Bannana and Nutella loaf cake recipe

Today I saw this amazing looking cake on Pinterest and decided to have a go myself. The recipe is from 'Zoe Bakes'. It was so delicious that it is now almost all gone!

You will need -
2 ripe bananas
250g caster sugar
125g butter
60ml milk
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
375g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
a pinch of salt
4 tablespoons Nutella

Method - 
Preheat your oven 170c, grease and line a loaf tin. Mix together the butter and sugar in a bowl, then add the egg, milk and vanilla extract.

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl then sift them into the milk mixture. Soften the Nutella in the microwave and add half to the cake mixture and stir. Pour your mixture into the lined loaf tin then spread the rest of the Nutella over the top. Pop into the oven for 40-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean!

The Nutella on the top goes beautiful and crunchy on the outside and soft and gooey on the inside - amazing!

And all at once summer collapsed into fall...

The morning sun now peeks through my curtains and creates a soft glow in the late morning.

Daisy loves to snuggle up on the cream blanket at the end of my bed.

I wish I could say this was the view from my bedroom, but it was actually the view from a cottage on holiday, and hopefully one day it will be my view!

Blueberry bagels with butter and a cup of milk (definitely not in a coffee cup ahem) .

Barefoot walks through the garden to collect the eggs in the morning laid by our lovely chickens.

Using their eggs to make mini Victoria sponge cakes with whipped cream and strawberries!

Home made apple pie with apples out of the garden, delicious!

 Relaxing on my bed and my admiring my soon to be gone Tiree tan.

And that is what I have been up to now that summer has come to an end, baking, designing, egg collecting and photographing everything!

Pink Eton mess

A couple of weeks ago the weather was a lot more summery, Wimbledon was on and I saw these delicious looking meringues over on the lovely Olivia's blog. It seemed like the perfect excuse to consume a whole lot of calories and to use my pretty baking bowls (any excuse to use these!) So here is how to make pretty pink meringues to put in your Eton mess.

- 3 x egg whites
- 150g caster sugar
- Pinch of salt
- Pink food colouring 

- Single cream
- A selection of fresh summer berries
- Greaseproof paper

Yummy free range eggs, fresh from our little chickens in the garden!

Preheat the over to 150c. Start by whisking together your egg whites and salt until they form soft peaks, it's probably best to use an electric whisk for this or you might be whisking until next years Wimbledon!

Gradually add in the sugar, a spoonful at a time and whisk as you go, then add in your pink food colouring. I added in 1 teaspoon full and they looked more of a peachy colour when baked, so I would go for about 2-3 teaspoons. Whisk until you get stiff peaks when you lift the whisk.

Gently places spoonfuls of meringue mixture onto your lined baking tray and make a well in the middle for your fruit to sit in later! Bake for 30 minutes untill slightly golden, but make sure you don't get too impatient and open the oven door too soon or they won't work.

Silly me forgot to take the last photos of my finished Eton mess off my memory card before formatting it... woops! But you can see the cooked meringues in the top picture. They are really delicious broken up into a bowl, sprinkled with fresh summer berries and topped with single cream, enjoy!

Lemon Drizzle cake recipe card

Last week I baked a lovely Lemon Drizzle cake and a few people have asked me for the recipe, so I thought a recipe card would be a nice way to do it! Feel free to save it and print it out or stick it in your recipe book. (the oven temperature is 180c)

Today is my Mums birthday so we've had a nice day at home, I've been flicking through my vintage tea party books looking for lovely recipes (cake ones incase I hadn't made enough cake already ha) and later on we are going to go to Pizza express, a pollo pesto here I come!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, love Becky x

Songs of the week: Lorde - Tennis court, Lana Del Rey - Gods and Monsters, Awolnation - Sail

Raspberry cake recipe

I recently saw this recipe on Olivia's blog and it looked so yummy that I had to make it myself, but it was too pretty not too blog about so I hope she doesn't mind me stealing her lovely recipe!

Ingredients:

- 250g caster sugar
- 250g unsalted butter
- 4 eggs, lightly beaten
- 250g self raising flour
- 75g ground almonds
- 225g fresh raspberries

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Combine the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl.

Gradually add in the eggs 1 at a time and before you add the last one add a tablespoon of your flour to stop the mixture from curdling.

Sift in the rest of the flour and mix well, add the ground almonds and then almost all of the raspberries (but saving a few to place on the top)

Then pour you mixture into a greased and lined cake tin,  and place your leftover raspberries on the top. 

To stop the top of it burning in the oven place a piece of greaseproof paper over the top of the mixture with a circular hole cut out.

Bake it in the oven for around 1 hour, untill a skewer comes out clean if you poke it inside.

Yummy Cookies - Recipe

Good evening everyone! Here is a recipe that I saw on 'Milk Bubble Tea's' blog, I thought the cookie base looked really yummy and I have done lots of Becky's recipes before and they are always amazing, so I used the cookie recipe to bake normal cookies instead of a base for the icing like Becky did. They came out really yummy and I recommend them!

