Cadburys Chocolate Buttons Owl Cake

After the rush of back-to-school this week, it has been nice to have a weekend with very little to do. This Sunday it was just me and the girls and we chose to do some baking together. Using a mountain of Cadbury Chocolate Buttons, we created this awesome Owl Cake using a recipe from the Cadbury website.

First we made a fairly simple square chocolate sponge (one of the finest sponges we've ever made!) and once it was cooled, I drew a fairly rough owl template and cut around it. I used the offcuts to make wings.

Next we made a ganache with sumptuous dark Bournville chocolate, cream and a bit of butter. We slathered it over and Lara spread it all over the owl to hold the cake together.  Then I let the girls loose with Cadbury chocolate buttons (both milk chocolate and white chocolate) and giant buttons. Holly enjoyed bashing some Cadbury Flakes to make the sprinkles for the feathers.  For the finishing touch, we used a pink raspbery from a bag of Marvellour Mis Ups to make a nose. Perfect.

Of course, after we had finished decorating, the girls snaffled a few of the spare chocolate buttons and then licked the spoon of the ganache (getting it all over their faces in the process).

The cake was a resounding success - not only was it fun to make, but it was incredibly tasty and there were lots of bonus leftovers to snack on!!!  And as an awesome added bonus, you can find 2 for 1 days out vouchers on grab bags of Cadbury buttons at present which is perfectly timed as we are planning a trip to Legoland this week. Hurrah for cake. Hurrah for chocolate buttons.

Make your own personalised chocolate bar!

This weekend Lara made her own chocolate bar with an Easter theme using a fun chocolate picture maker kit from Zimpli Kids.  While Lara's first ever attempt at drawing chocolate art using molten chocolate may not be as precise and well-refined as the examples on the Zimpli Kids website (and the amazing Elsa picture below), I was quite genuinely impressed by Lara's handiwork and we all enjoyed eating it!

The Zimpli Kids chocolate picture maker kit includes a rectangular plastic mould in which to create your chocolate bar, a set of sample templates to trace over and some packs of white, dark and milk chocolate from which to create your masterpiece.  You melt the chocolate in warm tap water and then make a small snip in the sachet from which you squeeze the chocolate.  The chocolate is gluten-free and veggie-friendly.

The chocolate sachets contain real belgian chocolate and the end result is properly yummy (unlike some kids chocolate gifts we've tried before!).  I mean, properly yummy. The small chocolate maker kit comes with a small bag of dark chocolate for drawing outlines, a small bag of white chocolate for filling in your picture and a larger bag of milk chocolate for the background.  We found that there wasn't quite enough milk chocolate to be able to adequately fill in the picture so that it made a nice thick bar - Lara had to be quite sparing with the chocolate and spread it thinly if she were to get the full picture filled in.

The kit is suitable for children from about 4 years upwards.  Really, the only limiting factor is the ability to draw.. with chocolate.  This is easier said than done.  It took Lara quite a while to gain confidence with the chocolate and I think we also cut too big a hole in the sachet for her to draw accurately.  We will learn though!  We also learned to be patient; Lara wanted to eat her creation as soon as possible but it wouldn't come out of the mould.  We had to wait out the full 30 minutes of cooling time and then it easily pushed out of the mould.  Within seconds of taking the photos, the chocolate had been devoured.

Lara chose a simple Easter egg design for her first attempt at chocolate pictures but some of the stencils provided are far more intricate and will take a fair bit of practice.  There is no limit to the creativity you can attempt - all you need is a suitably sized picture that you can trace over.  This gives you the opportunity to make any design you like (remembering that any text you write needs to be created in mirror image as you draw with the chocolate).  I think that a personalised chocolate picture would make a BRILLIANT Easter gift for friends and family and this is a fun activity that everyone can get involved in.

I certainly can't wait to give it a try myself.  It would be nice to know where I could buy replacement sachets of the chocolate that are just as easy to melt and squeeze.

  

Mellow Mummy's Chocolate Cadburys Mini Egg Easter Cake

This afternoon I have been baking.  Cadbury's Mini Eggs are about my favourite thing on the entire planet and I was in the mood for cake so I created this Easter chocolate mini egg cake.

