Race Day Flapjacks

So you've trained. You've eaten healthy. You've stopped drinking. You're at your fittest, fastest best.

Now race day is fast approaching. And whether you're a cyclist or a runner, if it's going to take more than 90 minutes, you'll need to refuel on the hoof (or foot, or bike).

You'll need sugar, to give you an instantaneous energy boost, and slow-release carbs to sustain you in the hours to come. This isn't a good time to stress about your waistline.

Flapjacks are perfect for this - the sugar and golden syrup will give you the sugar high, while jumbo oats will give you the slow-release carbs. Sprinkle in some nuts, pumpkin seeds for protein and soft apricots for flavour and you're good to go.

So when my boyfriend Tom asked me to knock up a batch of something to sustain him on a 100 mile bike race, flapjacks were the obvious answer.

The smell of the golden syrup, brown sugar and butter melting together melted my willpower instantaneously and I had a flapjack with a cup of tea after baking them. I had gone to parkrun that day though.

You will need:

250g whole rolled oats
125g light brown soft sugar
125g butter
2-3 tbsp golden syrup
handful of soft apricots, roughly chopped
scant handful of pecan nuts, roughly chopped
2-3 tbsp pumpkin seeds

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Measure out the golden syrup, sugar and butter into a small saucepan.

2. Heat the mixture over a low flame, stirring frequently, until the butter is melted and the mixture is thick, treacley and smooth. If it has any lumps in it give it a quick whisk.

4. Put the oats, apricots, nuts and pumpkin seeds in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

5. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until fully combined and you have a sticky mixture that clumps together.

6. Grease a rectangular baking tray and line it with greaseproof paper. Also grease the paper to stop the flapjack sticking. Pour the flapjack mixture into the tin and use the back of a spatula to press it down firmly.

7. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and quickly divide into 12 squares while still hot, before the flapjacks harden.

8. Eat or wrap in cling film for your big day!

Tom took two for his ride and said they were the nicest thing he ate during the race. Mind you, I told him to say that.

They are however quite crumbly - probably because I used whole oats. But if you want the slow-release carbs then there's not a whole lot I can do about that.

It shouldn't be a big problem on a bike ride because apparently cyclists stop regularly foer "feed stops". As a runner, I can't relate to this. But it looks like it might be back to the drawing board to find something I can bake myself for my half marathon.

Anything for an excuse to bake!

And here is a picture of Tom himself, relaxing in Hyde Park after a long, tiring ride.

Could you refuse that face flapjacks?

Keep baking!

Ellie
xxx

Vegan, Gluten Free Chocolate and Coconut Cream Cake

I love chocolate. The thought of being vegan and unable to eat it is deeply distressing to me.

But my sister is both lactose intolerant and vegan and when she asked me to make her a chocolatey birthday cake, I knew I had a difficult task on my hands.

 

I later found out she was in fact an egg-eating vegan (I know, right?), which would have made my life a lot easier if I had known beforehand.

I made her a cake that I found on this blog called PurelyTwins. Surprisingly, it wasn't a disaster. Despite not being filled with sugar and butter and eggs and all the things that make cakes nice, it was very edible. It had a rich dark chocolatey taste and an almost normal texture.

Flora (the aforementioned sister) then made me slather some pre-made coffee flavoured buttercream all over it. It was vegan, but had very little else to recommend it.

So when I had a chance to make the cake again, with a more suitable topping, I went for it. This whipped coconut cream topping is very simple and easy, but before you want to make it, leave the cartons of coconut cream in the fridge overnight.

When choosing a nut butter, the general rule is that the fewer ingredients there are, the better the nut butter. I use a brand that contains only peanuts, a little salt and sustainable palm oil. 

This cake is vegan, gluten free and the only refined sugar it will contain is any that is in the applesauce or the peanut butter. So it's chocolatey, rich and best of all, guilt-free.

You will need:

For the cake:

225g slightly unripe banana

115g applesauce

65ml coconut oil (if yours has solidified, just warm it in the microwave for a few seconds)

2 tbsp nut butter 

half a tsp baking powder

half a tsp bicarbonate of soda

half a tsp sea salt

4 tbsp protein powder

70g raw cacao powder

an 8 inch springform cake tin, greased and with the base lined with greaseproof paper

For the icing:

2 cartons of coconut cream

grated zest of one lime

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Mash the banana and mix with the applesauce, coconut oil and nut butter until thoroughly combined.

2. Fold in the protein powder, cacao, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. 

3. Use a hand-held blender to blend the mixture until smooth. 

4. Pour half the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 25 minutes.

5. Repeat step 4. Leave the cakes to cool while you make the icing.

6. Cut open the top of each packet of coconut cream. The cream should have semi-solidified into a block which will be surrounded by coconut water. 

7. Carefully drain off the coconut water without disturbing the cream. Put the cream in a bowl and beat with a whisk until smooth.

8. Spread the coconut cream over the top of each cake layer and then place one on top of the other. 

9. Grate the lime over the top of the cake to decorate.

Cut yourself a big, chocolatey, creamy, guilt-free slice.

