Last week, I had the amazing opportunity to return to Glenview, Illinois and attend a Delicious Byte Blogger event at Kraft Kitchens. This year the BlogEats conference was a thrill because I got to reunite with ladies I met last year and some I recently met, as well as make new friends. The Kraft team and associates and the PR group representing them put together an event that showed us some fabulous new products, got a taste of their wonderful recipes, as well as develop one of our own. In addition, we had some fabulous seminars on SEO-training, food photography, and vlogging for our sites which I would have love a day on each!
The event started with dinner and drinks at Maggiano’s Restaurant where we mingled, were interviewed by Kraft, as well as indulged in some amazing cocktails (think peanut butter martinis with Halloween Oreo rimmers), a hearty Italian feast, and scrumptious desserts (chocolate covered bacon anyone!).
The next day 13 of us (Jessi and Val had left, not pictured)– from left to right– Tammy, Lyndsie, Barb, me, Crystal, Kelli, Emilie, Kathleen, Stephanie, Tesa, Bridgette, Liz got a chance to work alongside Kraft chefs with one fun mission in the Recipe Contest Challenge. In groups, we had to come up with a dessert recipe using 1 or all of the following ingredients:
*Jell-O pudding
*Planters Peanut Butter
*Oreo Cookies
With the brains of 3 other ladies and myself, we came up with Snowman Surprise cupcakes. Last year Stephanie from And Twins Make 5! and I attended this same conference and learned to make Cookie Balls and were positive that they needed to be included in this recipe. Crystal (Simply Being Mommy) and Tesa (2 Wired, 2 Tired) were also in our group and we created a cupcake from scratch with a surprise cookie ball in the center along with a bonus cookie ball on top. We used pudding in the frosting and in the batter, peanut butter and oreos in the cookie ball and together we came up with the WINNING recipe amongst the group. Our recipe will be shared with Kraft’s Facebook page and I’ll share the exact recipe with all of you soon!
Kraft foods, sampling, and even a surprise new product reveal kept us going throughout the day with a special treat at the very end that had us all smiling, laughing, and acting like weenies! If you have going for a ride in the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile on your your bucket list, you’re going to be jealous! All of us got to ride around the neighborhood in none other than the famous hot dog on wheels with the charming two Weinermobile ambassadors.
The two days went by so fast, but it was an amazing experience! Coming in the next few weeks I’m going to be having some great giveaways including a Tassimo coffee machine and a whole lot of great Kraft products, stay tuned!
The press trip including hotel, flight, dinner, and experience was all hosted by Kraft. All opinions are my own. Thank you Kraft and 360i!
