Dr. Oetker - The Great Chocolate Bake

Midnight Triple Chocolate Cupcakes

This weekend Lara and I made some extra special chocolate cupcakes for the Dr. Oetker Great Chocolate Bake competition.

I WILL fight my way into this chocolate

If you have looked at the baking aisle in your local supermarket recently then you may have noticed that all the Dr. Oetker baking products are sporting a pink flash advertising the Great Chocolate Bake. Using the codes on the packs you can get hold of free bakeware but the most exciting thing is their Great Chocolate Bake competition which offers a grand prize of a £3000 holiday in New York.  The competition is a photo competition which takes place on the Dr. Oetker facebook page ; it closes on the 17th of October so HURRY!!!  Although voting on the facebook pages is taken into consideration, the actual judging takes place by the promoter and an independent judge.

Dr. Oetker sent Lara some chocolate baking ingredients to help us come up with some inspiration for a stunning chocolate cupcake creation.  We melted 150g of fine cooks extra dark chocolate and blended it with a rich 5-egg sponge mix (150g self raising flour, 150g butter, 150g caster sugar and a teaspoon or one sachet of baking powder). To make them extra decadant, we stirred in 50g of dark chocolate chunks into the mixture before putting them into the muffin cases.

Our cupcakes baked for about 25 minutes in a 180 degree oven and then came the fun.  I made a thick buttercream icing with cocoa powder and swirled it on.  Lara decorated the cakes with Dr. Oetker large chocolate stars, white and dark Dr. Oetker chocolate chunks, edible glitter stars and squeezy chocolate pudding sauce. I call them our midnight cupcakes.

If you are looking for some inspiration for your own Great Chocolate Bake cupcake, I've created a pinterest board of chocolatey ideas.

Sponsored Video::Win £1000 With Master Moves Mickey!

Last month my daughter, Lara, got the chance to show Master Moves Mickey her own cool dance moves! Master Moves Mickey (aka M3) is a phenomenal new breakdancing toy who gets a "wow" or an "awesome" every time a new guest experiences his hippin' and hoppin' dance moves. In fact, he does leave some people gawping when he dances on his hands.

Master Moves Mickey by Fisher Price can perform 15 different dance moves (and teach you how to do them!) and has 8 very funky music tracks. He twirls and jiggles, bounces and flips around your house and is suitable for children from 2 years upwards.

We have a full review of Master Moves Mickey over on Family Tech if you fancy finding out more about him but in the meantime, I have news of a fab new competition to celebrate the launch of the Fisher Price Master Moves Mickey!

Can you spot Lara and Holly in this video? Whenever any of us are feeling a bit grumpy, I always lift out Mickey and press his nose to start his actions - there is no way you can remain down when he is bopping around the living room!

There is a £1000 cash prize along with a bundle of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse goodies on offer as well as runners up prize of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse toys. To enter, you have to upload a video to youtube of your children bustin' their moves like Mickey and then submit the link to the video on showusyourmoves.co.uk before the 30th of December.

All of the accepted entries will be put into a youtube gallery.

This post was sponsored by Mattel.

 

Guest Post From My Mum! - Oh it’s Grand Being a Grandma!

Today's guest post is by none other than my Mum, Jane. Mum blogs at The Competition Grapevine and writes a monthly publication under the same name which is dedicated to inspring the world to enter (and win) competitions.

Not being the sort of person who automatically likes babies just because they are babies, I have been rather puzzled over the years when intelligent, rational, middle aged friends, both female and male, turned into misty-eyed dreamers at the mere mention of their grandchildren. Surely nothing could compare to having a child of your own? To holding your first baby in your arms and thinking, “We made that!” A generation down the line, wouldn’t a certain amount of remoteness come into play?

All that changed in June 2009 when our first grandchild Lara was born. I first held her just a few hours after she was born and fell in love at first sight. The feeling of “We made a child who was capable of producing that!” was unexpected and quite overwhelming.

And as Lara has grown older, it has been wonderful to see how readily that love is returned. When she sees me, her face lights up and I know that the love is unconditional – it’s not because I feed her, clothe her or care for her. It’s simply because I’m there.



