I was going to post a recipe tonight but seeing as it's Wednesday, the most unmotivating day of the week (to me), I think we need to look at cake pictures.

In my family, we celebrate a birthday each month from August onwards and I use it as an excuse to make something more decadent. I take off my dietitian hat and choose a cake based on how pretty it looks. I know... so superficial... but we eat with our eyes as well as our mouth!

This year for my sister's birthday I made her a big white cake. You might remember last year I made her a Strawberry and Cream Cake.



This cake has a lot of frosting.... You can see a few flecks of crumbs from the cake because I just refused to put on any more extra icing! I must say I cheat a bit and used store bought frosting as I was exhausted after doing the layers! The best part of the cake though was inside....




It's a Rainbow Cake! 

I used the Martha Stewart recipe (minus the ridiculous amount of frosting) and this cake took me HOURS! I only had one lone cake tin so had to bake each individual layer separately.

It was worth it though. Seeing the faces of my family in amazement at the colours! This is by no means the best rainbow cake ever, in fact if you google rainbow cake you'll find a trove of amazingly decorated rainbow cake and this 28 layer one.... but I was so proud of it!

To be honest the cake tasted like an average sponge cake so tastewise it wasn't anything spectacular however the colours made everyone feel like they were eating a rainbow!

The second big birthday cake I made was for a dear friend who loved pink and wanted both vanilla and chocolate flvoured cake! I was really into trying to make an ombre cake and only semi succeeded. I was in a mad panic the night before after having to rebake a layer then wrecking the home made frosting! I had a small tub of store bought frosting left and quickly made a crumb coat before refrigerating. By the morning I was in a mad dash to buy more frosting, get to my friend's house and frost the whole cake as well! This is the end result:

Pink Ombre Chocolate and Vanilla Layer Cake



Oh yeh I forgot my icing pens so just used the piping bag... As you can see it's not quite the perfect ombre effect but I didn't want to add more frosting to the cake and my time was running out! Luckily the birthday girl loved the cake (or so she tells me)!

The inside:

Recipe here.

The third (and fourth) cake I made this year was a

Chiffon Cake



This is an orange chiffon cake I made but for my mum, dad and aunty I made the pandan version. I LOVE chiffon cake! They are super light, fluffy, soft and did I mention fluffy? The problem though is because they feel so light I can probably eat the whole cake by myself without a problem... If I squished the cake down it'll probably fit into the palm of my hands!

The has to be my standout cake. My dad told me I should just make 2 every time because we went through this so quickly! Best. Cake. Ever.

And I think we should end with the best cake ever. 

This weekend I am resting at home because I am sick. I was suppose to be at work but due to my blocked nose and wailing "I'm siiiiiiiick" all around the house I am at home reminiscing about last weekend where I was well and out having brunch and shopping. Last weekend I took my family out to brunch at The Cove at Drummoyne. It was the first day of sunshine after weeks of rainy Sydney weather and there was much excitement among my siblings.

The restaurant is beautifully situated facing Iron Cove with glimpses of waterfront views no matter where you are sitting! Sadly the restaurant did not do bookings on weekends so we had to wait 40minutes as we needed a table of 5. If you are looking to go I can't stress enough that you should book on weekdays and be prepared to wait on weekends if you have a big group. The place was very popular due to it's great location and the customers appeared to be mostly mothers and joggers.

After finally getting a seat we were eager to start ordering. Food came out in a reasonable time.


I had the speciality home made baked beans with spinach and bacon on house loaf and topped with a poached egg $18.50

This was very yummy and my brother was taking a large portion of my baked beans away because it was so delicious! Baked beans are a great source of fibre and protein which both help to keep you feeling full for longer. They are also low GI, fat free, has been shown to lower your cholesterol and are a great source of vegetable/legumes. This means that incorporating baked beans in your breakfast will give you slow releasing sustained energy, contribute to a serve of vegetables and thus keep you going until lunchtime! Is there any other reason not to eat beans?? (Okay it may cause flatulence.....)

