Banana & Raspberry Muffins

Fruity muffins are one of my favourite types of baked good. I tried out this tasty banana and raspberry recipe today so thought I would share with you. If you like the sweetness of banana combined with the slight tartness of raspberry, these will be perfect for you. 
They are super easy to make and have a lovely bouncy and light consistency that makes them feel guilt free.

Recipe: Makes 12
250g Plain Flour
170g Light Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp Bi Carbonate of Soda
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
2 Eggs
3 Mashed Ripe Bananas
75ml Vegetable Oil
75ml Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
170g Fresh or Frozen Raspberries

Method: 
1. Preheat oven to 190C. Either line your muffin tin with cases or like me, use kitchen roll and tiny bit of butter to grease your tin instead of using individual cases.
2. In a medium sized bowl, combine all dry ingredients: flour, sugar, bi carb, baking powder and salt.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the mashed banana, eggs, milk, oil and vanilla until combined.
4. Add dry ingredients to banana mixture and combine. 
5. Chop raspberries into quarters and fold the majority into the mixture, saving a few to sprinkle on top.
6. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a knife or skewer comes out of the muffin clean.
7. Leave to cool in the tin for around 5 minutes before removing.

And there we have it! They're lovely with a cuppa!

Whats your favourite type of Muffin?

5 Affordable Things to do in Autumn

Finding things to do in our spare time is always a challenge, especially when we are being very strict with our spending. Everything seems to cost the earth these days! You can't go to a sweet cafe for a cuppa without being charged a tenner for two drinks and a brownie. Adam and I are used to Yorkshire prices. Now the weather is on the turn too, we are even more limited with our options! I don't think we are alone in this predicament so I thought I would let you know what sort of things we end up doing and hopefully it'll help out.

1. Get into the Halloween spirit and get your pumpkin carving on! 

This is one of my absolute favourite things to do this time of year and I feel it is an important tradition to keep up. I have always done it religiously since I was a kid. My mum actually told me that pumpkins used to be blinking expensive when I was little so she used to buy us turnips to carve instead...Yes turnips! Can you imagine hollowing out a turnip?! Our pumpkins were 2 for £3 from Asda which I thought was a good deal. Adam admitted to me the other day that he has never even carved a pumpkin before! I was horrified so am taking it upon myself to rectify the situation on Monday. Carving pumpkins always takes a while and is always a lot of fun. So there we go, an afternoon of festive fun for £3!

2. Baking! 

For me, baking in the cooler months is all about tradition and anything with warm flavours. Anything that makes me feel homely. Treats such as gingerbreads, shortbreads, carrot cakes are perfect and all very simple. I will be blogging a carrot cake recipe soon. I love spices but I don't like them to be over powering. Carrot cake is lovely because it has sweetness alongside hints of nutmeg and cinnamon with the crunch of tasty walnuts. It is one of my favourite things ever.

3. Get into a series or watch some festive films.

 I love to watch the traditional Halloween type films at this point every year. I'm not talking about scary films, I'm talking Disney's Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Both oldies but goodies in my eyes.

Adam and I recently watched an amazing series on Netflix called Narcos. The series tells the true story of Pablo Escobar and the creation of the Colombian drug cartel.. Not festive at all admittedly BUT still fantastic! We binge watched it over 2 days whilst cosy-ing up with baked goods and big fluffy throw.

4. Another thing to do with a fluffy throw and baked goods is to snuggle up and read. Often on a night we will be at either end of the sofa with our noses firmly stuck in a book. At the moment I am reading Alan Carr's autobiography which is hilarious. I just finished The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion and I can't recommend it enough. If you love a awkward and humorous love story then you're in for a treat with that one!

5. I know I mentioned the turn in the weather but when it isn't raining, Autumn offers up the most beautiful, crisp, sunny days. When we're feeling energetic on days off (which is very rare) we'll wrap up go for a little walk to the park a couple of minutes away from our flat, just to get us out and about. I love being wrapped up in a big scarf and hat, scouting around for the perfect conker like I'm 5 years old... 

Take a flask and some gingerbread, sit on a bench OR a picnic blanket if you're feeling extremely Pinterest, and just take in the wonderfulness that is Autumn!  

Whats your favourite thing to do in Autumn?

Luscious Lemon Cupcakes

I have mentioned before how anything lemon is my absolute favourite! So today's post is going to be my favourite recipe of all time: Luscious Lemon Cupcakes.
These cupcakes are perfect even for people who don't usually like lemon. "You've made me like lemon", quote from my other half who, til now, was a strict chocolate dessert type.
They're deliciously sweet and light with a lovely lemon zing.
So lets get into it!

