Born to be Yummy Cakes

Every day Abby will come to me and ask for a treat. Treats are nice but they can be unhealthy too. So I was intrigued when I heard about Born to be Yummy cakes, which claimed to be healthy and full of goodness. The owner was very kind and sent me their whole range to try.

According to their ingredients and information on the box, each of their products has hidden fruits or vegetables, at least 1/3 less sugar and 2/3 less saturated fat compared to other similar individually wrapped cakes. They also contain at least 1/3 less sugar than many other children's fruit based lunchbox snacks. There are no added salt nor artificial additives. It all sounded too good to be true!

Each of their individually wrapped cakes comes with a reusable sticker on it, so the little ones can stick it on themselves while eating the full of goodness cakes. Abby has been harassing her daddy with them though!

When I opened the wrapping, my first thought was how easy it was to unwrap the cakes. Little ones can easily unwrap these themselves by showing them how to do it, and it's easy to hold the cakes with the other half of the wrapper still wrapped around the cake to prevend mess.

All of their products has crushed linseeds to add that extra texture, and I loved feeling for them and biting on them.

Their Choca Doodle Choo (Chocolate & Apricot Crispies) are crispy but not harsh to the gum at all. It's got a chewy texture from the dried apricots, and is deliciously chocolatey. 

Bonkers Choca-na-na (Banana & Chocolate Flapjacks) has a hint of banana from the banana mash, and more of a oaty flavour. It also contains 2% of dark chocolate chips, which has a 66% cocoa mass.

The Flapple Jacks (Pineapple Flapjacks) are my favourite. It is sweet but not sickly sweet. The golden syrup flavour is there but not overpowering, and there is a hint of the pineapple puree.

Finally, their Ooey Gooey (Chocolate Brownies) contain freshly grated carrots that gives an interesting crunch to the dense but soft brownies. They are very tasty and chocolatey, with 72% cocoa solids.

I really liked their cakes and thought that they are great for my children as a snack. Although hubby thought that the flapjacks was a bit dry. I agree with him, but nothing can't be fixed with a good glass of milk!


Because of the owner's passion for creating nutritious treats that uses fresh ingredients, it was quite unfortunate that a couple of the chocolate brownies I was sent (not the one in the above picture) has started to go off due to natural spoilage before their best before date.

I liaised with the owner before publishing this review, as I think that their cakes are delicious, and it is unfair if I didn't give her a chance to investigate the problem. By doing this, you, the reader, can also find out how they deal with a problem like this.

According to their Quality Assurance Statement issued in July 2011, they were awarded 5 star/ Excellent Food Hygiene Rating, and they implement a systematised checklist, which is internationally recognised and recommended system of food safety management. This allows them to find out quickly where the problem occured when they receive a customer complaint. You can read more about their statement here.


And indeed, the owner was quick to respond and kept me up to date during the investigation process. She only needed to know which shop the brownies were bought from (in my case, she already knew) and she can quickly connect it to the bakery responsible for the batch.

After some investigation, they have found out that a small batch of fresh carrots used for that particular batch of chocolate brownies contained an exceptionally high moisture content, causing the brownies to prematurely spoil before the best before date (26th June, 2012).

My case was their 5th premature natural spoilage case reported to them since July 2011, and have in that time produced 10s of thousands of cakes. (How lucky am I! I should have bought a lotto ticket!)

They are recalling the brownies from this batch, and urge anyone who bought them to contact them. Money will be refunded together with a complimentary replacement pack. You can read more about the case and their investigation report here.

The owner and her team are now looking into a solution that will enable them to continue using fresh carrots in their brownies while allowing the brownies to last longer.


After the incident, I still ate the other 3 cakes. I just made sure I checked them out beforehand, which should really be done with anything you put in your mouth. The cakes are retailed £3.00 per pack, with 5 in each pack. You can find the stockists information here.


Disclosure: I was sent 4 packs of cakes to try and review; all opinions are honest and my own.

