Having Fun In The Kitchen

As I'm currently waiting on peanut butter truffles setting in the fridge, I thought I'd write a progress update of my day in the kitchen so far - good excuse to sit down for a few minutes too!

• First up, was The Pink Whisk's Christmas Pudding Fudge. This was my first time making fudge using a sugar thermometer (I've previously made fudge that utilised a load of peanut butter/nutella to set it, much easier!) so I'm crossing my fingers until it's ready to cut that it's worked! So far so good though...

I really hope this has worked!!

• Next was Maria's Spiced Nuts with Cranberries and Coconut. I was so pleased when I saw this recipe yesterday - I'd known that one of the things I'd wanted to make was some kind of roasted nut, but I hadn't settled on a recipe yet so this was perfect timing! I've already completed and taste-tested these (of course!) and I'm pleased to report that they are delicious! Thanks Maria! :)

• On Wednesday I also made some chocolate covered pretzels - I just melted some dark chocolate and gave the pretzels a chocolate bath, before sticking a couple of peanut m&ms on. These were a trial run and also to give to my Grandparents yesterday, as they have gone away for Christmas.

These tasted great, but I'm not sure I'll make anymore today. Even straight from the fridge, they were super melty - lots of messy fingers probably not a good idea for Christmas Day!

• Progress pic - the spiced nuts in jars will be "prettied up" with the with ribbon, card to make labels etc that Liam has just brought back from town. The fudge is still setting, and at the back are the flavoured vodkas - Christmas Pudding, Toffee (just a bag of werther's original toffees dissolved in 1 litre of vodka) and Raspberry flavours.

• Finally (for now), there was this...

aka peanut butter heaven - How Sweet It Is' Crispy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Truffles. The recipe says it makes 50-60 truffles, I made 40. No one ever said I was elegant!

These are currently chilling in the fridge, next step will be covering them in melted chocolate, mmmm! The peanut butter 'dough' tastes divine so I can't wait to try these once finished!

Still on the list:

• Brownies (which I'll make tomorrow as the fudge is currently in my brownie pan)
• Cookies (which I'm tempted to "stuff" with chopped up Mars bar or something)

Clearly I decided to make the more interesting things first - cookies and brownies are things I always make, but some of my family (and Liam) aren't keen on things with nuts/dried fruit etc, so I thought I better make a couple of more simple things too!


Any other suggestions of things for me to make?? Have you done any baking/homemade food gifts for Christmas? I think I've probably made enough, but I'm having fun!! :-D Liam is looking after the children (well, Toby is asleep at the moment) so it is so nice to have some time in the kitchen that isn't just about getting food on the table as quickly as possible!

Rainy Day {Halloween} Activities

The weather has been terrible here today! We'd planned to go to Crealy, but when we woke up this morning and saw/heard that the rain was pouring down, and had been all night, we quickly changed our plans!

Liam has been off work yesterday, today and tomorrow as it is half term and he had quite a few days of holiday to use up before the end of the year. It was good to have him around to help out with the rainy day activities! This morning he and Izzy did Halloween craft from her newest magazine.

Izzy had great fun and we now have lots of Halloween decorations!

We stopped mid-morning to snack on Samoa Bars. Mine didn't turn out quite as prettily as Averie's - more brown and spread out, I'm thinking my pan was too big - and I couldn't get a good photo of them for the life of me (I miss my camera!!), but they tasted delicious!

Averie's Caramel Apple Bars are still my favourite, but these make a nice change - sweet and chocolatey with a hint of coconut.

After eating it was time for more playing...

And then lunch - fried egg and Linda McCartney sausage sandwich, mmm!

This afternoon it was my time to have fun with Izzy with some baking - Halloween baking!

We made two batches of cupcakes - one vanilla, and one chocolate mint:

For the vanilla cupcakes, Izzy iced them with a simple icing glace icing...

and then I added cocoa powder to the remaining icing and piped/dragged it to make cobwebs:

These worked quite well, but the white icing set quicker than I could put the chocolate icing on so the webs didn't drag as much as I would have liked. I'm sure if you were icing the cakes yourself you wouldn't have that problem though - 5 year-olds take longer to knife white icing on than adults do!

Despite the fun that Izzy had making and icing the cakes, her favourite bit always comes afterwards - eating leftover icing!

For the chocolate-mint cakes (after the children's bath time, hence the clothes change) I made green peppermint flavoured butter icing...

Which I piped onto the cakes, and then Izzy topped with 'pumpkin' wrapped chocolates...

Ta da!

