A Touch of Gold Luxe

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There’s something wonderful about a soft, sweet sugar cookie – one that falls apart when you bite into it and is packed with beautiful vanilla flavour. Whether your baking them for Christmas gifts, afternoon snacks or party treats they make a perfect little treat.

The trouble with sugar cookies is decorating them. Most of the sugar cookie ideas you see require you to outline and flood the cookie with royal icing and while the finished product looks gorgeous, sometimes you just don’t have the time for fiddly techniques.

That’s where this idea comes in – why not decorate sugar cookies with a beautiful swirl of buttercream icing? Traditional American-style buttercream develops a thin crust while setting, giving them as much durability as flooded biscuits without the fiddly piping.

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Mondayitis

Happy Monday!

Hasn’t it been absolutely freezing the past couple of days? It’s been such a struggle to get out of bed, let alone go outside! Luckily for me we had a busy weekend filled with indoor activities – baking, setting up for a party and catching up with family. A pretty great weekend!

I hope you had a fabulous weekend too. Here are five things to get your week off to a great start…

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25 Years and Counting

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Now Kevin and I are nicely settled in our new home with the kittens we love any excuse to have people over – after all, if you bought a house you should spend as much time there as possible, right?

And what better excuse than a birthday! My 25th birthday is just around the corner (only two sleeps to go!) so we decided to have a few friends over to celebrate with dessert and drinks. I’m sure you know what that means – I got busy in the kitchen and did a lot of baking!

I decided to go with a pink and gold theme for the dessert table, with splashes of white to balance things out, so came up with a menu to suit – think cupcakes, doughnuts, cookies and (of course) cake!

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Pink Lemonade Perfection

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When we headed to America at the start of last year I had a list of foods and drinks I was really excited to try – think soft pretzels, crack pie and anything peanut butter. But I didn’t expect to come across what would become one of my absolute favourite drinks in the world – pink lemonade.

While I’d always read about it in books, seen it in movies and occasionally spotted a can in-store I’d never actually tried it. Sure, I love pink, but I just imagined pink lemonade to be coloured sprite. So. Wrong.

After realising how much I loved pink lemonade early on in the trip I spent the next couple of weeks drinking as much Minute Maid pink lemonade as I could lay my hands on. Then at Easter this year our good friends gave Kevin and I an amazing gift – a great big tub of pink lemonade powder…YUM!

When I was thinking about what to bake this week I spotted the tub tucked at the back of our cupboard (out of sight, out of mind!) and instantly decided to make a batch of pink lemonade cupcakes.

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Mondayitis

Happy Monday!

Congratulations – you’ve made it through the middle of winter! We’re now officially on the downhill slope to summer – woohoo!

I hope you had a fabulous weekend and are ready to take on the week ahead – I’m sure it’s going to be a good one. Here are five things to get it off to an even better start…

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A Punch of Passionfruit

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Baking in winter is a funny thing. Sometimes all you want to do is bake something warm and comforting, packed with flavours synonymous with cold winter nights – like chocolate, warm apples and cinnamon.

Then there are times when you just need something fresh and summery – something to boost your spirits and remind you that summer is in fact just a few months away. For me, this often means baking something packed with passionfruit.

Passionfruit is one of my absolute favourite summer flavours – there something about it that screams sunshine, long days and warmth – making it the perfect thing to bake with on a gloomy, wet winter afternoon.

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Cupcake Decorating in a Flash

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Every now and again there comes a time when you need to bake a batch of cupcakes but you just don’t have the time to give them the ‘usual treatment’ – no fancy icing, decorations or flavour combos, just humble (delicious!) cupcakes.

The last time this happened to me I decided to push myself a bit and make my trusty 1M tip off limits – it’s such an easy tip to grab when you’re in a hurry as the finished swirls are just so pretty! But there are so many other quick ways to decorate cupcakes when you’re in a hurry that look just as pretty.

Like this quick and easy, sprinkle covered decorating method – how cute are these cupcakes? The best part is while you can use a decorating tip to do this you absolutely don’t need one – just snip the end off your decorating bag and you’re all set!

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Mondayitis

Happy Monday!

Can you believe we’re already a week into July? I have no idea where this year is going – it’s absolutely flying by! I don’t know if it’s the kittens, or the house, or both, but the weekends just don’t feel as long as they used to – though on the flip side, the weekdays are flying by as well!

I hope you had a fabulous weekend and are all set to start the week off with a bang. Here are five things to help get your week off to a great start…

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