Seabrook Bread Crisps

Although I make lots of desserts, I'm more of a savoury person. Or perhaps I just like flavoursome food! We love our crisps, and it is one thing that is always stocked in this house. One of our favourite brand is Seabrook, their crisps are full of flavours, and go well with any fizzy drinks. One of their product claimed to have no potato at all - Seabrook Bread Crisps.

Their bread crisps are almost like croutons, but tastier! I took one and couldn't stop. I did however tried to stop my husband though. It's so flavoursome a fizzy drink is a must to go with it. 

Cheddar Cheese & Red Onion

Their Cheddar Cheese & Red Onion is absolutely my favourite. I loved the cheesiness. It's the kind that'll make you want to lick off all the flavourings from the tub!

Sea Salt & Balsamic Vinegar

I'm normally not keen in Salt and Vinegar, but somehow the 'sea' and the 'balsamic' enticed me. I can taste more of the bread/ crouton taste from this one, and it reminded me of eating bread dipped in salt, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Maybe I should dip them in olive oil! This one is surprisingly hubby's favourite as he normally isn't keen in salt & vinegar as well. He said it's special and nice!

It is a nice change from potato crisps, and the flavour you expect from Seabrook is still there. You can buy them from Morrissons for £1.99 per 100g tub. I do think that they could have filled the tub up a bit more though *sheepish grin*.

Disclosure: I was sent 2 tubs of bread crisps to try; all opinions are honest and my own

James Martin Bakery - Chocolate & Cherry Cup Cake Mix

As mentioned before in my post about James Martin Bakery's New York Style Baked Lemon Cheesecake Mix, I was also sent his Chocolate & Cherry Cupcake Mix to try. I found an opportunity and tried to let Abby do everything, but it's just faster and less messy to do them on my own! I must resist helping her with her baking next time.

The cupcakes came out looking pretty and impressive.

Like the other James Martin mixes, this cupcake mix is fairly easy to use, and it included what looked like greaseproof cupcake cases, which unfortunately I couldn't use as I didn't have the right tray for them (instruction showed that these cases can be placed on a baking sheet without support but I didn't dare to try), so I replaced the cases with my own that will fit into my cupcake tray. I think the ones provided were slightly bigger. They've also provided ingredients for the icing and decorations. The only things needed were an egg, butter and milk.

Abby helped measuring the additional ingredients, and poured the cake mix and milk into the bowl. She didn't like my electric mixer though! While mixing, we smelled a very strong fragrance coming from the mixture. I thought it smelled like marzipan, but it appeared to be the cherry flavouring. I have also mistaken the chocolate chips as lumps of mixture! Imagine me trying to crush the chocolate chips!

The mixture was runnier than I expected, so I scooped them into the cases instead of Abby in case she spilled some. There was just enough mixture to fill the cases half way up. I thought there wasn't much but after they came out from the oven, they raised up to the perfect height and half of them even had a lovely smooth flat top.

After they have cooled down, we got on with the icing. It built up to a lovely pink/ purplish colour with tiny pieces of cherry. I thought the final icing was a bit thick, but that could be because I haven't mixed it for long enough. I helped Abby cover the cakes with the icing (as it wouldn't stick because of the thickness) while she sprinkled the provided chocolate curls on top. There was plenty of icing left, and a good amount of chocolate curls for Abby to play with.

The cakes were soft, moist and nice even on its own. They were quite chocolately with an obvious cherry flavour. The icing was a bit on the sweet side, so we didn't need a lot of it. My hubby who loves cherry cakes loved the cupcakes, saying that they were really nice.

You can get the cake mixes from Tesco for £1.99 or ASDA for £1.50, although I think they are out of stock at the moment.

