Celebrate cookbook gets a good works out at this time of year in our family with Oscar, Maggie and my birthdays in November. Maggie choose a garden party with our roses and peonies in bloom and Oscar decided an adventure on the new mountain bike tracks at the top of Tolosa street, then a ride home via the Tolosa street park would be a fun party with his mates. Plus they both had family dinners at home on their birthdays, with my 6 brothers and sisters and a brother and sister in law plus 2 close relations considered sisters, plus the grans and all the kids our family dinner it can be over 40 people, the cooking school area and kitchen looks like a restaurant. Maggie choose Fish and chips and Oscar- Pizza, Lasagne, arancini and carbonara pasta for the family dinners -recipes from my books.

For Maggie’s garden party she organised boards for her food including caramel slice, tzatziki, smoked salmon dip from Celebrate. Lemon slice and brownie. Nuggets from the real food for kid’s cookbook. The nuggets were a hit with her friends they all loved them but it was simply the crumbed chicken cooked in excellent quality extra virgin olive oil, gives then so much flavour. And I made the vanilla cake and butter cream from Celebrate, she had picked out an idea from Pinterest but she said mine was better. I was very happy with it too but our garden could take a lot of the credit for it.

Maggies pink rose cake
1.5 times vanilla cake recipe from Celebrate Cookbook so three tins that were then cut in half
5 times butter cream recipe
fresh flowers

Oscar had picked all his favourite party foods and fresh crumbed fish and chips. We also made caramel slice & tzatziki from celebrate. I don’t deprive the kids of the party food but I find it’s always good to have some nutrition served veg and dip, fruit and the fresh fish (fresh trevally they were lucky) cooked in extra virgin olive oil, I figure if they have a belly full of the good food first they can’t really fit in much else anyway.

Oscars Mountain Bike cake
no pinterest inspo for this one I had to make it up!

Using the cake and butter cream recipe from Celebrate cookbook
1 batch cake 2 tins
3 batches icing
green and black food dye
1 crunchie bar
1 twirl
Chocolate bullets
Plastic bike

Some hints for cake decorating with the Vanilla cake and Butter cream from Celebrate.

*if you make your own icing sugar from white or raw sugar in the thermomix just do a few cups at a time as it will heat up. And chuck the whole bowl of icing on in the fridge/freezer as you are working if it is warm or even a warm day, as hot or warm sugar will soften the butter to much if warm or hot and ruin the butter cream.

*As much as I consider myself a healthy eater do not scrimp of butter cream to try to reduce the sugar as I have tried in the past. It’s a party and a birthday cake, no one is eating thinking its healthy, and it just looks bad if the icing is too thin, it also drags the cake and crumbs through and hard to deal with. Smothering the icing on thick is the way to go.  This does not mean as you are pulling out slabs of leftover cake from the freezer for a small slice for the lunch boxes you can’t trim off the excess, much to the kids dissapointment who would quite like the extra 2 tablespoon sugar hit at lunch, teachers probably wouldn’t. I was slightly worried my poor chickens would end up with type 2 diabetes after this month I had thrown so much icing in the chook bucket.

*I use a couple of skewers poked through the middle of the cake to make sure the layers don’t slip- just dont forget they are there when you cut and serve it.

*Mix all your coloured icing to start with as it’s a real pain to try and match the colour.

* for Maggie’s pink I started with a dark pink and a near white half and half in 2 bowls. I took half of each and mixed to make the middle colour. Then about 1/3 the middle colour plus ½ the remaining white to make a lighter pink. Then 1/3 middle colour plus about ½ the darker pink to make the other colour. Glad I did that oil paining course a few years ago the colour mixing came in handy. So, then I had five bowls that I pipped on darker to light before smoothing with a palette knife.

*for Oscars Mountain bike cake, I simply made the ramp from the cake I trimmed from the top to square it off. Covered in a brown/black icing I decorated the ramp OFF the cake and moved it over onto a smooth green top. Crunchie and twirl broken up for the gravel and choc bullets for the logs.

The vanilla cake recipe from celebrate cookbook is simple & delicious I have made it about 200 million times for so many occasions over the last 30 years. No need to buy a packet mix, like pancakes and scone why would anyone buy these in a box? So easy with simple ingredients!! Other reasons not to buy the box is for the waste of packaging, and what else is in the box to preserve it for years. I don’t mind the taste of some of those pre-made icings but I would have needed 10 or more expensive tubs for Maggies cake. Find Scone and pancake recipes in the Real food for kid’s cookbook.

I have also just made my Christmas cake and Christmas pudding from celebrate, lots of recipes for the festive season in the book. And loads of recipes and ideas for all sorts of parties and celebrations and how much and when to prepare.

If you have not got a copy of Celebrate yet you can order it from this website. keep my book in mind for your Christmas shopping and workshop gift vouchers or even my photography prints. Share this so your friends can find it too please.