Autumn is upon us and winter is only a month or so away. It’s time to bring out my winter cookbooks and start preparing some delicious stews, soups and desserts. One of my favourite desserts to bake is sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce. It’s sooo easy and so wickedly delicious. I thought I’d share the recipe with you, just in case you wanted to treat yourself this winter. It’s perfect to eat in front of a warm fire with a nice glass of vintage port. Mmmm!

Image above: Sticky Date Cake with Butterscotch Sauce and French Vanilla Ice-cream (Photo credit: Monsieur Bonbon)

Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce

Ingredients

Method

Happy baking!

In Australia we celebrate Easter with a four-day weekend. It’s a time for families to gather and celebrate together – regardless of religion. Easter Sunday is typically spent enjoying a special brunch or lunch and an Easter egg hunt. At Chez Bonbon we celebrated with an Easter Sunday brunch at home with friends. For brunch I served my own version of an Easter pie – a delicious chicken and vegetable pie, based on Nigella’s recipe {HERE}. I styled the outdoor table in the garden and organised a little Easter Egg hunt for the children. After brunch we wandered down to Southgate, by the river, to a special Mad Hatter’s Tea Party pantomime. It was a really entertaining show and our little girls loved the interactive show. Here are some happy snaps from the day.

Image above: Our Easter brunch garden setting

Image above: Picnic blanket and baskets for the girls and the Easter egg hunt

Image above: The girls enjoying the Easter egg hunt. I may have gone slightly overboard and hid nearly 30 eggs!

Image above: Mimosas in the sun with friends

Image above: The girls enjoying some Easter entertainment at The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party pantomime.

Image above: My daughter chose the flowers for Easter brunch. I think she got the pastels down pat. I also found these gorgeous printable Easter Treat Bags via Funkytime. I used some old liquor store brown bags and trimmed them to size.

Image above: Delicious Koko Black Easter eggs from our friends…spoilt!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter or that you just enjoyed the long weekend with your friends.

Ciao ciao,

Easter Sunday is only one sleep away in Australia, but there are still plenty of fun Easter design projects to be found. This morning I came across Funkytime’s Easter DIY, Retro Easter Egg Carton and had to share it with you. Funkytime is a modern design blog by designer, Sibylla Roessler.  If you have time, I would recommend popping over for a look at the blog. It’s full of creative articles on food, design & DIY projects.

Check out the Sibylla’s printable labels which are available in pastel blue or pink.  Here’s a sneak peak.

Click on the link {HERE} to visit the Funkytime blog and print the free design.

Oh and check out Funkytime’s Spring 2012 eMagazine for more Easter DIY projects and other articles on food, design & DIY projects created by Sibylla. It’s rather special.  Here’s a snap shot of the eMag.

*Special thanks to Sibylla for allowing me to share this fun Easter design.

Happy Hunting!

Finally, a stylish new cafe catering especially for young families in Melbourne.  CheekyChinos is here!  No more pram issues, no more anxiety over split drinks and toddler tantrums and no more worrying about your toddler while you enjoy your meal, finish that business report, respond to overdue emails, or actually finish a conversation!

CheekyChinos features a very bright, modern and clean playroom, which has been specifically designed to provide facilitated, education and fun play for children aged 0-5 years. Parents/carers can watch from their cafe table as their child dives into the hive of activity in the playroom. The cafe menu is full of delicious gourmet and organic meals.  They also sell organic baby food, snacks and drinks, which is fabulous for parents with young babies. It’s conveniently located near the South Melbourne Market and Coventry Street, so you can pop in before or after your shopping trip.  Here are a few of my happy snaps from our visit to CheekyChinos this week.

Image: Top: My sourdough toast with smashed avocado.

Image: State-of-the-art developmental play equipment designed by a psychologist specifically for children aged 0-5 years.

What do I love about CheekyChinos?

Pam and the team are all very friendly, attentive and helpful. The menu features light and healthy meals that are perfect for breakfast and lunch, oh, and they have the cutest babycino menu. It’s very stylish and the ambience is warm and inviting. The facilitation of the playroom is carefully managed with qualified child minders and strict guidelines, for example; the playroom holds a maximum of 15 children (maximum of two hours playtime for a child); parents need to sign their child in and out of the playroom; parents are notified at their table when their child’s playtime is over (parents cannot leave the cafe).

It’s all very easy to follow once you know the process and it is quite a unique cafe experience – I love it.

Bye for now,

Easter Sunday is the perfect occasion for a family brunch. I’m hosting a few families for lunch at our home this weekend and I am completely inspired by this beautifully-styled Easter party on Elizabeth Anne Designs.  The party was designed in 2010 by Styled Creative, formerly Innove Events.  [Check out their stunning portfolio when you have time.]

