Happy Birthday, Baby Girl

Ruby's Birthday Cake

I can't believe my cute little niece is 1 already!
I used the white chocolate mud cake recipe from Exclusively Food , but made it gluten free by replacing both plain and self raising flour with gluten free flour, adding baking powder to compensate for the self raising flour, and adding almond meal to help keep in nice and moist.
For the icing, I used the ganache recipe from my macaron class several years ago.

Unfortunately the chequerboard effect didn't work properly, but it still looks pretty cool.

Birthdays

Andrew baked me a sponge cake, and I baked him a cheesecake

Andrew's Birthday

With chocolate ripple cake.

Birthday dress

 There was a problem with the pattern for Abby's birthday dress. The neck binding measurement was given as 21 inches (easier to use imperial with the quilting ruler and cutting board) but I realised the night before her party, when the dress was otherwise finished, that that was huge. Looking at the other sizes, it was supposed to be 12 inches. There was no time to fix it then, so she wore a superhero skirt from Ana, Ma Petit Tresor

 I did manage to fix it by the following weekend for our photo shoot though. And then I took a few photos at home.

1st Birthday

Cake

 Mum liked the pumpkin and walnut cupcakes so much she requested them for her birthday

And I made Nigella's chocolate olive oil cake.

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Dress made by my mother in law, hat by a friend

 I stole my friend's baby so I didn't have to stand there alone.

 No longer the youngest. And I made that dress

 Two dear friends

 My darling cousin who came from Canberra, just for my birthday!

 Andrew and Niece #1 pretending to be dragons.

 My new niece, Tayah, 1 week old!

 Andrew with Tayah

 He sings!

Not one sponge cake, but two!

High Five, Alice!

My middle niece turned 4 last month. Much to the fascination and confusion of the family at large, and especially her mother, she's quite a fashion conscious, trendy, feminine little thing. So when I saw High Five! in issue 87 of Australian Smocking and Embroidery, I knew it was the perfect present for her birthday.
I spent far too much time fighting my sewing machine over the topstitching thread, and I'm sure I wasted more of it than I used. I also spent an hour and a half fighting my future mother-in-laws sewing machine over keyhole buttonholes, before giving up and doing standard buttonholes on my own machine.
But in the end, I love it so much that I'm trying to figure out how to make myself one!

Bag for Sal

I found the kit for this bag for half price last year. I soon decided that it was perfect for Sal's birthday present. Putting it together had some challenges - the instructions weren't all that clear - but it wasn't too hard.


And in the end, I was able to give my friend this gorgeous bag.

Jill's birthday

Sunday was my best friend, Jill's, birthday, and she had a high tea in celebration. To help limit costs and stress, she asked her guests to contribute. She specifically asked me for my chocolate chip cookies, and cinnamon honey cake for her birthday cake. Then I couldn't resist and had to make chocolate butterfly cakes too.
It was a lovely afternoon. We stuffed ourselves silly on sweet things, and had hours to chat. I can't think of a better way to spend a birthday.
Oh, and this blog has already inspired someone! It inspired my friend, Sally, to start her own blog. Check out Earthbound Shaman in my blog list.

My chocolate chip cookies!
Brightly coloured patty pans. Andrew laughed at me when I got him to take a photo of these "because they're pretty and they make me happy"
Cinnamon honey cake, with lemon icing
Butterfly cakes - samples for Mum and the neighbours. I put the rest together at Jill's place as they were easier to transport that way.
The tea table. Doesn't it look pretty?