Easter Nests

I'm back! Apologies for the week of silence, due to some difficulties (i.e. my Mum accidentally deleting my drafts) I couldn't update last week so I'm back with lots to tell.

Skiing was pretty amazing but so exhausting, I would have done a post today about the trip but I haven't managed to get friends photos all together yet, but all in good time!

So I thought I'd concentrate on yesterday, Easter Sunday. I couldn't make it home this Easter so all the Bournemouth stragglers got together for a delicious roast and I made a little dessert extra for those chocolate lovers. I made the traditional mini egg nests, its so simple and speedy but they scream Easter which was very needed when you don't have a garden to Easter Egg hunt in!

The recipe was made up and so I don't have any exact measurements or a proper recipe but it's so easy to make.

You will need:

Bars of chocolate (I used 200g and made 15 nests I think)
Cornflakes (or Shreddies or Rice Crispies)
Mini Eggs
Cupcake cases (optional but pretty)

You need to do:

1. Heat the chocolate in a ban marie, basically put a bowl of the chocolate broken into pieces on top of a saucepan of boiling water, and keep stirring until it's all melted.

2. Pop in your cornflakes, you need enough so that they're lightly covered by chocolate, not too much that it's gloopy (technical term) but not too little that you can see the orange cornflakes.

3. Get a baking tray and pile on the mixture into your cases or into balls of whatever size you fancy, make sure they're clumped together though.

4. Pop your mini eggs on top and leave in the fridge until they're set and you can pick them up without it all falling apart. Don't take them out until you're JUST about to eat them otherwise they'll melt and will get chocolatey cornflakes all over you.

The end result could look a little like this:

A perfect easter treat even after easter, you can use up all those extra eggs! Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to tell you all about the ski trip and our AMAZING outfits.

The Ideal Home Show

Yesterday Mum Luce and I went to The Ideal Home Show, I wasn't quite sure what to expect to be honest (I'll admit I just came for the free ticket and for a nice day out) but it was a really nice day and different to the other kinds of exhibitions I've been to.

{Earls Court had a mock front and grass on the floor}

{Perfect summer's day on the grass}

It had four sections really: Home interiors, Gardens, FOOD and shopping (can you guess which was my favourite section?) but they also have a celebrity chef stage where they were doing demos. Suddenly the legend that is MARY BERRY stepped onto the stage and made some yummy cakes, absolutely love her, and she kept saying her trademark "No soggy bottoms!" teeheehee

{Mary Berry terribly zoomed sorry!}

It was all really interesting, some nice independent wallpaper designers and paint companies, not to mention the HUGE hot tubs! The food was fab, we went for a pork and apple roll and copious other samples!

Up in the shopping section we got to have a free manicure which was cute and we bought some nice bracelets from a company called 'Estella Bartlett', the guys told us there that it was going to become the new Pandora so watch this space! Obviously they could have been saying that, but its really cool stacking bracelets for £10 so I don't mind either way (some look a bit like Links of London sweetie and friendship bracelets).

On the way out we bought some AMAZING Bluetooth speakers which deserve a blog post on their own really, just trust me they're amazing and you'll all be wanting one when I tell you about it!

It was a very nice day, you can get tickets for about £12 if you buy in advance at http://www.idealhomeshow.co.uk/ but there is a Groupon offer for it too. The show runs until April 1st at Earls Court so if you like the look of it then pop over, theres so many things we saw that I haven't managed to mention so heres some pics:

{Little Treasure Trove}

{Smart Penguin}

{Lucy in an outdoor house}

{Champers and Seagulls go so well together, don't you think?}

{Rows of Verve Cliquot}

{Walking on Water}

{Old fashioned popcorn stand for sale}

{Mock Ideal Homes to look around for Inspiration}

{Ice Cream Van}

{Outside the Lodge}

{Incredible Jubilee Cake made by a 16 year old!}

To be honest this is an insanely girly day so boys you may be bored off your bottoms, but for the girls if you like cakes and shopping and looking at things that will be 'SO great for my house when I'm older' then this is the place for you! We even filled out a survey and got free tickets to the Grand Designs Show next month so expect another post like this soon!

Lemon and Poppy Seed Loaf

This was a late Mothers Day bake I made on Monday and I'd never tried it before, its a really easy recipe, as long as you have an evening free to watch the oven!

It is a Hummingbird Bakery recipe, the first one kind of is the Bible but their new recipe book 'Cake Days' is basically the New Testament. It is very similar to my Banana Loaf recipe.

You will need:

190g unsalted softened butter
190g plain flour
190g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tbsp lemon zest
25ml whole milk
80g ricotta cheese (you can replace it with yoghurt!)

FOR THE SYRUP:
Juice of 1 lemon
50g caster sugar

You need to do:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees and grease and flour your loaf tin. You pretty much need a Kitchen Aid for this recipe otherwise your arm will die. Cream the butter and sugar together.

2. Add the eggs one by one and push the sides down with a spatula. In a separate bowl measure the flour, baking powder, salt, poppy seeds and lemon zest. Now the lemon zest is tricky to measure into a spoon so I just grated the whole lemon in there.

