WINNIE THE POOH BIRTHDAY CAKE

A Winnie the Pooh Chocolate Birthday Cake: not a bad likeness, I must say!

Parents, I am sure you have been to one of those "play palaces" where kids have their birthday parties...you know, with the wall to wall slides, pneumatic foam ball launchers,padded obstacle courses and requisite screaming kids? This is where we hosted Bib's 2nd birthday party a couple of days ago.

What happened to the good ol' days when you went to your friend's house for cake and a rousing game of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" or "Heads Up 7-UP"???

We never had play palaces when we were kids
We didn't receive loot bags
or get manicures and mini-facials at the spa
There wasn't take-out pizza for eats
or places that would host craft parties
and athletic centres and music schools hadn't yet realized the earning potential of catering to moms and dads hungry for kiddie venues and professionally supervised celebratory activities outside their pristine homes
Clowns that performed magic shows and gave out balloon animals were not the norm
Bouncy castles were yet to be invented
and yet
we kids were breathless
flushed-faced
and euphoric
hearts pounding in our ears
stickyfromcake
running hiding laughing

aaah. the good ol' days.


I was a tad busy this past weekend making Bib's 2nd Birthday cake.

whoo. piping buttercream "Pooh Gold" stars: not for people with mamby pamby hand-eye coordination

I decided on chocolate cake...that's a no-brainer in this household. I know Bib likes dogs but I had a brand new Winnie the Pooh cake pan that I had yet to use and though I'm not so fond of piping stars, I did it anyway. It's repetitive and tedious, and that carpel tunnel syndrome thingy starts to happen to me each time--it was quite a pain--similar to the piping of royal icing dots for hundreds of fondant flower centres (remember Ariel's Castle Cake?)

You can buy sets of gel paste colouring by Wilton for the tinting of your buttercreams so that the character cakes will have "authentic" colouring. I went this route because I hate trying to match the colour of the buttercream to the shades I know they should be because the names on food colouring labels are never what they sound like they're supposed to be. I ended up having to add a whole lot of colouring to get the depth of colour I wanted. For Pooh's red collar, I used up to almost half the little bottle of Red (no taste) food colouring. I wonder why they label it "no taste". Who'd want to buy food colouring that gives any weird taste anyway? why give us the option?

Pooh's fur was "Pooh Gold". Love it. ha ha! what a perfect name for the colour. I ended up using a third of the little bottle. However, I also had made too much buttercream for his fur and ended up with leftover Pooh Gold-coloured buttercream. It's now sitting in my fridge and I have no idea what I can make that would look good enough to eat with a buttercream of this ghastly pooh shade.

Making black buttercream is my least favourite task, always. When I start making it, it always appears to be grey. I keep adding a little bit of food colouring until I think our tongues would be stained forever. However, as usual, if you let the buttercream sit a bit, the colour eventually deepens and darkens. I stopped adding colouring when it still appeared greyish while I was mixing and after sitting a bit, the buttercream darkened to black.

Bib was happy with her cake. I admit that nothing will quite top the oohs and aahs of Bebe's 5th year Ariel Castle Cake (nor do I want to be taking on the challenge again quite so soon). When Bib starts talking and is able to express herself well enough to convince me to make her some monstrosity of a Disney-themed cake of her dreams, I'll probably do another one.

Until that time, I'll be sticking to these 2-dimensional cakes. They're pretty easy to make and no-brainers!

It's all about having fun in the play palaces after all ;)

DETOXIFYING BLOSSOMING GREEN TEA

a hand-tied ball of blossoming green tea

the tea ball "blooms" in hot water, revealing chrysanthemum (yellow), globe amaranth (pink) and jasmine (white) flowers.

All the snow we've had in Vancouver has just recently started to melt. We had a white Christmas and a very white New Year's too. This was the biggest dump of snow I've seen in a long time.

The kids even had their first go at toboganning and it was so much fun!

As for me, I had my own sort of snow-fun. You see, when snow falls in Vancouver, I get kind of excited about shovelling. It must be genetic. My mother shares the same sort of disposition towards things that have fallen on the ground. In the fall, she rakes leaves incessantly. When it snows, she's out there shovelling, even though she shouldn't be because she might slip and break a hip.

I can't stop her though because she'll sneak out there without telling me sometimes. So now you know why I haven't posted in a while. I've been shovelling and shovelling. BTW, Stomach doesn't do snow. He loathes shovelling and is simply glad that he lives with a shoveller. It's such a good workout! Our snow tends to be wet so it's so much heavier that the stuff they get everywhere else in Canada. Then the stuff at the bottom turns to ice and it's slippery as hell.

Since I shovelled in the New Year, I thought I was doing quite well with my resolution to be healthy and happy. Now that the snow is fading, I'm thinking of visiting my treadmill and Total Gym more often. I have cut down on my sugar and refined stuff because as you know, I totally indulged over the Christmas holidays; especially with my Christmas cookies!

This month I'll be baking Bib's 2nd Birthday Cake. I'm aiming for a more modest cake than the one I made for Bebe's 5th Birthday (the Ariel Castle Cake). I'll be making something with a Winnie the Pooh theme. Probably chocolate. Probably lots of buttercream. It'll be good, I think.

Here's some shots of my blossoming green tea in action. I took a shot about every minute or so.

Below, as you can see, the tea ball slowly rights itself after absorbing enough water-- to become upright; revealing at the same time the flowers hidden inside the green tea leaves.

I recently staved off a tickle in my throat post New Year's Eve (most likely caused by overindulging in fried foods, mulled wine and sweets!) by drinking copious amounts of my secret home remedy for colds: Chrysanthemum Green Tea. I used my Blossoming Green Tea and infused each tea ball at least a good 8 times in my little pot. Stomach even drank some because he wasn't feeling all that well after indulging at the New Year's Eve party. I supplemented with Red Reiishi caplets and probiotics and I'm feeling good as new. The green tea is slightly astringent-feeling going down and it cleared up all that tickly feeling.

Not only that, but I feel so special drinking the blossoming teas because they're so beautiful! They're hand-tied and crafted to bloom in the hot water. I've purchased some inferior tea balls in the past before and what happens is the tea leaves are kind of messy-looking as they bloom. Sometimes they might drop off the ball. Sometimes the quality of the leaves can be disappointing. The flowers might not be centred properly or the thin string at the base which holds all the green tea leaves and flowers together, can be seen (so not cool in my opinion)! This brand that I have here is very nicely crafted and I have no complaints. They're beautiful. It's best to have a clear pot or glass to watch the action. The tea-balls reach full bloom in about 5 minutes.

It's actually quite difficult photographing tea. I didn't use a filter on my lens (guess I should have!). I imagine a clear soup would be just as difficult to photograph; what with steam and all that being a problem for the macro shots.

here's a look into my little tea pot and below is the brand of tea I use in case you're wondering...

Detox with me, drinking Green tea!
Cheers!