I don’t know about you but all my original plans for Australia Day have gone out the window.  The weather is playing games, and camping on the beach no longer seems like a really good option.

Even with the lousy weather I am always up for an Australia Day BBQ with friends.  So the Australia Day celebration has now been relocated to a friend’s hinterland property just outside Coffs Harbour.

Given the weather I have also changed my mind on the menu for the day. I will keep the main event a secret until tomorrow but here is what I thought I would make for the kiddies.

Australia Day White Chocolate Cake Pop Ups! How cool are these!!! Kids can eat them, there is no mess, and they are really easy and fun to make.

You could use any cake recipe for this treat.  I like the white chocolate because it is a dense cake and holds together well while you cut it and put it into the cake pop holders.

Ingredients:

250gm butter

190gm white chocolate

2 cups caster sugar

1 cup milk

1 ½ cups plain flour

½ cup SR flour

1 t/s vanilla

2 eggs

Red colouring

Blue colouring

1 ½ tins Betty Croker Vanilla Frosting

Lollies to decorate

Method:

Cover a large baking tray with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.

In a saucepan melt the butter, sugar and chocolate over a very low heat until just melted.

Remove from the heat and add flour and milk stir until combined and then add the eggs and vanilla.

Divide the mixture in half and separate into to bowls. Add blue colour to one and red to the other.  Pour the red mixture into one side of the baking pan and the blue into the other.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until cooked.

Remove the cake from the pan and allow to cool.

Use the cyclinder of a cake pop up to cut circles from the mixture.

Press the cake into the cake pops. Layer the two colours of the cake with a heaped spoonful of frosting in between the colours. Add more frosting and lollies to the top to decorate.

These are so delicious! There is the perfect amount of frosting to cake. I kept mine in the freezer and the coolness of the treat was even better. Plus it travel better as a lunch box treat.

This recipe makes about 20 cake pops

On another note, have you ever been let down by a supplier?

The lollies that I have decorated the cake pops with were originally bought for Christmas. I had a story planned and I was also going to add the red and white ones to gifts I was making. The lollies were ordered and paid for the lollies at the beginning of December. After numerous emails they were finally I received on the 29^th December. Naturally at this time they were totally useless to me.  I now have three kilograms of jelly beans that I am eating my way through. NOT HAPPY!

The cake pop up cylinders are a similar story. This time the package arrived promptly but one item was missing. I have now been emailing backwards and forwards for over a week with the company not prepared to admit that a mistake may have been made. All this for a $4 item!  Seriously, would I lie about something so trivial. I just want to have the item I selected for a story.

Have you had a similar incident? Should I name the companies? I always like to write positive things so I won’t name names, but come on people, customer service please!