It was very simple to make.  I made a large batch of plan sponge mix:-

375g Caster Sugar

375g Soft Butter

375g Self-Raising Flour

3 tsp Vanilla extract

I heated the oven to about 160 degrees (most recipes say a bit higher than this for a large sponge, but I find that this temperature is most predictable for me).  I cooked the cake in two parts, one 20cm diameter and one 10cm diameter, both in spring-form tins.  The smaller cake took about 25 minutes and the larger cake took just over one hour at this low temperature.

After cooling, I sliced the cakes in half and trimmed them neatly.

I made a huuuuge batch of chocolate buttercream.

275g of Butter

600g of Icing Sugar

80g of Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

A Splash of Milk

I sandwiched the sliced cakes together with a layer of the buttercream and then, using a pallette knife, I very carefully coated both cakes with a thick layer of buttercream and placed them offset on top of one another.

I decorated the cake with about 600g of Cadbury Mini eggs in a repeating coloured pattern and then finished the cake off with some Dr. Oetker wafer daisies.

Lara and Holly both enjoyed a piece of cake for pudding but Lara thinks it was too chocolatey!  Is there such a thing?

Hot Chocolate Goodies for National Chocolate Week

This week is national chocolate week.  Woo hoo.  I shall use this news as an excuse to consume chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Lara and Holly don't normally need an excuse to consume chocolate but they've recently discovered the joys of hot chocolate (served from tiny little mugs, I believe I'm allowed to tell them I've made them a babyccino).

Whittard sent us an array of their very grown up selection of luxury hot chocolate to get our national chocolate week off on the right foot... I think Lara approves!

The Whittard hot chocolate range includes this amazing 55% Ecuadorian Cocoa drinking chocolate which is rich, smooth and always leaves me wanting more - the girls like to top it off with a spoonful of mini marshmallows which add a hint of sweetness and a touch of colour.  Holly has a rather annoying habit of fishing her hand into the mug to eat the marshmallows with her fingers!

My absolute favourite from the elegantly presented Whittard hot chocolate range is the Orange flavour which is a perfect way for me to end the day; the orange flavour isn't overpowering but it does add a little bit of something special to your mug.  The chilli flavour hot chocolate is equally fascinating; chilli and chocolate is a combo that I love, especially at this time of year when it is warming and comforting - I'd say this Whittard flavoured hot chocolate could get away with quite a bit more of a chilli kick!  Both of these flavoured hot chocolates are made with 39% cocoa solids so they are more luxurious and rich than most; they also both contain a pinch of salt and you can really notice this when you drink (that's not a bad thing... just an observation that makes it all the more intriguing to taste when you add sweet marshmallows on top).

I think my two girls were BORN for national chocolate week!

Melt & Make Chocolate Lollipop Animals Review

This weekend the girls and I had a bit of a cooking sesh.  They had been badgering me all week to cook but when I get home in the evenings, I normally want to get dinner ready as quickly as possible so I decline their help!  As a special treat, I let the girls make their own pudding using this fun Make & Melt chocolate lollipop kit from Choc on Choc.

This beautifully presented gift set for kids comes with five different animal shaped moulds, a chef's hat, one set of lollipop sticks and enough belgian chocolate buttons to make your first set of chocolate animal lollipops.

Making the lollipops was great fun.  I melted the chocolate buttons in the microwave and poured the gorgeous oozy belgian chocolate into a jug to make it easier for the girls to pour into the moulds.

Lara took the job very seriously.  Her little sister just set to with a spoon to scoop all of the chocolate back out of the moulds and into her mouth quicker than we could fill them!!!

They each placed the lollipop sticks into the moulds and then I placed them into the fridge to set in time for dinner.

The animal chocolate lollipops were VERY popular and very messy!  I must say that ordinarily, the quality of chocolate in kids cookery kits is poor but this Choc on Choc belgian chocolate was AWESOME.  Good quality chocolate really makes a difference and I'm glad to be able to start teaching my two girls that from a very young age.

The moulds are re-usable and Choc on Choc sell their dark, milk and white chocolate buttons so you can make more lollipops at a later date if you can find some sticks.

The Melt & Make Chocolate Lollipop Making Kit costs £12.99 and is suitable from 5 years upwards (or a little younger with plenty supervision).  You can find out more about Choc on Choc on twitter.

Easter Is Coming!

Easter is a little over a month away and I'm putting plans in place already with lots of fun Easter crafts for the girls.  We have made it a little bit of a tradition in our house that instead of buying chocolate eggs for the girls, we buy them an Easter themed book so I need to have a bit of a scout around for some book ideas.

