and then suddenly, I blogged

For several years now I have been following blogs using Google Reader. Every day blogs would appear and I would flick through them. The ones which I have always liked the most where the ones with pictures. Food pictures being my favourite then ones of clothes, architecture, nature and cute animals. I was always fascinated by the the people who took the time to sit down and just write about anything to an unknown many. The name Julia Child has been popping up very frequently lately and being a younger Australian I had never heard of her. All I knew was that she cooked. The other night on TV, Julie & Julia came on and I finally realised what it was all about. Then next morning I woke up with a desire to blog. But how and about what?

So I will talk about the things I love. I love baking.

Very Berry Cupcakes

I made these for my boyfriends mum's 50th a few years back. I hadn't met most of his family at this point but arriving with a container full of cupcakes set me on the right track.

I have made quite a few birthday cakes in my time and earlier this year I made my cousins wedding cake. I took Friday off work, woke up early and started baking. I finished at 10 that night, went to bed and continued with the finishing touches in the morning. The cake was 2 tiers high with 3 layers of white chocolate mudcake with a Baileys buttercream icing for the base layer. The top layer was 2 traditional sponge cakes with vanilla buttercream icing, with strawberry sauce and fresh cut strawberries. I covered the whole thing in fondant. I have never attempted anything so large and time consuming in my life and I had no back up plan. The fondant wasn't perfect but I had never used it before. I know, stupid idea. But it all worked out great. The white chocolate mudcake was very dense and almost fudge like. The sponge cake recipe was one I had used before and it always works out perfectly. Having a fool proof sponge cake recipe is one of the must haves in life.

Next time I will put up the cake recipes as well as the Very Berry Cupcake recipe.

Love, love Elle.