You guys know how much I love my festive seasons, and Easter is definitely one of them! We grew up celebrating Easter with the whole fam bam, we’d go to my aunty’s house and do a big easter egg hunt, followed by the most amazing big breakfast you’ve ever had. And then the rest of the day would be spent eating the chocolate haul from the hunt. Honestly some of my earliest and favourite memories revolve around Easter.

Jasper LOVES food, and he will literally eat anything, including chocolate. But I really wanted to give him a little treat that was a bit healthier, so that, as we binge on our chocolate eggs, he can binge on his little own treats too. Who say’s Easter can’t be healthy, right?! So I made these deliciously healthy, yoghurt covered strawberry “Easter Eggs”  And my favourite part, is how easy they are too make! Not to mention how cute they turned out! (Big thanks to Nomster Chef for the Inspo, and Aldi Australia for the ingredients!)

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INGREDIENTS

Strawberries (how ever many you want, I used 2 punnets)
1 large tub of greek yoghurt (if you want them to be a bit sweeter, go for a honey greek yoghurt)
Food colouring drops
Sprinkles

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STEP 1

Give your strawberries a good wash

STEP 2

Line a baking tray with some wax paper

STEP 3

Seperate your greek yoghurt into smaller bowls, I  used 5 because I made five colours (purple, green, yellow, blue, orange) and add food colouring drops to your yogurt to mix the colours that you’d like

STEP 4

Dip the strawberries in the yoghurt to coat them, and place them on the wax paper

STEP 5

Pop in the freezer for 30 minutes

STEP 6

Dip the strawberries in the yoghurt a second time, so that the coat is extra thick and freeze for another 30 minutes.

If you are using sprinkles, now is the time to add them to some (or all) of the strawberries so that they can set.

STEP 7

Using a toothpick, or any other tool you have, decorate the strawberries using the leftover greek yoghurt.

you can eat straight away, or pop them pack in the freezer to set again.

Jasper absolutely ADORED them!! I can’t wait to make them again for Easter Sunday so he can sit on the grass with his “eggs” and make a big ol’ mess enjoying himself!

Healthy Yoghurt Dipped Strawberry "Easter Eggs"

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Serves: 4 Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cooking Time: 1 Hour

Ingredients

• Strawberries
• 1 large tub of greek yoghurt
• Food colouring drops 
• Sprinkles 

Instructions

1. Wash Strawberries
2. Line baking tray with wax paper
3. Seperate greek yoghurt into as many bowls as the colours you’d like to make (eg purple, orange, green, blue, yellow)
4. Drop food colouring into each bowl, until you get the desired colour
5. Dip strawberries into yoghurt, and place on baking sheet
6. Pop in freezer for 30 minutes
7. Re-dip strawberries into yoghurt, to make the coating nice and thick
8. Add Sprinkles
9. Put back in freezer for 30 minutes
10. Use toothpick to make Easter Egg designs, freeze again to set, or serve straight away.

The post Healthy Easter Treat for Kids: Yoghurt Dipped Strawberry “Easter Eggs” appeared first on Megzie.

Do you guys remember my no bake Birthday cheat cake from earlier this year? Well I decided to get in the Christmas Spirit and make a christmassy version of it. Seriously, this cake is so easy and quick. I made it all while Jasper was having his afternoon nap.

To make it more christmassy, instead of a plain buttercream, I used this recipe to make a ginger and cinnamon buttercream. And I just kept it simple with a white chocolate ganache.

I found some ready made gingerbread trees as well as a cute green tree that I used for the toppings – and voila done!

Let me break it down for you:

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WHAT YOU NEED

For the Cake:

4 x Double Unfilled Sponge Cake (comes in packs of 2, so you have 4 total cakes)

For the Cake Toppings:

(can be literally ANYTHING you like) I had:

Gingerbread Trees
Green Decor Tree
White Chocolate
Edible Glitter
Icing sugar
Wooden Star

For the Buttercream Icing:

250g butter, softened
430g  icing sugar mixture
3 tbs milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1/2 tsp lemon zest

For the Drip Cake Ganache:

100ml cream
300g white baking chocolate
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[1] Step One

The first thing you want to do is make the buttercream icing. In your mixer, add the butter and whisk until it’s creamy.
Reduce the speed, and gradually add half of the icing sugar to the butter and mix until it’s incorporated.

Then you’ll want to add the milk, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger and lemon and mix until it’s incorporated.

