Cupcakes for the kiddies!!

So I have recently completed a three wk prac for uni (I am doing teaching) and for the last day I made these cupcakes for the kiddies. They LOVED them and even though we made a large crumb mess for the cleaners, they were muchly delighted in! I apologised to the boys as I only had one colour at home so all the cupcakes were pink, however seeing as they were a young class (6/7 yrs old) the boys didn't mind, in fact most of them proclaimed 'I like pink!' Overall a yummy recipe, and they arn't those boring vanilla cupcakes with no flavour and really spongy to the point of eating air, they are sooo moist and tasty! Good for kids, and adults too! The recipe is from the women's weekly classic recipes. Well worth a try!

Mint slice chocolate cake! YUM!

I made this cake for a friend's birthday. When I asked her daughter what her favourite cake was, her daughter wasn't sure but she knew her Mum loved chocolate cake and mint slice biscuits were her all time favourite biscuit. That is how this amazing cake came about! I used the good old Edmonds cook book basic chocolate cake recipe and then added the biscuits. There is a whole packet of biscuits chopped up and added to the actual cake recipe before baking, and then another whole packet on top of the cake stuck to the frosting! So all up, there are two packet's of mint slice biscuits in this cake! As you can imagine it is soooooo rich and most of us felt sick after eating a large piece each! It was just sooo yummy, minty and chocolaty and did I mention RICH! Probably a cake you should only have small servings of, or you could add half a packet only to the cake batter to make it a little less rich! I am now inspired to make other cakes out of biscuits like violet crumble cake or cherry ripe cake or bounty cake! Hmmm bounty cake would be awesome, with coconut sprinkled on top! So I challenge you, be daring! I had no idea if this cake would turn out but when it did it was worth the risk! Next time you make chocolate cake, add something a little different! It's worth it!
A great birthday celebration, and the cake made it that extra great!

Mediterranean salad!

This was for a dinner party and was rather delish'! I got the recipe out of a health book and added a few extra ingredients also like rocket. The dressing was lemon and olive oil and balsamic vinegar and worked really well! If ever in doubt with a salad, chuck some balsamic and olive oil and a bit of lemon on if you have some and you have a party pleaser!

Apple, pear and date crumble!

Guests were arriving soon,
'What should we do for dessert?' Mum said.
'Umm well we have a pear, some old apples..maybe a crumble?'
Chuck in some dates and a Stephanie Alexander basic crumble recipe and enjoy!
I did add some oats to the crumble recipe and although it was good, it could of been crunchier! If you know the secret to perfect crunchy crumble please fill me in on it cause mine normally turns out too crunchy or like this one too powdery, if that makes sense.
Even so, twas a lovely warm dessert to eat on an early summer evening.

Tomato and spinach chicken stir-fry!

This was one of my odd 'Grace original' dishes, most of which I don't blog about but I thought the pic looked good so why not I say! This was one of those 'We have one piece of chicken, a few random veggies and basically nothing in the fridge' throw together dishes. Quite nice though. I used a decent amount of tomato paste, rice noodles, soy, oyster and fish sauce (which really added a nice salty flavour) and some veggies.