This weekend just past was really busy but lots of fun. After another hectic week (not complaining since mine was all of three working days long) we launched into a weekend of cooking, planning, organising and unfortunately, shopping. I really hate shopping. A lot.
I'm partial to markets, especially food markets and great delis where I can trawl through shelves and cabinets and refrigerators stocked with luscious things I sometimes take home to try. On Saturday I saw a jar of pate d'foi gras (or however you spell it) in a deli in Woden. Amazing! I've never spotted that in Canberra before, but there you go. Now I'm deliberately not going to make a comment on the the whole foi gras thing being cruel to geese because I have no idea what it entails and I've never indulged. This particular pot could be purchased for the bargain price of $149.95. Ouch!
Interwoven with random acts of housework, visits, shopping and the like, I managed to get in some cooking. It was a largely unsatisfactory weekend on that score. It's bizarre how things you've either made a hundred times before sometimes just don't work, and then difficult things you've never done turn out as if you're a master. On this occasion, both old and new were disasters. It definitely took a toll on my morale.
Determined to have one success to speak of, I turned to an old standard, guaranteed not to fail, favourite of one and all, young and old, and especially Tim. Cupcakes. Cupcakes are little bits of light, pretty frippery, designed to make a person feel happy. I didn't use any particular recipe of note, just a basic vanilla recipe that I turned into orange and poppyseed by using orange juice and zest, and poppy seeds. But I did feel the need to make them look pretty.
Earlier in the week I bought a packet of Robert Gordon paper baking cups. I think they're pretty good value at $4.95 for 50. They're good quality too - held their shape and colour well and look really lovely. I made up some pale orange and not too buttery icing, and slathered this on generously. To top it al off, I grabbed some lavender flowers from the garden and as you can see, the purple works really well.
The nicest thing is that they really do cheer people up, which is especially necessary on a Monday morning.
3 comments:
Yummo -- even the paper cups and ribbon look good enough to eat!
Where's mine??
those cupcake papers are gorgeous. Thanks for showing them. I'll look out for them.
Thanks! I got these at Your Habitat in Civic. They had a few different colours. Also, Wheel & Barrow have lots of pretty cupcake papers but I haven't tried those yet.
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