Banana Blondies

After suffering from "one of those days" I fancied making something that was sensationally sweet and fabulously fudgey. Following my recent love for my Raspberry and White Chocolate Blondies, I trawled the internet for something just as yummy but a little different, that is when I stumbled across Banana Blondies. Blondies are pretty much white chocolate brownies and for those of you who aren't aware BROWNIES ARE SO LAST YEAR!! This recipe very naughty but contains banana so that's at least one of your five a day right?

How do I make these delicious treats I hear you cry?

Ingredients
100ml Double cream
225g   Caster sugar
225g   Plain flour
200g   White chocolate
200g   Unsalted butter
100g   Soft dark brown sugar
  50g   Toasted flaked almonds
    3     Bananas, chopped
    1     Egg
    1     Vanilla pod
¼ tsp  Baking powder

The Ingredients

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Place the sugar, cream and 100g butter into a saucepan for 5 minutes to form a thick sauce. Allow the sauce to cool slightly and add the bananas, chopped.

2. Melt the remaining 100g butter and the white chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of water.

3. Into a large bowl beat the egg with the brown sugar and vanilla seeds from one vanilla pod. Once mixed fold in the white chocolate mixture.

4. Next sieve the flour and baking powder and gently fold. At this point add the banana mixture and flaked toasted almonds.

5. Place the mixture into a lined baking tin and bake for about 35 minutes.

The Finished Product

I will admit they do not look the most appetising but they are honestly incredibly scrumptious. Why don't you give this mouth-watering recipe a go and send me the pictures of your Banana Blondie attempts!

Mango and Raspberry Muffins

This versatile yummy muffin can be served as a desert or eaten for breakfast. It's deliciously fruity and is topped with a crunchy crumble topping. This is another recipe that is sure to wow your friends and family.

Ingredients for the Crumble
75g Plain flour
65g Unsalted butter
50g Caster sugar

Ingredients for the Muffin
380g      Mango yogurt
370g      Caster sugar
360g      Plain flour
250g      Fresh raspberries
  70g      Unsalted butter
1 1/2tsp Baking powder
   1/2tsp Bicarbonate of soda
   1/2tsp Vanilla extract
      2      Eggs

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line a muffin tray with 12 muffin cases.

2. Crumble: Add all the ingredients into a bowl and rub the mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. Then set the mixture aside.

3. Place the flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl and mix together

4. Add the yogurt, eggs and vanilla extract to the mixture and mix until smooth

5. Melt the butter and add to the mixture ensuring the batter is smooth and even.

6. Gently fold in the raspberries.

7. Spoon the mixture into the cases before sprinkling the crumble mixture on top.

8. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the muffins are golden brown and bounce back when pressed. 

The only downside (if you can call it that!) to this recipe is the raspberries sink to the bottom so you panic a little that its under baked, fear not its just the gooey raspberries.

Does this recipe tickle your fancy? Why not try baking this at home and send me your pictures.

Oaty Raspberry Traybake

This super easy bake is jam packed with healthy ingredients, that will satisfy your sweet tooth in a low calorie and guilt free way. This Oaty Raspberry Traybake takes around 12 minutes in the oven and is so quick to whip up you'll be making it over and over again.

Ingredients
200g  Rolled oats
150g  Punnet of fresh raspberries
  75g  Clear honey
  50g  Butter (plus a little extra for greasing)
  50g  Ground almonds
1/2tsp Almond extract

Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees and grease a 20cm x 20cm baking tray.

2. Roughly mash the raspberries in a bowl and set aside

3. In a saucepan melt the butter and honey. Once melted, take the mixture off the heat and stir in the oats, ground almonds and almond extract.

4. Press half the oat mixture in an even layer on the bottom of the baking tray.

5. Spread the mashed raspberries on top.

6. Press the remaining oats on top and evenly smooth over.

7. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden.

8. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before slicing into 16 slices.

Is this a recipe you fancy trying? If so, why not send me pictures to share with my twitter follows and blog readers. 

White Chocolate and Raspberry Blondies

I fancied baking something a little different to the traditional brownie, after scrawling through cook books and the internet I found blondies. A white chocolate alternative to brownies. These delicious brownies are simple to make, super tasty and a hit with all your friends and family. There are so many different recipes out there but I decided to go for the White Chocolate and Raspberry one. Still naughty but surely the raspberries make it super healthy!?!?

Ingredients
200g   Plain Flour
200g   Unsalted butter
150g   White chocolate (broken)
150g   Caster sugar
150g   Fresh raspberries
100g   White chocolate (finely chopped)
3          Large eggs
1/2tsp  Vanilla extract
1/2tsp  Baking powder

Method
1. In a heatproof bowl place, the broken chocolate and butter. Put the heat proof over a pan of steaming water and let it melt gently, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and set aside.

