Salted White Chocolate and Oat Cookies

I started back at full time work at the end of January after two years at home being Mummy to Max. It has been so full on, that combined with the heat and wanting to spend every spare minute with my little man has meant I haven’t really prioritised getting into the kitchen to bake new things, but, I finally found a spare moment and have whipped up these little beauties, adapting a recipe from one of my favourite baking blogs ‘Bake or Break’.

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats
¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
100 grams butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
⅓ cup packed dark brown sugar (I recommend Billington’s)
⅓ cup sugar
1 large egg
125 grams small white chocolate drops
coarse salt, for sprinkling

Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Line baking trays with paper.
Whisk together oats, flour, baking soda and salt, set aside.
Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and vanilla until smooth and creamy.
Add sugars, beating until fluffy.
Add egg,  mixing well after addition.
Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add oat mixture.
Stir in white chocolate.
Scoop tablespoonfuls of the batter onto your lined trays. Sprinkle each with coarse salt. Bake 12-14 minutes, or until edges are browned but centers are slightly soft.
Cool cookies on pans for a few minutes. Then, transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

These were delish and were quickly gobbled up in our house. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Easter Chicken Cupcakes

While shopping the other day I spotted a pack of little yellow chickens made out of pipe cleaners at the supermarket – pretty tacky, but I bought them anyway.  They inspired me to make these ‘Easter Chicken’ cupcakes, which were really simple to whip up.  I love how the long sprinkles look like messy feathers.  If you are a bit of a fondant fan, you could whip up some little wings and feet for these guys too!
My friend Jarrah gave me the recipe for the chocolate cupcake that I used (I just added in some mini Easter eggs as a special treat); it’s a great recipe which doesn’t involve fussing around with melting butter or whisking eggs.  Thanks for sharing Jarrah!

Makes 12.

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 – 5 teaspoons cocoa
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup oil (sunflower or canola)
1 cup water
3 tablespoons vinegar (white or malt)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
12 mini caramel-filled Easter eggs

Buttercream and Decoration:
125g butter softened
2 ½ cups icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
Yellow food colouring
Yellow sprinkles (I used nearly two 70g packs)
24 chocolate drops
4-6 orange jube lollies

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190°C.  Line a 12 hole muffin tin with baking cups. 
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl with a fork.  Add the oil to the dry ingredients, but don’t stir.
In a small bowl, mix together the water, vinegar and vanilla essence.  Pour into the dry ingredients and mix together thoroughly with a fork.
Fill the baking cups ¾ of the way full with the mixture.  Place a mini Easter egg into each muffin cup so that it is just covered by the cupcake mixture.   Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. Add a few drops of the yellow food colouring and mix through.
Spread about a tablespoon of the butter cream on the tops of each cupcake.  Pour your sprinkles into a bowl and dip each cupcake in to cover the buttercream.
Dot the backs of the chocolate drops with buttercream and place two on each cupcake to be your chicken’s eyes.  Cut the orange jube lollies into triangles (you need 12 triangles), smear some butter cream on the back of each triangle, then place on the cupcakes to be the Chicken’s nose.

KitchenAid Giveaway!

It's our birthday this month!  Can you believe that BMTB is 3?!  Over the last few years we have shared over 300 recipes with you all, many of them have been made in our freestanding mixers.  We both believe that these little beauties really do make baking better and freestanding mixers don't come any better than the KitchenAid Stand Mixers.
So even though it is our birthday, one of you lucky readers are going to get the best present any baker could ask for…

A KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer!

We are very excited to announce that KitchenAid have given us one of their KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixers (RRP NZ$995.00) to giveaway.  And, the winner gets to choose what colour they would like.  There’s White, Almond Cream, Empire Red, Black, Cobalt Blue, Yellow Pepper or Green Apple to pick from.  Cool huh?!


A KitchenAid Stand Mixer is a baker’s dream come true.  It will save you time and energy, while providing outstanding results.  In fact, the unique planetary mixing action allows the beater to spiral to 67 different points on the bowl for quick and complete mixing.  That’s the highest beater-to-bowl coverage in the industry!  Also, the trademark hub allows for the attachment of numerous accessories, allowing your mixer to be transformed into a pasta machine, meat grinder, ice cream machine, vegetable slice, sausage maker and much more.

Help us say thank you for such a great prize by sending the folk at KitchenAid an appreciative message on twitter.  If you want to get dreaming about all the attachments you want to go with your new mixer, check out the KitchenAid website or sign up to their newsletter to get all the latest KitchenAid recipes and info to your inbox.

To enter, leave us a comment below (click where it says ‘comments’ next to the ‘posted by’ information) telling us what colour you would like and your favourite recipe from Baking Makes Things Better.  Make sure you include your name and either leave your email address, like us on facebook or follow the blog so you can find out if you have won.
The giveaway closes 5pm Thursday 14th February.  We will announce the winner on Friday 15th February on our blog and facebook.  The giveaway is open to New Zealand residents only. The winner will be chosen at random and contacted once the competition closes. If we have not been able to contact a winner by 5pm Monday 18th February, the prize will be re-drawn.

It’s someone else's half birthday…

Ours!  Just like Max the other day, Baking Makes Things Better is celebrating a half birthday.  We are one and a half!  Yep, back in February 2010 I set up this blog, told Courtenay, made her my co-author and Baking Makes Things Better was born.  I had the idea of writing a reflection kind of post a while back but I had missed our actual birthday in Feb – I was starting back at work for the year and Courtenay was just a little bit busy with having a baby.  A lot has happened in a year and a half!

Awww, our old banner!

Anyways, I am pretty proud of what we have achieved with our blog during this time and what it has become.  We’ve picked up a few new skills on the computer, experimented with our photography and tried loads of new recipes.

During our year and a half we tried baking things we have always wanted to attempt.  Courtenay gave Red Velvet Cake and Macaroons a try and I experimented with making Lemon and Chocolate Tarts and Whoopie Pies.

Courtenay made many, many cupcakes in lot of different flavours – all decorated with beautiful icing.

And I developed a love for baking that involves lemon :)

We’ve also hosted a couple of High tea’s.

And Courtenay has started making a cake a month to hone her icing skills for Max’s first birthday cake!

I still love the first recipes that I posted about; I think Mint Chocolate Truffles are something I will always go back to making time and time again (and Courtenay still loves Red Velvet Cake).  Although, the Chocolate Hazelnut Slice has become a bit of a rival…

One thing I think we have both enjoyed during this time is seeing the blog grow.  We’ve had visitors from all over the world, we have gained new followers on blogger and facebook, and it is awesome reading all of your comments.

Your favourite posts have been anything to do with cupcakes, brownies, Oreos, Mars Bars and cheesecake!  Or recipes that are a combo of these things!
Over our first year and a half some of our most viewed posts by you, our readers, have been…

Marshmallow Brownie Cupcakes

Mars Bar Cupcakes

Baileys and Mars Bar Cheesecake

Oreo Cupcakes

Raspberry Macaroons

Oreo Cheesecake

Caramel Brownie

Thank you for following our blog and we look forward to bringing you many more recipes!