I feel like I have a bit of a connection with Mother’s Day. No, I’m not a mother but having a birthday on May 8th means that often Mother’s Day overlaps with my birthday (or at least the Mother’s Day weekend). This year, my birthday is the day before and all I want is a simple birthday really. I told Mr NQN all I wanted was a few simple things: sushi and sashimi for dinner, a massage, the Stieg Larsson trilogy, a new Moleskine and I wanted to watch my favourite TV shows in bed. Who says I don’t have simple tastes? 
And this bread. Yes I wanted this bread on my birthday.
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Alice in Wonderland cupcakes
Anna Maria Roche from Planet Cake
Alice and me. Alice in Wonderland that is. It’s enough to get a girl excited for today I’m making Alice in Wonderland cupcakes with Planet Cake who hold regular classes in cake and cupcake decorating. I’d heard of the classes and seen many gorgeous results including my buddy’s Christie’s Easter cupcakes. This class would be their first Alice in Wonderland cupcakes class and they were designed by Anna Maria Roche. Mother of two boys Roche is originally from Austria where she learnt her trade as a pastry chef but whilst Austria is known for cakes, it is not known for cake decorating in this style. When she moved here in 1991, they had to make their own ready to roll icing (RTR icing aka fondant) and cake decorating wasn’t anywhere near as prolific as it is now. As for me, I was just happy to be able to learn some more cupcake decorating tips!
My Alice in Wonderland cupcakes…
What can I say…I see things in technicolour!
We take a peek at the designs we’re doing today and I already spot a few favourites. We’re making an Alice down the rabbit hole,a teapot, a mushroom, a misleading sign, Mad Hatter’s hat, a cheshire cat, a clock and a rabbit. We’d be making two of each designs and the purely doing the decoration. The cupcakes are made by an external bakery for Planet Cake as all of the time needed to complete all of the designs. I was excited, I was only a novice cupcake decorator and skill levels at this class varied from first timers like me to a someone who was on her seventh Planet Cake class!
The equipment
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Birthdays are a funny thing. They can be bittersweet for some like Mr NQN who never liked them owing to receiving somewhat strange presents growing up. If he had his way, he wouldn’t even celebrate it. Not for me however. A birthday is an excuse for cake and any occasion that calls for cake is a good thing. And what comes with every birthday is presents and a dinner so for the food obsessed (moi) it is a great excuse to have a weekend long party. And this upcoming weekend is my birthday, something that thrills me to no end, even if those around me remain bewildered by my happy dances (I’m looking at you Mr NQN ).
I know there are some out there that just don’t sweets. I’m not one of them and I suspect if I tried to tell you that you’d probably all laugh quite loudly as my predilection for cakes and sweet is rather obviously catalogued in this blog. For some though, a piece of sweet cake isn’t quite as enticing as a savoury one and for them I offer this recipe, an alternative cake which you can make large, and is more often made large for gatherings.
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Business meetings are always so much more fun when they’re conducted over good food and with good company and this drizzly Sydney Friday I find myself crossing the Harbour to where I used to live in Manly via the famous Manly Ferry. Kate and I are dining at the six week old Manly Pavilion, a recently refurbished waterfront restaurant.
There are two rooms to this waterfront restaurant: a heritage room which is all dark and cosy retro charm with velvet cushioned seats much like the building itself, formerly a bather’s pavilion for nearby Manly Beach built in 1933. There are two entrances depending on which way you’re coming from. I’m coming from the ferry side and it’s a 5 minute walk from the wharf and I’m walking behind a large group of dressed up ladies who lunch. The other side is perhaps slightly more majestic an entrance and you’re straight into the main dining room full of louvred doors, sleek surfaces, open light filled space and the view.
The Heritage Room
We choose the five course chef’s tasting menu which is made up of the chef’s favourite dishes of the day . The first few courses are share style whilst the pasta course and the main course are individual plates and it includes coffee and petit fours at $88 per person.
I don’t usually eat a lot of bread, particularly during lunch time as it just fills up precious stomach space but the Primo Frontoi Cutrera olive oil is perfect with the spongy, fresh bread. Out of the two, the brown bread is my favourite. The sommelier comes over to talk to us about wine selections but his first comment is to dissuade us from calling him a sommelier as he doesn’t like the formal title and the image that comes along with it. So Manly!
Mozzarella di bufala: Buffalo mozarella on lemon leaf
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Tastes are a funny thing. I have definite taste preferences and they often vary quite wildly from Mr NQN’s. I like salty and sweet and don’t like bitter very much at all having never grown up with much bitter food as my mother doesn’t like it and therefore never prepared bitter tasting foods. Mr NQN on the other hand loves all things sweet and juicy (which could be perhaps traced back to the fact that he was breast fed until he was 5 years old – hey, at least it’s not 15 years old right? ) and he doesn’t mind bitter. His face will light up when I bring him a bowl of fruit salad but remain nonplussed when I bring him an aged beef steak with crispy duck fat potatoes. And it is why I barely get excited at most fruit unless it has been tasted by him and declared “sweet” (unless it’s figs, cherries or other reliably sweet fruit) and why I’ll avoid things like witlof and bitter melon.
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