Death by Chocolate - delicious, easy & quick!

This is the easiest cake & the kids can help too - no whisk needed so less cake mix to remove from the ceiling! This is from Mary Berry with a few ingredient alterations!!

Death by Chocolate

275g Brown Rice Flour (or plain flour)

1 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

1 1/1 tsp gluten free baking powder

215g of Xylitol or raw cane caster sugar

3 tbsp maple syrup or Golden syrup

3 eggs, beaten

225ml cold pressed rapeseed oil

225ml rice milk (or milk)

Icing

450g of good quality plain chocolate

200g butter

Grease two 8inch loose-bottomed sandwich tins

Preheat oven to 160C.

Sift into a bowl all dry ingredients and then add the sugar. Make a well in the middle and then add all the liquid ingredients.

With a wooden spoon, beat until well combined. Pour into the cake tins and pop into the oven for 35 mins. They are ready when they are well risen and jump back when pressed.

After 5 mins, remove from tins and cool in wire rack. Then with a bread knife cut both in half horizontally - so you have 4 thin round cakes.

Make the icing by breaking up the chocolate and cutting up the butter into chunks and pop into a bowl over boiling water - ensure you keep stirring.

Put a tray under the first thin round cake - pour some icing over and spread with a spatula. Lay on the next cake, pour some more icing and spread again. Keep repeating until all four are covered in icing - ensure you let it dribble all down the sides too.

If you can stop yourself from eating the run off in the tray, then pour that back over the cake! If it is really hope - it is an idea to leave this cake in the fridge!!!

Then with lots of red berries such as strawberries and raspberries - cover and eat - this is such a treat for a birthday cake or just a delicious afternoon treat!

Cheats Cauliflowers Cheese!!

As much as we love Cauliflower cheese, we do not always have the time to make a lump free delicious cheese sauce. So here is a very quick alternative that my kids love - I also take advantage of adding in vegetables that they like to this too!

Cheats Cauliflower Cheese (& Broccoli)

6 Cauliflower florets

6 Broccoli florets

250g tub of ricotta cheese

2 eggs

grated cheese

Pink Himalayan salt

Pepper

Cut the cauliflower and broccoli into florets and pop into boiling water for 5 mins. Pop into a baking tray, I am a huge fan of stone ware so I used the Pampered chef square baker.

Mix together the ricotta and eggs, beat with a hand whisk and season liberally with salt and pepper.

Drain the veg pop into the square baker and pour over the ricotta egg mix, toss until all veg is covered. Then grate cheese over the top, use as much as you want - I cover nice and thickly as kids really love it and makes it more cheesy!

Pop into a hot open for 15 mins or until bubbling and brown.

Serve immediately....yummy!

'Ave a Banana'! 2 uber quick puds for all

Bananas are only in our house for a few days at the beginning of the week, the kids just love them! So I always plan some early week banana puddings before they all go!

Here are 2 great recipes Quick Banana Ice-Cream and Quick Banana and Cinnamon Pud, both can literally be made in 5 mins! I have often already sat the kids down to their main course before embarking on the pud!

Quick Banana Ice-Cream

This recipe comes from Good Food Magazine and is soooooo easy

When you buy bananas remember to buy a few extra, peel them, break or chop into chunks and pop into the freezer.

4 bananas

Rice milk or cows milk

Xylitol/Agave Nectar or Unrefined Caster Sugar

Using a blender or Food processor, pop the chopped up frozen banana in with 4 tbsp of banana and tbsp of sweetener. Whizz and then taste and add more milk or sweetener to get the desired consistency and flavour. Then serve and pour over some chocolate sauce or toffee sauce. Any spare is popped into the freezer in a plastic tub and my boys love this for breakfast too!

Quick Banana and Cinnamon Pud

2 Bananas (I usually make 1 banana per child)

Knob of butter

handful of raisins or sultanas

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

Into a saucepan or small frying pan, pop the butter on medium heat and throw in the bananas once the butter had melted. Gently cook for a few minutes and then add the fruit and cinnamon. Serve with custard, ice-cream or just on it's own.......yuuuummmmmy!

Please do let me know any of your banana recipes!

Fabulous pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

We are huge fans of pancakes in our family! I am now quite practised and can definitely make time for pancakes for breakfast, even in our very last minute family. Oscar was happy this morning as he managed to eat 6 pancakes!

If you are particular about your ingredients, pancakes can really be a really nutritious meal! What makes our pancakes completely delicious is the chocolate sauce.

The leftovers we have for pudding - a Pancake cake!

