Joconde Imprime birthday cake

Back when I was in high school, I used to wish for my birthday to fall on a weekday, so that all my friends could wish me a happy birthday in person. Pretty narcissistic, no? I'd even let them know the day before so that they wouldn't forget. The few that did forget got the cold shoulder treatment and we've never spoken since - kidding, kidding! But I really did get upset when my family forgot to say "happy birthday!". It's usually because we had already celebrated it the weekend before.

Last week, we celebrated my sister's birthday with a nice dinner out at Dooleys in Lidcombe. I always get major guilt when it comes to birthdays during this time of year, because they usually coincide with the end of a university teaching period, and that means EXAMS. And when you literally have a mountain of textbooks to get through, and fifty thousand lectures to revise, and...I think you get my point. It's hard to find the time to bake your relatives a beautiful birthday cake, even though you really, really want to. And if it so happened that their birthday fell on a weekday; well, the chances of making them a cake just went from 'unlikely' to 'impossible'.

However, it appears that the stars aligned on my sister's birthday and, not only did I not have exams coming up in the near future, I got the day off from uni! A bit of research and planning beforehand meant that I was able to put together this joconde imprime birthday cake with relative ease. I especially credit the Daring Bakers challenge from a while back, and all the blog entries it'd spawned. No doubt it would take some practice yet for my joconde imprime to look as good as some of the ones made by other bloggers.

It tasted better than it looked!

As for the filling - I decided early on that I wanted several, distinct layers. My brainstorming yielded the following: a cream cheese mousse at the bottom, with a layer of strawberries in the middle, and topped with a berry mousse of some kind. As you can see from the picture above, things didn't exactly go according to plan. The cream cheese mousse turned out all right, although I would use a tad less gelatin in the future (or go with sheet instead of powdered). The fresh strawberry middle layer was replaced with plums, due to the fact that 1) plums are cheaper and 2) I needed the precious punnet of strawberries for decorating the top of the cake. And as for the berry mousse...major, MAJOR disaster. Seriously, the moment I saw the mousse splitting - it felt like my heart was being split apart as well, no joke. I beat myself up over it for days afterwards, regretting the time, materials and effort wasted.

And so I baked a sponge cake and used that instead that as the top layer. It looked rather plain, so I covered it with jelly and strawberries. I wish I could say that this cake was what I'd envisioned all along, but the truth is that my cakes often bear no resemblance to the original plans. But since those original plans exist only in my head, I guess no one else will be any the wiser, right? :D

Ben 10 Cake (and the PERFECT chocolate ganache buttercream)

It was my brother's birthday last weekend, and to celebrate, we threw him a party at one of those laser-tagging places that is all the rage with hyperactive boys his age. My personal present to him was a Ben 10 birthday cake!

I've never really been interested in cartoon/anime, apart from my obsessive viewing of Sailor Moon, Pokemon and Cardcaptor Sakura on Cheez TV every morning before school back in the 90s. Therefore, I was unsurprised (though slightly put out) when one of the brother's little friends informed me snidely that "Ben 10 [was] for babies!" I was suffering from severe sleep deprivation at the time, due to having gotten up at an obscene hour to put the edible icing transfer and other finish touches on the cake, and it was only out of consideration for my dignity that I didn't snark back. Making little kids cry is uncool, no matter however much they may deserve it xD

This particular cake marked many 'firsts' for me. It was the first time I've put an edible icing image transfer on a cake, and that was a nerve-wracking task in itself. It involved letting the image harden in the freezer, and then taking advantage of the 5 seconds it remained hard when taken out of the freezer to remove the backing sheet, and position it on the cake. I was a bit slow, and as a result some of the image didn't come off the backing sheet, but I managed to cover the boo-boo with the fondant border.

Talking about the fondant...you can see from the close-up above at how shoddy a job I did, but again, this was a first for me! Not only have I never worked with fondant before, but this fondant was one that I'd made myself, using the marshmallow fondant technique. I wouldn't say that it was necessarily cheaper than store-bought fondant when you count the costs of the raw materials and the time and effort that went into making it, but it did turn out to be tastier than the store-bought stuff. There were huge, visible cracks running down two sides of the cake and along the top, and for one heart-stopping moment I thought all was lost when the fondant tore as I pulled it over the cake. Thankfully I was able to rescue the cake, employing the same resourcefulness as I did in those disastrous Design & Technology classes back in high school. 

