Our Easter Break - Made #BetterWithCake

It's movie night 

The popcorn is popped

And there's a big slab of cheesecake

Strawberry topped

The sun is shining

It's time for a stroll

So pack up the sarnies

And the swiss roll

Its Easter Sunday

And time for our roast dinner

Chocolate gateau for afters

Is always a winner

Time to get creative

With an afternoon of art

When the doodling is done

Enjoy tea and a bakewell tart

A day of shopping in town

Just Aally and me

A pit stop for some coffee

And a gorgeous brownie

Time for some pampering

Just me and my girl

So out come the face packs

And the Viennese Whirls

A weekend away 

Just my sister and me

Always stopping for cake

And a refreshing pot of tea

Browsing in Harrods

And admiring the price

I'd need to remortgage 

Just to afford a slice

Afternoon Tea 

With some friends after school

With a tower of temptation

To make anyone drool

I love school holidays

So many memories to make

And whatever you do

It'll be "Better With Cake"

We had an amazing few weeks over Easter filled with lots of fun and laughter. From days out in the park with Aalliyah to a weekend away in the big city with my sister. We shared some amazing moments together as  well as some pretty amazing cakes...

“This post is an entry for #betterwithcake Linky Challenge (http://bit.ly/betterwithcake), sponsored by Mr Kipling. Learn more at   https://www.facebook.com/mrkiplingcakes”

Did you enjoy your Easter holidays? I'd love to hear what you got up to.

Saturday Is Caption Day - #SatCap

It is Saturday again, (boy do these weeks keep flying past) which can only mean one thing.... Saturday Caption time! Do you have a funny caption to go with this picture? Those poor chicks.. Aalliyah looks set to devour the whole of "chickville".

Have a go at captioning some more great photographs with Mammasaurus.

Have a great weekend!

My Easter Break - In An Egg Shell

Ok, So we are done with the snow, ice and freezing cold temperatures of winter and Easter came to mark the beginning of spring, sunshine and an indication that summer was on its way! The only problem was that when I woke up on Easter Sunday morning ready to forget the diet for one whole day and devour everything anything in sight, I was greeted with the not so pleasant site of lingering snow which had been laying around taunting me and my thoughts of summer for days! Looking out of my window I could see the wooden bench in the garden topped with snow and my flower pots each with a frozen layer of ice. I turned around expecting to see gifts under the tree, not chocolate eggs and daffodils. Needless to say I was not dreaming of a white Easter and I'm pretty sure no one else had banked on it either given the sizzling temperatures this time last year.

Yes I realise I have moaned for a whole paragraph about the weather, but hey.. I'm british and thats what we do best!

Anyway, In spite of the weather, both myself and Aalliyah still managed to have a wonderful Easter as I hope you all did too. There was the typical roast dinner. I opted for a nice joint of pork for the ever so selfish reason that I hadn't had roast pork since starting weight watchers in October, so we were having it.. End of story!

Me and Aalliyah had lots of fun making some Easter inspired treats for her class, which she gave out on the last day of term, when she also came home with some goodies for winning first place in the egg decorating competition.

No Easter is complete without a bit of bonnet making.. Aalliyah also made her very own town called "Chick-ville"

Plus we had a beautiful Easter stroll in the Spring sunshine snow. There is just something so "British" about seeing a beautiful blooming daffodil..poking out of 4 inches of snow! 

Surely we have had the worst of it now? We have put up with an Arctic Winter and now Sprong (Spring gone wrong) Can we please just have a sizzling summer full of sunshine, sunshine and that other thing that went missing last year... Oh yes.. SUNSHINE! 

Good luck to the first person that moans when it's too hot!! You know there will be someone!

How did you spend your Easter? I hope what ever you did you had a wonderful time celebrating.

Chocolate Nest Cakes

These tasty crispy cakes are the perfect thing to make with the kids. Besides the melting of the chocolate, they need minimal supervision and will have a blast making them. They are perfect for Easter when topped with some mini eggs and really resemble a birds nest. Aalliyah has so much fun making them for her class as an end of term treat. Needless to say they all had a blast eating them too!!

What you will need:

Shredded Wheat (Approx 15 Biscuits)
300g Milk chocolate
Mini Eggs 

Method:

Place the wheat biscuits into a large bowl and start crushing with your hands making sure not to leave any big bits in.

Next take the chocolate and break it up into a glass bowl, place the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Gently stir the chocolate as it melts until it is all melted. 

Take the bowl off of the heat and place to one side. Next take your bowl of shredded wheat and gradually shake the contents into the bowl of chocolate gently stirring as you continue to pour all the wheat in until it is all evenly covered in chocolate.

** I found that pouring the wheat into the chocolate as opposed to the other way round was much easier as it didn't clump together and set to quickly.

Next take a table spoon and start filling up your cake cases, gently pressing them in the middle with the back of your spoon, making a nest shape. Top one or more mini eggs and then leave to set in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours.

Then... Enjoy!

The great thing about this recipe is that you can add a bit of what ever you fancy.. Maybe add in a mix of dark and milk chocolate? Or add some dessicated coconut for added flavour.

This recipe makes approx 30 smallish crispy cakes, so alter the ingredients to make more or less.

First place - "Egg-cellent"

I was so pleased when I heard that Aalliyahs school were holding an egg decorating competition as this is something that was never done in her old school and she had so much fun (as she does with anything crafty) making it.
Aalliyah decided early on that she wanted to do something in keeping with the traditional Easter story of Christ's Resurrection. 
So who better to model your egg on that the Lord himself! Very surprisingly (given that she attends a Catholic school) she seemed to be the only pupil who chose something remotely linked to Jesus and the story of Easter.

So here is the finished product!

She had a blast making it, using odds and ends from her craft box and then raiding my first aid kit for some bandages (Robes) Making this also inspired her to go online and read a little more on the story of Easter which is fab, I remember re-learning the story every year at school, so it was nice to read it together.

Another bonus was that her egg came in first place which she was over the moon about. She was grinning from ear to ear when I picked her up from school and managed to bag herself a yummy Easter egg and some cool Easter pens.

I am also entering Aalliyahs egg into another competition over at the Polarn O.Pyret Facebook page. Click the link below to find out more about their competition where you could win a gorgeous bunny and maybe a £50 shopping spree with them :-)

Best of luck!

Click here to win with Polarn O.Pyret

Have you been egg decorating yourselves? I am looking forward to Easter Sunday and to doing more crafty things with Aalliyah as well as her making her tradition Easter bonnet!

Reasons To Be Cheerful #R2BC

Easter is almost upon us which means school holiday time again! Most parents do nothing but moan about there kiddies being off but I have to admit, I enjoy having Aalliyah at home and feel lost when she goes back to school after time off. (I must be mad!) I'm hoping  to do alot of fun things in the holidays including the usual egg hunt, Easter crafts and some baking. Lets hope the weather is nice enough for some days out. Not even lots of heat, but just no snow would be great! 

What has put a smile on your face this week?