Being a first time granny isn’t without its worries, the main one being how to provide the help and support that is needed without appearing to interfere. I hope that being ready and willing to help when asked without actually sticking one’s oar in uninvited is the right way to go about things (and I’m sure when Emma reads this, she will tell me if it isn’t).

Discipline and routine may provide minefields further down the line. Emma and her sister only saw their grandparents once or twice a year because of where we lived, so it was very easy for them to accept that different houses had different rules, and that grandparents were put on Earth for no better reason than to spoil them. They soon understood that it was perfectly acceptable to have ice cream for breakfast at Grandma’s house and yet unacceptable to even consider asking for it at home. As Lara lives much nearer to us and we hope to see her more often than that, we won’t be able to break House Rules so freely and will have to make such treats into special occasion ones.

But every grandparent loves to spoil their grandchildren, and I have a way of producing unexpected treats and goodies that is guaranteed not to cause any kind of conflict – I win them!

As you may know from Emma’s previous blog posts, I am a comper, so winning things is a hobby and a way of life for me. I have always enjoyed winning prizes that I could give to the family, as a way of providing extra treats all through the year rather than just at Christmas and birthdays, and now there is a whole world of baby and child related competitions for me to enter.

Many of the parenting websites also welcome registrations from grandparents, and most of them run several new competitions each month. There is also a dedicated site for grandparents, Be Grand which often has competitions open only to grandparents.



Toy shops and children’s wear shops, both on the high street and online, also run frequent competitions. Only a few days ago I was able to give Lara this striking new dress from Barnyard Kids which I won through a competition run on the Four Magpies blog.

I know that most people reading this blog will be parents rather than grandparents. You may, yourselves, have parents who are beginning to show their age, to slow down and not be as active as they used to be. Or they may be close to retirement and looking for a not-too-costly hobby to fill the new leisure time they anticipate. Entering competitions could be just what they are looking for – and as a bonus, they might soon be winning treats for you and your children!

If you would like to find out more about entering competitions, take a look at the Competition Grapevine

Baby Stuff For Free: Lesson 3 – Winning Ways

Entering competitions is in my blood. My Mum is a hardened 'comper' (the name given to people who enter competitions as a hobby, or even as a living) and I was trained to spot the word "WIN" from a distance, at a very young age.

When I became pregnant, it opened up a whole new realm of competitions for both me and my Mum to enter. We set to work finding all of the websites and retailers who run competitions for baby goodies in an attempt to stock up before Lara arrived. Lara is 6 months old now, and in the last 12 months my Mum and I have managed to win her bath toys, smellies, blankets, books, seats, DVDs, bibs, feeding equipment, clothes and even a video camera with which to record her finest moments! Entering (and winning) competitions is a great way of getting your hands on free baby stuff that you probably wouldn't have bought otherwise - those little luxury items that you'd love, but can't justify. And, as with most of my 'Baby Stuff for Free' lessons, entering competitions is a great way of finding out about products and retailers you'd previously never heard of.

Pic: Lara showing off one of our latest winnings, a Bambino Merino sleepsuit that absolutely rocks.

I thought I would share a few of my tips for entering and winning competitions for baby bits and pieces. I'm not going to guarantee that by following the tips below, you will be inundated with prizes... but it can't hurt to try them out, can it?

1. You've got to be in it to win it
   
   
   If you're someone who, having read the first part of my post thinks "aaaww, you're so lucky, I never win anything" then let me tell you this... you can't win a competition you don't enter! If you enter a competition, perhaps once a year then don't be surprised if the postman isn't hammering down your door with piles of free goodies! The more competitions you enter, the more likely you are to win something. You can find lists of competitions online at comper's websites such as loquax, or in specialist publications such as my Mum's publication, The Competition Grapevine.
   
   
   Lara was two weeks late; in those two weeks of maternity leave, when I was too huge to venture out, I sat in front of my computer and entered every competition on the entire internet! Trust me, I spent every waking hour systematically working through all of the competitions listed on loquax. First the baby ones, then the family ones, then for cosmetics, holidays, kitchen gadgets, gardening gear and computer games! I must have entered perhaps 400 online competitions and what do I have to show for it? A bottle of seriously trendy shampoo, some baby massage oil, tea tree oil for my nappy bucket, a Mister Men seat, £100 of hair & beauty vouchers and a hosepipe adapter. Nice.
   