See, I wasn't exaggerating when I said the cracks were HUGE.

All in all, not the neatest looking cake, but the cake itself (and the filling) was more delicious than any birthday cake we've ordered from professional cake shops. I decided on a no-frills cream cheese pound cake base, filled with chocolate ganache buttercream.

Spreading the buttercream on THICK; I like a 1:1 ratio of cake to filling!

Chocolate ganache buttercream combines the best of two worlds, as its name suggests. There are a few recipes on the internet under the common moniker of "chocolate ganache buttercream", but because I didn't like the sound of any of them, I decided to invent my own. I started by making a chocolate ganache, using the best chocolate I had in the house: 200g of Lindt milk chocolate, 100g of Lindt Excellence 70% dark chocolate, and 100g of Callebaut 70% dark chocolate. I intentionally used double cream which had a high fat content, around 48%. After the chocolate had melted into the 600ml of double cream over low heat, I added in 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter. I poured the whole concoction into an airtight container, put it in the fridge and left it overnight. This is what it looked like when I scooped it out the next morning:

Looks good enough to eat with a spoon, doesn't it? :D My original plan was to use the ganache as is to fill and crumb-coat the cake, but there were issues with quantity (i.e. not having nearly enough ganache to frost three layers) and the fact that the ganache was simply too rich and sweet. The solution: aerate it by whipping it with some butter. The result: a chocolate mousse-like buttercream that was not too sweet, but was unmistakably chocolatey!

I also made some iced cookies using the Easter-themed cookie cutters I recently purchased, but I'll leave the details for another post :)

Here's the recipe for the amazing chocolate ganache buttercream!

Recipe for Lucy's Chocolate Ganache Buttercream

Makes around 3-4 cups of buttercream

Ingredients

200g Lindt Excellence Milk Chocolate

100g Lindt Excellence 70% Cocoa dark chocolate

100g Callebaut 70% bittersweet chocolate

600ml double cream (I used Pura Double Thick Cream, but any cream suitable for cooking should be fine)

375g + 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

Method

1. Put double cream and all 400g of chocolate in a thick-bottomed saucepan, over a gentle heat, until chocolate has melted completely. Keep stirring the mixture and scraping the sides and bottom of the saucepan to stop it from burning.

2. Take the mixture off the heat, and add 3 tablespoons of butter. Stir until butter has completely melted.

3. Transfer the ganache mixture into an air-tight container, and chill in fridge until the ganache has firmed to a spreadable consistency. If ganache is too hard, microwave in 5 second bursts until soft but not liquid.

4. Beat the chilled ganache with a hand beater or stand mixture, until light and fluffy. Add in the 375g of unsalted butter. To help with the butter combining with the ganache, you can chop it into 2cm cubes beforehand.

5. Beat the butter and ganache until it looks like an aerated mousse. Chocolate ganache buttercream, done!

The ULTIMATE Chinese Sponge Cake recipe

Since making my granddad's birthday cake in July last year, I've had two occasions to try my hand at recreating some well-loved Chinese Birthday Cake classics: a taro cream cake for my dad's birthday:

 And mango cream cake for my grandmother's birthday:

Both turned out well...for a cake-decorating newbie like myself. Since I have no plans to open up a professional bakery business in the near future, I'm not too fussed about the uneven frosting, or the wonky piping, or the lopsided look of the finished cake (no doubt due to my rudimentary torting skills). As for the recipient of the cake - I think they were so moved by my gesture that they either ignored or were oblivious to the aesthetic faults of the cakes.

The Chinese-style sponge cake base

If there's a thing more nerve-wracking than cutting up a mango into paper-thin slices, it is the actual making of the sponge cake base. Or indeed, finding a recipe for the sponge cake base. There's a reason the Chinese-style sponge cake is known as "gai don go" or "ji dan gao" (literally: egg cake) - the recipe I chose uses a whopping total of 9 eggs! Imagine the horror of messing up and having to chuck away 3/4 dozen eggs :S Allow me to spare you the anxiety of trawling through the internet and present you with the ULTIMATE Chinese Sponge Cake recipe. No, it's not mine. But I have made it twice already and both times, the result was the lightest, most fluffy sponge cake I've ever tasted, so I do feel some sentimental attachment to it. 

