Twinings Christmas Teas {Review}

A little while ago I was sent two Christmassy tins full of tea to try! This review is a little late up - I actually just went into Windows Live Writer and found this post sitting there, almost finished and then forgotten about, whoops!! Still, better late than never, these teas are so good that I wanted to still share.

I absolutely loved the look and sound of the vanilla chai tea, but it is a loose leaf tea – which I had never had before – so whilst I was waiting to buy a tea ball thing (??!!) I tried the mulled spice tea bags first…

These tea bags are individually wrapped which I love, so handy for popping in your bag and also stops me from worrying about freshness! Not that I need to worry about that with this tea – I have nearly got through the whole tin which for me – someone who usually drinks coffee more than tea – is quite impressive!! I absolutely love this tea, as suggested on the box I do drink it sweetened (with truvia, but sugar would of course also work), and it has lovely flavours of orange and spices within it.

Of course you can’t have Christmassy tea without Christmassy treats to go with it! I have been sharing this tea with one of my friends, who is a tea lover anyway and also now adores it, and one day she brought a stollen with her to accompany it…

Well, despite having told myself that I’d wait until December 20th before visiting the Lidl Christmas section (!) this opened the floodgates and soon we were munching on lots of lebkuchen too…

These pretty much sum up the run up to Christmas for me!

We did also try the Chai tea…

It smells divine, but didn’t have as much flavour as I was hoping for. I’m thinking that was probably my fault though as there were no brewing instructions on the tin so, as the ball didn’t do a great job of keeping the tea leaf bits out of our mugs, we didn’t brew it for that long. Any advice on brewing times/techniques for loose leaf teas please??

Overall, I would definitely recommend these teas, especially the mulled spiced one – I am on the hunt for some more (my local Waitrose stocks the vanilla chai but not the mulled spice sadly) as every time someone comes round to my house for tea now I always ask them if they would like “regular tea or Christmassy?” and not surprisingly a lot of them are keen to try it, it is so good!

Have you tried either of these teas? What are your favourite types of tea? I love spicy teas and chai lattes so was really expecting to love the vanilla chai tea. I think it is just my inexperience with loose leaf teas that is the problem so any advice would be appreciated! The mulled spice tea is just divine though, I know I keep repeating myself but it just tastes (& smells!) so Christmassy! Twinings have quite a few Christmas Tea Gifts for sale this year, which all look fab, it looks like you can buy the vanilla chai as tea bags too so I may have to give them a go if I really can't get to grips with the loose tea!

Thank you Twinings for sending me these teas to review. All thoughts and opinions in this post are, of course, my own.

Strawberry Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting {Truvia Review}

People have differing options on zero-calorie sweeteners. I can completely understand the preference for natural sugars but for me, with my sweet tooth, I do use sweeteners every day. Not only because I am still trying to lose weight, but because every 6 months my dentist checks that I don’t use sugar in my tea or coffee. At my last check-up I made the mistake of saying “not usually, but I do when I have coffee at friends' houses” and his response was “some of my patients can get away with having sugar “sometimes” but you are not one of them – if you want to avoid yet more fillings then you must use sweetener instead of sugar!” ooops, that’s me told then!

A while ago I started using stevia as a more natural alternative to the artificial sweeteners, which I ordered from the US, via iHerb. However that can get quite costly, so it was great timing when – just as I was coming to the end of my last bottle of vanilla stevia drops – I was contacted to see if I’d like to try out Truvia, which is a brand name for stevia. I’d seen that stevia was now being sold in the UK but hadn’t had a chance to try it out yet.

I was sent a tub of Truvia, and also a little purse containing a couple of sachets. The sachets are perfect for keeping in my bag for coffee at friends’ houses – I’ve already been out and bought a big box of them to re-fill the purse as they are just so convenient.

Over the last few weeks I have enjoyed many coffees with Truvia in, and I’m pleased to say that there is no unpleasant after taste that you sometimes get with artificial sweeteners, in fact every coffee you have seen on the blog has contained Truvia. I’m still working on filling all my shelves with blue mugs!!

I was also asked to try out one of the recipes from the Truvia site, and chose to make the berry muffins. I used strawberries instead of blueberries as that was what I had in, and organic semi skimmed milk and a real egg, instead of skimmed milk and egg replacer respectively. I was a bit worried as the batter was a lot runnier than normal muffin batter, but they came out of the oven looking great!

As you can see in the above photos, the tops did sink a bit once the muffins started to cool, but that was solved by whipping up a bit of cream cheese frosting. I just made a small amount – 50g of (full fat) cream cheese with 5g Truvia and a splash of vanilla, which was enough to thickly top two of the muffins. The rest I am planning to freeze so I didn’t want icing on them.

