I want it now and I want it all, gimme gimme!

Iced Vo Vo Pavlova.

I am hypnotized by the luscious.

There are ten layers.

I mean TEN layers of sugar induced coma just sitting there.

I will electrocute myself if I keep drooling on the keyboard.

The only other cake as yum as this was the ganache covered trifle cake.

But I'm true to my roots, Pavlova Rules.

Regular posts will resume when I get over these

.

I was browsing through wedding cakes for no particular reason except that I love wedding cakes but these three could turn me against wedding cakes forever.  The one above is called the Dancing Queen although we could change that for Andrew with one little letter change and R looks dazzling in red.

This was truly over the top and for some reason the red layers look as though they have a furry covering.  One mask, okay but three and oh my, the giant feathers.  Although I could have used a giant feather or three at my wedding mainly to stab the best man right through the heart.

That led to this.  There's so much going on at that table I wouldn't know what to eat first let alone plunge the knife in for the first slice.  My imagination went into overdrive at just what the Bridal Party were wearing.  Surely the Bride would not have gone for the full 'Gone with the Wind' black crinoline and red bustier but what would the Groom be wearing?  Bearskin hat, red jacket, black pants, gets a faceful of tourists at Buck Palace.  I wonder if the theme was the red wedding from Game of Thrones?  Now that's my kind of wedding.

Let them eat cake but not this kind

What else to do on  a stinking hot afternoon than wander through the web looking at shoes and jewells and cakes, lots of cakes.  I had a real laugh out loud at that wedding cake up top. Considering my marriage, this cake should have been centre stage all the way. Come to think of it, it would make perfect divorce celebration eating. 
 

But this cake, a giant life- size unicorn birthday cake. Life-size with a huge cut out chunk of technicolour innards. Here, child, come and get your slice of unicorn cake, which part would you like me to cut into with this huge knife? I can't understand some people. I would have been traumatized for life, in fact, I probably should have put up a warning for Miss O'Dyne with her love of horses. I am gobsmacked at the thought of 20 or so munchkins all waiting for the slaughter of the innocent. It would make a great script for "Castle", soccer mom cuts into the belly of the beast and out rolls a real body instead of that garish cake. How does one get cake to be that colour anyway? Great way to turn kiddies into vegetarians on the spot.

No trouble with cutting into this Cinderella Wedding cake unless you forget the slipper and end up with a gob full of glass. If I ditched the shoe and the castle, it would be the perfect cake for me, a chandelier cake. I love cake and I love chandeliers and there's no rule that says you have to be married to have a wedding cake or a chandelier. I love this cake. I want this cake.

I want to be rich and eat cake

 This is what I call the "Isn't it gorgeous but I couldn't be bothered" cupcake.

 No, she's not a cup cake but so cute I'd call  her Cupcake if she was mine.

 This is a divine little cupcake. The frosted perfect rose, the leaves, the organza bow. It's all too good to eat, not that I wouldn't try petal by petal, leaf by leaf.

BUT THIS IS A CUPCAKE!!!

Of course, it's expensive since I'd have to catch a plane to London to get to Harrod's to buy this sequin bling cupcake clutch bag. I really need to be rich.

Concentration terminated by 'Oooh Shiny'

I was looking for Christmas cakes for my usual post a Christmas thingy in the run up to pudding season and I was sidetracked by these cakes. I mean the work, the imagination and where would you start cutting and would you want to. Click the biggie button for this one.

This was sort of Indian meets peacock and paisley. Overdone? But I loved the colours. Reminds me of my groom and his party at the Church before the reception.
 

A birdhouse cake was to divine to pass by. Paint the birds as robins and whack some holly and berries on the cake. Ditch the green roof for sparkly snow icing and Christmas cake. 

 I had to put this in. My grandmother iced my aunt's wedding cake in this manner but without the top bunch of flowers. She also baked the cakes in wood fired oven in the pans my grandfather made. He also made the wooden stand for the cake. I kept a pot plant on that stand for years, he made everything to last. The cake is frivolous but the artistry is wow.

I was really struck by this one for the audacity of having emerald. Tradition has it that one must ask the fairies for permission to wear their colour green at any wedding or it will end in tears. Come to think of it, my bridesmaids wore pale apple green dresses. I really wanted an elegant wedding, I got a bogan booze-up before the word was even invented.

