John's Birthday Cake(s)

My husband John turned 50 about 2 weeks ago. To celebrate we gathered friends and family at our favourite local Japanese Restaurant - Taiko.

Despite things being pretty crazy for us at the moment - John is about to deploy with the Army to South Sudan for six months and some health issues for me, I wanted to do something special for a cake for him.


When I first met John he worked for Apple New Zealand - his job description was 'Apple Evangelist'. In my career Apple computers have been a very important tool. Apple products are pretty important to all of our family. My idea for a cake was to use the 'Apple' logo as inspiration. I hunted on 'Pintrest' for ideas and found some good ones. Several years ago the Apple logo had rainbow stripes...this seemed like a great idea.

I purchased coloured fondant icing for the cake. The colours were not exactly right but it looked good. Luckily I had my Mum helping. The icing took far far longer than I expected! We measured the stripes of the icing, but the stretched when we lifted them on to the cake.
I used butter cream icing over the cake before laying over the fondant. The cake was made using my failsafe banana cake recipe with chocolate chips added.



I was a little unsure how many people I was feeding so decided to supplement the cake with 'camouflage' cupcakes as a 'nod' to the importance of the Army in

his life.
To make the cupcakes I just coloured basic cupcake mixture and added a bit at a time to create the pattern.



Butter Cream Icing

125 g softened butter
1 tbsp warm milk
flavouring of your choice
colouring of your choice
375 g icing sugar


Put the butter, milk and any flavour or colour in a mixing bowl or use food processor. Sift in the icing sugar a little at a time and beat well between each addition until it has all been incorporated and the mixture is light and creamy.

Slow Cooker Duck with White Beans and Chorizo

Duck isn't something I have a lot of experience cooking. I often order it when we go out and really enjoy it. When my last Cuisine magazine arrived with a recipe that was both 'slow cooker' and 'duck' I decided to give it a go.
The dish was really nice and it was pretty easy to make.
I'll make it again.







Slow Cooker Duck with White Beans and Chorizo
SERVES: 4Cook delicious winter meals using a slow cooker.

olive oil for cooking
4 duck legs
2 onions, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
250g fresh hot chorizo (I used Chorizos Garcia), sliced
1⁄4 cup red wine
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
2 cups chicken stock
400g can chopped tomatoes in juice
1 bay leaf
1⁄4 teaspoon bittersweet
Spanish smoked paprika
400g can butter beans (or use El Navarrico large butter beans), drained, rinsed
1 tablespoon chopped sweet marjoram or oregano leaves
potatoes cooked in duck fat and wilted cabbage to serve

Preheat the slow cooker for 20 minutes.

Heat a large frying pan over medium heat. Add a dash of oil then slowly brown the duck legs on both sides. This should take about 10 minutes and allows the fat to render down.Remove the duck legs and set aside.

Drain off all but 1⁄2 tablespoon of the fat (allow the drained duck fat to cool, then use for roasting potatoes in).
Add the onions and garlic to the pan and fry until soft and golden. Transfer to the slow cooker.

Add the chorizo to the pan and fry until browned. Transfer to the slow cooker, along with the browned duck.

Pour the wine and vinegar into the frying pan and bring to the boil, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add the stock, tomatoes, bay leaf and paprika. Bring slowly to the boil then pour into the slow cooker. Cook on High for 3 hours.

Add the beans and half the chopped herbs to the slow cooker then continue to cook on Low for a further 1 hour.

Sprinkle with the remaining herbsthen serve with potatoes and cabbage.

In the oven 

Follow the recipe, transferring all the panfried ingredients to a casserole dish rather than the slow cooker, then cook, covered, at 150°C-160°C for 2 hours

Slow Cooker Whole Lemon Chicken

I've seen loads of whole chicken recipes for slow cookers and have always been a dubious. After all part of the attraction of a whole roasted chicken is the browned crispy skin.

I decided to give one a go this weekend and found the results really good. No the skin was not crispy and brown, but the meat was really succulent and the lemon used to cook with gave it a really nice flavour.

As usual my 'slow cooker' was too fast! When the recipe said X hours, I reduced it to about 4 and it possibly could have had a little less.

This would be a good recipe for cooking chicken that will be used cold for lunches or salads. We had it hot with gravy which was nice too although I took the skin off mine because it was too pale looking.

I also added potatoes and jerusalem artichokes to the slow cooker to make sure I had most of the meal cooked at once.

Slow Cooker Lemon Garlic Chicken

Ingredients

• 4 lemons
• 2-3 heads of garlic
• 1 whole chicken 
• Fresh rosemary, or any fresh herbs
• All-purpose steak seasoning or salt and pepper (I used smoked garlic salt)

Instructions

1. Cut garlic heads and lemons in half and lay in bottom of slow cooker.
2. Cut the bottoms off the lemons so they lay flat.
3. Add a sprig of rosemary, or any herbs.
4. Remove insides from chicken, rinse chicken and pat dry.
5. Season chicken well, inside and out, with all-purpose steak seasoning or salt and pepper.
6. Lay chicken on top of garlic and lemon slices and stuff the chicken with a garlic head cut in half, and a lemon cut in quarters.
7. Cover top of chicken with additional lemon slices and rosemary.
8. Turn slow cooker to high, and cook for about 4 hours, or until chicken reaches 165 degrees.
9. Slow cooker cooking times vary.
10. Important: Use a meat thermometer to check for doneness.
11. When chicken has reached 165, turn off slow cooker and let chicken rest for about 15 minutes.
12. Remove from slow cooker, carve and serve.
13. Liquid from slow cooker can be strained and served over chicken.