Swedish chocolate truffles

I usually do a lot of baking for the kids birthday parties and take a lot of photos of the bakes but I’m then pretty bad at getting it up on the blog, despite my good intentions.

So, without further ado (as I’ve delayed it long enough) here are the Swedish chocolate truffles that went down a treat with both kids and adults at our last birthday party.

Don’t be put off by the coffee in them if making them for kids – the coffee enhances the chocolate flavour rather than tasting of coffee, however it can be substituted with milk or water instead.

Traditionally these little truffles are coated in nib sugar {also called pearl sugar} or desiccated coconut, but for kids parties it’s fun to roll them in multicoloured sugar sprinkles {because kids don’t get enough sugar as it is at parties!!}

Swedish chocolate truffles   

Ingredients
100 g butter, at room temperature
100 ml sugar
1 tbs cocoa powder
1 tbs coffee
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
300 ml oats
nib sugar, desiccated coconut or sugar sprinkles

Method
1) Mix the butter, sugar, cocoa powder, coffee, vanilla extract and oats together until thoroughly mixed and a little bit sticky.
2) Take a small amount and roll into a round little ball. I usually make them about the size of a small cherry tomato but they can be pretty much any size you like.
3) Once all the mixture has been rolled into neat little balls, pour your chosen coating onto a plate and roll the balls individually in them until fully coated. Keep chilled until serving.

Butterflies and ladybirds

I had planned to post this yesterday, however with work, yoga, work and  monkeyboy (new nickname for the wee man due to his appetite for bananas and love of climbing) waking up and not setting until well after midnight I kind of ran out of time, so here goes take two!

I decided to pack a special snack in munchkins lunch bag yesterday, something I had seen on Pintrest a while ago and been wanting to try.  It may not have been the best day to try it out though as we all slept a bit longer than we should have, hubby had to rush off for a meeting while I was trying to get lunchbags, kids and myself organised while time was ticking away. I wanted it to be a surprise so had to get her upstairs  while creating it and then taking a couple of pictures of it to be able to show the world (i.e you!).  Fortunately munchkin was on her best behaviour and got herself ready while I got it sorted. The plastic food bag I had wasn’t the best, as I would have preferred it to be clear, but it was the only square one I had that didn’t have any printing on it.

Anyway,  munchkin loved her snack butterfly,  but I thought I’d include the  link to the original picture I had seen that was my inspiration, as the photo I managed to take isn’t great. She actually requested it again today, but this time it was filled with cucumber and grapes, and no crackers as yesterday. I have a feeling these will feature in her lunch bag a lot from now on  🙂

Speaking of Pintrest, I added a photo there the other day of a great idea for a kids party that I saw when attending a party recently – KitKat bars with Smarties ‘glued’ onto them!

So pretty with the coordinated colours! The kids LOVED them and the plate was emptied in no time. I’m definitely going to try these out as soon as I get a good opportunity.

We also discovered a little visitor in the kitchen yesterday – a   ladybird seemed to have stranded on the plate of a plantpot and kept walking round and round it.

The poor thing must have got all dizzy and didn’t know where else to go, so we had to take the plate outside to release it back into the wild.