Christmas Baking

Who doesn't like some sweet treats around Christmas time?! And so far this Christmas I have had quite a few opportunities to try out some more of the delicious looking sweets recipes I have seen on Pinterest! With a family morning tea which included my Grandma and her 10 Great Grandchildren!!, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to try the white chocolate covered oreo's with peppermint pin I saw a few months ago.

Once again I am loving recipes with 3 ingredients!

The Ingredients:
Oreo cookies
White chocolate
Candy canes (the original recipe called for peppermint sprinkles, but I didn't have those so I chopped up candy canes which at this time of year seem to breed in the pantry and in my children's sticky little hands).

And I love recipes which take no time at all!

The Recipe:
Dip the Oreo in melted white chocolate, place on a baking sheet and sprinkle with crushed candy canes. Let set in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

Enjoy!! Though beware...

The Danger:
Stopping after just 1!

For the family christmas morning tea I also made the Oreo Truffles I made a few weeks ago, but with the Christmas twist of sprinkling the white chocolate coated truffles with crushed candy cane!

The Results:
Stunning and festive!

Now none of this was gluten-free, so for my Mum I also made some peppermint bark in Christmas cookie cutters. Again it was super simple and super quick to prepare and looked pretty great too.

There was only one real problem that I ran into with all these recipes.

The Pitfall:
The 30 degree Sydney Summer heat yesterday led to some rapid melting. But we did manage to find a solution...

The Solution: 
Eat them really fast!

What are you baking for a sweet treat this Christmas?

4th Birthday Morning Tea

Yesterday, Noah turned 4! It is hard to even describe how fast the last 4 years have gone, but then if you are a parent you understand this phenomena. Last year for his 3rd birthday we held a huge firetruck party, with all the trimmings. This year was a quieter affair, and we decided on just inviting our family to share in Noah's celebration. With everyone so busy at this time of year, we decided a morning tea still allowed everyone to get to their other commitments for the silly season. And so it was that we hosted a high tea of sorts for our 4 year old son!

Our menu included a cheese platter, a fruit platter, a bowl of berries (Noah was so impressed to find this included blackberries - which are hard to come by here in Sydney and super expensive when you do find them), oreo truffles, hazelnut truffles (for my gluten-intolerant mum), fresh baked scones (baked by my handy hubby from my Nana's recipe), tea and coffee. It was a delicious spread for  a warm, and slightly muggy, summer morning.

Of course, there was also cake. Noah had been telling anyone who asked that he was having a "Bob-The-Builder" party for his birthday. So running with that theme for the cake, I set about deciding on a cake. I saw this pin describing "super fancy cake decorating...that would make [me] look pretty clever" - hard to resist right? So I picked a simple drawing of Bob, and set about making my buttercream icing and drawing the cake decal to place on top of the cake. And I think it turned out pretty damn good. We had a minor arm amputation and some running of the icing due to the hot weather, but it looked good and tasted great.

Noah was certainly pretty excited to see Bob on top of his cake!

After much candle blowing and lots of eating and playing it was time to say bye to Noah's birthday for another year. No doubt the next year will fly by just as quickly!

Oreo Truffles

Last weekend we attended the Baptism of two of our nieces, Amalia and India-Rose. I was even blessed to have been asked to be beautiful Amalia's Godmother. After the service we went back to our brother and sister-in-law's house for a huge feast. Dips, cheese, olives and chips started us off. Then there was the slow roasted lamb served on lavish with tzatziki, guacamole, tabouli, and an assortment of delicious salads. Cakes galore followed, including the most surprisingly delicious oreo truffles. They were so delicious I went back for seconds, and would have gone back for thirds but they were all gone. I knew I had to recreate these balls of crunchy delicious chocolate-oreo-cheesecake goodness.

Of course, I turned to Pinterest for some recipes and found the most delightful pin about these delicious treats. And whilst I initially thought I would make these treats for my sons approaching 4th birthday, I couldn't resist when I walked past the oreo's in Coles today. They will now form the dessert course of dinner tomorrow night with my sister and brother-in-law, celebrating the completion of our new kitchen. And I had a fun afternoon making these no-bake desserts with my soon-to-be-4-year-old-chef.

The best thing about this recipe - 3 ingredients!
1. Oreo's (1 & 1/4 packages of double stuff oreo's)
2. Cream Cheese (half a container of spreadable philadelphia cream cheese)
3. Chocolate (1 packet of each milk & white cadbury melts)

I actually added a 4th ingredient - hazelnut meal because I have an excessive amount of it from a failed flourless cake. And who doesn't love chocolate with hazelnut?

We set about grinding the oreo's in the blender to make a fine powder, mixing in the cream cheese until thoroughly combined and rolling the bite-sized balls of oreo-cheesecake-goodness. Noah got noticeably distracted by the beater however and left most of the rolling to me. After chilling them in the fridge for a couple of hours I dunked them in chocolate and rolled some in the hazelnut meal before setting them in the freezer to set again.

After a final drizzle with chocolate, the end product doesn't look too shabby. And they taste DELICIOUS! I just hope there are enough left for dinner tomorrow night!