Lime Filled Cupcakes

August 11, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

For the first year ever, we have a citrus tree that is happy and producing copious fruit. Our Bears Lime sits in a half-barrel in a little heat pocket in front of the garden shed, and it is absolutely dripping in deliciousness right now.

Lime is not a fruit I’m accustomed to having on hand. Limes often cost up to $49/kg in the grocery store, so to have an overabundance of them makes me feel like I’m incredibly wealthy.

Naturally, we’re putting lime into everything, sweet and savoury. A few weeks ago, I picked up a new cookbook, Bake Your Sweet Time, by Tat Effby. In the book is a key lime pie cake that I made a couple of weeks ago, in a bout of stress baking while dealing with the demise of both our vehicles within days of one another. It was excellent, and it got my brain spinning about the combination of cake and lime curd.

So on the weekend, I made lime cupcakes, filled with lime curd, and topped in a buttercream frosting.

Oh. My. God.

For days, I’ve been living in anticipation of the next time I can legitimately eat one of these delicious morsels. It’s taking all my willpower not to live on cupcakes alone, with these in the house.

Here’s the recipe, in case you have an overabundance of limes, too. Or even if you don’t. These might be worth spending $49/kg for limes.

Lime curd (make this at least a few hours ahead of time):
Combine in a medium saucepan:
3 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
grated zest of 1 lime

Add:
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
3 Tbs butter, cut into cubes

Cook, whisking, over medium heat until the butter melts and the mixture thickens. Simmer gently for a few seconds, then remove from the heat.

Stir in:
1/2 tsp vanilla

Scrape into a bowl or jar, cover, and refrigerate. Keeps for about a week.

Cake (makes 18 cupcakes):
Whisk together in a small jug:
4 large eggs
60g vegetable oil
60g water

Combine in a large bowl:
200 g sugar
320 g all-purpose flour
1 Tbs baking powder
pinch of salt
grated zest of 4 limes

Add to the flour mixture:
120g butter, softened to the consistency of yogurt
60 g vegetable oil

Mix with an electric mixer on low until it looks like damp breadcrumbs.

With the mixer on high, slowly pour in half the egg mix. Beat for up to a minute, until the batter becomes thick, fluffy and lump free. Then trickle in the remainder of the egg mixture, beating until smooth.

Spoon the batter into paper-lined cupcake tins. Bake at 160℃ on fan bake (or 180℃ if you don’t have a fan bake option) for 22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Take cupcakes out of the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Frosting:
200g softened butter
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 cups icing (confectioners) sugar
1-2 Tbs hot water

Cream butter until light and fluffy. Add vanilla. Gradually beat in sugar, beating until smooth. Add just enough water to achieve a piping consistency.

To assemble:
Using a knife, 2 cm round biscuit cutter, or cupcake corer, cut a well in the centre of each cupcake, leaving plenty of cake around the edges and bottom so the cupcakes don’t disintegrate. Fill a piping bag fitted with a large round tip (or a small zipper bag with the corner cut off) with lime curd, and pipe each cupcake well full to the top with curd.

Fit a second piping bag with a large star tip, and fill it with frosting. Pipe frosting onto the top of each cupcake. The frosting does need to be piped on, because if you try to apply it with a knife, the curd mixes into the icing.

Because of the lime curd filling, I recommend storing these cupcakes in the fridge. Microwave individual cupcakes for 10 seconds to return them to room temperature before eating.

Enjoy!

Why Spring Matters

August 7, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I wrote a blog post today, and realised I’ve written essentially the same post before. More than once. This same week of the year.

My post was about seeing signs of spring, despite winter weather.

And I thought, “Why does this matter? It happens every year.”

But that is exactly why it matters.

And, perhaps, that is exactly why I will mention it again, and again.

Especially now, when the fabric of what we consider ‘civilisation’ seems to be fraying. When world leaders have confused ‘lead’ with ‘greed’. When the air, water, and food we depend upon are increasingly poisoned. When the very planet that sustains us is threatened by our own actions.