Delicious. I had previously been a bit unsure about baking with Truvia, but you couldn’t taste it at all. The muffins were mildly sweet with a lovely light fluffy texture. The cream cheese frosting again tasted great. It did had a slight "crunch" from the Truvia but that was because I'd just quickly mixed it in a bowl with a spoon - I'm sure if you were making a proper batch and followed the instructions to whisk it there would be no problems!!

What do you think of sweeteners? Do you use them? I don’t use the artificial ones like Splenda, but I do like stevia/Truvia. It keeps my dentist happy and it still pleases my tastebuds! I do still use products like agave and maple syrup from time to time, plus some sugar in baking – indeed these muffins do have some sugar in them, the Truvia just helps to reduce the amount. For my coffees though, I am definitely a Truvia convert! I think I even prefer it to my beloved vanilla stevia drops as this has a completely neutral taste so I can enjoy the coffee more. When using Truvia (as with most sweeteners) it is so important to make sure you don’t use too much. The first time Liam made me a coffee (despite it saying on the tub that 1 tsp sugar = 1/3 tsp Truvia!) he used 2 full teaspoons of Truvia – not at all nice!! 1/3-2/3 tsp or just one sachet when I’m out adds the perfect sweetness to my coffee without leaving any detectable after taste.

Thanks Truvia for sending me these products to try out!

Party Fun with Grape Juice - Welch's {Review}

A month ago I received an email inviting me to an event in London to celebrate the launch of Welch's new rosé grape juice. I couldn't attend so they offered to send me some grape juice instead. I gave them my address and then to be honest, with the stress of moving house, I pretty much forgot all about it! Until Thursday and a knock on my door to receive this huge parcel...

My first thought was relief that this had arrived before we'd moved house, as I hadn't thought to give them my new address. The second was "wow, that is a lot of grape juice!" 16 litres to be exact...

I sent this photo to Liam saying "do you like grape juice??" and he thought it was a shop rather than our fridge!!

I was also sent an email with a mocktail menu using the grape juices so I had some idea what to do with them!

I gave a few cartons to other family members - a rosé and a purple to my Grandma who loves purple grape juice but had never heard of the rosé version (and loved them both!), and some to my Mum for a drinks party with her new neighbours. My little sister gave the grape juice a thumbs up (although she did say it stained her teeth slightly black, haha, that has never happened to me so I'm guessing she drank a lot of it!!!)

My Mum also took some more grape juice to a Jubilee street party she went to. Unfortunately, as well as grape juice she also drank lots of wine (!) so she only remembered to take one photo. The Welch's cartons look good next to the pretty cake!! ;-)

Liam and I have also been doing lots of grape juice sampling. Last night we made grape mojitos (mocktail recipes thanks to Welch's, with a bit of Bacardi added!). First white grape juice, lime, mint, sugar, ice and rum:

This one was Liam's favourite!

We also made a rosé mojito which was the same as the white grape mojito but also with some sparkling water added:

Liam and I couldn't agree on which cocktail was best. He preferred the white one, whereas I thought the rosé was more refreshing. But oddly, he thought the white was sweeter whereas I thought it was the rosé! I think it's maybe the sparkling water that Liam's taste buds were objecting to, but I thought that added a refreshing element to the grape juice as it can be a bit too sweet on its own. (but in general I still think the rosé is sweeter than the white, haha, I'm winning Liam's argument for him aren't I!!)

Finally, this afternoon we took Izzy and Toby to a Jubilee picnic, and amongst our picnic food? You guessed it...Welch's grape juice!!

Thumbs up all round!

Toby couldn't get the hang of doing a thumbs up, haha, but he loved the grape juice!

The white grape juice with sparkling water looks a lot like wine. I like grape juice as a non-alcoholic drink to serve at parties, and adding the sparkling water makes it taste a bit more grown-up and refreshing in my opinion. Delicious!

Thank you so much to Welch's for your generosity in sending me so much grape juice! I've loved sharing it with my family and finding different ways to enjoy it.

I used to drink a lot of fruit juice, including grape, when I was younger but stopped buying it so much in recent years as I could easily go through a whole carton in less than a day, which of course adds up to a lot of calories and sugar. The thing I love about grape juice is that because it is so sweet, it is ideal to mix with sparkling water. Half the calories, but still full of flavour!

