Double chocolate chip cookies - afternoon tea winner!

It's the second-last day of the spring school holidays here, and we've been busy with play dates (so much fun for me too, as it's too long between catch-ups for us Mums too), sports camp/classes, walks, arts and crafts, general outdoor play and so on.  This week's gymnastics sports camp is getting them pretty tired, so when they asked to go out for afternoon tea today, I didn't really fancy it.  Instead we went home and whipped up some super delicious double chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.

But that will take ages, you might think.  Well, kinda but not really, and it was much more fun and we knew exactly what we were eating.  Mini-1 retired to the couch with her tablet computer and Mini-2 and I got started.

She's keen to be as grown-up and independent as possible, and has listened well on other baking projects, so enjoyed using the hand-mixer - but not cracking the egg.  Why, you ask?  Well, she didn't fancy washing her hands yet again, ha ha.

Two different types of chocolate chips were added - the recipe calls for peanut butter chips but a) we've used up all that we received from the USA a year or so ago, and b) we're kinda over them. Sorry to all our American friends out there.  We'd love to try any other fancy chips you do, not butterscotch though please as we've had them too, but not pb any longer.  No hurt feelings, right?
Anyway, back to the cookies...

We chose to do just small cookies, with a spoon and knife for skill and cleanliness.  We managed to get 40 small mounds of dough out of our mix and popped them in the oven.  A scant 12 minutes later we had hot cookie heaven!!

I couldn't resist and tasted one just moments later - oh my!!  So so good, crisp and crunchy, just the way I like them.  When the kids came through, one had the great idea of sandwiching them with cookies and cream ice-cream to make a Choc Chip cookie Ice-cream Sandwich - oh yes please!  

Home-made honeycomb ice-cream? Yes please!

A while ago I was approached by the makers of Angel Delight to try out their new product, Angel Delight ice-cream.  Whilst it doesn't involve a proper ice-cream machine, or hours in the freezer then stirring and re-freezing, it is home-made ice-cream and you can add anything you like to make it more fun.

So we chose Crunchie bars - yumm!!  Now, in this instance, when I say we I mean I.  Although to be fair, I didn't really think the girls would complain too much at the thought of ice-cream full to bursting with crushed Crunchie bars. 

 I used all 4 bars, so we'd have plenty of 'bang for our buck', to coin a phrase.  Looking good so far...

Then it was popped into a container for the freezer.  You can see I didn't need any fancy equipment to make this - just a mixing bowl and simple handmixer.

Here we can see the finished product naked - choc-full of scrumptious honeycomb and chocolate chunks.  Mmmm

 And here one girl wanted chocolate sauce and coloured sprinkles...

 Whilst the other chose chocolate sprinkles.  And what an after-dinner treat that was.

 

New product test - Angel Delight Ice Cream

We were thrilled recently to have been approached by Angel Delight to test out and blog about their latest product, Ice Cream.  Their PR lady, Tara, said she liked what she'd seen of us and wondered if we'd be interested in trying out some recipes with it.  Sheesh, asking a couple of young kids and their baking-mad Mum to eat ice-cream?  Doh, of course!!

Our 'bloggers box' arrived this morning, before school, and we opened it immediately.  What a great surprise for early Monday morning.

There were two packets of the product, so new it's not even in the shops yet, some toffee sauce, strawberry squeezy jam, Mr Kipling Viennese Whirl biscuits, giant chocolate buttons, Jelly Babies, 100's & 1000's, a whisk with which to mix and a bowl in which to freeze it.  Oh, and lots of fat bubble-wrap to pop!  Brilliant.

So we got started, with a blatant bit of product placement

You'll be relieved to know that no orange bowls were harmed (or used) in the making of this ice-cream.  We emptied some of the powder into a bowl, then mini-Becca #2 poured in the milk.  All by herself, without spilling any (can you tell?  she was quite proud).

We did start out with the kindly supplied hand-whisk (it was pink, after all) but soon switched to our trusty electric one.  Now, you're probably thinking - gosh, what amazing hair she has.  And while I totally agree with you, and your secret thought that it should be tied up while preparing food, it usually is.  Especially if there's a chance that someone outside Team Becca may eat the food.  And there simply wasn't a chance of us sharing this bounty, tee hee.

Then it was a case of more blatant advertising, and the addition of the crushed biscuits and lashings of squeezy jam to the mix.

And here we see the finished mix, all ready to be frozen.

Here's a (gratuitous hair) shot of my lovely assistant placing our precious cargo in the freezer.  For a minimum of 4 hours, so for us that meant after school. 

Thus, onto the washing up...

After-school snack time! 

Our Strawberry Shortcake ice-cream was a hit with the Quality Assessors we employ.  Even Mr Becca (otherwise known as Daddy) got a taste, and proclaimed it good. 

Personally I only eat premium ice-creams, like Ben & Jerry's or Green & Black's or Haagen-Dazs , as the high unit cost prohibits regular consumption (thus prohibiting my waistline expanding at an exponential rate). However, this stuff was loads of fun to make, and it's so easy to add your own twist to it, that I fear my waistline may be in for some serious damage!

These last two photos are the next mini-batch ready for the freezer.  Toffee sauce and crushed chocolate buttons with Coco Pops on top.  We're calling it Toffee Crisp,  but may also call it breakfast...

Nah, just kidding