In the US, or at least in my little pocket of Indiana, Cadbury chocolate only comes out once per year – at Easter.  While I spent the vast majority of my life in the US, I didn’t even know Cadbury made anything else but Creme Eggs.  The realization that Cadbury makes other chocolates came during a class trip to Europe, where I saw Cadbury-everything.  Wow!

Now living in Australia, it is obvious that Cadbury is one of the most popular – if not the most popular – brand of chocolate.  Cadbury chocolate comes in all different varieties, from the good old Dairy Milk milk chocolate block, to Turkish Delight, to Mousse chocolate blocks.

Recently, Cadbury Australia offered to send me products from their new range of baking chocolate to try at home, of which I was super excited about.  It didn’t take long to choose some recipes to make with the chocolate; I took one look at the milk chocolate cheesecake on the front of one of the packages and knew I’d be making it!  Another recipe I chose came from Cadbury Kitchen, where each recipe has been tested to ensure your success at home.

There is nothing like a big box of chocolate to make you happy!  In the box was each product from Cadbury Australia’s new baking chocolate range.  I think the packaging looks fantastic – I just love that dark purple!  They also included a beautiful large tea-towel, which is pictured underneath the chocolate, above.

First, I made the milk chocolate cheesecake, which is pictured on the front of the big milk chocolate baking block.  If you’re a little timid about baking cheesecakes, you can relax with this one – it doesn’t need to be baked!  The list of ingredients is easy and simple, and the preparation is a breeze.  I did have one relatively minor issue with the recipe, however.  The base of the cheesecake is a chocolate biscuit/cookie-crumb base (I used Arnott’s Ripple biscuits).  The recipe says to grease the springform pan, and I did that.  I briefly considered placing some baking paper on the bottom though in case the base would stick, but in the end, I just followed the recipe.  When it came time to slice the cake, I found that the base stuck solidly to the pan.  I nearly had to transfer the slice of cheesecake to the plate, then pick the biscuit base off the bottom of the pan with a fork and place it on the plate next to the cheesecake!  Next time, I will definitely use that baking paper, and I recommend that you do as well.

So how did the no-bake cheesecake taste?  Amazing!  It was a hot day that I made the cake, and I thought it was perfect to cool off with for dessert.  The texture was smooth and velvety, almost mousse-like.  It’s a very impressive cake that would work for dinner parties as well, and because it’s so quick and easy it’s no problem to make at the last minute (but mind the 2-hour setting time in the refrigerator).

Inspired by the picture on the front of the packaging, I also made some (rather large) chocolate curls to decorate the slices.

Luckily, I was able to get most of the biscuit base on this slice for the photo!

You can find the recipe for this Milk Chocolate Cheesecake at Cadbury Kitchen, as well as on the package of the milk chocolate baking block.

The second recipe I chose was for peanut butter fudge.  Only 3 ingredients to this recipe!  It probably can’t be considered real “fudge” because of these ingredients, but it does have a smooth, creamy texture that definitely resembles fudge.  I’m actually very excited about this recipe and can’t wait to share it with you!

You’ll need two products from Cadbury Australia’s baking chocolate range:

And one other ingredient that is probably in your pantry right now – peanut butter (unless you’re allergic, and if so, why not try another type of nut butter?).  Okay, listen to this.  All you need to do to make this fudge, is melt the melts separately in the microwave (or double-boiler, if you prefer), mix peanut butter into both the dark and white melts, pour them into the pan, swirl with a knife and let it set in the refrigerator.  A very short time later, you’ll have something that looks like this:

Well, if you use the right size pan, you will probably have a thicker fudge, but how pretty is that?  I don’t have the size of pan used in the recipe, so I used the closest I had, which was longer and made the fudge very skinny!

The swirling is easy.  I just spooned alternate chocolates into the pan, so I ended up with a sort-of checkerboard pattern.  For the next layer, I just reversed the checkerboard pattern.  When all the chocolate was used up, I banged the pan on the countertop to level it, then took a butter knife and gently swirled the chocolates together.  You only need to swirl once – don’t keep swirling, or you’ll just end up mixing the chocolates together and it won’t look so pretty.

