This weekend was bank holiday weekend. Seeing an opportunity to cook something, I asked if I could do a monday morning brunch. My poor dad though – he is usually awake at 6 so was starving by the time I had finished my run and made pancakes for 11am!
The recipes I used was this – Chocolate Covered Katie’s strawberry pancakes!!
I served these babies with some cream flavoured with coconut essence. They went down a treat!
Yummy!!!
Thanks for reading 🙂
Forget pub crawls……..
Go for a cupcake crawl instead!
Last week, my dad took the day off work to come into London with me and visit some of the bakeries there! All of the ones we went to were on the Piccadilly line, so it wasn’t hard to get around 🙂
We visited:
The Hummingbird Bakery (South Kensington)
Ella’s Bakehouse (Covent Garden) – the link for this site currently doesn’t work
The Primrose Bakery (Covent Garden)
Bea’s of Bloomsbury (Bloomsbury)
Our first stop was the Hummingbird Bakery. There were so many yummy cakes to choose from, but funnily enough we decided not to have a cupcake on the first stop of our cupcake crawl. Instead, we went for the frosted brownie.
This. Was. So. GOOD! To be honest, the brownie itself wasn’t that amazing – it was nice enough, but a little dry. The frosting was what really made it. Chocolatey and rich….mmmmmmm…… an absolute TOUR DE FORCE!!! Made me wish we weren’t sharing!!
Next, we headed for Covent Garden, where we found Ella’s Bakehouse. This is a cute little shop with outdoor seating areas, owned I believe by Lorraine Pascale. Here, we chose a peanut butter cupcake. I’m afraid in my haste to eat it, I cut it in half before I even remembered to take a picture!
So hear it is sliced in half hahaha :p
This was another really yummy treat. It was surprisingly light for a peanut butter cake, and it had a yummy blob of nut butter on the top (which I stole for myself mwahahha!)
So, another cupcake demolished.
On we went to our next stop! Our destination was the Primrose Bakery, which is my favourite of all the places we visited that day. The bakery itself was so cute inside! They had a lovely selection of baked goods, as well as drinks, savoury foods, breakfasts and cake decorations. There were so many nice ones to choose from here! I was tempted by the white chocolate and strawberry cupcake, but there was also salted caramel……and it was the last one left, so I think it was fate 🙂
The icing alone was yummy enough, with crunchy caramel pieces and a drizzle of sauce on top, but there was also a secret surprise centre! Can’t go wrong with more caramel! By this point I could feel a sugar-induced heart attack coming on, so my dad and I decided to walk the half hour or so to our next stop, which was…
Bea’s of Bloomsbury!
This had not only cupcakes, but also various tray bakes, full-size cakes, cheesecakes, and even a fruit salad! They also had savoury foods and offered afternoon teas. My only problem with this place was that half of the cupcakes weren’t labelled, so I couldn’t tell what they were, and whether they were actually on sale or just a display!
Anyway, we decided on a peanut butter and jelly slice (I know I’d already had a peanut butter cake, but peanut butter is GOOD, so who cares!)
I loved their sugar bowl with the little legs on it so that had to be in the photo too!!
This was also tasty, but I don’t think we could appreciate it fully as we were both in a sugar coma by this point….. It was a clever idea though – shortbread topped with jam, peanut butter and crumble. Yum yum yum!
Before we left, I bought some mini meringues for my best friend who was having a bad day 😦 food always makes you feel better doesn’t it!!
We had a lot of fun on our cupcake crawl! It is such a fun day out, and it doesn’t take long so you still have the afternoon free to do other things (like going to the gym if you’re me!) Even if you don’t live near London, find out what bakeries are nearby and have your own cupcake crawl!!
Thanks for reading 🙂
Hello!
Every summer I have a girly barbecue for all my friends, and this summer was no different!!
I thought I’d share with you what I provided 🙂
To go with the burgers, sausages, veggie options and corn on the cob, I made lots of different salads, including a coleslaw with pecans and a dash of maple syrup (very yummy!), a pesto pasta salad (I made the pesto myself), a couscous salad, and a watermelon, feta and olive salad, pictured below 🙂
This was all very yummy, but I think everyone’s favourite part (including mine!) was dessert!! Sweet foods are my favourite things to make, so I made a lot!
On my dessert table:
– Cream cheese brownies
– Cherry cheesecake
– Mango and passionfruit pavlova
– Cookie dough dip with biscuit dippers
I also had a fruit salad, fresh strawberries, chocolates, and a portuguese fridge cake and cupcakes provided by my friend Beth 🙂
Pretty sure we all put on half a stone just by looking at it hahaha!!!
Thanks for reading! 🙂
I get bored of having the same breakfast every day, but on days when I am working (I walk dogs at a kennel) I don’t really have time to whip something up in the morning!
The solution?
Eat a boring bowl of cereal whilst dreaming of a yummy homemade brekky?
NO!
Make it the night before, silly!
I decided to try out a recipe from one of my favourite bloggers, Chocolate Covered Katie. She has a fantastic blog full of yummy, healthy recipes – especially tasty breakfast ones!
I have made a few of her breakfasts, but never one of her Boatmeals. However since the coconut butter I ordered had just arrived I decided to give one a try: the Banana Bread Boatmeal!
Looks yummy, doesn’t it!
Katie gives you lots of options so you can customize the recipe however you like. I only used 40g of oats, because I don’t think my little ramekin would’ve been big enough to hold 50g! I used soy milk as the liquid, put in the optional tbsp of coconut butter, and added lots and lots cinnamon and mixed spice (I LOVE cinnamon!) I would’ve liked to have added vanilla to but, alas, in my eagerness to get this in the oven I forgot.
A moment of silence for the forgotten vanilla
After baking, I let it cool and then left it uncovered in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I warmed it up in the microwave for about a minute (but you might need to heat it for a longer or shorter time, depending on your microwave), and then put some sliced banana and pecans on the top.
Delicioso!
A yummy, healthy, filling breakfast 🙂 If you make it the way I did it comes to around 300 calories, but of course you could reduce that by about 100 by leaving out the coconut butter. But it is so yummy with it in so at least try it once!!
A lot of people who have commented on the recipe say that you can also mix up the ingredients the night before and then bake it in the morning, if you have the time – this probably results in a cake with a crunchier topping, as leaving it in the fridge overnight once it’s already baked does make it soften a little.
Anyway, I hope you give this recipe a try – be sure to let Katie know what you think of it! I also hope you like the photo I took. I’m getting the hang of this new camera pretty quickly which is a relief!
Thank you for reading!
Kate xxx
My name is Kate (no surprises there!), and you may or may not know me from my other blog, www.the100recipechallenge.blogger.com
Much as I enjoy working on the 100 recipe challenge, there are so many other food-related things I want to blog about, which I don’t really feel I can put on there! So I decided to start up another blog to run alongside it, which will hopefully continue on long after I have finished 100 of Nigella’s recipes!
So what will I be blogging about?
Well primarily I will be blogging about my cooking! Recipes I have tried out and that I highly recommend, as well as recipes I have come up with myself and want to share with you! The blog will include a few extra foodie things, for example:
I hope you will enjoy reading this blog – I am sure I will have lots of fun with it! One thing I am really looking forward to is using my new camera! So no more iPhone photos like the ones so far on my other blog – these ones will be much better 🙂
Thank you for reading – I hope you will keep on reading too! 🙂 ♥
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