[Baking Adventures]

If you've played The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, not only is your life complete, but you'll also know who this is:

This is the other Zelda fan art of was working on when I made the Sage Medallion cupcakes. It's something I'd intended to do for a while, so while I had some downtime I decided to embark on the project.

According to Google Analytics, the visitors to this food blog come from 76 different countries. Being able to share ideas and communicate across borders and oceans is a wonderful thing, but at the same time raises a lot of questions caused by different culinary languages. Given that the largest portion (40%) of visitors come from the USA, there are often a lot of questions about Australian terms used in my recipes. So this post is aimed at answering some of the most common questions that crop up on the blog.

One of my biggest kitchen dilemmas is working out to do with the leftover halves of the eggs when a recipe requires only one part of it. Egg whites aren't as bad as you can freeze them, but egg yolks only last a few days and don't survive the freezer so well.

After making the Pavlova Roulade, I had 6 of them to use up. The easiest way to use a large amount up, other than giving them to my puppy, is to make something custardy. I also had plenty of cream leftover from party baking so I decided a crème brûlée was in order. I'd made a chocolate one before, but I've never even so much as seen a white chocolate crème brûlée before.

Time to experiment. 

Julie Goodwin's cookbooks are amongst my favourite. This is her second. They are littered with personal stories, quotes from family members and delicious recipes that come from her family. The last chapter is left blank so you can fill it with those from your own family.

The recipes themselves are always so homely. Nothing new and fancy and designed to push the envelope. Just heart warming, delicious meals whose sole aim is to accentuate good times spent with loved ones. Her methods are written in a conversational style, often explaining aspects that may be new to a reader, or adding notes about serving suggestions or how much of the dish can be prepared in advance to allow more time with guests.



Along with Julie Goodwin, pavlova is another of my favourite things in the world. For the uninitiated, a pavlova is a meringue-based dessert that is a staple amongst Australian and New Zealand national cuisine.

A good pavlova meringue has a crispy exterior but is soft and marshmallowy on the inside. It is then typically topped with cream and fruit, but it is open to additions. Additions that usually involve some form of chocolate. I like adding broken up Flake or Peppermint Crisp to it, preferably by folding it through the cream. It's such a delicious, refreshing dessert and always the first thing I make a bee line for.

It's been a while since I did a novelty cake, so I decided to give one a go for my birthday party. I couldn't go past the teapot: a group of my friends from Uni, who've dubbed ourselves the co-op crew, used to meet up at the food co-op once a week to indulge in nommy vegetarian food, baked goods and tea (from the mouth of a camel teapot).