This is one of the simplest things you can make for a Halloween treat and my children love them.We call them Revolting Rotten Cupcakes because the first time we made them was for Children's Book Week a couple of years ago, but they're perfect for Halloween!

Last Month's Children's Book Week Roald Dahl Revolting Recipe...

Take a basic sponge mix ~

Weigh 2 eggs (will be approx 120g)
Measure out the same weight in sugar and butter ~ cream them together in a bowl (if you wish you can reduce the sugar in the recipe - especially if your fruit is sweet)
Add the eggs a bit at a time
Add the same weight in self-raising flour and mix
If you want to add any flavourings (vanilla, lemon juice etc) do so now. We added a tablespoon of lemon juice to our mix this time.


 Add some chopped fruit ~ Any fruit really, cut into quite large chunks

Pineapple (tinned or fresh)
Apple ~ softened ~ stew, or chop up and put in the microwave for a minute with 2 tablespoons of water
Apricot
Banana
Lemon
Berries ~ raspberries/strawberries/blueberries ~ these give a particularly satisfying result


Split your mixture into 3

Add food colourings. Anything blue, green, purple or grey works best....gel colours are best, although we have a mix of gel and liquid here...

 

Dab the mixture into the cake cases, swapping between colours. Silicone cases are best if you have them because you can remove them easily later for best effect. For once it really doesn't matter how tidy or pretty they look...


Bake at 180/350/gas mark 4 until they spring back instantly when you press the top ~ around 18-20 minutes.


Decorate however you want to....

Swizzels Matlow have a great range of sweets out every year at Halloween, and this year is no exception with a few new releases sitting alongside old favourites.

We've been sent a bag each of Trick Or Sweet, the old favourite Chew Crew and the ASDA exclusive Scary Mix to try. Trick Or Sweet is new for this year with a mix of Double Lollies, Refresher Bars, Parma Violets, Love Hearts, Fruity Pops, Fizzers and Drumstick Lollies.

My family have tried these before, we all know we love these sweets and have our favourites already. I'm particularly partial to Parma Violets myself, lollies are most popular with the little ones and the teenagers all want anything sour or fizzy.

Swizzels Matlow have a great competition over on their Facebook page this Halloween - simply upload a photo of yourself looking scary and you can win 1 of 25 Ultimate Halloween Party Treat Hampers. We've got an entry right here!




To give you another chance to win a load of fantastic sweets to give out to your own Trick Or Treaters Swizzels Matlow are giving a bag each of Trick Or Sweet, Scary Mix and Chew Crew to one of my readers. Entry is by Rafflecopter below. The competition will end at midnight Sunday 27th and I'll need the winners address as soon as possible to give time for your sweets to arrive before Halloween! UK entries only please.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

Today is National Chocolate Cupcake day so naturally I've made something entirely different! Doh!


Parragon Books kindly sent me the Classic Baking cookbook, and I couldn't help but smile when I realised it's almost entirely dessert recipes! In it's 256 pages it has all the recipes you'd expect including Lemon Drizzle Cake, Carrot Cake and even Chocolate Chip Cookies, through to some more interesting and obscure recipes like Lebkuchen, Boston Cream Pie and Apricot Cream Cake.

We had a good look through and it was actually my 5 year old who chose 2 recipes he'd like to try. I've got the ingredients to make Poppy Seed Crumble Squares over the weekend, but the dessert we tried yesterday was Chocolate Cheesecake Bars...


There are no special skills required to make this dish, it's all very basic and mainly just involves mixing.

Ingredients

For the base
250g/9oz Plain Flour
2tsp Baking Powder
3tbsp Cocoa Powder
140g/5oz Butter cut into small cubes
140g/5oz Caster Sugar
1 Egg

For the filling
250g/9oz Butter, softened
280g/10oz Caster Sugar
2tsp Vanilla Extract
4 Eggs, lightly beaten
750g/1lb10oz Medium Fat Soft Chese/Quark
100ml/3.5oz fl oz Whipping Cream
1tbsp Cornflour

Icing Sugar and Chopped Hazlenuts for sprinkling

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas Mark 3. Grease a 20cm x 30cm baking tray which is at least 5cm deep. I like to line mine too with greaseproof paper. Although the edges are not so neat, it makes it far easier to lift out.


