Coconut Milk Chocolate Cheesecake

As well as being a major chocoholic, I'm also a lover of coconut so luckily for me chocolate and coconut are great together!

Oreo Scones

Oreos and white chocolate are a perfect pair in these perfectly delicious sweet scones.

Strawberry White Chocolate Cheesecake

Cheesecakes are my favorite dessert to bring along to a dinner party with friends. This Strawberry and White Chocolate Cheesecake was demolished before my eyes when I took this to a friends house. It's beyond delicious!

Double Chocolate Cheesecake

You never need a special reason to make a cheesecake, when you're craving something sweet and chocolate then give this a go!

Toblerone Cheesecake

Toblerone Cheesecake - a simple, no bake dessert perfect for any holiday, special occasion, or just a sweet treat. 

Neapolitan Cheesecake

This no-bake cheesecake combines chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla in three deliciously decadent layers to create a Neapolitan-style dessert.

Apple and Peach Crumble Pie

I love nothing more than a nice hot dessert. When I'm not craving chocolate I adore fruit pies and crumbles. But sometimes it's so hard to decide which to make. This Apple and Peach Crumble Pie solves that issue, combining the beautiful flavors of pie AND crumble into one dessert.

Valentine's Day Sweet Treats

When I think of Valentine's Day I think sweet treats - especially chocolate and berries, so here is my collection of perfect sweet breakfasts, desserts, and gifts for your Valentine.

Snickers {no bake} Cheesecake

It's been well over two months since my last cheesecake recipe (This makes me sound like Cheesecakes Anonymous!) so it's definitely past time for another! Luckily I just so happen to have this beautiful Snickers Cheesecake sitting here begging to be posted.

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

I'm just going to start off by saying that I think this might actually be the most delicious thing that I have created so far. Probably quite bias coming from the this chocoholic, but my honey said the same thing!

This cheesecake has not one but THREE types of chocolate, layered into one no-bake cheesecake. What more could we ask for in a dessert?

Today marks the one year anniversary of my blog. It amazes me to see how far I have come in recipe development and (especially) photography in just one short year. 

Grilled Chicken and Pesto Sandwiches

I'm super excited to share with you all the first ever guest post on PicNic today! These delicious Grilled Chicken and Pesto Sandwiches come from the very talented Kecia of Kecia's Flavor Breakthrough.

Here's what Kecia has to say:

I was sooo excited that Nicole asked me, little ole’ me to create a guest post for her! PicNic blog  is one of my favorite!! I mean FAVORITE sites! I love her wonderful cheesecake recipes among other things! I really wanted to share something truly delicious with her so I decided after making this sandwich; this had to be the one to send her! Thank you so much Nicole for having me!

I had this sandwich in the airport on the way home from Colorado Springs that was really good, but I knew I could really rev it up and totally rock it! See it had chicken, cheese and pesto! OK, I know… what can be at all bad about that! Nothing!! But, it was cold and I though wow! Use a nice crusty bread, heat up the chicken on the grill, make some homemade pesto from the herbs in my garden and melt the cheese on top!  Yes!! That is what I want to make tonight! I grilled a bunch of extra chicken last night to put in soup and had two fantastic ideas on what to do with the left overs! Honey picked Italian, so here it is! Enjoy!

Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake

I was delighted to be invited by Kecia to do a guest post for her blog, Kecia's Flavor Breakthrough. This is one of my favorite blogs, especially for riced-based dishes.

Kecia and her family love my cheesecake recipes so it was a real no-brainer when it came to deciding what to create. This no-bake Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake uses beautiful summer flavors, and works just as well with fresh or frozen fruit.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies

I love brownies, peanut butter, and cheesecake. Here's what happens when you throw the three all together!

Salted Caramel Cheesecake

Chocolate and caramel are a match made in heaven, and the hint of salt in the caramel balances perfectly with the sweetness of the chocolate cookie base.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cheesecake

Peanut butter, chocolate, cheesecake. What more is there to say? I've already made this twice. 

