The loaves of my life.....

I apologise for the corny title...I really do....

Today Mr B and I sat at the local market from 7:30am until 2:00pm trying to sell some of my clothes so I could make enough money to buy 'sensible' clothes to take to Europe with me....

Yesterday I brought my first ever (yes I am 26....) pair of sensible adult jeans....no big flarey bell bottoms, can be worn with sneakers without dragging through across the ground....it was all very scary, but after wearing them all day today I've come to the conclusion they actually look better with heels then all my flarey jeans did...so said flarey jeans subsequently spent the day on the market table (sorry flarey jeans....we had some good times, but I just can't do it anymore, I will always remember you fondly)

Anyway, so that explains why I am slightly exhausted and delirious at this stage, but it doesn't explain how I nearly got eaten alive by duckies yesterday....that is a story for another day....

What I will explain to you is how I came to bake these two incredibly smelling (and hopefully tasting) loaves on Friday night!

You see I get home from work and no matter how tired I am, I want to drop my bags at the door and get up to my elbows in flour and butter and baking goodness. I was meeting up with my best friend on Saturday (who I previously mentioned has just told us she is pregnant so I am in a constant state of over excited baking frenzy for her and bubba choppa) and one of the ladies I work with has recently brought her first home and moved in only last week so to me, that is 2 amazingly good reasons to come home and bake a loaf (or 2) of goodness!


First off we went with the Banana and Honey Loaf for Ali as it has very little sugar and let's be honest, who doesn't love a good banana bread??

You will need:

100g butter
1/3 cup honey
2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 cup firmly-packed brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 ripe bananas, peeled, mashed


Preheat oven to 180°C and grease and line a loaf tin.

Combine the butter, honey and sugar in a microwave-safe bowl and cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until melted.

Sift flours, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and cinnamon into a large bowl. Stir in the milk, egg, banana and butter mixure. Stir with a metal spoon until just combined.

Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 60 to 70 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. This loaf does rise quite a bit so just watch where you put it in the oven! Cool loaf in pan for 10 minutes before lifting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

And for my second trick I made this Date Loaf

All you will need is:

125g pitted dates
1.5 tspns bicarb soda
1 cup water
50g butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour

Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease and line a loaf tin.

In a microwave safe bowl combine the dates, water, bicarb, butter and sugar.

Cook for 4-5 mins or until the dates are well and truly softened and the mixture is thickened. Allow to cool for 2-3 mins.

In a bowl combine the flours and egg.

Pour over the date mixture and stir to combine.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for around 40 mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

And most importantly, share them with someone you love....or steal a quiet moment to yourself and enjoy them whilst curled up with a book and a cuppa!!

Mrs B xx

Almond Slice

What sort of a weekend would it be around here without a bit of baking?

Well this weekend I decided to make something right out of left field...like something totally crazy...some might even say I had lost my mind....so what did I make I hear you say? Marshmallow and Strawberry Toasted Sandwiches? Peanut Butter and Vegemite Cups? Caramel and Tomato Pie!? No....actually it was just an Almond Slice, but seeing as OH is seriously anti-nut I think he thought I was going crazy, but let's be honest, we all probably figured that out a long time ago didn't we?

Anyways, let me tell you about the slice...it starts off with a lovely lil brown sugar shortbready type of layer...moves on to a gooey honey layer and is topped off with a gorgeous layer of slivered almonds...doesn't that sound good?


Almond Slice

For the base you will need:

1/2 cup brown sugar
125g butter (melted)
1 cup plain flour

Pre-heat oven to 160C.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and press into the bottom of a lined and greased slice tin. Bake for 15 mins.

While that is baking make your topping...

For the topping you will need:

2 tbspns milk
2 tbspns thickened cream (optional)
60g butter
2-3 tbspns honey
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup slivered / flaked almonds

Combine all ingredients, except almonds, in a jug / bowl and microwave for 60 seconds on medium high. Give it a good stir and microwave for a further 60 seconds. Continue doing this until the sugar has all dissolved, but be careful because it will be mega hot!

When the sugar has all dissolved and everything is combined, stir through the almonds and pour over the cooked base.

