Free from choc bun recipe

Because I love these chocolate buns, I must keep the recipe somewhere safe [here!] so that I can make them again!

Heat the oven to GM4, 180C and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper liners.

Break three eggs into a bowl, and add 160g caster sugar. Beat with a hand held electric mixer for about 5 minutes until it is all frothy and light: when you lift the beaters out of the mixture, you should be able to make trails of batter across the mixture.  Add half a teaspoon of vanilla essence to the mixture.  Grate 50g peeled courgette in to the mix, with half a teaspoon of baking powder and 180g gluten-free flour, and 2 tbsp cocoa powder.  Gently fold all of this into the mix until it is completely incorporated, and then measure out tablespoon fulls of it into the paper liners.  Use up all the mixture across the liners until they are all evenly filled.  Bake for about 20 minutes until risen and beautiful!

I used Dove's Farm plain white gluten-free flour, because that is what I had in the cupboard!  I think the mixture would have taken up to three times as much courgette, but that was all I had left......

When they are baked to perfection and cooled, I frosted them with a chocolate buttercream made from Vitalite [dairy-free], cocoa powder and icing sugar.  I didn't weigh any of it!  There was about one and a half tablespoons of Vitalite, but could have done with less as I have loads left.  I know I added about a tablespoon of cocoa....but as for the icing sugar - well, I start slowly and just keep adding it a little at a time until I get the right consistency and it doesn't taste of margerine - not a very scientific method but it tastes good.

Apart from the one I decorated with the mint and raspberry, I am eating them just as they are, but if you had any dairy-free chocolate buttons [I know such things exist], perhaps one of those plonked on the top of each one would finish them off nicely - the raspberries tasted great too though, and raspberry with chocolate is a great combination.

I shall definitely be making these again, and perhaps experimenting with some other flavours too.

I should say that this recipe was inspired by one by Harry Eastwood in her book, Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache.  I made her American Vanilla Cupcakes several times, and they are stunning.  But this recipe is only inspired by that one - I've used more eggs, less courgette, different flour, less baking powder, no salt and less vanilla essence, and changed the flavour completely to chocolate.  I don't think she's got much competition from me, really....

Quiet room

Laying down in a quiet room early tonight was going to be on the cards before I got chatting on the phone to a friend whose birthday it was yesterday.....Been a productive day, all things considered.

I made some chocolate cakes for a treat - gluten and dairy free ones.  Then I got to thinking about how to take a photo for you.  I would usually just literally take a picture like this one, above.  But I had an interesting chat with a 13 year old gymnast the other week about her GCSE course choices - she has included photography and Food Tech in her list as she wants to be a food blogger.

So I thought I'd try harder this week:

I'm impressed on so many levels at this girl's ambition, drive and interests, and so I am going to give her some of my recipe books that I am going to release from the shelves here - she might find a couple of recipes she wants to try.

And I'll keep trying to be more adventurous with my photos!

A few links

I have been pottering around the "interwebs" occasionally over the last couple of days, and have found a couple of links that I know you might like to see.....well, I think you might!

For those of you like me, who want to learn to knit a sock, there is a "sockalong" website, which has inspired me to have a go, when I have finished the scarves [yes, two] which are currently on the needles. There are so many photos and instructions on the website that I can't imagine getting lost.  It looks great - and there is also an accompanying Facebook page where you can ask other sock-knitters for advice, which seems to be a great combination!  The website is at www.winwickmum.blogspot.com.

And then there is a recipe and a handy conversion site I have found. Ree Drummond, aka Pioneer Woman, posts some great recipes, and I have a daughter with a bit of a thing for chocolate chip cookies, so these gorgeous looking creations are going on the "to-bake" list this week.....I just had to work out how much a "stick" of butter was, and that was where this conversion site came in.  That link will take you straight to the section for butter.  A "stick" of butter is apparently 4 ounces.

For those of us who want to be able to do more with our slow-cookers than just the odd stew or casserole, I found this post full of links, and I think that some of them might be worth having a go at - there are lots of chicken recipes, which I love, so I shall put those top of my list!

I have continued my decluttering this week - we have taken a very old [pre-2000] Dell computer, complete with an enormous old monitor, to the skip.  We were advised to remove the hard-drive and "smack it with a hammer" before chucking it, so the YFG and I had great fun hitting it rather hard with a hammer last night on the gravel out the back.  We then left it on the driveway overnight as it began to smell a little strange and we thought it best to leave it out there.  I also offloaded an old tv that had a VCR in the bottom of it, a broken shredder, an old handmixer that burned out, and some old sofa cushions and an ancient duvet.  A skirt suit and a couple of winter coats went to the charity shop. I was quite pleased with that haul for the week.