2. Whisk the eggs in a large mixing bowl until frothy. Add the sugar and vanilla extract and beat thoroughly until the mixture is mouse like.

3. Mix in the chocolate mixture.

4. Sift the baking power and flour into the mixture and fold in. Stir in the chopped white chocolate.

5. Place the mixture into a lined tin and ensure it is evenly spread. Scatter the fresh raspberries over the mixture.

6. Put into the oven at 180 degrees for around 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out almost clean. Allow to cool before cutting.

The masterpiece pre-baking

The finished product

Why don't you give this mouth-watering recipe a go and send me the pictures of your blondie attempts!

Guest Post

I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to write a guest post on the fabulous blog Tea With Me and Friends, written by the dynamic sister duo Rachel and Lorna. Go visit their blog and take a read of my guest post on The Stockwell Arms in Colchester, Essex and let me know what you think!

http://teawithmeandfriends.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/time-for-tea-mothers-day-specialthe.html?m=1

Chocolate Fridge Cookie

The simple yet delicious "fridge" cookie. Utterly scrumptious and incredibly moreish! These rich chocolate cookie slices are super easy to make and will make you stupidly popular with your friends and family! 

Ingredients

275g - Milk chocolate

130g - Unsalted butter

  90g - Digestive biscuits

  90g - White chocolate

This is just a simple and basic recipe for you to play around with and alter to meet your taste buds! Why not mix things up a little and swap plain digestives for chocolate digestives or add mini marshmallows, like I did. You could also add other tasty treats such as mini eggs or creme eggs to make them suitable for Easter treats. You can also vary the chocolate type whether it by dark, milk or white, or use flavoured chocolates such as fruit and nut or peanut butter. 

Method

1. Line a 450g tin with baking parchment.

2. Break the chocolate up and place it in a heat proof bowl along with the butter. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir gently until melted. Then allow the mixture to cool for 20 minutes.

3. Using your fingers, break the digestive biscuits into small pieces.

4. Chop the white chocolate into small pieces.

5. Stir both the biscuits and white chocolate into the the cooled, melted chocolate until combined.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and pack down gently.

7. Chill the cookie for 2 hours or until set

8. Once set remove the cookie from the tin and cut into slices using a sharp knife. You should get around 10 slices, obviously that could be more or less dependant on how greedy you are!

Why not give these a go and send me pictures of your variations.

Candied Bacon and Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's Monday and I'm baking as per usual! Today I'm baking two batches of cookies.

Firstly, I'm using up some super ripe bananas to make my "Banana, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies", but due to me using all my chocolate chips in my next recipe, I've decided to make these cookies without chocolate and therefore suitable for vegans (unlike my next cookies). You can find my recipe for these here:
http://fallingjess.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/banana-peanut-butter-and-chocolate-chip.html

Secondly, I fancied being a little different and decided to try "Candied Bacon and Chocolate Chip Cookies". Not a cookie you see every day over here in the UK but something that appears to be very big in the States. You should get around 15-30 cookies from this recipe dependent on the size!

Ingredients for Cookies

290g - Plain Flour

260g - Chocolate Chips

100g - Butter (Melted slightly and cooled)

  65g - Brown Sugar

  65g - Caster Sugar

1.0 tsp - Vanilla Essence

0.5 tsp - Baking Powder

1 - Egg

Ingredients for Candied Bacon

130g - Brown Sugar

5 - Bacon Rashers

Method for Candied Bacon

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees

2. Line a tray with foil and place bacon onto tray

3. Sprinkle brown sugar on top of bacon and bake for 18-25 minutes or until crispy

4. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the bacon is cooled chop finely.

Method for Cookies

1. Reduce the oven to 170 degrees

2. Mix the butter and sugars together

3. Add vanilla essence and egg into the mixture and beat until light and creamy

4. Add the flour and mix well

5. Mix in the diced candied bacon and chocolate chips until combined

6. Place into balls and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the edges are brown. Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack.

And the finished product, drum roll please..

Pancakes

With Valentine's Day out the way, what's next to look forward to? For anyone who loves food the answer is simple, Pancake Day.

Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday is on Tuesday 4th March this year. Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent (time to give up all the naughty sins again, bye bye fizzy sweets). It's date is determined by Easter and therefore changes yearly.

To make your Pancake Day the best yet, I thought it would be my mission to scowl the internet for unusual pancake recipes. For all the recipes shown below there are many variations on the internet, so don't be scared to mix things up a little.


