Bits & Sprinkles

I only have one thing that I want to share with you today.. This super exciting collab that I was part of back in July! How good did Lana Pratt make our donuts look!! I love this picture.

I woke up this morning and checked my emails, and saw that the collab was featured on the White Magazine Blog. Much excitement!

Go here to check it out on the White Magazine Blog, and see the other amazing, creative and super talented people that were part of the super fun day! 

You can also click the links below:
Photography - Lana Pratt Photography
Florals + Styling - Silk Recipe
Venue - The Flour Factory
Gowns - Madeleine
Suits - Suits Formal Wear
Fashion Line - Lock and Key Clothing
Jewellery - Ilyas Honey Jewellery
Hair - Hair By Demi
Makeup - Makiyiaz
Table Settings - A La Table
Chairs - Charming Chairs
Cake + Biscuits + Donuts - Sweetly Baked Perth
Cupcakes + Macarons - Macnifique Baking Co
Macrame - Bash & Co
Party Supplies - Parties Made Pretty
Stationery - Butterfly Days
Models - Hayley Beardman | Caitlin Shanks | Carla Bartucciotto | Kierryn Davitt | Caelan Steedman

Bits & Sprinkles

Tomorrow we say goodbye to my Nanna. I won't go into details, but she passed away last Tuesday and I wanted to share a few things about my Nan for this weeks Bits & Sprinkles.

I will miss her immensely. I do wish that I had taken more time out to go and see her, spend time with her and gain some more pearls of wisdom. Hindsight is always 20/20

• Nanna was the first person who taught me how to knit and sew. I remember I would come to her house during the school holidays or on weekends and she would whip me up a new dress, or be crafting something amazing. 
• Likewise, I think it's where I got my love of baking. Nanna made these buttery sugary biscuits, like no other. We would often bake things together when I stayed with her. Biscuits & Scones in particular. (I've spent the past week trying to replicate them - with no success!!) I have shared a recipe here though for some buttery, golden syrup biscuits I made while I was trying to perfect Nanna's.
• Nanna loved doing crossword puzzles, watching game shows, playing the lotto. Really though.. who doesn't love a particularly tricky crossword or game of Wheel of Fortune or Burgo's Catch Phrase. 
• Incredibly bad TV Shows and Soap Operas - Nanna loved them. Home and Away, Days of Our Lives, Bold & The Beautiful! 
• Nanna collected things.. I wonder if that's where I got my slight hoarding tendencies from. Only just this year I threw out some things I found around the house that Nanna had 'collected' that had absolutely no value or relevance to anything. 
• On that same note though, half the things she collected were things that she thought someone in the family would like. She was constantly thinking about everyone, even if we didn't take more time to go and see her or phone her!
• Nanna always told it how it is. Whether you wanted to hear it or not sometimes.
• She was an avid gardener. Not something that I have inherited, but defintiely something I can appreciate. Her rose bushes are still out the front going strong and looking beautiful.
• She had a big heart and a selflessness which I found incredibly admirable. 

Bits & Sprinkles

• It was my birthday on Saturday. It's my golden year! (Where you turn the age that your birth-date is. So I turned 29 on the 29th). I was super spoilt by all my friends and family and had a great weekend!!
• I remember when I was younger, I think maybe 10 or 11, a friend of my aunty told me that the best year of her life was the year she turned 29. She would be close to 70 now, and I wonder if the year she turned 29 is still her best year.
  I don't know why I've remembered that all these years, but maybe part of me has been waiting until I turned 29, to see if this will be my best year too. 
• Here's a recipe for strawberry and lime marmalade cake. Make it, it's delicious.
• I had the most delicious vegan mushroom pie from Kat's Snacks on Saturday. If you're looking for a pie fix, this is the place to go.
• My book "I'm just here for dessert" from Nectar and Stone arrived on Friday. It's the most beautiful book in the world. Caroline has filled it with the best baking tips and the most beautiful pictures. 
• I also gave away some cupcakes to other people who shared a birthday with me!
• All these pink things! I've just heard that Millenial Pink is a thing.. who knew!
• Currently can't stop watching all of the videos that Sweet Layers puts up.
• The Perth Royal Show Competition Entries are now open, and I don't know what categories I should enter this year!! I got some great feedback from the judging last year, and I really want to try and improve on what I did. I also want to up my 2nd place to a 1st place for the carrot cake. 
• Pretty Little Liars is back for it's final season.. I really don't know how I've stuck it out this far, but I can't give up now that it's almost finished.

