Kinder Surprise Addiction

I love Kinder Surprise toys! I wouldn't class myself as a "collector" because I don't buy THAT many, I know I'll get lots of doubles so I just buy them every now and then.

In Europe we bought some to see if they were any different and they were! The toys were better and the chocolate actually tasted good! (It doesn't taste very nice here in NZ) I also found a Kinder Surprise that had chocolatey gooey stuff with chocolate hazelnuts on one side and a toy on the other! Exciting!

Here's my collection...so far!

Robots & Vehicles

Kinder Surprise Toys

Kinder Surprise Toys

Puzzles?! Who wants a puzzle? Not me, but I always get them!

Character Kinder Surprise Toys

Kinder Surprise Toys from Europe - even their puzzles are better than ours!

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Me and my niece, Cleo, decided to decorate cupcakes for a fun activity as part of our exciting hanging out together day. We decided on Cookie Monster Cupcakes to match our Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough flavoured cupcakes. So I got all the stuff we needed ready and got decorating with her.

Here's a little tutorial of how to make a Cookie Monster cupcake. You can also use coconut to make Cookie's fur, like these awesome ones, but not everyone LOVES coconut and it won't always go with the cupcake flavour (like mine)

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

What you will need:
Cupcakes to decorate (recipe here)
Buttercream Icing (recipe below)
Blue Colouring (I used Wilton's Royal Blue, and used a lot!)
Piping Bag
Tip Number 233 (Grass tip)
White Chocolate Buttons (or marshmallows or fondant) for the eyes
Black Fondant (or black icing or chocolate chips) for the black dots on the eyes
Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cleo Mixing the Buttercream

Buttercream Icing
140g Unsalted Butter (softened)
2 C Icing Sugar
1 t Vanilla Essence
Blue Food Colouring
1 - 2 T Water

1) Cream butter until light and fluffy.
2) Add icing sugar and vanilla.
3) Add blue food colouring, if you use a gel be aware that the colour will develop over time, I used a LOT of blue gel to get this colour and left it for about half an hour to get it to this shade.
4) Add water to get the consistency you like (not too soft as it softens up in your hands while you pipe it out)

Cleo Piping the Cookie Monster Hair

Piping Cookie Monster's Fur
1) Fill piping bag about half full with tip 233 (grass tip) attached.
2) Starting on the outer edge of the cupcake, gently squeeze piping bag and attach to cupcake, pull back while still slightly squeezing then release, this takes a bit of practice, it took me two cupcakes until I got the hang of it.
3) Continue piping "fur" around in circles from the outer edge into the middle.
4) Fill in any gaps you see along the way.

Decorating Cookie Monster's Face
1) Roll black fondant into tiny balls and attach to the flat side of white chocolate buttons. You can make lots of funny expressions for Cookie Monster with the eyes, cross eyed, eyes in different directions, big eyes, it's up to you!
2) Break mini cookies in half.
3) Gently press the eyes and cookie into the blue furry cupcake, you can be as creative as you like with this.

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Now, Eat! "Nom nom nom, ME LOVE COOKIE!"

Cleo Enjoying a Cookie Monster Cupcake

Oh and...clean up the kitchen!

My Messy Kitchen

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I hardly ever spend time with my nine year old niece, Cleo, with just the two of us. So I planned a whole day to spend with her.

We read Moshi Monsters magazines, played Wii, watched Gnomeo & Juliet and decorated cupcakes (of course!)

After holding a vote on my personal Facebook page, the majority of my friends though that cookie dough flavoured cupcakes would be the best to make.

When I think of cookies I think of the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street, so I got all the gear together to make Cookie Monster cupcakes with Cleo.  Check out the cute Cookie Monster Cupcakes we made!

Firstly I had to make the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes. The recipe is in three parts, the batter, the filling and the icing.

Some might say that having a cookie dough flavoured centre AND icing is too much but I thought it was delicious! If you're not feeling overly adventurous then just leave out the filling part, also means you save time which means more time for eating!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes
Recipe from Tidy Mom

Cupcake Batter

340g Unsalted Butter (softened)
1 1/2 C Brown Sugar (packed)
4 Eggs
2 2/3 C Flour
1 t Baking Powder
1 t Baking Soda
1/4 t Salt
1 C Milk
2 t Vanilla Extract
1 C Chocolate Chips

• Preheat oven to 180 Degrees C and line two muffin tins with cupcake cases.
• Cream the butter and brown sugar (about 3 minutes) until light and fluffy.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.
• Alternating, add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl with the milk on a low speed, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix until just incorporated.
• Blend in the vanilla and fold in the chocolate chips.
• Divide the batter evenly between 24 cupcakes liners.
• Bake for 18 - 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool in the cupcake tin for 5 -10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.

