Delicious Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Category: Recipe’s
Baking with the boys – Easy “Funfetti” Cookies With Pillsbury
Soft, chewy cookies out of a Cake Mix? Yes you absolutely can!
I’ve mentioned before how I wished Pillsbury brought in their pre-mix cookie doughs and ready to bake croissants into South Africa before. While we may not be able to produce instant, oven fresh chocolate chip cookies (without making them from scratch), we can have a little fun with the cake mixes avaliable!
I’d seen pictures of these soft, cakey cookies on the internet and have been dying to give them a try. They make the perfect lunch box treat!
Heres how we made ours:
Funfetti Cookies
Ingredients
1 x Box of Funfetti Cake Mix
2 Eggs
1/3 Cup Oil
Optional:
Vanilla Supreme Frosting Mix
Method:
Heat oven to 180 Degree Celsius
In large bowl, stir cake mix, oil and eggs with spoon until well mixed. Shape tablespoonfuls dough into 1-inch balls.
Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack.
Stop your kids from stealing them all!
OPTIONAL: Use Vanilla Supreme Frosting and spread frosting over warm cookies for a glaze effect. Immediately sprinkle each with candy sprinkles from frosting. I chose not to do this as I feel the cookies are sweet enough, but this would be great for an extra treat. Store in airtight container.
You are literally using a tiny amount of liquid to wet the dough.
Friday Lunchbox treats have never been easier, this made the perfect amount of cookies in such a quick amount of time! Theres no reason to never have a jar filled with rainbow sprinkled goodness now! I am sure I can adapt this recipe with other cake mixes, I’ll post the recipe up as soon as I try! Have fun baking and experimenting, but more importantly, have fun doing it with your kids!
Thank you to Pillsbury South Africa for Sponsoring this post!
Baking with the Boys – Easy Cake Pops For Kids
Ahhhhhh Cake Pops…….
Those little balls of fudgey, soft, chocolate covered cake goodness 🙂 Whoever first came up with the idea should honestly go down in history. surprisingly they are super easy to make. While my talents are certainly no where near the type you would pay for, the boys and I adore making our own and the process of rolling and dipping these mini melt in your mouth pops is rather therapeutic. If you can get your kids to stop dipping into all the sprinkles!
Weekend baking has always been “our thing”, and Pillsbury makes it even easier of course, by allowing us to create cakes that are perfectly soft and moist, everytime. It makes the whole session a breeze and these pops are perfect for tiny hands to dip and decorate.
Heres how the boys and I made our pops, and you can do this with any “flavour” of cake you wish. We used chocolate here, but previous have used the vanilla and red velvet as well!
Ingredients:
One Box Milk Chocolate Cake Mix
Eggs, Milk and Oil as per Box instructions
One tub Milk Chocolate frosting
One extra-large slab of chocolate
Sprinkles to decorate
Method:
Bake Cake as per box instructions. Once cooled, tip and crumble the entire cake into a bowl. (Yes crumble your entire cake, though I did leave two slices out for dad to have).
Add about ¼ cup of frosting into the cake crumb mixture and mix well.
TIP: Do not use too much frosting as your cake pops will slide down the sticks!
Once mixed mould into balls (the boys rolled the balls by hand so you don’t necessarily need a “cake pop” mould) and freeze for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile melt chocolate in a double boiler.
Once cake pops have cooled and are firm, insert your choice of lollipop stick and dip into the melted chocolate (trying not to eat too much as you go along). The chocolate should set fairly quickly as the cake pops are cold.
Decorate as desired!
Top tips to ensure your cake pops not to slip down the stick:
If the cake pops are not cold enough when dipped into chocolate they will slip.
If they are too moist, they will slip (so go easy when you add in your frosting)
If the balls are too big, they will fall off the stick
To help them “stick”, dip your lollipop stick into your melted chocolate first and then into your cake ball. This will add as a “glue” ensuring they stay upright.
If they do slide – don’t worry!! Turn them upside down and place them into mini cupcake holders.
Enjoy!
Baking with the Boys – Lemon and Blueberry Bundt Cake
The Boys and I love baking together. Actually I think its more like I enjoy baking and they love sampling, but never the less its an activity we always do together. They love to pour, measure and mix and I cherish the time we have together to do it.
