Friday 6th Feb '09

Today I rushed around at the shops trying to get all the supplies I would need to make a birthday cake for Christina tomorrow for her BBQ to celebrate her birthday. I couldn't find a little figurine suitable for representing Christina on the cake, so I decided to buy some sugar paste and try my hands at making one myself.

Lunch
Spaghetti with Stewed Vegetables
(from my lamb shanks)

It was a really quick first attempt for me with the sugar paste, so I basically just molded a body, a head, and then flattened out some paste that I'd coloured black (with black 'dust') for the hair. I stuck on little eyes and then rubbed on some pink 'dust' for the body and rosy cheeks. The 'dust' is a common ingredient used in cake decorating. You use a brush and paint it onto your piece. I didn't have a brush available, so I just used my finger to rub it on. I also made her a little suitcase to represent her moving to Canada mid-year to work and travel.



Dinner
Bee Hoon with Beef Balls, Okra & Red Capsicum

Mum deepfried some homemade curry puffs and fish crackers (not homemade). I remember a time when we first moved to Perth when Mum spent a whole day making fish crackers from scratch. She purchased fish (I think it was mackerel because you need a oily 'fishy' fish) and minced it all up. She then mixed it all into a dough with tapioca flour and there was a lot of kneading involved. For the patterns, she added food colouring and then rolled the dough up in different ways to create dots and stripes. The rolls were then steamed and then when they were cooled down, she had to slice them very thin. Now we didn't own a slicer so she did it all by hand with a knife. These slices are then put out in the sun to dry and then stored in metal containers. Before frying them, you need to take them out and let them sunbake - I suppose this is to get rid of any moisture so that they deepfry nicely.

As I said...a lot of work! Now she buys them for 5 cents a piece!

Christina found some leftover puff pastry in the freezer so set about making mini quiches for her BBQ tomorrow.

She used black pitted olives, sundried tomatoes, cheese, cream and eggs. She also sprinkled some fresh chives from my garden through the quiches.