My Mothers Day Wishlist!

In this house we love spoiling each other throughout the year. The only day we don't celebrate in some way really is Valentine's Day. I like it but Mr B isn't a fan so we meet each other half way! What we do celebrate is Mothers and Father's Day.

My children always make something lovingly at school which I adore and I always get 2 lovely cards and a gift from each of them which makes me feel very special. They love giving gifts so below I've written some of the items I'd love to open on Mother's Day (that's 26th March guys!)

• A small packet of Booja Booja chocolates. Expensive but delicious, I'd go for the Hazelnut Crunch flavour please! If not for Mothers Day then keep them on the list for Easter!

• A new pair of jeggings. Mine cost less than a tenner and I am in need of some! Only one store in my town sells the comfiest jeggings and I fit a 14 in their store (every other store makes me feel like an elephant!)

• I could happily settle for a new book please. I love to read Philippa Gregory and there is plenty of room on my bookshelf for more of her work!

• I'd love another superdry hoody. I know that's pricey but you can get a bargain online and I'd love another one, I wear my blue one loads so it would be good to change around!

• Bright flowers! I love flowers but rarely buy them for myself, so a lovely bunch of flowers would do nicely.

If I'm lucky I may well get something off of my little wishlist but of course, waking up in the morning having breakfast with my 2 precious little ones and seeing what they made me at school is really all I need...So Mr B can spoil me instead haha!!

Cupcake Mumma

Midges Birthday Sleepover!

Midge in her new onesie

I can't believe my girl is now 9..NINE!? It's crazy how fast these birthdays come around. Her actual birthday was really quite quiet because she had school. Going to school on your birthday used to be a real bore but now they get a birthday certificate and a cupcake in assembly and the birthday boy or girl can bring in cake to share at home time, so needless to say, Midge wasn't too disappointed about it being a school day.

We had birthday pancakes before school and let her open all her cards and gifts before getting her uniform on. We bought her a pug onesie, lots of nail polish related gifts, boxes of Malteasers (her favourite chocolate) and a few other bits. It was odd not having anyone home when I knew there was a birthday but I got all her bits sorted for dinner and tidied up.

Mr B and I collected the children from school. Midge had a surprise visit from her cousins and we celebrated with a chip shop dinner (last minute change of plan!) and Malteaser covered chocolate birthday cake. It's the first birthday cake I've ever made that I couldn't eat!

Chocolate covered chocolate cake as requested

The cousins stayed until way too late and we all went to bed way earlier than we would usually but we'd all had such a good day and as the next day was another school day we all needed some kip!

I'm glad Midge had another great birthday. At the weekend we celebrated a second time with her 2 friends and 2 cousins. Mr B and A went to stay with his sister so it was just us girls. We had a junk dinner, cupcakes, a nail painting session, pillow fighting, we watched 2 movies with lots of popcorn before collapsing into bed gone midnight. I shared my bed with my 4 year old niece who was first to drop off, then the girls slowly went one by one until at 1am everyone was asleep and I could finally shut my eyes!

We had such a lovely evening (I still won't be rushing to host any more sleepovers though!) There were some tears, some bickering, black nail varnish spilled on the floor, bedrooms were trashed, popcorn was everywhere, screaming was most definitely done and I must have been shattered still by Sunday but it was all good! I'm still finding friends belongings down the side of the beds and under things, honestly, girls must pack for a week!

Nieces!

Midges birthday summed up in one word by Midge: Awesome!!

Cupcake Mumma

Delicious Free From Chocolate Pastry Roll

Two weeks ago The Great British Bake Off focused on pastry. I've seen lots of lovely tarts and vol-au-vents but didn't join in on this occasion, I had the time because I use a bought gluten free puff pastry and can make a gluten free shortcrust pastry, I guess I just lacked the motivation this week and I'm not very imaginative!

