Yay for Birthdays!

I must be the slackest of slack bloggers. It's been nearly a month and a half since my last post in here. In my defense though, it has been the craziest of times for us. September sees my two eldest children through their birthdays, as well as school holidays, and Fathers' Day. Then in October it is my nephew's birthday and most importantly of all, MY birthday!

I have been very lucky this year to have some money put aside for myself. This never happens as I always end up spending it on my kids, or the garden (I love putting new plants in the garden, it's such a good feeling!). This time however, I was determined to spend it all on me. I have always dreamed one day of owning a KitchenAid mixer but the price is prohibitive. At $799 rrp ($AU) I didn't have enough to get one from a major store like Myer or David Jones, so I started researching online to see if I could get a better price. In the end I could get close, but not close enough. Which is when my SH stepped in and said that he would put in the remainder and give it to me for my birthday! Yay for Birthdays! Anyway, my Super Hubby is also a Super Shopper and he managed the best price yet from one of our local whitegoods suppliers, E & S Traders Moorabbin - $650!! I am now the proud owner of Rosie, my beautiful Empire Red KitchenAid Mixer.

I have already used it a couple of times now. My first task was to try out the chocolate cake recipe that my family all use. I have been struggling to get a cake to rise using this recipe and yet anyone else who makes it has no problem at all. I have cake envy! Well with my new mixer the cake was a success! Obviously my old mixer has been on its last legs for some time now. It is 15 years old and has well and truly worked itself into the grave. I also managed to whip up the most gorgeous Chocolate Pavlova from my Maggie's Kitchen recipe book. This was a hit with my family from a taste perspective, but the actual recipe needs to be tweaked as it spread when it was cooking and went very thin in the middle. Not at all like my pavs normally turn out. I'll show the picture here, but not the recipe until I try it again and get it right. I have spoken to someone else who has made this particular pav recipe and she had the same problem, so I know it's not my error in this case, there must be something with the recipe that is not quite right.

It still looks gorgeous though!

This is the pavlova mixture before I baked it according to the recipe.

Finished and decorated. You can see how it has spread to the very edge of the plate.

 
Anyway, my next post will be up very quickly as I am going to put up all the photos of my craft project that I have been working on this year, so stay tuned!