Add the rest of the icing sugar and mix until it’s creamy and fluffy.

[2] Step Two

Now you’ll be layering your cakes. Start with your first sponge cake, and put it on a round cake plate. Cover the top of it in the buttercream icing.

Then add your next cake and repeat the icing until all four cakes are layered on-top of each other. Use four kebab sticks to hold your cake in place (so it doesn’t fall over)

Then you want to ice the outside of the cake. I just went nuts, adding icing and scraping it all over the place. This can get messy, but if you have the right consistency of buttercream, it will hold in place. Once you’re happy with how the cake looks, pop it in the fridge for 30 minutes. Pop the leftover buttercream in the fridge because you’ll need it for later.

[3] Step Three

While the cake is in the fridge. You can make your ganache. Pour the cream into the white chocolate. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir well to help chocolate melt into cream. If you have chocolate that isn’t melted, pop it back into the microwave for another 30 seconds at a time until it’s all melted.

Drip Cake Ganache Tip:

You want the ganache to be quite runny, but not overly runny.

Using a squeezy tube, cover the top surface of the cake and the ganache should naturally drip over. if it doesn’t, you can use the squeezy tube to drip the sides

Pop it back in the fridge for another 20/30 minutes or until the ganache has set.

[4] Step Four

Now comes the fun part – the decorating. This is really up to you how nuts you want to go. I used the remaining buttercream to act as the glue for the decorations (I put it into an icing tube to get prettier shapes)

I am SOOOOOO happy with how this cake turned out you guys. Serioulsy! I think this might be my new thing – cheat cakes. Gets me excited for Jaspers first birthday (which is just around the corner now – HOWWWWWW!!!!!!)

Here are some more festive snaps of the cake, because, I went nuts.

No Bake Magical Christmas Cake

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Ingredients

• For the Cake:

• 4 x Double Unfilled Sponge Cake (comes in packs of 2, so you have 4 total cakes)

• For the Cake Toppings:

• Gingerbread Trees
• Green Decor Tree
• Edible Glitter
• Icing sugar
• Wooden Star

• For the Buttercream Icing:

• 250g butter, softened
• 430g  icing sugar mixture
• 3 tbs milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest

• For the Drip Cake Ganache:

• 100ml cream
• 300g white baking chocolate

Instructions

Make the Buttercream

1. Add butter to mixer and beat until it’s creamy
2. Reduce speed and gradually add half of the icing sugar to the butter and mix until it’s combined
3. Add milk, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger and lemon and mix until it’s incorporated
4. Add the rest of the icing sugar and mix until it’s creamy and fluffy

Layer the cake 

1. Place your first spongecake on a cake tray and top with icing
2. Then add your next cake and repeat the icing until all four cakes are layered on-top of each other. Use four kebab sticks to hold your cake in place (so it doesn’t fall over)
3. Ice the outside of the cake
4. Pop cake in the fridge

Make the Ganache

1. Pour the cream into the white chocolate. Microwave for 1 minute.
2. Stir well to help chocolate melt into cream. If you have chocolate that isn’t melted, pop it back into the microwave for another 30 seconds at a time until it’s all melted.

Pour Ganache Drip

1. Using a squeezy tube, cover the top surface of the cake and the ganache should naturally drip over. if it doesn’t, you can use the squeezy tube to drip the sides

Decorate Cake

This is really up to you how nuts you want to go. I used the remaining buttercream to act as the glue for the gingerbread tree decorations (I put it into an icing tube to get prettier shapes).

 

 

The post No Bake Magical Christmas Cake appeared first on Megzie.

Well this year, I decided to bake some sugar cookies. I remember baking them previously for a valentines one year, and I remember thinking that they were pretty easy.

I found a new recipe online and modified the butter part of it, and also halved it (thank god) – cus it made QUITE A FEW! The actual baking of the cookies part was quick and easy, but the icing – my god. I definitely forgot how long it takes to ice cookies. I think it’s mainly because I don’t have the right tools for it, so instead of being able to whip up four batches of icing (2 white and 2 black, one for piping and the other for flooding) I had to do each batch individually. So it was a lot of mixing required. But I’m rambling. It was still fun, I still felt festive AF and I really enjoyed myself.

I’m going to individually wrap these in some cellophane bags and gift them to family members at our chriismass dinner. Can’t wait.

Pretty simple recipe (scroll to the bottom for the printable version):

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INGREDIENTS

250g unsalted butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour

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STEP 1

Preheat over to 180C or 350F.

