Cat Food Cakes - Halloween subscription box

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - I hope you're ready for some spooky treats today!

I've been an admirer of the Cat Food Cakes creations for a long time now - the cakes always look so scrummy on Instagram and the flavours sound amazing. It's a bit of a mission for me to get over to her bakery, which is open on a Saturday morning....but I've discovered that she also offers mail order boxes of scrummy treats! Available as a subscription (a cake subscription is possibly the best subscription ever - just imagine.....cakes arriving through the post every month!) or as one-off boxes, it's a great way to enjoy some scrummy treats yourself or to treat a friend.

I decided to try out the Halloween themed box from Cat Food Cakes (you know I love a good themed cake!).....and I wasn't disappointed! The treats were all freshly baked and well packed, so they arrived in perfect condition. Each box has a cake pot, cake pops, brownies, a marshmallow and bar of chocolate - something for everyone...

Cat Food Cakes - Halloween Box

It was so exciting to receive the pink box through the post - what a wonderful treat! Unboxing the treats was also fun as it was all themed, including the napkin and bar of chocolate! Now you'll have to forgive me because I got a little excited and although I have sampled everything, there aren't photos of everything - whoops! 

The cake pot was divine - a pot of spiced pumpkin cake with vanilla cream cheese buttercream. It reminded me a little of carrot cake, but better! The cake was moist and well balanced with the buttercream. I ate mine in several sittings as the pot is quite big, it was really easy to decant the cake and buttercream from the pot.

The two spooky cake pops on sticks were huge! Made with vanilla cookie dough and dark chocolate chips, dipped in white chocolate. They were super sweet, but balanced with the dark chocolate chips. 

Now I'm afraid the brownie was where I managed to not take photos! In my box I had one slice which was stuffed with marshmallow and Oreo cookies and a slice of blondie decorated with sprinkles. Both were soft and scrummy, brilliant washed down with a cup of tea! The chocolate one was probably my favourite. Again the portion size is very generous, as you get a big bar of each brownie in the box. 

Finally you have the bar of chocolate (which I haven't tucked into yet) and the coconut marshmallow which will be going into my next mug of hot chocolate!

All in all you get a great variety in the box and the portion sizes are great throughout. You can cut the various bits into smaller pieces and enjoy a taster plate! The one-off box is £29.99 including delivery (you get a 15% discount if you subscribe), and the cakes are all fresh, well made and oh so enjoyable! There are different subscription / gift options - take a peek at the website for more information. 

Have you tried any other mail order cakes that I should know about (this is a brand new world to me!!), if so leave me a comment - I think I need to investigate more!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel 

Time for something sweet - bonboosh marshallows

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - we hope you're ready for something sweet today!

Last weekend I was at the Odiham food festival where a friend introduced me to the delights of bonboosh marshmallows - a local company who take marshmallow flavours to the next level, producing light as air marshmallows in flavours such as sweet violets, gingerbread and their latest creation sloe gin and blackberry.

Regular readers out there will know my sweet tooth took over as soon as I saw the stall (I didn't even stop to take a photo of the stall!) and of course I had to buy a bag (just the one I hear you cry!). After a lot of deliberation I opted for the new flavour....the combination of sloe gin and blackberry sounded just divine!

Now this is where I feel I need to educate everyone a little on the dangers of being a marshmallow owner on a hot day. Listen carefully and you'll avoid the disaster that follows.....

Before sampling my marshmallows I popped in on Joe's mum on the way home, leaving my bag of goodies in the car. I disappeared inside without a further thought about my latest purchase and enjoyed a couple of hours catching up with Annette. When it came to home time I opened my car door to be greeted by the most intense, mouth watering smell of .... well of sloe gin and blackberries! At this point I just smiled to myself and drove home, looking forward to trying a marshmallow. I remember thinking it was a bit warm in the car, but it was a hot day so nothing surprising there.

However.....and I bet you can all guess where this is going.....yes my little bag of marshmallows had suffered somewhat in the heat.....

#marshmallowsdieinhotcars

Yep.....I was now the proud owner of a bag of melted marshmallow! It did smell amazing in my car, but I learnt a valuable lesson that day....marshmallows die in hot cars! 

Stories like this should have a happy ending though....and luckily this one does! I have made my own marshmallows before, and so I decided to take the gloopy mess and try and reset it, using icing sugar to stop my new marshmallows from sticking to everything. It did work....although my marshmallows don't look very pretty and I managed to lose two in the process of resetting them!

The flavour was amazing though - the perfect balance of sloe gin and juicy blackberries! The texture was also still really good, with the marshmallows being light and fluffy despite the whole ordeal! They melted in the mouth as you ate them - a sign of a brilliant marshmallow!

Just in case you were wondering....this is what the marshmallows should have looked like (I've borrowed this photo from the bonboosh Facebook page!)...

I will definitely be trying the other flavours in the bonboosh range - you can buy via their facebook page.  If you already have a favourite bonboosh flavour that you think we should try, drop us a line and tell us all about it!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel 

Time for Something Sweet....Miss Millar's Marshmallows

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends....today we have something sweet and scrummy for you....something perfect with a cup of tea!

We were recently sent a wonderful box of Miss Millar's Marshmallows in raspberry eton mess flavour. Now, I have made my own marshmallows previously and really appreciate a good quality mallow. Forget those pink and white generic marshmallows found in shops....great quality marshmallows are completely different....and so we were keen to try these.

When they arrived they were well packaged...eight pieces of marshmallow neatly boxed and wrapped......

Miss Millar's Marshmallows

Fay and Adele are the talented brains behind these marshmallows and this is just one of the scrummy flavours available to buy from their website. Other flavours include Very Vanilla, Burnt Caramel, Chocolate & Orange, Apple & Blackberry Crumble and Lemon Meringue to name a few!

Fay Millar

Adele Wilkinson

The marshmallow recipes are all gluten and wheat free, some of the variety are also diary free! But....what do they taste like? Well, we had our first taste of the raspberry eton mess marshmallows whilst travelling on the Hammersmith & City line in London....

Lorna enjoying some
Miss Millar's Marshmallows

Classy I know...but shows how portable this treat is! 

My second taste was a much more elegant affair....with a cup of Lady Grey in my garden on a sunny afternoon....

Miss Millar's Marshmallows

That's much better!

The marshmallows are light and fluffy and delicately flavoured - the perfect treat. The raspberry flavour lingers in your mouth, dancing on your taste buds, before disappearing and leaving the sweet meringue flavour. They are so scrummy!

They also went really well with my cup of Lady Grey, bringing the sweet flavour out in the tea.

Miss Millar's Marshmallows

Each box of eight marshmallows costs £4.50 - take a peek at the Miss Millar's Marshmallow website to see all the flavours available.

We'd like to thank Fay and Adele for sending us this scrummy box of treats. Please note that although these treats were sent to us to try, this has not effected our taste buds at all and all thoughts here are our own.

Have you tried any of Miss Millar's Marshmallows? Which is your favourite flavour?

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna