More often than not I make little gifts for people who come to my day classes. It’s oddly one of my favourite parts of preparing for a class. I love it. I like baking the biscuits or mixing the fridge cake. I like cutting up cellophane to wrap around the little bundles. I especially like tying the ribbon. Scrap that. I especially like shopping for the ribbon. I’m a ribbon hunter. I check out what’s on offer everywhere I go. My current new favourite place to buy ribbon is The Range. Oh so pretty.
Imagine my horror yesterday when I found one of these little cranberry oaty biscuits left behind! All lonely, a gift unwanted. I’m hoping they were simply forgotten as cranberries are quite sensitive fruit. To make them feel better I am sharing the recipe. It makes loads, about 30 little morsels.
Ingredients:
250g salted butter, room temperature
150g caster sugar
150g self raising flour
230g porridge oats
1 tbsp vanilla extract
200g dried cranberries
So easy peasy. Just preheat the oven to Gas 4/160C. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the flour, porridge oats, vanilla extract and cranberries and mix together until combined, using either your hands or the mixer. Form into balls about the size of a walnut and bake in the centre of the oven, on a tray, for about 10 – 15 minutes depending on how crunchy you like your biscuits. Leave on the tray to cool as they’re still fragile when they’re warm.
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There are signs all over the place. My trousers all all too tight. There are three loads of washing on the floor next to the washing machine. Dust everywhere. Boxes in the hallway that need breaking down and recycling. The library books are overdue. I ate a whole bag of Choco Crunchy for breakfast, in the Aldi carpark. There’s no face wash left. My eyebrows need threading. And last night I protested and whined as Mr Bell insisted we change the sheets at 11pm. I’d broken a jiffy bag at 9.30am and accidentally spread that nasty grey filling over the bed. Worryingly I could see nothing wrong in sleeping amongst grey fluff. It’s kind of fitting. It’s how I feel. A bit grey and fuzzy and horizontal.
Why has the Bell household gone to ruin? Well, I have a deadline. It’s self imposed. No-one is making me complete anything. But I know the deadline is there, it stares at me. Mocks me. I feel like a teenager again, trying to avoid revising, though this time it’s rather more eating too much and perusing the Daily Mail gossip section online as displacement activities, than reading Adrian Mole novels and searching for blackheads. God alone knows how teenagers with access to the internet get any revision done at all. They are all clearly geniuses.
Here’s a lazy recipe as if to prove my lazy ass state.
I made some of my brownies and added in a good handful of banana chips. See I told you it was a lazy recipe. Now, where’s that 5th bag of Choco Crunchys?
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I love cheese. I am the girl who orders the cheese plate and not the sticky toffee pudding. Actually, sometimes I just steal Mr Bell’s sticky toffee pud and order the cheese. I am the girl who drives to Long Clawson to queue in the cold and buy half a Stilton every Christmas. I am the girl who browses cheese producer’s websites to tease myself. I am the girl who has in her freezer at the very least three different types of cheese, just in case there were a cheese emergency. I’m an addict. So much so that I used to regularly eat cheese for dinner with crackers and chilli chutney on the side. Then I got married and my husband educated me that this was not a fitting dinner for a grown up. So now I just try to pop cheese into every meal instead.
Two-starred Michelin chef Nathan Outlaw is a big fan of Davidstow cheese and on the 26th March 2012 he is holding a masterclass at L’atelier des Chefs cookery school in central London. Davidstow Cornish Cheddar is offering one lucky reader and their friend the chance to attend this very exclusive event. The class is hands-on and the lovely Nathan will teach you to create simple, tasty dishes with Davidstow. For those of you in the know, Davidstow’s cheeses are typically matured for longer than other cheddars, producing a more complex flavour and creamy texture – perfect for cooking or just eating with crackers (and chilli chutney if you’re me) and a nice glass of wine.
All you have to do is tell me in a comment on this post what your favourite recipe is that uses cheese. You should also note that travel is not included as part of the prize and that the winners must be available on 26th March 2012 10.00am – 2pm.
How to enter:
Complete the Rafflecopter form below to confirm your entries made via blog comments, Twitter, Facebook etc.
This giveaway will close on 10th March 2012.
Please read the rules below.
Winners are announced on the Rafflecopter form after the prize has been claimed by the winners.