Chocolate Sauce

(I always make this 1st - very quick)

50g Butter

50g Xylitol or raw cane sugar

25g Cocoa powder

3 tbsp of Rice Milk

Chuck all ingredients into a little saucepan and gently heat and mix really well with wooden spoon (if like me, you do not sieve the powder then you may need a little hand whisk to bash out a few little lumps!).

All done, pop into a jug

Pancakes

250g Plain flour (I always use gluten free stone ground flours)pinch of pink Himalayan salt

2 free range eggs

500ml of milk (I use rice milk)

Extra Virgin Rapeseed Oil

pop flour and salt into a mixing bowl - add the eggs and half the milk. Mix with an electric whisk, bringing all the flour in from the edges, then add the rest of the milk and make sure the mixture is well whizzed up.

Heat a good quality, non stick little frying pan (poor quality frying pans, see their death with pancakes!) with a little rapeseed oil - needs to be really hot - drain off any spare oil into a pot for use for other pancakes.

Pour half a ladle full of pancake mix into the frying pan, swirl around & immediately lift edges with spatula - and now for the fun bit - Toss Your Pancake! Or you can of course flip it with the spatula if you are feeling a scared! Look even Kate has given it a go!

Pop onto the plate of the best behaved child 1st and let them get messy with Chocolate Sauce, raisins and lemon juice (if they fancy). Be creative use any additions you fancy I also love maple syrup and banana!

With the leftovers, either save for tomorrows breakfast or even better make a Pancake Cake.

Pancake Cake

left over cooked Pancakes

left over Chocolate Sauce

Put first pancake on plate, spread Chocolate Sauce over it. Lay next pancake straight on top, spread Chocolate Sauce over it and so on and so on till all ingredients are used up. Pop into the fridge and take out when ready to eat.

Cut into cake slices and serve.......soooo delicious!

The Ultimate Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes!

My lovely friend had her birthday Sunday evening - I did not have a chance to get her present in time...aaaarrrggghh!
So a delicious baked pressie was my answer. I was also very limited on time, having had a friend staying for the weekend!

So I opted for cupcakes, as they cool really quickly! I think this made about 16 (a few disappeared very quickly - a perfect pudding for the kids!). But this recipe is great for a 7 inch sandwich sponge cake.

Ultimate Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes
(this is an award winning recipe by the way!)

Cupcakes
200g Butter
200g Raw cane caster sugar
200g Flour (I used Doves gluten free plain flour)
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
3 lemons
100g raw cane caster sugar

Butter Icing
75g Butter
175g Icing sugar
2 tbsp Lemon juice

Beat the butter and then slowly add the sugar and keep beating until it drops off a spoon - this can take up to 10 mins. The most important part of making a really good light cake is beating the living day lights out of the butter and sugar. Then beat in each egg, one at a time. Beat in until mixed, do not beat too much as can curdle (if it does curdle just add a spoonful of flour).

Finely grate one lemon and juice juice all the lemons.

Then add the flour, lemon zest and baking powder, and gently beat in. Finally add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and beat in gently.

Then half fill cupcake papers in a cupcake baking tray and pop into preheated oven at 180C for 15-20 mins, they are ready when they pop back when gently pressed. Take them out & put them on a cooling rack.

Mix the remainder of the lemon juice (saving 3 tbsp for icing) with the 100g sugar, then spoon a spoonful onto each cupcake - to give the cakes the delicious crispy drizzle topping!

They should cool pretty quick 10-20mins. So prepare the icing by beating the butter and then slowly add the sugar, finally add the lemon juice (I used 3 tbsp, but taste and add to your preference!) Pop into an icing bag and do your finest icing pattern - once the cakes have cooled!

Incredible Chicken Kebabs and Home-Baked Chips with Mini cupcakes for Pud

Hey if you are ever at a loss at what to do with a free range chicken - then try this lovely recipe. I marinade in one of Jamie Oliver's - they are so quick and easy and create fabulous flavours.

Incredible Chicken Kebabs

1 free range chicken
2 handfuls of fresh rosemary
2 lemons
6 garlic cloves
10 lugs of Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil
Pestle and Mortar (or bowl and end of a rolling pin)

Cut off the breasts and leg meat off the chicken (save the rest to make into a soup the next day).
Then cut into strips about a thumb width and pop into a bowl (not metal).

Peel garlic and crush roughly in pestle and mortar, put into chicken bowl. Then using a potato peeler peel the lemon peel into strips, then cut in half and squeeze juice squashing with hands over the chicken. Then I always pop the lemons into mortar to scrape up last remnants of garlic! Pop into the chicken bowl then add the Rosemary and cold pressed Rapeseed oil. Now get your hands messy and mix all the ingredients wells.

