Mars Bar and Snickers Slice...

So I've been a terrible blogger recently... I did promise you the recipes and following phases to my care packages... And yes I have been terribly slow but hopefully I can get at least the recipes out of the way today and follow up with my care package post over the weekend :-)

Firstly... I love mars bars - almost as much as I love snickers and marshmallows :-) put them all into a bowl and heat... my favourite treat! Everyone has their own little way of making mars bar slice and I won't claim that mine is any different or any better - I just add snickers! So the origin of this recipe has been with me since about year 4 when I went to the movies with a friend and her mum let us mars bar slice to sneak into the theatre!! And it goes as follows...

Ingredients:

3x Mars Bars (the normal bar size)

3x Snickers Bars (also the normal bar size)

60g butter (any cooking butter will do)

3 cups of Rice bubbles (or some cheap variation as I did)

1 cup of halved marshmallows

1/2x Cadbury block of chocolate (for drizzling over)

Some sprinkles (cos everything needs sprinkles!)

Method:

1. CHOP IT UP! This recipe does involve lots of chopping I will admit :-) I slice my snickers and mars bars width wise and fairly even so they melt really well. The butter I cut into cubes - again to make sure they melt really well :-) Marshmallows are halved or close enough for the same reason... just watch out for your knives - they get super sticky!

2. After everything is cut the fun begins! Melt the butter in a pan (in a big pan because you're going to be adding a lot of rice bubbles!). Once melted add the mars bars and snickers. Once that is almost melted add your halved marshmallows...

Knowing what the melted parts look like is helpful (so I've happily been told) so the following pictures are of melted:

Butter / Mars bars and Snickers / Marshmallows

3. By now it looks like a sugary, chocolatey, yummy goo. This part is more of a tried and tested method. I normally put 2 cups of rice bubbles into the melted goo and then see how the mixture sticks. Everyone likes their slice a little different. One of my friend's loves it to have way more chocolate and much less rice bubbles as he is of the opinion rice bubbles are too healthy for his body... I however, generally like to stretch the mixture enough to make a tray and a bit so that if it's being used for something (i.e. a care package) I will still have some left over to munch on - or take into work! Moral of the story - use 3 cups as a guide and employ the concept of give or take a little :-)


4. Tip the mixture out of pan and into your baking paper-ed tins (I use a simple rectangular slice tin and half of a regular square tin - dimensions unknown). Press the mixture around to flatten it out to an even thickness. It can get a bit tricky because the mixture is still warn and your knife / wooden spoon tends to want to take the sugary goodness with it... I find it easy to use a large blade butter knife and dip it in a bit of boiling water works :-)

5. Melt half a block of cadbury's chocolate in the microwave (I have a fairly powerful microwave to did 30 seconds followed by 2x 10 second bursts with a good stir in between to utilise the uneven melting). Drizzle chocolate over the slice... I'll leave designs up to you depending on the occasion - I have drizzled a 'B' into more than one of my slices previously!

6. Most importantly... throw as many sprinkles as you can at your design and hope it sticks because in the end we all know that sprinkles are the best thing man ever invented (apart from edible glitter of course!)!!


So happy cooking little munchkins and please share with children... This was one of my favourites when I was younger and a square of this is really much better for you than a whole chocolate bar (so I keep telling myself)!!

Peace x.

Baileys and Choc Chip cookies

So I made the most A+mazing biscuits on Sunday night and I just had to share it with my fellow (alcoholic) bakers! Anyone else who is a BIG fan of Baileys will love these Baileys and Choc Chip cookies! I came about them after a craving of Baileys. Now I love to experiment and so thought... hey there has got to be somebody out there that also shares my joy (and disappointment when it is an epic failure) and started searching. To my luck this wonderful Mama has created a fantastic blog that contains incredible delights - as she so rightly says... Enter at the risk of your diet :-)

I know it's an American recipe but it is easy to convert (and you'll find a lot of our cup measurements sold in Australia are actually American and slightly off). So for starters you'll need to turn your oven to 180 degrees C. I chose to bake mine at 160 degrees C because I use a fan forced oven. From there you can either follow the recipe using whatever type of measurement instruments you have - or you can convert everything... Up to you! I just borrowed my mum's old measuring stuff as it's in the correct system - I get confused about what it's called so I might make a bit of a fool of myself by saying I think it's called Metric :-)

Anyway... Much luck with your cooking adventured! The recipe is pretty easy and you'll absolutely LOVE the outcome (who doesn't love cookies with 1/2 a cup of Baileys in it!!). I'm going to try it with the mint version of Baileys in the not too distant future and maybe crush up some of the mint slice chocolates (the ones with crystalised peppermint through the centre not the cream style filling) and of course The Nerd's Wife's Nutella Choc Chip Cookies. I'll let you know how I go!

Peace x.