Add the butter and sugar to your mixer. Cream together until completely mixed. Do not over-mix. You want the batter to turn white

STEP 2

Add the vanilla and eggs to the mixture and mix until the dough is light and fluffy

STEP 3

Add the Baking powder and mix

STEP 4

Then mix in the 3 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time.

The flour should be completely mixed through and the dough should be firm but not dry or crumbly.

If dry: add a tiny bit of vanilla or milk and mix again

You don’t need to chill this dough before cutting the cookies, they come out best if the dough hasn’t been chilled! (Also, yay less time to wait!)

STEP 5

Roll a handful of the dough out on a clean, well floured surface until at the desired thickness

STEP 6

Cut out shapes with cookie cutters

STEP 7

Bake at 180C or 350F for 6-8 minutes, depending on the size of the cookie. Make sure you don’t over-bake them. You don’t want them to start browning at the edges – this causes them to seem dry.

STEP 8

Let the cookies cool completely on a wire rack and then you can frost them.

I used this Royal Icing recipe as it’s easy to colour and tastes super yummy on the cookies.

Enjoy!!

Christmas Sugar Cookie

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Serves: 24 Cookies

Ingredients

• 250g unsalted butter (softened)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3 cups flour

Instructions

1. Add butter and sugar to your mixer.  Cream the butter and sugar until it is completely mixed.  Do not over-mix.
2. Add vanilla and eggs and mix until completely incorporated.
3. Add Baking Powder and mix.
4. Mix in the flour two cups at a time.
5. Do not chill the dough, the cookies will bake better if the dough is at room temperature.
6. Roll a handful of the dough out on a prepared surface and cut out shapes with a cookie cutter.
7. Bake at 180C / 350F for 6-8 minutes depending on the size of the cookie.  Do not over-bake.
8. Frost with Royal Icing Recipe

The post Christmas Sugar Cookie Recipe appeared first on Megzie.

So if you know me personally, you’ll know that I absolutely fricking adore Christmas! It is really and truly my most wonderful favourite time of the year! I also get serious FOMO because I live in Australia, and it’s hot here. And I get borderline depressed when I see all the snowy, cozy, wintery Christmas pictures that pop up on Instagram this time of the year.

NEVERMIND, I STILL CONTINUE ON. And this Christmas is extra special for me, because it’s my first Christmas as a mama bear, which means it’s my little humans FIRST CHRISTMAS EVER. Can I get a woot woot!!

And I am going to do my absolute BEST to make his first Christmas one to remember – even though he won’t remember it at all amiright!!.

I may or may not be the person that gets excited for Christmas as soon as November rolls around. But this year, we were travelling all of November, so I wasn’t home to put up my tree, or do any decorating. I literally had to wait until December 1st.

So there is SO MUCH TO CATCH UP ON.

BUT. I feel like I’m already behind.. So I thought I’d write a lil blog post for anyone out there who is looking for a quick and easy Christmas spirit pick me up.

These ideas are probably so generic and basic that I’m sure everyone does them. But hey, why not document it for my online friends to read anyway – I mean, it’s Christmas right?

So without further-ado, I bring to you – five simple ways to instantly get into the Christmas spirit!

[1] PLAY CHRISTMAS CAROLS LIKE THERES NO TOMORROW

You know what I’m talking about, Mariah, Michael we’re looking to you. All I want for Christmas is to play carols all December long without any judgement!!! Blast them during the day, while you’re driving, while you’re making dinner. I promise you, as soon as you hear that Christmas jam, you’ll instantly feel like Christmas has arrived!! I may or may not be listening to xmas carols right now as I type this cheesy blog post. mwahahah.

[2] WATCH A XMAS MOVIE WITH SOME TREATS

Like, gingerbread treats, or hot chocolate treats. Yes I know I just mentioned that its basically the middle of bloody summer here in Australia. But you know what, I”m going to crank up my aircon so that it’s basically freezing in my house. Put on my winter xmas jammies (because does anyone even sell summer Christmas jammies?) roll up my xmas socks, make a hot chocolate, with extra marshmallows and watch all the cheesy Christmas movies I can. Sorry husband.

Netflix just launched the cheesiest one yet – the princess switch. I freaking loved it. Takes me back to The Parent Trap days, or Lizzie McGuire Movie, but, like, christmassy. So good .

