The Big Day - What we eat for Christmas breakfast

Daddy Ebi designs industrial cake machines and so each year, on the 24th his company gifts fancy cakes to all the employees. These are made by some of the top cake makers in the country and every year we have had a gorgeous cake.

This year was no exception, a stunning berry and fresh cream tart, it was every bit delicious as it looks... and so much better than the toast (cut into triangles because it was a special occasion) that we had as kids!

Santa did well this year, Star Wars thermals and a lovely snuggly Star Wars dressing gown - which his had been wearing to get extra cuddles out of everyone!

Books of course, lots and lots of books. I think he has the whole set of David Wallams books now, we are almost to the end of Billionaire Boy, if you haven't read any of them yet, go and get one - brilliant and funny!

The second Angkor Wat manga that he has been after, I think someone had a word with Santa about this one, he couldn't wait to get his nose stuck in.

And Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Lego, another gorgeous book to add to the library, Architecture The Visual Guide. Just the book itself is beautiful, printed on black and silver paper it goes perfectly with his other gifts (he is on an architecture kick and has been for quite a while)

The Lego Architect Kit. I'm planning to do a full post about all this as I'm really impressed with it all and Ebi-kun loves it, although the kit states for kids age 16+ and it contains no instructions for making anything - but it does have a great book so you can read about how architects use Lego to develop ideas and it gives you tips on how to use the kit. 

There are 1200+ pieces which are all white or transparent and it perfect for a budding architect... certainly kept him quiet for the afternoon and maybe mommy and and daddy too - except daddy the mechanical engineer had to try and make a vehicle out of his pieces!

I managed to get through the day with excessive amount of painkillers and crashed out pretty early, certainly not the best Christmas ever but not worst either. I was grateful we just had one, not very noisy child to content with, a house full of screaming kids would have finished me off!

Mary Rose Cake Tutorial

Last Saturday was a national holiday, so our American friend hosted a Thanksgiving party. I offered to do the cakes. For the adults I made the very indulgent Bailey's Salted Chocolate Pie of course we didn't want the kids digging into that, so for them, I made the Mary Rose.

We had a round sponge cake that my husband had bought home from work (his company makes cake mixing machines and he often comes home with cake on testing days!) plus a couple of Castella cakes. You could easily use this to make a pirate ship for a pirate party. It was easy to put together…

Start with a round cake and 2 blocks of sponge and a jar of jam to use as glue…

Place one of the blocks on top of the circular cake then cut it so it is as wide as the block of cake…

Take one of the off cuts and place it at the front - and after repeat for the front with the other piece…

Cut it again so the back is the same width too…now do the front end…

Now to build it up, one block will go on the back. The front cut 1/3 from the end. Use some jam to stick everything together, adding some jam to the bottom of the ship will also stop it from sliding around. Once all the sponge is cut, simply build it up…

It should look something like this…

Then all you need to do is cover it with your preferred frosting, this could have done with a bit more smoothing over but I was short of time. The sails were simple, cut some printer paper and thread them onto bamboo sticks, I used a bit of masking tape to hold them in place.

Of course, if you were going for the whole pirate theme you would want to add some mini figures and the such like, my distraction technique worked, the kids were happily distracted by ship cake and the adults got to over indulge! Win-Win!

Our valentines meal

Better late than never! Ebi-kun and I had a cooking session on Valentines day, we made pasta from scratch and a red velvet layer cake. Ebi-kun got some little sweetie packages from a couple of the girls on the street - they are not allowed to dish them out at school.

I decided to go wild and instead of chocolate, I got him a papaya! He has been pestering for one for weeks, just because it is something he hasn't tried fresh - I don't buy them because they are expensive! he was very excited with his non chocolaty pressie!

The pasta was OK, we made spinach & ricotta ravioli but then has some pasta left over so we made that in to tagliatelle, Yum!

 Then the red velvet layer cake... I covered it with cream cheese frosting the spayed it with gold spray - something I picked up when I was at home. The kitchen lighting plays havoc with the colours but you can get a general idea...

A whole seven years old!

Yep, that teeny tiny baby from 7 years ago is now a strapping lump of a lad! We had a bumpy start, you can read about it here, and he was a skinny little thing when he first arrived... first picture at about 45 minutes old...

This one I edited myself out of the shot since I look like hell, I was yellow and had my head rested in a sick tray - don't ask, not that I could explain because I don't remember! Ebi-kun was about 7 hours old here, ohh don't they grow fast!

And here he is a healthy, silly, funny, intelligent, cheeky, cocky 7 going on 15 year old! Happy Birthday Ebi-kun and I hope you like your cake!