Have you ever tried Welch's grape juice before? What is your favourite way to drink grape/fruit juice? I often drink orange juice mixed with lemonade in the summer, but find that after a glass or two I feel quite bloated. Mixing the grape juice with sparkling water instead of lemonade is still just as sweet, but seems to be a lot lighter on my tummy. A new summer favourite for sure! :)

Doves Farm {Review}

Hello! Good day? I went to the gym and swimming while Toby was in creche again this morning - it feels so luxurious to be able to exercise during the day!! We nearly didn't go as there was really bad fog and my Mum/sister were a bit worried about me driving over, but I took it slowly and it was fine. Good experience, and having my sister in the passenger seat was, yet again, a calming influence (even if she wasn't actually that calm herself, haha!) Toby did really well again at the creche - obviously this time he did realise I was going to leave, but he said goodbye happily, no tears, and carried on playing. I wish I'd known about this creche before! Great experience for him, and great for me to have a couple of hours to exercise before evening tiredness hits!

When I got home I had a bagel for lunch, this time with blue cheese and grapes:

Not quite as amazing as last week's mashed avocado bagel, but still really tasty. Bagels are a good option for days like this. I have breakfast then do the school run, drive half an hour, about 45 minutes in the gym (although only 20 minutes cardio and the rest weights), 40 minutes swimming and another half an hour drive home...so by the time it is time for lunch I am starving and need something quick and easy! Bagels do the job perfectly!! :)

Liam is doing lots of overtime this week so we ate dinner before he got home tonight. I didn't feel like cooking and the children were more than happy when I suggested porridge. Toby hardly ever eats much dinner in the evenings but he gobbled this up! Mashed banana porridge with cocoa-peanut flour sauce (they had blueberries, chocolate chips and golden syrup as their toppings instead - Izzy's choice!!)...

I made rather a lot of sauce...not that I'm complaining!! I normally use 15g of peanut flour to make dipping sauces, but this was 10g of cocoa and 20g peanut flour (plus milk and a little agave). I didn't use as much agave as I normally would, just enough to bring the chocolate out, so it was like a really dark chocolate peanut butter sauce, mmm!

Anyway, on to the title of this post. A little while ago I was contacted by Doves Farm to see if I would like to review some of their newly repackaged cereal bars and flapjacks, all of which are organic and fairtrade. I love cereal bars for carrying around in my bag for when hunger strikes (either mine or the children's!) so I was happy to say yes! Thanks you so much for your generosity Doves Farm...I was very happy when this box was delivered!! :-D

There are three types of cereal bars in the range - banana mango & brazil, sultana apricot & apple, and crispy chocolate & rice:

The first cereal bar that I tried was the banana, mango & brazil:

I always find banana flavoured things to be a bit hit and miss - sometimes they can taste quite artificial, however this one was pretty good. It had pieces of mango, pineapple and brazil nut running through it, and whilst I might have liked the chunks to be a bit bigger, the size of them did mean that they were consistent throughout the bar without it falling apart. The bar itself had a great consistency - chewy whilst still having some bite to it. I enjoyed this bar and would happily eat it again, although as you will see further on in the review it wasn't my favourite - better are still to come! :)

The next bar I tried was sultana, apricot & apple:

I wasn't a fan of this bar to be honest. I like my cereal bars chewy, whereas this one has a really crispy texture. After taking my first bite, I checked the ingredients list and wasn't surprised to find cornflakes as the third ingredient. It doesn't taste bad, but it just isn't for me. A shame, it was the only bar I didn't like, but then I suppose they can't please all of the people all of the time! ;-)

The final cereal bar that I tried was the crispy chocolate & rice:

Chocolate flavoured things aren't normally my first choice when it comes to snack bars, so I was very surprised to find that I loved this! I love the appearance - the two different layers (one cocoa rice, one just sweet crispy rice) and the mini chocolate chips on top make this look really fun. I'd originally planned to share this bar with Toby, but after taking a bite I gave this one to Toby...

...and got a new one for myself! Yum. I can't believe the chocolate flavour is my favourite, but it's so good!! It is sweet enough for me, but not too sweet (Liam would've liked a bit more sugar) - you can really taste the cocoa in the bottom layer. Delicious. I've only got one bar left in this box and will be definitely be buying some more once it has gone!

Doves Farm also sent me a couple of boxes of flapjacks - plain butter flapjacks and apple & sultana ones:

These are really tasty, and great for lunchboxes too! The first time I tried the apple & sultana ones I cut it in half and put some in Izzy's lunchbox:

I really like these - in fact I'm eating one now as I type this - they are definitely taste more sugary than the cereal bars although actually I just checked and these have 12.3g of sugars per bar, compared to 16.9g per sultana, apricot and apple cereal bars. Another reason to love the flapjacks - they taste even more "treat-like" than they actually are! The flapjacks don't have a hugely strong apple flavour, but there are small chunks of cooked apple dotted through them alongside the sultanas. I love the texture of these flapjacks. Perhaps not as chewy as homemade ones, but lovely and soft.

