Christmas Tree Meringues and the Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Picnic

Photo credit: Simon from the heart of food

Oh yes, it's that time of year again - when shopping centres play carols that get stuck in your head for the rest of the day, and reindeer horns and red noses start appearing on cars around Sydney. It's Christmas, which means it's also time for the 2nd annual Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Picnic!

As usual there were copious amounts of food present which were arranged on the makeshift dining table. As much as I wish I had the stomach space to try everything, I never quite get around to it all but everyone's contributions looked delicious!

Clockwise from top left: Ribs by Billy from A Table for Two; Macaron tower by Cleony from I Eat Sweet; Chocolate Christmas tree by Lisa from Lisa Perkovic; Orange, pistachio and cardamom cupcakes by Angie from Angie Lives to Eat (and Cook)!

There were more sweets than savouries as expected and even though I keep telling myself to make a savoury item for the next food blogger meet-up, I ended up making a sweet item... oops! Luckily there were savoury contributions from other people but you had to be quick otherwise you missed out (case in point: Billy's ribs - gone in 60 seconds!)

Clockwise from top left: Mini pecan pies by Rhonda from The Dainty Baker; Mini Christmas puddings by Vivian from vxdollface; Cheese bread by Tammi from Insatiable Munchies; Strawberry Santas by Ayana from Absolutely Ayana

I ended up making meringues to bring to the picnic. Midway through beating the egg whites I realised that I could Christmas-ify them up by colouring them green and putting little stars on top. And voila - Christmas Tree Meringues!

These were really easy to make, and also relatively quick although they do need to be in the oven for a while. Even though it's only egg whites and sugar beaten together, they do become strangely addictive and I may or may not have munched on a few on the way to the picnic...

A big thank you to Helen from Grab Your Fork and Suze from chocolatesuze for organising the picnic, I had an awesome day! Looking forward to the next one already :)

Cookie Monster Cupcakes and the Sydney Food Bloggers Spring Picnic!

Cake made by Anna from Diary of a Ladybird

As I'm sure you have all read about already, the awesome Billy from A Table for Two and Karen from Citrus and Candy organised a picnic for the Sydney Food Blogger community a few weeks ago. There was a great turn-out, with lots of new faces as well as familiar ones, and of course there were mountains of tasty food which spanned across at least 3 picnic rugs!

We were all encouraged to bring a plate to share, and to put some effort into it as well since there were some great prizes up for grabs, including restaurant vouchers and a brand spanking new KitchenAid which was won by Anita from No Red Meat. Congrats Anita!

It was the weekend before my thesis was due so I decided to whip up something easy like cupcakes. Since Nuffnang was sponsoring the picnic one of the categories included a prize for the best blue dish. Whilst trawling the internet for some cupcake decorating ideas I came across this Cookie Monster cupcake which I thought was an awesome idea and I set out to replicate it.

It seems great minds think alike, since there were two other offerings of Cookie Monster cupcakes at the picnic (one of which was made by Sook from Nommy Nom Nom). Even though we all had the same basic idea, all the cupcakes were slightly different. I decorated mine with dessicated coconut which had been dyed blue to give it a 'furry' effect and piped dark chocolate for the eyes instead of using choc chips.

My favourite part of the cupcake though is the cookie that is shoved in Cookie Monster's mouth! If you're going to make these it's probably best to insert the cookie on the day you're going to serve them to avoid the cookies going stale as mine did. I was getting worried at the amount of blue food colouring that was going into the whole product so I skimped a bit on colouring the coconut (you can see some white flecks where the coconut didn't manage to be dyed blue), but feel free to go crazy on the blue food colouring if you want a really vivid, intense blue colour.

ATFT Photography Workshop @ MUMU Grill, Crows Nest

It's been almost a year now since I've started using a DSLR for my photography and although it's been a steep learning curve, I still have a long long way to go to get my photos looking as good as I'd like. I can only dream that one day my photography will be as awesome as Billy's from A Table for Two but in the mean time there is much to learn. And who better to learn from than Billy himself at his ATFT food photography workshops held at MUMU Grill.

Olive selection and Cherry tomato and feta salad

18 month Jamon Serrano and Catalan bread

Food Bloggers' Dinner at Bistro CBD

What happens when you chuck four food bloggers into the kitchen of Bistro CBD to cook one course each for 70 guests? It turns out that you get a phenomenal success, as we all found out last night at the Food Bloggers' Dinner as part of Merivale's Feast for the Senses promotion.

We were served up five delicious courses, one from each of the bloggers and one from Bistro CBD's head chef Simun Dragicevich. When we arrived, Fouad, Billy, Karen and Linda were hard at work preparing their dishes in the kitchen, as they had been doing all day and the night before.

To start, we had some sparkling wine which was included in the $60pp price for the dinner, as well as some sourdough to munch on while we waited for dinner to be served. There was an awesome vibe on our table of bloggers since we were all here to support the guys in the kitchen, cheering them on when they came out after their dish was served.

Sashimi of kingfish, avocado, wasabi, lime and soft herbs by Simun Dragicevich, Bistro CBD

Christmas in July

'Twas the night before Christmas (in July), when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...