I have to admit though when it comes to baking with them I often use pre-mixes as its easier for the kids to do and they can almost entirely make a cake from start to finish by themselves. The sense of pride they have when taking out a perfectly formed cake from the oven is the cutest thing to watch. Pillsbury has been one of my favourite pre-mixes to use, since I was about 14! My only wish is that their ready made croissant and sugar cookie doughs were avaliable in South Africa. I have memories of living in the states, waking up to the smell of freshly baked croissants in the house all thanks to Pillsbury. It would make my weekends that much easier if I could chuck some into the oven here!
I digress, lets talk afternoon snacks. The 3 o’clock slump in our household is a real thing. The boys are often in and out of the kitchen no less than 5 times searching for snacks. This Lemon and Blueberry Bundt cake is the perfect activity to do after school, and will be ready just in time for tea! Adding in fresh fruit takes a little of the “guilt” out for me and It also makes sure that hubby has some cake for his after dinner tea which he loves so much.
Heres how we made it:
Lemon and Blueberry Bundt Cake
Ingredients
1 x Box Pillsbury French Vanilla Cake Mix
3 eggs, Oil and Water as per box
1 cup Blueberries
Zest of One Lemon (and a squeeze of Juice)
Fresh mint to garnish
One tub Pillsbury Lemon flavoured frosting
Method:
Mix Cake mix as per instructions on box. Add in the zest of one lemon and a little squeeze of juice.
Fold in one cup of blueberries.
Pour into Bundt pan and bake until done.
Once cooled, beat up the Lemon flavoured frosting until light, I added a dash of fresh cream to thin it out a little. Garnish with fresh blueberries, lemon slices and mint.
Enjoy!
Note: To be perfectly honest I wasn’t entirely sure about the “Lemon Flavoured Icing” as traditionally artificial lemon can have quite a sharp taste. However, this was DELICIOUS and ALL of my family commented on how “yummy” the icing was, from my 4 year old who typically avoids icing, to my husband, who considers himself quite the food critic! I will definitely be buying this one again, what a pleasant surprise.
Christmas Salt Dough Ornaments
You may remember from last year that we made Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments. Its something we do every year and it always ties in nicely with teachers end of year gifts and homemade sentiments for family and friends.
This year I was inspired by Sugar and Paper Parties insanely gorgeous sugar cookies, I’m not one to attempt anything like the masterpieces that Liezl creates (well actually I did and they looked like a dogs breakfast), so we decided to make ornaments for the tree with our snow globe cookie cutter. (Because painting is alot easier then icing 🙂 )
Apart from putting in the oven and taking it out again, this is literally one craft the kids can do by themselves from start to finish.
The Recipe has 3 ingredients and is SUPER easy:
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1.5 cups water
- Preheat your oven to 100 degrees Celsius.
- Combine all of your ingredients and knead. If your dough is too dry add a little bit more water.
- Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1.5 cm
- Using a cookie cutter of your choice cut out your shapes, if you are making handprints, use a side plate to cut a circle first and then have your child place their hand on that circle.
- Using a straw, make a hole in the top for where you want to hang your salt dough ornament.
- Bake for about 2 hours. If your ornaments are still soft to touch, put back in for another hour. (It will depend on your thickness how long you need to bake for. The thinner ornaments will take less time but thicker may take more).
- Once cooled, decorate as you wish. We used our favourite Dala paints, the acrylic works best and lots of glitter, especially at Christmas time.
- Finish with a varnish.
I normally do this over 2 or 3 days. The first day we roll and make bake our ornaments, on the second we paint and on the third day I spray it with a coast of clear varnish.
To end off our homemade gifts we made simple cards. Christmas Trees easily painted with plastic forks.
Remember to head on over to :
Justamamma for more easy christmas cards for kids
Ali from Earth to Ali Photography for her utterly gorgeous salt dough foot and handprints
This.is.bentleys.world for her ridiculously cute toilet roll crafts
Minimatissediaries for dreamy pine cone painting
Michelle from Mayalief for her exquisitie homemade wrapping paper
Cadburys’ Inspired Desserts Perfect For The Festive Season
I spent an evening a little while back with the Cadburys’ Team at The Cookery, on a cooking class to highlight the #CashInYourCravings campaign that was running. Like we need an excuse to indulge?