Put back in the oven for 10-15 mins.

When it is done, let it sit on the counter or in the fridge for a few hours to set properly before you try and slice it :)

I have also made this using a cup of rolled oats instead of almonds and it came out just as nice!


Stick around because I have something spectacular in the works for you all later this week!!

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!!

Em x

St Patrick's Day Goodies

So I searched and searched for an Irish recipe to make for St Patrick's Day and just couldn't find anything that really grabbed me, so then instead of looking for an irish recipe, I started trying to think of a green recipe and I remembered seeing a green vegie stir fry over at The Adirondack Chick and decided to put my own twist on it :)

1 x brocolli diced
1 x zucchini diced
100g baby spinach
1 x onion diced
10 x snow peas diced
1 x greeb capsicum diced
200g tin of water chestnuts
2 tbspns honey
1 tbspn soy
220g thin hokkien noodles

Pre-heat a wok over medium heat and add onion. Cook for 2-3 mins or until softened. Add all remaining vegetables except for the spinach and cook for 7-10 mins or until softened.
Pour boiling water over the noodles in a bowl and seperate with a fork. Drain and set aside.
Add honey, soy and noodles to the vegetables. Cover with a lid and simmer for 5 mins.
Season with salt and pepper. Yum yum yum!!

Also for a little St Patrick's Day treat, here is my recipe for Irish Cream Buttercream Frosting! (It makes heaps, which is lucky, coz you end up eating most of it before it's time to ice the cake!!)

.5 cup of Irish Cream Liqueur (I used Feeney's, but you could also use Bailey's or Kilkenney)
200g butter
2-3 cups icing sugar
2 tbspns cocoa

Combine the butter and icing sugar in an electric mixer and beat until smooth. Add the cocoa and liqueur and beat for 3-4 mins. Now here is where your judgement comes in. Get a tspn and grab a small spoonful and try it, check it for thickness and texture and add more butter / liqueur / icing sugar / cocoa depending on how it's going or you might be happy with it as in, in which case you can frost away or hide in the wardrobe with the bowl and a spoon until it's all gone!

Happy St Patricks Day everyone!

Em x

Sunday Baking and The Catch Up.....

So what do you do when your stuck at home all day and you can't go for a nice lil Sunday drive?

You make yourself a whole fleet of lil cars : )


And some lil creatures that you can pretend you saw whilst on your Sunday drive in your new vehicle!



I got these awesome cake pans for Christmas from my parents so took the opportunity to try them out today and my god was I impressed! Can't wait till I have lil ones to make these for and with....

Ok so the catch up...what has been happening, yes I know I have been avoiding the subject. Well I should start by saying that the new job did not start off as planned, but things are now starting to look up in that department and hopefully I can start doing the job I was hired for which would be nice. Secondly the house is coming along well, have spent the last half of today trying to get the retainig wall finished out the back (and trying to work off the million calories in frosting that I consumed this morning)...also this morning, just on a side note, we had fresh honey like right out of the honeycomb this morning on freshly baked bread and the only words I have are oh my gooey honey goodness!! Now what else is going on....today was the first time I have actually done some proper baking since like before Christmas...not good, not good at all!

What else....OH and I went for a road trip the other weekend and on the way home we stopped at a road house which we thought would serve your average selection of greasy food....we were proven wrong when OH got this massive marinated steak burger and mine was the same but with a massive vegie pattie!! Best burger and chips I have had for a very long time.


And given that we had spent the weekend in a room with views like this


Whilst enjoying meals on our balcony like this


We had a pretty good mini-break!!

But for my final piece of news...some of you might remember I have been talking about planning a wedding and trial cupcakes and blah blah blah....well the wedding should have been on the 8th of Jan so about a fortnight ago...but for a few reasons it didn't go ahead. We decided a few days before Christmas to postpone it and take twelve months to work on things. I will be the first to admit that the 8th of Jan was an awful awful day and I don't know if things are going to work out or not, but I know that we were not ready to take that step so only time will tell I suppose. And I still have my baking and my shoes...even if my love life is up in the air!