Disclosure: I was sent the cake mix for review purpose; all opinions are honest and my own

James Martin Bakery - New York Style Baked Lemon Cheesecake Mix

I always call myself a food blogger, but I focus mainly on baking. I love the pretty desserts and the smell of freshly baked bread. Although I prefer my own recipes, I appreciate good instant mixes especially during the UK's hottest days. The weather is fantastic but definitely not when you have a hot oven switched on to 180 degree Celsius in the kitchen! Those days were so hot that chocolates has started to melt in the house, and that doesn't happen often in the UK!

With instant mixes, you can still have freshly baked goodies, but you spend the least time in the kitchen. The bread mixes I've tried from James Martin's Bakery were really fresh like the freshly bought ones from a good bakery, and we really enjoyed them. So when I've received his cake mixes to try, I was having fairly high expectations.

I'll be trying the cupcake mix when Abby is available, as I'm sure she'd want to try making these herself.

I made the New York Style Bakes Lemon Cheesecake with a bit of Abby's help and I must say that I'm impressed! I have mentioned before that I love baked cheesecakes (although without the cookie base) but I found them troublesome to make because of the hot water bath you put the cake in, before putting it in the oven. James Martin Bakery's cheesecake doesn't require a hot water bath, yet it is still smooth and creamy. It is a bit on the thick and rich side, so I think it can easily serve five to six people, and it goes really well with a good cup of tea.

I made it with the cookie base for review purpose and it tasted like freshly baked Crumble topping. I still prefer baked cheesecakes without the cookie base though, so I ate them separately. The cheesecake smelled gorgeous and lemony, but it also tasted a touch too sour for me. Hubby wasn't bothered about the sourness and thought it was nice. I would love it if they sell the plain version and I'll be their long term customer! It's really good for when I have baked cheesecake cravings but can't be bothered with the work!

The mix has provided almost everything including a disposable baking mould, you just need melted butter, cream cheese and milk.

Mix the melted butter with the crumbs, press them down in the mould and chill. I forgot to chill but it came out fine.

Mix the cheese and milk until soft and creamy, add the cheesecake mix and beat for 2 minutes.

Left: Abby mixing the cheesecake powder with the cream cheese before we use electric whisk to cream it. This ensure that the
powder won't fly everywhere before they get a chance to mix into the cheese

Pour into mould and bake, without a hot water bath!

The cake raised up quite high, but after cooling down it shrank back to normal.

You can buy the cake mix for only £1.79 (sale price, usually £1.99) from Tesco. For a cake that can serve 4-6 people and you only need a tub of cream cheese, a dash of milk and melted butter on top for a freshly baked cheesecake, it really is not a bad price at all!

Disclosure: I was sent 2 cake mixes to review and this is one of them; all opinions are honest and my own

ChokaBlok Chocolates

The weather had been so hot for the past week almost everything was unbearable (well, indoors daily things) - housework, cooking, sitting, eating, and even doing nothing. So when the parcel from ChokaBlok chocolates has arrived, this chocoholic was excited but couldn't pick up the will to take pictures. And without taking the pictures, there is no opening the lovely chocolates.

So I waited. I waited until the sun has gone down, but there were still sufficient light for me to take pictures. As it was so warm, every time I touched the chocolate I ended up licking the melted chocolate off my fingers. Not bad!

I was completely blown away with how generous they were with the toppings. Each blok of chocolate was covered with the amount of toppings you will only see on ice-creams that are decorated by the one who will be eating it.

The Chocolate Gift Box (rrp £3.99 for 140g) has 3 of each of their new chocolate blok flavours - Gold Digger Dynamite, The Rocky Road of Love, Cookie Crumb Mon-Star, and The Chocolate Extremist. Yet they are also slightly different from the chocolate bloks. These mini chocolates all have a gooey centre, making them more luxurious.

My favourite had to be the Gold Digger Dynamite. I just love the honeycomb chunks! And the soft caramel sauce inside is so gooey and mmmm!! The Cookie Crumb Mon-Star is a bit too sweet for me, but it will go very well with a good cup of tea. The Chocolate Extremist is perfect for dark chocolate and brownielovers, while the Rocky Road of Love is Abby's favourite because of the cute marshmallows. I like the shortbread biscuit balls more though!