This fudge is delicious, and tastes even better on the next day.  And here’s the best part – if you love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, then hold onto your hats, because the taste of this fudge is very similar to Reese’s.  It is so delicious!

It keeps very well in the refrigerator.  I made this fudge 4 days ago and I still have some left, which tastes as good as the day I made it.  I’d say it’ll keep for at least a week in the refrigerator.

You can find the recipe for Easy Peanut Butter Fudge at Cadbury Kitchen.

Overall, the new baking chocolate range is fabulous and I can’t wait to use the rest of the chocolate.  I love how smooth the chocolate is when it’s melted and it’s got that lovely glossy look to it.  Regarding the chocolate melts, I have never liked the taste of any particular brand’s melts on their own, but I will honestly say that Cadbury’s melts taste better than any previous melts I have tasted.  What is great about the baking chocolate is that it’s all real, delicious chocolate – even the white chocolate contains at least 23% cocoa butter.  If the white chocolate you use does not contain cocoa butter, then it is not real white chocolate (this is one of my biggest pet peeves!).

So there you have it, a glowing, positive review on Cadbury Australia’s new baking chocolate range!  I would, without a doubt, recommend the products to you to try yourself.  And if you can’t decide on what to make with it, check out Cadbury Kitchen and I’m sure you’ll find something delicious there (this chocolate mud cake with baked pears is what I’m making next!)!

Well, all that said though, I can’t refuse a picnic.  Maybe it’s because picnics remind me of the carefree days of being a child.  At my parents’ house, we had a classic-style picnic table in our big backyard and a grill.  Many things happened at that table, not just eating.  They’re all good memories that almost make me want to tear up when I remember them.  I also loved going out into our woods just past twilight, when it was a little scary in the darkened shadows of the trees, where my dad would light a fire inside a circle of stones and we would roast hot dogs and marshmallows.

Eating outside evokes a lot of childhood memories for me, but that aside, eating outside is just plain fun.  Except for the bugs and dirt, ew.

Yesterday was one of the nicest days we’ve had in weeks, literally.  We’ve had to endure wind, rain and cold and it is supposed to be spring, Australia, come on!  Even though I love the rain, enough is enough! I decided that it was a good day to enjoy a break in the weather and have a picnic in the backyard for lunch with the kids.

I took them to the grocery store first thing in the morning to get some ingredients, having decided upon chicken wraps, a basic salad, strawberries, strawberry cupcakes and fresh homemade lemonade for our picnic.  Luckily, I had received a bounty of products from Kitchenware Direct – an Australian online kitchen supplies shop – that would help me get my picnic together quickly and easily, which I will review for you in this post.

The most fun for me was the Zyliss salad spinner.  This is the first ever salad spinner I have owned in my entire life.  After the first time I used it, I wondered why it had taken so long for me to get one.  It’s simple to use – just place your salad leaves in the colander-style basket, rinse the leaves and place the basket back in the bowl.  The fun part is making it spin.  My kids couldn’t get enough of this!  This particular spinner has a locking lever and a stop button, which will fluff the leaves back up when you’re done spinning.

This was just a basic salad – I bought the mixed salad leaves in a bag and added chopped tomatoes and cucumbers.  I used a homemade balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing.

I also needed a bowl for our salad and this salad bowl was perfect.  It’s a very attractive clear glass bowl to show off all the beautiful colors in a salad – a definite must!  See it in my pictures of the actual picnic below.

Next, I needed to make the chicken wraps.  This is a very healthy wrap that is super easy to prepare.  Lebanese bread is wrapped around a delicious filling of chicken tenderloins, lettuce leaves, tomatoes, tabouli, hummous and tzatziki.  The entire wrap was quite gigantic, so I had to slice the wrap in half to make it easier to hold and eat.  What better way to do this than with a Scanpan sandwich knife (which I didn’t even know existed until I found it at Kitchenware Direct!).

This sandwich knife will cut through your sandwich (or wrap) easily without crushing it.  It’s a very heavy knife that feels great in my hand - I was so impressed that I immediately fell in love with it!

