Mint is one of my favourite things. It is my favourite 'anything sweet' flavour (especially especially mint gelato), is my favourite herb (smashed up with garlic, lemon juice & olive oil I add it to almost everything I eat), is a main ingredient in my favourite drink (MOJITO!) and lately is also my favourite colour (just writing this is making me wonder why I had a lemon themed 30th?) ... soooooo seeing as my love of mint comes from my Mum I thought it was the perfect theme for a Mother's Day celebration this year. My mum is about to head off to Europe with my Dad on her first ever proper OE and seeing as we won't be seeing her for 3 months I thought we should make Mother's Day a special treat ...
In my last post I mentioned some free printables that I wanted to work into my table. Well of course I ran out of time but I did manage to incorporate this lovely quote by placing it against a mint coloured card background. I also used the card printable for my Mum's card (had to get the twink out for a quick change from Mom to Mum)
My first ever attempt at macarons. I can see why they have the reputation that they do. You need your ingredients to be optimal and preferably should avoid having two small children hanging off you while you make them! I opted for using the NZ masterchef recipe and also used tips from here. I think my downfall was not aging my eggwhites long enough, not having fine enough ground almonds and also I'm dubious as to whether the recipe should be mls rather than grams for the egg white measurement (not sure what difference it would make but I don't think there was enough egg white to get the consistency needed - my mix was too stiff therefore I couldn't avoid leaving the wee tip shape from the piping bag. However, I did try experimenting with some leftover mixture and added more whites but too many I think and the result was pancakes - which you can see below I turned into some little towers layered with ganache and topped with mint buttercream). All in all I was pretty happy and I thought they tasted delicious!! The white chocolate ganache filling is really yum :) (I'm just updating this post because I've just noticed that Bella Cupcakes (the most clever baker with the most beautiful blog!) has been on a journey to master the Macaron and she has narrowed down the best recipe and technique - wish I'd seen this earlier!!)
Loving my new Dotsnspots drinks dispenser filled with mint lemonade.
I made these mint truffles by blitzing 2 packets of mint slice biscuits in the blender and adding some white chocolate ganache to get a rollable consistency. After freezing them I dipped them in mint coloured white chocolate - YUMMO.
I decided I wanted to make a fondant ruffle cake but I knew I would never find the time to make a beautiful tower with a trillion ruffle layers so I aimed small (well what I thought was aiming small). I saw a photo of a beautiful cake that had more of a blunt cut fondant layering and I thought I would try that and add an ombre twist aswell (I love ALL things ombre). Well at 10pm at night it was all getting two difficult so I when I realised I couldn't replicate the photo I just went simple. I think the finished product is still quite pretty. I'm not sure why it is though that every time I make a cake I swear I'm going to take the time to level the top and do all the things necessary to get a flawless finish but instead once again I didn't bother and sin of all sins I iced it still a bit hot!!!! I think it was the washing machine and dishwasher screaming at me to attend to them that distracted me. Oh well there is always next time. I'll post the recipe for the insanely good cake below.
Perfect honeycomb balls from Dotsnspots!
This M comes from the 'Mila' sign I have in her bedroom. It was the perfect addition for a Mint party all about celebrating Mums.
I love mint in savoury food aswell. We had mini chicken sandwiches with mint aioli....
Lamb mint meatballs with yoghurt dipping sauce....
Pork, prawn & mint vermicilli salad boats ....
Roast beetroot, feta & mint dip with ciabatta.
This wasn't planned for the menu but Dad turned up with his home hot smoked salmon (amongst other dishes). This salmon is insanely good !!!!!!!
This cake was so yum. If you love mint and chocolate you will love it !!! I've been meaning to share my favourite chocolate cake recipe, all I did was mintify it a bit. This recipe came from a friend of mine who originally got it from another friend's mother who got it from her friend and .......my knowledge of the recipe chain ends there. You know a recipe is good when it travels (I have made some small changes though).
1 cup of made up espresso
or instant coffee (recommend de-caf for kids cake)
1.5 cups of
standard flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
essence
2 large eggs
1.5 cups of sugar
½ cup cocoa
125g butter
1 cup of plain
yoghurt
to make it mint omit the vanilla essence and instead add 1 tsp of peppermint essence, add 3/4 of a large block of whittakers peppermint / dark chocolate.
Make up the coffee
and let it cool a little. Put all dry
ingredients into a bowl and mix to combine.
Melt the butter and
add the vanilla (or peppermint), coffee and yoghurt.
Break the eggs into
the dry ingredients and mix a bit. Add
liquids and mix till just combined.
Melt the peppermint chocolate in the microwave and then add to the cake mixture by gently folding it in.
Bake in a lined
22cm round tin at 160 degrees for 40 min or until skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin for 10 min then cool on a rack.
This is the
standard recipe for a rather standard size cake. I always at least 1.5 times or double the recipe for a nice high cake,
then when it is cool I split the cake horizontally and add a layer of butter
cream icing in the middle, before icing the entire cake. It makes it that much
more moist and delicious!! for my cake above I actually went 2.5 times the recipe and then split it into 2 20cm tins for a smaller higher cake.
Such a long post!!
Olivia :)