There are also plain butter flapjacks for those of us (*ahem* Liam!) who don't like dried fruit in baked goods:

As the name would suggest, these flapjacks use butter whereas the apple & sultana ones use (sustainably grown) palm oil. I really enjoyed these flapjacks too, again they have a lovely texture and a luxurious taste. They are perfect for Liam to take to work too - I won't let him take anymore of the chocolate cereal bars as I love them so much (!) but whilst I like these, I prefer the apple & sultana flapjacks so Liam might be able to sneak a couple of them out of the box!!

I was really impressed with (most) of these bars. The calories range from 142-196 calories per bar, which, for me, makes them ideal for a mid-morning snack with a latte, or just to have in my bag for if I get hungry while I'm out. The only one I wouldn't buy again are the sultana, apricot & apple cereal bars, but if you prefer crunchy cereal bars then you may well like these as well - it was only the texture I objected to. Thanks again to Doves Farm for giving me the opportunity to try these - I will definitely be picking up some again when I go shopping! :)

Have you tried any of Doves Farm's cereal bars or flapjacks before? Or any of their other products? I guess a lot of us will have used their xanthan gum (great for thick smoothies!) and I have also enjoyed their gluten free pasta before. This was my first time trying their snack bars though and I was really impressed. I often regret eating pre-packaged bars - wishing I'd taken the time to make my own snack - but these bars tasted really fresh so definitely make a great portable/quick alternative to home baking.

Rice Dream Review + Spiced Pumpkin Loaf

Hello! How are you all doing? I'm not writing the post I'd planned to about Bath tonight I'm afraid - I still haven't got round taking photos of all the things I bought so I will try to do that tomorrow!

Instead you get a review that I have been meaning to write for a while.

I was contacted by Rice Dream (you can find their Facebook Page here) asking if I'd like to try out their non-dairy milk. It's taken me a while to write this post as when I first tried out the carton they sent, I used it in coffee...and it curdled. I'm a bit funny about textures as it is, so I was put off, especially as when I poured it there were also lumps in it. I now think that there was something wrong with that particular carton, as having tried another carton I have had much better results...but it did take me a little while to build up the courage to try it again!!

I'm glad I did give it another go though, as the next carton I tried was much better - it poured out lump-free and worked fine in my lattes. I found that it had quite a neutral flavour so I was able to enjoy my latte like usual.

I did see on Rachel's blog that she too had had slight curdling in hot drinks with Rice Dream, but that it hadn't affected the taste. I asked them about it and they recommended waiting a minute or so before pouring the Rice Dream into the hot drink, as it shouldn't be poured directly into boiling water.

I also tried Rice Dream in my beloved porridge:

This was delicious - it had the same texture and taste as I'm used to, so works really well as a non-dairy alternative to milk.

As with most non-dairy milks, the thing that does stop me using them as my only type of milk is the lack of protein. I'm not vegan or dairy-free, so I do drink dairy milk a lot of the time. If you don't, then I think Rice Dream is a really good alternative. But for me, I think I will continue to use it in porridge/cereal (where I can add peanut butter to up the protein!), but for my lattes (which often act as breakfast, or at the very least tide me over until after the school run) I will stick with cows' milk to give me some protein to stop me getting so hungry.

Having said that, I'm really glad I did this review - I do like trying different types of non-dairy milk and Rice Dream was a new one to me, which I will now add to my rotation. Thanks Rice Dream for letting me try their product!

*****

In other news photos, I made spiced pumpkin bread today. It didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped - the spiced taste wasn't strong enough, and the loaf had more of a cake-like texture than the dense, slightly drier loaf I'd been hoping for. I never normally like my baked goods dry (and of course I don't really mean dry - I think dense is probably the better description), but I was trying to make something similar to the amazing pumpkin loaf I bought a few weeks ago from a Christmas Fayre. At least I've got a starting point to play around from now!

This was meant to tie in with this post as I was planning to use Rice Dream in it...but the recipe didn't call for any type of milk. Oh well, I thought I'd put it in here anyway - it looks pretty, and the children love it! It's certainly ok as first attempts go, but I hope I can make it even better next time!

Have you ever tried Rice Dream before? Or other non-dairy milks? What are your favourites? I'm awful for deciding that I'm going to stop drinking cows' milk (the thought of it does disturb/disgust me, but I'm still in the burying my head in the sand stage at the moment), buying a load of non-dairy milks, and then switching back to cows' milk after a couple of days! My cupboard currently contains Rice Dream, Oatly, Kara coconut milk, and soy milk...oops! I'm trying to make my way through them by using them in foods (cereals, porridge, smoothies...) but still using cows' milk in my hot drinks.