This afternoon, I have mown the grass.  Not the new turf, but just the previously-existing lawned area.  Thinking about how long that took, and looking at the expanse of the new sections, sheep are beginning to look like an attractive option ;)

Hope you are having a good weekend xx

Images from "home"

My heart is very deeply attached to Scotland, and I'm hoping that God will lead me back there one day to live.  One day.  

Until then, I have to be satisfied with the occasional foray north of the border, and whiling away half an hour with a cuppa, looking at images like this....go on, have a look!  You'll love them too!  I just had to add that link to this blog somewhere - to share it with you, but also so that I don't lose it myself.  I'm going to have to share it with my FB friends too!

The Other Half

The television has become such a low priority for me these days that I frequently forget to watch programmes that I had previously thought would be worth viewing. Consequently, I missed the last Vera, forgot about Safe House half way through, and still haven't seen anything of the new Home Fires series.

(image from theguardian.com)

I did manage to watch "How the other half eat" on the on-demand system for Channel 4 on the tablet earlier this week, just because I was feeling nosy as to how they made the programme.  It was an interesting twist that the ones eating all the junk and ready meals were the mega-rich family, spending £300 a week in their local Sainsbury's to feed 6 people, whereas Mrs Average Income was spending a more reasonable £80 in Aldi each week to feed 4 - although I think you would get an awful lot of food for £80 in Aldi and perhaps even she could have spent less if money was an issue.

Mrs Average was making everything from scratch, they were eating balanced meals and eating together at the table; Mrs Rich was more haphazard about it all, and there was a "cupboard of dreams" to which the children had unrestricted access, full of chocolate, sweets, cakes and other general rubbish - and of course, when the families had their rules and food swapped, Mrs Average's children did actually make themselves little piggies in this cupboard whilst Mum was despairing of them ever eating another vegetable, I think.

I found Mr Rich quite snobbish: "beef cobbler is something that one ate at primary school in the seventies" for example.  They turned their noses up at some of the recipes that they were advised to make, and Mrs Rich was in despair at the amount of time she was expected to be in the kitchen.

I watched it as a one-off, and I don't know that it is a series - I don't think I would watch it every week if it was a weekly event.  We all know that there are all sorts of domestic regimes out there, and each family do their own thing ever so slightly differently from the next family in the street.  If you are a long-time reader here, you'll know that we are more like Mrs Average, and I expect that you are too.

Reminder

A note to myself - when having had a busy day but no rain, start watering the turf BEFORE 8pm or you will still be doing it at 9.20pm in the dark.......not helpful!  Hoping for rain tomorrow......sorry!

Home improvements on a budget

Last month's savings went on the turf and the fence, and it looks as if some of this month's will also be spent on home improvements.  There is a trend to build modern houses with a shower in the master en-suite but just a bath in the family ablutions.  That means anytime anyone wants a shower, they come trailing through my room........which is OK for family but not so great with long term house guests - or even short term ones for that matter.

I have had a friend of the FH's round this morning, who is a plumber, and we are going to have an over-bath shower installed in the family bathroom.  I thought it would have to be an electric one, but that was going to be really expensive, considering where he was going to have to bring particular cabling from to supply the shower, but he can do a standard thermostatic mixer shower off the tank, which is just across the landing, and take the pipes up and over through the roof space.  I hesitate to call it a loft as the hatch is a bit small and there is only a lonely tv aerial up there!

Is it really necessary? No.  Will it make my life easier? For sure.  Will it improve my quality of life? Yes - four or five women in a house with only one shower? Of course this will improve things!  And it will be another USP for this house in this development - none of the houses currently on the market have a shower in the bathroom - and when most of the houses are identical in layout, you need something to sway the buyers in your direction, or make them think that your house is really worth the asking price, I think.

(image from soakology.com)

 I could definitely fancy this set up but not at this price!

Anyone new to this blog must think that I am being very spendy.  I am but I'm not, too.  I've been laying in that bath for years, wondering how to get a shower over it one way or another, so this is not a spur-of-the-moment whim. Furthermore, I have the money to pay for it, and no-one will go into debt to achieve this.  Our generally frugal lifestyle allows us to make the monthly savings which pay for this kind of spend - once in a blue moon or two!  And, yes, I am Very Grateful that we are able to make these savings as I know that plenty of people are living one month to the next with not a spare penny.  I know.

Furthermore, I have been told about a chap in the village who does decorating for £50 a day, so he will be on my hit-list to call to get the stairs walls painted - which architect thought it would be a good plan to have a full-height wall around the stairwell, and a window so high in the outside wall that the sill is a flies' graveyard because I am not bringing a ladder in every week or two to get up there to clean it!?  [When the house is on the market, I shall have to, but that will be time enough!]