Enjoy!

Ellie

xxx

Banana and Peanut Butter Breakfast Muffins (no refined sugar)

This month I am going to be doing something a bit different on this blog.

I am trying to avoid refined sugar, junk food and booze until I go on holiday on 17 August.

This is because I want to wear crop tops on holiday. And I'm also training for a half marathon and would like to drag as little weight as possible around the 13 mile course and don't want to lose any training days to hangovers.

So I have discarded the usual basics of baking - white flour, caster sugar, butter and I am getting creative.

One of the first things I wanted to do was make a healthy breakfast option. I never seem to have much time in the morning, so I usually end up smearing half a jar of peanut butter on toast and shoving it into my face before running out the door.

So I decided to make muffins - something I could take with me to work. I included bananas for sweetness, some peanut butter for protein, wholemeal flour for fibre, some oats for more fibre, seeds for essential fats and some more peanut butter for good measure.

Next time I make these I will get some deeper muffin cases and make 6-8 bigger muffins, so they are big enough to just have one for breakfast. I also might try separating the eggs and whipping the whites to see if I can get them to rise a bit more.

You will need:
3 bananas
100g smooth peanut butter
125g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
1 tbsp jumbo oats
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
a muffin tray and 6-8 deep foil muffin cases

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Mash the bananas in a bowl and add 50g of the peanut butter, the egg, the milk, the vanilla and whisk together.

2. Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon.

3. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Put a teaspoon of peanut butter in the bottom of each muffin case.

4. Divide the rest of the mixture between the muffin cases.

5. Sprinkle the oats and pumpkin seeds over the muffins and bake for 15-20 minutes until risen and cooked through.

6. Eat while still warm or microwave for 10 seconds before eating.

Nutritious, delicious, convenient and completely free of refined sugar.

Happy (and healthy) baking!

Ellie
xxx

Almond Madeleines

Yesterday, I just fancied a little something sweet in the evening.

I didn't have any chocolate or biscuits in the cupboards - I tend not to buy them as I'm likely to demolish half a packet before you can say "portion control".

What I did have was flour, butter, eggs and caster sugar. The base ingredients to make all manner of baked things - I could have gone for sponge cake, cupcakes, shortbread. The possibilities, while not endless, were many.

But what I hadn't made in a long time was madeleines. Small, fluffy and shell-shaped, these little French cakes are elegant, lightly flavoured and perfect with a cup of tea. And I had just enough ingredients to make half a batch.

I won't go into my explanation of Proustian moments, which is another great reason to make madeleines, but you can read it here.

I had to poke around in the dark corners and under the bed in my bedroom until I found my silicone madeleine tray, which just goes to show how long it had been since I made them.

If you do not own a madeleine tray (apart from baking equipment obsessives like me and professional bakers, who does?) you could make these in cupcake cases instead.

I had to use whatever flavourings I had in the cupboard for my madeleines. I could have used vanilla, but that seemed a bit boring, so I used almond extract and some ground almonds and I am very pleased with the results.

This recipe makes 30-32 madeleines but I halved it and only made 16.

You will need:
150g butter, melted and then cooled slightly (still fully liquid) plus extra to grease
100g plain flour plus extra to dust
100g caster sugar
2 tbsp ground almonds
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp almond extract
2 medium eggs
icing sugar, to dust

1. Prepare your tray by greasing it with melted butter and dusting liberally with flour, tilting the tray to get flour into all the corners.

2. Whisk together the caster sugar and eggs until frothy.

3. Whisk in the remaining ingredients (except icing sugar) and leave to stand for 20 minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200C.

4. Whisk the mixture again then drop a heaped teaspoon of the mixture into each madeleine mould.

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown and risen. Dust liberally with icing sugar and serve.

Except for the 20 minute resting time (which gives you a perfect opportunity to put your feet up and watch some Netflix), this is a really quick recipe. It's also very simple and can be made with just a few ingredients that, if you're into baking, you will probably already have.

Enjoy with a cup of tea.

Au revoir,

Ellie

xxx

Apricot Galette

Before I launch into the is recipe, a note on puff pastry. Puff pastry done well is a thing of beauty. The pastry is built of delicate layers of dough and butter, which expand when cooked to give a flaky, crisp texture.

The only problem is, making puff pastry from scratch is a long, long process. You need to be very patient. If you do not chill the pastry for long enough, the butter will ooze out and before you know what's happening, there's butter everywhere and the pastry is not salvageable.

You don't want that, do you? So the key is to keep the ingredients as cold as possible and work quickly whenever it's out of the fridge.

If you do notice the butter oozing out of the pastry, pop it back in the fridge and chill it a bit longer.

Of course, any sane person would avoid all this bother by buying pre-made pastry. You can get perfectly good pastry, ready to use, in any large supermarket.

But I never claimed I was sane.

So feel free to use ready made pastry in this recipe. If you have a spare day and a burning desire to make puff pastry, then I used Paul Hollywood's method, which can be found here.