On to dessert – strawberry cupcakes!  Okay, so these aren’t homemade, I’ll admit.  They’re a Betty Crocker box mix, but my kids certainly don’t mind.  How hard is it to travel with cupcakes, by the way, when you don’t have a cupcake carrier?  I had a Cupcake Courier while in the US that I had won from Iron Cupcake: Earth, which was great, except that I found it very difficult to store because it was so large.

Kitchenware Direct has a collapsible cupcake carrier that makes it easier to store, yet it can still hold 2 dozen cupcakes or a cake.  This what I used to carry our cupcakes to the picnic blanket.

Here you can see the cupcake carrier on the left and the glass salad bowl on the right.  In the center in the back are our chicken wraps and right in front is our fresh homemade lemonade.

Everything was very delicious and we all had a great time eating our lunch outside!

My daughter’s favorite was the lemonade, but both of my sons preferred the cupcakes.  The chicken wraps and salad were my favorites!

Thank you, Kitchenware Direct, for helping to make our picnic so fun, easy and enjoyable!

Recipe sources:
Lemonade – Country Living
Chicken wraps – Kidspot

Since I don’t use raw fish at home, I have resorted to making other types of sushi.  I’ve made teriyaki beef sushi, (cooked) tuna sushi, but mostly I make vegetable sushi because everyone else in my family favors the vegetable one.  To be honest, it’s not entirely made of vegetables, as I include avocado as well and we all know that avocados are fruit!

I’ve posted a recipe for sushi a few years ago, but it wasn’t exactly the best post (in fact, I don’t even want to link to it!).  It was my first attempt at making sushi and I didn’t even include a recipe or instructions on how to make it – I just linked to another blog where I had found a great sushi tutorial.  Now, I can make this particular type of sushi without looking at a recipe and it is one of the easiest meals/snacks to prepare.

You should be able to find most of these ingredients in your grocery store – perhaps try looking in the Asian/international section if you have trouble finding anything.  If you have an Asian grocery store nearby, then you’re definitely all good to go.

First, you’ll need sushi rice, which is a short-grained rice.  Prepare this according to the directions on the package.  For mine, I use 1 cup of rice and 1 1/2 cups of water. The rice will need to be rinsed in a sieve under running water until the water runs clear. I pour the rice in a medium-sized saucepan, add the 1 1/2 cups of water, and bring it to the boil, shaking occasionally to stir.  Once it comes to a boil, I immediately turn the heat down to very low, put the lid on the pan and cook for 12 minutes.  After 12 minutes, I take the pan off the heat and leave it to sit, still covered, for another 10 minutes.

During this 22 minutes, I prepare the vegetables I will be using and any sauces.  In this particular case, I julienne 1 carrot, 1 Lebanese cucumber (I do not use the mushy center though) and slice 1 avocado.  If you have a mandolin slicer with a julienne attachment, as I do, this makes preparation so much quicker and easier.  I also make the wasabi mayonnaise to put inside the sushi roll, which is simply a mix of wasabi and mayonnaise.  I use approximately 1 teaspoon of wasabi per each 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise.  Quantities you use will depend on your tastes.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I do love wasabi!  It’s such an unusual sensation, but if you’re not a fan of hot or spicy food, then I recommend to skip the wasabi.  You could just simply use plain mayonnaise, or don’t use any sauce at all.

Okay, so after the rice sits for 10 minutes (or whatever is recommended on the package), take the lid off, and fluff the rice up with a fork.  Pour the rice onto a large-ish tray (non-metallic) and spread it out into a thin layer.  Pour/shake over approximately 3 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar and use a spoon to stir it through the rice.  When mixed, make sure to spread the rice out into a thin layer again and fan it to cool it quickly.  Use a notebook, a piece of cardboard, whatever you have lying around.

Lay out a bamboo sushi mat and place a square of nori seaweed, shiny side down, on the mat.  You should be able to find a bamboo sushi mat in the international section of your grocery store, an Asian grocery store, or perhaps a kitchen supplies store.  I got mine at my local grocery store for under $2.

