I love food, more specifically dessert. It’s a good thing I’m not very good in the kitchen or else I’d be a life-sized Weeble. As it’s New Year’s Eve Eve, we’re getting ready for our New Year’s Eve family party so I decided to try my hand at making Kraft Canada’s Dulce de Leche Trifle. They sent me some of their Easy Oreo Truffles which I loved so much the kids and I tried making our own as part of our homemade gifts for the teachers this holiday season. The folks at Kraft Canada sent along some of the ingredients for the trifle to encourage me to give the recipe a try. And it worked since I did try making it today.
The hardest part was making the Dulce de Leche. I think I may have overcooked mine but that didn’t stop me from putting the whole thing together. That’s one of my New Year’s resolutions, to not get so easily discouraged and follow-through on a task. The kids helped by grating chocolate on the top. Fingers crossed that it turns out for our party tomorrow (it’s sitting in the refrigerator) but we had fun making it. Kraft might be turning me into a life-sized Weeble after all!
I’m not a fan of Pop-tarts or any of those toaster treats. I don’t buy them; we don’t eat them. But one night in a hurry I pulled a few chicken and pork ones and popped them in the toaster, sliced them up and tossed them on a salad.
We would see them often at camps as a peanut free treat or snack. My kids were never a fan of Bear Paws but we do eat crackers (it must be my bread weakness they’ve inherited). It’s getting harder and harder to find peanut-free snacks to send to school. Again, yes, I could probably find recipes of lots of ideas but being the cook I am (or lack of one actually), I still need other ideas, ones I can buy. I liked to send my kids to school with some variety too, like crackers and fruit, banana bread with cream cheese. Crackers are easy add-ons.
While we were waiting for the cupcakes to cook, the kids decided to ‘test’ the candies. I mean, you don’t want to decorate with substandard sugar right? I was able to convinced them to save some of the candies (i.e., I moved the bowls out of arms reach) and we tried shaking up the chocolate chip pancake mix. Add the milk, shake it up and pour right into the pan. My kids got creative and tossed some sprinkles and candy and the occasional piece of fruit into the pancake batter as it cooked. But they didn’t stop there. When the pancakes were done they continued adding candy embellishments. I think my kids were motivated by the competition for the Best Use of Candy award.
Actually, there were 3 mini competitions going on at the event: Best Use of Candy, Best Use of Dr. Oetker colours, and Best Use of Two Cupcakes. This created great buzz among all the tables as icing and sprinkles and candy and whipped cream and more were used to create many masterpieces. I didn’t envy Maura Kukaric (Brand Manager for Dr. Oetker) or Kim Saunders (VP, Fleishman-Hillard) as they had to decide on the winners in the three categories.
I believe 
Thankfully the folks at Dr. Oetker gave us some samples of their Shaker products to try and home. The kids are already asking to bake again which means 