[3] GET CRAFTY

Make some Christmas gift tags, or your own wrapping paper. There are heaps of cool Pinterest DIY ideas.  I wanted to get to some of these myself, but I honestly haven’t found the time (yet, hopefully). So I’ll just leave all these super cool ones that I found for you to peruse instead. I wish I was more organised – but I’m gonna let Jasper take the fall for that one this year. Thanks kid, you’re really great at sucking up all my time (I actually really love it and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world).

1. DIY Christmas Cracker
2. Monochrome gift tags
3. Christmas Wreath
4. Gingerbread Truffles
5. Scandinavian Wall Hanging

[4] GO TO A CHRISTMAS TREE FARM OR A CHRISTMAS MARKET

This time last year, I saw a flood of instagram pictures of people dressed up in coats and beanies walking on white grounds as they chose out their perfect Christmas tree and I thought to myself – ONE DAY!!! But this year, is not that one day unfortunately. Firstly, have you met my husband, there is no way I could convince him to let me buy a real Christmas tree – all the LOLS. MAYBE, one day, when we are living in Canada and celebrating our first real winter Christmas I’ll just maybe convince him that we can have a real tree. But not this year. I am tempted to still go to the farm and check them out, maybe throw on a beanie in this boiling hot weather and snap a pic for the gram? stay tuned people, stay tuned.

I’ve heard that there are a bunch of cool Christmas markets popping up these days; I am definitely keen to go and check one out. Could be fun. Sounds like the perfect way to get into the festive spirit if you ask me.

Have I done either of the above? No. But you know what, they sound super christmassy, so they made the cut for this blog post. Keep an eye on my gram, I think i’m going to try and get to at least one of these this year.

[5] TREAT YO SELF TO A CHRISTMAS CANDLE

if all else fails, go to the shops, and buy yourself the most christmassy sounding/smelling candle you can find.. Heck, buy some for your friends and family, get home, crank up the Christmas carols, pop a flick on the TV, change into your comfy jammies, get out your wrapping paper, and start wrapping gifts. That will instantly get you into the spirit. If wrapping gifts is your thing – apparently some people don’t love it like me, weird.

And you know what, if all else fails, just eat all the Christmas food you can find. Mince pies (I only tried these for the first time last year, but OHMYGOD) I have been missing out all these years.

Ok guys, but seriously, what do you do to get in the mood for Christmas? I’d love to hear in the comments below!!

The post 5 Ways to Instantly get into the Festive Spirit appeared first on Megzie.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen the delicious semi-naked drip cake that I made for myself for my birthday. A bunch of you asked me how I did it, or what the recipe was. Well today, I want to reveal a little secret. This drip cake, was a super easy, cake hack. It’s a no bake, put it together kind of cake. That still tastes amazing.

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WHAT YOU NEED

For the Drip Cake:

4 x Double Unfilled Sponge Cake (comes in packs of 2, so you have 4 total cakes)

For the Drip Cake Toppings:

(can be literally ANYTHING you like) I had:

Maltesers
Oreos
Sweet & Salty Popcorn
Chocolate Shards (melted white chocolate and poured over bubble wrap and let cool, then snap for the shard)
Milky Way Cookies & Cream Icing
Edible Glitter

For the Buttercream Icing:

250g butter, softened
3 cups icing sugar mixture
2 tablespoons milk

For the Drip Cake Ganache:

100ml cream
300g white baking chocolate
Food colouring of your choice (I used black)

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If you are making your own chocolate shards, melt the chocolate (either on the stove or in the microwave) and pour it out onto some bubble wrap on a baking tray. Set aside and let it cool/reharden.  I melted white chocolate and mixed in some oreos. In hindsight, I think I would have poured the white chocolate over the bubblewrap first, and then poured in the crushed oreos. My shards just ended up being very grey.

The first thing you want to do is make the buttercream icing. To do this, use an electric mixer to beat the butter in a bowl until pale. Gradually add the icing sugar mixture and milk, beating constantly until combined.

Take your first sponge cake, and put it on a round cake plate. Cover the top of it in the buttercream icing.

Then add your next cake and repeat the icing until all four cakes are layered on-top of each other. Use four kebab sticks to hold your cake in place (so it doesn’t fall over)

Then you want to ice the outside of the cake. I just went nuts, adding icing and scraping it all over the place. This can get messy, but if you have the right consistency of buttercream, it will hold in place. Once you’re happy with how the cake looks, pop it in the fridge for 30 minutes. Pop the leftover buttercream in the fridge because you’ll need it for later.

