Oaty banana muffins recipe!

I finished work really early on Sunday and I had time to bake. I had some leftover bananas so I decided to turn them into muffins. I also had some oats kicking around in the cupboard so they went in as well.

Recipe adapted  from All Recipes

200g plain flour

80g porridge oats

100g caster sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

175ml milk

75ml olive oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

250g mashed bananas

Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC/Gas Mark 6

Combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

. In a large bowl, beat the egg lightly. Stir in the milk, oil and vanilla. Add the mashed banana and combine thoroughly. Stir the flour mixture into the banana mixture until just combined. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases and divide the batter among them.

 Bake for 18 to 20 minutes.

Eat warm or for breakfast the next day!

♥

Lately #20

Wow what a week! I've done three photo shoots for uni. Been to work, started to create my website. Things are hectic at the moment. I still need to fit in another photo shoot this week some point. I also have so many emails to reply to. Another day in the week please?

I thought spring was on its way as we had a teaser at the beginning of the week now were back to cold and miserable. I'm a little bit fed up of grey skies now. I have so many summer dresses waiting to be worn. 

Hurry along summer!

♥ 

skimlinks

[Food] Chocolate Olive Oil Cake Recipe!

It's still snowy and the path's are still really slippery. So I ventured out to get some eggs and oil and decided that I'd spend this afternoon baking!

I got lots of recipe books for Christmas and Nigellissma was one of them and this olive oil cake was in it. I really wanted to try it and pretty much all of the ingredients are store cupboard essentials. 

So here's the recipe!

It can be found on Nigella's website.

150 ml regular olive oil (plus more for greasing)

50g cocoa powder (good quality, sifted)

125 ml boiling water

2 teaspoon(s) best vanilla extract

150g Ground almonds (or 125g plain flour) (I used flour)

½ teaspoon(s) bicarbonate of soda

200g caster sugar

3 egg(s)

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C/gas mark 3. Grease your springform tin with a little oil and line the base with baking parchment.

2. Measure and sift the cocoa powder into a bowl or jug and whisk in the boiling water until you have a smooth, chocolatey, still runny (but only just) paste. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then set aside to cool a little.

3. In another smallish bowl, combine the ground almonds (or flour) with the bicarbonate of soda and pinch of salt.

4. Put the sugar, olive oil and eggs into the bowl of a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment (or other bowl and whisk arrangement of your choice) and beat together vigorously for about 3 minutes until you have a pale-primrose, aerated and thickened cream.

5.Turn the speed down a little and pour in the cocoa mixture, beating as you go, and when all is scraped in you can slowly tip in the ground almond (or flour) mixture.

6. Scrape down, and stir a little with a spatula, then pour this dark, liquid batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the sides are set and the very centre, on top, still looks slightly damp. A cake tester should come up mainly clean but with a few sticky chocolate crumbs clinging to it.

7.Let it cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, still in its tin, and then ease the sides of the cake with a small metal spatula and spring it out of the tin. Leave to cool completely or eat while still warm with some ice cream, as a pudding.

It's tastes so good! And is really easy to make.

♥

[Food] Banana Cakes with Maple Pecan Icing

I love banana bread and when I saw this recipe for little banana cakes I had to make them!

Ingredients:

100g/4oz butter, softened plus extra for greasing

170g/6oz of caster sugar

2tbsp maple syrup

2 large eggs

2 ripe bananas, mashed

2tsp baking powder

For the icing:

100g icing sugar

2-3 tbsp maple syrup

a few drops of vanilla extract

36 pecan nut halves, toasted

1. Heat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5 and grease a 12 hole muffin tin.

2. If you have a electric whisk or processor you can put all the ingredients for the cake into that and whizz it up until it's all combined. I did mine by hand and I creamed together the butter and sugar. Added the eggs, flour and baking powder. Add the mashed banana and maple syrup and mix it all together.

3. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tin and bake for 15 minutes until the cakes are firm and a cocktail stick inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

4. To ice the cakes, sift the icing sugar into a bowl, then stir in the maple syrup and vanilla to make a thick drizzle icing (I had to add a bit more maple syrup to make mine runny enough, but it still turned out great!).

5. Turn the cakes upside down, you may have to cut the bottoms to make the cake stand up flat, I had to with mine. Drizzle the icing over the top and place 3 of the toasted pecans on each cake. Then drizzle some icing on top of those too.

My mum wasn't that keen on the icing so I only put a blob on hers to stick the pecans down and dusted the top with icing sugar. I still think it looks really effective.

It's such an easy recipe and they taste great too. My family and I had ours with custard on the top!

Enjoy!

♥