Wheat, Gluten & Dairy free Chocolate Brownies

I made these chocolate brownies at the weekend to take into the staffroom on Monday morning. I have a few colleagues who can't/don't eat gluten or dairy products and considering these were meant to be my way of saying a little thank you to those that have helped me prepare for my PGDE or even just given me advice, I didn't want to skip over anyone in particular. When I found these in Sainsburys, they seemed just the ticket.

Their website says they want to get past the idea that 'healthy' foods lack flavour or quality and that they want to produce delicious gourmet free-from foods. I have to say, I'm suitably impressed. I followed the instructions, using soya spread and water instead of dairy products and the brownies turned out well. Perhaps not as gooey as 'normal' brownies but that is just as likely to be my haphazard oven climate as it is the product itself. Taste wise, they were certainly delicious and I had to quickly box them up before I scoffed the lot {so. little. willpower}.

The company do a whole variety of products, and for £1.99 {I think?! I don't remember!} this brownie mix was certainly worth it when baking with gluten or wheat intolerant friends in mind! I would definitely buy it again! I'm convincing myself that they are surely better for me than my normal brownies - they're certainly full of more wholesome ingredients.

Tasty eh?

LoveBx

Low fat Banana & Blueberry Muffins

I baked these on our lazy Sunday afternoon in {remember that 'diet' I talked about, well it'll start this week...honest...}.  I had a bunch of bananas that are definitely on their way out and because I hate wasting food, I figured I'd know up a batch of banana bread. Then I rationalised that I'd probably eat a sizeable amount of the loaf single handedly and found myself googling 'low fat banana muffins'.  This recipe substitutes butter for oil, uses only egg whites, has less sugar than your standard muffin/cake mix and has oats {and they're always healthy right?} so I figured they aren't too anti diet.

I had to alter the original recipe somewhat - I didn't have nearly enough oats or blueberries, so mine look less delicious than the original counterparts but I can honestly tell you that they are scrumptious.  Perfect with a cup of tea on a quiet Sunday afternoon. If When I make these again, and I can assure you I will, I'll definitely try and use the right amount of ingredients. I imagine that the extra oats would give the muffins a lovely texture. As it is, using soft brown sugar makes them sweet, without being overly so and you would never tell that the mixture goes easy on fat.

I've still got a few more bananas left to use up so I'm excited to try out this recipe from The Kitchen.

Delicious!

Love B x

Sorry for the poor quality photos - it was already getting dark when I took photos at 6.30pm!

Carrot Cake

Now, I'm going to be totally honest. The other day I twigged that my jeans were a little more snug than I'd care for, my face and physique a little more rounded. And it dawned on me, I probably ought to be going easier on the biscuits and taking smaller portions from the abundant buffet on offer at work. However, I like to start things like this on a Monday {or the first day of the month, or a New Year..} - it seems a bit tidier, a bit more appropriate for some reason. So until Monday, I'm doing what we, in my family, call "eating everything but grass". Which is where carrot cake comes into it. I had never eaten carrot cake until last Summer, having convinced myself that I hated the stuff. Low and behold the absolute opposite is true and I could eat the stuff all the time. Combined with the fact it's my boyfriend's favourite cake and it was a clear winner.

I used a loaf tin I had lying around instead of a square baking tin so I had to adjust the cooking times accordingly {gas mark 4, middle of the oven for 55 minutes give or take} and I used the cake recipe from this site but the icing recipe from here because I had some Quark left over that I wanted to use up. The result was delicious. Light and carrot-y whilst the icing had a just the right amount of tang to it, I think from the addition of the Quark. 

I have to say, the icing didn't turn out as thick as I would've liked though I still liked the effect and the taste. I know this was in part down to overbeating but I always seem to have a bit of bother with cream cheese icing. This is confounded by the fact that an eternal debate rages in our house as to how cheesey it ought to be {to me, it ought to have some of the tang of cream cheese coming through, to my boyfriend, why on earth would you put cheese on a cake?! Isn't it buttercream icing instead?!}. Regardless, I made it on Saturday afternoon and it barely saw out the rest of the weekend, which is always a good sign in my books. A cake that lasts long in our home, is clearly not that good a cake!