No-bake cheesecakes are so simple and quick to prepare, making a perfect dessert to take to those Summer BBQs. The combination of cream cheese and peanut butter gives this no-bake cheesecake a wonderful texture and the chocolate cookies provide the perfect amount of chocolate to compliment the peanut butter. 

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cheesecake

Serves 12

350 g (12 oz) Chocolate Cookies
90 g butter, melted
500 g (18 oz) cream cheese
1/3 Cup sugar
1 Cup peanut butter
1 Cup cream, whipped
Recee's Peanut Butter Cups to decorate (Or Whittaker's Peanut Butter Chocolate in New Zealand)

1. Process the cookies to a fine crumb in a food processor, add the butter and process to combine. Press into the base and up the sides of a greased 23 cm springform cake tin. Refrigerate to set.

2. Mix the cream cheese, sugar, and peanut butter until smooth and no lumps of cream cheese remain.

3. Fold in the whipped cream.

4. Spread the peanut butter mixture over the chilled base, cover, and refrigerate until set (a couple of hours).

5. Garnish with chopped peanut butter cups prior to serving.

Milk Chocolate Strawberry Cheesecake

This was the very first cheesecake recipe I ever wrote and posted to my blog. It's an absolutely delicious combination of strawberries and chocolate, using a soft-center strawberry filled milk chocolate. Using soft centered chocolate gives this cheesecake the most decadent creamy texture.

The only problem with the post was the picture. I believe that it was up there with the worst food photography pictures ever taken. I'm SO embarrassed by it that I'm not even going to put it in here as an example. But I'm sure I can be forgiven for my atrocious photography at the stage, I still had no idea what I was doing and I'm still learning!

I got a new camera last weekend (a Canon Digital SLR), this is the first post you are seeing with photos from it! Hopefully you'll be seeing a huge improvement in photo quality from now on. 

Milk Chocolate Strawberry Cheesecake

Serves 12

350 g (12 oz) chocolate cookies
85 g (3 oz) almost melted butter
500 g (18 oz) cream cheese
1/4 Cup sugar
250 g (9 oz) block Whittakers Milk Raspberry block* (or similar)
1/4 Cup
1 Cup whipped cream
Fresh strawberries to garnish


1.  Grease or line the base of a 23 cm springform cake tin (or as close as you have, doesn't really matter).

2. Blend the cookies in a food processor, add the butter into the food processor with the cookies and  process until well combined. Press into the base and up the sides of the prepared cake tin. Put in the fridge to chill.

3. Beat the cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy and until there are no clumps of cream cheese.

4. Break up the chocolate and place in a heat proof bowl over a saucepan with a small amount of simmering water with the 1/3 Cup liquid cream and melt.

5. Add the chocolate mixture to the cream cheese mixture, mix well to combine.

6. Fold in the whipped cream, pour mixture over the chilled base, cover, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, until set.

7. Garnish with the strawberries before serving.


* This is the chocolate I used, anything similar would be fine :)

Mint Chocolate New York Style Cheesecake

This was my first attempt at a baked cheesecake. The idea came about when I was out for dinner with my boyfriend and he had a baked mint cheesecake for dessert, he really enjoyed it so I thought I would try to make one too! 

This is also an exciting blog post as it is my 100th published post! :)

Mint Chocolate New York Style Cheesecake

Serves 12

Base:

350 g (12 oz) bag Chocolate cookies
80 g (2.8 oz) Butter, melted

Cheesecake:

750 g (26 oz) Philadelphia cream cheese
3/4 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup cream
4 eggs
1 Cup sour cream
1/3 Cup Creme de menthe
3 Tbsp plain flour
2 tsp vanilla essence

Topping:

1/2 Cup chocolate, melted
Mint cookies, chopped


1. Preheat oven to 160ºC (320ºF) and grease a 23 cm springform cake tin. Crumb the chocolate cookies in a food processor, add the melted butter and process until well combined. Press into the base and up the sides of the prepared tin. Chill.