Double Chai Cupcakes, with addictive cream cheese frosting!

A couple of weeks ago, the lovely people at Drink Me Chai sent me a couple of samples of their chai powders to review.

As well as the spiced chai and chocolate chai varieties above, they sell vanilla chai, peppermint and mango - you can see more details of all the varieties here.

I could have just made these sachets into drinks as per the instructions on the packet, but as I already knew I loved the taste of the vanilla chai...

I decided to do something different with them - bake!

Double Chai Cupcakes
(makes 12-13)

For the cakes:

• 190g butter, room temperature
• 175g caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 3 tbsp milk
• 150g self-raising flour
• 24g chocolate chai powder
• 15g cocoa powder (if making this again, I would use all chai powder, but 24g was all I had)

For the icing: (this makes double the amount needed for one batch of cupcakes)

• 200g full-fat cream cheese (eg Philadelphia)
• 200g butter, room temperature
• 20g spiced chai powder
• 380g icing sugar

1. First, make the cupcakes. Pre-heat the oven to 190C.
2. Whisk together the butter and sugar.
3. Add the eggs and milk, whisk.
4. Finally sift in the flour, chocolate chai and cocoa powder and whisk a little more to combine.
5. Spoon the mix into cupcake cases (I used 12 muffin/cupcake cases, plus a couple more smaller silicone cases)
6. Bake in the oven for 15-16 minutes. (Slightly less time than cupcakes 'traditionally' take to cook apparently, but these cakes were cooked through without being dry. Perfect.)

I couldn't resist eating one of the cakes un-iced whilst waiting for the rest to cool. You can't beat cake fresh out of the oven!

This was delicious. As I alluded to in the ingredient list, a) I'd have liked the chai taste in the cake to have been been stronger - these had a very slight hint of spice but were more chocolatey than anything - more than the 24g sachet I had was needed really! And b) I've mentioned before that I often find chocolate cake a little dry, but these were great - I think "under-cooking" them slightly (I've read you 'should' cook cupcakes for 20 minutes) prevented them from drying out - they were still cooked, the cake test came out clean when I removed them from the oven, but they were deliciously spongy rather than dry.

Once the cakes were cool, it was time to ice them. I was originally going to make regular butter icing, but then decided to do half butter, half cream cheese. Good decision. This worked really well with the spiced chai flavour - it tasted just like the cream cheese icing you have on carrot cake, delicious and addictive! I couldn't stop eating spoonfuls of the icing straight from the bowl, but luckily the recipe made loads!

Just whisk all the ingredients together (butter and cream cheese first, then icing sugar a bit at a time unless you want white powder all over your work surfaces!) and the icing is ready. Liam ended up icing the cakes for me as my initial attempt did not turn out well, to say the least! The icing doesn't pipe as well as butter icing as it's a bit runnier, but it would still taste good even if you just smothered it on with a knife!

The icing amount in the recipe actually made double the amount needed for these cakes! I recommend still making it all though, as it is so delicious! And I will share a (hopefully tasty!) way to use up the leftover icing once I take photos in the morning - stay tuned!

I'm so pleased with how these cakes turned out. A bit more interesting than your standard chocolate cupcakes, but 'safe' enough that Liam will eat them too - which is always a good thing unless I want to end up eating a whole batch of cupcakes myself!

Just to clarify, Drink Me Chai sent me the above samples for free, but didn't pay me for my review or my positive comments - I just love the drink and flavour! I'm kinda sad I baked with these powders rather than sampling the drinks - luckily the cupcakes are so good it makes up for it, but it would be nice to know what the drinks were like too - the spiced variety especially smelt amazing in the packet!! My local Waitrose sells the Vanilla and the Spiced Chai in the 250g tubs so I might just have to buy the spiced variety once my tub of vanilla runs out.

The only not-so-great thing about these powders are some of the ingredients - they are rather high in sugar etc. I spotted someone else bringing this up on Twitter the other day though, and it sounds like Drink Me Chai are already working towards a solution...

I look forward to seeing what their unsweetened version is like! :)

Have you tried any of the Drink Me Chai powders? Or other chai tea? I did buy some chai teabags a little while back, but when I made one up I found it weak and pretty flavourless - bleugh, I ended up tipping it down the sink. I think I should give them another go though, using less water and a longer brewing time perhaps, as they are certainly a healthier way to enjoy chai tea. These powders are nice for an occasional treat though - even making the powders up with water instead of milk, they are so creamy!