Nut Free Chocolate Protein Balls

Hello lovely folks!

Apologies for the radio silence around here. Head over to Instagram if you'd like to see my misadventures on a more regular basis!

Just a quickie today.  Mostly because they were a hit and I don't want to forget what I chucked in!!!

I've been seeing LOADS of chocolate protein balls (also called Bliss Balls or Amaze Balls) on Instagram over the past 6 months or so. I decided I needed another high protein snack for my kinder boy's lunch boxes and for my preschooler who doesn't love healthy food yet so I like to add some super charged foods in to the mix. And I wanted it to be nut free for kinder.

I consulted my gorgeous friend Amelia (you can find her recipe here) and from there I concocted this version based on the ingredients I had on hand and my boys favourite seeds.

My 4.5 and 2.5 year olds made these with me. Mr 4.5 rolled them out really quite well. Mr 2.5 chose to eat the mixture with a spoon instead ;-)  They had a great time making them and they both loved the taste!  We have 3 little ones packed for kinder tomorrow and the rest are in the freezer for quick snacks in the future.

Nut free chocolate protein balls

Ingredients:

- 1.5 cups of dates (Medjool if available)

- 1/2 cup sunflower seeds

- 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

- 1/2 cup Quinoa flakes

- 1/2 cup coconut

- 1/2 cup raw cacao powder (this is different to cocoa!)

- 3 Tablespoons Chia seeds

- 2 Tablespoons Linseed

- 4 Tablespoons Tahini

- 2 Tablespoons Coconut oil

- 2 Tablespoons of 100% pure Maple syrup (you can omit this if you like, I decided to add it this time for extra sweetness but I will try it without too and see.  I wanted to ensure Mr 2.5 ate these and I'm ok with him having maple syrup.)

Method:

Blitz all together in food processor. The consistency should be like wet, grainy sand so that it can come together in to a ball. Not runny and not dry. Add a touch of liquid (tahini, maple syrup or water) if you need more moisture or some more Quinoa flakes if you need it to be drier.

Roll in to balls.

Keep in the fridge or freezer in air tight container.

Mr 4.5 rolling amongst the pencils and Mr 2.5 eating the mixture with a spoon!

Mr 4.5's good work.

Done! Yum!!! 

-------------------------------------------------

I'll try to post my recipes more regularly on here! I have a quinoa, oat, apple & raspberry muffin recipe and my home made muesli bar recipes that I've been wanting to post, not to mention Mr 4's birthday party post from last October!!!  I'll get them up over the next few weeks now that I'm in the swing of this 3 kids business!!!

Love Amy xoxo

Hello!

Hello lovely blog readers!
Apologies for the neglect of this blog as I've been baking Babycakes #3!!!! Lady Babycakes arrived a couple of weeks ago is divine!!!
Also, apologies for the accidental posting of a half finished draft post yesterday! Can I blame sleep deprivation??? I shall publish the Mama Meals On Wheels Post properly very soon and I shall also resume regular posting as soon as I come out of the baby bubble!
In the meantime, I'm still on Instagram regularly so pop over there to see what's coming out of my kitchen!
Love Amy xoxo

Ice Cream Care Package Over at Fat Mum Slim

Hello lovely folk,

For those of you who missed it yesterday, the lovely Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim did a post about my Ice Cream Care Package.  She is the bees knees!!! I'm rather excited!!!!

You can check out Chantelle's post here and my post from a few months ago about the ice cream party and care package is here.  I took new photos for Chantelle's post and made some sweet little labels that you can download and print from there.

Hope you enjoy it!!!

Love Amy xoxo

Pretty Picnic Packs & Christmas Gifts

Hello there,

My little blog has been greatly neglected of late. I have a couple of long and detailed posts to put together for Mr 4's big bash, but just can't seem to gather the energy to tackle it!  I've been busy baking for Christmas gifts, I've had my first (and maybe last!!!) market stall, and most importantly, I'm busy baking another babycakes.  :-)

I will do Mr 4's birthday post eventually, but in the meantime, here's a quickie.