Before we changed our plans this morning because of the weather, I'd been planning to make these cupcakes on Saturday. I just hope we've still got some left by the time Monday comes around!!

Are you doing anything this weekend/on Monday to celebrate Halloween? Last year, I took Izzy trick or treating with some of her friends, but I've decided against doing that this year. Instead we will just go round to my Mum's and do apple bobbing, hands in green spaghetti etc. She'll have just as much fun, and it means Toby can join in too. Also, tomorrow we will go to Crealy and carve a pumpkin - that's the thing she's been looking forward to most this half term! The weather is meant to be better tomorrow, fingers crossed!

Pumpkin-Banana Muffins with Chocolate Chunks

Evening everyone! I hope you all had a lovely weekend? I had a nice time in Bath - I will write about it tomorrow. I've felt so tired today that it's been all I could do to keep on top of the clothes washing/tidying/washing up/everything else that builds up when we go away for a couple of days!!

I have got a recipe to share with you though, as promised in my pumpkin post - I made these muffins based on a pumpkin muffin recipe in my favourite muffin book - Muffins Fast and Fantastic by Susan Reimer. I didn't have enough pumpkin to make up the full amount, so I used mashed banana too. And of course chocolate improves every recipe. You could use chocolate chips, by I chopped up a bar of chocolate instead which gave slightly bigger chocolatey bites, yum!

Pumpkin-Banana Muffins with Chocolate Chunks
(makes 12)

• 255g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• small pinch of salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional, I couldn't actually taste the spices very much)
• 1 tsp ground ginger (optional, as above. You could go the other way and increase the spices if you want the flavour in the muffin. They are delicious without though!)
• 130g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 135ml milk
• 30g agave nectar
• 140g tinned pumpkin
• 1 small banana, mashed (mine weighed 75g)
• 90ml oil
• 50g chocolate, chopped

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190-200C (170C Fan). Put 12 paper muffin cases into a muffin tin.
2. First sift the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt, spices and sugar into a large bowl.
3. In a second bowl, whisk the egg with a fork. Add the milk, agave, pumpkin, mashed banana and oil and mix.
4. Pour the wet bowl into the dry bowl and stir to combine. Make sure you don't over stir the muffin mix, but no flour should be visible.
5. Add the chocolate and stir it through the mix.
6. Put the batter into the muffin cases and place in the oven. Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes, until a skewer test comes out clean and the muffins are springy to touch. Mine took about 18 minutes in a fan oven.

These turned out really well, albeit not the most uniformly "pretty" muffins I've ever baked. It's the taste that counts! You can't really taste the pumpkin or spices - they taste like banana chocolate muffins - but the pumpkin gives the muffins a lovely moist texture, and a fun bright orange colour.

Toby and I shared two of these fresh from the oven, and then once they were cool I popped the rest in the freezer. I can't resist freshly baked muffins/cakes!

What are your favourite baking recipes that store well in the freezer? I enjoy baking, but when I have baked goods sitting around in the kitchen I eat them way too quickly. I like having baked treats in the freezer as then I can just grab an individual portion size when I fancy something sweet. :)

Weekend Baking + School Lunches Rant

Morning Everyone! Did you all have a good weekend?

We had a great one - lots of sunshine with a walk to the seafront/play park on Saturday, and then we went to visit my sister and her boyfriend yesterday. They took us to a nearby pub which had the biggest outside 'garden' I've ever seen! Pretty much a field - with a wooden play park for the children and lots of open grass for us to relax on. I normally choose Pimms and lemonade as my summery drink, but decided to have a longer drink instead - this strawberry and lime cider was delicious, so fruity!

I also did some baking. On Friday I made Caramelised Banana Pancakes (these taste cakey enough to count as baking!) and Averie's Caramel Apple Bars...

and last night I made cheese muffins and a mahoosive lemon drizzle cake (I multiplied the recipe up to be a 5 egg one as my tin was a bit bigger than the suggested size)...

The sad (although probably good for my waistline!) thing is I wont even get to eat any of last night's baking efforts! The cheese muffins (which I usually put chives in, but I forgot) are for Liam's breakfasts - the recipe makes 10 muffins (so 2 each work morning) plus 2 mini muffins that Izzy takes instead of sandwiches for one of her packed lunches. None left for me!

The lemon drizzle cake is a late-birthday present for my Grandma - I couldn't think of what to give her so wrote in her birthday card that I would make her a cake of her choosing, and she asked for lemon drizzle. I'm seeing her this afternoon so will give it to her then. This morning I added an icing squiggle (just icing sugar and lemon juice) as she'd asked for it iced (I gave her the option which was a bit silly really as I never normally ice lemon drizzle cakes) - do you think this is enough icing?

