Block of chocolate day, block of chocolate day.....

I can always tell when my time of the month is witching it's way around. I am always a little precious, and by nine oclock in the morning, I have usually sat on my bed and had a bit of a sook. 

One of the kids favourite shirts is in the wash, they've said 'Mum' sixty times already,  and they're unconsolable because they've dropped their breakfast on the floor. Give me a fucking break!

Combine this with shopping day and it's not hard to toss a block of dark chocolate into the trolley, just in case. 

Yesterday, that block of Cadbury Old Gold rum and raisin dark chocolate, didn't see the end of the day. Fair enough I gave Summer two squares, she actually liked it, but I ate the rest. I am sure it will put in good stead when I am bleeding like a stuck pig tomorrow. I hope.

If you ask me, every parenting room, and public ladies toilet should have one of those glass 'break in case of emergency' cabinets on the wall, with a glowing block of luscious brown goodness. Publicly funded of course, as part of a new Mental Health Act. With a box of top shelf tampons included. And maybe six million dollars. (Pushing it now).

Like the equivalent of the government Health Care card you qualify for in the birthing unit. 

"Congratulations on the birth of your new baby, here's 18 years supply of wine and chocolate, along with a lifetime membership to the loony assylum. Thank you for populating the nation".

It reminds me of a song my daughter sings, Two banana day. When asked where they heard it, I realise my kids watch way too much You Tube. They reply (like duh!), Big Block Sing Song.





I swap the words out for 'Block of Chocolate day' or 'bottle of wine day'. 

At least they seem to have moved past unveiling surprise eggs and Ollie (ugggghhhh. Don't go there). 


They've found Just Dance clips which is all sorts of gorgeous to watch (mental health restored).

My favourite quip in the mornings, if it's a bad one it's, "I'll be requiring wine tonight!".

I am astounded at my resilience at not buying said wine. By bed time I am scalding myself at the fact I did not buy wine. I really am not an alcoholic. Friday and Saturday may stand up in court to rebuke that.

I will deny everything. They are obviously childless and single.

And just like that, holy shitballs, I have a Tuesday blog post.
#IBOT  been a while!

You know the time when...

We all have moments in the day, that make us or break us. Some are feel good and leave lasting happy memories, and some, well just plain suck. Here are some amusing moments that have come about in the past months.

....You head down the hallway to bed with your arm stretched out in front of you like Superman, feeling like you just conquered the world. But really you just conquered too many wines.

The reason I look preggers

....You've been eating well all day, you've got through the after school whines and are just about to cook dinner, when you just realised you got your period. You just say fuck it, I am going to have ice cream and wine for tea! Of course you continue cooking spag bol for the fam and binge the rest of the night away.

....Sad sack binging comes to bite you on the arse, when your uncle asks if you have 'one on the way'. You have to admit that you're just fat. Major reality check. You still go to Maccas for lunch.

A friend posted this on my FB timeline after the birthday party. Obviously to console me at the face painters
lack of talent in the portrait department. 

....Your husband decides to get his face painted at a birthday party, just for fun. On the off chance, you ask the lady if she knows how to do Channing Tatum, because that will make you really happy.

....You just go to bed and you hear your phone notification chime go off. Twice. You spend the next ten minutes convincing yourself not to get up. You spend another ten minutes after that, reminding yourself, not to forget to write this down in a blog post.

....You're watching the telly, and all of a sudden you hear your five year old yell from the back door. "I'm just putting the dog out, because he is rooting a toy". That's when you know you're doing this parenting thing right.

.... Hubby is winning in the parenting stakes too. Yesterday Izzy walks in saying to her sister, "You can't bother Dad in the shed. He's doing something that can make you blind". He was welding of course. It just sounded much worse.

Kids. My source of amusement, and frustration, all rolled into one.

Share a moment with me in the comments. Surely I'm not the only one having them.

An InLinkz Link-up

White Christmas Slice

Need something sweet and christmassy to make? Make this! It's yummy!

1 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
125 grams butter, melted
2 Tablespoons honey
1 egg, beaten

220 gram block of Cadburys Dream white chocolate(any white chocolate will do)
3/4 cup rice bubbles
80 grams glace cherries
60 grams sultanas*
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 160C. Grease and line a slice tin.

Combine the flours, oats, sugar and coconut in a bowl.

Mix the melted butter, honey and egg, then pour into flour mixture and stir until combined well.

Press the mixture into the pan and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. Set aside in the tin and make topping.

Break the chocolate into squares in a microwave safe bowl. Melt the chocolate on 50%, stirring every minute until smooth.