Next, you’ll need to gather up some rice from the tray and spread it into a thin layer on the seaweed.  I don’t have an exact quantity of rice to use, I would guess it would approximately be 1/2 cup.  Spread the rice with the back of a spoon to 3 edges of the seaweed, but leave about a 2cm border at the edge of the seaweed furthest from you – see photo above.

Oh, and be sure to have a little cup of plain water on hand.  You can dip your fingers in the water if the rice sticks to your fingers.

Next, spread on a thin layer of wasabi mayonnaise towards the edge of the seaweed that is nearest you.  Then, place your veggies on top.  I usually use 4 strips of carrot, 4 strips of cucumber and 3 slices of avocado.  If you have carrots or cucumber overhanging the edges of the seaweed, use a knife to chop the excess off.

And now, the tricky part.  Rolling it up!  Really, it isn’t that tricky though.  Take the edge of the bamboo mat that is nearest you and just roll it up.  I sometimes have to hold the avocado in with the tips of my fingers because it likes to slip out of the roll on occasion.  Just use the mat to firmly roll up the seaweed as you go.  When you get to that 2cm border on the far end of the seaweed, stop here for a moment.  Dip a finger into that cup of water I told you to have on hand and use your wet finger to spread the water along that 2cm border of seaweed.  It doesn’t need to be saturated.  This will help to seal it when you finish rolling.  When you’re done, just finish rolling the seaweed up and there you have a perfect roll of sushi!

Before you cut it into slices, I recommend refrigerating it for about 30 minutes.  I find that it cuts easier if it has been refrigerated.  When it is time to slice, have a tall cup of water nearby, or some running water.  You will need to dip a sharp, serrated knife into the water before each slice to make a clean cut.  Use a gentle sawing motion to slice the roll.  You can just slice it half, or slice it into 8 rounds, or however you want.

With the portion of rice that I use, I can make 3 rolls.

Sushi is very versatile, so try adding your favorite vegetables and meats to create a winning combination.  Just be careful not to stuff the sushi to full, or roll it too tight, or the seaweed might start to split.

I am, by no means, an expert on sushi.  I just wanted to share this particular recipe with you and tell you what works for me!

What is your favorite sushi?

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Like this one that I came across on FoodGawker from The Girl Who Ate Everything.  The cookies looked so thick and delicious that I had to make them!

Okay, so my cookies didn’t turn out anywhere near as thick as Christy’s, but they were very delicious.  Also, as the butter in this recipe is required to be melted, I decided to brown the butter a bit, but that’s the only change I made to the ingredients.  Well, I also didn’t add all of the chocolate chips because there were just way too many after I started pouring them into the dough to mix in!

The original recipe for these cookies comes from Allrecipes, where you can read over 5000 reviews for these cookies!  Following some advice in the reviews, I decided to refrigerate the cookies (for 2 hours) before I baked them.  I didn’t bake all the dough at once, however.  I baked about 6 and put the rest of the dough balls in the freezer.

Here is where the magic comes in… the first 6 cookies were delicious, of course, but one week later, when I decided to bake the frozen dough, I discovered that these cookies that had been frozen tasted much better!  I guess it goes along the same lines as refrigerating cookie dough for 36 hours before baking to allow the flavors to develop.

These cookies are called “The Best, Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies” and they don’t disappoint.  However, I did think that the cookies were a little overly sweet.  Yes, I know they’re supposed to be sweet, but I think next time I’d cut down on the sugar a bit.

My only real disappointment was that the outsides of the cookies were crisp – they crunched when you bit into them.  The insides were well and truly chewy though.  I’m not very keen on crisp chocolate chip cookies, but they tasted good enough to overlook it just this once.

How do you prefer your chocolate chip cookies – crispy? cakey? chewy?  Do you have a favorite recipe?

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Inspiration for these came from the 2010 Donna Hay Magazine kid’s issue.  Yes, I’ve had these cupcakes in my head for over one year!  Finally the opportunity came to make them for myself.

I did not use Donna Hay’s cake and frosting recipes.  I will never use a Donna Hay recipe for cakes or frostings as in the past I have repeatedly had issues and failures with them.  The recipes I used for my cupcakes were ones that I love and know will turn out properly and delicious.  The chocolate cupcakes are vegan, and the vanilla buttercream, while not vegan, is my favorite vanilla frosting recipe.  The recipes are below, although feel free to use your own favorite flavor combination.