2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a large bowl. Rub in the butter and sugar. Shake your bowl and the lumps will come up to the top, where you can see them to rub them into the mix better. Then add the egg and mix into a crumbly dough.


3. Spread 3/4 of the mixture on the prepared baking tray, pressing firmly into the base and slightly up at the sides. Save the rest of the mixture for later. I think when I made it that I maybe saved too little mixture, so make sure you save a good quarter of yours.


4. To make the filling beat the butter, sugar and vanilla extract together in a large bowl. Gradually add the eggs, then add the cheese, cream and cornflour and beat until smooth. 


 5. Spread the filling mixture onto the base and smooth flat with a spatula. I'll be honest, my mix was completely runny, there was no substance to it at all and I thought I must have gone horribly wrong at this point. I couldn't smooth it because it was just a liquid!


 6. Sprinkle the reserved crumble mixture over the top with your fingers. Even though my filling mix was liquid, the crumble mix mainly floated, but there wasn't enough to make it look anything like the photo!

7. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 1/4 hours. Leave it to cool completely before removing carefully from the baking tray.


Once cool the cheesecake was lovely and firm and cooked through well. The fact that it had been incredibly runny before it was cooked was obviously not an issue. It rose a few cm's during cooking too, so make sure the shelf above isn't too close.


The recipe suggests that you dust with icing sugar, sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts and cut into bars before serving. I actually used my Oxo serrated peeler on the side of a bar of white chocolate instead.


The cheesecake was absolutely gorgeous, really rich tasting and incredibly chocolatey. It wasn't heavy, but had a nice firm texture. The addition of the layer of crumble above the cheesecake was a really nice touch and it did benefit from having a dusting of something sugary over it as it wasn't incredibly sweet. We ate most of it that night and finished it the next day, and I think it was better after resting for that time.

Did it look like the one in the book? Nope, hardly at all... Somehow I seemed to have 3 times as much filling and half the crumble that I needed to match that picture. .Do I care? Not really because frankly it was completely delicious and impressive and I'll make it again soon. I think I'll make a bit of extra crumble mixture next time....


Classic Baking contains more than 100 recipes over 256 pages. It has plenty for the complete amateur as well as several you'd have to be pretty cocky to attempt. The photos are really clear and large and the instructions are very easy to follow and nicely worded. I don't know if the recipe I chose was in the right proportions to match the picture, but it was in the right proportions to make the dish, so I'll let that go. I'm really excited by this book and my family have spent the last week treating it as the Mealtime Book Of Dreams, with everyone placing orders for what I should try next. Classic Baking has an RRP of £16.00 and is currently for sale on Amazon at £10.60

Miioon are a young company who focus on making clothes that please the child as well as the parent. They sell t-shirts and capes as well as the fabulous jacket that turns into a rucksack - the Ruckjack - and all items are personalised by your child.


The website is really simple to use, my 3 1/2 year old was able to do it with only a little help from me, and that was only because he can't read yet. You select which product you want to make, be it a t-shirt, cape, Ruckjack or gift card, then you add the personalisation.

My son was making a Ruckjack, so the first choice to make is which colour for your coat, red or blue? Next we chose which lining we wanted? This was when he got really excited, Moshi Monsters or Animaru? Our final choice was whether to have any Oonits - zip pulls! There were 9 different Oonits to choose from, and you can choose anything from 0-3 in whichever combination you fancy. My son spent ages choosing his favourite Moshi Monsters.



When the jacket arrived the first thing that struck me was the quality. I must admit I was expecting something that was a little more style over substance, a bit gimmicky - not at all. This is a proper coat, it's warm and waterproof and really nicely designed. It has a 3M Thinsulate layer for warmth and Teflon lining inside for waterproofing.


Along with the jacket were a gorgeous pair of free shoelaces which are too big for my small boys shoes just yet, but perfect for my teenager's boots and caused quite a stir. There was also a card with our chosen Oonits..









My 3 year old has always been reluctant to wear a coat and I spent most of my time walking around holding one for him , the Miioon Ruckjack is something he wants to wear, he is excited to put it on and wants to show it off to his friends at nursery. He's really proud of it and feels it's very special.