Except for a crazy onslaught of food bloggers and friends who were kindly invited by Billy and The Pom to join them in celebrating Christmas in July! Thanks for letting us invade your kitchen and your house for the night :) 

Of course Christmas just isn't Christmas without being able to gorge yourself on all kinds of food. And indeed we had a great big feast in store that went on well into the night.

We kicked off the night with some snacks and a cheese platter brought by Shez including her yummy home-made labne.

Then the table was set, the Christmas music started playing, a picture of a crackling fireplace appeared on the tv screen and dinner was served! We all marvelled at Billy's beautiful bread wreath which he served with some delicious truffle butter.

All You Can Eat Ribs at Waterfront Grill, Darling Harbour

When planning a birthday celebration with food bloggers, one always needs to consider the food. Will it taste good? Will there be enough? Thankfully this was not an issue when I celebrated my 21st birthday with a giant horde of super hungry food bloggers craving for ribs at Waterfront Grill.

Raspberry iced tea cocktail (Thanks Leona!)

The amount of food was never going to be a problem since what we were there for was the All You Can Eat Ribs for $29pp, available on Tuesday nights from 5pm. And although there were some inconsistencies with some ribs being a bit drier than others, when they did arrive smothered in BBQ sauce they were delicious!

Richard's Party and Peach & Vanilla Panna Cotta

A lunch with food bloggers always means food. Lots of delicious, mouth-watering, and interesting food. The awesome Richard opened up his home and a gaggle of food-bloggers descended upon it bringing bountiful plates of meat, desserts and other waist-line expanding goodies.

Luther burgers by Suze

Perhaps one of the most intriguing foods was Suze's almost-lethal Luther Burgers. Hidden inside a sticky Krispy Kreme donut was a beef patty, oh-so-crispy bacon, cheese, pineapple, and a fried egg. So wrong, yet so tasty!

Gourmet sausages by The Ninja

Cheese, ham and cherry tomato bread by Shez

Gingerbread Galore!

The lovely bloggers Helen from Grab Your Fork and Suze from chocolatesuze recently organised a massive Xmas party for Sydney food bloggers. Everyone brought along a dish to share and needless to say with around 50 food bloggers in attendance, we ended up with huge amounts of food. Check out these posts for more foodie madness!

Amongst a tiered platter of classic kids favourites, "Elvis" cupcakes, a slow cooked Bo Ssam, chicken wings, a Makoto sushi platter and other delicious offerings, I made some iced gingerbread cookies for the occasion (recipe below).

A few days later I also decided to try out raspberri cupcakes' mini gingerbread houses. These turned out great and now there is a cute little gingerbread house sitting on my dining table awaiting it's destruction on Christmas Day! 

I didn't make all four houses in the recipe so I had some dough leftover for some gingerbread Christmas trees and gingerbread men to decorate the garden around my house. The house was very sturdy and the measurements for the house were perfect! Thanks Steph :)

It's not quite finished yet - on the day I intend on sprinkling some sifted icing sugar for some snow and also putting a puff of smoke from the chimney using mini marshmallows and an unravelled paperclip, as shown in the raspberri cupcakes recipe. More photos will be posted up of the finished product later.

Inspired by Chocolatesuze: Rainbow Vanilla Buttercake

Looks like a normal cake right?

Until you cut a slice out of it to reveal crazy rainbow colours!

I had planned on baking something amazing for my dear friend Queen Chu's 21st birthday, but it wasn't until I saw this cake that I thought a) I have to make this! and b) I'm crazy! At this point in time chocolatesuze had yet to post up her method of making her amazing rainbow cake so I was sort of improvising along the way and just praying that everything would turn out alright.

I was never as ambitious as chocolatesuze to make an astounding 20 layers in her cake AND make it into a fork shape, so I ended up with 8 layers. I didn't have high hopes for success while I was baking this, hence the lack of process photos but it turned out surprisingly well (albeit a bit lopsided!). Chocolatesuze's recipe is here for a 20 layer cake and probably one that is more efficient to make but I'll post mine below anyway just in case you're interested ;)

Ben & Jerry's, Manly

Did someone say free ice cream?

How could I resist the lure of a Scoop-A-Thon at the newly opened Ben & Jerry's at Manly, especially when that day was forecast to be 35ºC! I joined Suze, Yas, The Ninja's body double, Shez, Richard and Rose for some serious ice-cream eating.

We joined the ever present queue and waited for our turn while the Ben & Jerry's people held competitions giving away free cooler bags and other merchandise. While we were in the queue we decided which flavours to get using these handy flavour cards.

We got our ice creams and sat outside the store where they had installed some fresh grass on the pavement, and we tried and tested all the flavours. My favourite was without a doubt the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough aka Peanut Cookie-Burra Dough! The salty peanut butter with the sweet ice cream was the most amazing combination ever! Phish Food (which doesn't contain any fish food) as also a close second with melty marshmallow bits in the chocolate ice cream.

Clockwise from top: Berry Berry Extraordinary, Chocolate Therapy, Lemonade Stand, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Chocolate Macadamia, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Lemonade Stand.