A quick note about the vegan chocolate cupcakes: these cupcakes are very soft and moist and delicious. They are my favorite cupcake to bake. But I repeat, they are very soft and do fall apart easily. They would not be suitable for a heavy layer of frosting or lots of decorations.

Decorating these is extremely simple.  Use Smarties or M&M’s to place around the outside edges of the cupcakes (I used Smarties, but M&M’s would be smaller and probably would look slightly better).  The “alien” inside is a Starburst Sucks lollipop, in apple flavor.  I had to trim the plastic lollipop stick to fit down into the cupcake.  Finally, top the “alien” off with a tiny shot glass-sized clear plastic cup.  Be sure to also use foil cupcake liners for the full UFO effect!

We placed two candles on our favorite UFO and our little guy blew them out!  Happy Birthday!

These UFO cupcakes would be a hit at any children’s party and being so easy to decorate, anyone at all could do it!  If you make them for yourself or someone else, please share a photo with me – I’d love to see them!

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I actually made two different types of cupcakes this week, believe it or not.  You haven’t seen any photographic evidence on Flickr or Twitter because I considered them both failures.  The first one was a lavender cupcake with honey Swiss meringue buttercream.  Sounds nice, right?  Well, the cake, while it tasted alright, was way too dense.  The buttercream, while it also had a nice taste, had a strange texture to it, almost sort of… elastic?  Yeah, it was a little weird.

My second batch of cupcakes were vanilla on vanilla, a classic combination using real vanilla beans.  But the cakes started splitting on top (I *might* be a bit particular about how the tops of my cupcakes look) while baking and turned too brown too quickly.  They also tasted slightly eggy.  And the buttercream?  It was way too sweet.

After both of those failures, I had no butter left.  And yes, also, my son came home from preschool with conjunctivitis (A.K.A. “pink eye”).  And my daughter acquired a stomach bug.  This winter has been horrible for viruses; I don’t think the kids have been not sick for any length of time for the past few months.  It’s so terribly annoying!

But just hours before I realized that both of my kids would be coming home sick, I was searching the internet to find a recipe that I could bake that also did not have butter.  I didn’t have my hopes up.  Someone suggested hummingbird cake to me, but I didn’t have any carrots either.

Eventually, I started singling out cookies.  And I came across this one – peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.  They looked easy and delicious.  But having a read over the comments and reviews of the recipe, I knew I had to change the original if I wanted to end up with something edible.

And end up with something edible I definitely did.  These were extremely indulgent and out-of-this-world delicious.

I don’t even need to continue this post with words; I could just show you more pictures of these incredible cookies and that would be enough.

But I do want to tell you what I did different with the recipe.  It is a butterless and flourless recipe.  But, after reading over the comments on the recipe page, so many people had problems with it and said it was sickly to eat.  Too much peanut butter, too much sugar.  So following the advice of others, I reduced the peanut butter (I used smooth and not chunky) and brown sugar down from 1 cup to 3/4 cup.  Others added 1/2 cup of self-raising flour, but I didn’t have any, so I added 1/2 cup of plain flour + 1 teaspoon of baking powder.  Finally, I reduce the amount of chocolate down from 1 cup to about 3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon or so.  Oh, and I also used chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips.

The dough was stiff and difficult to mix by hand.  The chunks were difficult to stir in and I ended up chucking the spoon and using my hands to incorporate the chunks.  I used about a tablespoon of dough per cookie, and flatten them slightly before baking.

Again differing from the original recipe, I reduced the oven temperature from 200C to 180C and my cookies were done in 9-10 minutes.

I’ll note as well that the recipe I am including below is the exact recipe that I, myself, used.

As with most cookies, I want to remind you that it is very important not to overbake these.  You’ll only need a slightly golden outside to keep them soft and chewy.   Straight from the oven, they are very soft, so let them cool on the tray for a bit before removing them.

