.the princess portal.

I have been really busy over the past few days preparing for my friend Donican’s Farewell Party. She is leaving for Japan in a week and I’ll miss her terribly but I’m also excited for her because she’s following her dreams and I think she’s going to have a fantastic experience living in Japan!

On Tuesday we went shopping for party supplies, and afterwards took this cute Purikura. We had to carry five kilos of rice around town for a bit, which made the day tiring but it was great to get to spend some time with Doni before she heads off. On thursday I baked Madeleines and made a big tray of Inari zushi. Friday afternoon I spent making Onigiri! I made 44 onigiri in different flavours and I think I’m a lot faster at them now! It was great to have the chance to cook so much and help cater for the party.

It was getting late by the time I finished and I had to rush to put on my costume before Jeff and Emily arrived to give me a lift and help get the food there. The theme was ‘Japan’ of course, and I went as a school girl (having a chance to wear my lucky star cosplay again!) I also had a pair of giant chopsticks! Jeff, Emily and Christine all came as different types of sushi so we had a human bento box!

Donican hired out a hall for the party and had a projector set up to play videos and games on. She was very creative with the games too! We were split in to teams and each competed at a series of tasks to get points. The first was chinese whispers which was actually really hard because the lines we had to remember were so long! We also had a quiz on how well we knew Donican and played a word guessing game based off Taboo. It was a really great way to get everyone mixing and I made some new friends. Our team came second!

The atmosphere at the party was really fun and friendly (and Donican has great taste in music) I really enjoyed the whole evening and I hope she did too! It was a wonderful send off.

Today I completed my Princess Challenge for July! I baked Madeleines au citron, these cute little shell shaped cakes were a pleasure to bake and turned out pretty tasty too. I decided to bake Madeleines because they’ve always been one of my favourite treats, my Mother used to bring them home from the Patisserie for me, but I’ve never tried baking them before. I had a great excuse to do so because one of my friends is having a Bon Voyage party tomorrow night (she is moving to Japan, I will really miss her!) and she asked me to help cater. I also made some Inarizushi and tomorrow I’m going to make some Onigiri for the party as well.

Madeleines can be made in nearly every flavour imaginable, but I decided to go with traditional lemon and orange because I find it compliments the buttery sweetness of the base so well.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 tbs lemon or orange juice
6 tbs melted butter
Grated rind of lemon or orange

Preheat the oven to 375F / 190C and grease a 12 mold Madeleine tin. In one bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Set this aside. In a second bowl beat the eggs until smooth. Add the icing sugar to the eggs and beat together until there are no lumps. Now add the citrus juice and rind and fold in gently. Using a spatula start by folding a small amount of flour in to the mixture, then fold in a small amount of butter. Alternate between the two until you get a firm but light batter. Let the mixture sit for ten minutes before spooning it in to the middle of each mold. Bake for 15 minutes. When it is done the edges should be slightly brown and the top spring back to touch. Release the Madeleines on to a cooling rack and dust with icing sugar.

Makes a lovely afternoon tea treat!