Stir in remaining ingredients. Spread this mixture over the base while still warm.

Let cool in the pan, then place in the fridge to set,  before cutting into 20 even squares.


*You can use a mixture of craisins(dried cranberries) and pistachio nuts here for something a bit more fancy.

Adding to Lydia's Christmas Link up

Mud cake muffins

These should be called McFatty Fat cakes. Or Mudguts Muffintops. They are so good, and I ate too many *hangs head in shame*. My name is Alicia, and I am a chocoholic. As I've aged my preference has shifted to dark chocolate, probably why I love these so much.

Mud cake muffins sounds much better. 

If you're a recovering chocoholic, I suggest you call your support person. You're going to need them. With almost a whole block of wonderful dark chocolate, these muffins are irresistable.

Mud cake muffins

175 grams butter
175 grams dark chocolate, broken up 
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup plain flour, sifted with the cocoa
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Melt butter and chocolate in the microwave on 50% for 30 second increments, or in a saucepan on a medium heat.

Place chocolate mixture in a large mixing bowl. 

Add sugar and stir to dissolve the sugar to get out any lumps.

Add eggs and vanilla and beat well.

Stir in flour and cocoa, then the milk.

Place cases into a 12 hole muffin tin. Fill* cases with cake mixture and bake for 25 minutes.

I've frosted with chocolate buttercream icing and sprinkles.

*This recipe uses plain flour so the cakes will not rise in the paper cases.

Try some green icing and christmas themed sprinkles to bring these into the christmas season. (I know I may just get Batman slapped for even mentioning the C word in November)

It will be here all too soon and I am in no way prepared. What I do know, after hosting the family last year, and travelling the year before, I just want to relax and let the holidays just float by, as much as possible. No stress. NO commitments. We'll see how that pans out!

Linking with Ann for Things I know.

Muddy puddles and snow balls - birthday nibbles

My girls turned the ripe old ages of three and five, a week ago. 

Summer wanted a Frozen cake, and Isabel, a Peppa Pig cake. 

Isabel's cake was easy. I made the same cake she had for her third birthday. At first she asked for a Barbie cake, and then changed her mind and wanted Peppa Pig. 

Summer's cake was a square chocolate cake, covered with buttercream icing and edged with white chocolate. I did order Frozen figurines for this cake, but they never arrived from China in time. Of course, a month later they are still not here. 

I did find these 3D printable dolls from this fab website. They did the job and aren't too hard to put together. It's the cutting out that is the hard bit.

Seeing it was a joint Frozen(slash)Peppa Pig party I also made some absolutely delicious nibbles to go with the theme.

The snowballs, were made from the cut off pieces of cake, left over after cutting out the Peppa Pig cake. 

I crumbled the cake, and then added coconut milk. Add the coconut milk a bit at a time, until the cake crumbs can be moulded into a ball and hold that shape. 

I refrigerated the balls while I melted white chocolate in the microwave at 50%. Then coated the balls, sprinkling with dessicated coconut and then leaving them to set on baking paper in the fridge. I used a skewer to hold the balls while I dunked them in the chocolate. Chuck the chocolate back in the microwave if I starts to get less runny while you are on the job. 

You could use any type of cake, any type of liquid. Think fruitcake and grog(hick!), or chocolate cake and orange juice. Banana cake and coconut milk. OMG. You could use other types of chocolate too. 

I found this recipe on Taste for these little fellas. I left out the fellas bit, and just made the biscuit and chocolate bit. I even heard one of the dads comment on how 'wicked' the muddy puddles were. They were pretty awesome!

I didn't have the right tray, but just put the biscuits in the oven on a flat tray and then moulded them, cupped in my tea towelled hand and making a bowl shape with my fingers. Not hard, but oh so yummy.

-----o0o-----

An InLinkz Link-up

Chocolate creams

Chocolate Creams

125 grams butter
1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 cups SR Flour
1/4 cup custard powder
2 tablespoons cocoa 

Icing
75 grams butter
3/4 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon milk


Preheat oven to 180C.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.
Add the milk and beat to combine.
Sift the flour, custard powder, and cocoa. Add to the bowl and mix in to form a soft dough.

Roll about 2 teaspoons worth to make small balls.
Place on baking tray and press with a fork to flatten. Dip the fork in flour first, to stop it sticking to the dough.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes.

Let the biscuits cool while you make the icing.

To make icing, beat the butter and icing sugar in a small bowl, Beat in the milk.

Spread about half a teaspoon of icing on one biscuit, and join with a biscuit of the same size.

Welcome to Open Slather #100!

I'm just a little bit chuffed that this week sees me hosting my 100th link up. Feel free to add ONE of your social media accounts, like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to Open Slather, as well as a blog post.  I hope you all find new blogs and accounts to follow and followers for yours. :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Back to school and an easy Chocolate Slice

We've just gone back to school this week in South Australia. Izzy started back at kindy yesterday, a full day. Just what you want after two weeks of having both of them home. There's no worrying about if she was ready, I was ready.

We had a great holiday break, got some easter craft done, too much chocolate consumption and a catch up with our mothers group mates. It was great that easter fell IN the school holidays this year.

Sunday I had a bake up. There wasn't much to put in a lunch box. Instead of taking money out the bank to buy stuff they day before our big fortnightly shop, I baked with what I had in the pantry. Simple stuff. Nothing fancy.

I made my sultana loaf. Tea, sultanas, sugar and flour. I used a spiced chai tea in this one, and iced it with half a teaspoon of golden syrup mixed with little boiling water, then mixed with icing sugar.

Homemade crackers, these are very moorish. I will post the recipe soon, these are before I had cooked them.

This chocolate slice is easy to make with ingredients everyone should have in the pantry ready to go. It is also scrumptious.

Chocolate Slice

120 grams butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup self raising flour
3 tablespoons of cocoa
1 cup of coconut

Mix dry ingredients together.
Melt butter, pour over dry ingredients and mix well.
Press the mix into a slice tin. I greased my tin with oil spray.

Bake at 180C for 15 minutes.

When cool, ice with chocolate icing, sprinkle with coconut and slice!

Never have a problem finding someone to lick the spoon.

Joining Jess for #IBOT on this very wet tuesday.

Valmas chocolate pudding

I like old fashioned recipes. Ones that come from old cookbooks that use simple ingredients, nothing too fancy. 

I have a couple that I go to quite often, a local pony club cookbook and a centenary cookbook put out by a local school, both from the eighties and both scavenged from garage sales. 

Fair enough though that they are from an era when food was a bit 'boring'. Remember seeing or eating a prawn cocktail of the early eighties? But all the recipes that are within are tried and tested family favourites, that I am sure, at the time, Mums and kids were bursting with pride and excitement to share, as their respective names appeared at the bottom of each recipe.

I love myself a good self saucing pudding, I made this one last week. Most self saucing pudding require a water bath, this one doesn't and there is no separating eggs and whipping egg whites.

 It's a recipe provided by Valma Clark, from the Beachport Pony Club family favourites cookbook, circa mid 1980s I think. For all I know Valma may well be long gone, but her recipe lives on :)

I you're into experimenting, a cherry spin on this recipe would be great for Christmas :)

1 cup SR flour
2 teaspoons cocoa
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons margarine
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

Sauce:
1/2 cup brown sugar(if you don't have it use white)
1 dessertspoon cocoa
300 mls boiling water

Sift flour, cocoa and add sugar. Stir melted margarine into flour mixture.
Add beaten egg and milk. Mix and pour into pie dish.

Combine brown sugar and cocoa, sprinkle on top of pudding mix in dish. Pour boiling water gently over this.
Bake in a 200 degree oven for 30 minutes.
Serve with cream or icecream.

Have you ever added your own family recipe to a book?

Don't you think a Christmas recipe book would be a great end of year fundraiser for a club or school?

Santa cupcakes

I had a can of condensed milk in the pantry. It was one of those cans my mum randomly hands over and says, "Take this, you might be able to use it". O.K. then.

Combine that can with looking at my christmas board on Pinterest and we(me and Izzy) made some santa cupcakes with strawberries and  cream. I don't own a piping bag, so a freezer bag with a small hole sniped out of the corner did the job with the cream.

Chocolate cupcakes using a 395 gram can of condensed milk.

150 gr margarine

3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs (I used one duck egg)

2 Tablespoons cocoa powder

1 and a half cups SR Flour

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180 deg/160 degrees fan forced.

Beat butter and condensed milk until light and creamy.

Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Stir in flour and cocoa, alternately with milk.

Spoon into patty pans and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Icing

2 tablespoons condensed milk

1/2 cup icing sugar

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Combine until smooth. If it is a bit stiff, add a few drops of hot water at a time to get it to a spreadable consistency, a bit like nutella.

I had to admit, it was the best tasting cake mix I have ever tasted!

My pantry is full of pegs, even the freezer!

