Triple Mint Aero Biscuit Rocky Road!

You can never make too much rocky road, it's a fact! and a mantra to live by!

Rocky road will always be one of my fail safe go to recipes - need to whip up something in a jiffy? don't feel like turning on your oven in this amazingly warm weather we're having (jokes!) but if you do live in a warm climate...lucky you! and rocky road will become your new best friend! want to use up random contents of your baking cupboard? want to make something that sends through the post well?

Rocky road fits the bill for all! and one of my very favourite things about making rocky road is how customisable it is! 

There are endless flavour possibilities! Peanut butter lover, then try this.  Crazy for coconut try this, if peppermint is more your thing you'll love this...and I'm always thinking up new possibilities - a nutella & ferrero flavour one is definitely on the cards!! 

So when I was planning to make and post these to cheer up a mint aero loving recipient I decided they had to be mint aero to the max! So not only do they feature chopped up pieces of mint aeros, and mint aero balls, but also chopped up pieces of the little mint aero biscuit bars you get! This was a great addition, because it gives extra crunch alongside the rice krispie pieces! and the oreo pieces were thrown in because we all know oreo makes everything better! 

The one thing I don't like about rocky road is making it when you're on a diet! the little offcuts that come when you are chopping it up into squares are way too tempting! so I ended up trying more of this than I should have! but I'm a sucker for mint chocolate and this was one of my tastiest rocky road creations yet! 

Triple Mint Aero Biscuit Rocky Road:

Makes 16

From Cupcake Crazy Gem

350g milk chocolate 

100g dark chocolate

1 tsp vegetable oil

50g oreo cookies

140g mint aero 

100g mint aero balls

75g mint aero biscuit

130g mini marshmallows

35g cup rice krispies

Line an 8x8" square baking pan with parchment paper.

Break milk and dark chocolate into pieces and put in a large heatproof bowl above a pan of boiling water.  Stir in vegetable oil and mix until melted.

Remove from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes.

Chop the oreos into quarters, the mint aero into chunks and the mint aero biscuit bars into small pieces (Reserve back a few handfuls of the mix ins to use as toppings)

Stir in the rice krispies   Once completely cool, stir in the oreo cookies, mint aero, mint aero balls mint aero biscuit and mini marshmallows.  Mix well.

Spread into the prepared pan, smoothing out on top.  Add the rest of the toppings.  

Refrigerate for an hour, or overnight.

Eat and enjoy!

Salted Caramel & Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars

Recently there's been some baking fails around here! It started with me wanting to make peppermint patties, because it's not Christmas without a peppermint overload and since we can't get peppermint patties over here in the shops I wanted to make my own! There were tons of recipes all calling for coconut oil, which I didn't have, which I'm ashamed to admit because hello I'm the queen of coconut?! but with no coconut oil in sight I settled on a recipe using just condensed milk...well apparently there's a reason all those other recipes called for coconut oil - my patties did not set at all! So became a gooey mess! Next up I tried to make candy cane truffles to take to a Christmas party, again using condensed milk...and again they didn't set - why do you hate me condensed milk?! 

The third baking fail in the space of 2 weeks came from a chocolate pecan pie we tried to make for thanksgiving and we had a pastry fail...so when I decided I wanted to bake something for a friend from church who was having some health problems I asked her teenage sons what her favourite dessert was (she has an American husband so I was expecting something red velvet, or s'mores, or peanut butter like) and immediately they responded with pecan pie!!! You can imagine me groaning on the inside!

I can bake most things with zero problems, but pecan pie? Out of all the things she could want!

Fortunately I found this amazing recipe for pecan pie bars, where all you had to do was rub some flour, sugar and butter together to whip up your pastry and then press it down into your square tin - easy peasy! This was a pecan pie I could handle!

Think making caramel is hard? think again! You whip up this salted caramel straight in the microwave - easy peasy take 2! 

Chop up some pecans, pour the caramel on top, bake and drizzle with copious amounts of chocolate! 

What can go wrong? Nothing!!! Thank goodness, so finally I had a baking win! which is awesome because with Christmas right around the corner I'm about to go into baking overdrive and I have no more time for failures!

So if you love pecans, chocolate and salted caramel and want a tasty no fail treat then these are your guys!

Salted Caramel & Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars:

Makes 16 small or 9 large

Adapted from Averie Cooks

for the crust:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup plain flour

1/4 cup icing sugar

1 tbsp cornstarch

pinch of salt

for the filling:

8 ozs roasted pecan halves

1 cup dark chocolate chunks (approx 140g)

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup double cream

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

for the drizzle:

50g dark chocolate

1/2 tsp vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Line an 8x8 inch baking pan with tin foil, grease with a small amount of butter and don't skip this step otherwise it will not be easy to get your bars out.