Bits & Sprinkles

• I've started "training" for the Step Up for MS. Which has involved too much stair running! I'll keep you updated! So far I'm up to 6 up and downs in a row, which is about 600 stairs. We need to work out way up to 1100 in one go, so we don't die on the day. 
• We helped my brother Raph & Carlie move house over the weekend from a dodgy place in a dodgy neighbourhood, to a cute little unit, in a bit of a safer neighbourhood. Yay!
• Did you watch the Logies on Sunday night? I loved what Georgia Love was wearing!
• Speaking of the Bachelorette!! Did you read Sophie Monk is going to be the next one?
• The amazing cakes from the Cake International! I'm in such awe of the amazingness that was created! My absolute fav was this DRESS - made of CAKE!!
• It's ANZAC day today. What does ANZAC day mean to you? For me it's about the sacrifice that so many people made, and it's something that I think deserves respect.
• I made these gluten free, dairy free ANZAC biscuits yesterday. They're made with quinoa flakes, gluten free flour and nuttlex spread. They need a little bit of tweaking, because Michael & I both think they're missing something. If you try the recipe, let me know.
• We made this cute 90th birthday cake over the weekend as well. It has layers of purple white chocolate mud cake and lemon curd on the inside.
• We also made some cute Avengers themed cookies for a 5th birthday on Saturday. Patrick was thrilled with them.
• I finally got to try a S-Cone from Scone Crazy on the weekend. I've been drooling over all their instagram pics for months and months and months. 

Gluten Free and Dairy Free Anzac Biscuits

Michael's favourite biscuits are Anzacs. 

When we first started dating, I regularly made them for him, swapping out the butter for dairy free substitutes. But, he still somehow ended up sick from eating them! 
It wasn't until a few years later, when we found out he also couldn't have gluten, that the mystery was solved! This meant finding a way to still have Anzac biscuits without the flour, oats and butter..

I think this recipe needs a little bit of tweaking. Michael and I both think it's missing something. But, if you can't have gluten, then I think they're a pretty close replica to the real deal. 

I took my traditional Anzac biscuit recipe, and swapped out the ingredients for gluten free ones and swapped the butter for a dairy free spread. I also added a bit more golden syrup.

Ingredients
1 cup gluten free plain flour
1 cup quinoa flakes
1 cup dessicated coconut
3/4 cup caster sugar
125 grams dairy free 'butter'
80 grams golden syrup
40 mls water
1/2 tsp bi-carb soda

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius and line 2 cookie trays with baking paper.

Combine the flour, quinoa flakes, coconut and sugar into a mixing bowl.

In a saucepan, place the butter, golden syrup and water. Stir over medium heat until the butter is completely melted and the mixture is smooth.

Stir the bi-carb soda into the butter mixture. (My favourite bit! I love when it bubbles!)

Add the butter mixture to the flour and stir until well combined. 

Roll level tablespoons of the mixture into balls and place onto your prepared cookie tray and flatten to about 1cm thick. 

Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes. Until the biscuits are golden brown in colour. You may need to swap your trays halfway through to have even cooking throughout.

Once cooked, let cool for 10 minutes before moving onto a wire cooling rack. 

Bits & Sprinkles

• This interview with the cast of Buffy! Still my all time favourite show.
• 82 things to see, hear and read this April.
• I've had my first full week at my new day job! So far it's been good. There's lots of new things I need to learn about this very different industry, but I'm excited for the weeks to come.
• I am struggling a little bit with part time work.. I need to organise my days off a bit better. I'm finding that I procrastinate and have so much time to get the things done that I want to do, and then don't get them done!
• Jemma & Matt's engagement party was on the weekend, and my gal pals were all together again. I know I only saw them all less than 2 weeks ago, but sometimes it's really hard having half your friends living in different cities!
• I registered for the Step Up for MS during the week. It's to raise money for MS and participants run up the stairs of the Central Park building - 53 flights or 1103 stairs! Eeek!
• I had my last cake class this week. We made naked cakes with chocolate sails and a ganache drip. 
• I made an In The Night Garden themed cake this weekend, and the faces on the Tombliboos picked up the snapchat filters. I couldn't stop doing it until the client came to pick up the cake. 
• We also made some cupcakes for a 60th birthday party. A mixture of raspberry white chocolate, dark chocolate, lemon and vanilla sprinkle. 
• We started our Sweetly Baked Perth Easter Egg Hunt this week. It runs all week, head on over to our Instagram and Facebook for the clues of where to find the prizes.