Chai spiced cashew butter – a delicious, flavourful homemade nut butter; you’ll want to slather it on everything!
Have you ever tried making your own nut butter? It is really easy to do and you can make so many different delicious combinations. The only problem is that you do need a food processor or blender that is powerful enough to cope with it – I did once manage to burn out the motor of a flimsier model whilst making praline paste (which is basically the same as nut butter)….
Chocolate coffee cardamom layer cake – three layers of moist chocolate coffee & cardamom cake with swiss meringue buttercream & dark chocolate ganache.
It had been a while since I last made a layer cake, there certainly hasn’t been any shortage of cakes, but they have mostly just been simple, one layer ones or bundt cakes, so I thought it was high time I made something a bit more spectacular. Enter this chocolate coffee cardamom layer cake….
More bloomin’ pancakes! I promise that once pancake day is over I will share something that isn’t pancakes, but for now I can’t get enough of them! These ones are baklava inspired – the sweet, syrupy, nutty filo pastry treat in pancake form. These are thick, soft, fluffy American-style pancakes made with Greek yogurt to keep them extra moist and pack in some protein and they are flavoured with cardamom, cinnamon and chopped nuts with a delicious sweet syrup with hints of lemon, orange blossom water and rose….
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow and I’ve got a last-minute post for you in the form of Persian love cake. The story behind this cake goes that there was a Persian woman who was madly in love with a prince so she baked him a cake to make him fall in love with her; because what better way is there to win someone over than with cake?! There are multiple versions of the story floating around, some ending happily, some definitely not. It is extremely unlikely to actually be true and is most likely a fairly modern invention; but I do like food with a story!
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Mini cardamom apple pies – mini lattice topped apple hand pies spiced with cinnamon and cardamom and baked in a muffin tray.
It feels like the run up to Christmas is already in full swing and I am lagging behind a bit; I have done no Christmas shopping, haven’t planned any recipes, completely missed stir up Sunday and don’t even know where I am spending Christmas day yet…. I think I need to work on being more organised but the miserable weather and the fact that it gets dark so early now really aren’t helping with my motivation levels. …
Vanilla almond milk porridge with honey roasted pear – smooth, creamy almond milk porridge with soft, juicy honey roast pear, cinnamon & hazelnuts. Dairy free & easily adaptable to be vegan.
I had never tried almond milk up until a couple of days ago when I saw that it was on offer and bought some on a whim. I didn’t think that I would really like it but was interested to try…and now I’m hooked! …
I’ve been on a bit of a compulsive blackberry picking drive recently; I can’t seem to take the dog for a walk without coming home with a bagful of blackberries, it just seems a shame to walk past the heavily laden brambles without at least nabbing a few… I have made jam (recipe coming soon!) and I’ve been eating an awful lot of blackberry compote, which is delicious with yoghurt or porridge, but I think I enjoyed it most when I paired it with this creamy, comforting coconut and cardamom rice pudding….
As promised in my last post, another rye recipe…I have actually made that marbled rye bread twice since posting it, it is so good! I’ve been eating marbled rye bread sandwiches for lunch every day and I haven’t had enough of it yet! I made something a little sweeter this time though – rye shortbread biscuits flavoured with masala chai. If you haven’t heard of masala chai before, it literally translates as mixed spice tea, and it is exactly that – black tea brewed with a blend of spices. The exact blend of spices used varies quite a lot so I went for a mixture of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and star anise, you can adapt the mixture depending on what spices you have/like; it is also common to use black pepper so add a pinch of that if you fancy as well. I also added some ground black tea leaves to my shortbread, this is entirely optional but seeing as chai means tea I figured there should be some in there!…
Somehow I have been doing this blogging thing for a year now….that’s right, it was a year ago that I clicked publish on my first (atrocious) post (and no I’m not going to link to it, if you want to see that atrocity you have to find it yourself!), though it really doesn’t feel like it has been that long. Back then I didn’t have a clue what I was doing – how to write a blog post, take decent photos, promote it, use social media effectively (still a bit clueless on that one…) or much of anything really. I have learned a vast amount since then, though there is still a long way to go… I have also baked (and eaten) a huge amount, and have hit publish on a total of 91 posts, including this one. I have gotten to know some lovely fellow bloggers, who have been nothing but helpful and supportive, worked with some great brands, and most importantly, have enjoyed (almost) every bit of it – bring on another year! I want to take a moment to thank every one of you who takes the time to read my posts, comment on them, follow me on (deep breath..) PinterestFacebookTwitterGoogle+Instagram and to share my work, I appreciate you all….
I’ve been feeling really old the last few days…I’ll be 29 later on this month, which yes, I know is not really very old at all. But I went out clubbing (to a rock club, of course) for the first time in over six months on Saturday, spent most of the night dancing and had a brilliant time; aaand it’s taken me four days to recover from it… I woke up the morning after and everything hurt! I like to think that I’m fairly fit, I walk at least six miles every day (dogs are brilliant for fitness), and do kettlebell/bodyweight workouts three times a week (how else do you think I get away with baking so much…?!); and yet a bit of dancing has completely done me in! Not to mention the bit where I didn’t get to bed till nearly 4am, that left me zombified for two days; I dread to think how awful I would have felt if I’d had a hangover as well……
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