But to return to the apricot galette. I made it to a Yottam Ottolenghi recipe. It was supposed to feature rosemary sprigs, but the supermarket didn't have any, so my galette was unadorned.

Ottolenghi reckoned you could get two galettes from 375g pastry. I found this not to be the case. When I tried to stretch the pastry that far it got too thin and I had to do some emergency repair work.

So I have adjusted the quantities in the recipe to take account of this and it now makes only one galette, which will serve four (greedy) people or six to eight with smaller appetites.

You will need:

375g puff pastry dough (rolled into a 19cm x 25cm rectangle)
40g ground almonds
35g light brown soft sugar, plus 1 tsp to sprinkle
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 whisked egg
2 tins apricot halves (480g drained weight)
25g unsalted butter, melted
1/4 tsp almond extract
25g smooth apricot jam

1. Mix together the ground almonds, sugar and lemon and sprinkle over the dough, leaving a border of 2-3cm.

2. Arrange the apricots cut side up on top of the almond mix, overlapping them slightly. Brush the empty pastry with the whisked egg.

3. Crimp the edges of the tarts by pulling the edges in, holding your thumb and index finger close together in a pinching motion on the outside edge of the pastry and pushing on the other side with your index finger. Brush with more egg wash.

4. Mix the melted butter and almond extract and brush generously over the apricots. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the galette, cover it with cling film and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 190C. Bake the galette for 40 minutes until the pastry is golden brown, then leave to cool. Heat the apricot jam with 1 tsp cold water (30 seconds in the microwave should do it). Brush it over the galette.

You can serve warm, with a bit of cream, or the next day.

Happy Baking!

Ellie
xxx

Gooey Gluten-free Chocolate Brownies

Wheat is one of the most fundamental ingredients in the vast majority of most baked goods. 

Depending on the type of baked good, you're often relying on gluten strands to make up the structure. So what if you're gluten intolerant, or coeliac?

Well, it can make things a bit tricky. If you or anyone you are baking for has this problem, you'll have to get creative. 

But I like to look at it as an opportunity to use ingredients I wouldn't usually, or use them in a different way to usual.

My boyfriend's sister is coeliac, so when I decided to bake for a family gathering, I had to get online looking for gluten free recipes.

Some of them seemed to have about 100 ingredients, all of which were obscure and not obtainable from my local supermarket.

Then I found this recipe from elizabethskitchendiary.co.uk. It's a great recipe. Rather than flour you use ground almonds and the end result is everything a chocolate brownie should be; moist, gooey and topped with a shiny crust.

So thank you, Elizabeth. These brownies are great and I'm sure coeliacs and non-coeliacs alike will enjoy them.

This recipe serves 16. 

You will need:

150g dark chocolate (check that it is gluten free!)

3 large eggs

170g unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

150g muscovado sugar

100g ground almonds

1 tsp vanilla extract

85g chopped walnuts or brazil nuts

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a large rectangular baking tin. Break up the chocolate and put it and the butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water to melt. Whisk the eggs in a bowl until frothy. 

2. Add the sugars and whisk them into the eggs until fully combined, thick, dark and treacley. Make sure you are still keeping an eye on the chocolate mixture and stirring it every now and then.

3. When the chocolate mixture has melted completely, pour it into the egg mixture and stir until fully combined. 

4. Add the ground almonds, chopped nuts and vanilla extract and fold them in gently. Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on how gooey you want your brownies!

5. Leave the brownies to cool in the tin before slicing them up into 16 squares.

There you go, a decadent treat whether you eat gluten or not!

Happy baking,

Ellie

xxx

Courgette Cake

The other week I acquired 12 courgettes through no fault of my own.

I ordered a load of shopping from one of these supermarket delivery services. I was sorely disappointed. Not only did I not get the aubergines I ordered, but I also got 12 courgettes rather than the two I wanted.

"Big deal," you're thinking. "You got 12 courgettes for the price of two. That's a win."

Well yes, but I really hate waste. Food waste in particular. It's pretty much one of the seven deadly sins in my eyes.

So I determined to use every one of those courgettes. I made courgette risotto, roasted courgette, courgette hummus and courgetti spaghetti.

All my courgette creations were a success, except the courgette hummus, which was like eating a swamp.

But I still had one courgette and I was sick of savoury courgette recipes.

So I looked up courgette cake recipes, decided to make courgette cupcakes. Then realised I threw my cupcake tray away after it warped, so I decided to make cake instead.

It's not going to win any beauty contests, but it did not taste like a swamp, which is always what I look for in a cake. This serves four to six.

You will need:

1 egg
1 medium sized courgette
1 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp sunflower oil
75g plain flour
15g light soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
5-6 inch loose based cake tin

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Grate the courgette and squeeze as much moisture out of it as you can. Then squeeze some more.

2. Whisk the egg, oil, milk and vanilla extract together. Fold in the courgette.

3. Stir in the flour, baking powder and sugar.

4. Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and risen and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

It is moist, tasty and one of your five a day. Next time I might sweeten it up a bit more with a bit of lime or lemon icing.

Happy baking,

Ellie
xxx