Remember last month when we took a break to have some fun? Last night was another hard one with Little Monkey and Baby Boy spending most of the late afternoon fighting with each other. Walking through the door after a hard day at the office, the last thing I wanted to hear was them whining and complaining about each other. I decided to take a break with them and pulled out the Gay Lea Real Dark Chocolate Caramel Whipped Cream for more Pie Face time but then Little Monkey asked if we could bake a leaf instead! Umm…sure?

 

 

Disclosure : I am part of the PTPA Brand Ambassador Program with Gay Lea and I received compensation as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog, as always, are TOTALLY ours! 

 

Thinking on my feet we decided to dig in our fridge to see what we could conjure up. We’ve been spending our weekends outdoors as we love the autumn season and with the leaves changing colour this past weekend in downtown Toronto, there were major piles of leaves to jump into! That’s where she took her inspiration from when she brought over two leaves she had picked up at earlier that day.

 

One thing is for sure, kids come up with the darnest ideas! I was talking to a friend about baking leaf shaped goodles over the weekend and I’m pretty sure Little Monkey was eaves dropping! Luckily for us we received some amazing news over the weekend….you know how we loved Gay Lea so much that they invited us to be their ambassador last year?….Well, GUESS WHAT!! They still love us!!! We’re going to be sharing the dairy goodness with you for another year and we hope you’re half as excited as we are!

 

Back to our Leaf Cookie….or rather, a Leaf  Shaped Dessert Pizza as I like to call it.

 

 

To calm the kids down I had them play with some phyllo pastry dough ( they thought it was playdoh!) and once they had calmed down, I took the blobs and flattened it into one large circle and baked in the oven for 30 minutes at 350F. Baking the dough makes it much easier to manage I find.

 

Once semi baked I then attempted to trace Little Monkey’s leaf pattern (a leaf shaped cookie cutter would be the easiest way to do this!). My leaf wasn’t perfect but we didn’t care because we had all calmed down and weren’t on our screens (though I did grab some quick pictures). We popped it back in the oven for 10 mins as I noticed the dough wasn’t fully cooked and we then let it cool ( while we enjoyed our dinner). Post dinner, I pulled out nuts, dried fruits, a crushed chocolate muffin and a few apple slices for the toppings. Our base? Why, Gay Lea Whipped Cream of course!! The new Gay Lea Real Dark Chocolate Caramel Whipped Cream was perfect. As you know we love that it is made with REAL cream and cocoa beans. You definitely can taste it and Little Monkey is now very capable of spraying it out by herself ( so I have to hide it at the back of the fridge!). This unique natural caramel flavour product is only available until the end of December so STOCK UP!!

 

Just look at these faces, surely I couldn’t stay mad at them, right? This is a messy treat and making them wear their PJs before they dug in was a BIG MISTAKE… but everyone was all smiles so we didn’t mind the extra change required. Parenting is hard on the best of days but I find the mid week breakdowns to  be the WORST! Instead of fighting it, I’m going to try and diffuse the stress instead!

What parenting struggles are you going through?