious Cupcakes is also on Facebook and Twitter for the more socially connected reader (although I confess I still struggle with Twitter.....)  Following is as easy as clicking on the pretty icons at the top right hand side of the blog, just under the banner. And this weekend, my embryonic social networking adventures have struck gold - two fans (friends) wrote to tell me about their success with recipes featured on Di-licious Cupcakes !  Woo hoo! "Thanks Di ... I tried your chocolate macaron recipe and it worked brilliantly! My family didn't stop raving about them! ..."    Katie, via Facebook " I was up at 8am this morning, mak...