I did bake a pastry related item however but chose not to link it because my bake didn't match any of the challenges. This bake is super easy, it's a gluten and milk free chocolate pastry roll and was delicious.

Making Chocolate with Little A

A few months ago my friend bought me a surprise gift: a raw chocolate kit. It came with chocolate powder, syrup and butter all in its raw form ready for me to make up a batch. I made these before little A had nursery so you can see that they don't take long to make.

A got involved with the stirring of the melted butter:

We added cocoa powder together (very messy!) and kept stirring until it looked so glossy and delicious.

I added the syrup, but A could have done it with the amount I put in. I still try to make my dark chocolate sweeter than its supposed to be..into the silicone mold it goes! This came in the set too.

An hour or so later the chocolates were popped out and we had fun eating homemade, rich chocolates on the nursery run!

Cupcake Mumma

Very Delicious Gluten Free Milk Free Cookies

I had this recipe from a fellow Twitter friend some time ago now and it's my 'go to' cookie recipe I think it's originally from an Annabel Karmel book but where ever it's from it really is delicious!

For this recipe, which makes roughly 20 cookies, you will need:

• 100g softened unsalted butter
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 100g light muscavado sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 175g plain flour
• half a teaspoon of baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 100g chocolate chips or shamed up chocolate buttons

Preheat the oven to 190 C. 

Beat the sugars and butter together until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla essence and mix. 

Sift in flour, baking powder and salt and mix again.

Add the chocolate and mix in.

Roll into balls about the size of a walnut and put onto non-stick grease proof paper on a baking tray. Bake for about 12 minutes.

Put the cookies on a wire rack to cool and eat while crispy on the outside and gloopy inside.

CupcakeMumma

Hobbycraft Chocolate Moulds Perfect for Valentines!*

Now I know how a lot of people feel about Valentines Day but sadly I'm not one of them. I love the big heart balloons and making a meal for Hubby complete with anything else I can find in store!

Something I really wanted to try this year was making my own chocolates. As if it were meant to be, an email dropped into my inbox from HobbyCraft to review this great little chocolate making set with the little ones.

The set includes:

1 plastic mould with assorted heart shapes

3 large chocolate coins 2 milk chocolate and 1 white

1 Plastic piping bag

1 pack of hearts *these contain peanut oil*

Set of Instructions

We donned our aprons and got out a bowl suitable for microwave use. This was just to speed things up and as a responsible adult supervising, I felt it was fine. It's worth noting though that we melted a small amount of the white chocolate in the piping bag provided. I was surprised to see that you could just pop the bag with the chocolate into some warm water and allow it to melt. As this set is aimed at age 7+ this does allow more independence which is great. I however, have a 6 and 2 year old so I was opting for the quickest approach!

Midge broke up the chocolate and we watched for the timer to go on the microwave. We heated the chocolate bit by bit so as to not burn it and ruin the activity!

After melting the chocolate we began filling our moulds. I took over using the piping bag because Midge found it difficult to not overfill the bottom of the mould. She did however use a spoon to fill the mould up to the top and this was very easy to do, if a little messy! We had more chocolate than we would've done if we used the bag because you always get some stuck to the sides of the bag, same as icing a cake really, except when it's chocolate I hate wasting any amount!

After licking out the bowls (yes that is necessary!) I popped the mould set to one side whilst I did some washing up. After 15/20 minutes the chocolate was set! I didn't even need the fridge! Obviously popping it into the fridge you will wait even less time, I just got side tracked. Here's our two toned chocolates in their setting process:

Chocolate art?

Here they are ready to eat!

Everyone said the chocolate tasted great (no surprises there) and they looked great (they will be so good for my valentines idea!)

It was a great activity to share with Midge and an older child can be left to do most of the activity alone which is obviously fantastic.

It's worth noting that I didn't have any problems cleaning the moulds which are reusable.

Midge wants to try colouring the white chocolates next time which should be interesting!