Care Package... Final Phase

So I totally know I am cheating but am going to have to do my phases out of order! Beautiful Kristina received the care package and was absolutely thrilled! She was so happy she even posted it on Facebook (big win!) :-)

I am so glad I was able to cheer up such a downer of a day! I'm wondering if Mr Navy has received his yet? I'm pretty sure that one will take a little longer considering it has to be transported to a boat (ship I'm told). I promise to upload all my pretty pictures and recipes over the weekend! I've been a bit slack but am slowly getting through my list so hopefully you can understand :-)

Have an amazing day! I'm pretty sure I will with a whole big packet of twisties awaiting me in our work kitchen :-)

Peace x.

Care package... phase one!

So I have this beautiful friend (Yes Kristina you are quite amazing!). She's more than just a little rad... We have a... lot in common :-) But alas, she decided to be a little law nerd and move to Q.L.D to study (curse you :-P ). It's been raining a lot. And she's been more than a little sick. But now since she is feeling better (and it is pouring with rain outside) I thought I'd cook up a storm with the few spare hours I have up my sleeve and send a care package her way! It doesn't help that her uni accommodation doesn't believe in providing an amazing set of cookery utensils (working oven, microwave not caked in goop and a beautiful set of saucepans just to name a few!)!!

I was thinking a beautiful little basket filled with some beautiful little treats... until I remembered it had to be posted... So my conclusion was to blog the entire process and end result before sending and then direct her to it so she could see how amazing it looked BEFORE Australia Post got the grimely little paws on it :-)

Anyway time to do some shopping me thinks!
Peace x.

It's been a long week...

So I had quite a beautiful week believe it or not! It was long and a little tiring but I got there in the end - that's what counts hey? I was so tired at the start of the week and thought... oh no blood test time! but it ended up being OK after an amazing night's sleep :-)

Friday I did a fair amount of cooking, which was more than just a little bit enjoyable tehe. I made some yummy yummy peanut butter and choc chip cookies and also some no bake lemon slice (I promise I will make them again in the next 3 weeks so I will take some awesome pictures and get them posted on here ASAP). As usual I worked on Saturday, but it was not so bad as I got to finish at 1:30p.m. and we all pigged out on the goodies I took to eat anyway!

Saturday night I got to cross something off my list as well. I went out with one of my beautiful friends and we had mexican :-) it's a rather cute little place tucked away in an arcade style part of Coogee and goes by the name of Beach Burrito. My lovely Hollie is a vegetarian so we had vegetarian Nachos and bean and cheese Quesadilla.... soooo yummy! And of course we couldn't forget the most important part of our meal - the frozen Margaritas! I chose a vodka base and Hollie went with tequila (bad memories for me with that particular spirit :-P ). They were nothing short of amazing and definitely made our night far more enjoyable!

Sunday rolled around and I'd organised to see my friend mister Maccas again. We went to a new little cafe in Castle Hill. For those of you familiar the area it is on the outside of the mall, opposite Castle Tower's Piazza. OK so I must let you all know now... I've been searching the internet for about 5 minutes trying to find a website to link the name of this Cafe to with no avail. I found a few with some nasty reviews so I refuse to include them :-) The Cafe is called RAW 101 and it is not only a little cafe but also a clothing store so give them a break for 5 seconds guys.

I quite enjoyed the atmosphere but it may have to do with the beautiful sunshine that mother nature decided to grace us with - I was just disappointed mister Maccas had chosen to sit inside rather than out :-( Anyway... I chose to have a caramel latte on skim and he opted for a double shot latte. The caramel latte was made on site (by that I mean they didn't just make me a latte and then pour too much caramel topping into it... I can't remember what the beautiful girl serving said but they infused - don't quote me on that! - the beans themselves) and is was AMAZING! We sat around talking for way too long and were asked twice before we'd actually decided. This was not a bad thing... they weren't pushy and understood how Sundays generally are :-)

I chose to have an omlette and he had berry pancakes. They were both very tasty but not what I expected. I've grown up with an omlette being a toasted sandwich with all the filling on the inside, and was a bit shocked to find it mixed throughout the egg! It was still very tasty with the baby spinach, mushroom and tomato filling (I opted for no feta - I have a story I'll share with you about feta one day)! The pancakes were tasty (yes i steal my friends' food regularly - they understand) but weren't what I expected either. Rather than having berries throughout the pancakes they were merely placed on top with some (very very tasty syrup) drizzled over the top. The lovely breakfast came to $30-something altogether and I was actually fairly impressed. The cafe itself is a bit minimalist but I have to say that's how I roll... I'd prefer something like that than to go into a cafe with a whole bunch of 'stuff' decorating every inch of the premise (unless it's kooky and interesting of course).

So here is to the next week *raises coffe cup* and the adventures to come!
Peace x.