While the cake is in the fridge. You can make your ganache. Pour the cream into the white chocolate. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir well to help chocolate melt into cream. If you have chocolate that isn’t melted, pop it back into the microwave for another 30 seconds at a time until it’s all melted. Add in your food colouring and pop it in a squeezy tube.

Drip Cake Ganache Tip:

You want the ganache to be quite runny, but not overly runny. Mine was probaby too thick, you can see this in the way my drips look (they’re thick and heavy, instead of looking like they naturally just dripped over) does that even make sense?

Using the squeezy tube, cover the top surface of the cake and the ganache should naturally drip over. if it doesn’t, you can use the squeezy tube to drip the sides (that’s what I ended up doing, because mine was so thick)

Pop it back in the fridge for another 20/30 minutes or until the ganache has set.

Now comes the fun part – the decorating. This is really up to you how nuts you want to go. I used the remaining buttercream to act as the glue for the decorations (I put it into an icing tube to get prettier shapes)

I started with my Happy Birthday sign, and then added in big shards behind it. Then I went nuts with the popcorn, oreos, maltesers, milky chocolate and the glitter.

Feel free to go down the side of the drip cake, and even add decorations on the silver cake plate, it really adds to the wow factor.

what do you think guys? super easy – anyone can do it right? Tag me on Instagram if you decide to make your own versions of this. I’d love to check out how yours turned out!

You can check out some of my other sweet treat recipes here.

The post Drip Cake Recipe that’s Easy and requires no baking! appeared first on Megzie.

Ingredients

A pack of gingersnap biscuits
100g/3 Large Spoons of Cream Cheese
1 Bar Milkybar Chocolate
Icing to Decorate

Steps

Alrighty, the first thing you want to do is crush all of the Gingersnap biscuits. We used a food processor to do this, but if you don’t have one, you could pop them in a zip lock bag and use a rolling pin to crush them. You just want to make sure that they’re fine and almost breadcrumb like.

Once the biscuits are crushed, you can transfer them to a bowl. From there, you add three very generous sized tablespoons of cream cheese. The idea here is to create a dough like texture. So you want to make sure that it’s not too wet, otherwise you’ll struggle. Feel with your fingers, as long as the ‘dough’ can stay together, you’ve got the right consistency.

Next, take a small handful of the gingerbread dough, and start rolling it into bite sized balls. Place them on a tray with some baking paper, or onto a dish. Once all the balls have been rolled, pop them in the freezer for an hour to set (orr……30 mins if you’re super keen like we were)

The next step, is to melt the bar of Milkyway chocolate. You can either do this on the stove, or in the microwave depending on your preference. Once melted, you’re going to want to dip each of the gingerbread balls into the white chocolate mixture. We used toothpicks to help us get an even coating. Once the whole ball is dipped, tap it on the side of the bowl to remove excess chocolate and then pop it back on your dish. When all the gingerbread truffles are coated in chocolate you have two choices

1. If you’ve got sprinkles, you can decorate straight away, and then pop them back in the freezer to set
2. If you’re using icing, like we did, first pop them in the freezer to let the chocolate harden, and then re-take them out to decorate

We opted for the icing option, we just had some green and red icing in tubes. Once the chocolate was set, we took the balls out again to decorate them. This was the fun part! You can get super creative with different patterns etc.

And there you have it! Super easy Gingerbread Cheesecake Truffles! Just make sure you keep them in the fridge, because of the cream cheese.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Gingerbread Cheesecake Truffles

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Serves: 10 Prep Time: 1 hour 20 mins

Ingredients

• A pack of gingersnap biscuits
• 100g/3 Large Spoons of Cream Cheese
• 1 Bar Milkybar Chocolate
• Icing to Decorate

Instructions

1. Crush the gingerbread biscuits until they are fine like breadcrumbs
2. Mix in 3 generous tablespoons of cream cheese. Make sure that when mixed together you have a dough like consistency, not too wet and not too dry
3. Roll into bite sized balls, and set in the freezer for 30-60 minutes
4. Melt the white chocolate over the stove or in the microwave
5. Dip each of the balls into the chocolate until they are evenly coated
6. Pop back in the freezer for 20 minutes, or until the chocolate is set
7. Once the chocolate is set, you can decorate the truffles with the icing.
8. Store in the fridge until your’e ready to serve

The post Easy Gingerbread Cheesecake Truffles appeared first on Megzie.