There is no crunch to these cookies, they are just all over soft and chewy (and remain so on the next day).  And they stick to the roof of your mouth, just like peanut butter does.  You will need a glass of milk with these, no doubt about it.

I never expected to end up with such a delicious cookie without any butter.  I am highly impressed and proud to say that these are now one of my most favorite ever cookies!  If you love the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, I guarantee you will love these as well!

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When we get back in the morning, after having left my daughter at school, I usually begin work on any recipes I may make that day.  I really look forward to this time and always go over my ingredient lists and recipe instructions over a cup of coffee, setting out any ingredients to come to room temperature (eggs, butter, milk, etc.).

After I pick my daughter up my from school, I don’t often have enough time to prepare dinner.  If I am planning a special meal, I’ll make it after we get back in the morning and then heat it up for dinner.  And yes, I always sample a bit for lunch!

This pasta with roasted mushrooms, eggplant and olives was a meal that I mostly prepared the day before, and then cooked the pasta on the following day, mixing the roasted bits and the dressing with the pasta just before serving.  You can’t do this with any meal, but it’ll work for most.

What a lovely and beautiful-tasting dish!  This is the first time I’ve used such a pretty pasta; it’s called casarecce.  It is accompanied by roasted portobello mushrooms, baby eggplants, kalamata olives and garlic, then dressed in lemon-olive oil dressing and scattered with soft goat’s cheese and fresh basil.

This is not a cheap dish – expect to hand over some extra cash for those delicious portobello mushrooms and goat’s cheese – but you’ll find that by paying more for quality ingredients, the taste will be absolutely gorgeous.

I had never tasted goat’s cheese before, so this was the most exciting part for me.  The cheese was very soft and creamy and had only a slight tang to it.  It was very pleasant and made a great contrast in textures.

After spending 2 hours of the day constantly walking (oh, and also listening to all three of my children try to talk to me at once while I watch out for cars!), it’s always great to come home to an easy (as it was mostly prepared beforehand) gourmet meal such as this one.

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I told them what ingredients I wanted to bake with and asked for their suggestions.  Some suggestions were friands, double chocolate mud cupcakes and macarons.  While they all sounded delicious, one suggestion really intrigued me – Queen of Sheba cake, which was recommended by Jessica.  I had no idea what it was so had to google it.

The Queen of Sheba cake, or Reine De Saba, is a recipe from Julia Child.  Apparently it comes from her first book, The French Chef, but it appears that it can also be found, with slightly different versions, in a few other of Julia’s cookbooks.  In The French Chef, Julia says that it is the first French cake she had ever eaten, prepared by co-author Simon Beck, and she had never forgotten it.

I can’t figure out why this cake is called Queen of Sheba.  Does anyone know?

The cake itself is a soft, moist, gooey chocolate cake.  The preparation was fun and slightly different than I’m used to.  It starts out normal, by creaming butter and sugar, but then you beat in egg yolks, followed by folding in a mixture of melted chocolate and brewed coffee, then adding almond meal and almond extract (this is where my only variation came in, by adding my Beanilla Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract instead because, although I like the smell of almond extract, I do not like the taste).

In another bowl, you will need to whisk egg whites with a pinch of salt and some sugar, then fold them in alternately with cake flour.  You’re then ready to go.

My cake didn’t rise very much, although in the pictures I’ve seen on the internets, it doesn’t appear to be a very high cake.  The top of the cake became shiny and a little crackly, sort of like a brownie.  The inside of the cake is very soft and moist and the taste is just beautiful.  I’m glad I used vanilla extract instead of almond.

What you absolutely need to note about this cake is that you must not overbake it. If you overbake it, you will lose that gooey texture that this cake is known for.

Originally, a recipe for a soft chocolate frosting accompanies this cake, but I chose not to use this.  Instead, I used some leftover dulce de leche to drizzle on each individual slice and sprinkled over a few pink sea salt flakes.  When served warm, this combination was absolutely to die for, so heavenly.

I am so thankful to Jessica for recommending the Queen of Sheba cake to me.  This recipe was such a great way to break my bout of baker’s block!