I have an overflowing cupboard (ok, it's multiple cupboards!!!) filled with gorgeous party and baking supplies. It's an addiction!  I decided to use some of these goodies to put together a pretty picnic pack for my Secret Santa gift through the gift exchange Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim organised (thank you Chantelle - it's so much fun!!!!)

I had already bought a big collection of crafty and card making bits and pieces for my recipient but wanted another little pack of loveliness to go with it.

I loved the picnic packs so much that I decided to make more for other friends as little gifts to go along with the usual home baked goods I give.

I went with two colour schemes - one Christmassy and the other pink and yellow and grey based on my penchant for those colours.

I raided my supplies and then made a little purchase from Lark for some extra cute bits, cracked open my dot stickers and voila - little boxes of loveliness!!! :-)

I hope the recipients have lovely little picnics with their families and friends over the summer.

Here are some of the other things I've been making and the wrapping I'm going with for this year. I LOVE Christmas!!!

The gorgeous Kate from Our Little Sins has become a great friend this year and when we caught up last week she mentioned she was making almond butter for her son's kinder teachers. She explained how so I jumped on the bandwagon but decided to use cashews instead. Homemade cashew nut butter is AWESOME!!! And so easy! Just toast the nuts and blitz in a food processor. I added a touch of salt and oil just to get a smooth texture, but you don't have to.  Thank you Kate!!! I'm going to make another batch next week for us to eat.

I put the cashew nut butter together with some of my Pecan, Coconut & Cranberry Granola, Dulce De Leche Shortbread Sandwiches and some lemon cordial for my son's AMAZING kinder teachers. I can't fully express how brilliant this year at kinder has been for him, but his teacher and the assistants are absolute gems. Many tears were shed (by the mums!!!) on the last day yesterday!

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String!!! :-)

Sticker dots pretty the simplest things up!

I may return next week with the belated birthday post, but in the meantime, I hope your days are merry and bright.

Love Amy xoxoxo

Happy Birthday Mr 2!xoxo

Apologies for the vast number of weeks between posts!!!

If you'd like to keep up with my regular goings on, follow me on Instagram {The Misadventurous Maker} or on Facebook - see the link over to the right.  I'm brand new on Facebook so come and say hello so it's not so quiet over there!x

It's been party central around here with both of my boys having birthdays and little parties.  I'm sure you can imagine I've been having fun!!!! :-)

Mr 2 was first.  My little Babycakes.  What a funny little person he is! Just adorable and cheeky and adventurous and extremely entertaining. And he LOVES cake!!! Which we only discovered when he turned 2.  There's been a lot of cake around here over the past few weeks!

I decided to reuse the pom poms and bunting decorations from his 1st birthday party.  I'm still obsessed with yellow and grey and I'm happy to reuse the decorations after putting a lot of time in to making them. This batch has now done 3 birthday parties and the play room *may* have had the decorations up for an entire year!!!!

It was only a small party but I knew I had a bigger party only a few weeks later for Mr 4, so I decided to make a lot of the food ahead and in bulk and freeze it. This turned out to be extremely handy as the day before Mr 2's party, he fell sick and we had to reschedule for the following week. I was very happy to not have any wasted food as it was all still safe and sound in the freezer and the fresh food hadn't yet been prepared!

Menu:

\

Mini pizzas - margarita and roasted pumpkin.

Pizza dough recipe from here.  I LOVE semolina in my pizza bases.  The sugo was basically pureed tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic and a splash of red wine vinegar and salt and pepper.  The pumpkin was simply sliced and roasted with olive oil and salt and pepper.

They freeze wonderfully and I made about 100 mini pizzas to cater for both parties as well as some other sizes for our dinner and some individual ones for Mr 4's lunchboxes.

Green cheese rolls.
Basically using up an abundance of silverbeet from our garden!!! Mr 2's favourite form of vegetable.  It's similar to the recipe in this post, but without the ricotta. Recipe to follow next week hopefully!!!  These also freeze really well and make for fab lunchbox food. I made a huge batch of teeny tiny ones to cater for both parties.