It's the same 100g bar, but I like it's square shape. And they are really, literally covered with toppings!

The Chocolate Extremist uses milk chocolate here

Unfortunately the bloks arrived broken, so I had to be a bit more creative when I took these pictures. I should have flipped them all over! Anyway. Although without the gooey centre, there are more topping choices on these - Rocky Road has more marshmallows, Chocolate Extremist has chocolate balls, Cookie Crumb has a lot more stars and cookie crumbs, as well as shortcake biscuit balls and it was very satisfying to bite on them. Not only do you get a good solid chunk of chocolate, you also get lots of other bits, making them much more interesting than many other chocolate bars.

Don't forget to pick some up from Tesco's chocolate aisle next time you go there!


Disclosure: I was sent the above chocolates to review; all opinions are honest and my own

Wild Trail Whole Grain Popped Corn Bar

Popped corn is always my must have every time I go watch a movie in the cinema. But as the prices kept going up (I still live in the time when tickets were £5 each) and after having my first child, we stopped going, and I haven't had popped corn since, until recently when we went to Peppa Pig World for our Easter holiday. The popped corn I had there was by far the best I have ever had, and I started craving for more.

Two weeks ago I tried popping our own popped corn for the first time ever. I was flustered, and the syrup was messy. The outcome was rubbish as most of them has gone soggy, while the rest was mixed with unpopped kernels.

When I was introduced to Wild Trial's popped corn bar, I was intrigued. Cereal bars made with popped corn? Sounds like a must try to me!

I was sent their new triple pack of Fruit & Double Nut Whole Grain Popped Corn Bar to try, and at the moment I am regretting to have let my daughter have a whole bar to herself and hubby taking the last one to work. They are really nice! The popped corns are soft (no hard unpopped kernels here!), but then you get a slight crunch from the nuts (brazil nuts and hazelnuts) and sunflower seeds. The chewy raisins gave just enough tanginess to balance out the sweetness from the honey and yogurt. The bar is full of flavour and texture, making it much more interesting to eat than normal cereal bars, and it doesn't hurt my gums either like some cereal bars do.

The bars are handmade in Britain with natural ingredients, and are free from artificial flavourings, colourings and preservatives. They also contain no hydrogenated fats and are suitable for vegetarians. Popped corns are high in anti-oxidants, and contains high level of dietary fibre, Vitamin B and E.

You can get the triple pack (£3 x 45g for £2.39) in 2 flavours - Double Cut Cranberry and Fruit & Double Nut at selected Sainsbury's from 24th June, 2012. But if you can't wait for that long, they sell single bars, including a third flavour Apple & Raspberry, at selected Morrisons stores, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, etc for 99p rrp.

Update: Hubby just had his and was considering buying a whole retail box of them!

Disclosure: I was sent a triple pack to review; all opinions are honest and my own

Party Pieces Age One Cake Kit

As my family will be gathering in London during the Jubilee bank holiday, we decided to do a proper celebration for Clay's 1st birthday when we meet up. We just did a smaller celebration today as it is his official birthday. I have been wondering what to do for his birthday cake for some time now. I had a master plan in my mind, but it would be too much work for just the four of us to enjoy. So I'm keeping the master piece (fingers crossed it won't fell through) for the Jubilee holiday.

I could buy a cake from the shops, but it's not quite homemade, which I hoped to do. However, it started to get so warm during the day in my kitchen that I just want to stay out from there. Thankfully I was offered an Age One Cake kit from Party Pieces, which saved me time from staying in the hot kitchen with the hot oven on.

Make by the Cake Kit company

The kit came with a cake mix, icing for covering the cake and making icing decorations, 2 reusable circle cutters, a candle and holder, a cake board, disposable cake mould, template and instructions.