That's not to say that the girls don't get chocolate Easter eggs at all, just that they receive them as gifts from friends and family.  This year Thorntons wanted to show us their  range of chocolate Easter eggs and gifts which all look scrumptious but we got a sneaky chance to try one out in the run up to Easter.

We chose this amazing, large, Banoffee Pie Easter Egg which is very representative of the Easter Thorntons range and includes a squiggle of different coloured chocolate as well as a huddle of exciting yummy goodness at the front - these are sweet dried banana chips and small chunks of crispy caramel.  The girls went wild for it.

Mr. B. and I loved the fact that it wasn't overly banana-y and most of the egg was pure unadulterated chocolate.  More Easter eggs should be like this!  I would be more than happy to give one of these eggs as an Easter gift... but even happier to receive one myself.

I always find Easter a really fascinating time of year.  Mr. B. and I got married on the 22nd of March which, that year, was Easter Saturday.  It is really interesting to see how much the Easter weekend can move and this year it is nearly a whole month later and will be on Sunday April 20th 2014.

Cadbury Halloween Treats

Who wouldn't love a crunchy chocolate spider?

 

Cadburys have lots of exciting chocolate treats on offer this year for Halloween parties and trick or treaters.

Lara and her friends recently got together for a small party and the Chocolate spiders went down well (shame... I was hoping there would be some left for me).  All of the boys seemed really excited by the special "Screme Eggs" which have a light green gooey centre instead of the traditional yellow and white filling.

It's great to see some fun and innovative chocolate treats for this time of year rather than just great big bags of stuff.  I love the Cadbury spiders because they make great gifts and because they are big chunks of chocolate that make a great one-person treat.

Roll on Halloween!

Cooking with Children : Christmas Pudding Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

Lara wasn't feeling well this weekend so I decided to cheer her up with a bit of baking! We have been getting into practice for Christmas and testing out some of the cake decorations that I bought at the weekend at Masterchef Live!

Mini Christmas Pudding Chocolate Cupcakes (makes 6 large cupcakes or 12 small cupcakes)

INGREDIENTS
For the cakes:
100g self-raising flour
30g cocoa powder
145g caster sugar
40g butter
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
120ml milk

For the decoration:
1 pack white Dr. Oetker fairy cake icing or white icing sugar made up to a thick paste
1 glace cherry per cake (cut in half)
Green edible holly leaves
Red edible glitter


METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade and grease a 6-muffin tin or prepare 12 fairy cake cases
2. Seive the flour, cocoa and sugar into a large bowl (and then, if you're Lara, smear it all over your hands, arms and face) and stir together
3. Soften the butter and then cream it into the dry ingredients until it looks a bit like wet sand.

4. Beat in half of the milk
5. Beat the egg together with the rest of the milk and the vanilla extract before blending into the rest of the cake mixture to make a smooth batter
6. Split the cake mixture evenly between the cases. I used a 6-muffin tin to make really nice large round cakes but these cakes also work well in fairy cake cases
7. Cook for about 20 minutes until risen, firm and just beginning to take on a dark colour
8. Allow to fully cool on a wire rack before decorating

9. Drizzle the icing over each of the cakes, letting it just run down the sides a little
10. Top each cake with the two cherry halves and two holly leaves
11. For a final flourish, paint a little red edible glitter onto each of the cherries to give them a festive sparkle

Birthday Presents Galore

Behold, Lara's 2nd Birthday cake! I ummed and aahed about what character cake to make her this year (it would be hard to beat last year's Makka Pakka) but in the end I decided that, given Lara's two favourite foods in the world are strawberries and chocolate, I couldn't go wrong with a strawberry gateau.



Unless you hadn't gathered already, this past weekend was Lara's birthday. She had loads of great presents including a toy kitchen which she has spent almost every waking moment playing with!



Lara is an incredibly lucky little girl; she even got sent these specially selected Birthday Gifts straight from Hotel Chocolat! A bumper bag of milk chocolate treats that are perfect for any little girl who likes ballerinas (and/or chocolate).

Lara was sent The Twinkle Toes Bag which is a yummy gift bag of different goodies all on the ballerina theme. She shared her gemstones treats with us but her little 'tiddly pot' of tiny buttons was devoured with none of our help! There is a great big Twinkle Toes ballerina made from solid chocolate which is nearly as big as her head! Lara's favourite item from the gift bag was a set of 8 mini twinkle toes ballerinas.