Cookie Dough Filling

Ingredients:

60g Unsalted Butter (softened)
6 T Brown Sugar (packed)
1 C & 2 T Flour
200g Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 t Vanilla Extract
1/4 C Chocolate Chips

• Cream the butter and brown sugar (about 2 minutes) until light and fluffy. 
• Add flour, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla, beat until smooth.
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the mixture has firmed up a bit (approx 1 hour)
• Fill the cupcakes by cutting a cone shaped hole out of the centre of each cupcake.
• Fill each hole with a chunk of the chilled cookie dough mixture.

Cookie Dough Icing

Ingredients:
340g Unsalted Butter (softened)
3/4 C Brown Sugar (packed)
3 1/2 C Icing Sugar
1 C Flour
3/4 t Salt
3 T Milk
2 1/2 t Vanilla Extract

• Cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. 
• Mix in the icing sugar until smooth.
• Beat in the flour and salt.
• Mix in the milk and vanilla extract until smooth and combined.
• Pipe onto cupcakes using a 1M or large star tip. Decorate with chocolate chips or sprinkles and a mini cookie.

Recipe Notes:
Only put the cookies on to the decorated cookie just before you want to eat it, I made these yesterday and today the cookies are all soggy! Oops!
If you can't be bothered making the cookie dough filling (fair enough) I think the icing tastes pretty cookie doughy so you could use that as a filling or just skip the filling all together! 

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake

I can safely say this was the hardest cake I have ever made, to date. Yes I had problems with the Princess Cake, yes things went badly for the Toy Story Cake and yes I had my fair share of dramas with the Patchwork Quilt Cake but this one takes the cake (excuse the pun!).

So I was asked to make a 3D Thomas the Tank Engine Cake for a 1 year olds birthday. I had a look online for some pictures and thought to myself, it can't be that hard! I just have to get the shaping of the cake done.

Well after baking three chocolate cakes and cutting them up in various shapes to get the cake looking like Thomas the Tank Engine, I  iced it all in chocolate buttercream, forgetting that I had to ice them separately to cover with fondant! So after taking it apart and covering each separate part in fondant I was finally seeing SOME resemblance to Thomas the Tank Engine.

Carved Chocolate Cakes
Looks More Like a Bus Than a Train at This Stage!

Carved Chocolate Cake

You should know that the whole time I was doing this I had the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song in my head: Thomas the Tank Engine - Original Opening Theme Song

Front of Thomas Cake

I made the face for Thomas a few days earlier but accidentally left it out in the sun and it changed colour! It went from grey to a kind of light bluey colour. I tried to make another Thomas face to stick on but it didn't look any good (by this time I was very tired and worn out) so I just stuck with the old face and dealt with the fact he wasn't the right colour.

Side of Thomas Cake

I think the hardest part after all that was getting the cake to the customer. You should have seen how terrified I was! I was driving 40ks most of the time and kept turning around to see my Thomas in the back seat wobbling like jelly! SCARY!

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake

Once delivered, though, Jo was SO happy with how the cake turned out. It was all worth it! I didn't get to see the birthday boy but I hear he has a fabulous time.

Happy Birthday Zach!

Princess Cake

Have you ever had everything go wrong with a project you're working on? Well, I have.

First there was the white chocolate cake disaster. Last week I tried making a white chocolate cake for a princess cake I had coming up for the weekend. It turned out HORRIBLE. I don't know if it was me (probably was) or the white chocolate I used (also, probably was) or the recipe (Planet Cakes book) but it turned out rock solid.

Chocolate Cake and Failed White Chocolate Cake

Then there was the other cakes, the replacement cakes. I decided on a Vanilla Bean Cake recipe I found online for the bottom tier to replace the white chocolate cake. This turned out to be WAY too sweet and tasted a bit funny because I put in a little extra vanilla paste. Also, these cakes were TINY, they hardly rose at all so I ended up having to buy a packet cake mix, noooo! Luckily my trusty Chocolate Cake Recipe worked out perfectly, as usual!

EW! Packet Cake!

Then there was the dodgy crown. I wanted to make a princess crown to go on top of the cake. I found a tutorial online but by the time I had found it I didn't have as much time as what they suggested (about a week I think) so I made two crowns out of gumpaste and fondant, one was a crappy back up crown, the other was loosely based on the tutorial I followed. Once I took the crown off the glass mould I have it sitting on, it came apart at the seam and one of the spikes fell off!

Gumpaste Crown and Back up Crown

Then there was my rusty cake decorating skills. I hadn't decorated a cake in about three months and gotten so rusty, I even forgot how to cover a cake board in fondant!

LUCKILY, it all got easier once the cakes were levelled, iced and covered in fondant. I had a bit of trouble getting the criss cross pattern on the top tier but it looked okay from the front. I piped Royal Icing around the purple diamonds on the crown and attached silver cachous to create a royal jewel look.

The Finished Product

Princess Cake with Fondant Star Decorations

In the end I was VERY happy with the result. VERY VERY happy, considering the pain it took to get there! The cake was for my friends four year old daughter (the princess) Charlotte. When I arrived she was so excited about the cake and even helped me put the fondant star decorations on. She looked every bit the part, especially with her face painted (by the incredibly talented, Sarah at Fab Faces) what a magical day!

