Clean cupboards and cake pops!

I've been pretty busy lately so haven't had time to bento.  I'm still getting lots of hits however so wanted to at least post something even if it wasn't a bento!

So, today's post is my new tidy cupboards and cake pops.  I know that tidying the cupboard isn't normally the kind of thing you'd post about on a blog but it is actually related to bento!  One of the bento ladies (but I can't remember who) posted picks of re-doing her fridge so all the bento stuff was in easy pull out containers.  I thought that was a great idea and once I'd done the bento stuff I thought I'd do the rest.  Now I have all my baking stuff, sauces, Japanese stuff in separate containers so I can just pull them out depending on what I am making!  Maybe I need to get out more...

My bento stuff in two containers

My pantry sorted into pull out containers.

Tonight I have a birthday dinner for two friends so I'm making cake pops.  I got the idea from Bakerella

Not sure why the pics are so blurry, but I used canned icing because that's what the recipe said to do.  I've never used it before and the idea weirded me out, but it tasted ok.

First I got three cakes from Woolworths and broke them up in a bowl.

This is the frosting I got from New World.

Then I realised the bowl wasn't big enough so mixed it into a bigger one.

But I had used too much icing so mixed in the third cake.

In the fridge.  I didn't need to freeze them as long as I was expecting (maybe half an hour) but when I was dipping them I had to put them back into the freezer halfway through because they softened up too much.

 

Making some progress...  I dipped them into a huge block of Whittaker's dark chocolate melted with about a quarter of a packet of milk chocolate buttons from Woolworths.

The pink chocolate is Wilton candy melts.  Not sure why they don't call it chocolate melts? It's chocolate! Maybe an american thing?  It didn't melt very well at all so I only used it on a couple.

These are the finnished ones.  I bought three bags of bags in "size one" and only one (ten in a bag) in "size two".  So I had to put two to a bag in the bigger size bags. 

I have noticed quite a few hits from Lower Hutt on here so if you are in the Hutt and want to sell your house or buy another then go see my mum and dad!  (the two at the top).  This is my mum and my dad.

All the pops

The finished pops!

Five minute bento becomes one hour bentos!

I just got back from Dannevirke and the Four Square down the road was still open, so I thought I might as well get some stuff and make a bento to eat on the plane tomorrow night otherwise it'd be quite late that I'd get to have dinner.  Then, I figured I might as well make one for lunch tomorrow too.  I figured what I was going to make was basically just assembling stuff so it'd only take five or ten minutes.  Yeah, an hour later... But at least I have two bentos and am getting better at making tamagoyaki.

I also loved the idea Susan had of stamping the bun things she made, so I thought it would be a great idea to use my hanko (name stamp) to stamp the gyoza.  It didn't really work, and now my fingers are all red! But, at least I know it doesnt work on gyoza, so it wasn't a wasted effort if you look at it positively!

So this bento is for my lunch tomorrow.  It has half a mandarin, some kiwi fruit, cherry tomatoes, star and bear shaped rice with furikake, a gyoza and tamagoyaki with ham and nori. 

This bento is for dinner which I'll eat on the plane to Christchurch. It's the same as lunch but a whole mandarin, and three gryoza.  While making these I had a great idea to save taking gyoza sauce, I would just add some of the gyoza dipping sauce to the water when I cooked the gyoza.  The side of the gyoza you can't see is kind of a sticky black mess, I guess from the sugar that I didn't realise was in the sauce.  But again, at least I know not to try it again!