Does anyone have any good carrot cake recipes? Or advice on the icing front/ I could really use some!

Love B x

Fourteen Days of Food: Day 14

So to finally wrap up my fourteen days of food {considerably after my original 14 day deadline!} I thought I would go back to doing what I love most - baking. I'm pretty confident when it comes to baking, and willing to have a go at anything, normally with reasonable results {though I did attempt to make Rowies once for my Scottish boyfriend - we don't really talk about that incident...}.  When it comes to this however, I feel like I've met my nemesis.

Want to know what it is?

Banana bread.

Complete and utter fail. Every time. They either don't cook, or they over cook and burn even if I am meticulous about keeping my beady eye on them.  My sister makes an incredible version and I can't lie, I'm a tad envious. I love a challenge though! I laugh in the face of banana bread {and then weep a bit when it fails yet again}.

Now, I must admit, I've started writing this post as it is in the oven so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I used this recipe once before and it worked, though it burned before it had the chance to cook through. This time I've been sure to stick tin foil over the top when it was a lovely golden brown colour and I'm biding my time and trying to be patient and not open the oven too often to test if it's done {though we're just over an hour in and it's still not totally cooked. Patience Bridge, patience.}.

Anyway, I used this recipe here though I substituted 4 bananas for 3.  Maybe it's just me, but I seem to buy giant bananas and I've wondered if some of my overly soggy attempts have been thanks to the seemingly huge quantity of banana in there. It doesn't seem to do any harm to cut one out.

The result? As you can see - it looks pretty good! I am pleased to say I think I may have finally won! Waawaaweewaa! It was delicious. The tinfoil on top did it's job marvellously and the resulting loaf is probably not likely to see out the week. Marvellous.

One further word of advice, I normally use an all in one method with my magimix but decided this time to cream the butter and sugar alone for a pretty long time {5-10mins} before adding the rest as instructed.  I think it helped. Oh, and when you add all the liquidy ingredients, it will look like this, don't panic {it looks gross just to warn you}:

As soon as you start to fold in the flour however, all returns to normal and doesn't seem to do anything to the taste or texture so don't panic!

Do you have a favourite banana bread recipe? I'd love to hear it!

I have to say, I've loved doing these 14 different foods. It's been good to push myself to make things I normally wouldn't. I don't think this will be the last food post at all.

Love B x

Cupcakes galore

A few weeks ago, my mum, sister and I took part in our local village fair by setting up and running our own cupcake stand.  "B's Buns" as we call it, is a long running joke in our family but we genuinely do enjoy baking and, I must admit, most of the time we aren't too shabby at it!

This was the second time we'd taken part in the fair, and we spent the bulk of the 24hours beforehand baking and icing 600 cupcakes. I can promise you, it's a bit tiring! Worth it though - we had a great day, made a bit of cash and I got to hang out with two of my favourite people doing something we love! Want to see?

                                                              

I didn't seem to take a photo of the miniature sponge cakes we did, which is a shame. My absolute favourites were the the strawberry cheesecakes. I must admit, we taste tested everything as we went along: by the end of our baking marathon we could barely face the thought of eating another sweet thing - tasting the buttercream icing was hellish!

My absolute favourites are these beauties. I'd iced cakes as roses before but it was my sister's idea to put them into bunches.  I have to say, I think they're absolutely beautiful - too good to eat almost! I think she came across the idea but couldn't tell you where for the life of me.

They looked so pretty!

Love B x

Birthday Cake

{via}

We had a go at making this cake for my little sister's 21st.  We chose to layer ours with cream and fresh strawberries from the garden before covering it with icing and the obligatory candles.  I was clearly a little too obsessed with eating the cake rather than taking photos of it but it was delicious and looked fab.  For something so simple {we stuck to the basic Victoria sponge recipe I've mentioned before on here} it looks so lovely. It certainly makes for a perfect birthday cake.

Love B x

Fourteen Days of Food: Day 1

I don't have a clue why these have posted in the wrong order. Hey ho!

