Baking can be healthy AND tasty

The only downside of baking is that mostly it involves using ingredients that aren't particularly good for you. Of course, homemade recipes of even the naughtiest of treats are generally better for you in some ways than shop-bought ones, mainly because you know exactly what's in them (none of those long scientific names of additives that we don't have a clue what they are). But for the rest, the amount of sugar and butter that is used is not worth thinking about if you're watching what you eat! I've tried to choose some breakfast recipes that are a bit healthier, just because it's breakfast and I feel like you should start the day as you mean to go on, but most of them I wouldn't like to guess at the calories! The amount of patisseries I've eaten since I've been in France just doesn't bare thinking about, so I decided to set myself a challenge of searching for a healthy recipe of some kind that still tastes good. 

I came across this recipe for Oatmeal Bars the other day and decided to give them a go. Considering that they contain no sugar or butter, they taste pretty amazing! And they're surprisingly moist as well. They probably contain about two of your five-a-day in one bite too! I'd say they're the perfect little snack to keep you going between meals. They might even be nice for breakfast, if you're not a cereal person or you're in a bit of a rush. For those of you after a healthy treat, give these little beauties a go: so easy to make, bursting full of fruit and great for on-the-go! You wouldn't even guess they're healthy, I promise! What's not to love?

Banana and Apple Oaty Bars     makes about 16 bars

Ingredients:

2 Cups Porridge Oats

1/2 Cup  Dessicated Coconut

1/3 Cup Raisins

2 Large Ripe Bananas

2 Apples (peeled and finely grated)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees and grease a baking tray.
2. In a large bowl, mash the bananas.
3. Add the grated apple and vanilla extract and stir well.
4. Add the oats, coconut and raisins and stir again until all ingredients are well combined.
5. Put the mixture into the baking tray and press down well with the back of a spoon.
6. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes until the edges start to crisp up.
7. Remove from the oven and when cool enough cut into squares.
8. When you're feeling peckish eat and enjoy!

A breakfast crumble with a secret ingredient...

I can't seem to stay away from breakfast recipes at the moment, but this one has to be my favourite yet! It tastes so good that I'd even go as far to say I'd have it as a dessert. In fact, if I had to live on only this for the rest of my life I'd be quite happy with that. But what is it I hear you ask? Well, I'm going to call it a sweet potato breakfast crumble. And yes I did just say sweet potato. For breakfast. Now this may sound a little strange, but please, give it a chance, because it really does taste incredible! Just look at it...my mouth's watering just thinking about it!

Bascially, I had some leftover sweet potato and I've always wondered what it would be like in a sweet recipe. Usually, I just bung it in a Thai curry or roast it with various other veg for dinner, but I wanted to try something a little different. When I came across this recipe I just had to give it a go! Now I am a massive fan of crumbles (served with copious amounts of custard, of course!), so seeing this recipe made me quite excited! And oh my gosh was I happy with the result! I made it the night before (but didn't put the topping on til the morning), so all I had to do was put it in the oven when I woke up. And what a wonderful start to the morning it was. The filling was deliciously sweet and creamy with a beautiful cinnamon flavour, whilst the topping had the perfect crunchy bite to it. Have it straight from the oven and you will understand what I mean when I say I could eat it forever! Full of fruit (definitely at least one of your five-a-day) and nourishing enough to last you til lunchtime (it kept me going through a good 30 minutes of swimming!), this certainly is a breakfast worth waking up for! 

Sweet Potato Breakfast Crumble    makes 3 servings

Ingredients:

Filling:

1/2 Cup Porridge Oats

1/2 Cup Coconut Milk 

1/2 Cup Milk (plus extra if needed)

1 Small Sweet Potato

1 Large Ripe Banana

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Cinnamon

2 tsp Runny Honey

4 tbsp Raisins

Topping:

1/3 Cup Chopped Walnuts

2 tbsp Butter

2 tbsp Plain Flour

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

Method: 

1.  Peel and chop the sweet potato and boil for about 5 minutes until tender.
2. Drain and set aside.
3. Put the oats and milk into a pan.
4. Whisk and bring to the boil.
5. Turn down the heat and cook for about 5-7 minutes, stirring regularly. If it gets too dry, you may need to add more milk.
6. Add the sweet potato and banana to the porridge and mash until there are just some larger chunks.
7. Add the vanilla extract, cinnamon and honey and cook for a few more minutes.
8. To make the topping mix all the ingredients together with a fork until they are combined.
9. Put the porridge mixture in a large ovenproof dish and spread out evenly.
10. Sprinkle the raisins on top.
11. Put the topping on and cook for about 20 minutes, until the topping is golden.
12. Remove from the oven and enjoy!