We crave the familiar. We crave a sense of normalcy, a sense that, at the end of it all, we’ll be okay.

As a gardener and a keen observer of nature, I’m well aware that little is familiar anymore. It is too dry or too wet, warmer. New pests are encroaching, and planting and flowering dates are changing.

But spring still follows winter, and every year plants anticipate and herald spring with swelling buds, emerging shoots. It is familiar. It is comforting.

Like the story tropes we love, the sitcom formulae we watch over and over again, we know there will be a good ending. We understand that all will be lost, but we can tell how close we are to the resolution, where all will be found again.

That is what the month before spring is. Frosty, snowy, and often miserable, but the days grow inexorably longer, the sun a little higher every day. The plants begin to stir. The magpie sings in the darkness before dawn.

And the gardener experiences it all and knows that, whatever happens, we’ll be okay.

Hot and Bothered in the Land of Oz

July 16, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

After 21 years living in Aotearoa New Zealand, I finally visited Australia. I know, I know—pathetic, but it is what it is. And, no, I wasn’t really hot and bothered (not much anyway), but the song Open Road was playing non-stop in my head for our whole visit, and that line seemed appropriate for this post.

After a miserable start (flight delays, missed connections, etc), we had a nice holiday, despite it raining nearly every day.

We tend not to be the organised tour sort of people, but on this trip, we did a number of very ‘touristy’ things. From Port Douglas, we took the Wavedancer Low Isles cruise for a day of snorkelling, which included a naturalist-led snorkelling tour and island tour. I’m not much of a snorkeller (I love the water, just not the snorkel), but we got to see lots of fabulous reef fish, a sea turtle, and (my favourite) a giant clam. And for me, anything on a boat is great. The weather was squally on the way back to Port Douglas, and the views across the water were fantastic.

Port Douglas afforded me my first real experience of sulphur-crested cockatoos en masse—loud and obnoxious during the day, but the most spectacular experience we had with them was after dark. Someone began setting off fireworks on the hill above town. It must have bothered the cockatoos, because suddenly thousands were silently cruising overhead like winged ghosts against the dark sky, escaping the noise.

We had lots of boat trips on this holiday, which I loved. On our way to Daintree National Park, we stopped in for a crocodile cruise on the Daintree River (and ended up doing a second one on our way out, further upriver, because they were offering a 2-for-1 deal). The crocodiles didn’t disappoint—we saw babies to behemoths—and we also saw lots of birdlife and a pretty little tree snake.

After crossing the Daintree River on the ferry, we stayed two nights at Noah Beach campground—basic, but quite nice. While in Daintree National Park, we hiked up the Mount Sorrow lookout track, where we were tormented by butterflies who wouldn’t sit still for a photo, and greedily descended upon by terrestrial leeches. The rainforest was full of curious plants and fungi, and we managed to photograph a wee skink, too. But the best sightings on this track, for me, were a dung beetle rolling a ball of poo along the path and a big black semi-slug with a gold Nike-like swoosh on its back (well, and the leeches, too, because, land leeches? How bizarre and cool is that?).

With no showers at the campground, we stopped in at Mason’s Swimming Hole afterwards to cool down and wash the mud and sweat off. Great spot for swimming, and the beer and chips afterwards at the associated shop/cafe was the perfect ending to the day.

All along the road in Daintree, there are cassowary warning signs, and finally, as we were leaving we were treated to the sight of an adult male cassowary with two chicks strolling along the road (see the bad photo below, taken through the car window).

Next stop was the Atherton Tablelands. We swung through Kuranda late in the day, hoping to snag dinner before heading to our campsite, but discovered that the entire town closes at two, after the daily tourist train leaves. So we picked up food at the grocery store, and popped out to Barron Falls nearby before hitting the campsite at Speewah Conservation Area. A short night walk near the campsite was rich in cool bugs.