2. Beat the cream cheese and sugar until there are no lumps of cream cheese. Add the cream, mix gently, and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.

3. Beat in the sour cream, creme de menthe, and vanilla.

4. Pour this filling over the chilled base. Bake for 1 hour, turn off the oven and leave in the oven to cool for 2 hours.

5. Chill, pipe over the melted chocolate prior to serving.. This recipe is best done a day ahead and chilled overnight.

Liebster Award

The Liebster Award is an award passed around small blogs as a way to put a bit of spotlight on the blogs and make the blogger feel like people are actually interested and paying attention to what they do (which can be hard sometimes!). When someone nominates you for this award they pose 11 questions that need to be answered in the form of a blog post. This is a great way for everyone in the blogging community to get to know each other as well as a way for readers to find out a little more about the person behind the posts.

Firstly, thank you SO much Jessica from Savory Experiments for nominating me! I have nominated some fantastic blogs as well, you can find my picks at the bottom of this post.

1. Why did you start blogging?

I Started blogging last September (2013) after getting loads of lovely comments from friends who loved my food. I was getting quite a lot of encouragement to apply for MasterChef or a similar cooking show.

However, being in front of the camera really isn't the place for me. I am and have always been quite shy and really don't like to be the focus of attention so I compromised with a blog. So glad I did as I LOVE it!

2. What are three kitchen utensils you can not live without? 

My food processor, sharp good quality knives,  and my scales.

3. Where do you see your blog in 5 years?

I would absolutely love to have a huge fan base in 5 years time and keep building my blog to bigger and better things. If I can ever get the hang of the internet I would love to get my own domain name too!

4. What is your favorite beverage? 

Hot Chocolate! I absolutely LOVE hot chocolate. It's not just for winter either. Any time is hot chocolate time.

5.  If you could meet anyone, alive or passed, who would it be?

Jamie Oliver! I absolutely love Jamie, I think he would also be a really fun person to meet!

6. What is your favorite blog post?

It's actually really hard to decide! My favorite at the moment is my chocolate orange cheesecake. Cheesecakes are so simple to make and a lot of fun. I absolutely love the combination of chocolate and orange in this one and I had a blast making it as I made it with my man. Cooking and baking with him is my favorite :)

7.  Other than blogging, what do you enjoy doing with your time? 

Spending time with my wonderful man and getting out and about with our dog.

8. What is your dream vacation? 

I am a real animal person and I also love to be outside so my dream vacation would have to be to Canada were I can go to a National Park and see bears and wolves etc. I promise not to get too close!

9.  What is one skill you wish you had? 

I would LOVE to be better skilled in terms of food photography! But at least this is something I can improve and work towards being better at. 

10.  Sweet, salty or spicy? 

Sometimes sweet, sometimes salty. But always chocolate. 

11. What is your favorite (or most addicting) form of social media? 

Facebook (in terms of being addicted). I love seeing people interact with my posts and also finding out what everyone else has been up to.

11 Fun Facts!

1.  This year is my 7th year at university! I have an undergraduate honors degree in biochemistry and I will hopefully be finished my PhD by the end of this year.

2. When I was a kid I absolutely dreamed of having a pet grizzly bear called Cuddles.

3.  TV advertisements about animals in need make me cry.

4. I HATE green beans with a passion. When I was younger I even made a song about my hate for them.

5. Along with my man I have just started Karate from which I have discovered that I am extremely uncoordinated. 

6. I am really quite bad with technology. My computer crashes all the time!

7. I LOVE roller coasters!

8. I have one younger brother.

9. When I was young I wanted to be either a school teacher or a waitress.

10. My favorite subject at school was biology (surprise, surprise!) but I also learnt French right the way through high school. Don't ask me how to say anything though!