Oat Pancakes
- 4 egg whites

- 1/2 cup of dry rolled gluten-free oatmeal (ground into flour)

- 1/2 cup of almond milk

- 2 tbsp coconut flour

- 1 tsp ground cinnamon

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 1/4 tsp baking soda

- 1/4 tsp baking powder

This recipe is suitable for those who are looking to be a healthy, serve with fruit to make it even healthier!

Peanut Butter Pancakes
- 1295ml Whole milk

- 250g All purpose flour

- 113g unsalted butter, melted & slightly cooled

- 100g Granulated sugar

- 63g Peanut butter

- 1 tbsp Baking powder

- 1 tsp Salt

- 1 tsp Ground cinnamon

- 1 tsp Vanilla extract

- 2 Large eggs

If you are feeling devilish why not add chocolate chips into this recipe!



Two Ingredient Pancakes
- Two eggs

- 1/2 a cup of mashed bananas

This is by far the lowest calorie recipe that is until you add the chocolate sauce! They are surprisingly good, but do not expect this to taste like a regular pancake...

They look (minus the banana lumps) and smell similar to normal pancakes whilst cooking.

I chose three toppings for my pancakes:

- Banana and honey

- Nutella

- Peanut Butter

Chocolate Pancakes
- 250ml Milk

- 100g Plain flour

- 15g Coco powder

- 1 egg

- 1 egg yolk

- 1 tbsp Vegetable oil (plus a little extra for frying)


Toppings
And as for pancake toppings, everyone has their favourite. Mine is lemon and sugar. There is so many options, whether it be sweet or savoury. 

On my search of the internet I found what I believe to be an American website listing 102 pancake toppings for National Pancake Day. I've picked 5 of the most unusual ones below, I wonder if any of my readers will be brave enough to try them:

- Goats cheese and strawberry jam

- Blue cheese

- Roasted nuts with soy sauce

- Sausage gravy

- Caviar

If like me you are not brave enough, why not take a look at their website to find the more normal pancake toppings http://foodiesunite.com/2011/02/102-pancake-toppings-for-national-pancake-day/

If you already know that you'll get frustrated, be too tired or too lazy to cook; why not book yourself in to a restaurant and get someone to do all the hard work for you. Such as My Old Dutch, with 3 restaurants spread out over London situated in Holburn, Chelsea and Kensington. Visit their website to see the menu, http://www.myolddutch.com/

Why not share your recipe ideas and photos, add them into the comments. Have a happy Pancake Day!

Banana, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

This afternoon I fancied baking more cookies! I think I am starting to develop a baking addiction...

This is a great recipe that makes beautifully soft cookies, that are so simple to make and are that delicious you will keep going back for more and more and more... This recipe is also suitable for vegans, that's if you remove the chocolate chips. I made 20 cookies out of the mixture, but depending on the size you make your cookies, you could get around 30.

From start to finish you should allow around 1 hour and 30 minutes to make the cookies. I know it seems long but the mixture needs to chill for around 1 hour in the fridge, I guess if you are really busy or impatient there is no harm in using the freezer! Preparation time is approximately 15 minutes and the same again for baking. 

Ingredients

165g - Plain flour
130g - Peanut butter (smooth/crunchy - your choice)
125g - Mashed banana (preferably ripe)

100g - Caster sugar

70g   - Brown sugar

40g   - Chocolate chips

1.5 tsp - Vanilla extract
1.0 tsp - Baking powder

Method

1. Place the banana and peanut butter into a bowl and mix well. Add in the brown sugar, caster sugar and vanilla extract until smooth (obviously if you use crunchy peanut butter the mixture will not be smooth). Combine the flour and baking powder and mix well. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips, cover and chill for around 1 hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Line baking trays with baking parchment. Roll the mixture into balls and place around 5cm apart.

3. Bake for around 11 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the tray before moving to wire rack to cool completely.

The cookie mixture rolled into balls prior to baking 

The finished product

Luxury Granola Cookies

Tonight I decided to make a "healthy" luxury granola cookie - basically most of the good cookie ingredients minus the chocolate! I used Harvest Moon strawberry crisp, a luxury style granola. These are perfect snack for someone with a sweet tooth and goes well with a good cup of tea.

They are dead simple to make with the preparation taking less than 15 minutes. The ingredients make 20 small cookies or if like me you are a little greedy, 10 big cookies!

Ingredients

115g of unsalted butter

45ml of golden syrup

115g of demerara sugar

175g of luxury granola (muesli)

90g of self-raising flour

1tsp of cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line trays with baking paper.