Just give me Pavlova

Ingredients
Meringue

  2egg whites
    Pinch of salt
    110gcaster sugar
    1teaspoon corn flour
    ½teaspoon sweet apple vinegar
    ¼teaspoon freeze dried thyme powder

Lemon and Wild Thyme Honey Cream

    90glemon juice
    165gwild thyme honey, such as ‘J Friend and Co’
    2eggs
    45gwhite sugar
    1titanium-strength gelatine leaf
    110gcold butter, diced
    125gpure cream (45% milk fat)

Thyme Ice

    100gwhite sugar
    ½lemon, zest finely grated
    10glemon thyme leaves
    2gvitamin C or citric acid
    475mlwater
    50mlfresh fennel juice (add a pinch of vitamin C when juicing)
    50mllemon juice
    Salt, to taste

Pumpkin

    1wide piece Kent pumpkin, seeds removed
    125ghoney dew honey, such as ‘J Friend and Co’
    125mlwarm water

To Assemble

    3-4 mandarins, segmented
    80mlwild thyme honey, such as ‘J Friend and Co’
    3-4 pieces freeze dried apple

To see how to make these ingredients into the dessert you mustgo here and try not to faint.
And this was the only photograph I could find that showed George and his suit of strange things.

The last cake.

Very appropriate.  Today, officially I am old, the body acknowledges this, the mind is 20 years behind.  I'm still having strange dreams. Last night it was watching my six foot brick fence fall down. This means that I have to break out of my fenced in life or I stop watching Renovation Man.
The cat celebrated by waking up and wanting the fire on and door open at 7 a.m. I celebrated by going back to bed and waking up at 10 a.m. I'm still not showered and dressed, I'm aiming to be by late this afternoon.
BOH rang and wanted to know what I'd like for a present. Refrained from saying "your crap out of the house." and went for a Magnum ice-cream when he comes to play with the car and the cat.
Mother rang and very happy with her new earphones. 4 years ago she was having trouble getting the hang of opening a can of cat food and now, she's playing a movie or CD on the portable viewer and reading books on her iPad. The earphones are to cut down the manic noise of her roomies. The new one only last two weeks, she went up the stairway to heaven at 5 this morning.  Her granddaughter told me yesterday that she'd loved the Home and was having the best time in ages. Now that's the way to go out, having a good time.
My sister rang, that's it.
My granddaughters will catch up around September, maybe.
And after buying mother a cake, earphones, dvds and spending the afternoon with her, I forgot to buy a cake for me. Old. Memory loss.

And a bouquet of cupcakes to Ann O'Dyne for my birthday post at which I still can't comment at. Stupid blogger.

Hearts from the Queen.

 I must say I haven't enjoyed a birthday countdown as much as I have this year. Now we're getting to the end, I'm going for broke.  A four tier fondant iced, with hearts and spots, I love it all. How about my favourite fruit cake for the bottom layer, then a nice tart flourless orange layer, chocolate and cherries for the next and the top, coffee and mousse layers.

Or just three layers but white chocolate coated strawberries.  This is actually supposed to be a Valentine's Day cake, shame I don't have a Valentine.  Don't do what I did and make this desktop wallpaper, it looks even better when big. I swear I didn't stop drooling for an hour.  I bet it's chocolate mud cake again. I don't understand the appeal of chocolate mud cake but the top could be white chocolate mud cake which is slightly less objectionable. White chocolate mud cake with a top layer of strawberry mousse and sponge? Any takers?

You know this is what I'm going to end up with, one lousy cupcake.

Now about that ice-cream cake.

I should not have mentioned ice-cream cake or gone looking for images of ice-cream cake. I liked the one up there so much I looked up the recipe. That's vanilla cake on the bottom and chocolate cherry ice-cream on top. The frosting is frosting, the American kind, very sweet. It was kind of them to give the calories and carbs in a single slice, 51 grams of carbohydrate. It must be the frosting. I would rather have marshmallow over the whole, more ice-cream and not so much cake and I'm sure that would take down the carbs.

I couldn't find a recipe for this but I think it looks like a trifle ice-cream cake.  So a custard and fruit type ice-cream set in a layer of jam sponge, make that thick jam sponge soaked in plonk. It would be nice done in individual dishes, decorated with swirls of whipped cream but that's just me, not being a sharer I could have it all.

But for the Princess in me, aaaww, a pink ice-cream Cinderella carriage with sugar mice. I love it.

Seven cakes to go.

You all knew I'd put one in somewhere. Nothing better than a 3 tier Harry Potter cake unless it's a 4 tier Harry Potter cake. Still love Harry? In the words of dear Snape, always.

I'm not going out for my birthday dinner. I fiddled the finances a smidgeon and I'm having lovely lady come in to vac the entire house at 9 a.m. Friday morning.  All the junk on the floor that I haven't put away will go on chairs, lounge, bed or the sewing room which is the only room I've vac'd, that and the hallway when I moved his things there and my things back here.