Having seen Kuranda without tourists, we decided it wasn’t worth returning for the market the next day. Instead, we took a nice walk at Speewah on a track littered with cassowary poo. Presumably the birds themselves were around, and saw us, but we never caught sight of them.

Then we were off to two days on the Atherton Tablelands waterfall circuit, with a westward jaunt to escape the rain and see kangaroos. We stopped in at a wide variety of falls, every one of which was worth visiting (check out my waterfall medley). Along the way, we also stopped in at a mango winery, the Golden Drop. The wine was surprisingly good, and I enjoyed hearing about their operation.

Sand bubbler crab sitting amongst its artistically arranged sand balls.

Leaving the Atherton Tablelands, we camped at Murray Falls—a lovely spot—and the following day, took a rafting trip down the Tully River. A fun and wet time was had by all.

Then it was back to Cairns for our last day of holidaying. We walked the Esplanade and hit the night market. Had a delicious dinner at Hecho en Mexico, then went back to our campground to watch the fruit bats squabble as they forayed out from the bat-laden tree near our campsite.

It was an interesting trip, and I ticked off a lot of cool Australian wildlife—crocodiles, cassowaries, kangaroos, tree kangaroos, fruit bats, kookaburras and more. But there were surprises, too. Having lived in Panama, the rainforest in Queensland was quiet and still by comparison—not much of a morning chorus, and not a lot scuttling around the undergrowth, either. And I never used insect repellant! I kept expecting mosquitoes, but came home with only two or three bites. So it defied my expectations in some ways.

It was nice to enjoy the tropics for a bit, but I’ll admit it was good to be back home. It’s back to the garden and the next book, now!

A Solstice Reckoning

June 26, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

If you’ve been following my blog over the past year, you’ll know that my husband and I have been engaged in a little project to record everything we harvest from the garden for an entire year—winter solstice to winter solstice.

Well, we passed the solstice earlier this week, and with it, our project has come to a close. My husband, data wrangler extraordinaire, did some calculations and created a graph of our harvest to help us visualise and understand our data (see below).

Some quick takeaways from the data:

We harvested a total of 771 kg of food (91 different crops) from the garden over the past year!
Our largest crop was pumpkins, at 115 kg.
We picked a whopping 97 kg of tomatoes over a 7-month-long season.
Our chooks laid 1047 eggs weighing a total of 53 kg!
Although I tried to be reasonable when planting zucchini, we still harvested 51 kg of them.
We harvested 40 kg of sweet corn after a terrible, late start to the season.
Our smallest crop was saffron—dried, the entire year’s harvest weighed less than 1 gram.

What an amazing year!

I’m not sure I fully grasped the sheer volume of food our garden produces, and I certainly didn’t think I’d be tallying up nearly 800 kg of food from this property six years ago when we arrived on what was then an absolutely stripped and sterile piece of land. It’s amazing what a lot of hard work and tonnes of manure can accomplish in six years!

I don’t know the monetary value of the year’s produce, but it hardly matters. The garden has fed us like royalty all year. Provided us food of a quality money can’t buy, not to mention all the weird and wonderful crops and varieties we grow that never appear in the grocery store and simply aren’t available unless you grow them yourself. In addition, I’ve given away countless eggs, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, currants, quince, and more, helping to feed those around us as well.

Eat your heart out, Elon Musk! Your trillion cannot possibly give you as much joy as my 771 kg of fresh produce.

Garden graph 2025-26 — Each crop is represented as a ring of the graph. Each individual harvest is a dot, and the size of the dot indicates the size of harvest. The grey line shows the total weight of all produce harvested since the winter solstice. Only some crops are labeled on the graph.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

May 21, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I’ve been writing (and publishing my writing) since the 1970s. But, to be honest, I never considered myself a writer until 2015, when I closed my science outreach and interpretation consulting businesses in order to pursue writing full time.

The change felt like losing an arm, even though I chose to do it.

Because I didn’t consider myself a writer. I was a heritage interpreter, and who was I really if I stopped being an interpreter?