   
   If you see a competition for something you fancy, enter it; you never know, you might be the lucky winner... on the other hand, you might not!
2. Hidden Treasures
   
   
   Entering competitions with a high success rate is an art. Not only do you have to find lots of them to enter, but you have to choose wisely. If you enter a widely publicised competition, perhaps in a well-known magazine or on a popular TV programme, your chances of winning are minuscule. The more people who know about the competition and the more people who enter it, the lower your chance of being the winner. That's not to say you shouldn't enter these competitions - someone has to win them, and who is to say that won't be you? However, if you can find one of those hard-to-reach, little-known, closes-before-most-people-have-heard-of-it type competitions, then you are much more likely to win something.
   
   
   If you are looking for competitions to win free baby stuff then the places to start are the big names such as the parenting magazines or baby clubs (Emma's Diary, Bounty etc.) which have frequent competitions for great goodies. Gurgle, thinkbaby, baby expert, askamum, practical parenting, and the baby centre are all great places to start. Once you're done there, start looking for the smaller, or less well-known baby websites such as thebabywebsite, askbaby, bambinogoodies. Then, start searching google for brands or retailers offering one-off competitions. Silver Cross and Mamas & Papas occasionally run competitions, Tomy, Philips Avent, Boots and a whole host of independent retailers and smaller publications are known to offer baby goodies as prizes.
3. Reducing the Odds - Qualifiers, Slogans, Quizzes and Tasks
   
   
   One of the best ways to increase your chance of winning a competition is to choose ones that are hard to enter - ones where lots of other people will be put off by the effort involved! For instance, thebabywebsite, mumsnet and thinkbaby all offer prizes for things such as great product reviews, contributions to their forums (its that word again... one day I really will look up the word ending), blog entries and twitter/facebook involvement. Some websites such as askamum and Gurgle tend to run competitions that feature a question whose answer can be found elsewhere on the website... they're never very taxing, but that extra few seconds of effort is enough to put off many potential entrants.
   
   
   Even more likely to reduce the number of entrants is the requirement to make a purchase to enter the competition. Unless you're a hardcore comper like my Mum, its' a bit silly to buy something JUST because it has a competition on it... but if you really want that prize, then maybe its worth it? Remember, there will only be a limited number of people who have made the purchase, and of those, some will never bother, or some will forget to enter the competition - improving your chances of a win.
   
   
   And then there is the piece de resistance of the competition world - the slogan competition. You know the thing... complete the following sentence in no more than 16 words "I'd like to win a complete set of nursery furniture with Jeff's Taste-ee Jam because...". Slogan writing is not a skill I've ever perfected, and to be honest, there are not many baby-related slogan comps around but slogan competitions offer the most impressive prizes, and the greatest chance of a win. Specialist comper publications such as The Competition Grapevine or Compers News can point you in the direction of a whole host of slogan competitions, and can show you examples of prize-winning slogans and occasionally tips on how to pen a sure-fire winner!
4. Social Media
   
   
   My final tip is to use social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Many retailers both big and small now have a social media presence in order to help promote their wares.
   
   
   Twitter competitions usually involve retweeting a phrase/link or following a specific user. On my very first day on Twitter I won Estee Lauder goodies worth £85 from @DebenhamsRetail... okay so its not baby stuff, but I couldn't resist.
   
   
   Facebook competitions usually involve becoming a fan of a brand, posting a comment or liking a status.
   
   
   Twitter is also a great place to discover smaller, more relevant baby competitions. A number of mummy bloggers run competitions on behalf of baby brands they support and they promote their competitions through their tweets.

There are a whole host of competitions out there, waiting to be entered. If you are interested in finding out more about entering competitions, not just for baby stuff, but for holidays, kitchen gadgets, smellies, books, CDs, DVDs and a whole lot more, then take a look at the magazines/journals mentioned in this article.

Coming soon...
Lesson 4 - Offer Your Views
Lesson 5 - Great Ways to Get Something for Nothing

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Lesson 1 - Second Hand, Not Second Rate
Lesson 2 - Make the Most of Baby Clubs