   

A birthday means cake!

It was my friend's birthday today and my immediate thought was "let's bake a cake!!", so me and two other friends did just that. And it was beautiful. EXTREMELY sweet and chocolatey, but if you can't treat yourself on your birthday, when can you? The sponge was perfectly light and airy and the icing was (eventually) just the right consistency after a bit of trial and error with ingredients! I have to give all the credit  to Alex though for the decoration, who seems to be the queen of cake-decorating! We were in a bit of a rush and my hand is just not steady enough when under pressure - I think I need more practice at that. The birthday girl loved it though (I hope!) and it was a good excuse for the rest of us to sit in Parc Jourdan with a big slab of chocolate cake and a glass of champagne sparkling wine. The sun even decided to come out! I just won't mention the strange French chav who was practising his rapping techniques on a bench nearby - thankfully, we were too busy eating cake to take too much notice... 

Chocolate Birthday Cake serves 6 large slabs, for 6 greedy people!

Ingredients:

For the cake:

200g Butter

200g Caster Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

4 Eggs

150g Self-Raising Flour

50g Cocoa Powder

For the icing:

140g Butter

200g Icing Sugar

80g Cocoa Powder

3 tsp Nutella

Sprinkles or whatever decorations of your choice

[NB. I just guessed the quantities for the icing, but this is a real recipe that I found which is more exact!]

Method:

1. Grease a cake tin (1 large or 2 small) and preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add the eggs and mix, one at a time.
4. Add the vanilla essence, flour and cocoa powder and mix again. 
5. Pour into cake tin and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until a knife comes out clean when inserted.
6. Remove from oven and cool.
7. If using one large cake tin, cut cake in half once completely cool.
8. For the icing, cream the butter and gradually add the icing sugar and cocoa powder.
9. Add vanilla essence and a spoonful of Nutella if you're feeling really extravagant!
10. Spread half the icing on one of the cake layers evenly and sandwich together.
11. Spread the rest on top of the cake.
12. Decorate as you wish!

Hang onto your stale bread...!

First of all, apolgies for my absence on here the last week or so! Although I do love baking, when the sun is shining and it's 20 degrees outside (yes, that's right - in March!), that's where I'd rather be. This is why I chose to live in the south of France! Gone are the days of snow and wanting to be wrapped up inside with a café au lait to warm me up. Now I want to be sitting in the sunshine with a demi pêche in my hand watching the world go by.  

I just thought I'd share this little breakfast treat with you though, because as you know, I like to spice things up a bit sometimes when it comes to breakfast. It's also perfect if, like me, you hate wasting food! Because although baguettes really are delicious when you buy them fresh from the boulangerie, they literally last a couple of hours before going stale. And I mean, I do like bread, but eating a whole baguette to myself in a day is a bit much really! But wait, I have a solution which means not throwing it away!! And actually, the staler the better. In English we call it French toast, but here they call it pain perdu. I think I've just discovered my perfect breakfast! I wondered why it was called pain perdu at first, because perdu translates as 'lost'. Lost bread? No, that can't be right! Of course, it has another meaning too that makes far more sense which is 'spoiled', so basically keep hold of your stale bread and get cooking!

It's a bit like a sweet eggy bread really, but the cinnamon gives it that extra special flavour. And it tastes even better the longer you leave the bread to soak in the egg mixture. You could serve it with any fruit you like - I just chose raspberries and banana because it was what I had, but I think strawberries would go wonderfully too. Sprinkling some pecan nuts on top might be nice too to give it some extra bite and even a drizzle of maple syrup if you're feeling extravagant. And of course, the nutella that I stuffed in the middle of the bread finished it off beautifully! Once you've had this for breakfast once, you'll want it every day. Have a play around and add whatever extras you fancy. I'm afraid the quantities of ingredients are guess-work, as I didn't follow a recipe exactly, but this is roughly what I used. It's so easy though, that you won't go wrong. I hope you enjoy this breakfast as much as I did!