Leave to marinade for as long as possible. Then get kebab sticks - I used wooden ones and then thread the chicken onto sticks to make 8 kebabs. The weather was really poor so I popped them under the grill instead of on the BBQ & I always do it on tin foil to catch the delicious juices. Squeeze all the oil and flavour out of the marinade over the chicken kebabs.

Grill on high, turning every few minutes until cook through - about 10-15 minutes.

Once cooked, plate up and remember to pour over the juices caught in the tin foil!


Home-Baked Chips

I really never buy freezer chips, but what I do do is buy sacks of potatoes, so that we always have loads! Then I quickly peel the potatoes, and depending on how long I have cut them into chips.

Big hurry - very small squares
Mid hurry - very thin chips
Less hurry - big chunky chips

I then place them individually onto a stone baking tray (I am a big fan of pampered chef, but you can also use baking tray!). If your tray is not big enough then just pile them in. Drizzle with cold pressed Rapeseed oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper & other other herbs you might fancy. With the chicken I just used salt and pepper on chips.

Bake in hot oven for 15 mins - 30 mins depending on size of chips and strength of your oven! With a stone I do not turn over chips - however you may need to with a baking tray.

Serve your yummy chips with your kebabs and a cucumber and tomato salad.
We had a little boys over for tea and it was a full success!

Mini Cupcakes

Cake mix
200g Gluten free flour
200g Butter or dairy free marg
200g Unrefined caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tbsp milk/rice milk
1 tsp Vanilla essence

Butter icing
350g Icing sugar

160g butter
2 tbsp milk/rice milk
vanilla essence
red colouring

If using butter, beat butter until starts to become fluffy then slowly add sugar and keep beating until it literally starts to fall off the spoon. This is the most important stage, my butter was still a little cold so it took about 10 minutes to get to the right consistency - this is really the most important part of the cake!

Then beat in the eggs one by one and then slowly whisk in the flour. Add the 2 tbsp of milk and 1 tsp of vanilla essence, whisk in.

Pop a full teaspoon of cake mix into each well of a tray for mini muffins (mine has 24 muffin holes and this mix made about 36 cakes). Bake in oven at 180C for 7-10 mins, they are ready when they spring back to your touch.

After a few minutes turn them out onto a cooling rack. By the time you have made the icing the cakes should be cool.

Again if using butter, beat until starts to go fluffy then add a bit at a time the icing sugar. Then add the vanilla essence and milk.

Put half into piping bag and pipe onto mini cakes, then add a few drops of red colour to the rest of the icing and mix, repeat until you have a lovely pink colour and then pipe onto the rest of the cakes. Makes it look like you have make 2 different types of cakes. Any cakes where the piping has gone wrong, cover with sprinkles or chocolate gratings!

Watch out these are so delicious and so easy to pop into your mouth, they can disappear very quickly!

Very Quick Meatball Spaghetti and Banana for pud

I knew that I had a lot to squeeze in this afternoon when the kids were home, so this very quick meatball dish is ready to go into oven in 10 mins and leave for as long as you want really and then another few mins to cook the pasta - then just out of the oven and enjoy!

700-1kg lean good quality minced beef

(alternatively, most supermarkets make meatballs for you, just check ingredients)

Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil

2 tins of tomato

fresh or dried herbs

bay leaf

Water & some buillon stock powder

splash of Lea & Perrins

Sugar (I use Agave nectar)

Now for the messy play with the kids. To make the meatballs literally grab a bit of beef and squash really hard into balls - you choose the size! Pop balls into frying pan of warmed rapeseed oil - fry until balls are browned. Then put meatballs into casserole dish or I use pampered chef stoneware - throw in tomatoes, sprinkling of herbs about 1 & 1/2 tsp(I try to use fresh herbs, however sometimes dried have to be used!), bayleaf and add enough water with sprinkling of stock to loosen the mix and a good few lugs of Lea & Perrins.

Pop into the oven about 180C and leave to bubble away, when you take out of the oven taste the tomato sauce and you will probably need to add a tbsp of sugar or to taste. When you are ready to feed the family. Boil up some pasta/spaghetti - I used King Soba organic buckwheat noodles and steamed some peas!

Everyone loved this and the boys faces were a picture of tomato splashes and smears!

Banana and Custard for pudding

I try not to use pre-prepared foods, however there was just no time to make custard this evening - so I used Alpro Soya Custard, even my gluten and dairy loving husband loves this custard!

1 banana per person

1 carton of Alpro Soya Custard

Chop banana & pour over cold custard. Phew now get the kids into bed and put your feet up!!!