*Hobbycraft sent us 1 chocolate making set free of charge for the purpose of this review. Thank you Hobbycraft!

Cupcake Mumma

A Gooey Chocolate Cupcake!

It's National Cupcake Week and I think you'd agree with me that it'd be pretty rude of me not to post a cupcake recipe this week. I've got a gluten and dairy free gooey chocolate cupcake recipe for you all here so i hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

110g Doves Farm self raising flour

110g caster sugar

110g dairy free butter (I use vitilite)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Vanilla essence

50g Coco Powder

Tesco Finest dark chocolate copped up into fair sized chunks

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add your eggs mixing well.

Add your flour, baking powder, vanilla and coco powder. Give your mixture a good stir before adding the chocolate chunks and separating into cupcake cases.

Bake on 180 for about 15/20 minutes (My oven is pretty fast so do keep an eye!)

If you love cupcakes like I do, then you just have to bake some on national cupcake week!

CupcakeMumma

Gluten Free Petit Fours- Great Bloggers Bake Off!

Wow, so already it is week 3 of the Great Bloggers Bake Off. This was really hard for me. I didn't want to chance making dairy free floating islands (or more like I couldn't be bothered) and either the prep was too long or I had to buy extra things in (normally online!) to make the perfect and scrummy trifle. There's no messing with a trifle but it can be done both gluten and dairy free with some planning and patience- neither of which I've had this week.

I was about to give up when I thought going simple was better than not doing anything at all. So for week 3 I give you gluten and dairy free Chocolate Chip and Hazelnut Petit Fours!

To make the cake:

110g butte- I use Vitalite
110g caster sugar
2 Eggs
110g self raising flour - Doves Farm
25g Cocoa Powder
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tbsp soya milk
Dairy free chocolate buttons/chips/crushed up chocolate bar

You simply mix all your ingredients together in the above order and pour the mixture into a baking tin. I used a small rectangular one as I wanted small squares. Bake at 180C (pre heated) and leave for 20 minutes.

Tip: Make sure your tin is greased AND lined and  don't open the oven door too early as your cake may sink!

After baking, allow your cake to cool before cutting it into small squares, as many as you can manage and decorate with some chocolate sauce or icing. Sprinkle a few hazelnuts on top and you have yourself a delightfully simple but yummy little chocolate cake! And I'm making it count!!

Do head on over to all the baking fun with Helen and Jenny! I'm off to look at some more tasty bakes and get ready for next weeks challenge!

CupcakeMumma

Pinaddicts June!

Hello! Welcome to another Pinterest Challenge. I'm really disappointed that I haven't found any shadow boxes yet as I've pinned such a wonderful idea and even have a big, empty wall waiting for this Pinterest craft so if you have any ideas let me know!

On to Junes task! I decided to make my Pinaddicts June craft a Father's Day one. So, to come up with something my Dad would love. What better than chocolate?

These are called Candy Bouquets and here is how you make them!

Gather all your items together and start by wrapping some nice tissue paper and cellophane wrap around a cut piece of florist foam, this will hide the unsightly green colour! 

One you've done that, start using strong tape (yes I soon realised my mini sellotape was not 'man' enough for the job) and secure your chocolates to the kebab sticks.

Insert each stick into the foam however you like until you feel it's perfect!

Add some finishing touches if you like, I added a nice blue ribbon I found in my craft box but you could do anything you like!

 Easy! Not the best picture I'll give you that but it survived a buggy walk and 2 bus rides so I don't think it came out too bad! Needless to say Pop loved it and from what I hear, it didn't last too long!!

Yes...He is 'smelling' the chocolate...And maybe kissing it?

 This week the lovely Kerry over at MyLoveBumps is hosting the Pinaddicts Challenge Linky so please link up over there and check out everybody else's! Don't forget to keep your eyes out for #Pinaddicts Tweets too! Now, what to make for July on top of service books and flowers for next months wedding!!

CupcakeMumma x