I guess it'll have to be good enough anyway as it is all packed up ready to go now...

I hope it tastes as good as it smells! I ended up cooking it for half an hour longer than the recipe said as the skewer test wasn't coming out clean in the middle. I normally cook my lemon drizzle cakes as either cupcakes or sandwich cakes these days (again, why did I give my Grandma the option of a loaf cake?!!) The only other time I've cooked one in a loaf tin was for my little sister to take away camping, in the early days of my baking. Even though I cooked it for longer than the recipe, I eventually gave up and it was still practically raw in the middle! My sister just took all the slices from the ends and my Mum ate the middle more like a pudding. It all fell apart though - I'm crossing my fingers that doesn't happen to my Grandma! This cake seems more solid so hopefully it will be ok!

Oh, random rant alert, but did anyone see in the news (I saw it on the BBC news app on my phone) about how parents aren't putting any/enough fruit & veg in their children's packed lunches, and school dinners are so much better etc? It does annoy me slightly. Izzy has school dinners twice a week, and yes ok, they're served vegetables with the main course (which is quite often pizza, fish fingers and chips etc), but they're then given puddings like jelly and ice cream, or sticky toffee pudding afterwards (Izzy always chooses which days she has school dinners based on the yumminess of the puddings, so she rarely goes for the fruit salad day which does admittedly happen once a week). The packed lunch children get given "healthy lunch box stickers" if their lunches are deemed good enough by the adults. My friend's little boy didn't get a sticker the other day because he had a bag of crisps in his box, which ok isn't ideal, but I think it's a bit unfair as my friend is now worrying what to give him as he only likes certain things. This is what Izzy's taken to school today...

Leftover quinoa with roasted peppers, cucumber and goats cheese (she always has one 'main' thing - either sandwiches, cheese muffins or leftovers), cucumber sticks, grapes, a cheese string and a yoghurt. I personally wouldn't choose to eat the sugary yoghurt and the cheese string, but she loves them. They're only children. My friend's little boy also always has fruit and veg in his lunchbox as they're some of the things he is guaranteed to eat, so I don't really understand why the children eating school dinners get to have sugary puddings, but the packed lunch box eaters have to earn the "healthy" lunch box stickers. Meh. As my Mum will no doubt think as she reads this, I probably need to find more important things to worry about!! :)

If you have children, do they take packed lunches to school or have school dinners? Or do you take packed lunches to work? Would your lunch get a "healthy eating sticker"? I know Liam's certainly wouldn't - this morning he took cheese muffins (breakfast) and then leftover quinoa, banana and an apple for his lunch, but then also about 6 biscuits and some chocolate - he does like his sweet treats!! :) Those of you that work in a school, do your schools 'police' the lunchboxes with stickers etc? I hate having to worry so much about what I put in Izzy's lunchboxes. She gets upset if her friends get the stickers and she doesn't (she loves stickers!) but I don't even really understand what is and isn't "allowed" in their lunchboxes - I wish they were more specific. I know there is a website with lunch box guidelines, but if the school is going to reward "healthy" lunchboxes in this way then they could at least give us specific guidelines of what they do and don't consider to be healthy to give us a chance! Is homemade cake ok or will any sugary treats stop them from getting a sticker? If you include fruit and vegetables does that give you more leeway to include something sweet? Or is it only school dinners that are allowed sugary puddings?! Aargh. I wasn't planning to talk about anything other than my weekend baking in this post, but that rant came out, sorry! I feel better now for letting off steam though!! :-D

Strawberry Coconut Muffins

When I was younger, it was my sister, Sarah, who did the baking.

I didn't really cook at all until I was pregnant with Izzy, and then I focussed on learning how to cook savoury meals.

I only started baking a year or so ago (according to my photos it was June 2010), and I started with muffins. Muffins are so easy to make, and should be impossible to mess up. Except the first time I made them, on a whim, with no pre-planning. I decided to make rhubarb muffins with Izzy. I didn't have any butter, so for some reason decided apple sauce would be the best replacement...not the oil or margerine that I also had on hand. My baking powder was years old. And I didn't have a muffin tin so I just used paper cake cases on a baking tray.

Yeah, they were flat.

Luckily, after trying to force-feed her one of these muffins, my Mum took pity on me and lent me her cook book...

...and I never looked back! (or gave her the book back, sorry Mum, at least you can see it's well-used!)

I've since graduated to making cupcakes, birthday cakes etc, and whilst I do love butter icing, muffins will always have a special place in my heart. They are sooo quick and easy to prepare.