The sponge cake, halved and ready to be filled with whipped cream and mango pulp.

Despite my harping on about it, there really are only two fiddly steps in the recipe: the whipping of the egg whites with cream of tartar and caster sugar (to form a meringue), and the folding in of the egg yolks and flour into the meringue. The air trapped within the beaten egg whites is what makes the sponge cake rise, although the baking soda does play a role. An extremely runny batter is a sure sign that you've deflated the egg whites, and the cake probably won't turn out as spongy as you would like. Just be gentle, and use a rubber spatula to fold in the sifted dry ingredients, and all should be well :D

The recipe I've included below is only for the sponge cake. I shall write up separate posts on the making of the mango and taro cakes.



Recipe for the ULTIMATE Chinese Sponge Cake


Adapted from Chinese Forums; original recipe provided by the user 'purplemama'


Makes one 25cm round cake


Ingredients


1 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted
9 eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup caster sugar (I used some ground-up homemade vanilla sugar)
1/2 cup water, around room temperature
1/4 cup oil (go for something without a pronounced flavour, like canola oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Method


1. Line a 25cm diameter springform cake tin with aluminium foil. Don't grease or flour the foil, since the foil gives the cake something to cling onto as it rises while baking. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius (or 350 degrees Fahrenheit), and place the baking rack towards the bottom of the oven.

2. In a clean, dry bowl, combine egg whites and cream of tartar, and beat with electric beater or mixer until foamy. Gradually add in the caster sugar while continuing to beat. Beat until egg whites are white and glossy, and stiff peaks form.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, water, oil and vanilla until creamy (you may also use an electric beater or mixer for this step).

4. Sift together the cake flour and baking powder.

5. Whisk the sifted cake flour and baking powder into the egg yolk mixture. Whisk well to stop lumps forming.

6. Add about 1/3 of the meringue (from step 2) into the egg yolk and flour mixture, and whisk in. This is to help loosen the egg yolk mixture.

7. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the rest of the meringue. Fold the two mixtures together with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the lined springform tin. Bake for 50 minutes - 1 hour. Cake is done when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

8. Once done baking, turn off the oven and open the oven door slightly. Allow cake to cool within the oven for 5 minutes, before removing and letting it cool within the tin for 15 minutes. Remove from springform tin, and allow it to cool thoroughly on a cooling rack.

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Dear all! Happy Chinese New Year! Or should I say: Happy Lunar New Year :D I've just returned from a sumptuous seafood dinner at one of our favourite Chinese restaurants, and needless to say, I am so full. Except, since it is Chinese New Year's Eve, I have to steady myself for some more feasting once the clock hits midnight. My grandmother is in the process of getting all our dumpling-making supplies ready, and as soon as she gives us the green light, we will start churning out batch after batch of those delicious pork and chives filled babies =D

We also used tonight's dinner to celebrate my father's birthday. I do believe that my pastry skills have gained esteem in my family's estimation, since I was entrusted with making my dad's cake...without my mother rushing out at the last moment and buying another one from the closest Asian bakery in case mine wasn't up to scratch. I kid you not. It's a wonder I still bake around here, the way I get treated xD Lol, just kidding. I don't mind the doubt, because when I do end up pulling off a beautiful cake, the oohs and aahs sound even sweeter to my ears!

Anyone familiar with a certain well-known Asian bakery should recognise the cake as a taro-filled, cream sponge cake. Okay, I won't be coy about it. Yes, I was indeed inspired by Savoy Bakery's delicious taro cake, and tried to mimic their design. But the taro filling was my own invention, and I am very proud of it! I may put up the recipe on here in the future, when I've had some time to think about what exactly went into it. In my haste to get the cake completed, I kind of just threw together ingredients until the filling looked and tasted right. Stay tuned!

(I didn't make the flowers. They were ones I saved from my birthday cake, which I bought from Maria's Bakery Inn in Burwood.)