My Easter brunch will be accompanied by an Easter egg hunt for the children.  We have a beautiful communal garden with a large wooden table and bench seats, so hopefully a few of our neighbours might join in on the Easter egg hunt too.  [Lord knows I've bought enough hunting eggs!]

I’m going to style the table for brunch and place a few rugs on the grass for the children to munch away on their eggs.  For brunch I am serving my own version of an Easter pie (chicken, bacon and leek) with fresh garden salad. I’m not sure of the drink just yet. I’d like to do my own Easter version of a long drink…hmm stay tuned.  Then to top it all off, guests will receive a little gift bag of Haigh’s Easter Eggs.  After lunch we’re all heading to Southgate for the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.  I imagine we’ll have some tired little children on our hands after this big day.

Image: A bird’s nest theme table setting with shades of yellow being carried throughout.

Image: Easter eggs on display in a brown egg carton and also packaged individually for guests in these sweet brown paper bags.

Image: Vintage–inspired tableware completes this Easter brunch setting.

I hope that this has inspired you to do something special with your family this Easter.  Check out my Pinterest board for more fabulous Easter ideas {HERE}.  You’ll find Easter decor, printables and DIY projects.

Thanks for popping by,

Last weekend my husband and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. We spent a lovely weekend down at the beach and enjoyed the last of summer’s rays. On our anniversary, my beautiful husband presented me with a stunning bottle of Fleurage perfume. Fleurage handcraft and sell limited edition perfumes from their elegant salon in South Melbourne. They source botanical ingredients from all over the world to create a unique and high quality products. Clientele can meet with their inhouse perfume maker and they will work with you to find a fragrance personally suited to you.

Image: My perfume was presented in a beautiful black box with a base.  The base contains a collection of accessories. There is a black band that keeps the top and base together and this is how your perfume is secured.

Image: Fleurage Chaperone – a pure amber perfume. 

Image: The perfume accessories include a travel atomiser, atomiser spray top, funnel and bottle cap.

I first fell in love with traditional handmade perfumes after a visit to Paris. During a shopping trip to Printemps, I found a beautiful traditional French perfume, ‘George Sand’ created by Jean-Francois Laporte. It was like no other perfume I had tried – in strength and fragrance.  So you can imagine how excited I was when my husband introduced me to Fleurage, a perfume salon…in my very own neighbourhood!

If you are interested in this style of perfumery or even just a bit curious, then I recommend you pop down to the Fleurage salon and meet their inhouse perfumer to find your signature scent.  Fleurage also hold perfumery classes and workshops. Visit their website (below) for class schedules and details.

 Au revoir mes amis,

Huzzah! It’s my two-year blogiversary today! I’m still quite new to the occasion, but I guess it’s like any anniversary… you celebrate the success of another year together.  So as the sun set over the city last night we popped the bubbly and raised a toast to a fun-filled year of my Madame Bonbon blog.

Looking back over the past twelve months, I’ve learnt a lot about being a blogger.  There is still so much to discover, but I thought I’d share some of the highlights and also my goals for the next year.

Three blogger highlights from the past year

1. Personalizing my blog and giving more to my readers – This year I decided to include a few more blog posts about my personal life. My original idea was to use my social media profiles (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) as a personal insight into Madame Bonbon and then keep the blog purely about party styling. However, I realised that I wanted to share more about my life and “my town” in the hope that you gained an insight into Madame Bonbon “the person”. I hope you enjoy this new aspect of my blog. Also, this year I was able to give away some fabulous promotions to my readers.  Thank you to my PR contacts for sharing your events and products on the Madame Bonbon blog.

2. Attending Nuffnang’s Blogopolis – This was my first foray into the local blogger community.  I met some amazing people with the most interesting blogs, including Darren Prowse (Problogger). The Problogger website is such a wealth of information and the introduction to blogging articles are invaluable to a new blogger.

3.  Joining Pinterest & Instagram – These sites have allowed me to connect with creative people from all over the world.  Also, as a blogger, Instagram is a great way for me to quickly edit and post images to my blog.

 Three blogger goals for the next year

1.  Create and design more party crafts – I’d like to showcase my own design work and this means I need to be more conscious of time and ensure I’m blogging about all of the crafts that I have created.

2.  Spend more time getting to know you – I want to help inspire you and help solve any party styling quandaries you may be experiencing.

3.  Socialising with fellow bloggers – I want to meet more inspiring party stylists from all over the world, so I’m going to dedicate more time to socialising online and sharing experiences with them.

Finally, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to and visited my blog.  I’m ever so grateful to you and appreciate your feedback and support.  I hope you’ll stay with me and celebrate many more blogiversaries to come.  Special mention and much love to my beautiful husband, Matthew and my darling daughter, Isabel …the loves of my life xox.