It wasn’t until I ran into a fellow heritage interpreter at a writing conference the following year that I reconciled with the change. He said, “But you’re still telling stories, just in a different way.”

Because of course, heritage interpretation is all about telling the true stories of people, places, and the natural world. He was absolutely right. I had always been a storyteller. The shift from interpretation and science outreach wasn’t so much the removal of a body part, but the growing of a new one.

It made all the difference in my attitude towards the change.

So when the family’s financial situation changed and I needed a steady income, it wasn’t too difficult for me to switch to writing part time while working as a teaching assistant—I could see the connections between the two. I chose to view the change as growing a new limb, rather than cutting off the old one. And when that role evolved into a specialist teaching role focused on science and extension literacy and maths, it felt like the best of all worlds.

I began to think of myself as a communicator who used a variety of media to communicate. And that change in thinking has led to the next change.

This week I handed in my notice at my ‘day job’. Six weeks from now I will transition into full-time writing. It will be my second foray into this territory, but I am infinitely more prepared for it this time. With seventeen books under my belt, I have a base to work with. And with the understanding that I am doing the same thing, just in a different medium, losing the daily teaching from my schedule doesn’t feel as tragic.

And now that my plans are in motion, I’m allowing myself to explore all the possibilities this new phase will open up.

I will miss my students and the amazing people I’ve worked with for the past seven years. And I’m a little nervous—a bit overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of items on my growing to-do list. But I am more than excited to dive into my writing full time. I have heaps of plans for fiction and non-fiction, and I can’t wait to begin making them happen, and share the finished products with you all!

Annual Geekout at Cass

May 8, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Last weekend marked the 2026 Cass Mountain Research Station bioblitz.

The weather was perfect, and the views from Cass Hill were spectacular.

Twenty-four enthusiastic naturalists participated in the weekend—a mix of university students, former students and faculty, and others like me, with ties to those students and faculty. A great mix of expertise and enthusiasm.

The weather was gorgeous—sunny and calm. On Saturday, the group I was with followed a maze of pig trails out towards the northernmost tip of the research station, where the Cass River meets the Waimakariri River. Then we climbed the ridge to the top of Cass Hill. Along the way, our group recorded a variety of lichens, mosses, fungi, native and exotic plants, and insects. We scared up a pair of pigs, and watched a harrier lazily circle the ridge above us.

We returned to the research station, scratched and sweaty, in the late afternoon to find it buzzing with the enthusiasm of our fellow naturalists returning from their own adventures.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, people shared photographs, examined specimens under the microscopes, and debated about identifications as we started to log our observations on iNaturalist.

By the end of the evening, we’d already passed our goal of increasing the total number of species recorded at Cass to 1000.

On Sunday, I decided on a mission to find stick insects. There is only one record of a stick insect at Cass, from 2021, and they have not been recorded at the previous bioblitzes. I am convinced they’re more common than the records would suggest, because they are easily overlooked. They also have an irritating tendency to hang out in the forest canopy, far out of reach.

In other locations, I’ve had good luck finding stick insects on forest edges, where the canopy is lower, and stick insects hang out at eye height. So I took a beating tray and a few other participants willing to tolerate my obsession, and slowly crept along the shrubby forest edges, peering at foliage and shaking branches.

Alas, I found not a single stick insect, although I did record some lovely little spiders, a beautiful moth, and a few interesting plants. Undaunted, I will try again next time. The creatures are out there, I know.

Indeed, lots of living things are out there at Cass. Every time we’ve had a bioblitz, we’ve set what seems like an ambitious goal for recording new species at the research station. And every time, we blow our goal out of the water. In 2023, we were thrilled to exceed 500 species. In 2025, we sailed past 800. Last weekend, we added an amazing 119 new species to the list of life at Cass, bringing the total number of observed species there to 1093.

The more you look, the more you see.

Unfortunately, I fear many of the native species at Cass are at risk. The population of feral pigs at the research station has exploded in recent years. Five or ten years ago, pig damage was confined to certain areas, but today there’s barely a square metre of the station not impacted by the rooting of pigs. Other mammals, too, have an impact on the native flora and fauna—rats, stoats and possums are all present there.

