Shoe Challenge 11

A bit late this week but here it is.

Sandler purple suede heels
Worn to: Spa day last week

Sara black dress, Suzanne Gray black cardigan, Phillipo Raphael suede ankle boots
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston dress; Zoe Wittner heels
Worn to: work

Sara watermelon top, Capture cord skirt, Suzanne Gray brown cardigan, Diana Ferrari brown boots, scarf from a market in Uzbekistan
Worn to: work

I did not buy any new shoes this week. But I did buy one dress.

Shoe Challenge 10

I managed to save one pair of shoes and two dresses this week.  Better than nothing.

Leona Edmiston dress; Diana Ferrari shoes (already saved)
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston “Ciela” dress; Midas navy wedges
Worn to: work

I also wore my purple suede peep toe shoes today to the spa and high tea day with my friends, but I’ll show you a photo of that next week. Because it was dark and the photo came out blurry.

Shoe Challenge 9

I didn’t save any shoes this week, as I wore shoes I have already saved.  Then I managed to buy a new pair of shoes so I am really going backwards at the moment.  But I did save two more dresses.  Unfortunately, I also bought four new dresses.  It’s a disease and somebody better find a cure quickly.

Leona Edmiston dress; Joanne Mercer black suede wedges
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston dress; Joanne Mercer black suede wedges
Worn to: work

In other news, our house went to auction today and sold!  We got a good price too.  So we’ll be spending the second half of the year house hunting.

Baking with Tracey

Yesterday I decided to bake red velvet cupcakes. I have a new recipe book – Bake, by Alison Thompson – and decided that I should test it out.

Here is what you’ll need for the cake.

Ingredients
250g (9oz) unsalted butter (softened)
600g (1lb 5oz) caster sugar
4 eggs
100g (3 1/2oz) cocoa (unsweetened)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
80ml (3 fl oz) liquid red food colouring
400ml (13 1/2 fl oz) buttermilk
600g (1lb 5 oz) plain (all purpose) flour
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 tablespoon white vinegar

Preheat oven to 160C or 320F. Line 2 8 inch round cake pans with baking paper.

Using your paddle attachment on the mixer, beat the butter and sugar on high speed for 5 minutes, until pale and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating between additions.

In a small bowl, combine the cocoa, vanilla and red food colouring (I ran out of red so had to substitute 30ml of rose pink, it still turned out fine), then add this to the butter mixture.

Mix on low speed to combine well. Add half the buttermilk and half the flour (sifted), mix on low speed, and the rest of the buttermilk and flour, mix on low speed until all combined. Add the bicarb soda and vinegar, beat on medium speed for 2 minutes (make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl).

Divide the mixture evenly between the two cake tins, and bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took about 65 minutes to be properly cooked. Cool in tin for 30 minutes, then turn onto wire rack to cool completely.

To make cupcakes, spoon mixture evenly into 24 cupcake papers in a muffin tray. Bake for about 20 minutes.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting, you will need 2 quantities of this:

Ingredients
125g (4 1/2oz) unsalted butter, softened
250g (9oz) cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
600g (1lb 5oz) pure icing sugar

Put butter, cream cheese and vanilla extract in a bowl, sift icing sugar in, beat with paddle attachment on low speed until combined, then on high speed for two minutes.

You can either split the whole cakes into layers and fill each layer with cream cheese frosting, then cover the whole cake with it, or ice the cupcakes individually.

My cake is only two layers because I used half the mixture to make the cupcakes.

 

Shoe Challenge 8

One dress saved, one pair of shoes saved.  A very poor week.  In my defence, I have been in Horsham in regional Victoria for a few days.  You only wear jeans and boots in Horsham when it’s nearly winter.

Leona Edmiston dress; Joanne Mercer knot-front wedges (already saved); Target cardigan (already saved)
Worn to: work

Katies 3/4 trousers; Phillipo Rafael suede knee high boots
Worn to: work

In case you’re wondering, this is what Horsham looks like.

Shoe Challenge 7

Sorry for the delay.  It’s been a rough week.  And I only saved two pairs of shoes, and two dresses.

