Another recipe from the super fattening book of Nigella. I’m not usually attracted to recipes that don’t involve chocolate but I’ve signed up to do a swap via Vonnie’s blog and I figured I may have to bake something that doesn’t involve chocolate. This one had cherries (one of my favourites) and bananas (which I had loads of in the house) in it so I thought I’d give it a go. As it turns out, it’s rather yummy. Nigella claims that these are cupcakes but they are far more muffin like, in my opinion. The recipe makes 12.
125g unsalted butter 1/2 tsp baking powder
200g caster sugar 300g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract 40g dried cherries, chopped
3 ripe bananas 50g white chocolate, chopped
4 tbsp sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- Preheat oven to 180c.
- Melt butter in a saucepan, take off the heat and mix in vanilla, sugar and bananas (mashing everything up with a fork).
- Stir in sour cream and eggs and then beat until mixed properly.
- Add the bicarb and baking powder, mixing well before stirring in flour, cherries and chocolate.
- Split between 12 muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden and springy on top.
…let the crafting begin.
Ok, that’s not strictly true as I have 101 things to do for work before the new term starts in August. However, I’m hoping to try and get a fair bit of baking and crafting done as a way to have fun and occupy the kids over the holidays. I didn’t really feel like doing much this morning but Brodie was a little restless so we attempted to do a couple of (not too messy) things.
I’ve been holding back on toilet training Brodie until the holidays. She’s asking to go a lot but it still peeing in her pants/nappy. When we toilet trained Devin one of the most useful things was a sticker chart, which gave him immediate, tangible rewards without costing the earth. This morning Brodie and I made a really simple one. I used a piece of black card and wrote on it using a silver pen. Then I gave Brodie a packet of sticky backed shapes and told her to decorate around the edges.
We’ve stuck it on the bathroom door and she seems quite excited by it. I’m hoping that because she was involved in making it, it will mean more to her. We shall see.
Then I found a plain ceramic piggy bank (I think it was a birthday present) in the craft box. Brodie is obsessed with Peppa Pig at the moment so I thought it might capture her imagination. The brush that was provided with it was a little small for her so we resorted to finger painting. The only issue with this is that I’m now having issues getting the paint off our hands. Once the paint had dried I went over a couple of bits with a Sharpie and wrote her name on the back of it.
I am now knackered and fully intend to put my feet up for a couple of hours while Peppa Pig/Charlie and Lola/Sesame Street play on the Apple TV.
As per usual, the Scottish weather meant we were confined to the flat this afternoon. As my darling husband had decided that Father’s day was best spent with another woman, we got the paints out and prepared to make a mess. I had some potatoes, that were beginning to grow arms and legs, in the kitchen so made some printers for the kids to play with.
The kids seemed to enjoy it and made a fair bit of mess (although Brodie did give up on the potatoes quite quickly and used her hands instead).
After we cleaned up a bit we decided to indulge in one final messy activity before putting the paints away. Luckily I had some blank cards tucked away in the craft box so we were able to make a couple of quick (and very simple) father’s day cards.
So this week I have:
- Completed my final essay for uni (this term). I’m not overly happy with it as I know with more time and effort (and less in the way of child related interruptions) I could have done a lot better. However, I’m hoping it will pass. Despite the stress, I really enjoyed doing it.
- Been to see Take That with the lovely Emma, Eileen and Kate.
- Take the children (along with Emma and my husband) to the Gala day at the local park.
- Learnt how to tie some new knots at Forest School.
- Written the final set of school reports for the year.
It’s been a hectic year but it’s finally coming to a close (I’m a teacher, I work in academic years). With Emma popping over today I decided to use my new found time to do a bit of baking. I didn’t have a lot in so whipped up a batch of chocolate cupcakes. The recipe is exactly the same as that for the chocolate cake a couple of posts below. Instead of baking in a cake tin, I split the mixture between 12 muffin cases and baked in a preheated oven (170c) for 18 minutes. When they had cooled, I added the icing and a giant chocolate button, for decoration.