It's a birthday present much more practical than food and I didn't think twice about doing it. I might have paused a second if ice-cream cake had been involved but only for a second. I have a big Hoover and it's been doing sterling service since 1989 and it's still sucking up cement dust from the slab underneath the carpet and it was a wonder with cat fur and dog fur and the ex's ability to walk across white marble and still pick up mud. She's only doing the vac, I can do the rest but the old hands and shoulders just wont co-operate in the shifting and moving. It took me 15 minutes to put the extension hose on it yesterday and my fingers hurt all day. Doc Marvin tells me that some cholesterol medication can irritate the muscles and make them sore. I'll go along with that.

By the time I turned the corner to the Home yesterday, I was frozen. The wind hit me dead centre in the chest and I swear I could have drilled out an ice core. I even took Ma's blankie off her and put it on me until I thawed out.  I knew we'd pay for those warm days we had.

Now I have to shift the sewing machine out of the study and put it in the sewing room because there's a monster load of shifting and moving to even see the floor in here. At least I remembered to put the bins out tonight and the neighbours won't be sneaking anything in either bin.

Chocolate is, genius creates.

Thank you to Helen for this link  to Gerhard Petzl, a chocolate artist who does things like this:

Decorated chocolate shoes.  What genius.

And glorious sugar creations like this gingerbread mansion.

I will never look at a dodgy gingerbread house without seeing this

wonderful piece.

Hit his website and see what he does with chocolate painting on lovely bodies.

Lord Rochester plays.

Rochester, nothing but the best for you and your musical digits.  I think a bit of Rachmaninoff for my birthday instead of the usual tarty honky-tonk.  
I hope that's Black Forest Cake under that chocolate ganache and not mud cake. I'm not fond of mud cake, boozed up black cherries and cream with chocolate sponge get a blue ribbon from me.

And one for HighRiser.

Good gracious me, the images that come up if one types in that search engine "bloke and birthday cake".  I'm not that kind of cake eater.  Anyway this was acceptable because he's not too hairy and I hate hair in my icing. I wonder just how big that cake is and what it's hiding?  Nah, I'm too old to even bother looking any more. And the cake is small if you check it against the manboobs.

I knew we'd pay for that warm day.

I was saving this cake for the actual day but my feet are still thawing out from this morning's walk for the papers. It makes me warm just looking at it and yes, I will need that many candles, damn it.
8.15 a.m., first whine of the cat and I was out of bed, fill the food dish, open the back door, turn on the fire, take BGL (very low)grab something to eat and back to bed by 8.30 a.m.  I think I woke up at 10 and it was still blowing a chill wind. 

The new TV is up and running, no problems with the old antenna and now I have 25 channels of repeat rubbish to watch. I only have one little thing to sort out, fixing widescreen dvds to fill the tv window.  There's a simple button hiding in the fifty or so buttons on the remote control and I will find it eventually. There is an instruction book for the tv, for using it as a computer, for watching movies and one page for the remote. Trying to record anything seems to require a doctorate in electronics so I'll just give that a miss for the moment.  I find it better to leave it alone for a week then give the instructions another try, repeat constantly until madness sets in or I understand that I will never understand it and give up.

Mother has a new bunkmate. A 96 year old Greek lady with 2 thousand relatives. Now I have to buy the old girl a set of earphones for the Dvd viewer so she can watch a movie in peace. So much for sister telling me not to overload her with too many dvds to watch, she's enjoying them all 2nd time around and wants more. That's the beauty of documentaries instead of movies, she watches them over again.  Lovely, I've just bought the National Trust Houses of Great Britain and the lives of Beethoven and Mozart. Keeping her happy keeps her off my back.

Overall a miserable week and according to my stars, another miserable one to come. Perhaps it's just the dreams I've been having. These are vivid like movies and not fleeting, I can wake up and write it all down. I can still see the beautiful white house with the conservatory full of ferns and sunlight streaming in and my ex turning up and wanting to sell it for his share. I was so worried about where I could get a loan to pay him out, I rang banks and mortgage brokers, all for nothing until I remembered that I already owned the house. I then threw him out the front door.  Not much explaining about that dream, obstacles all the way until I broke through and won.  Now if I could just translate that into real life.