The day it arrived - we didn't have time to put on the Oonits before the school run!

It fits really well and sits really nicely on my son's shoulders even when it's unzipped. We've had it 2 weeks now and it's been worn in the pouring rain, it's been turned inside out umpteen times and it's been washed in the washing machine and it looks every bit as good as it did before.

This morning

I'm far more impressed with the Miioon Ruckjack than I thought I'd be. I was really interested because I thought it might encourage my son to wear a coat more often, but what I've found is that not only is that true, but this is a great jacket that is properly warm and waterproof. It really stands up well against any competitor. When it's warmer we just turn it into a rucksack and he can wear it comfortably, so I don't have to carry it!

The Ruckjack currently retails at £29.99 and each additional Oonit is an extra £1.99. Ruckjacks come in sizes to fit youngsters from age 3-12

Wordsearch Junior is a reworking of the classic Wordsearch by Drumond Park to make it accessible to a younger audience. The game is really simple and very quick to understand and is, as it suggests, competitive word searching.  I have to say I really wasn't sure at all how this would work, but as soon as I saw it I was impressed.


The playing surface is made up from 3 plastic pieces that are engineered to fit together perfectly. The plastic is actually a lot stronger than it first looks, and not flimsy or brittle.


Specially shaped cards are placed within the construction, that turn along with the transparent dimpled surface and reveal the word or picture combination that needs to be found.


There are 3 different levels of difficulty denoted by the 3 different colours of card -

• Blue ~ picture pattern cards for those who are not yet readers. 
• Red ~ picture hint cards give a picture clue but still require the player to look for the right word
• Green ~ word-only cards that have no pictures and encourage independent reading

The game is brilliant for encouraging new readers to look for patterns and logic among the letters. It requires good concentration and reasoning skills. Without realising it the players learn to recognise word formation and familiarise themselves with new words and syllables.

When a player is the first to spot the revealed word or pattern then they can cover the corresponding letters or pictures with their counters, even replacing an opponents previous counters if necessary. The winner is the person who has most counters on the board when all of the words or patterns have been covered. If someone runs out of counters then they instantly win and the game is over.



Wordsearch Junior has a suggested age range of 4+ and I think that's exactly right.

My exactly 5 year old thinks it is a brilliant game and is eager to lap it all up. He loves playing with the picture hint cards because he knows he's stretching himself, but he can do it. He can only actually spell a couple of the words outside the game, but within it he can look and work out how long the word is and where all the sounds are.

My 3 1/2 year old wants to play the picture pattern game but he's finding it incredibly hard to remember the 3 picture pattern because his brain just isn't mature enough yet. This is really helping him and each time he tries he gives it a better shot. I'm absolutely certain that within a couple of weeks he'll be able to do it, and that new skill will help him in many ways aside from within this game.


Wordsearch Junior has an RRP of £18.99 and I think that's a very fair price. It is a good game that will facilitate your child's learning while they have fun and because it has different ability levels it will last them a few years. Drumond Park games are available from a range of stockists including larger toy shops, supermarkets, Argos and Debenhams.

My 5 year old really likes this game, he just wants to find the words and is really keen to try all of the cards. It's really captured his attention and enthusiasm.

It's exactly 14 weeks since I sat here and posted about how I was worrying about my partner and today we had our first discussion about that day. It was brief and I shed a tear, but it's the first time I've felt I could revisit it. I've not read the blog posts since I posted them.

My partner now is 'normal' in almost every way. He falls asleep some afternoons and evenings after work, but rarely, and he used to do that anyway. He does complain of feeling tired a lot, and I think that feeling is with him most of the time, but even so he stays up until 1am at weekends watching movies with me. He can beat me at games again and he really can problem-solve just as I'd expect.

He still has pain in his arms and legs and jokes about needing a wheelchair, but he really could do with a stick some days because he limps and winces. One day he'll actually go to his Doctor and ask about it, rather than just keep on saying he will.

There's really nothing more to report. I'm sure I'll have forgotten something, but it is incredibly positive. We're still hopeful that the physical pain will lessen, and that sometime soon he'll have a time when he doesn't feel so tired, but we can live our lives again and do all the stuff we want to do. It's a good thing.