Check out my sister's cute illustration on my dad's card:

My dad was born in the Year of the Rabbit

I'm being called to go make dumplings! One more picture of the cake:

Best wishes to you all in the Year of the Dragon!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

To my dearest Nai Nai,


Simply saying "thank you" for all the love and care you have bestowed on us over the years is insufficient in expressing the gratitude and regard I have for you.

You have taken care of me all my life...even today, as I was putting the finishing touches on the mango cream cake I made for you, you were gathering all the used bowls and utensils and washing them up for me. Despite my insistence that "I'll do it later!" (which I do...sometimes.)

I made this cake for you as an expression of my love. Please accept this humble gift of mine. It is most certainly not picture-perfect, and I could only make use of the materials I had on hand (hence, the somewhat uneven covering of mango), but I know you will only see the good things about this cake and overlook the obvious faults, just like how you always manage to see the good in me. Even when I am behaving atrociously. Even when no one else wants to be around me. Even during those times I don't want to be around myself. Your love for me is unconditional, and I thank you for it.

Happy birthday, Grandma!

So, recently...(the Reader's Digest version)

Salutations! As much as I would love to sit down and type out a long and detailed recount of all my fabulous eats over the past few weeks, I still have two huge exams to get through before the holidays. Despite being basically house-bound in the weeks leading up to my first exam, I did manage to squeeze in some nice yummies. I find eating to be quite a good coping mechanism (not to mention procrastination device xD). It's like: oh, stuff it all, who cares about [insert complex scientific concept], I'm gonna get me a big ol' slice of CHOCOLATE MUDCAKE.

Chocolate mudcake from Pasticceria Papa



And another one -

Chocolate mudcake from Pasticceria Sulfaro

Believe it or not, I actually acquired both of these on the same day, to be eaten on the same day. Let's just say I was in a very self-destructive state of mind at the time; blame it on all those disease flowcharts I had to cram into my limited brain space!

While we're on the topic of chocolate, I developed an addiction to Lindt Excellence 85% Cocoa last week. I admit to having a weird obsessive-compulsive personality where I get fixated on one kind of food for a period of time, where I would keep eating it day-in, day-out, until I get sick of the taste. Don't be shocked by this next picture - they were on sale at Woolworths! In the week leading up to my second exam, I (no joke) ate a whole bar every. single. day. It was very liberating...

Note: only the 85% bars were on special; I bought the 99% ones from the Lindt cafe in Martin Place. They're half the size and double the price of the regular bars, so I couldn't afford to develop an addiction to them!

Being a good big sister, I somehow managed to bake and ice 165 cupcakes for my sister to take to her grade at school as part of her birthday celebration. There I was, smothering vanilla cupcakes with thick, buttery icing in semi-darkness, with only my iPad screen (showing my study notes) as the only source of illumination. Good times.

Ahem, yes, I was inspired for the design of these from a well-known cupcakery in Surry Hills...

What else, what else? Ooh, that's right - I turned 21 years old! I celebrated it with a dinner out with friends and family. My birthday cake was a whole ricotta cheesecake from Pasticceria Papa (my goodness, do I love that place or what?)

More recently, I went and had brunch at 2042 Deli & Cafe in Newtown with an old friend who happened to be in Sydney (she studies interstate). It was a delicious affair, and the joy of her company made the food taste all the better.

Perfectly poached eggs in 2042 Deli & Cafe's Eggs Benedict.

Okay, I can no longer stand the voice in my head screaming at me to "GO STUDY", so this is where I will end the entry. Will write in more detail once these exams are over! (soon...soon...)

Golden Treasure Chinese Seafood Restaurant, Granville

It may be that I've simply become conditioned through habit to associate certain cuisines with specific areas of Sydney, but it struck me as somewhat incongruous when I was informed that we would be dining out at a Chinese seafood restaurant in Granville.

"Er...what about the usual places in Hurstville or Beverly Hills?" I asked my parents.

"It's time to try something new!" Said my mother.

And that was that. Off we went to Gold Treasure Chinese Seafood Restaurant, located within the depths of the Granville RSL club.