As well as the chocolate, Lara received a Funpod so that she can learn to cook with me in the kitchen - watch out for some fun photos and recipes coming soon

Will You Let Your Baby or Toddler Eat Chocolate Easter Eggs?

Last year at Easter, Lara was about 9 months old and I wasn't entirely convinced that chocolate of any sort was an ideal weaning food. I was quite strict about not allowing family members to ply her with chocolate (we'd already had a few Mars Planets sugar-highs from a certain naughty Aunty by this time). However, being the Mellow mummy that I am, I did allow her just a little bit of chocolate at Easter! This year we are letting people buy Lara Easter Gifts if they wish but we'll try not to let her eat a whole one in a single sitting to avoid the inevitable mess and resultant sugar-fuelled frenzy. We've been trying out some of the Easter range from Hotel Chocolat and they have a couple of products that are perfect for little ones, or for whole families.



The first egg we tried was a milk chocolate Happy Egg & Tiddly Pot. I thought this was perfect for Lara as an easter gift for children because it is small and not over the top. The egg was a good size for Lara to have on its own as a treat after dinner (although actually it could probably make two puddings if your child didn't have an appetite quite like mine!). The little pot of rabbit- and chick-shaped chocolate tit-bits was a nice touch. You could put it away in a cupboard and bring it out after Easter when all the previous fuss about chocolates had disappeared. Or... like me... you could eat them yourself when your child has gone to bed! Oops.



The other egg that we tried was more of a family-egg which worked really well for us. We tried one of their 'You Crack Me Up' thick easter eggs is a scrumptious and incredibly thick traditional egg on the outside but filled with little chocolates in the shapes of smiley eggs, chicks and rabbits. Mellow Mummy and Daddy really enjoyed the main egg because it was very grown-up from the smart Hotel Chocolat packaging right through to the sumptuous chocolate inside. Thick milk chocolate blended with just a touch of white chocolate on one side of the egg. Lara loved the treats inside this cheery egg because of their irresistible smiley faces and the interesting fillings such as praline or fruity centres. The little chocolates on the inside were a good size for me to offer Lara in a single sitting... a special-treat size. Interestingly enough, Hotel Chocolat themselves descibe this chocolate egg as 'Mellow' – must be a match made in heaven?!

So how about you, will you be letting your little ones try just a tiny bit of chocolate over the Easter holidays?

Mothers Day is All About the Chocolates, Right?

I was sent a box of chocolates in return for this chocolate-fuelled review.
When I was asked to review a box of Mother's Day Chocolates from Hotel Chocolat, I ummmed and aaahed for at least 1 minute! Who was I kidding? No-one else is going to buy me a box of chocolates for Mother's Day, are they? Last year Mother's day was all about the amazing feeling of experiencing my first ever Mother's day as a mum myself. This year, it's all about the chocolates and flowers! Unfortunately, until Lara is old enough to buy me presents herself I have to rely on Mr B to supply the goodies, and, given that I can count the number of times he has bought me chocolates on the fingers of one hand, and the number of times he has bought me flowers on the fingers of one... finger... I could be sorely disappointed.



I tried the Sleekster All About Mum selection box of white, dark and milk chocolates. The chocolates arrived really promptly and were well packed. The selection box looked really smart and I couldn't wait to get into it.



The chocolates were a really grown up mix of fruit centres, caramels, nutty fillings and boozy bits! They are mostly shaped as hearts with a few traditional truffles, a shell and a sexy pair of lips! I found the All About Mum selection to be a really feminine selection without being delicate and flouncy. The chocolate from Hotel Chocolat is to die for. I love their bitter dark chocolate and filled with an Armagnac ganache I think the Love-Me-Do heart was my absolute favourite with the fascinatingly fruity Blueberry Truffle in white chocolate coming a close second.



I love the fact that their fruit fillings don't taste as artificial and boring as those you would get in a standard high-street box of chocolates and I think it is great that Hotel Chocolat believe in the quality of their chocolate and the ethics of their cocoa supply.

I would love it if Lara (via Mr. B. ) were to buy me a box of these chocolates.



While I'm here, and moaning about never receiving chocolates or flowers, I'd just like to give a shout out to Interflora who heard my illness woes on twitter and magicked up a bunch or gorgeous spring flowers within an hour and a half to cheer me up and make me feel better. Now I had better head off and drop some more hints to Mr. B.