Salvatore Ferragamo flats; worn with black trousers
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston dress; Joanne Mercer suede wedges (already saved)
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston “Blyth” dress; Kate Spade “Karolina” patent black heels
Worn to: 40th birthday dinner

The craziness continues here. My dad had his first radiation therapy treatment today, I’m waiting to hear how it went. Our auction is next Saturday. Please let the house sell! Think positive thoughts and pray to the weather gods for a good day on 12 May.

Shoe Challenge 6

Another four pairs of shoes saved this week… but I bought three new dresses, which means the two dresses I wore were not enough to achieve net gain.

Diana Ferrari red flats, worn with blue jeans and red t-shirt
Worn to: chemo session with my friend

Black and grey Capture dress, polka dot Sandler shoes
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston “Nicola” dress, Wittner pompom wedges (already saved)
Worn to: work

Joanne Mercer taupe flower flats, blue jeans, taupe t-shirt
Worn to: a friend’s house for drinks on Saturday afternoon

Basque silk print top, Suzanne Gray jeans, raspberry Leona Edmiston bow front wedges
Worn to: my dad’s birthday party

Tired

There is a lot going on in my life right now.

We are selling our house (auction date: 12 May.  If you know anyone who wants to buy a gorgeous townhouse in Melbourne, send them my way).  One of my best friends is battling breast cancer (I went to chemo with her this week.  I don’t know how she gets out of bed every day).  The tumor on my dad’s pituitary gland has grown back (he and his neurosurgeon have decided they’ll try radiation therapy this time – no more surgery for now, at least).  Another friend is going through a very messy break up with her partner of 12 years (I went to see the lawyers with her.  It’s going to get ugly).  My sister’s best friend has also been diagnosed with breast cancer (immediate surgery; followed by a year of chemo).  And just last night, my sister’s mother-in-law had a heart attack (she’ll be okay but it was a big scare).

The upshot is, I’m extremely tired and I need a break.

I’ll still be posting my shoe and wardrobe challenge photos each week, but you’re not going to hear much else from me for a while.  I really need a time out from everything.

Shoe Challenge 5

I have been slack this week.  It didn’t help that Monday was a holiday so I spent the day in my sleepy pants.

Leona Edmiston dress, Joanne Mercer knot front black suede wedges, black cardigan from… Target maybe?
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston “Bobbie” dress, Diana Ferrari patent heels
Worn to: work

On Tuesday I also wore my brown ankle boots (with brown trousers) but didn’t take a photo because… I forgot. Also it was damn cold and I forgot.

What keeps you up at night?

Not the scary stuff, or the stuff you worry about.

What books have you read that you just couldn’t put down?

My all-time favourite book EVER is Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.  I remember reading it late into the night and having to physically force myself to put it down so I could stop laughing and go to sleep.  I would lie in bed shaking with laughter at that book.  A classic.

One of my other favourite books is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I had to read it in school one year and adored it.  Atticus Finch was a man ahead of his time.

Another book I really enjoyed was Bridget Jones’s Diary.  I was reading that on a tram coming home from work one day and laughing so much that the woman sitting across from me asked what I was reading, as I was obviously enjoying it so much she wanted to read it too.  Totally ruined by the movie.  Don’t get me started on that.

I loved The Hobbit when I was younger (and still do) but for years refused to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  No, I don’t know why either.  I’ve rectified that now and have to admit that The Return of the King is one of the few movies to do justice to the book it was based on.  In fact all three of them were good in movie form.

For entertainment I read Clive Cussler and Janet Evanovich.  And Who magazine, which is published as People in the USA.

I am not a huge fan of autobiographies although recently I read The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do which was excellent; also quite funny.  I enjoyed The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry, and the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson which I received for Christmas.

What do you love to read?

Even more hungry

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that I got my long-awaited-for KitchenAid Artisan Mixer?  Well, I thought the four-day Easter weekend would be the perfect opportunity to give it a good road test.  So I made a six-layer neapolitan cake.  And oh boy was it good.

I took my inspiration from Sweetapolita‘s Neapolitan 5-Layer Birthday Cake, and tweaked the design ever so slightly.  I made mine six layers (well, why wouldn’t you?) and did vanilla frosting instead of strawberry.  That was just too much pink for me.