First timers:
Please watch how Rafflecopter works (video)! It is 46 seconds long. It explains everything. It takes less time to do this than to write up a post on my facebook page on how much you don’t understand Rafflecopter. Almost.
If no form is showing, hit refresh and it should appear.
Complete the form – or your beloved entries will not go into the draw. And that would be such a waste of time.
Mandatory entries need to be completed first – so leave a blog comment before you try and complete any of the other methods of entry.
Want more chances to win? Come back daily after tweeting about the giveaway and fill the form in again.
If you are viewing this by email you will need to click through to enter.
Rules and things:
Only open to UK participants over the age of 18. Sorry to anyone from further afield or younger readers.
There’s one prize available and that’s a masterclass in London with Nathan for two people, the winner and a friend. There’s no cash alternative to the prize and the prize is not transferable. No part or parts of the prize may be substituted for other benefits, items or additions.
Instructions form part of the terms and conditions. Entries using any software or automated process to make bulk entries will obviously be disqualified. The winner will be picked at random using software and then contacted by email. If you win and then don’t respond to this email within 7 days then another winner will be picked so check your emails and your spam! The goodies will be delivered to the winner as soon as possible after you have sent me your delivery address.
I am running this giveaway on behalf of Davidstow. Their decision is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. So there.
This is where I get all stern – please don’t say you have liked the post and followed me on Twitter and Tweeted away like a Tweety thing if you haven’t as guess what? If you win I will check you did do the things you said you did. It’s only fair after all. And I do like fairness.
Before you start reading this giveaway is only open to those of you who live within the M25. Sorry. If it’s any consolation that means I can’t enter either. Not that I would of course. It’s also for meat eaters only. Again, sorry, the nice people at Hello Fresh are just starting up so are having to cater to the masses at the mo…
Here’s the deal; Hello Fresh delivers recipes (with pretty recipe cards with nice pictures) and all the ingredients to make them to your front door at the start of the week. You can either sign up for 3 or 5 meals per week. Hello Fresh quite rightly assume you’ll want to go off piste and do your own thing at least 2 nights a week. Recipes are created by chefs (some have worked at the Fat Duck but don’t let that worry you, there’s no foam or snaily stuff in sight) and are aimed at giving you and your family (deliveries for 2, 4 or 6) a balanced and delicious meal when frankly your inspiration runs to, well running to the takeaway.
Hello Fresh are London only for the first few months but hoping to be further afield as their business grows. The winner of the giveaway will receive a free delivery of one of the recipe bags, containing all the ingredients and recipes to cook 3 different meals for 2 people. It’ll arrive on a Monday!
How to enter:
Complete the Rafflecopter form below to confirm your entries made via blog comments, Twitter, Facebook etc.
This giveaway will close on 3rd April 2012.
Please read the rules below.
Winners are announced on the Rafflecopter form after the prize has been claimed by the winners.
First timers:
Please watch how Rafflecopter works (video)! It is 46 seconds long. It explains everything. It takes less time to do this than to write up a post on my facebook page on how much you don’t understand Rafflecopter. Almost.
If no form is showing, hit refresh and it should appear.
Complete the form – or your beloved entries will not go into the draw. And that would be such a waste of time.
Mandatory entries need to be completed first – so leave a blog comment before you try and complete any of the other methods of entry.
Want more chances to win? Come back daily after tweeting about the giveaway and fill the form in again.
If you are viewing this by email you will need to click through to enter.
Rules and things:
Only open to UK participants over the age of 18. Sorry to anyone from further afield or younger readers.
There’s one delivery of three meals to feed two people as a prize. There’s no cash alternative to the prize and the prize is not transferable. No part or parts of the prize may be substituted for other benefits, items or additions.
Instructions form part of the terms and conditions. Entries using any software or automated process to make bulk entries will obviously be disqualified. The winner will be picked at random using software and then contacted by email. If you win and then don’t respond to this email within 7 days then another winner will be picked so check your emails and your spam! The goodies will be delivered to the winner as soon as possible after you have sent me your delivery address.
I am running this giveaway on behalf of Hello Fresh who will be responsible for sending the prize to you if you win, which is very kind of them as it saves me queuing up at the Post Office. Their decision is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. So there.
This is where I get all stern – please don’t say you have liked the post and followed me on Twitter and Tweeted away like a Tweety thing if you haven’t as guess what? If you win I will check you did do the things you said you did. It’s only fair after all. And I do like fairness.