In a large bowl, combine the butter, flour, sugar cornstarch and salt.  Rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers.  The mixture will go sandy, continue rubbing in until everything starts to come together.

Break pastry into clumps and pat them down into the prepared baking tin, using a spatula or I used my hands.

Chop pecans in half, and sprinkle over the pastry base.

Chop chocolate into small chunks and sprinkle over the pecans.

In a large microwavable safe bowl, combine the butter, sugar, double cream, vanilla and salt.  Heat on high power for 1 minute.

Remove bowl from microwave and whisk until mixture is smooth.

Return bowl to microwave for another minute on high power.

Remove bowl from microwave and whisk again.  Whisk in the vanilla and salt.

Slowly, and evenly pour the caramel mixture over the pecans and chocolate ensuring most of the filling is covered.

Bake for 28-30 minutes.  When your bars are ready the caramel will be vigorously bubbling away around the edges of the pan and the middle of the pan will be bubbling to a lesser extent.

Allow bars to cool in the pan for 3 hours, or overnight (ensuring you cover pan with clingfilm and put in an airtight container - not in the fridge).

Once cooled, add chocolate and vegetable oil to a small microwaveable bowl and heat in 30 second bursts.  The chocolate should all be melted by about 1 minute 30.  Pour into a piping bag and drizzle diagonally in both directions.

They will then be ready to slice and serve.

Eat and enjoy!

My First Ever Baby Shower!

So no-one really close to me has ever had a baby...or if they have they lived too far away for me to do anything about it! So I've never been to a baby shower which for a 26 year old mormon is pretty unheard of! 

As fate would cruelly have it, a few months after we moved to Vancouver my sister called to tell me she was pregnant and I also found out one of my best friends from high school was pregnant (the first out of our whole group of friends!) so I was more than heartbroken at the thought I was going to be missing both of these super important events, including their baby showers! With my love of all things sweet, and planning dessert tables I have been waiting to throw someone a baby shower for years! So when I met my friend Nicole at church here in Vancouver and found out she was expecting I knew I wanted to do something special for her! 

 I've decided if I could just be a party planner for the rest of my life I'd be so happy! I spent every day leading up to the baby shower dreaming up colour combinations and styles of table decorations! I was sad that I didn't have my cake stand collection here in Vancouver and so I had to make do with the limited resources I had but considering it was on a budget, it came together pretty well! 

I knew the chocolate ganache raspberry cupcakes were going to be the main focus of the table and so I decided the colour scheme should be pink to tie in with the pink raspberry frosting.  I spent a while thinking about what colour would work well with pink and so in the end I went with lime green.  I found that gorgeous polka dot sparkly tissue paper in the exact shades I needed and even found matching serviettes and paper plates in those colours too.

Luckily, my friend Kristen was able to lend me this pretty cake stand to make the cupcakes stand out...

I bought some pink and green plates to display the rest of the goodies, and I whipped up some of my oreo truffles because a party isn't a party without an oreo truffle! The green ones were mint flavour, 

and the pink ones I just made with regular oreo's and milk chocolate coating.  I drizzled each truffle in green or pink candy melt, and then put them in these cute colour co-ordinating mini cupcake liners.

I also tried out these creamy lime squares and I added some shredded coconut into the shortbread base because coconut and lime is a winner! 

These raspberry lemonade bars turned out great, and I loved how vibrant the colour turned out!

Kristen also brought a huge bowl of delicious fruit salad which I forgot to take a picture of! That was a great thing to bring because it was nice to even out all the sweetness with just a bit of healthiness on the side!!

I ordered the stripey straws off a baking website - they were my fave part of the table! and I also bought the mason jars from a canning factory, because drinks in jars makes everything more fun! 

To fill the jars, Cassie made up a few jugs of some rather delicious fresh raspberry lemonade! with real fresh raspberries in it too - it was sooo good!

Here's Nicole, who the baby shower was honouring! with the cute big sister Cambree.

Cambree's favourite part of the dessert table were the chocolate covered pretzels! She sure loved digging into them! as her face and hands will tell you!

After everyone devoured the food, it was time for a little present opening...

isn't this 'little sister' onesie the cutest! and Paisley, the baby of honour, is modelling it!

Cambree was enjoying all the excess wrappings!

Here's some of the lovely ladies that attended: Lindsay, Denise and Jessie

and here's my co-hosts Kristen and Cassie who produced some super fun shower games! 

One of the games was where you have to describe a baby word first round, then next round just use actions and the third round you just use one word.  

