I'm a full-time mummy

In the middle of November last year, I received an email from Lavinie, one of the owner of Babydash company about the possibility of reviewing her products and after browsing through her online store, I politely informed her that I have to reject reviewing formulas and bottle products in her store because my 2 kids don't use them. Lavinie informed me that she will keep an eye out and informed me the moment a suitable product is available for my review.

Then in early February this year, Lavinie emailed me and asked me whether I am OK in reviewing the "Happy Baby Organic Puffs (Sweet Potato)". Now, this product has got to be one of the longest I need to liaise with the sponsor in order to review! No, no, it has nothing to do with the sponsor or the product, more to my product tester hahaha... Alyson, my baby girl was still not ready for solids when I first communicated to the sponsor for this product review, so we have to put on hold this review until Alyson is ready which is around May this year. Anyway, here goes my review:

Description from the product page:
"ORGANIC PUFFS are different than other first foods on the market:
100% natural- whole grains, real fruit
1/2 the sugar than leading brands.
No artificial coloring
No artificial flavors
No GMOs
Fortified wtih more vitamins and minerals. The only baby snacks with added vitamin B and calcium, as well as Vitamin D, a nutrient which breastfed babies tend to lack.

* Sweet Potato Puffs, along with our Strawberry Puffs, are GLUTEN FREE **
* Always Organic: Never any artificial flavorings. Sweetened with 100% fruit juice. Our puffs are made with organic whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
* Fortified with vitamins & minerals: Enriched with 40 IUs (10%) of your baby’s recommended daily value of Vitamin D. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, many infants are deficient in this vital nutrient.     
* Recommended by: Dr. Bob Sears, renowned pediatrician & author of The Baby Book.
* Better Value: Our containers hold 40% more product than the leading brands. (Gerber and Beech-Nut are 1.5oz each)
* Green Packaging: They are made with 25% recycled materials, arebpa free, and are recyclable.
* We support: sustainable agriculture. No pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs)."

Firstly, please excuse the word 'Sample' written all over the product hahaha... and don't worry, even if it is written 'Sample' the seal in the bottle is still intact and brand new. Now back to the puffs, the bottle is about 8 inches tall, easy to hold and I love the cover, easy to open and close even with just 1 hand. There are proper instructions and labeling on the bottle as well.

The reason why I am glad I can review the Happy Baby Organic Puffs Sweet Potato is because my girl is 8 months old now and is definitely ready for solids and experimenting with finger foods.

I love seeing her reaction when I offered some of the sweet potato puffs on my hand to her. I love it when she got so curious and started trying to pinch the puffs with her fingers (yay for finger skills!)

And then I waited for her to get used to holding the puffs in her fingers and putting them into her mouth by herself. At first she had one of those weird looks as if trying to see my reactions whether she is allowed to put the puffs in her mouth and when I smiled and gently encourages her to continue, she went and stuffed the puff into her mouth and I hear the 'crunch' and 'crack' sounds. Sweet and cute!

And then she started gobbling them... and looked on at me when they are gone. Well, I started by giving her 2 puffs, so I decided to give a few more and yep, they are gone as soon as she managed to grab them in her hands.

I also poured out some of the puffs into a small container and labeled it with Alyson's name and informed my MIL to give this to her when she's downstairs spending time with grandma. I am obviously more relieved with these organic puffs now as I don't have to worry about my MIL giving my girl crackers and stuff.

Oh by the way, I too tried out some of the puffs and yes, they are good! I find myself munching on them as well! The mild sweet flavor on the puffs are 100% from fruit juice so no worries about giving artificial sugar to your baby!

The verdict? Definitely a good product to try for your child who is starting finger foods!

** Updates on 1st July 2012: I ordered 2 more of these puffs (strawberry and greens flavor) for my girl after she finished the whole bottle!

You can get this and more varieties of products from Babydash website at: http://www.babydash.com.my/

By the way, I have also personally try out the shopping experience in Babydash website (I did a 'mock' order of the puffs by entering my contact details and mailing address) It is very user friendly and easy to navigate around the online store. I am also able to view my 'order' details as well.

The store also sells a varieties of other products for baby and mummy, in fact, I even recommended the website to one of the mummy in my breastfeeding group on Facebook who tried desperately to look for a diaper cream product and some mummies commented that Babydash has a lot of varieties of products (especially the Earth Mama Angel Baby selection)

Also, the Babydash Team is always looking out for customer suggestions on what else to add on to the site. Customers can send in their wishlist / shopping list and Babydash will stock the items as quickly as possible at the lowest online price! They also do Fast Delivery (1-2 days) and delivery is FREE above RM149 to anywhere in Peninsula Malaysia!

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by Babydash in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

If you have been following my blog regularly, you would know I go crazy over chocolates. Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to review food and it was Nutella Chocolate Chip cupcakes without the icing/frosting. I love eating them so much and I think it shows in my review and the sponsor was so happy reading my glowing review that she baked me another batch of cupcakes. And I got hooked and after a few weeks, I ordered another batch from the sponsor (am getting embarrassed for eating for free hahaha!)