For all those people who scoff at Valentine’s Day, look away now. These truffles are unashamedly pink and cute and all the things that frankly I am not. I’ve never been a pink girl. I even had a conversation once about where one might buy black clothing for baby girls. It is perhaps a blessing that I am the mother of boys. There is one less goth baby in the world as a result.
But hey, it’s Valentine’s Day so let’s kitsch it up. And let’s get really sticky. And let’s drink the rest of the bottle of Baileys on ice with the person we love most, be that husband, wife, lover, mother, father, brother, sister or best friend. Maybe not the dog. I think the RSPCA would have something to say about that and quite rightly so. I do think Valentine’s affection should be extended beyond romantic love though. And as this makes about a million truffles then you may need to extend the love pretty far to people you only mildly like. Feel free to scale the recipe down if you only like your husband or best friend, or even just yourself.
Makes: About 25 truffles but it all depends on size. Mine were about a tablespoon’s amount.
Adapted from this recipe which was taken from this marvellous book which I urge you all to buy as a gift for Valentine’s Day.
Ingredients:
150mls Baileys
310g sultanas
300g dark chocolate (please don’t substitute this for milk as it really affects the sweetness and we already have condensed milk in these little beauties)
50g milk chocolate
397g sweetened condensed milk
75g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
155g rich tea biscuits, crushed into pieces about 1cm across
100g mini marshmallows
Sprinkles and glittery stuff to roll the truffles in
Firstly measure out 100mls of the Baileys and pop in a saucepan with the sultanas. Heat on the hob until the booze is absorbed by the dried fruit. Remove from the heat and pop to the side for later. Heat the rest of the Baileys, both lots of chocolate, the condensed milk, butter and syrup in a saucepan on the hob until completely molten and smooth. Add the sultanas, biscuits and marshmallows and stir until all covered. Pop onto a lined tray and leave in the fridge until set – takes a few hours so maybe leave overnight.
When it’s set, and remember that this never sets like a normal fridge cake as it has a whopping 150mls of Baileys in it, you need to get ready for the sticky rolling factory line up. Have one plate with loads of sprinkles on and another larger one covered in greaseproof paper that will fit in your fridge to keep the truffles cool and firm and truffle like. Take about a tablespoons worth of fridge cake, roll into a ball in your palms and then roll in sprinkles. Lastly place on the greaseproof paper covered plate.
That’s it. Now enjoy. I also completely forgot to tell you that my husband bought me the best Valentine’s Day pressie ever the first year we met. A huge bottle of Malibu, full fat coke and loads of unpasteurised cheese from a little place in Wales. Unfortunately I was pregnant already. Still, he won huge brownie points for originality. Not a heart shaped chocolate in sight.
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First I should say that there is absolutely nothing experimental about this. Well, nothing other from the fact I added a few sultanas and also increased the baking time. It felt like an experiment though because I felt a bit lost when my cake was still more sloppy mixture than cake-like when I tested it. It’s the oven. It never really recovered from baking 150 croissants in a day during the Bake Off practice. The buttons melted. The rubber seal fell off. It gave up. Lucky I have another oven really. How spoilt.
I would say this is a very fine banana loaf indeed. I have some weird ongoing obsession with trying every banana loaf recipe known to man. I don’t know why. I want to find one that doesn’t taste healthy. The problem being that for me, banana, by its very nature, tastes of health food. One day… (Ponders what banana-lard cake might taste like.)
This makes a whopping loaf and the recipe is by the wonderful and tall and dashing (I can say that ’cause I’ve met him) Eric Lanlard from his book Home Bake though I have messed with it as I can be relied upon to do. So no nuts. And some uninvited dried fruit. And no poppy seeds. Sorry Eric. It’s not like I know best or anything but I can’t help myself.
125g butter
175g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
300g plain flour
1 tsp bicarb soda
150mls milk
3 very ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla extract
Large handful of sultanas
Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C. Grease a 25 x 11cm loaf tin. Cream the butter and sugar together with a handheld electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift in half the flour and all of the bicarb, stir with a metal spoon. Then add in the milk and the rest of the flour. Give it a good mix with the spoon again.