With quite a lot of the words involved there were some very funny actions going on! I think the look Lindsay is giving Denise here is even funnier than her action! 

I'm thinking maybe this was our 'hospital' action where we tried to recreate giving birth in an action!

I have no idea what's going on here but again, Kristen's face watching Nicole's actions below is pretty hilarious!

It was such a great night.  I love these girls I have met in Vancouver so much, I can't believe I only have 2 months left to enjoy them and then we're homeward bound back to the UK! 

Nutella & Peanut Butter S'moreos

Some recipes grab your attention more than others, when I saw these Peanut Butter Cup S'moreos over at Top With Cinnamon I knew I had to bake some up immediately! After all, only good can come of oreo's, peanut butter and toasted marshmallows! Clearly my immediately wasn't quite so quick...since I'm now here making them a month after I bookmarked them, but considering there's about 1672 recipes on my current 'to bake list' a month doesn't seem too long at all!

If you've never paid Izy's fantastically beautifully blog a visit, I urge you to do it immediately (and right now I'm referring to the same day immediately and not my one month later immediately!).  Not only have I adored her blog for a while, this week she got shout outs from Joy the baker and Call me Cupcake so when the creme de la creme of the baking world are shouting about a blog from the rooftops you know it's going to be good! She has incredible photography skills and awesome videos/gifs, but mostly I love the ingredients and originality of the treats Izy bakes up...plus we also share a love for Oreos, coconut and all things s'mores! oh yeah...and let's not forget - she's only 16!

So I decided to take Izy's treats one step further when I baked them up...and as I'm currently in a serious Nutella phase I swirled some of that in amongst my peanut butter layer! It turned out to be so delicious, I  kind of wished I'd skipped out the peanut butter altogether - I can see these are going to be dangerous because I'm already formulating so many future variations of them in my head! but going back to my Nutella phase...how is it that I managed to spend 25 years of my life without it? Yes, you heard me...after never having eaten it at any point in my whole life I suddenly decided 2 weeks ago I had to buy a jar.  Ever since it has been Nutella everything! Nutella on my pancakes...on my bagels (add some sliced bananas too and you're laughing!) in my ganache truffles, to dip pretzels into and even to dip Kinder sticks...yeah I dip chocolate in chocolate, I clearly don't know the meaning of the word moderation!

Since Valentine's is coming up, and since my sister sent me these awesome heart marshmallows in a package I got this week...I decided it would be super cute to use them for these s'moreos!

I topped one half with white marshmallows and the other half with pink ones...to tie them in even more with the season of love!

I'm also entering them into this months calendar cakes challenge by Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes, because the theme is love!

Nutella & Peanut Butter S'moreos:
Makes 9
Adapted from Top With Cinnamon

For the oreo base:

24 Oreos, crushed
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp milk

For the toppings:

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter, warmed
1/2 cup Nutella, warmed
24 large marshmallows, halved
2 peanut butter cups, chopped
1/4 cup mixed peanut butter and milk chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.
Line a 9" square pan with foil or parchment paper.  I didn't use any oil or butter to grease the lining because the base mixture lets out quite a lot of liquid as it is, and mine pulled away perfectly.

Crush Oreos in a blender until they resemble crumbs, stir in the butter and milk until incorporated.
Scatter the mixture evenly into the pan and press down with the back of a spoon.  Bake for 6-8 minutes.

Whilst the base is baking, warm up the peanut butter in the microwave so it is at a spreadable consistency.  Do the same with the Nutella.

Once you take the base out of the oven, immediately spread the warmed peanut butter over the base.  I didn't warm my Nutella quite as much as the peanut butter so I could drop blobs of it over the peanut butter.  I then used a palette knife to swirl the two spreads together.

Completely cover with the halved marshmallows, placing them cut side down.

Place under the broiler/grill for around 1 minute to toast the marshmallows.  I set mine on low and they took around 3 minutes as I wanted to be safe! They toast super quick on high so watch them constantly and it probably won't take more than 30 seconds.

Immediately scatter the chopped up peanut butter cups and chocolate and peanut butter chips over the marshmallow layer so they melt into it slightly.  (I used peanut butter chips because I had some on hand and they tied in nicely with the pb theme...I know they're not easy to come by in the UK - you could chop up bits of peanut butter Kit Kat or Ferrero's if you wanted to go for an all out Nutella theme! or just stick with regular chocolate chips, I'm also imaging using a whole bar or 2 of Mint Aero in place of the peanut butter could make a tasty mint variety - like I said the possibilities are endless)

You can make more portions if you cut them up smaller, I just chose not to!

Eat and enjoy...and see if you can make your whole pan last for the photo shoot, I know I couldn't!