Snapshots from an Australian Summer Holiday Extraordinaire

Woodford Music Festival

We have had a summer holiday extraordinaire. The kids had two months of school and I only worked a few days here and there. Before the holidays started I must admit I thought OMG two months – how on earth am I going to entertain them?! So I started making all these plans in my head, but as it turned out things just happened, as they do with children, and there was no need for any of my planning. The days went so quickly, but now when I look back at the photos I can see that we did so many things and had some fantastic time together as a family. Time has flown, the holidays are long over, but what a fun time we had!

It was a holiday with great variation from family camping, lazy days at home, day trips, to a 4 day sailing adventure for only my husband and I. Up to Christmas we worked a lot in our little workshop creating fun things from recycled materials for Christmas decorations and gifts, you might have seen the post about that here. After Christmas we spend a week camping at the coolest music festival, the Woodford Folk Festival (at Woodford not Woodstock). On offer was world music from every corner of the globe, art and craft, children’s festival, interesting talks and yoga stuff. Not the alcoholic kind of festival, but a very family friendly one. Loved it! The pictures above are from the festival. Summer and music festival is such a great combo don’t you think?

Below are some snapshots from the rest of our holiday, the beautiful beach ones at the top are from Byron Bay and the ones at the bottom are from Hamilton Island. What stunning places! I hope you enjoy the pictures.

xo Sarah

 

Ice Cream O'clock



Isvaffel med guf (Danish) or Ice cream cone with the softest marshmallow topping (Guf)

 

 

 

This is a very unhealthy post, so don’t read on if you are trying to reduce your waist measurement as part of your resolution for the New Year!

Summer holidays equals lots of ice creams! Crispy ice cream cones filled with one or two scoops of delicious, good quality ice cream - here at home we try to buy or make the good stuff, which is not made of milk powder, air and emulsifiers + worse … and now to the fun childish bit...”Guf” on top! Now what is “Guf” you might ask? It is a sweet, some would say sickly sweet topping made of whipped egg whites, sugar and berries, a sort of very soft marshmallowy foam. The berries are only for the slightest bit of colour and the weakest bit of taste and if the Guf is industry made it is highly likely that it has never seen a berry, but is coloured with chemicals. We used raspberries.

So what is so appealing about Guf? Firstly we grew up enjoying ice cream with Guf in Denmark during the brief Danish summers - it was part of summer life; secondly it is the cloud of sweetness on top of the creamy coolness of ice cream that is so enjoyable. And just on a note; Denmark, is mostly a very cool place, but still the people there love their ice cream and are amongst the top ice cream devours in Europe. Both bad and good ice cream. In recent years a lot of gourmet “real” ice cream companies have popped up and are successfully producing and selling good quality ice cream. Maybe I should open an ice creamery.. hmm?
I would become huge!

 xo Sarah

 Hansen Ice Cream

 

 

 Paradis Ice Cream

Ice Cream Cones with Guf

 

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons of sugar

80 g of either raspberries or strawberries

2 pasteurised egg whites

(Tip on using raw egg:  If you cannot get pasteurised, put the eggs in a sieve and scold the egg shells with boiling water before cracking and separating yolk and white. If any, the bad bacteria sit on the outside of the shell - always be careful with raw egg).

 

1.       Put the sugar and berries in a small saucepan. Heat up and simmer until the juice is flowing from the berries and the sugar is melted. Push through a sieve and discard the pulp.

2.       In a clean dry bowl, whip your egg white until they form soft peaks and you can turn the bowl upside down without them spilling out! Add the berry syrup and continue whipping for 15 minutes until it has a stiff shiny consistency.

3.       Add your favourite ice cream to the cones, top with Guf and e.g. sprinkles, nuts, chopped chocolate, fresh berries or other.