Birthday Princess

Birthday Girl with her Princess Cake

Harry Potter Cookies!

I'm going to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 tomorrow and I. CAN'T. WAIT!
We were going to dress up properly as we're going with friends to the midnight screening and seeing part 1 first at 9pm. But now it's here we don't have costumes! So we're going to wear the Potter glasses and wands again. I'm so excited!!

Last year I made Harry Potter Cupcakes for part one. This year I decided on cookies and tried to make them using Bake at 350's tutorial.

Hermione, Harry & Ron Cookies

Weasley Twins Cookies

Weasley Gang: Twins, Ginny & Ron

Voldemort & Snape Cookies

Hermione & Ron in LuuUUurve!

Ginny & Harry in LuuUUurve!

Harry Potter Cookies

Mars Bar Brownies

Have you ever been stuck for ideas for a dessert when hosting dinner at your place?

I have.

In fact this happens to me pretty much every time we have a guest over, great planning, I know!

With so little time and pre-bought ingredients it can be hard to think of a dessert that will work.

To that I say, brownies are the answer!




I'm not a pro at brownies, by any account. I feel like there is a brownie club that I don't belong to because everyone seems to have that recipe. The recipe they've made 500 times and know off by heart. I'm not like that.

For me this one is just simple, it's a little on the cakey side (as opposed to the fudgey type) but the best thing about it is that it contains ingredients you are bound to have in the pantry.

Anything extra you want to throw in, go for it! For instance...Mars Bars? Or any chocolate bar for that matter! Nuts? Yes! Crainsin? Why not! The choice is up to you. Plus if you leave it plain and dust with a little icing sugar it still tastes great with a strong cup of coffee by its side.



Mars Bar Brownies
Recipe adapted from Robyn Brown Bakes

Ingredients
250g Butter, cut into chunks
1/2 C Cocoa
1 1/2 C Sugar
4 Eggs
1 C Flour
1 t Baking Powder
1 t Vanilla Essence
3 Mars Bars (chopped)
Icing sugar for dusting (optional)

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and line an 8" square cake tin or brownie tin with baking paper.
• Heat butter in a large pan until melted.
• Sift cocoa and add to the butter, stir with a wooden spoon until combined.
• Remove from heat and add sugar, mixing until combined.
• Beat eggs in a separate bowl, and add to the mixture one at a time, making sure to mix in thoroughly after each addition.
• Sift in flour and baking powder into mixture.
• Add vanilla and mix until well combined.
• Pour brownie mixture into prepared tin and dot with Mars Bar pieces.
• Using a spoon, gently press the Mars Bar pieces into the mixture until every piece is covered in batter.
• Bake for approx. 30 minutes or until brownie springs back when touched and skewer inserted comes out clean.
• Leave to cool completely in tin.
• Remove from tin and cut into large squares, sift icing sugar on top and enjoy!

So next time you're in a hurry and can't think of something for dessert try this one out. If you're the sort of person who always has ice cream in the freezer (I'm not) then your dessert is sorted!

Alternatively, you could just eat these brownies for morning tea...or lunch, or dinner?

I'll make any excuse to eat one!

The Battle of the Cookie Dough Ice Creams!

While in London I got my first taste of a Cookie Dough flavoured ice cream from Ben & Jerry's.
In the hotel we stayed at they had this awesome Ben & Jerry's vending machine which had a freezer door, it opened up and a vacuum type device came down and grabbed it, then it dropped down. SO COOL!

Ben & Jerry's Vending Machine

Now Mammoth have come out with a series of ice creams and what do you know, one of them is cookie dough! Yay! It's about time NZ had a  "cool" brand! I love the Mammoth marketing, it's all supposed to be marketed for "MEN" manly men! The label reads: "Smoother than a 70's action hero dismantling a thermo-nuclear device" and on the side: "A man shouldn't get his hair cut at the same place as his wife" "A man can eat ice cream when it's Mammoth ice cream and it's made for men" "A Man shouldn't share an umbrella with another man. Ever" -Classic!

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough Ice Cream:
Yumyumyumyum! The icecream is kind of vanilla like, the chunks of cookie dough are SO good. I want them to sell it here but apparently (according to the net) they are going to bring it to Australia first THEN to NZ, why do Aussies get all the good stuff first?!

Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Mammoth Cookie Dough Ice Cream:
The icecream actually tastes like cookie dough a little bit too, it's so creamy it almost tastes like cream (I'm not a big cream fan either) The cookie dough chunks are more like little balls of cookie dough and I find myself digging through to get them and not wanting to eat the icecream!

Mammoth Cookie Dough Ice Cream

The Winner?
BEN & JERRY'S COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM IS THE WINNER!

FYI: While Googling I came accross this funny page on Red Yak.com about baking cookies from the cookie dough in the Ben & Jerry's ice cream, the result looks yucky! Haha.