These muffins took just 10 minutes to make up last night, and after 20 minutes in the oven they were ready, yum!

Strawberry Coconut Muffins
(adapted from Susan Reimer's Summer Fruit Muffins in the above cookbook)

Makes 12

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes

• 280g plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 140g sugar
• 50g coconut (plus extra to sprinkle on top)
• 1 egg
• 250ml Kara coconut milk (or any other milk)
• 80ml oil
• 1 tsp coconut extract (optional)
• 170g fresh strawberries, chopped into bite-sized pieces (I quartered most of my strawberries, unless they were exceptionally large)

1. Pre-heat oven to 190C.
2. Line a muffin tray with 12 paper muffin cases.
3. Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl.
4. Stir in the coconut.
5. In a smaller bowl, whisk the egg.
6. Add the oil, milk and coconut extract, and mix.
7. Pour the wet bowl into the dry bowl and stir to combine. Don't overstir, the batter will still be slightly lumpy, but there should be no visible flour.
8. Add the chopped strawberries and mix in with just a couple of strokes.
9. Put the batter into the cake cases (mine came to about 5mm below the top)
10. Put into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, until a cake test/skewer comes out clean (this took exactly 20 minutes for me, in a fan oven at 170C).
11. Enjoy! :)

These are delicious. I love the coconut on top, and the soft juicy fruit inside. If only the weather outside matched how summery these muffins are!

It seems that us bloggers do like our themes. I often find that people make similar things at similar times, and it turns out that these muffins are no exception! After making these muffins last night, I read Maria's blog and saw that she'd made coconut brownies, and then this morning I noticed that Kate had posted about strawberry coconut filled muffins. Her muffins use jam rather than fresh strawberries, but still, slightly spooky!

Strawberries are such a summery fruit, and as summer is coming to a close I do like to bake with the last fruits of the season to store in the freezer...plus, Waitrose have got a special on big trays of strawberries at the moment so I have lots to use!! :)

What is your favourite muffin variety? Or your favourite type of baked good? Looking back at the photos from those first, not so successful (!), rhubarb muffins, the next muffins I attempted - from the cookbook - were pear and ginger. Those were really tasty, and I got some pears in our veg box this week so they might be next on my list. I need to clear up some space in our freezers first though!

Apricot Almond "Cookies"

Today has been such a nice day! Thanks for the birthday wishes on here/Twitter :) I will do a proper recap of my 25th birthday tomorrow. For now, Liam has just popped to the shop to rent a DVD for us to watch tonight, so a quick post from me. A recipe I made up, well actually kind of dreamt up on Friday night, based on the need to use up some almond butter!!

Apricot Almond "Cookies"
makes approx 15 mini cookies

• 50g almond butter
• 50g almonds
• 70g dried apricots
• 20ml liquid sweetener (I used a mix of agave nectar & maple syrup)

You could probably blitz all the ingredients together at once, but I was a bit cautious and put the almond butter and almonds into the food processor first and blitzed until dough was beginning to form...

 then add apricots...

then process it all together, adding the syrup/nectar to taste until you have a dough...

If you have time, you're hands will get a little less sticky if you chill the dough for a bit at this stage. Although in reality they're gonna get sticky anyway!

Roll the dough out and cut your shapes - I used a mini heart and a mini star cookie cutter...

 I originally was going to have these cookies as no bake ones, so put them in the fridge to chill for a little while...

However I then decided to take these over to my Mum's to have for my birthday. Whilst they were lovely pre-baking (I had to eat one to test, obviously!!) they were quite oily/sticky, so I figured I had more chance of getting my family to like them after a little baking!

150C for 10 minutes, just long enough to dry them out slightly...

Pre-baking

Post-baking

 
These were so good! :)

Still moist on the inside but with a slight crunch on the outside...

Yum! I took the remaining cookies up to my Mum's...

These were quite well liked. Loved by me, my Mum and both the children. Ok response from my Dad, sister and Liam - but then sister and Liam (not sure about Dad) don't like apricots so it was a long shot - didn't tell them the ingredients until they'd tried one!!

The children definitely loved them - they fought over the last one!! Baby had eaten more than daughter, so I gave daughter the last one. But then baby went up to her and snatched the half eaten cookie out of her hands!! When I gave it back to daughter, baby started wailing and so daughter gave in and let him finish it!! Bless her, I do feel a bit bad that she's always letting him get away with things. She's so lovely to him - even to the point of getting upset with us if we say no to him!!!!

Right, Liam is back with The Social Network, has anyone seen it? Have a great evening everyone!