The occasion we were celebrating was my grandfather's 74th birthday, and my mother had rung ahead to put in our orders for the very special Buddha Jumps Over the Wall (fo tiao qiang) soup. Described as "da bu" (highly nutritious) by the Chinese, the ingredients most typically found in the soup inclue shark fin, abalone, chicken, ham, sea cucumber, and ginseng. Not exactly your old chicken broth, eh? Apparently, the most expensive rendition can be found in some restaurant in London, at £108 per serve.

Ours wasn't quite that expensive, but it did look like it had quite a few expensive ingredients packed inside. I identified fish tripe (an all-time favourite offal of mine), abalone, shark fin, sea cucumber, and a lot of chicken pieces. The broth was rich and flavourful, and was an appropriate starter to a night of indulgent delicacies.

Digging through the bowl to find all the ingredients felt like treasure-hunting!

My sisters always insist on ordering the ru ge (baby pigeon) whenever we see it on the menu. A plate of two pigeons, the skins a burnished bronze and the plump flesh bursting with juices, soon followed the starter soup. They are accompanied by a dish of soy sauce, and another of salt and seasoning. Our visual appraisal proved to be accurate; the birds were indeed tender and succulent, and the thin layer of semi-melted fat beneath the crispy skin was absolutely addictive.

The delicacies continued with this next dish: braised sea cucumber and mushroom.

Sea cucumbers are an acquired taste, methinks. My dad detests the gelatinous, rubbery texture, while I absolutely adore it. The sauce was a bit gluggy (too heavy-handed on the corn starch, perhaps), but we all liked the shrimp meat-stuffed mushroom. And the presentation was...interesting ;P

The lobster sashimi turned out to be of the pink-fleshed variety, which is said to be of an inferior quality to the white, pearlescent one. And it tasted it too, with a rather wet and stringy mouthfeel compared to the firmer texture of the white-fleshed species.

You can see the pink flesh beneath the pile of ice on top.

The lobster was served two ways; our second lobster course came with noodles and was cooked in a garlic sauce. Tasty! Wish there'd been more noodles, though.

Time for some greens! The stir-fried abalone with snow peas came with a pungent shrimp paste, which again is an acquired taste. I happen to like smelly foods (durian!), so this was right up my alley. It was a pity that the abalone was over-cooked, as they became tough as nails.

The Japanese-style tofu (a curious designation) appeared to be deep-fried silken tofu doused in a sweet and sour chilli sauce, with tiny balls of shrimp meat. I really liked this one!

Our final savoury dish was the Zhe Jiang-style (Dongpo) pork. Except maybe I misheard, because our pork was deep-fried and had a sweet and sour flavour. And I think Dongpo pork is meant to be a thick, fatty piece of pork steamed and braised. Never mind, it was still delicious, and I couldn't help but go back for seconds and thirds.

As is always the case with dining at a Chinese restaurant, we were beyond stuffed somewhere in the middle of the savoury dishes. But since dessert is almost always complimentary, and usually very good, we never mind stretching our stomachs just that littlest bit more. A plate of fresh fruits and another of those delectable lardy cookies were brought over after our table was cleared. Along with bowls of sweet red bean soup.

And, of course, there was the birthday cake I made for my grandpa, which you can read all about in my previous post.

Golden Treasure Chinese Seafood Restaurant

Granville RSL Club, 5 Memorial Drive, Granville NSW.

Phone: (02) 9637 8899

Recreating the Chinese Birthday Cake

I've always felt that I never got the credit I deserve for my baking from my family. All too often, I get told off for adding too much sugar, butter, or chocolate (...???...) to something, and as a result, my beautifully constructed, multi-layered cake would remain untouched on the kitchen bench. Untill I get sick of walking past it every time I go to grab a snack, and a) freeze it; b) chuck it away; or c) push it onto a far more grateful recipient (i.e. a good uni friend of mine).

Needless to say, I was very surprised when I received a phone call from my mum the other day asking me if I would like to make a cake for my grandpa's upcoming birthday. Me? Trusted with a grandparent's birthday cake? My pastry skills must be rising in my family's estimation. Of course I agreed, eagerly rising to the challenge of creating something that would appeal to my family member's picky palates.