11. Although I am a scientist, I am terrible at Math. I still freak out when I am teaching in an undergraduate lab and they ask me to explain how a calculation works. 

Liebster Award Rules:

1. Thank the blogger who presented you with the Liebster Award and provide a link back to his or her blog.
2. Answer the questions from the nominator, list 11 random facts about yourself, and create 11 questions for your nominees.
3. Present the Liebster Award to several other bloggers who have blogs whom you feel deserve to be noticed. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been nominated or email them.
4. Upload the Liebster Award image to your blog.

My Questions: (I kept some of Jessicas because I couldn't think what to ask!).

1. Why did you start blogging?

2. What are three kitchen utensils you can not live without? 

3. Where do you see your blog in 5 years?

4. What is your favorite and least favorite food?

5.  What makes you most passionate about the topic of your blog?

6. What is your favorite blog post?

7.  Other than blogging, what do you enjoy doing with your time? 

8. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

9.  What is your favorite animal? 

10.  What food do you crave the most?

11. What is your favorite (or most addicting) form of social media? 

My nominations:

1. Janette @ Culinary Ginger

2. Michael @ The Social Chef

3. Laurie @Food is Love

4. Brandi @ Aunt Bees Recipes

5.Eleanor @ Eleanor and The Elephants

Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

Chocolate and orange are a wonderful flavor combination. Especially so in this simple no-bake chocolate orange cheesecake.

I am entering this recipe in the Sweet New Zealand event. I was just told about this monthly blogging event today while tracking down New Zealand bloggers to connect with. I am so excited to start participating in this wonderful event! The host of this months (April 2014) event is Marnelli at Sweets and Brains. If you would like to enter as well, you can do so here.

Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

Serves 12

350 g Chocolate biscuits
100 g Butter, melted
1 Terry's Chocolate Orange (or 175 g of orange milk chocolate, or milk chocolate and 2 Tbsp fresh orange juice)
500 g cream cheese
1/3 Cup caster sugar
1 Cup whipped cream
finely grated zest of 1 orange

1. In a food processor, process the biscuits to a crumb. Add the melted butter and process until well combined. Press into the base and up the sides of a 22-cm springform cake tin. Place in the refrigerator to chill while making the cheesecake filling.

2. Whip the cream cheese and sugar until light and pale (and not clumpy).

3. Melt the chocolate orange either in the microwave or in a saucepan over a low heat. Keep 2 or so pieces of the choc orange aside for grating over the finished cheesecake.

4. Gently fold the melted chocolate into the cream cheese mixture, mix in the grated orange zest.  Fold in the whipped cream.

5. Pour into the prepared base, cover, and chill until set (a few hours). Great extra chocolate over the top prior to serving.

Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Here's a new cheesecake for you, since it turns out you all love cheesecake as much as my Honey and I! Once again, this is a SUPER simple no-bake cheesecake. It's more or less fool proof, and of course it tastes fantastic.

We were really happy with how light and creamy this one turned out. Definitely a winner.

Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Serves 8 - 10

250 g plain vanilla biscuits
100 g butter, melted
500 g cream cheese
1 Tbsp Strawberry dessert topping
1 tsp vanilla essence
300 mL cream, whipped
1 Cup strawberries (I used frozen)
1/4 Cup caster sugar
3/4 Cup chocolate chips

1. Place the biscuits in a food processor and process to a fine crumb. Add the melted butter and process until well combined. Press the biscuit mixture into the base and up the sides of a greased 20 cm spring form cake tin. Place in the refrigerator to set while making the filling.

2. Place the strawberries and sugar in a saucepan over a low/medium heat. The berries will start to "melt", use a masher to mash the berries until near smooth.

3. Beat the cream cheese together with the strawberry dessert topping and vanilla essence until smooth and no lumps of cream cheese remain. Mix in the mashed strawberries, followed by the chocolate chips.

4. Fold in the whipped cream and pour the mixture over the base. Smooth the top. Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate until set (an hour or two).