“The Cookery”, is an interactive cooking studio run by The Secret Jozi Chef, and one I have been absolutely dying to visit. It hosts fun social classes for students during the week as well as interactive chef’s table events. Perfect for girls night out or a date night with your beau. I was surrounded by luxury with state of the art Whirlpool and KitchenAid appliances and the attention to detail with the décor is absolutely on point. Keep scrolling because I’m sharing two of my favourite recipes.
We each draw a “chocolate” to select our team, I drew a PS I love you bar, which happens to be one of my favourites. There were 4 teams, each cooking three dishes that made up the menu for the night, under the supervision of Chef Emilio. The focus of the evening was of course, was cashing in on our cravings with some indulgent food such as butter sage gnocchi (yes I made Gnocchi), mushroom risotto as well as delectable desserts all made with Cadburys favourite chocolate bars, in this case, PS Chocolate Ice Cream and 5-star brownies; perfect for a Christmas day dessert.
I’m going to share the dessert recipes from the evening with you, because they really are too good not to try and so darn easy to do at home. Who on earth would have thought that I would ever attempt my own home made ice cream? This PS Ice cream is the best thing I have ever tasted and is definitely on the menu for a family feast in December. So here they are my top two recipes from the night (everything I tasted that night was on point but I have to leave you with some incentive to book a class).
CHOCOLATE BOX BROWNIES
Ingredients
240g butter, melted and cooled
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
150g brown sugar
200g white sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
150g all purpose flour
120g good quality, unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
270g roughly chopped chocolate or large chocolate chips (We used chopped up Cadbury 5-Star and Crunchies for this)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 175°C then line a 7×11 inch baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
In a large bowl combine melted butter, oil and both sugars.
Add the eggs, vanilla and salt then whisk for about one minute until evenly combined and light in color.
Over the same bowl sift in the flour and cocoa powder.
Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until JUST combined (do NOT over mix).
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, then smooth the top.
Generously top with the chocolate chunks, gently pressing them into the batter.
Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the centre of the brownies no longer jiggles and is JUST set to the touch.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before removing from the baking tray and slicing into 16 brownies.
Enjoy
PS I Love you Chocolate Ice Cream
Ingredients
300g PS Chocolate
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 cups heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
5 tablespoons granulated sugar (add an extra tablespoon if using bitter chocolate)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp vanilla powder (fresh vanilla pods)
1 cup cream
Directions
Place the chocolate in a blender.
Whisk the milk, 1 cup cream, egg yolks, granulated sugar and salt in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly until the mixture is thick enough to coat the spatula and almost boiling, 5 to 6 minutes. Basically making a custard, and it’s absolutely OK if it splits bit, it’s all going in the blender!
Immediately pour the milk mixture over the chocolate in the blender.
Cover and hold the lid with a thick kitchen towel; blend until combined and smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the blender as needed.
Transfer to a bowl cover and set aside to cool completely in the fridge. (We placed a bowl in an ice tray)
Once the mixture is cold, whip the remaining cup of cream and fold it through the chocolate mixture.
IF YOU HAVE AN ICE CREAM MIXER – Add the mixture to your ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer’s instructions
IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN ICE CREAM MIXER – Pop it in a container in the freezer to set. You can go in and mix it every 30 minutes but according to Chef Emilio for this recipe you don’t have too.
There you have it. Two simple recipes to add to your Christmas table this festive season. You will be blown away by the Ice-cream, I promise, Its sweet, rich but not too rich, creamy with a little crunch of wafer. The best thing I’ve tasted this year! Thank you Cadbury South Africa for this awesome treat night.
Let me know if you try these recipes 🙂
Making Memories with Discovery HealthyFood Studio + Recipes
Motherhood is a funny thing, it changes your life completely, not just from a “look after children” point of view, but from a personal standpoint. It can leave you isolated and in need of connecting with like-minded women. That’s why I love groups like “Mama Meet Up” so much. It’s a chance for a group of diverse women, with children of all ages, to come together in something they enjoy. Whether it’s make up, cooking classes or a luxury spa day. It’s a chance to network, to connect and to share in each other’s lives.
The October Mama Meet Up was held at the Discovery Vitality HealthyFood Studio, a place I have been itching to go to! You don’t have to ask me twice to attend a meet up that involves women and good food, particularly when we get to cook our own food in a kitchen filled with all the top appliances!
