Aunt Bessie's Half Term Linky challenge

I saw this challenge over on Brit Mums it asked me

Are you a whiz at creating menus? Join our #HalfTermFood Linky Challenge!

Preparing quick and easy meals is essential for all families. During half-term, when the kids are out of school but mum and dad are as busy as ever, that becomes even more important. Our Half-Term Family Food Ideas Linky challenges you to put together a meal plan using items from the convenient, tasty favourites made by Aunt Bessie’s.
This Linky is sponsored by Aunt Bessie’s, which makes more than 70 products to help families create quick and tasty meals.
We want to see how you combine one or more Aunt Bessie’s items into a fast family meal. Let your creativity shine through – and think outside the roast dinner box! Winners will be chosen based on ease of preparation, healthiness, family-friendliness, time needed to make the menu and originality in using Aunt Bessie products

So I set about looking at what I had in the freezer and made up a menu incorporating  those products. 



My menu is a meal made for OH's birthday, two days late but never mind, hence the cake for dessert and the hearts round the menu. 

My main course fills the criteria of being quick and easy whilst still being nutritional and healthy.  I placed the roast potatoes and the parsnips on a tray in the oven, for 25 mins at 190oC with the vegetarian haggis heated in a covered dish at the same time. 

I served this with a vegetable gravy. 

My hedgehog cake recipe is a tried and tested cake recipe. 

for the cake - 4 fl oz rice bran oil

4 oz sugar

2 eggs

8 oz self raising flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until combined, if necessary add some milk to get the correct consistency. 

Pour into a round bottomed bowl and cook for approx 30mins at 160oC until a knife comes out clean.

Once cooked leave to cool.

to decorate

tub chocolate butter icing

bag chocolate buttons

Once cool trim a thin slice off each side to create a bit of shape. If the cake has risen too much trim the top so create a flat surface and then place top down onto a flat surface. Use the cut off bits to make a nose shape. Cover quite thickly with chocolate butter icing. 

Cut chocolate buttons in half and place cut sides against the cake in rows to look like spikes. Finish with a currant for a nose and two for eyes, or if no currants draw with an icing pen. 

I also made a baby one with the offcuts, but he is an albino as I run out of brown buttons. 

This is a great cake to make with the children as using the oil means you dont need to cream the mixture, the shape does not have to be exact and the children love to decorate this sort of creation. Sadly I had no children here to help me create.

This post is my entry to the #halftermfood linky  on BritMums for which I will receive a voucher for to buy an Aunt Bessie product and it doubles as an entry to win a £200 Tesco voucher