Get Baked: Honey Oat and Wheatgerm Bars

Mum is condemning super processed foods with heaps of refined sugar and salt. She is also in charge of food shopping. Therefore I'm on the hunt for healthy-ish snack recipes that don't taste like cardboard...

Step 1: Google and find a recipe and bring your iPad/tablet/laptop into the kitchen. Or be old school and write it down/print it out. Whatever.

Step 2: Pretend you're on a cooking show and pre-measure out all your ingredients.

Step 3: Follow aforementioned recipe.

Step 4: Whack in (preheated) oven and clean up the mess you inevitably made in the kitchen/draft a blog post while waiting for the timer to go off.

Step 5: Publish post and let other people know how talented you are! (refer first photo)

Verdict: Tasty. Easy. Needs more sultanas.

[Insert egg-related pun here]

I freaking LOVE holiday themed sweets, and while Googling "Easter desserts" these Candy Dipped Rice Krispie Treat Eggs caught my eye. 

Cute no?

A chocoholic's best friend

So last week the girls held a Kris Kringle exchange and we were all asked to bring a plate. Since I was working, I wanted something I could prepare the night before relatively easily and immediately thought Rocky Road (because what's easier than pouring a heap of melted chocolate over some random ingredients right?)


Trawling through the mass google results for the perfect recipe, I stumbled upon this one tucked away in a corner and thought you know what, I don't think I've ever had white choc rocky road. And thus my little adventure began.


Turns out white choc is a little more expensive than milk/dark choc (as are pistachios and cranberries over peanuts and cherries) but it's so worth it. The slight saltiness of the pistachios and macadamias are quite a nice surprise in contrast to the sweetness of marshmallows and chocolate (like mixing popcorn and M&Ms at the movies- yummmm). Did I mention they're super pretty too? 


I planned to cut them into gingerbread men shapes with cutters, however the tin was too small and the slab turned out too high to push the cutter all the way through. There was also too much filling/not enough chocolate and so the slice was quite puffy and not dense enough to cookie cut. Oh well, perfect excuse to make it again next year!

This is my jam.

Baked some Jam Drops this afternoon and thought I would document the recipe/process Instagram style :)

1. Start off with 125g softened butter and 3/4 cup white sugar (I used castor sugar).

2. Cream butter and sugar :)

 3. Mix in 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used essence) and 2 beaten eggs.

4. Add 1 & 1/4 cups plain flour (sifted), 1/4 cup cornflour (sifted) and 1/2 cup desiccated coconut.

5. Mix :)

6. Roll the mix into small balls. I used just a bit more than a teaspoonful for each ball and made approx 36.

7. Flatten/make little wells in the centre and fill with mum's homemade strawberry jam (or whatever other kind of jam you prefer).

8. Bake in the oven (I used 160C fan forced) for 15 minutes. Then let cool on tray.

9. Enjoy :D

Get baked

On Thursday during my lunch break on a trip to Woolies for afternoon snacks, I whizzed past the baking aisle to see that the Donna Hay macaron mixes were on special and figured I'd give them a go. They are relatively simple to make, as traditional macaron recipes require you to measure out all the ingredients precisely (weight wise, not volume wise) but this mix just comes in little sachets and all you need to add is some water and cream. 

The only trouble I had was that the lids didn't rise properly to create the little 'feet' they should have (my friend later mentioned that the Donna Hay magazine says you should tap the bottom of the tray to remove air bubbles- Gee, thanks for excluding that little tip on the box) and a lot of the filling kind of burst/ran out of the sides. Although, that was easily fixed I just removed the overflow and was left with reasonably round shapes to work with. 

The 'ganache' was more like cake icing, so I put them in the fridge and boy do they taste amazing once the filling has chilled a bit. They're not overly sweet, but are quite filling. So if you've ever wanted to try making your own macarons, but have been put off by all the fiddly processes and ingredients, I highly recommend you give this a try :)

To market, to market.

Last night masses descended upon Forrest Place for the opening night of the Twilight Hawkers Market, and we decided to join them.


Our menu for the night consisted of; sesame balls, spring rolls, coconut water, spiral spuds, nachos, paella, donuts (both plain and jam filled) and crepes.


Needless to say I went home and fell into a deep food coma, and no doubt I will be back a number of times during the rest of the season as this event continues throughout summer until the end of March.


More info here.