They were yummy and went down so well that husband, guest and I had 2 each. Hopefully with the holidays coming up I’ll be able to take on the projects which have been neglected due to work.
My aim was to keep the children occupied with craft stuff this afternoon so that I could get on with some studying. Although they were kept occupied for a while, I had to stay with them and supervise lest World War 3 erupted. However I was really pleased with what we came up with.
I found some old toilet roll tubes and thought that, with a little effort, they would make good pencil tidies. We seem to have hundreds of pencils, felt tips and crayons in this house so anything that tidies and organises them is a good idea. I prepared in advance by painting the tubes white and then sticking them to a square bit of cardboard. I also set out all the pre cut sticky shapes and paintbrush pens (these are an amazing creation) so that we wouldn’t descend into madness while riffling through the many craft boxes.
First we stuck all the shapes, stickers and glitter (I tried to hide it but Brodie found it and insisted we use it) to the tube. Then I let the kids loose with the paintbrush pens. I’ll admit, this has been the most organised, least stressful crafting session we have had. I usually end up tearing my hair out at the mess but, despite the use of glue, glitter and paint, I had cleared up in five minutes. The finished product not only looks cracking but is practical. The only hairy moment was when I left the room for a minute and Brodie hid all the pens from Devin.
I got home from work/collecting the family at about 6pm last night and (in between feeding said family) spent 3 hours baking, cleaning the kitchen and doing the dishes. I managed to come up with a batch of smarties cookies (from Rachel Allen’s Dotty Cookie recipe) and a chocolate cake. 
The first batch of cookies I made were large (like the one’s you buy from the bakery in a supermarket). They are crispy on the outside and wonderfully soft and chewy in the middle. However, there wasn’t enough cookie dough to make a good sized batch of cookies so I decided to make them smaller. I had variable success with the smaller cookies. Most of the problems came when I tried to get them off the baking tray. No matter whether they were on greaseproof paper, or the baking tray was greased they still stuck. The result is that they don’t look pretty, but they still taste great.
The chocolate cake comes from a recipe my mum used to use when I was little. She called in All In One Chocolate Cake because you put all your ingredients in a bowl, mix them and bake.
Ingredients
3oz butter
50z caster sugar
4oz self raising flour
2oz cocoa
1tsp baking powder
3 eggs
4 tbsp milk
- Preheat oven to 170c.
- Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix (I tend to cream the butter and sugar together first as the end result is a lighter cake).
- Bake for 22-25 mins.
Icing
4oz Icing sugar
4oz chocolate
4tbsp milk
4oz buter
- Melt butter and chocolate together.
- Mix icing sugar and milk to form a paste.
- Mix the two together and put in the fridge to set.
- Use to fill and cover cake.
I decided to knock up a quick batch of these this evening while washing the dishes/making the dinner. They are very easy to make but I’m still a little unsure of them. They lacked something. It may have been because I used caster sugar instead of soft light brown sugar, or it may have been that I didn’t chop the chocolate finely enough. Either way, I’m convinced that if I add some cocoa powder to the mix next time they will be much more suited to my tastes. For those of you who want to play with the recipe, it’s originally from Rachel Allen and is as follows.
Ingredients
200g crunchy peanut butter
200g butter, softened
250g soft light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
250g chocolate, chopped
350g plain flour
1 tsp bicarb of soda
pinch of salt
- Preheat oven to 180c
- Beat sugar, butter, peanut butter and vanilla together until soft and creamy.
- Beat in eggs, one at a time before adding chocolate.
- Sieve in flour, bicarb and salt.
- Roll heaped teaspoonfuls of the dough into balls and place on baking tray.
- Bake for 12-16 minutes.
The quantities above apparently make about 60 cookies. I halved the amount and ended up with 16 cookies, although I did make them rather large.