Recipe: (Makes 16... for some reason)
Lemon Cupcakes
250g Butter
350g Caster Sugar
3 Eggs
250g Self Raising Flour
3 Lemons: 3 Zest, 2 Juice
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Lemon Curd (Optional)

Vanilla Buttercream: 
110g Butter
340g Icing Sugar
A splash of Milk

Method: 
1. Preheat oven to 160c and line your muffin tray with cases.
2. Add the butter, caster sugar, eggs, flour, 3 lemon zests, 2 lemon juice and vanilla extract to large bowl and mix until thoroughly combined and creamy looking.
3. Portion out into muffin cases and bake for 15-20 minutes on a middle shelf.
4. Leave to cool in the muffin tray.
5. Whip up your buttercream by measuring your butter into a large bowl and adding a splash of milk. Add your icing sugar gradually and whisk with an electric mixer until nice and thick and forming stiff peaks. 
6. (Optional) Use a teaspoon to scoop out the centre of the cupcake and drop in a dollop of lemon curd. I just used a Gale's lemon curd from the supermarket, I'm planning on attempting to make my own at some point so stick around for that.  
7. When your cupcakes have cooled, pipe or spread on your buttercream. I added little fondant flowers too just to have a play around.
8. Tah Dah! There you have your Luscious Lemon Cupcakes!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! If you give it a go, let me know!

Key Lime Pie

Hi everyone!

I absolutely love Key Lime Pie. Anything citrus-y actually! Its so fresh and light, you don't realise what you're eating and how naughty it really is!
So today I am doing a recipe that is based around a Key Lime Pie created by her majesty, Mary Berry. I have only adjusted a couple of things, just because of the resources/ingredients I had.
This recipe is soooo simple but just tastes so delicious, I could eat the whole pie to myself.
You can whip this up in no time so its ideal if you need a tasty dessert, last minute. 
Lets get started!

Mary's recipe called for a 9 inch loose-bottom flan tin, all I had was a 12 inch so that's what I used. In hindsight, I would've maybe increased the ingredient quantities by a quarter, just to make it a little thicker. Mine turned out quite thin but we just cut bigger slices, so it was ok ;). 

Recipe (9 inch tin):
Biscuit Base
5oz (150g) Digestive Biscuits
2.5oz (65g) Butter
1oz (25g) Soft Light Brown Sugar (Original recipe called for demerara sugar)

Filling
Grated zest of 1 large Lime and 1 small 
Juice of 4 large Limes
14oz (397g) / 1 can of condensed milk
300ml double cream

Method:
1. Measure your digestive biscuits into a plastic bag and crushed with a rolling pin (or get your boyfriend to do it because you find the rolling pin).
2. Melt butter in a medium sized pan. Remove from the heat and stir in the biscuits and brown sugar.
3. Press the crumb mixture into your tin until nice and compact and leave to set.
4. Add your lime juice (I added an extra small lime juice just to make the flavour a bit stronger), condensed milk, zest and double cream into a large mixing bowl and beat until nicely blended. Pour onto your biscuit base and level out. 
5. Leave to set for 2-3 hours before removing the tin to serve.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe. I can't stress to you how easy it really is AND how tasty it really is!!

If anyone has any citrus-y recipes, I'd love to see them and give them a go.

Have a nice bank holiday weekend everyone :D

Rosie

Mint Choc Chip Cupcakes

Hi again!

I don't know about you but mint choc chip ice cream is one of my favourite ice cream flavours! 
This cupcake recipe is super tasty and really does give the taste of mint choc chip ice cream, without the brain freeze. I was really happy with how they came out (even if I did forget the chocolate chips...oops) BUT, I added them on the top instead which worked out well too. The recipe is based around a normal cupcake recipe, with just a couple extra bits. Really easy, honestly!

Recipe: 
Chocolate Cupcakes
6oz Butter
6oz Caster Sugar
2oz Cocoa Powder
4oz Self-Raising Flour
3 Eggs
1x 100g Bag of Milk Chocolate Chips (Added into the cupcake or sprinkled on top)
12x Brown Cupcake Cases or colour of your choice.

Peppermint Buttercream
4oz Butter
A Splash of Milk
1tsp Peppermint Flavouring
12oz Icing Sugar 
I added a tiny bit of green gel colouring to get the minty colour but thats optional.
A Sprinkle of Choc Chips or any Chocolate decoration.

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160c and pop 12 cupcake cases into your muffin tray.
2. Cream butter and caster sugar together until smooth.
3. Sieve Flour and Cocoa powder into seperate bowl. Add eggs and flour/cocoa gradually to the butter mixture. Mix until nice and smooth.
4. Pop your mixture into your cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 mins on a middle shelf.
5. Leave cupcakes to cool thoroughly before adding buttercream

Buttercream method:
1. Cream butter, milk and peppermint extract until blended.
2. Weigh 12oz Icing sugar into seperate bowl.
3. Add icing sugar gradually to butter mix. I like to use an electric mixer as it gives a nice pale colour and makes sure the mixture is nice and smooth.
4. Add your colouring at the last stage of your mixing.
5. I always like to pipe the buttercream so I used a star shaped nozzle for this cupcake. If piping, I find it easiest to measure up the nozzle and pop it in the piping bag then fold the bag over the top of a tall glass to hold the bag up, ready to be filled with your buttercream. Leave a couple of inches empty so that you can twist the top of the bag. 
6. Hold the piping bag upright and start in the middle of the cupcake, work your way around the edge and back up into the middle. 
7. Sprinkle with a few choc chips!

I hope you give these a go! If you do, send me your links or pictures or whatever else :)


Rosie