At this point, I think it is sufficient to say that yes, I am addicted to the Nutella cupcakes and I spent some time Googling for the similar recipe to make it. And yes, I managed to find it and gathered up my courage to drive my long-time-untouched car by myself (the last time I drove the car was when I was pregnant with Alyson) to the nearest baker's shop to get the ingredients and waited for the right day, chucked my girl to my MIL to take care and I gave it a try, so without further ado, here goes:

SELF-FROSTING NUTELLA CUPCAKES

PREPARATION TIME: ABOUT 40 MINUTES

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Bake Time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:

10 tablespoons butter, softened  (I used about 125g of butter at room temperature)
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour, sifted  (I used wheat flour, can't find AP flour)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Nutella, approximately 1/3 cup  (I didn't measure this, just scoop based on how addicted I am to Nutella which probably might be about 10 tbsp : 1 tbsp for each cupcake?)

What to Do?

* Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper liners.
* Cream together butter and sugar for 2-3 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, waiting til one is incorporated before adding the next. Mix in vanilla.
* Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt until incorporated and completely mixed. DO NOT OVERMIX!
* Scoop into liners, filling each 3/4 full. Add a teaspoon of nutella to the top of each and swirl in with a toothpick.

* Bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean (don’t insert it into the nutella swirl, make sure it goes into just the cake). Remove from pan and move to a wire rack to cool completely.

THE RESULTS

REACTIONS FROM MY "GUINEA PIGS"

ME	"A bit too moist but otherwise.... ahhhh... nice....!" Note to self: Must try other cupcake liners as the one used is a bit hard, suspect it causes the cupcakes to be too moist and shrink up at the sides (too dry at top?)
BEN	"Mmmmm! Somemore!"
HUBBY	"Very moist, nice!"
MIL	"Not bad, not too sweet!"

So there you go.... my attempt of making SELF-FROSTING NUTELLA CUPCAKES!

To view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info!  

My oh my! I am so blessed to be given this opportunity to review yet another yummylicious FOOD! And this time, it was sent all the way over from UK! Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you my 2nd food review: 

CRUNCHY MUNCHY CHOCOLATE PIZZA!

About the product:

"Isn't it time you satisfied those chocolate and carb carvings in one perfect mouthful? Well now you can with the indulgent and truly scrumptious chocolate pizza! Let the senses be indulged and your tongue tantalised by this high quality belgian chocolate. The end result really is mouth watering! I can assure you ladies and gents that you'll most definitely be wanting more, more, more! So if you're looking for something a little different and really want to impress this is definitely a strong contender. Delivered in an actual takeaway box, this little gem is available in 7" and 10" versions. Just like a traditional pizza it comes in 8 slices - slice of chocolate pizza anyone?

 This truly scrumptious pizza is available in a range of yummy variations suitable for Christmas, birthday or simply for anyone who loves chocolate: Crunchy Munchy
* Pizza Base: Belgian milk chocolate
* Pizza Toppings: Vanilla fudge, white and milk chocolate coated honeycomb balls finished off with milk chocolate curls

 This pizza has a shelf life of 6 months and is suitable for vegetarians. A great alternative to a traditional birthday cake or as a birthday gift. Whatever the occassion the Chocolate Pizza makes an ideal gift for anybody with a sweet tooth! "

How often you get to see a pizza box like this? For me, ermmm... this is the first time and it felt oh-so-luxurious to hold that box of gourmet chocolate pizza, as I tried hard to fend off my 3 year old boy who wants a piece of it like RIGHT NOW!

I had to quickly opened up the box because it's really annoying listening to my 3 year old chanting "I want to eat, I want to eat, I want to eat" repeatedly right to my face.

Just look at his face! Top left picture of my boy trying hard to peel off the packaging and the few other pictures shows the close-up shots of a slice of the heavenly chocolate pizza! Oh my... look at those chocolate toppings! Drool!!!

As the chocolate pizza was flown all the way from UK to Malaysia, I do understand that there might be some imperfections in the presentation of the pizza. In my case, one of the pizza slices got crushed and was misaligned with the rest of the slices. But hey, not complaining at all as I know the packaging must have been thrown around during the delivery stage.

Let's see what my guinea pigs gotta say after they tried out this chocolate pizza:

ME	"Mmmm... nice! The chocolates my oh my... mmmmm... I can eat this all night long!"
BEN	"Mmmmm!! I want!! I WANT!!" (you can see the pictures of him trying to open the packaging!)
HUBBY	"Mmmm very nice!"
MY MIL	"Wow, you mean this is flown all the way from UK? I love overseas chocolate, their ingredients is so much better than our local ones!"

To sum up my food review, all I can say is:

YUMMYLICIOUS AND I DON'T MIND ANOTHER ROUND!

*hint!*hint!*

The Crunchy Munchy Chocolate Pizza is one of the many 'Gifts for Dad' items featured under the Father's Day event on the website.

Go check out their website to see a whole lot more awesome products being sold by them!

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a box of Crunchy Munchy Chocolate Pizza by Prezzybox in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.