Best wishes to you and yours,

Tucked down in the industrial side streets of Abbotsford and next to the IKEA distribution warehouse, is The Abbotsford Club – a cafe venture between Elaine So (Servery & Spoon & My Sister Says) and coffee wholesaler, Coffee Supreme. The cafe specialises in Coffee Supreme blends, petite cakes and wholesome sandwiches and salads. Breakfast is also served from 7.30am Monday to Saturday. The Abbotsford Club is still very much under the radar (in terms of publicity),which makes it very much a “club” for the locals…and now you.

Image: The cafe features quirky interior design and is intimate and inviting.

Image: Self-serve water – grab a wee bottle and make your choice of chilled carbonated or plain tap water from the taps. Love it!

Image: The lovely big communal dining table provides comfortable seating for customers. You also have a choice of a few tables outside in the sun.

Image: We sat outside in the sunshine and enjoyed a wee cupcake with our coffee.

We popped down to the Abbotsford Club for lunch today and ran into the Gumbo Kitchen food truck. We shared the chicken + sausage gumbo (stew), a fried shrimp po’boy and a catfish po’boy (traditional submarine sandwich from Louisana). And then someone brought out “The Dom” (hot fries topped with pulled beef, a giant pickle and sauce) – this dish looks as decadent as it sounds. Thanks to the team at the Abbotsford Club for inviting the Gumbo Kitchen to lunch. We loved it!

Image: top right – Chicken & Sausage Gumbo and bottom left – Fried Shrimp Po’boy

The Abbotsford Club is located at 28-36 Grosvenor St, Abbotsford. They open for breakfast from 7:30am Monday to Friday. The club also cooks up a full breakfast on Saturday mornings.

Click {HERE} to view the map.

Have a terrific weekend!

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There’s a new movement amongst iPhone-owners called iPhoneography – the art of taking photos with your Apple iPhone. With the wealth of photo apps on the market, your iPhone camera actively competes with many point and shoot digital cameras. Let’s face it, the iPhone is the most accessible camera out there.

On the weekend I found this great little book at my local bookstore*, ‘The Art of iPhoneography” written by award-winning documentary photographer, Stephanie Roberts.  The book caught my eye as it resembles an over-sized iPhone, but I grew more excited when I flicked through it’s contents.  Stephanie reviews several popular photography apps and provides examples, steps and key features of each app. She encourages iPhonegraphers to “spark their creativity” by thinking about composition, style and expression. I also enjoyed the interviews with notable iPhoneographers and was surprised to note quite a few professional photographers dabbled in iPhonegraphy too. The book also covers the growing community of iPhoneographers, who are eager to share their insight, experience and images.

In summary, it’s a great guide that will help you sharpen  your iPhone photography skills and stretch your view.

* One Little Piggie bookstore, South Melbourne

I’m a huge fan of iPhoneography and really enjoy this creative and mobile method of capturing images.  My DSLR is still my preferred camera for serious photography, but I love the accessibility and creative possibilities of iPhoneography.

“iPhoneography has connected me with another party of myself that I really appreciate.  I’ve realized that I’m really a visual person, though I never thought of myself that way.  It’s made me into a different person in the eyes of others, in a way.  And that makes me feel good, because it is true to who I am.”  

Charlotta Kratz, San Franciso, CA – The Art of iPhoneography.

Earlier this week I was browsing my Pinterest feed and came across Red Stamp, a fabulous app for your iPhone. Red Stamp allows you to email, text, post, or paper mail personalised cards, notes, invitations and announcements, right from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.  You simply select one of the Red Stamp card designs, personalise it and then choose how you wish to send (via email, text, Facebook etc).

What I really like about the Red Stamp app is that you can send last minute dinner party invitations or thank you notes to party hosts and if you forget to send someone a birthday card…well, Red Stamp has it covered.  It’s so easy.  See my photo guide below.

1. Choose the Red Stamp card design for your occasion.

2. Personalise your card with all the details.

3. Select how to want to send your card.

 I chose the ‘Text Message’ option for this card.  A pop-up message directs you to iMessage and saves your card to your iPhone photo album (neat).

4. Send your invitation on it’s way.

Paste the card into the content section of your message.  Add your contact details from your iPhone and away you go.

Red Stamp features include ::

• A clever card-finding feature allows you to scroll and select the perfect design pre-filled with editable sentiments and prompts written by modern etiquette experts.
• 400+ thank you notes, greeting cards, invitations, announcements and personalized stationery, each with multiple color schemes resulting in thousands of possibilities.
• Photo-friendly designs, giving you the ability to grab photos from your camera roll or take pictures in-app.
• A virtual mailbox to help you manage your favourite, premium and sent correspondence.
• Seamless integration with your device’s contacts to easily order and mail paper postcards to everyone on your list.
• Postcards printed on premium, eco-friendly white card stock.
• Premium designs starting at $0.99; printing + mail-for-you pricing from $0.49-$1.99/card, postage included.

 Till we meet again…