Set in the heart of Sandton, The Discovery HealthyFood Studio offers you a chance to take part in fun, interactive cooking lessons, learning about fresh, seasonal ingredients. The emphasis is on educating people on how to make easy, healthy food in their own homes. As a person who loves to cook, it’s like heaven and as a mother who dreads deciding what to feed her family every day, it was the perfect opportunity to reignite a love for the kitchen and a chance to get inspired with new recipes.
We started off the morning with tea/coffee and some sinfully delicious sugar free snacks (I really found that hard to believe), while we did introductions and had a brief demonstration in the kitchen. After selecting our preferred recipe’s we got stuck into attempting to create some lunch. Bonus point for me is that the Discovery HealthyFood Studio is both Kosher and Halaal friendly.
I was in my absolute element surrounded my KitchenAid’s finest appliances, the food is of the finest quality coming from Woolworths as is the elegant crockery and cutlery. There were several different options but I chose to make the chickpea patties, I adore chickpeas but as apart from Hummus, I never really know what to make with them.
The range included dips, main meals consisting of meatballs and Mexican tuna salads (I could literally eat it every day) to desserts that were gluten free! Who knew healthy treats could be so delicious? I will give you my top 3 recipes at the end of the blog.
I had such a fun morning, one of the best meet ups I have attended so far (and we have had some good ones). After all the cooking was done, we sat don’t to a buffet lunch sampling all the recipes of the day.
I have already booked a date night with hubby at the Discovery Vitality HealthyFood Studio and would highly recommend it for a fun day out. The quality of the food and recipes used are incredible, you can also pick your “theme”, ranging from a course on chicken, to festive feasts and a plant based one menu as well. Kids courses are quite popular with the age range running from 8 to 12. This would make the perfect end of year outing with your mates. They are current running a “two for one” special, for every ticket you buy you get to bring along a partner for free! Perfect for my date night 🙂
Thank you “Mama Meet Up” for bringing together such a diverse group of women. I have truly loved every second and getting to know so many strong creative women has been the highlight. The next, and last Mama Meetup for 2018 is taking place on Thursday November 15th. Check out their Facebook or Instagram page for more details.
Now for all of you waiting for those recipes here we go:
All Images taken by:Tanya Kovarsky, Co- Founder of Mama Meet Up
No Cook Pumpkin Playdough
I’m always a little envious of all the pumpkin festivities that happen over in the Northern hemisphere during the autumn months. How I would love to take the kids pumpkin picking on a farm somewhere. Alas, we will have to settle in creating our own fun and cheer, and I thought what better way than to make up a batch of “Pumpkin Play Dough”.
For this I used my all time, go to, no cook, play dough recipe.
It’s literally ready in 5 minutes and I’ve even mixed up a batch for the boys before running to work in the morning. You’ll need 4 ingredients:
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1/2 cup salt
- 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
- Between 1 and 2 cups warm water (you keep adding until it feels right)
- food colouring (optional)
There are several variations on this I’ve seen but this one works for us, every time. If stored correctly, it will literally keep for about 4 to 5 months. The container must be airtight otherwise your play dough will start to dry and form a crust. At the end once you have combined everything, I add a tiny bit of oil to my hands to rub on the outside of the playdough, not more than a teaspoon.
I usually do the initial mixing here while the water is still a bit warm, and then I hand the bowl over to the kids and let them get stuck in there. Add the food colouring into the water before you start to mix as well to ensure an even colour.
All I did for the pumpkin playdough was add in a little cinnamon for smell, its heavenly. You could also create an invitation to play by giving your kids cinnamon sticks, cloves or star anise to play with.
And thats it! Easy right? Now we can create our own mini pumpkin patch.
Recipe: Milo Crunchies
I promised some Milo inspired baking recipes this week and these Crunchies are proving to be a treat with the whole family. We recently got to experience a fantastic morning thanks to Nestle South Africa, where we learnt how to make our own MILO® Energy Cereal and its re-ignited my love for this malty drink. A Crunchie is the perfect sweet treat to enjoy with a hot drink, or as a snack in a lunch box, its also an ideal baking activity to do with kids with little hands to help you press into the tin.
This is a good old fashioned recipe, with sugar (maybe a little too much), butter, oats, coconut and flour, and of course my favourite Milo! You can pretty much add anything you like to the base of butter, flour, oats and egg.
