Strawberry Yogurt Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 125gms unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup strawberry yogurt
• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

Pink Frosting:
(Based on the Donna Hay Frosting)

• 125gms unsalted butter
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Few drops of pink food colouring

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C. On a tray place cupcake wrappers or line muffin trays if you are using those.

2. In a large bowl add the caster sugar, butter and vanilla. Beat using an electric mixer until light and creamy.

3. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until well blended before adding the next one.

4. In a separate bowl sift the flour and baking powder.

5. Add a third of the flour mix to the cake mixture and combine gently with a spoon.

6. Add half the yogurt and combine well, but just like muffins, these are best if they are not over stirred.

7. Continue adding to the mix until you finish with the last batch of flour.

8. Spoon out mixture into the cupcake wrappers. For the size wrappers we used we made 16 cupcakes. Bake for about 25 minutes.

9. Once cooked – you can use the skewer test to ensure they are, remove from the tray and let them stand on a wire rack to cool.

As I noted, these cupcakes are delicious without icing and for lunches I prefer them not to be iced. But we were going to be taking them on a picnic, so we did ice them.

To make the frosting, chop the butter and soften it in the microwave. For my microwave this works out to be about 20 seconds on high.

10. Using the electric mixer beat for 6 minutes or until the butter has turned pale and creamy.

11. Sift the icing sugar on top of the butter. Add the milk and vanilla. Beat for another 4 or so minutes, stop and add the colouring, then beat again for another couple of minutes so the frosting is light and creamy.

12. If your cupcakes are flowing over the top of the cupcake wrapper, simply take a slice off the top to even them out before icing them.

13. Use a knife to spread the icing evenly on top of the cupcake and decorate with fresh strawberries.

Did you know that you can freeze your homemade frosting? Well you can! I simply took this frosting out of the freezer the night before our picnic and placed it in the fridge. Before our picnic, I transferred the frosting to a bowl and using the electric mixer, beat it for about 5 minutes until it was all light and creamy again.

Have you used yogurt in your cupcake recipe?

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Strawberry Yogurt Cupcakes is a post from: Planning With Kids

I was super impressed with the organisation of the Great Ocean Road Half Marathon. Everything went according to their published times and their was such a lovely atmosphere of people keen to take in this gorgeous part of Victoria that the Great Ocean Road encompasses.

While waiting in the toilet queue, I met a dear friend and his running companion. It was nice to have someone to talk to as a distraction from the cold!

This is the only scenery photo I took and it is from just near the starting line. Although the blogger in me did want to stop a number of times to take photos along the course.

The starting line was packed, but it didn’t take long for it to disperse. As a novice runner in these types of events, it was the start that was worrying me the most, but it was much better than I imagined.

The course went from Kennett River to Apollo Bay. 23kms in total, so runners received a half marathon and race time (or a marathon and race time if you ran that far!).

I had set myself a goal of finishing under 2 hours for the entire race and was happy to have come in well under that and run a personal best time for that distance.

Thanks to Pete and Cath, who let us stay at their fab place in Lorne Saturday night. Thank you also to another friend Mark and Mr I I for the prompt in getting me to take part in this event. It wasn’t something that was on my list of things to do this year at all, but I did really enjoy the challenge of pushing myself and has me thinking about other areas where I need to push myself out of my comfort zone!

Have you done something recently that has taken you out of your comfort zone?

Current Sponsors:

• Bright Star Kids' Name Labels - Super Cute & Durable Name Labels
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Great Ocean Road Half Marathon is a post from: Planning With Kids

Some months I vary more from them than others. The last plan wasn’t hitting the spot right with how it fitted in with my time commitments and the kid’s activities. So while I cooked about 95% of the meals on the plan, I did vary the order quite a bit. This is one of the things I like most about menu planning, in that it gives me options. I have all the ingredients for the meals, I can easily change the day I cook it to meet my needs.

I have changed the structure of the menu plans for the week this month, based on what was working for me in reality over the last couple of weeks. Changes include cooking a double batch meal on Mondays to cater for left overs. Many recipes used to easily give us left overs, but as the kids are growing up, there is less and less left over. So I need to start increasing the quantity of the ingredients, to factor in left overs. (For the menu plans in this post though, I only added one quantity of the meal.)

The Weekly Menu Plans

When you create the menu plans in the app, a shopping list is then created. You can then either use the shopping list directly on your iPhone and check off the items you have, or you can email the list to yourself or someone else.

The app plans Monday to Sunday at the moment and I plan from Saturday to Friday, so Monday in this plan is really Saturday for us and so on.

I have pasted the contents of the shopping list emails into word docs, turned them into PDFs and zipped them together, so they can be easily downloaded. Or you can purchase the App from iTunes and make your own!

Planning With Kids Weekly MenuPlans – May/June

What changes have you made menu planning as your family has grown?

Current Sponsors:

• Bright Star Kids' Name Labels - Super Cute & Durable Name Labels
• 4MyEarth - Lunch that does not cost the earth.

Menu Planning – May/June Weekly Menu Plans is a post from: Planning With Kids