 The santas were put on iced normal sized cupcakes. The top 'hat' sliced off the strawberry and then a bit of cream piped on and then the hat put back on top with a pom pom of cream. Chia seeds for eyes.

These were whole strawberries placed on mini cupcakes taken out of the case. Cream piped around the base of the strawberry and a pom pom on top.

Aren't these the cutest christmas cupcakes you have ever seen?

Have you got your christmas baking on yet?

Do you use pegs to keep stuff closed?

Mini grapefruit cheesecakes

My dear old Dad is retired now. He likes to go on short walks a couple of times a day. While on one of his walks he noticed a tree laden with fruit, asking the lady who owned the tree if he could pick some, he hurried home to get his wheelbarrow.

He was proud of punch when Mum came home, "Look at all these big lemons I got". Mum had a look, only to shake her head and wonder what she was going to do with all those grapefruit.

Mum googled and started the grapefruit diet, I took one home out of curiosity, I always like to try new things. It sat on my kitchen bench, and probably would have perished. 

Good thing I came across a cute little cheesecake recipe in an old magazine, and I didn't mind eating the rest here and there. It's actually not too bad in small doses. 

The original recipe used lemon rind and juice, and you could substitute that instead of the grapefruit I used.
I used a 6 large muffin tin and about 8 spaces of a smaller 12 muffin tin, with large muffin cases. 

A packet of gingernut biscuits
85 gram pkt lemon jelly crystals
1 teaspoon grapefruit rind and 2 tablespoons juice
250 grams cream cheese
2 tablespoons caster sugar

Place a biscuit in the bottom of the muffin cases.
Combine 2 tablespoons of the jelly crystals with a quarter cup of boiling water, mix in rind and juice and sit in the fridge to cool.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Gradually add the lemon jelly, rind and juice mix, beating well between each addition until smooth and thick. 

Spoon over biscuit bases and smooth tops. Refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight. 

Hot tip: Be careful not to separate the cream cheese mix from the muffin cases around the edges as the jelly will not set on the top, it will seep through to the bottom of case.

Mix remaining jelly crystals with 2/3 cup of boiling water, and place in fridge. When cool, pour over cheesecakes and let set for at least 30 minutes.

There may be not enough jelly to do them all, I decorated some with grated chocolate or strawberries. 

Holiday snaps in the hills

Truckin' in the Mt Barker shopping centre

Melbas chocolate factory - Woodside

Visiting Brett's dad in Centennial Park - Adelaide
It's been a year since he passed away

The big rocking horse - Gumeracha

The Farm Barn - Hahndorf.
Summer had an absolute ball here.

Easter jaffa cake

Izzy wanted to cook a cake. A brown cake. By this I assumed she meant a chocolate cake. I have some oranges to use up, so we combine the two and made a jaffa marble cake.

Marble Jaffa Cake

2 eggs

cream

1 heaped teaspoon orange zest

1 cup SR Flour

1 Tblspn cocoa

orange food colouring

Crack 2 eggs in a 1 cup measure. Fill to top with cream.

Add zest and flour, stir to combine.

Divide mixture in half. Add cocoa to one half, and orange food colouring to the other.

Add half of the cocoa to a lined cake tin in blobs here and there. Add all of orange and then add rest of cocoa mix on top.

Bake for 30 minutes.

My sous chef/bowl licker!

I iced our cake with just icing sugar, cocoa and water. Then went about making grass, carrots and a bunny with fondant we had left over in the freezer, from a Cake to the Rescue cake. This is what ours turned out like, pretty darn good if I say so myself!

Just like a chocolate paddle pop....only homemade

You know when you get invited to a tupperware party, and you look for the cheapish things that you think you might use. These icy tups were one of the things I ordered that I thought I might use. I bought them almost a year ago. I have used them, with a recipe containing jelly a couple of times. I don't know how but I managed to lose one along the way too, god knows where, Izzy probably discarded it somewhere in the garden, never to be seen again. It's always after the fact, you see them somewhere for much cheaper in the shops, I'm such a sucker. I keep telling myself, they are worth it though because you can put the cup upside down on to the handle and it catches the drips. That's all good til they tip it up all over themselves!

I came across this recipe the other day. With the weather warming up, I thought I'd better getting my moneys worth from them, instead of cluttering up my junk draw. 



                             Chocolate Ice Creams

2 cups milk

2 tblsp sugar

1 tblsp cocoa

1 tblsp cornflour

 Bring the milk to the boil. Whisk in the sugar, cocoa and cornflour, stirring continuously until the mix thickens.Pour into moulds and freeze until solid.

Add ice magic

Devour!!