2. Put the butter, golden syrup and sugar into a large pan and heat gently. Stir the mixture constantly until the butter has completely melted. Remove the pan from the heat then stir in the granola, flour and cinnamon. Ensure the ingredients are well mixed and put aside to cool.

3. Place spoonfuls of the mixture on the baking paper, slightly apart. Bake for 15 minutes or until the cookies are beginning to brown around the edges. Leave to cool a little on the baking sheets, then transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely. (Or if your like me eat when it's still a little warm!)

You can vary your recipe to whatever tickles your fancy, including chocolate if you are feeling a little naughty! I took a few pictures shown below of the preparation process and the finished product.

The butter, golden syrup and  demerara sugar just before melting

The full mixture as its cooling

My very large luxury granola cookies pre-baking

The very moreish finished product.

Why not send me pictures of your "healthy" cookies and share your variation of the recipe in the comment section below.

Will I ever be the next star baker...

I do not claim to be he Great British Bake Off's next star baker, but I am a lover of baking anything sweet and sickly. Whether it be cakes, brownies or cookies; I adore baking anything that will give me a sugar rush. Unfortunately, minus cookies, my baking attempts usually fail! It would be safe to say I'm better at cooking than baking, but that won't stop me! A weekly bake is fun and can be a great way to relax.

I like baking different things and trying things that are new or a craze. Google and blogs are a great source for finding new recipes. However my favourite baking recipes are in "The Cookie Book" brought for me by my lesser half for Christmas. It has over 200 recipes for cookies, biscuits, bars and brownies. I think he was hinting he wanted me to bake more cookies as they are his favourite. That and the cookie cutters from my mum, I'm sensing a trend.

In my opinion cookies and brownies need to be slightly under baked, so gooey and soft in the middle and the more chocolate the better.

Unfortunately, I lack the finesse of decorating cupcakes, they always look like they've been decorated by a small child, but they always taste good! This is my downfall as its true you really do eat with your eyes. Some of my baking efforts can be seen below (excuse the cupcakes!):

Green and Lilac Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes
(I know JARG isn't a word! It's the initials of my family!)

Chocolate and Vanilla Cupcakes

Peanut Butter Cookies

Triple Chocolate Cookies

Crème Egg Brownies

(The recipe I used for this can be found in my previous blog here: http://fallingjess.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/creme-egg-brownies-do-they-live-up-to.html)

With Valentines day quickly approaching and Mother's Day just around the corner (Sunday 30th March) why not treat your loved one to a baking course. You can find many courses online, I've done a little research for you and a few companies offering courses are shown below:

• Squires Kitchen
  Many courses starting from 27th February through to the end of the year, all suitable for beginners. Prices starting from £125.00
  http://www.squires-school.co.uk/courses/topic/cookery/limit:16
•  Cinnamon Square
  Winner of the home counties round on ITV's Britain's Best Bakery are offering many Masterclasses from cupcakes to macaron, chocolate to pastries. Prices starting from £66.67http://www.cinnamonsquare.com/masterclasses.html
• Newlyns Farm Shop
  Offering many courses including cakes and tray bakes with prices starting from £135.00http://www.newlyns-farmshop.co.uk/book-a-course/

I hope this little blog will make you hungry, inspire you to bake or if like me feel motivated to attend a baking course. If it has share with me your baking efforts, recipes and tips.

Creme egg brownies, do they live up to the hype?

Well there was only one way to find out, in the words of Great British Bake Off's (or GBBO as us fans called it!) Mel and Sue... BAAAKKKKEEE!

I was thrown into the madness of this Easter delight by a friend who lacks baking skills (sorry JB!) and was intrigued by this sweet treat. She bombarded me with this recipe http://scarletscorchdroppers.com/2013/03/12/creme-egg-brownies/ (many other's are available online) and gave me no choice of a healthier bake, even though we were both "healthy eating" (it has eggs in it right?). As a result we popped out and got the necessary ingredient's from Sainsbury's (other supermarkets are available!).

My Advice

1. Follow the recipe to the gram - no free styling!

2. Bake your brownie so it's still gooey and delicious in the middle

3. Freeze your mini crème eggs - I've heard on the grapevine this avoids them melting and leaves them with a gooey, soft yolk effect centre

4. If you have a sweet tooth and hate waiting around, speed up the baking process and make use of the marvellous invention called the freezer!

5. Cut them small - they are far too sickly!

The Baking Process

The finished result:

In my opinion they lived up to the Easter hype and were far tastier than I expected. If you lack a sweet tooth avoid at all costs as this is a recipe designed to make you teeth rot.

If you give this particular bake a go why not share you opinions and pictures on my blog!