Round up ~Lets Cook savory snacks for Christmas.

Thank You to everyone who sent in their dishes. Here is the delicious roundup.

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My new kitchen helper -VonShef 1200w Stand Mixer

I have had a very busy run up to Christmas, with lots of cooking and baking. I made cupcakes for children in need, followed by red velvet birthday cake, an almond and cherry cake  for a tea party, lemon drizzle cake and snowflake shortbread for my work Christmas table and also some lovely chocolate biscuit puddings and Christmas cupcakes for our Christmas meal dessert. Baking can be very therapeutic but its hard work creaming and mixing all the ingredients, that’s when you wish you had a helper.

My helper came in the form of VonChef 1200w stand mixer from Domu. It is a stylish and sleek mixer in a contemporary silver design with 6 choices of speed and an extra Pulse function. It is able to whisk, mix and knead ingredients into a perfect dough or batter mix in minutes with the help of chrome flat Beater, kneading dough hook and a balloon whisk. The mixer is a good size as it comes with a 5.5 litre dishwasher safe stainless steel bowl with a splash guard to stop that flurry of icing sugar or flour drowning you.

Assembling and using the VonShef was simple as there is only one dial to turn. The attachments click in and out fairly easily. The splash guard is a godsend but only drawback with it is that you have to feed the whisk or other attachment first through the opening of the guard before clicking the attachment in place and its little bit fiddly. Cleaning the attachments is simple and the bowl is dishwasher safe too. I love my VonShef and I must say that its certainly came at the right time and has proved to my best friend in the kitchen when it comes to baking. If you wish to purchase your own VonShef , it retails at £ 77.99 and comes with all the attachments and a lovely recipe book to get you baking straight away.

I would like to thank Domu for sending me my kitchen helper, all the views and opinions in this post are my own and unbiased

Tidbits from my pantry.

The last few weeks  its been Christmas almost every day as the post man has been bringing me lots of surprises for my pantry. I love these receiving these new products as it gives me a chance to sample stuff that are sometimes new on the market or products I would have not thought to try out.

Nib Nibs are premium  baked British nibbles that are made in a North Yorkshire Bakery. Delicious cheddar cheese straws in an array of flavours and  available in mini and full sizes. With flavours such as Cheddar and spicy chilli, cheddar and cheeky onion, sea salt and cracked black pepper or just plain cheddar. These lovely cheese straws are so morish that you will not be able to stop your self from munching the whole tub. These premium baked nibbles are beautifully presented in handy re-seal-able snack tubs so they are perfect for on the go, parties or lunch boxes.

Candy Crate is a monthly subscription service that sends you exciting American Candy treats right to your door.Each month you will get a selection of American candies for just £ 14.99 per month.The selection will vary each month so that you can get a chance to sample  varied candies from America.

Stur Liquid water enhancer. This product is simply delicious.They come in  mini bottles,each bottle has 30 servings and they come in only orange mango flavour, boldly blackcurrant apple flavour, goodness green apple flavour, clearly cranberry pomegranate flavour, real brewed tea and lemon flavour and real brewed tea and peach flavour. You just need to squeeze  a little into 200 ml of chilled water to get your flavoured water. The enhancers are made from natural fruit and tea flavours, lightly sweetened with stevia and are free from sugar, calories and fat and also provide 100% of your daily vitamin c.

All the products featured were sent to me as samples , I was not asked to write any positive review, all the opinions are my own.

Cakes by Robin~A birthday cake.

Cakes by Robin is owned by Robin Green, who creates bespoke cakes for all occasions, be it a birthday, graduation, corporate event,wedding, engagement or Christmas. The cakes are beautifully created styled and are delivered straight to your door.The range also includes cookies, cupcakes and cakepops too.
Browsing through their portfolio of cakes was a pleasure, there with some stunning designs and I am absolutely thrilled that they contacted me to see if I would like to review one of their cakes.

I am not a fan of Christmas cake so I requested the option to  review a birthday cake instead as it was my daughters birthday. The response was very generous and I was offered a birthday cake of my choice. I opted  for a chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream and fondant decorations on the theme of "opticians". (This because the cake was for my daughter who is an optician.)

The day before the birthday , at noon a beautiful birthday was delivered to my house.There was only one small problem and that was that the name on the cake was misspelt. This for us, was not a major problem as I soon scrapped off the incorrect letter and piped a new letter with some icing, however for someone who does not have cake decorating knowledge it may have posed a problem.

The birthday girl was really thrilled with it and we all really enjoyed the chocolate cake and had lots of admiration for the design. The chocolate cake inside was moist and had just the right amount of butter cream on it. The thick layer of fondant was not too hard and the decoration were beautifully hand crafted.
I would like to thank cakes by Robin for sending us such a lovely cake  and making my daughters birthday special.

Announcing event Lets cook/ create hot beverages

The month of January brings freezing weather in The UK . To keep warm we need plenty of hot drinks to keep us warm  inside and out. This months challenge is to create any hot beverage that will help you to keep warm and you can enjoy. Make any vegetarian  hot drink it can be tea, coffee, chocolate , hot cordial. soup, consommé, herbal drinks or anything that you can drink to keep you nice and warm.


To Participate:

1.Prepare a dish vegetarian beverage  (eggs allowed) please link your dish using the linky below by entering your Dish Name and Post URL
2.Please link this event announcement with your entry, this is mandatory.
3.Use of logo is  not mandatory but it helps to spread the word if you can post it..
4. Multiple entries are allowed, archived are only allowed if reposted and updated with this event link.
4. In the event of problem using linky you can email me the entry at simplysensationalfood@gmail.com

Please use this format
Your Name:
Recipe Name
Recipe URL
Image no larger than 300 pixels.

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