It was clear from the outset that a Chinese-style sponge cake was the only way to go. I'm talking about the ones found at Chinese/Asian bakeries here in Sydney (and all around the world, I suppose). The one known as 鸡蛋糕 (ji dan gao); literally, 'chicken egg cake'. Quite aptly so, considering that eight eggs went into making this particular one. You hear correctly; I almost single-handedly cleared out the whole egg carton with this cake. But that's really the only thing this cake is heavy on. The only fats came from 2 tablespoons of canola oil and 2 tablespoons of milk. The amount of sugar was such that it was barely sweet - a mere hint only.

I have a love/hate relationship with sponge cakes. I hate how shitty they make me feel when they come out of the oven all deflated and pancake-like, but when I do get that ultimate fluffy texture, it's as good as getting full marks on an exam. This particular one was a mixed bag. One cake, made from half the batter, was decently spongy and aerated, while the other one turned out all dense and chewy. I presume it's to do with both my method and the bakingware I used. Sponge cake, I will conquer you one day!

Note the fairly dense middle layer. Hmmph.

Drawing from my vast experience in eating Chinese Birthday Cakes, I chose the conventional whipped cream and fresh fruits combo to fill the layers. Again, the cream was only slightly sweetened with confectioner's sugar, and flavoured with vanilla essence. Despite the copious amount of whipped cream used (I used the whole of the 600ml carton), it didn't taste gluggy. Even with excessive consumption, as I can personally attest to :D

I had initial thoughts of covering the cake with a layer of swiss meringue buttercream (my go-to frosting when it comes to decorative piping), but knew it would just be scraped off by everyone prior to eating. So, in the interest of minimizing waste, and keeping it as similar as possible to the real article, I simply covered it with some fresh fruit, and crumbles of honey-roasted macadamia nuts around the side.

So, how was my family's reception of the cake? I think they loved it! I certainly had no trouble with polishing off the huge slice I got. I heard murmurs of "mmm, it's good" and "tastes better than the ones from the bakeries" as everyone tucked in. Good work, Lucy, a nice job indeed :D

Recipe for Chinese Birthday Cake

Adapted from Tastydesu

Ingredients

For the cake (makes two 9" rounds)

1 cup cake flour

1 cup caster sugar

8 large eggs, at room temperature and separated into whites and yolks

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the whipped cream filling and frosting

600ml cream, suitable for whipping

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 tablespoons confectioner's/icing sugar (but can add more/less according to personal preference)

To assemble

Canned peaches in syrup

Fresh fruits of choice

Honey-roasted macadamia nuts, chopped

Glace cherries

Method

To make the cakes:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Line two 9" round baking pans with non-stick baking/parchment paper.

2. Mix 3/4 cup caster sugar with egg yolks and beat until pale yellow and thick. Add vanilla and beat to incorporate.

3. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites with electric beater until soft peaks form. Add in the remaining 1/4 cup of caster sugar gradually, in two or three separate additions, and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

4. Combine half of the meringue from step 3 with the egg yolk mixture, and fold gently to incorporate (don't worry if they're not mixed thoroughly; there will be more mixing in the following steps).

5. Add oil and milk to the batter from step 4. Fold in the remaining half of the meringue from step 3.

6. Divide the batter between the two pans, and tap pans to release any air bubbles. Bake for abount 20-25 minutes, until the tops are lightly-browned, or a cake-tester stuck into the center comes out clean.

7. Turn oven off, open oven door slightly ajar and allow the cakes to cool inside the oven, as sudden exposure to cold air encourages rapid deflation.

To make the whipped cream filling:

1. Place cream, vanilla essence and confectioner's/icing sugar in a cold bowl and beat whip with electric beater on high speed until the beaters leave a trail in the cream. Be careful to not overbeat the cream! Overbeaten cream resembles a yellowish, lumpy soup - also known as butter primordium :D

To assemble:

1. Once cooled completely, divide each cake into two layers by slicing horizontally with a serrated knife or cake leveler. Brush each layer with syrup from the canned peaces.

2. Chop up the canned peaches (use as much as you want) and combine with three-quarters of the whipped cream. Fill the cake layers with this mixure.

3. With the remaining whipped cream, coat the sides and top of this cake, filling any cracks or indentations.

4. Slice fruits, chop the macadamia nuts, and have some fun decorating!