My worry was shared by many over the weekend, and we dreamed collectively of a predator fence around the station, combined with intensive pig, stoat, possum, and rat control. What a jewel the station could become! I wonder what our Bioblitz species counts would be like ten or twenty years after effective mammal control?

For now, Cass Mountain Research Station remains as an incredible resource for scientists and others to study and explore. Our bioblitzes show there’s much out there to be learned.

Pause

May 1, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

It’s a golden, autumnal day today. Just right for enjoying.

Pause here
On the edge of winter
Among dry stalks
Rattling in the breeze.

Pause here
While the sun
Glances off
Golden leaves.

Pause here
To inhale
The smell of
Fading roses,
Cut grass.

Pause here
To feel Earth’s
Smooth slide
Through space.

Pause here.

Short walks on the Banks Peninsula

April 30, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Last weekend, my husband and I spent a day on the Banks Peninsula doing three short walks we hadn’t done before.

Our first stop was Hay Reserve in Pigeon Bay. This short, family-friendly track circles through lowland old growth podocarp forest. It’s a slice of what the whole peninsula would have been like before human colonisation. Huge kahikatea and tōtara, supplejack looping through the branches, cabbage trees and ferns—so dense at spots, I almost wanted a head torch despite the bright sky overhead. If you’re a fan of big trees, Hay Reserve is a fantastic stroll.

Our next stop was Ellangowan Scenic Reserve, on Hickory Bay Road. Though poorly signed, it’s not difficult to find the track. It follows a two-track to a rocky ridge, with a fabulous 360-degree view of the peninsula, then drops back down through a beautiful patch of bush that includes some very old, though dwarfed native trees. Lower down, massive red beeches punctuate the forest. Just 2.4 km long, the track has it all—forest, views, rock scrambling. Definitely worth a visit if you’re out that way.

Finally, we popped over to Akaroa, where we walked the Children’s Bay Walkway (with a detour to the creek waterfall). I can’t believe we’ve never done this walk (it would have been great when the kids were younger). The out-and-back, well-maintained track winds through a patchwork of farmland and forest. The creek waterfall was minimalist on the day we visited, but magical nonetheless. The really special thing about the walkway isn’t the landscape, though, but the fabulous sculptures along the way. No spoilers, but there are surprising creatures all the way to the end.

All three of these walks are relatively short and easy (though the Ellangowan Reserve track requires a bit of confidence on the ridge), and the three together made for a fun day, which naturally ended with a beer and chips in Akaroa.

The Pumpkin Spice Cake to end all Pumpkin Spice Cakes

April 24, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

We have a lovely cookbook called Tartine, written by the owners of the bakery, Tartine, in San Fransisco.

I sometimes find this sort of cookbook frustrating, because the recipes are often linked very closely with the specific specialty ingredients available in that location. Which is great for a bakery—they should be using local ingredients. It makes it harder to reproduce those recipes, however, from the other side of the planet.

Tartine, however, is full of recipes that are remarkably simple to make, with ingredients available just about anywhere. I’ve enjoyed making several of the recipes from the book, and some of them are ones I return to regularly.

My husband first made their Pumpkin Tea Cake as the base of a birthday cake for me years ago. Since then, I’ve used the recipe similarly—baked in layers for special-occasion cakes.

But the recipe is technically for a loaf cake.

So last week I decided to make the recipe as it was meant to be made. Sort of. I did increase the quantities so that it would be the perfect amount for a Bundt cake, rather than a loaf. And I adjusted the spice quantities to taste. And I switched out some of the regular flour for wholemeal. Oh, and I reduced the sugar a bit. So yeah, maybe not exactly Tartine’s cake, but …

The result was the fluffiest, most divine Bundt cake ever. And it’s so easy to make that it may become my go-to cake for all occasions from here on out.