Fold in the mashed bananas, vanilla extract and the sultanas then pop in the loaf tin and level with a spoon. Bake for about 1 hour, though my pesky oven meant I baked this for 1 hour 15 minutes maybe even more. Cool in the tin for 20 minutes before releasing the beast. If you get impatient it will fall about in pieces. Very nice with an incredibly British cup of tea though I think Eric might prefer a coffee somehow.
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Oh. My. Goodness. Make this. Make it now if you can. If you don’t have the ingredients then buy them immediately. If you live in a remote area without shops and pubs and neighbours to harass for tins of condensed milk then do an online shop immediately and pay the extra for tomorrow’s delivery. This cake is something else. It makes me want to describe it as ‘da bomb’ but of course I won’t do that as I’d sound like a muppet, or rather a Holly trying to be a bit ‘street’. And that wouldn’t do at all.
I have messed with this recipe but do you know what, that’s what recipes like this are for. Do it. Add what you want. Though I draw the line at baked beans. Mr B says no to prunes though I’d be okay with them.
This recipe is from Scrumptious which is by Diverse Abilities Plus and I have to say, it’s a bloody fine baking book. I have tried two random recipes so far and both have been just stunning. Buy the book! I won’t be blogging any more of their recipes. It would be like stealing from a charity and we all know we should give to charity. If I carried on giving the recipes away I’d be nothing better than one of those people who nick charity boxes from pubs. Disgraceful.
Ingredients:
300g plain chocolate (70% cocoa solids) broken into pieces
75g unsalted butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
405g tin condensed milk (though mine was just under 400g – no matter)
175g sultanas
125g mini marshmallows
200g Malted Milk biscuits all broken into bits
Line a large tray with greaseproof paper. Check it fits in your fridge. Melt the chocolate, butter, condensed milk and syrup in a pan on a low heat until completely smooth and combined. Remove from the heat and leave to cool a little – about 5 mins. Add everything else and stir until all covered in chocolate. Tip onto the lined tray and then cover the lot with a large piece of greaseproof paper and use your hands to manipulate the lot into a block of fridge cake that’s pretty much even in thickness all over. Leave in the fridge until set which takes about 4 hours.
Once set, take the entire block (with both layers of paper still on) and place on a chopping board. Then peel off the top layer of greaseproof paper and use it to rest one hand on top of the block as you saw the cake into strips with a serrated knife. (Warm hands melt the fridge cake quickly, hence why the greaseproof paper is so useful as a hand-rest.) You could then package these strips up into bars to go into lunch boxes, or saw again into smaller bites as you see in the picture.
NB: You can eat more smaller bites than whole bars. That’s a rule of bake-me-not chocolate cake.
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I love a dip or two. And I am currently eating more of my fair share of cold meats given that I am more busy than a busy bee so dinner has to be kind of well, I like to think continental.
The lovely people at unearthed have two of these fab hampers to give away. Now, I haven’t tried these new dips and meat platters but I do have it on good authority that they’re very nice indeed. In fact, I may enter the giveaway myself, or at least get my husband to. If you fancied buying anything by unearthed then you’re also doing a mighty good turn as they will be donating 1p per pack sold to Action Against Hunger. So basically everytime you eat something from their range you can feel all smiley that you’ve contributed to a worthy cause.
(Please note: as much as the basket is nice, it’s not included. Life is tough and sometimes you don’t get to pretend to be Mariette in The Darling Buds of May, swinging a basket around and flicking your glossy locks.)
How to enter:
Complete the Rafflecopter form below to confirm your entries made via blog comments, Twitter, Facebook etc.
This giveaway will close on Monday 13th February.
Please read the rules below.
Winners are announced on the Rafflecopter form after the prize has been claimed by the winners.
First timers:
Please watch how Rafflecopter works (video)! It is 46 seconds long. It explains everything. It takes less time to do this than to write up a post on my facebook page on how much you don’t understand Rafflecopter. Almost.
If no form is showing, hit refresh and it should appear.
Complete the form – or your beloved entries will not go into the draw. And that would be such a waste of time.
Mandatory entries need to be completed first – so leave a blog comment before you try and complete any of the other methods of entry.
Want more chances to win? Come back daily after tweeting about the giveaway and fill the form in again.
If you are viewing this by email you will need to click through to enter.
Rules and things:
Only open to UK participants over the age of 18. Sorry to anyone from further afield or younger readers.
There’s are two unearthed hampers as prizes. There’s no cash alternative to the prizes and the prizes are not transferable. No part or parts of the prize may be substituted for other benefits, items or additions.