I was pretty impressed with what came with the kit. You can basically bring this kit to anywhere that has an oven and water, and transform it into a birthday cake that serves 25-30 child size portions! (Should have saved this for London gathering!)

All you need is to add 300ml of water and 5 tablespoon of vegetable oil and whisk it. It becomes thick and glossy like meringue. You then whisk in another 140ml of water and beat in air for another 3 minutes, while baking takes 40.

Pour the batter in the pre-greased disposable box and you can put it in the oven! The whole process only took me less than 10 minutes!

Before baking, the cake mix smelled lovely of butter (although it doesn't contain butter). It is more or less as versatile as homemade cake batter, so I decided to add zest of one lemon to turn the cake into a lemon cake, which was my original plan for Clay's birthday cake. The cake smelled absolutely gorgeous when it came out from the oven. You can of course add other flavourings like vanilla essence, or even colour (make it into a rainbow cake with different colours!) 

After cutting out the One shape using the template, I was left with two big chunks of cakes. Hubby really liked it and ate one whole chunk! I think it was not bad, it tasted quite similar to a Madeira cake from a supermarket. But of course, nothing is better than my own homemade cakes! *Evil laughter*

The recipe asked for jam only to spread on top of the cake before covering it with icing, but I decided to slice the cake into three layers, made a lemon syrup to moisten each layer (the texture of the cake is a bit like pound cake, but the syrup was more to balance the sweetness from the icing), and a purple coloured lemon cream cheese icing to cream between the layers as well as all over the cake.

I then chilled the cake in the fridge for half an hour (the cream cheese was basically melting in the heat) before covering it with icing. It was my first time ever making a cake with icing cover, and it wasn't the easiest thing to do for a first timer (or someone who has minimal amount of patience). I kneaded the icing three times as it kept sticking on my marble board, even with icing sugar dusted all over it. And because of that, the icing became drier than before and cracked easily when I finally got the right size to cover the cake.

Anyhow, I managed and was still happy with it. It was my first time and now I can tick something else off my to do list! I then moved on to decorating the cake, but my brain won't function, so I just added Clay's name on the cake and stuck to the dotty pattern. You can, of course, use other shapes or decorations.

I did mix the colours to create new colours though. I just love aqua colour. I tried making purple but it was a bit dark (Clay's name was purple). The orange was lovely but it doesn't seem to go with the theme. Anyway, the cake had a lovely colour combination especially after cutting it. Blue, aqua and purple always work.

Overall, I think that the cake mix is very handy if you want to cut out some of your work and preparation time. The cake looked impressive, and it is still homemade. It would have saved me even more time if I have sticked to the recipe, but well, I always like a good challenge.

The cake mix was created by the Cake Kit company, who specialises in cake kits, if you are interested you can take a look at Party Pieces' website (blue link above) for other choices. The Age One cake kit cost £16.99 and comes with either gold or chocolate sponge cake mix depending on your choice.

Disclosure: I was sent a cake kit to try; all opinions are honest and my own

James Martin Bakery - Bread Mixes

Okay. I admit. I think James Martin is very cute, and probably the cutest celebrity chef at the moment. I had a glimpse of him last year in the Winter Good Food Show, but he was completely surrounded by his body guards. You would have thought that it was Simon Cowell who was visiting! Apparently the cute chef has opened a 'bakery', selling his bread mixes (and cake mixes), and I was given two flavours out of the five to try.

I only had to add water to the mix, and let my most trusted bread maker do the rest (you can, of course, knead by hand).

Both mixes I was given uses wheat flour, but for some reason they were whiter than the white flour I normally use. The above picture is of the Mixed Seed Bread mix, you can see plenty of seeds around. I forgot to take a picture for the Cheese & Sundried Tomato Bread mix as I was too eager to start making it!

Mixed Seed Bread (250g loaf)

Cheese & Sundried Tomato Bread (500g loaf)

Both bread were really tasty even though they had less than 5g of salt in the whole packet (500g). The texture was great - elastic yet soft. When fresh the crust is thin and crispy, and after that (wrapped tightly with clingfilm) it gave an interesting chewy texture that both me and hubby liked. Of course, if you don't, you can always refreshen the loaf up in the oven.