Like I said, I love a challenge {even if doing absolutely nothing yesterday was lovely!} so here I go with the first of fourteen foodstuffs {seems rather a lot now I think about it, damn alliteration}.  I decided to start with the peanut butter and chocolate rice krispie treats I'd first seen here.  I have to admit, I played around with the recipe a bit to fit both with budget and the limited kitchen equipment I have here {a sugar thermometer is on my list - is that lame?}.  Anyway, I bought mostly everything at a poundshop though if you have the time, money and inclination I'm sure you could use much higher quality ingredients {I would if I could!}. Want to see the finished version?

I love 'em! And I swear down they're moreish.  I accidentally ate one when I was finished taking this photo and now I want another, and another...Slippery slope my friends.  Slippery slope.  Aesthetically, they don't look any more fancy that your standard rice krispie treat but it terms of taste it blows the old school version right out the water.

In terms of having a recipe for you, everything was a little adhoc.  I melted a couple tablespoons of butter over a medium heat before adding most of the bag of marshmallows and stirring until completely melted. Once all the marshmallow lumps are gone, remove the pan from the heat and stir in a healthy dose of rice krispies.  Again, a bit adhoc, I just kept adding more until all the mix seemed fairly evenly distributed.  Press this down into a baking tray or dish lined with greaseproof paper {the paper is super important or you're just going end up with the mix setting solid to your dish.  Fail.}.  After that, I melted probably a whole pot of peanut butter together with a few squares of milk chocolate and spread the mix over the marshmallow/krispie goodness.  It gets better.  Melt up the rest of your milk chocolate {I used just under 2 200g bars} and pour THAT over the peanut butter over the marshmallow/krispie goodness.

Salivating yet? I was.

At this point, stick the whole lot in the fridge to chill for a while.  I took it out again briefly to initially chop into squares to make my life a bit easier.  I think it took roughly an hour to chill through.  The wait was so worth it though.

These guys have just the right amount of sweetness tempered with the salt from the peanut butter {it takes the edge off just enough so you can eat twice the amount you planned...} and the recipe really is super simple to follow, even adhoc. I think it took me under 30minutes to make, if it was anywhere near that.  If I make them again I think I'd make a few alterations: I'd probably use more of a higher quality peanut butter - the layer I ended up with wasn't quite thick enough for my liking {I'm a peanut butter fiend} and I'd probably use dark chocolate over milk, again to take the edge off the sweetness a bit more.

I have to say, the first bite I was uncertain of but I found myself craving {and going back for} more. They're definitely calling my name from the fridge.

Have a go - it's definitely worth it.

Love B x

ps.  I don't recommend making these if you plan on being seen in swimwear in the immediate future.  I warned you, they are at the top of a very sliperry slope.  Just saying.

I'm back baby!

I made it! 4 years of studying was all over by 4.30pm yesterday. Can I just say, it feels marvellous.  Granted I now have to consider what I am actually going to do with my life and start taking the steps to get there but I'm hoping maybe, just maybe, I can deploy the head in the sand approach for just a little bit longer.  Until graduation at least! Until then, I'm sat here considering all the things I want to do and now have the time for...

Like making these tasties {if they could talk, they'd be jumping up and down yelling at me to try them, so I'm pretty sure it's rude not to}...

{smittenkitchen}

Browsing {and perhaps purchasing} some pops of colour...

{zara}

Doing my bit to help the environment * {got to love a good collaboration}...

Attempting a DIY version of this lovely, having been inspired here

Learning to use my camera on the course I just signed up for...

{via}

Exercise...

{via}

And restoring calm and order to slightly neglected abode {it looks like a stationary shop has exploded all over our kitchen.  Last minute cramming will do that to you}...

{potterybarn via here}

I've also decided to set myself a challenge.  I LOVE to cook and bake {who am I kidding, I love to eat too} and I haven't had much time on my hands to do that recently, so I'm going to try and do fourteen foods in fourteen days. Some will obviously consist of the dinner that I'm making that evening but still, I'd like to push myself.  I think I'll start with the guys I mentioned at the beginning of the post.  Watch this space and hopefully I'll have something to show for it tomorrow!

Told you I would bring my A game back after exams...

Love

B

x

*and if you are a bit non-plussed as to why, you need to go here