Mowielicious

German Vanilla Pudding With Sugared Gariguette Strawberries

It's been such a fun week.

As you all know, last week I shot my first wedding of the year. It was a gorgeous day, and we had the perfect weather for it. Bruce helped out and together we ended up with 2500 images between us. Thank goodness for memory cards and digital cameras... can you imagine trying to shoot a wedding with film?! I'm just going through the photos now, deleting some of the blurred ones, and I've highlighted 190 that could end up in the final cut, but might need further culling. Bruce has done the same, and together, we should end up with roughly 300 photos. 

 

The weather has been glorious for the past 4 days, and we should be getting a high of 30˚C today in London. The summer heat makes me think of my childhood and this pudding is one of those things I always associate with gorgeous hot weather. It's so easy to make and the flavour combination of the vanilla with the strawberries and the strawberry syrup is one that can't be described easily. 

I don't know how many of you know about this recipe, but every German that's worth their weight in pudding knows the basic recipe to this by heart. It's something you just grow up with. Making the strawberry syrup was always the fun part for me, watching all that strawberry juice ooze out of the strawberries by just adding sugar. As for that flavour, it's what I imagine liquid gold to taste like, better than any honey, and in combination with the vanilla, leaves you with the satisfaction of a taste bud sensation like no other.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on some Gariguette strawberries from a French market that came to London for the weekend selling all sorts of gorgeous fresh French produce - it's one of the highlights of summer and one I look forward to every year. Gariguette strawberries are one of the most flavoursome strawberries - but of course you don't have to use Gariguettes, you can use absolutely any strawberries for this recipe.

I also meant to buy some strawberry plants for my window boxes and can you imagine what a delightful surprise I had when I saw plants with pink flowers? The hybrid is called Red Ruby and I can't wait until it starts bearing fruit. Although I wish it would just keep flowering all year round.

 

Project Wedding Flowers

Peony - Happy Marriage

 

As you all know, this weekend I'm photographing a wedding for my friends, Donna & Donna, and I have so much to do before then. 

Remember when I said I've been very busy with projects recently? Well this is one of the said projects: the Donnas asked me to take 6 photographs for their wedding tables: white flowers with a white background... not the easiest thing to shoot!

Each of these flowers has a different meaning and the photograph of each of them will be displayed above a bouquet of the actual flowers on the respective table. Of course, the meanings of these flowers all depends on which websites the Donnas were doing their research on, and you might find they mean something very different where you are.

But for this day, their day, these meanings will be just perfect.

 

Tulip - Love

Chrysanthemum - Truth

Carnation - Good Luck

Geranium - Friendship

Freesia - Sweetness

 

The winners of last week's Lazy Days and Beach Blankets book giveaway are: Hannah, Leeli & Liz! Congratulations to all of you, you'll be getting an email from me to ask for your postal addresses. I hope you all enjoy the book as much as I do.

Wish me luck for the wedding and I'll see you all on the other side.

Pink Meringue Butterfly Kisses, An Award & A Giveaway

I have been very busy over the past week and still have mountains of work ahead of me, but I just *had to* post something short and sweet. Very sweet.

It seems like I've gone meringue crazy ever since I posted last week's financiers, and remembered just how much else there is to make with egg whites other than macarons. And since Bruce and I both love the stuff, I've been making them in all shapes and forms.

Next week I'll be shooting my first wedding of the year and I'm very excited. I'm slightly nervous as it's for a dear friend of mine called Donna, who's getting married to Donna (yes, you did read that right!) and I hope I can capture some great moments for them both. I promise to post the pictures here once they're ready. Wish me luck!

I've also got 7 other massive projects that I'm currently working on, most of which I can't discuss, but let me tell you, they're taking up a lot of my time and keeping me up at night with excitement & dread (most of them are on a tight deadline). The ones I can discuss are the presentation I'm working on for Food Blogger Connect (oh my gosh - I'm so nervous!) and trying to design a new header and the right side bar of this blog - the details of which are very time-consuming.

Expect a lot more pink.

I also had some great news today: remember last week I was nominated for the Awesomest Food Blog award on the I Am Mommy blog? Well...

I WON!

I can't believe it! I'm so happy and I'd just like to thank each and every one of you that took time out to vote for me - I really, really, REALLY appreciate it!

As a *personal* thank you, I thought I'd run a little giveaway:

I recently discovered a stunning gem of a book that I now carry around everywhere with me. It's called Lazy Days & Beach Blankets, and I absolutely *adore* it. The images are breathtaking (I've highlighted about 50 so far!), the recipes are mouthwatering and the mood the book leaves you with is one of pure happiness. It's become one of my favourite cookbooks by far and so I went out and bought 3 copies to share with you because happiness like this just needs to be shared.

All you have to do to be in with a chance to win is leave a comment below. Open worldwide. Giveaway ends Sunday 16th May 2010.