school birthday brownies

welcome back to school after covid filled holidays with lockdown and masks. yay. which also meant i had to be careful with madeline's class treats for her birthday. individually wrapped? i understood the assignment!

easy done, two trays of brownies cut into chunks and placed into mini bags from the cheap shop and tied off. her teacher was very happy and so was miss madeline. she always has her birthday in the holidays and doesn't like to miss out on the fun.

as a courtesy - the best brownies ever, that don't need chocolate - all simple pantry ingredients!

courtesy brownie recipe:

200g butter

2 cups packed brown sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup plain flour

2 eggs

1. preheat oven to 160 deg celcius (fan forced)

2. line a 20 x 30cm pan

3. melt butter and brown sugar in a pan gently over low heat until combined. do not boil

4. add cocoa and vanilla essence and stir until combined

5. add flour and mix well

6. add eggs and stir until completely combined

7. pour into lined pan and bake for 20-25 mins (in our oven - 22 mins is perfect!)

 

mermaid cupcakes

i sent madeline off to class this morning with 23 of these decorated mermaid cupcakes for her "birthday." having her birthday mud july means she will never have her birthday during the school term, but she doesn't like to miss out on her special day with the class, so we always take her cupcakes on the last day before school holidays.

but. oh the drama. the mermaid cases and tails carefully purchased for this years party theme only had 23 cases inside...

the cakes did not want to stay in their cases and were moving all over the place in the trays...

meaning i had to actually trim them into a decent size for decorating. hahaha.

 

then my piping bag broke and icing went all over the place...

but we somehow got there. a generous topping of aqua cream cheese icing, a dash "midnight" sprinkles from the queen range at coles supermarkets and the mermaid tail on top? good to go. i was pleased with the end result and that's the main thing right? plus, i was  volunteer in the school canteen today and somehow walked past at just the right time as the kids came out for recess holding them. i got lots of compliments, so they obviously tasted okay. hooray! well. there's the start of birthday month for you miss madeline! 

pink-all family home evening

on the first monday of every month, we have a special family home evening with our family friends, the pinkers. we've been doing it for over a year now and we love it - because it guarantees we see each other at least once a month. for anyone that's reading my little blog that's not a member of our church, you can read more about family home evening here...

they arrived this monday, with a gift for the newest one year old we know... and doug was stoked, a perth wildcats jersey! he loves them... and loves kids in sporting attire, so it was a win/win! plus look how happy he was to be wearing it! we always joke about "birthday week" in our family, although sometimes it ends up being more like birthday month as we catch up with people a little later on.

we love fhe and the pinker family and are so glad to count them as members of our (extended) family!