Mini Cafe-Style Muffin Wrappers

It's taken me a few days to get to this one from the sea of fever ridden brows that have been in my home for the past 2 weeks, but I've finally done it! Yippee!!! I give you (drum roll please)...

It really is so very simple to do. Take one roll of baking paper, either scissors or a roller cutter, a small cup (mine was the one that came with the children's Panadol), and a small dose of common sense. ;)

 1. Cut your baking paper to size. My Baking paper was 30cm across, so I made mine 15 x 15cm to fit my tin with about a 5.5cm overlap of the edge of the hole all the way around. (I figured it out by the diameter of the hole + depth + however much I wanted it to sit above the pans edge).

2. Find a cup of some sort that fits your muffin pan in both depth and shape (Thank you Panadol - you're terrific!)

3. Lay the paper centered over one of the holes in your muffin pan. Press down firmly. At this point it will only really shape the bottom rim of the paper well. On to the last step!

4. Press the folds in around the cup that started to form when you pushed it into the pan. Repeat as many times as needed. Genius!!!

Now all you need is something to fill them! Get your quick and easy quiche recipe here.

Enjoy,

Sharing here.

Button Sized Impossible Quiche

I love Quiche. I love it hot. I love it cold (on a hot day anyway!). I love it with either salad or veggies. So it was a no-brainer that I would make individual quiche for Baby Starfish's birthday celebrations... but with a twist. I wanted teeny tiny ones. One of my beautiful friends Margaret loaned me the BEST EVER sized mini muffin pans, but I don't know about you, I hate trying to dig things out of any pan - even when they are greased - so I decided that they would need a liner - preferable cafe style (I'll be back with a how-to for that one later. Edit: Here's the tutorial).

They were delish. They were better than delish. They were scrummy (does anyone else besides me use that word? You know, scrumptious and yummy smooshed together?)! Aaaannnnndddd... they were gluten free and dairy free! (My brother reacts to both, so I like to cook things that he can eat).

So you know you want to make some now, don't you. Pick up the printable version of the recipe using the link or read on for more info.

Button Sized Impossible Quiche

Gluten and Dairy Free options listed

  

Print     

        

      

Ingredients:

3 - 4 Eggs (depending on the egg size)

½ Cup Self Raising Flour (I used gluten free)

¼ Cup Melted Butter or Margarine (I used Nutalex)

1 ½ cups milk (I used Lite So Good, a soy milk)

The fun stuff:

This can be varied, depending on the flavour you are hungering for.

½ Cup of small, diced Pumpkin. Sauteed.

½ Cup of finely chopped Spanish Olives

1 Onion, finely diced and sauteed.

8 or more semi-sun dried Tomato halves, diced.

A little olive oil to saute with.

1. Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

2. Prepare mini muffin pans (or whatever you are using).

3. Prepare the fun stuff. I sauteed the onion, and the pumpkin (separately) in about 1 tsp of Olive Oil and set them aside.

4. Mix the first 4 ingredients in a large bowl (I was lazy and used my Kenwood Chef)

5. Add the fun stuff.

6. Bake at 150 deg C for about 10 minutes, or until golden looking and springs back to the touch. Let cool in pan.

Serve these on a plate for a party or pop some in your kid's lunch box's - you'll be one popular Mum!
Happy Baking!

Sharing it!                               

Cute as a Button Party: Part 1

So I'm finally taking the time to sort through all the photos from Baby Starfish's Cute as a Button Party.
I first hit the idea of a button party for him simply because right from when he was born, he was dubbed button, and his older brothers took the name and ran with it - so to speak.

Here are a few shots from the day...

Button Party Table

Button Birthday Cake

 Button Candle + Button Sized Patties

Button Biscuits

Cafe Style Button Sized Quiche

Button Tags for Drinks

Piles of Chocolate buttons... Mmmm!

Hope you enjoyed the little peek - There are more tutorials and recipes coming!
Also Coming Soon - Cute as a Button Party: Part 2

Till then...

Button Inspired Birthday Candle + Tutorial

Have you ever seen something, and known that you like it, but that it needed some improving to make it what you want? That's the way I felt when thinking about a birthday candle for Baby Starfish. By the way, being that he is fast leaving his baby days behind him and moving full throttle into toddler-dom, I think I may have to start calling him something other than "baby" - any suggestions? Please??? But I digress...

I bought a blue rimmed numeral 1 candle at Spotlight, but in the scheme of what I had hoped for, it was a tad dull. Enter a little post I found on glamming candles up a bit and this is what I came up with. It was so easy, fairly quick (there was a little pause for drying time before I flipped it over and repeated the process on the other side) and I love it. Want to make one too? Has it inspired you to work your own artistry of your own on a candle?

{MAKE IT!}  

Materials needed:

              Numeral candle or something similar
              (there is no reason that you can't use another surface as long as it can lie flat
              while the paint dries.)
              3-D crystal paint (or the coloured version)
             An array of small buttons - the smaller the better!

1. Lie the candle on a flat surface.
2. Fill the inner area of the candle without flooding over the  coloured rim.
3. Carefully lie each button on top of the glitter paint.
4. Wait for the first side to dry before flipping it over and repeating the process on the second side.

Voila! Now go and make some memorable moments. :)