3. You have to add these dry ingredients in thirds, mixing well each time on a low speed. After the second go add in the milk. Once its all in whizz it on high for a bit until its completely mixed in. Then add the ricotta cheese (or yoghurt)

4. Pop it all into your loaf tin and level it out. Put it into the oven for 50-60 mins, mine took longer than that but just keep it in there until your skewer comes out clean through the middle and its nicely browned on top.

5. About 10 minutes before it's all cooked make your syrup by putting the sugar, lemon juice and 100ml water into a saucepan and bring to the boil and let it reduce by half.

6. Once the loaf is cooked, prick a few holes in there with your skewer and pour your syrup over while the cakes still hot. Leave the loaf to cool a bit and then turn out onto the wire rack to cool it. Cut it into yummy chunks and eat away with a glass of cold milk. Enjoy!

Easy Peasy Shortbread

This is the last weekend before the dreaded dissertation deadline (and for me my documentary hand in too!) so I thought I'd make some amazing shortbread to keep me going this weekend.

Its possibly the easiest thing to make, pretty much everyone has the ingredients lying about and if I have time I usually try to make a batch at the start of the week to keep my cravings during the week at least slightly subdued.

This is based on a Sam Stern recipe but changed slightly

You will need:

175g plain flour
70g caster sugar
110g soft butter
Few drops of vanilla extract

You need to do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees fan oven and give your cake tin a good buttering. I usually save the foil bits from butter spread and use that to just save a bit of time (kitchen paper always leaves messy bits)

2. Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and start rubbing the ingredients together. Stick this on to keep you entertained:

3. Once you've got all the ingredients into breadcrumbs pour the crumbles into your tin and push down into the sides so its all equal.

4. Now its time to decorate, I usually stick to the old school fork marks round the sides and little forks pricks, score the lines of where you'd like to cut the slices lightly.

5. Stick it in the oven for about 10 mins or until its nice and golden. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 mins, cut the slices along the scores you made earlier and take out of the tin to cool down.

6. Sprinkle on some caster sugar and enjoy with a yummy coffee! Enjoy!!

Hopefully I'll make it through this weekend now I have these bad boys! Have a fab weekend, see you on Monday!

Tartlets + Crumbles

Last night I went to a little dinner party with a couple of friends and I was given the responsibility of making dessert for everyone.


Everyone had given up naughty things like chocolate for lent so I opted for a mildly healthy (ish!) Apple Crumble but with a little twist.


Have you ever eaten a Gu Cheesecake? (stay with me, this will make sense) Well if you have, you'll know that at the end of eating it you're left with a little glass ramekin and when you eat as many as me and certain friends of mine, you'll have a lot stacked up in your cupboard. So I decided to use them to make mini, individual apple crumbles for everyone. They're quite a small portion so perfect for having after a big dinner (we had a huge chilli) and very easy to make.


I unfortunately, made them in rather a rush so slightly burnt the apples when making so I won't show you too many example photos (one friend described them as slugs, not so yum) but they taste good so trust me on this!


You will need for about 5-6 Ramekins:


150g plain flour
90g brown soft sugar
100g butter
4 apples (eating apples are fine, who has cooking apples around these days?)
1 tsp Cinnamon


You need to do:


1. Get the apples going, cut them into quite thin slices and chuck them in the saucepan with a good knob of butter. Put it on a low heat (I didn't, hence the burnt slugs), sprinkle on your cinnamon and a little bit of sugar and let them cook down. Stir occasionally.

2. Make your crumble in a big bowl, put all of the ingredients in there and rub it all together until it makes breadcrumbs

3. Once the apples are nice and soft put them in your little ramekins and push down a little so they fill the base, I prefer having more crumble than apple but I'll leave it to you to decide.


4. Sprinkle over the crumble topping, pop in the oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes until the topping starts to be golden brown and then eat as soon as you can.

I went one step further last night and made some cute tartlets to start as well which are a recipe I modified from the lovely Catherine who gives me veggie cooking tips.


Usually I make tomato, pesto and feta tarts but I changed it up a little and made roasted pepper, pesto and mozzarella tarts and they tasted really good. Again I rushed them so the peppers are a little black but they taste fab!


You will need for 4 tartlets:


2 red peppers
2 Tbsp Pesto
Half ball of Mozzarella
1 sheet Puff Pastry
2 cloves of garlic


You need to do:


1. Slice the peppers thinly and fry with a little oil for about 5 minutes until slightly softened.

2. Transfer peppers into a roasting tray, pop in your garlic cloves with the skins still on and roast for about 10 minutes in the oven until they're really soft and roasted.

3. While they're in the oven, prepare your pastry. Roll it out onto a baking sheet with a spray of oil to stop it sticking and cut into quarters and prick them a couple of times to disperse the air while it cooks. Spread on the pesto lightly.


4. Now get your peppers out of the oven and squeeze your garlic out of it's skin, when you roast garlic in their skins they become really sweet and don't have the tang raw garlic has. Mash or squeeze the garlic onto the peppers.


5. Pop your peppers on the tarts and then sprinkle over however much mozzarella you fancy. Lightly score a box around the peppers as if you were leaving a little frame for your pepper masterpiece.

6. Put them in the oven for 15 minutes on 180 until the cheese has melted and the pastry has risen and turned a golden brown.

They're great to pre prepare and heat up again later but they always taste best straight out of the oven!


The dinner was so nice, had a good old catch up but possibly with too much wine, I feel horrendous today!!