Category Archives: recipes

Bringing the Holiday Home with Virgin Holidays

10th October 2014
Ok, so I wasn’t lucky enough to actually get a holiday this year but for those of you who did and are still battling post-sunshine blues then why not recreate a little taste of the exotic at home? Or perhaps, like me you didn’t get away- why not whip up something tropical in your very own home and bring the holiday to you?
Virgin Holidays have released a guide to making 5 Caribbean Cocktails to inspire you for your next trip or help keep that holiday spirit going. In celebration of this they sent me over a kit so I could attempt to make my own- now, I’m not a big drinker at all but cocktails are my achilles heel and I just couldn’t resist. Mojitos are one of my favourite ever drinks so a kit to create my own provided much excitement.
The kit was brilliant, containing a cocktail shaker and all the gadgets and gizmos you need to create like an expert. There were also fun straws, some Cuban style snacks and mini bottles of rum to get you started. All I needed to buy was a lime and some fresh mint (and remember to make some ice cubes) and I was away! I thought these cute glasses from Marks and Spencer fitted nicely with the holiday theme.

My Mojitos weren’t quite official, technically the recipe calls for crushed ice, but have you ever tried to crush the stuff yourself? Perhaps I’m not very strong, or I was in too much of a rush but yeah, whole ice cubes it was- still, on a beach in Cuba they would melt in to an icy cold drink in no time!

Fancy creating your own? All you need is 50ml of rum, 10 mint leaves, 2 tsp of sugar and a lime cut in to wedges and you’re good to go! This will make two generous sized drinks, or three smaller ones like those I made.
What’s your favourite cocktail? Have you ever tried making them yourself? Let me know if you give this one a whirl!

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Autumn Baking- Sticky Plum Flapjack

09th September 2014
It feels like ages since I tried something new in the kitchen, I never seem to find the time to bake these days and when I do I tend to stick to old, faithful recipes that I know won’t fail me. A glut of Victoria plums in the garage last weekend spurred me in to looking outside of what I knew and for something I could bake to save them from spoiling…plums are my favourite fruit at this time of year and the idea of them going to waste did not sit well. A quick trawl of some recipes books and I stumbled over this recipe in one of our many “Good Food” books and decided that these sticky plum flapjack bars just had to be made.
Now, as you can tell these got a touch burnt on top which was kind of gutting as they had previously looked and smelt so incredible. This wasn’t due to lack of care though, nope, this was despite cooking on a lower temperature than stated and for less time- our oven isn’t on it’s best behaviour at the moment and seems to decide to cook how it best sees fit no matter what instruction we give.

Thankfully these still tasted amazing, and they were a bit more like an oaty cake due to the addition of flour. Plums, doused in sugar and spices were the perfect compliment to the oats and I’ll be making these again (but maybe in someone else’s oven!) in the very near future. I also think the recipe would lend itself well to fresh apricots so that might be my next venture…they also happen to go rather wonderfully with a cup of tea.

You can find the recipe here, let me know if you make some of these, or what else you’ve been creating with all the wonderful fruits that this time of year brings.

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Weekend Baking Inspiration with Soreen

18th July 2014
I love baking and I love Soreen products so am super so up for making flapjack using their chocolate variety. I’m always get the urge to bake in the summer, more so than in the winter and heat wave or no heat wave this is getting made very soon!

What recipes are you looking forward to trying? Leave the details below!

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Summer of Flavour with M&S

12th June 2014
Ok, so there is clearly a theme to my posts this week…I love Summer and all the fresher, lighter foods around, even when the weather doesn’t match! As well as providing me with a free lunch, Marks and Spencer also invited me to take part in their Summer of Flavour by providing me with the ingredients to make one of their fabulous sounding recipes.
Summer of Flavour is all about celebrating flavour, and as well as enjoying what we know and love, putting a new twist on traditional dishes. I chose to make a dessert that involved folding blueberries and lemon curd in to lightly crushed meringues and whipped cream then freezing it. It sounded like heaven…and tasted like it too!
Ingredients:
8 meringue nests (Cook with M&S)
300ml double or whipping cream (although the Bristol store had neither so was subbed with pre-whipped cream and that worked just as well!)
325g jar Sicilian lemon curd
180g blueberries
1. Lightly crush the meringues and set aside.
2. In a bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks. Fold in the lemon curd and the blueberries.
3. Now fold in the crushed meringues. Spoon into a 900g/2lb loaf tin lined and over-hanging with cling film. Open-freeze until firm then fold the overhang of cling film over, wrap again and freeze until ready to serve.
4. Alternatively spoon into 8 ramekin dishes, cover tightly with cling film and freeze.
5. Transfer the frozen loaf to the fridge 30 minutes before slicing. Ramekins are best left to stand at room temperature 10 minutes or so before spooning into.
This was one of the easiest desserts I’ve ever made and tasted so fresh, despite being really quite naughty! The lemon curd complemented the blueberries perfectly and the meringue gave a crunchy, chewy texture. I imagine that you could substitute the blueberries quite happily with raspberries too…let me know if you give that a go, or if you follow this recipe to the letter.
What are your favourite flavour combinations?

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Peanut Butter M&M cookie cake

17th October 2012

Within my Cybercandy package of joy was tucked this little gem which made for a wishlist inducing breakfast read. When I saw a recipe inside for cookies using peanut butter m&ms I knew I HAD to make them; as luck had it I had recently found a huge bag of peanut butter m&ms that I had picked up some time ago and forgotten about (how I don’t know, those things are like crack!) I’ve shared the recipe above incase you want to give these a go too, and believe me, you should! I made a couple of amendments- my mixture was really runny so instead of making lots of small cookies I made two cookie cakes which I sliced straight from the oven as a fun treat for my colleagues at work. I also didn’t have enough plain flour so subbed 1oz of self raising with no ill effect…oh and I mixed the m&ms into the mixture rather than just dotting on top.

The result?

pre-oven

just baked

sliced to share.


The cookie cakes took just over ten minutes to bake perfectly. I’d never made these before but would do it again as a fun alternative to a birthday cake!
What do you like to throw in to cookies?

xxx

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