IKEA & Cookies

Last weekend we went to IKEA (I'm a little obsessed with this place and I get sooooooo excited about going) . The main reason for our trip was to get a coffee table that I have had my eye on for ages. We are currently redecorating our living room so I decided now was the perfect time any excuse to make the purchase. Anyone that has been to IKEA knows you can't really just pop in to get one thing...and this is definitely the case for me especially since my "local" store is 2 1/2 hours away (yes we did a 5 hour round trip with 3 kids for a coffee table!!!!.....it wasn't that bad though).

When we got home we used some of our new purchases to make some chocolate chip cookies.

So for our baking we bought a large baking sheet ,
a baking mat - this is in a really cute pink colour, you can roll it out onto the baking sheet, saves greasing the tray and your baking just slides off the mat
and two children's aprons for the girls - they are a great fit and tie with velcro so they can put them on themselves.

I stopped in Aldi on the way home to pick up the supplies (it turns out I had most of the ingredients at home already but I didn't want to take the chance.....ah well I'll just have to make another batch)

Since I have read/seen so much about them, I decided to try Tanya Burr's Chocolate Cookie recipe,
you can check it out here. These are incredibly easy to make and so yummy especially when still slightly warm......mmmmmmmmmm! I knew these were supposed to be large but I wasn't expecting them to be quite so big....but hey who's complaining???

Warm chocolate cookies and a cup of cold milk....the perfect treat at the end of the day.

Karen

xxxx

Birthday Cake and Tutus

It was Miss 7's Birthday this week and I thought I'd share her cake and outfit.

Her cake was semi-homemade (by myself). I decided to go for a Giant Chocolate Cupcake and it turned out to be surprisingly easy. I cheated a bit and used a Betty Crocker cake mix. I bought two boxes of the "Devil's Food Cupcake Mix" but that wasn't enough and I had to run to the shop mid bake to buy a 3rd box, the Giant Cupcake tin was bigger than I thought!!! This mix only takes 15/16 minutes if you are making regular cupcakes but it took 50 mins to bake in the giant tin.
Once cooled I trimmed the tops so they would fit together well and sandwiched together with chocolate buttercream.
I then tried to pipe roses using the ribbon nozzle in my icing kit but it wasn't turning out like the cake I saw on Pinterest (did I really think it would???) so I ad-libbed and changed nozzle and just did my own unique design. I added some Maltesers, Dr Oetker's white chocolate hearts and some 100's and 1000's and I have to say I was very happy with the finished look.

The morning of her birthday I had her cake on the table with the candles lighting and presents and cards piled up waiting to be opened.

Her outfit for her party was a tutu dress she picked herself. She loved the colour (a dusky "ornate" pink). I decided to team this with baby blue and picked up the cardigan and shoes in H&M. It looked stunning and Miss 7 was very happy which was the most important thing.

Karen

xxxx

Little Chocolate Treats

Miss 7's (turning 7) birthday is this weekend and when it's your birthday at school you get to bring in little treats for your class pals. So tonight we made these really cute and very easy little chocolate treats. As food allergies are quiet common I find it easier to just work with chocolate when I'm sending treats to school.

I had these heart shaped moulds that I picked up super cheap in Euro Giant last Valentine's Day. We started by placing chocolate smarties into each mould and then melted a bar of milk chocolate and half a bar of white chocolate.

We added one tsp of milk chocolate and 1/2 tsp of white chocolate into each heart....and then came the fun part.....

......the swirling!!!. I gave the girls a cocktail stick each and they very slowly swirled the two chocolates together.

Sweet Caramel Cupcakes

One of my girls favourite thing to do with Mommy is Bake!! They both love to help me and it has nothing to do with licking the spoon or tasting the results (yeah right!!!) So today we made these super delicious Caramel Cupcakes. It is nice to bake from scratch but today we used a Betty Crocker cake mix.

Cupcakes and Coffee

Another rainy day today so I decided to bake (I also had planned to tidy up my baking cupboard while I was at it but that never happened.....)

Today's attempt was chocolate cupcakes ( I got the recipe from Rachel Allen's "Cake" Book) with vanilla butter cream icing.....now I wouldn't consider myself the greatest baker but I have to say that these turned out pretty well and the smell of chocolate cake wafting around the house was a huge bonus! Yum!

So when the 4 o'clock slump came around I took the opportunity to sample my efforts accompanied by my favourite Nescafe Mocha - perfect. This has become a bad habit since my 3rd baby was born 3 months ago but a cup of coffee is just what I need at that time of the day!

How I made these cupcakes:

1. Creamed 100g of stork butter (the one from the tub) and whisked in 150g of caster sugar
2. Added in 2 whisked eggs and 125ml milk
3. Mixed in 175g plain flour and 25g cocoa powder sifted and 2tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt
4. Divided the mixture into 12 cupcake cases, I got these cute cupcake cases in Ikea (I LOVE Ikea....and not just for the furniture but also for all the little bits and pieces)
5. Into a fan oven at 180 degrees for 25 mins and Voila!

For the icing I creamed another 100g of stork butter with 200g of icing sugar, drop of vanilla extract and 125ml of milk with a drop of pink food colouring (they turned out more of a peach colour because I was very light handed with the colouring but still looked cute)

Crumbled Twirl on top :)

This recipe makes 12 cupcakes and I'm happy to say the whole family thought they were delicious :)