Kitchen Diary

Good afternoon blogland. I was going to post this yesterday but it took so long to do my extravagant dinner post that I had to leave this one till today. And now it is late and I am running around like a chicken without a head trying to do a whole armload of stuff yet again. And I just know its going to take ages again to post the pics through the letterdash editor...ai, I can't say I am enjoying doing this......it used to go much quicker......I wish the album could default to the current month and only load the photos in it...or the particular album you need..not the hundreds of photos in all the albums at once. It takes forever this way!!! Why bother to make different monthly albums if it doesnt do that I ask you??????? And it still wont allow you to work in word and then copy and paste and keep the style, font, size, format etc!!! Aaarrgghhh!!! OK!! My rant is over..............

So, Saturday was the big boy birthday. My grandson Ty was a fabulous birthday gift for his daddy on his 30th birthday. He was born in London 14 November 2003. It seems like yesterday!! These nanna hands were the very first human hands to touch that precious bundle. Having been a midwife many years ago I was allowed to actively participate in Ty's birth. It was the most amazing experience and he and I have always shared a special bond. I was also there a month later when he almost died and had to administer CPR to get him breathing again. Having said that....Ty and his papa share an even closer bond I somehow think......and no, brownieboy was NOT in the labour ward. He was back home in Cape Town keeping the homefires burning. Anyhooooo, I digress, so this year the birthday boy's request was to have a Ben 10 party....the young hero is all the rage at the moment and it just so happens that when you are trying to find Ben 10 anything there either is no stock or it is outrageously priced LOL!! So after a fair bit of a run around SD and I managed to find some stickers, serviettes and other bits 'n bobs and I managed to get my hands on an edible cake topper. Ty was beyond excited about all this and he told us all that NOBODY but he could eat the fire guy (I think his name is actually Heat Blaster or something)!! He also wanted the snake man with his python/boa constrictor to come to his party but boy oh boy it's expensive......R750 for an hour or so at a kids party.......so out the window went that idea. Second best was "OK, so then I will have Puddles the clown" LOL!!! We have told our son to get out of the IT industry where he is struggling along and buy himself a colourful outfit with big shoes, a unicycle and to learn how to fold balloons. The rest comes naturally to him :o) The clown fee was R1,200 for an hour and a half!!! So out the window flew the clown as well...........poor Ty was quite devastated!! Anyway his dad and a friend decided they would organize a couple of paint ball guns and some paint balls and they made some targets that were fastened onto the hedge. SD also tackled the making of a pinata which caused a few headaches before finally "WHOOOHOOO the paper mache dried" and it was ready just in time to be decorated and filled with 400 individually wrapped candies. Some cheapo water pistols and water bombs (Osmans is great!!!) and the stage was set for a wild wet fun filled afternoon with much shrieking and laughter (more from the adults I think LOL!!) The kids loved the target shooting. Brownieboy did a fine job of being a modern day male Mary Poppins and kept using his walking stick handle to haul back the two toddlers Jay and his little friend Madelynne out of the line of fire hehe....after that it was time for the pinata.......Oh my word, I have not laughed so much in a long long time. It was hysterical to watch.....those blindfolded kids had a ball smashing that paper mache ball to pieces with a broomstick. Constrictors and clowns were looooong forgotten. When it finally broke open and the candy started raining down.......I kept having image flashbacks of our times in Plett where we feed the birds and the ravenous guinea fowl just shout raucously and descend in a heap of feathers and claws, intent on getting every scrap for themselves - this was how the kids were descending on the sweeties.....forgetting the danger from the blindfolded kid wildly wielding the weapon that was bashing the pinata. I was screaming for them to be careful, watch out, get back, move out of the way.....hehe....fortunately there were no injuries. The adults were great, especially the other birthday boy, SIL, who should get full marks for being a very interactive involved daddy at his kids party :o)

Anyway, here are just a few photies......the cake turned out wonderfully well. If you can get the edible sheets its really worth it. They are not cheap at R50 for a sheet the size of A4 paper or 12 cupcake toppers. They are a little bit fiddly to work with. The instructions say 2-3 minutes in a 70deg Celcius oven. I did it for exactly 2 minutes and it started cracking.....so I called it my decoupage cake WAAAHAAA but it didn't look too bad once the rest of the decorating was done. Learn from my mistakes and check if it will peel off the backing sheet after 1 minute in the oven. You can always repeat it again if needed....

I made my hot milk & oil vanilla sponge cake with french buttercream frosting

I just left the orange out of it this time and as a filling I used caramel.

Do boil your own condensed milk. It is sooo much tastier than the bought caramel. I do a few tins at a time as I use it fairly often. I use a deep saucepan (pasta pot is ideal), cover the tins well with water, bring to the boil then boil for 1 1/2 hours watching it carefully and replacing with boiling water from the kettle as needed. Believe me you do not want the tins to be exposed during cooking. Exploding cans catapult boiling hot caramel all over the place and it can cause dreadful burn injuries. It also takes a lot of labour to clean the stalactites of caramel off the ceiling :o)

Pinata fun!!!

The hunter and the hunted.....

Balloon fun.....Stay back Madelynne, it's dangerous...love you Papa

Jay had a ball!!! Aaaaw looking very sad that the cake is being destroyed hehe....

Once all the kids had gone it was time for the BIG clean-up and getting ready for the adult evening party. Ty had a few of his friends coming with parents so it was our duty to cart Wildman Jay off to our house for the night so they could party in peace....I was very nervous about that at that little guy is indeed wild, he is fearless and he cant see properly LOL!!Into everything at this stage and climbs like a monkey!He was super good actually and it all turned out OK...after he stopped sounding like a catawauling tom cat on the prowl with his big voice calling Mum....MUUUM!!! Daddeeee, Dad at the front door......and gave in to the fact that is was Nan or nothing!!!

Peace reigneth...that flippin light stick has to go everywhere with him !!

SIL asked me to make him my famous death by chocolate cake cake for HIS party....slathered in dark chocolate ganache. Hmmmm good for the soul :o)

Happy Birthday boys........until next year!!!

Hugs,

browniegirl xxx