And just when I thought my dodgy knee couldn't get much worse after the bus driver crunched the brakes and I bashed it against the back of the seat in front, very ouch.  I get an absent minded taxi driver who drove off with the door still open and my leg not yet in the car. My foot whacked against the curb and I said a few words very loudly. FFS, the idiot is sitting in front of a panel with lights telling him that the door was open and a seatbelt not fastened.  To make things worse, worse than the shooting pain up the leg, was having to tell him every inch of the way to Mentone. I should have complained but I was caught up in a drama down at the Home and didn't remember his number when I finally staggered home that night.  I'm so used to my regular drivers, who put the seat back for me, hold my bag while I belt up and shut the door that I'm unprepared for idiots like this.

I can't believe that this year I am determined to go out for my birthday, at night, in a taxi, to a restaurant. Broken leg or food poisoning, it's a toss up.

Not one but two cakes.

,

Now this looks too nice to cut into but I'll be brave, hand me the large knife.

Regards of the very pink roses, I want a lemon chiffon sponge layered with some

kind of boozy cream.

 

Now Elephant's Child is having a not so good time so a nice cake will
fix that.  What better than a happy Penguin playground cake?
Absolutely nothing.

For the mad cat lady driving the country ute.

I really could not decide, the first was so sweet and the second looked so much like Kitty.
Then I thought it might be really hard cutting and eating Kitty.
Of course you know I'm blogging cakes because I'm too lazy to do a half way decent post about something important.
One nice thing happened.  I had a very helpful lady at Medicare fixing up an account for Mum. She needed photo ID so out comes the old passport and she checks it and I explain that I am allowed to use that as I don't drive and I refuse to carry the expensive new one around.  She said that was fine, she just thought how much younger I looked now compared to then. Well, another plus for 13 years of divorce.  There is a rumour that the Mad Monk wants to make divorce harder to get. Too Late, Too Late, she cried as she danced naked under the moon in celebration.  Apologies for all those who are happily married to a lovely man that didn't crawl out from under a rock and take on the appearance of something resembling human.
And a snippet for the history buffs.  Cheltenham cemetary has discovered that there is an American Civil War Veteran buried there and pretty rare for those times, he was an African-American Vet. They are doing more research and putting up an information board near the grave. Now there's a story for "Who Do You Think You Are?"

River wanted a cake all for herself.

 So here it is, River in all her glory on three tiers of cake.

And here's my cake of the day, a tiara, naturally.

I'm a bit behind with the cake of the day but I keep drooling while I'm searching.

I hope this is a lovely fruit cake inside and the fondant icing is thick.

Countdown Day 10

How better to remind myself that I'm getting older than by posting a birthday cake a day until the horrible moment actually arrives. You all can divide up the cake, I'll just take care of the shoe and the strawberries.

How terribly twee!

I think they're so sweet and everyone has time on Christmas Day to do this, make Christmas Tree Potatoes.  This is why they call it the 'Silly Season'.

GO CLEM!

Lookee here, only Tuesday and I'm ready to curl up in a corner and cry until I read this.

I'm sitting in my usual spot, taking tea and a muffin (small) after a particular harrowing morning when my health educators decided to beat me over the head with threats of laproscopic surgery as a cure for all ills.

A largish girl sits beside me with a bottle of water and a sandwich and mentions how brave I am to eat "fat food" in front of the wandering Southland population.

I nearly swallowed the muffin whole, it was that small.

She never eats like that because she always scared that someone with a mobile phone will photograph her and she'll end up on a Farcebook wall, shamed without being named.

I very nearly got up and bought another muffin in retaliation for the nation of morons that think it's okay to do that to someone half my size and we all know how much I can fill out a bench seat.

When I think back 20 or so years before we all found out how evil Macca's was to eat, I'm appalled at how much of that I would eat in one meal and it was only once a week. If I added up the kilojules in today's money I'd probably have a heart attack on the spot. It was a Saturday ritual.  After shopping out Southland, we'd grab a load of take-away and head for the beach and eat.  We didn't think anything of it, never questioned how much salt, sugar or what the burgers were made of, it was cheap, quick and great to eat watching the waves.  I wouldn't do it now even if they say how much everything has changed regarding the ingredients. 

But if I want to sit and eat a muffin, with black tea or an ice coffee and if I'm really hungry, add a sandwich then I'm going to.  I just wished that girl hadn't been so frightened of social media that she couldn't enjoy a small treat.  I was too polite to ask what she did in the privacy of her own home, stick with the water or hit the fridge in a Friday night ice-cream binge.  

I am so sick of people's opinion of the "obesity crisis", "diabetes scourge" and how we're all going to die because the fat people are breathing too much air.  

As for the surgery, let me know when they invent a lap band for that part of the brain with the big red button that screams "eat" whenever I'm stressed, depressed and fed up with people.