Bennett Easter Egg Hunt

Last weekend we held our family Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Rose got up first thing in the morning and searched the front yard but unfortunately Easter bunny appeared to have overlooked that area! I managed to hold off the hunt for another hour or so and then we hit the backyard in search of chocolate treats. There were all sorts of surprises, in all sorts of places!

Nestled in tree stumps by the pool...

in the wood pile...

and under the paddling pool!

Easter bunny is a very smart bunny and knows that Rose and Harry love hunting for eggs but don't particularly like to eat them! In his kindness, he left a little named bag of lollies each, down by the old vege patch.

Those went down very well! :-)

The hunt was all very exciting, as you can see.

Easter bunny had left one final surprise, a Barbie egg behind our oak tree and a Hot Wheels egg by the old wood pile.

Rose and Harry were pleased with their stash from the Easter bunny this year. Most of the eggs are now in the cupboard and will probably stay there for several months. The lollies were gone in less than a minute!

Sticky Stem Ginger Cake

As sad as it is to admit, I was a fan of the TV show, New Zealand's Hottest Home Baker. It was reality TV at it's worst but I found it great for getting new ideas and inspiration for baking.

On the very first show each contestent made their signature dish and I have tried several of the recipes since then. The other day I tried the winning recipe, Emma's Sticky Stem Ginger Cake, which originally came from Taste magazine in September 2006.

It was delicious! I could not track down stem ginger in any stores or supermarkets so I used fresh ginger instead. I served it at a family dinner with the lemon drizzle and whipped cream and despite being certain Dad would hate it, he loved it! Tasted like pa pudding he said.

Here is mine going into the oven. Mmmmm.

Here is the recipe for anyone keen to try it:

Cake Ingredients:

225g Self Raising Flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp Ground Ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

115g butter

115g dark muscavado sugar

115g treacle

115g golden syrup

250ml blue milk

85g drained stem ginger in syrup (grated finely)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees, grease and line cake tin. Sift flour, baking soda and spices in food processor. Add butter and pulse to breadcrumbs. Transfer to large mixing bowl. Put sugar, treacle, syrup and milk into saucepan and heat gently, stirring until sugar dissolves. Turn up heat and bring mixture to just below boiling. Add stem ginger to flour mixture and add treacle mix while stirring. Break in egg and beat until combined. Pour into tin and bake for 50-60mins. Check centre with skewer and leave to cool.

Icing Ingredients and Method:

50g icing sugar (sifted)

1 tsp lemon zest

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Mix icing sugar and zest and gradually add juice until you have a smooth and runny icing. Drizzle or pipe into a criss-cross pattern.

My Letterbox Project

I know this isn't the most exciting thing to blog about but I was really proud of myself! :-)

I bought this letterbox off Trademe for our Sunnyhaven house a few years ago after a truck driver broke our other one when delivering a skip to us. He stuffed $20 into my hand and then gapped it down the road as fast as he could! It was pretty sad looking in it's original state, a lovely cedar brown and full of cobwebs and dirt.

I then painted it a dark green colour (think 1990's style!) to match our exisiting roof and it has stayed that way for the last 5 years.

Last weekend it received it's fourth coat of paint and is now a lovely Resene Grey Friars. I purchased some modern new letterbox numbers from Box Design and voila, she is now back is fine form again for another few years!