Ingredients
1/2 Cup self raising flour
1/2 Cup cake flour
1/2 Cup grated chocolate – I used Milo Chocolate , you could also cut into chunks as opposed to grating
1/2 Cup Milo
2/3 Cup desiccated coconut
1/3 Cup brown sugar (original recipe had 2/3 cup but i found that too sweet)
125g melted butter
1 cup oats
Grease a baking tray and preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
Place all ingredients into a bowl and mix
Press into baking tray
Bake for 15-20 minutes (Crunchies will harden as they cool)
Allow to cool before slicing and serve with your favourite hot beverage
All credit to mommalikeme’s beautiful mama for this fabulous recipe. The perfect weekly bake in under 30 minutes from start to finish!
Make Your Own Milo Cereal
Im a “Milo” Girl, I always have been and always will be. Growing up it was both my 4pm snack as well as my before bed drink and that’s never changed. Every night I still have a mug of Milo before bed and I’m passing on my love to my boys.
Since becoming a mother however I have become much more conscious of what I give to my boys and the amount of sugar in things. My youngest has the biggest sweet tooth and will happily consume anything with sugar in it. As consumers we often see “labels” like “reduced fat” or “less sugar”, but how much of that is actually real?
When Nestle South Africa launched the “Secret Moms Club” I was immediately intrigued. Anything to get more ideas on how to give my boys healthier options. Hosted by Dr Michael Mol, the event was aimed at helping moms understand exactly what ingredients go into the MILO® Energy Cereal and that the improved recipe contains ‘less sugar and more benefits’. We had no idea what we were making in the kitchen at the time, with Chef Sizwe shouting instructions on what to do and when. As soon as I saw liquid malt extract, I had a pretty good idea it may have something to do with my favourite chocolate drink. Nestle took us through making our very own Milo Cereal, which we only discovered at the end and once everything was out of the oven, so we could see first hand just how little sugar the new Milo Cereal has in it. There is nothing better then a brand that provides you with first hand experience on what they claim.
I’ll be sharing that recipe and a few more Milo inspired recipes this week. I LOVE the fact that I can make this with my boys so they can see how their morning cereals are made, plus rolling out the little balls is excellent for find motor skills!
Ingredients – this recipe yields approx 2-3 Servings
Dry Mix
5 tbsp Wholegrain wheat flour
1 tbsp Corn Semolina fine (Maizena)
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Cocoa powder
Wet Mix
3 tbsp Boiling water
2 tsp Cooking Oil
1 tsp Sugar
Milo Slurry for the Coating
1 tbsp Cocoa powder
1 tbsp Liquid malt extract
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp Skim milk powder
1 tbsp Boiling water
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Cooking Oil
Method
Cocoa Cereal Balls
1.Mix the flour and Corn Semolina in a mixing bowl and sift the cocoa and baking powder together into the bowl
2. For the Wet Mix, put oil and sugar in a medium bowl, add the boiling water and mix
3. Pour the wet mix into the dry mix and stir with a spoon until it comes together in a lump. Dont over mix but the mixture should not be sticky. If need be add a little more flour.
4. Divide the dough into 3 portions
5. Roll each portion into a rope shape and cut into small pieces. Roll each little piece into small balls and place on a baking tray
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 160 Degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes.
7. While the dough balls are baking, prepare your slurry.
Milo Coating Slurry
8. Put cocoa powder, sugar and milk powder in a small bowl and mix. Add vanilla essence, oil and boiling water. Mix well until no lumps.
9. Drizzle about a tbsp of the slurry over cooled bowls, mix vigorously until the cereal balls are well coated.
10. Transfer the coated cereal balls into a lined baking tray and dry in oven at 120 Degrees Celsius for 5 minutes or until dry.
11. Cool down before serving.
There you have it! Of course this isn’t the “exact” secret Nestle recipe, its been translated into relatable terms but we were all plesantly suprised at how simple it actually is. The new MILO® Energy Cereal is now in a crunchy round shape, and boasts only 1½ teaspoons of sugar per serving, a higher wholegrain fibre content due to the use of whole grains, more protein and Activ-Go, which is a unique blend of malt extract and micronutrients that play a vital role in energy release. Have a go at this recipe at home with the kids, whether you use your cereal as a dry snack or a morning meal, you will never look at your box of MILO® Energy Cereal in the same way again!