Instructions form part of the terms and conditions. Entries using any software or automated process to make bulk entries will obviously be disqualified. The winner will be picked at random using software and then contacted by email. If you win and then don’t respond to this email within 7 days then another winner will be picked so check your emails and your spam! The goodies will be delivered to the winner as soon as possible after you have sent me your delivery address.
I am running this giveaway on behalf of unearthed who will be responsible for sending the prize to you if you win, which is very kind of them as it saves me queuing up at the Post Office. Their decision is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. So there.
This is where I get all stern – please don’t say you have liked the post and followed me on Twitter and Tweeted away like a Tweety thing if you haven’t as guess what? If you win I will check you did do the things you said you did. It’s only fair after all. And I do like fairness.
Is traybake the most dull and slightly depressing description anyone ever came up with for a great big wodge of cake? I hate it. I rarely use it. I’m trying it on for size with this post just to see if I like it any better than the last time I used it.
Anyway, to counter balance the slightly depressing ‘traybake’ word I wanted to share a few things that make me happy and joyful:
– A whole Kit Kat finger of solid chocolate.
– Very, very hot tea.
– Successful feeding of ducks and not gulls.
– My eldest son giggling at my youngest son saying ‘poo soup.’
– Parking outside my house.
– Receiving a letter with handwritten words in it.
– Buying something reduced and finding it further reduced at the till.
– Reading a newspaper cover to cover.
– Finding any piece of clothing in green that suits and fits me.
– That just been waxed/threaded feeling. Body part almost irrelevant.
– Suffolk.
– Laughing at a friend who said very loudly in a packed restaurant last Saturday ‘I don’t even have time to have a sh*t alone’. I can only apologise to the lovely table of ladies and gentleman next to us whose luncheon was disturbed by this revelation. You’ll be pleased to know that later on, that very same day, the aforementioned friend did indeed have a sh*t alone. Lucky old her.
Right, enough. Here’s the recipe. It makes an, ahem, traybake, so you’ll need a tray. I used a silicone one about 20cm square so none of that lining and greasing malarky. If you’re using a proper tin then grease and line or risk chipping cake from the sides with a blunt instrument.
This recipe was a meddled with version of this which came as a fabulous baking supplement a few years ago in the Guardian.
Ingredients:
– 50mls milk
– 5mls lemon juice
– 250g caster sugar
– 25mls water
– 190g banana slices (about two bananas)
– 70g dried figs, chopped into six pieces
– 15g butter
– 2 tsp vanilla extract
– 175mls groundnut oil
– 2 large eggs
– 150g plain flour
– 75g wholemeal plain flour
– 2 tsp mixed spice
– 2 tsp baking powder
– 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
– 25g porridge oats
First take the milk and add the lemon juice. Stir, then set aside to come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C.
Next you need to caramelise the bananas and the figs. Take a large frying pan and put 100g of the caster sugar in there with the water. Bring to the boil until the mixture turns a reddish brown. Add the bananas, figs, butter and vanilla extract and fry until the banana pieces start to break up. Take off the heat and set the pan aside to cool down with the contents in it.
Whisk the rest of the sugar (150g) with the oil and the eggs in a large bowl until you have a mix that looks frothy-ish. Set aside. Take another large bowl and sieve both flours, the spice, baking powder and bicarb of soda into it. Set aside.
Add the banana mixture, (syrup and all) plus the lemony milk, to the oily egg mixture. Give it a good whisk. Then sieve the dry ingredients (yes, I know you have already sieved them but you need to do it again) into the wet ingredients bowl. Add the oats to the top and then fold in with a metal spoon. Once everything is combined pour into your prepped tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out of the centre clean. Cool on a wire rack and then cut into squares/slices when cold.
The top seems to have an oaty crunch and there’s a slight taste of Parkin to this little beauty. Eat warm, cold, with ice-cream, custard or with a nice cup of very, very hot tea. If you don’t like figs then dates would be nice. Or sultanas, or even big pieces of chocolate. Prunes have just occurred to me too though they’re not for everyone. Mr B for instance has instructed me never to use them.
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I’m a mum of 3 boys, a cookbook writer and also a finalist on the 2011 Great British Bake Off.
I’ve decided to record the recipes I use, partly to save them somewhere and partly in case someone else might like to use them...
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Holly Bell 