Zucchini pancakes/fritters.
I made these the day before but you can definitely make them ahead and freeze them.  I used the recipe from this post for the kids and for the adults I added lemon zest, salt, pepper and mint and served them hot with some sour cream and chives on top.

Watermelon star pops.
My friend Claire put me on to these a couple of years ago and I make them regularly! There could not be an easier or cuter way of serving fruit!! I love that you can make it ahead. Mr 4 had fun helping me make them.  Served on a piece of foam wrapped in tissue paper.  I forgot to put these out on the food table but they ended up being a great palate cleanser for the kids after cake!!!

Strawberry cups.

Puffed corn cups.

Lemon water bottles.

Thank you gifts.
A simple balloon on a stick and some jelly play dough. The recipe for play dough was adapted from the the lovely Cat's recipe which you will find here (I swapped out the vinegar for cream of tartar.)  Jars were recycled ones I already had.

Cake.
I LOVE this cake. It was really simple to make and the kids loved it.  The design is from the Donna Hay Kids Magazine from this year. I actually used my mum's trusty chocolate cake recipe and instead of the chocolate ganache for the icing, I used Donna's amazing butter cream frosting.  But the concept was the same.

And the most important part of the day - Mr 2 had a ball!!!! He was such a funny birthday boy and ended up with a chocolate butter cream beard from blowing his candles out.  It was a very small gathering, but a lovely little celebration for my amazing boy.  I love you babycakes!!!!



Love Amy xoxo

Dulce de Leche Shortbread Sandwiches

Yet another Dulce de Leche or salted caramel recipe!  See more here and here and here!

These are delicious little shortbread cookies sandwiched together with salted caramel in the middle.  I think they would make lovely gifts for a special occasion - fathers day, mothers day, a birthday or for Christmas.  

I made the Dulce de Leche and the shortbread mixture and cut the cookies out the day before. I kept them in the fridge (the cookies were raw) until the following day when I baked and assembled them.  The cookies also freeze very well.  I prefer to freeze them raw but already rolled and cut out. The on the day you are giving them away (or a day or two before), you simply bake them and pipe on the salted caramel.

Original recipe from Donna Hay Magazine. Issue 60.

Ingredients:
- 1 batch of Dulce de Leche - you can buy this at some delis or specialty stores. In theory, the canned caramel at the supermarket is the same thing, but in my experience it doesn't taste as good and this is very simple.  Details below.

- 150 grams of unsalted butter, softened
- 1/3 cup pure icing sugar, sifted
- 1.5 cups of plain flour, sifted
- 2 tablespoons of cornflour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

Directions:

- Make your Dulce de Leche according to David Lebowitz's instructions that you will find here.  I omit the salt before cooking, as I prefer to add it afterwards - I like the salt flakes to be visible.  So, once it's nice and caramel, remove from the oven and sprinkle lightly with sea salt flakes.  Set aside to cool.

- Beat together the butter, sugar & vanilla for about 10 minutes or until pale and creamy
- Add the flours and beat until a smooth dough forms
- Roll the dough between two sheets of non stick baking paper to about 5mm thick
- Refrigerate for 30 minutes
- Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius
- Cut out the cookies using a 4cm cookie cutter - it makes approximately 50 individual cookies or 25 sandwiched cookies
- Place the cookies on lined baking trays and bake for approximately 10 minutes or until a very light golden colour - keep a close eye on them as you don't want them to get dark as they will be brittle
- Allow to cool on wire racks
- Pipe the cooled salted Dulce de Leche on to half of the cookies and top each with another cookie - I try to pipe in the middle of the cookie leaving some space on the edge so that when you sandwich the cookies together, the caramel doesn't come out.  This is mostly so if you are packaging them for gifts, the caramel doesn't stick to the packaging.

Enjoy!!!!

Love Amy xoxoxo