On a separate note, this post sees the launch of my new watermark for my photos.  After experiencing the trouble of someone using my photos to advertise their own “products” on Etsy, I have finally decided to take the time to watermark each photo.  I have tried and will try to keep them in an area of the photo that will not be so annoying, and I apologize if you don’t like them, but if you have experienced someone stealing your photos, then I’m sure you would take appropriate action as well.

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With these warmer days (in the middle of winter), we’ve found that we need a way to cool down after our walk back from school.  What better way to do that than to take the Zoku Quick Pop Maker out of the freezer and make popsicles!

The latest recipe on the Zoku blog is for cherry popsicles with a homemade magic shell drizzle.  This is the one I set out to make.  I love cherries and while I’ve never been keen on Magic Shell, the idea of making it home intrigued me more than I can even express in words.

The recipe is called “cherries and cream”.  This is a Greek yoghurt-based popsicle so by all means you could probably consider this a healthy popsicle.  The yoghurt gives the popsicle an instant tang to your tastebuds and next time I’d probably use a little more sugar than the recipe calls for to try to tame down that tang.  I think I accidentally used plain Greek yoghurt though, instead of the vanilla-flavored! The popsicles on their own (without the quick shell) are definitely delicious.

Add the homemade quick shell though and they are brilliant!  Can you believe that you can make “Magic Shell” at home with only two ingredients?  Chocolate and refined coconut oil.  That’s all.  Use any flavor of chocolate you like, melt it with the coconut oil, cool it to room temperature, then pour it on your ice cream or popsicles and right before eyes it freezes solid.

I used Green & Black’s milk chocolate for my homemade “Magic Shell” (which is why it’s so light in color), but you could choose to use a darker chocolate.

In the future, I plan to make enough quick shell to entirely dip the popsicle in to give it a wonderful crunchy outer layer of chocolate.  How awesome would that be!

If you can’t tell already, I am totally hooked on this quick shell!  I highly recommend making it for yourself, rather than buying the commercially prepared version, which is packed full of nasties that you probably shouldn’t be eating anyway.  And the homemade version tastes so much better.  I guarantee you’ll be blown away as much as I am!  :)

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Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  It is a fairy tale that I loved as a child and still love.  We have a beautiful book by Lauren Child that recounts this tale with gorgeous photos; we love reading it and looking at the intricate detail in those photos.

One of the first things that one would recall from this story is the porridge that the three bears left to cool as they went for their walk.  This porridge is the inspiration for creamy vanilla porridge with brown sugar apples.

It’s a more luscious version of oatmeal and makes for a wonderful breakfast on a chilly morning (such as we have currently been having here in Sydney).

A combination of milk and cream make this porridge very creamy and speckled throughout are flecks of real vanilla seeds, scraped from a vanilla pod.  On top are slices of (Pink Lady) apples that have been cooked in brown sugar and honey.  The whole bowl is then drizzled with the brown sugar-honey syrup used to cook the apples in.

I’m normally not too keen on oatmeal or porridge, but this was really delicious!  And not too difficult to whip up in the morning (that is, if you’re not in a hurry!).  It’s filling and it’ll warm you up, guaranteed!

Next on my list is a recipe for Peas and Pillows, inspired by The Princess and the Pea.  Lauren Child has also written her own version of this book, with Charlie and Lola-style characters pictured in beautifully detailed miniature sets.  We have this book as well and it is, without a doubt, a favorite one to read.

In the story, a princess is put to the test to find out if she’s actually a real princess.  A single pea is placed under a stack of mattresses that the princess will be sleeping on.  If the princess sleeps soundly, then she is not a real princess; a real princess will not be able to sleep comfortably with even a single tiny lump under her mattress.

Of course, the princess does indeed have a terrible night because of that single pea.  And this is the inspiration for Peas and Pillows.

It is a super easy, creamy pasta dish featuring pillows of spinach and ricotta ravioli and lots and lots of peas with a scattering of fresh chives.  It is very delicious and could possibly inspire your little one to eat her green veggies!  It’s definitely worth a try anyway!

So concludes my second installment of fairy tale-inspired recipes for children.  There are still four recipes left to try in the article, so be sure to come back to check them out if you’re loving these recipes as much as I am!

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