Here’s my version of the recipe. But do find yourself a copy of Tartine and try out the original, along with all the other lovely recipes in the book.

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp salt
4 large eggs

Whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and spices in a mixing bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat together the pumpkin, oil sugar and salt until well mixed. Then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture, beating just until smooth.

Pour the batter into a greased Bundt pan and bake for 1 hour at 180℃ (325℉), until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before removing it from the pan and cooling completely on a wire rack.

The original recipe was sprinkled with sugar before baking, but this cake needs no embellishment at all. Eat it with a fork and knife, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or with your fingers, standing up in the kitchen. It’s delicious however you’d like it.

Autumn Garden Assessment

April 8, 2026 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

First week in April, and instead of having the heat pump on, I’m sitting here with all the windows open, because this year has been weird, weather-wise. It’s made for a challenging gardening year.

Last weekend, I brought in the last of the pumpkins and potatoes. I picked the popcorn, and I processed a heap of sweet corn. The garden is looking bare, though there’s still lots of vegetables coming out of it.

I thought it was time for my annual post-harvest assessment.

The weather was challenging for the spring crops, because it got summer-hot in November/December. Though I kept the garden well watered, the spring crops didn’t stand a chance. The pea harvest was marginal—enough for fresh eating, but not for freezing. Despite several plantings, I never did get spinach to grow—it bolted before I’d even planted out the seedlings. And the broccoli raab and pak choi bolted so fast, we never ate either of them—they went directly to the chickens.

I thought we were in good shape for the heat-loving crops, but in mid-December, summer seemingly ended. It got cool and rainy. There were some warm days, but they were few and far between. The tomatoes, eggplants and peppers languished. Powdery mildew cut down half my zucchini plants in February. I fought slugs, slaters and mould as tomatoes and peppers rotted before ripening. Beans rotted wherever they touched the ground. And aphids were rampant all year on all sorts of plants—the predators couldn’t keep up.

All in all, it was a challenging summer.

We ate well (and still are), and the larder is full of food, but it was hard-won.

Things that did surprisingly well:

The volunteer pumpkins—the pumpkins I actually planted were marginal and were nailed by powdery mildew. But the two volunteer pumpkins—out on their own with good air flow around them—did well. One of them, in particular, was the most spectacular plant I’ve ever seen—the plant itself was enormous, and it produced 17 pumpkins with a total weight of 41.6 kg!
Rosella tomatoes—This black cherry tomato has been my favourite for flavour since I began planting it a few years ago. This year it proved itself as a tenacious variety, producing decently in both greenhouses and out in the garden, where most of the tomatoes languished.
Sweet corn—The corn got a terrible start, with poor germination and uneven growth. In mid-January, I expected to get no corn harvest. But somehow, the plants shot up after that, evened out, tasselled, and produced a gorgeous crop of big ears. Every single plant has at least two nice ears on it, and some plants have managed three. I honestly have no idea how it happened, but I’ll take the win.
Nutri-purple carrots—I’ve struggled for decades to grow nice, big purple carrots. This was my first try with the variety Nutri-purple, and they were fantastic. Long roots, healthy growth, and no aphids (the aphids were usually the downfall of other purple varieties I’ve tried).

Things that did poorly:

Window Box Red tomatoes—usually these little plants produce bumper crops in the pots in front of the house, but every one of them expired quickly in the cold this year, without producing a single fruit.
Fantastico tomatoes—This was a new cherry tomato variety for me this year, and I found the plants to be unmanageable (large sprawling plants that resisted any sort of pruning or training), slow to ripen, and not terribly tasty. At the moment, the fruits are finally ripening, but because it’s cool and wet, and the plants are sprawled on the ground, the slugs and slaters are getting most of them.

Of course, the gardening season never really ends here, and while we continue to eat the remaining summer crops, the winter crops are happily growing. I look forward to tallying up the full year’s production in a few months. Stay tuned for the final tally!

Robinne Weiss

Fantasy / Sci-fi / Non-fiction

Author: Robinne Weiss