I'm not a big fan of bacon, not only because of the fat and salt content but I just don't like the taste so I shared most of my bacon with the family. The bacon in this meal wasn't the leanest I've seen but the fat could easily have been trimmed off.

The spinach is another great vegetable serving! And the poached organic and free range egg was perfection. Eggs are a great source of nutrients. Just imagine it's suppose to nourish a growing chicken! The heart foundation recommends it's healthy to consume up to 6 eggs a week.


This is the dish my dad originally ordered. It was another house specialty of smoked Tasmanian salmon with rocket, avocado and fetta cheese on house loaf $18.50. My dad doesn't like fetta cheese so gave this to my mum.

Funny story while eating:
Mum: This salmon isn't very salty compared to some other salmon I've had
Dad: It's Tasmanian salmon
Mum: Is the water in Tasmania less salty?  

Salmon is a great source of good omega 3 fatty acids!


My dad swapped the salmon dish for this: Panini with fried egg, bacon, onion jam, rocket and aioli $12.50. My dad called this the rich man's bacon egg roll.


My sister decided to go for a sweet dish: Crumpets with ricotta, strawberries and honey $13.50.

Ricotta is a really great low fat cheese that is soft and easy to spread. Use it instead of cream. However the calcium content of ricotta is not as great as for hard yellow cheeses like cheddar.


My brother wasn't adventurous enough to try ricotta cheese so he had the scones with cove berry jam and cream $5.50

We also had a few coffees that I didn't get to take a snap of it. I am not a great coffee drinker (It gets me jittery) so I can't really comment on how great the coffee is but my parents are both baristas and drink coffee daily. They said the coffee was really good and creamy and they used a good quality chocolate powder.

I had previously been to the cove once to have breakfast and had: 


Chorizo, mushroom, fresh tomato, rocket and sweet paprika omelette $17.50
The omelette was great and filling but I felt the eggs were a bit dry. See that yellow slice between the bread? It's butter. Lots of it. Don't judge me but I've never had butter on toast until a couple of days before this outing! With the new discovery I got a little too happy with the knife and slathered too much butter on... It wasn't pretty....


Also had a slice of banana bread with banana, ricotta and honey $5.50 that day. It was just ordinary to me.

The bill for our family brunch was over $70 so I wouldn't say it's the most affordable brunch but the food was delicious, the service was courteous (despite the long wait) and the view was fantastic.

Health factor?

• The breakfast menu included a number of healthy choices and many meals had at least some vegetable addition. 
• There is wholemeal bread options and also gluten free breads for those with coeliac disease. 
• They have some nice berry smoothies as well  
• Ask them to trim the bacon or pick dishes with no bacon 
• Avoid spreading too much butter on the bread (Like me!)
• Choose dishes without the béarnaise sauce 
• Choose dishes with the vegetables such as rocket, spinach, asparagus, mushrooms, tomatoes and avocado

Look at this view! I would happily go and have breakfast or try their lunch and dinner options again but with my student budget it might have to be reserved for special occasions only!

What have you been up to this weekend?

Today is my dear sister's 12th Birthday and on the weekend I made this strawberry and cream cake at her request!

I said she could request any cake she liked as long as we had the equipment to make it and she picked a strawberry and cream cake!

Recipe from: Seasalt with Food





As it was a special occasion I didn't do any healthy variations to it as it wasn't something we would be eating all the time. See dietitians can have cream and cake too! My siblings both loved the cake but they said my chia seed cupcakes were better (recipe coming soon).

(However I couldn't resist using low GI sugar and spreading less cream on it!)

After finishing a slice of cake my 9yo brother proclaimed "I don't like junk food. Everytime I eat something super fatty or oily or sweet my tummy doesn't like it!"

It wasn't too long before he rejected the rest of his cake slice and went to the bathroom!

Oops I really didn't want to end on a bathroom note so here's another pretty cake picture!