I made a standard chocolate cake, an angel food cake, and then discovered I didn’t know how to make a strawberry cake.  So I found Rosie’s Stawberry Layer Cake and used that recipe.  Mine turned out not quite as pink as hers, but it’s definitely strawberry flavoured which is the most important thing.

And then the frosting.  Sweet baby cheeses, who knew it could be so hard?  I decided to make Swiss Meringue Buttercream ( I blame Rosie – I was using her cake recipe and it just seemed to make sense to use her frosting recipe too).  So I measured out the 4 million eggwhites and 35 cups of sugar, chopped the 18 kilos of butter, and began.  Getting the sugar to dissolve in the heated eggwhites without cooking them was the easy part.  When I put the bowl in the mixer and started whipping the meringue, I very quickly realised that actually, my bowl is too small and I was in danger of there being a river of meringue running through my kitchen.  No problem, I split the mix into two and kept going.

The first batch turned out perfectly.  I filled my cake layers with it and it looked like this:

Which as far as I’m concerned was a good start. Then I tried to whip up the second batch of buttercream. I tried for three days straight. Eventually, I gave up and tipped it out. All those egg whites! All that sugar and butter! But it was beyond saving.

Since I’d used almost all my available eggs and certainly wasn’t going back to the shop for more, I had to use a different frosting for the outside of the cake. So I made this recipe I found on Tasty Kitchen, and it’s strange because it has flour in it but goddamn it’s good! It is known as That’s The Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had. And it is awesome.

And then my cake looked like this:

And then when we finally cut into it last night it looked like this:

And the world rejoiced at the gloriousness of it all. As did I.

Hungry

A few days ago, I mentioned on Facebook that I was hungry enough to eat an arm.

The very talented Penny Blankenship posted this on my wall a short time later.

I particularly like the nice touch of the candle, and the flower in the vase.

Shoe Challenge 4

I’ve been very busy saving shoes and dresses again this week.  Also, one pair of jeans and a top.

Blue jeans; Katies top, Philippo Rafael purple suede wedges
Worn to: dinner with the boy’s sister

Jane Lamerton dress; Joanne Mercer nude peeptoe pumps
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston dress; Diana Ferrari bow front peep toe pumps
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston dress; Tony Bianco floral slingbacks
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston “Isabel” dress; Sandler wedges (favourite shoes; already worn three times in this shoe save)
Worn to: work

Leona Edmiston dress, Prada nude pumps (one of my favourite pairs of shoes ever)
Worn to: dinner at Cutler & Co for the boy’s birthday

Shoe Challenge 3

This week I have gone all out and managed to save five pairs of shoes.  It helped that I was out for dinner on Tuesday night, so I changed dresses and shoes for that; two saves in one day!

 

The description of each item is on the image.  The middle dress in the bottom row is one of three that I bought last week, as well as the top left dress.  And the Wittner black pom pom wedges are my absolute favourite winter shoes, they go beautifully with a pair of tights and just about every dress I own.

Another new dress arrived in the mail for me today.  I really know how to make this hard on myself.

Shoe Challenge 2

I managed to save another four pairs of shoes this week, so I’m doing really well so far.  Eight down, 86 to go.

Wittner black patent heels; Jane Lamerton dress

Diana Ferrari brown peep toes; Jane Lamerton dress

Steve Madden red wedge peep toes; Jane Lamerton dress

Orbit pink flats; jeans from who knows where.

And next week when I am not so lazy, I will make a collage photo rather than posting them individually.

At the same time as doing the shoe challenge, I am also doing the wardrobe challenge.  Same principle: save your clothes by wearing them at least once in a year, or lose them. Hence the dresses in the photos above.

Because I am so clever, I also foolishly bought three more dresses this week. Like I don’t have enough to try and save in the next year. I’ll show you those as I wear them.

In other news, I finally got the KitchenAid Stand Mixer that I have been drooling over for years. I had enough points on my credit cards to get one for free!

I am extremely thrilled. I baked cupcakes this afternoon, just to test it out. Very pleased with the result.