Anyway, thats it, my last month or so in a nut shell...things will return to normal around here from now on, I have had my appropriate sulking period and now am willing to proclaim myself as officially BACK!!

Em xx

Raving about Risotto!

Well the wonderful world of Wikipedia tells me that Risotto is defined as a traditional Italian rice dish cooked with broth and flavoured with parmesan cheese and other ingredients which could include meat, fish or vegetables. The name literally means 'little rice.' Interestingly enough I have had a love / hate relationship with risotto I think because whilst I used to love ordering (and eating) it when I was out and about, I had always been told it was ridiculously hard to cook, and since beginning my weight loss journey two years ago I had also been told that it was mighty unhealthy, serious loss of brownie points for the humble risotto right there. Anyway recently I was flicking through a Recipes + magazine and found a recipe for Oven Baked Tuna Risotto....it sounded relatively simple, no cream, no wine, parmesan cheese only as an optional garnish....plus my OH was working away this week so I thought it was the perfect time for an experiment! On Monday night I set myself up with all my ingredients - tuna, capsicum, onion, zucchini, diced tomatoes, stock and most importantly the arborio rice! All very simple, chop up the capsicum, onion and zucchini, saute in a pan, add the diced tomatoes, rice and the stock, bring it to the boil....then chuck it in the oven for 20 mins...how super duper easy is that?! However, upon tasting at the 20min mark it was a little bit bland, so I added some tomato paste and some wet mediterranean herbs, stirred through the tuna and chucked it back in the oven.....waiting waiting waiting......and when I pulled it out of the oven may I saw I was astounded, the liquid was absorbed, the rice was tender and the flavour was delicious! I was glad my OH was away so I didn't have to share! And best of all I had made enough for several nights....nom nom nom. So needless to say my risotto cherry has been popped and I don't know what I was so worried about! It was low calorie and dead easy! Next week I am going to attempt it again, maybe with some pumpkin and spinach or something, OH wants evidence I can actually make it!

What else did I make....ohh a dead easy Honey Rice Bubble Slice. Now usually OH has a rice bubble slice in his lunches that involves melting marshmallows with butter and stirring them through rice bubbles and letting it set. However, I get bored cooking the same thing all the time so was on the look out for something different to do with the abnormally large box of rice bubbles in the cupboard. That was when I found the Honey Rice Bubble Slice recipe on http://www.bestrecipes.com/ . All it involved was honey, butter and sugar all melted together and mixed through some rice bubbles and then letting it set over night. The original recipe involved coconut mixed through at the end, but OH is funny about it getting stuck in his teeth so I left it out (he is also funny about cross contamination between his food - serving him lasagne or shepards pie is hilarious...but thats another story!). I made this the other night and got it out to cut up last night and have the mandatory nibble and taste test (required of all new recipes!) and it was brilliant, the honey was sweet without being too sweet and so much nicer then using the marshmallows.

Here is the recipe as adapted by me but you could add 1 cup of coconut with the rice bubbles if you wanted:

Honey Rice Bubble Slice

Ingredients:
2tbspns honey
75g butter
1/2c caster sugar
4 cups rice bubbles

Melt honey, butter and sugar in a small pan on the stove top. Bring to the boil, but keep stirring.
Working quickly, pour over rice bubbles and combine.
Press into a lined 18cm x 28cm slice tin
Refrigerate overnight or until firm - should be ok after 1/2 hour.

And last but certainly not least and it's another day with another batch of cupcakes....today I received 2 donations for the RSPCA plus some guys I work with, who only this morning listened to me complain about not having enough containers to transport large numbers of cupcakes, made me two stainless steel trays with high sides that should fit 24 cupcakes each - so I made them some cupcakes as well as a thank you because the trays will just make my life so much easier. Anyway given I had so many cupcakes to make (4 batches in total!) I decided on a simple decoration, I made some basic chocolate cupcakes and then frosted them with Betty Crocker's Deluxe Chocolate Frosting. I also found these little tiny Oreo cookies at the supermarket so I topped the frosting with one of those and they are just adorable, simple, but still adorable!

Tomorrow....Happy Friday!

Em x