I hope you like this style of post, I thought I would try out something new instead of always writing the recipe out at the bottom, so let me know which kind you prefer! This one took me quite a while but I really love the way it's turned out.

How to make Chocolate Cake Pops!

Here is a long time coming post on how to make Cake Pops! This is a reciped I have adapted slightly because a lot of the ones I have found were very fiddly and complicated so I have used parts of many recipes to make a simple one. There are two types of cake pops, the kind you make in a proper cake pop maker which give you proper balls of cake and then this kind, which are more like truffles.

For the chocolate sponge:
100g plain white flour
20g Cocoa Powder
140g caster sugar
1.5 tsp of Baking Powder
40g unsalted butter (margarine worksjust as well)
120ml milk
1 egg
0.25tsp Vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170c
Combine the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the egg and beat until mixed. Sift in all the dry ingredients and mix until combined. In a jug mix the milk, egg and vanilla extract together (tip: add the milk first so you can measure it in the jug.) Spoon mixture into a cake tray and bake for approximately 2 minutes.

When your cake is baked leave it to coll and then brake it into crumbs using a fork or a mixer, I find a mixer works best as it gives you very fine crumbs. To make the little balls of cake you need a type of fondant or butter cream. I like to use the Betty Crocker fudge icing, but making your own butter cream from icing sugar and butter works just as well! In a bowl add the fudge icing to the crumbs, use as much or little as you like, I find that about half the tub works well. When the mixture is fairly sticky roll into small balls in your hands and place them on a baking tray. Now comes the best bit...

Melt 300g of Dark chocolate into a bowl, you can use any type of chocolate depending on what you want your cake pops ot look/taste like but I like the dark chocolate because it makes them look shiny and is easier to melt than milk chocolate. You can either put the balls on lolly sticks and then dip them in or dip them in the chocolate on a spoon and them put the sticks in, I find this easier because sometimes they fall off the sticks with the weight of the chocolate at first. Place them back on the baking try and leave in the fridge till set!

I hope my instructions weren't too confusing and let me know if you make the cake pops and how they turn out. Oh and odes the gif work at the top, when I look at it, it works and then stops which is strange?

Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Muffins

Good afternoon lovelies! I was reading through some blog yesterday and I came across this recipe for Raspberry and white chocolate Muffins on Jade's blog and they looked is delicious. The recipe is originally from Nigella, but I had to adapt it a little as, like Jade, I also didn't have any white chocolate so I used dark chocolate chips instead.

Ingredients:

• 300 grams Plain flour
• 2 teaspoons Baking powder
• 150 grams Golden caster sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
• 225 ml Milk
• 50 grams Butter
• 100 grams Raspberries
• 110 grams white chocolate (I used Dark chocolate chips)
• Muffin cases (I recommend floral ones because... well.... I like them :) )

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200c
2. Cut your Raspberries in half (I used frozen ones os that they didn't break up) and break up your chocolate if you are using a bar.
3. Sift flour and baking powder into large bowl, then Stir the sugar in.
4. Melt the butter in the microwave
5. In a separate bowl (It's easier to use a jug and measure your milk into it first, then add the ingredients to the jug to save using a bowl and a jug!) crack the egg, whisk in the vanilla extract, milk and melted butter. Stir the liquid mixture into the dry mixture.
6. Fold in the Raspberries  and the chocolate, but be gentle so the Raspberries don't get squished.
7. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes (Nigella says 30 minutes, but I found this to be too long.) 

I hope you all enjoy your Muffins if you decide to make them, let me know if you do, and also let me know if you would like any more baking posts and what on. Don't worry the Cake pop recipe one is coming soon!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

This is one of my favourite recipes ever, so I thought I would share it with you all!

4 oz butter
4oz sugar
2 eggs
7oz self raising flour
1 packet of chocolate chips

Cream together the butter and sugar, add the egg and mix well. 
Fold in the flour and add the chocolate chips.
Spoon the mixture evenly into 12 cup-cake cases.
Bake in the oven on 180c for 12 minutes

And that's it! They are so simple to make but always taste great :) Also, I hope the photos are ok, because I am using a new camera and I am still trying to get to grips with it! 
I am also trying my best to learn about aperture, shutter speeds and f-stops but it all goes straight over my head. Despite my Mum and Dad both trying to teach me (My Dad is a photographer and my Mum used to have her own business doing black and white printing in dark rooms) I just find it so hard to understand haha! Whilst I'm on the topic of photography I thought I would mention that I am starting at a new college tomorrow, because I didn't really like my other one and I want to change my course but my old college didn't offer the one I have chosen. So I am moving colleges and doing a BTEC (the equivalent to 3 A-levels) in Photography/digital imaging. So hopefully it will be fun, despite me being very nervous about tomorrow.