The Mixed Seed bread was delicious with lots of seed all over, and went really well with butter and cheese. The Cheese and Sundried Tomato bread was very fragrant and tasty, and I immediately thought of Balsamic Vinegar with Olive Oil. That would be the perfect match for the bread!

You can really see and taste the quality from James Martin's Bakery range. The bread mix gave an elastic bread that is packed with flavour, and only cost £1 from ASDA or Tesco. I'll definitely keep an eye open for his range, and perhaps try his cake mixes as well.

Disclosure: I was given two packets of bread mix to try; all opions are honest and my own

Lucky's Wonderland Chocolates Giveaway

Here is another wonderful chocolate collections that I came upon the other day while being sucked into Twitter's social life. Seriously, I can sit here chatting and catching up with what's going on on Twitter and suddenly the day has almost finished with nothing done. But also because of Twitter, I discovered Lucky's luxury chocolates inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

I was sent a selection from their Mad Hatter Bar and Tiny Pieces of Wonderland to try. Just the names are exciting enough! They use Valrhona chocolate for their pieces as well. I have used Valrhona chocolate before in baking and making chocolates, which is one of the best out there, so I had high hopes for their chocolates, and I was not let down at all!

The Mad Hatter Bar collection are filled with 70% cocoa brownies in different flavours. They are handmade with fine ingredients and premium Valrhona chocolate. Each chocolate are hand-packed in cellophane and serves two person (90g for £5.50 - £6.00 each)

Although it is suppose to serve two person, I couldn't stop eating them, and sharing has proven to be a difficulty! The Chunky Nutter (above) and the Mocha Madness (below) are absolutely delicious, with a good layer of chocolate on the outside, and moist and heavenly soft chocolatey brownie on the inside.

I love the pieces of pecan nuts in the Chunky Nutter (40% milk chocolate coating), and it has pieces of white chocolate too to add a special touch to the chocolate. The 35% white chocolate on the Mocha Madness, although at the perfect sweetness, has slightly overpowered the ground and infused espresso brownie. It is absolutely lovely as not many times do you get to eat white chocolate without choking yourself with the sweetness. But I would prefer a stronger coffee flavour in the cake. You can taste it when you eat the cake on its own and it's really scrumptious.

I was also sent their latest flavours - Cafe Latte and Caramel Craze to try. Their Tiny Pieces of Wonderland is a miniature version (27g for £1.55 - £1.75 each) of the Mad Hatter Bar and Honey Time (with honey cakes) collection.

Cafe Latte has a layer of creamy coffee flavoured ganache on top of their spicy (spice, not chili) honey cake. Again, their cakes are really soft and flavoursome.

The caramel in their Caramel Craze almost melts in your mouth, creating an interesting and exciting texture.

I'm really impressed with their chocolates. Not only are they made with good quality ingredients, their attention to details cannot be ignored. They look great even after cutting them open. You can also tell that their cakes were really fresh when moulded into the chocolate, which has been sealed inside the chocolate layer. I absolutely love their theme as well, their website is fun and exciting!

At the moment they are doing an offer on their chocolates. The more you buy, the cheaper they are. And you don't even have to buy the same flavour to get the discount. You can also become a club member for free to enjoy a 15% off on all their chocolates.

Lucky's has sent me extra chocolates for 2 lucky readers to try and enjoy. If you have a Twitter account, good luck! If you don't, sign up now :)

The giveaway ends on 31st May, 2012. 2 winners will be chosen to try out Lucky's latest flavour - Cafe Latte and Caramel Craze from their Tiny Pieces of Wonderland collection.

Please see the rafflecopter for Terms and Conditions.

Good Luck x

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I was sent a few samples of their chocolates to try; all opinions are honest and my own