Nutella stuffed pain perdu with raspberries and banana

Ingredients:

Half a stale baguette (or equivalent in thick sliced bread)

1 Egg

1/4 cup Milk

1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence

1/2/ tsp Cinnamon

2 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Plain Flour

Nutella

Handful of Raspberries

1 Banana

Method:

1. Whisk the egg and milk together in a shallow bowl.
2. Melt 1 tbsp of butter and add to egg mixture.
3. Add vanilla essence, cinnamon and flour and whisk until combined.
4. Cut bread into thick slices.
5. Make a hole in the crust of each bread slice, big enough to fit a tsp of Nutella in.
6. Put a tsp of Nutella into each hole.
7. Put each bread slice into the egg mixture for about a minute on each side to soak up as much of the mixture as possible. 
8. Melt 1tbsp butter in a frying pan and once melted, add the slices of bread.
9. Cook for about 1-2 minutes on each side, until golden.
10. Remove from the heat and place on plate.
11. Serve with raspberries and bananas or whatever fruit/toppings you fancy and enjoy!

Twice Cooked

Ok, so I know the last time I made biscuits it didn't quite go as planned, but as I'm not the sort of person who gives up on things easily, I thought I'd give them another go. Plus, I bought my Mum this cute little biscuit recipe book and stamp to go with it for her birthday and secretly I really wanted to give them a go for myself! And with the recipe being in French, it reminded me of being in France!

Seeing as I'm home, it's the perfect time to do some baking with my Mum and it also meant I could have a go at using our wonderful oven (sorry if the oven saga is getting a bit tiresome now...I will shut up about it soon, promise!). And it did cook the biscuits to perfection, even if I do say so myself! I chose some lemon ones which were crunchy and crisp, just like a biscuit should be. They weren't too lemony either, but the lemon curd in the middle just gave them that extra kick they needed. And I think the stamp makes them look quite professional. This time I can safely say that the biscuits were a success and I will definitely be trying them again, but perhaps with an alternative flavour. So I CAN make biscuits. And I CAN blame my stupid French oven for their lack of success last time. Give them a go. They're really easy to make and perfect for satisfying that sweet craving we all get from time to time. And of course, I don't really need to say it, but they go perfectly with a nice cup of (English) tea!

Biscuits au citron    makes about 12 biscuits

Ingredients:

1 Lemon

80g Butter

120g Sugar

1 Egg

180g Plain Flour

I Jar Lemon Curd

Icing Sugar (for decoration)

Method:

1. Grate the zest of a lemon.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a mxing bowl.
3. When the sugar is incorporated add the egg and lemon zest and mix again.
4. Gradually add the flour, a little at a time, whilst mixing.
5. It should all come together to form a dough.
6. Leave the dough to rest in the fridge for half an hour.
7. Preheat the (fan!) oven to 180 degrees.
8. Cover a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
9. On a floured surface roll out the dough so it is about 4-5mm in thickness.
10. Cut out circles from the dough using a glass about 5cm in diameter - you should get about 24.
11. If you have a stamp, now is the time to stamp half of the circles!
12. Place all the circles on the baking sheet and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
13. Leave to cool on a cooling tray.
14. Spread half of the biscuits with lemon curd and sandwich together with their other half.
15. Enjoy as quickly as possible before they're all eaten!

Extremely accurate scales that I have the pleasure of using when I'm at home! I must invest in some for next year.

The oven in action!!

By the way, if you're wondering what the title is all about, it's another language reference! I'm sure many of you may know this already, but the word biscuit actually comes from the French language and litterally translates as 'twice cooked' because originally there were two parts to the cooking process of biscuits - apparently first they were baked and then dried out in a slow oven. So there's a little interesting useless fact for you all! Of course, the main thing is we all like a good biscuit and it doesn't matter how they're cooked as long as they taste good!

Mums know best.

Being home has reminded me that, yes, my Mum does know best when it comes to cooking. The number of times that I just want to ask her for a little bit of advice when I'm cooking up a culinary delight and she's not there makes me wish I'd written all her tips down somewhere. Well, I'd like to share some of her recipes with you. Plus, she's been nagging asking me if she could make a contribution to my blog for some time now, so here's her chance! She makes a pretty amazing banana bread loaf and here it is. Mum, over to you, my first guest blogger!

"I have been so impressed with Rachel’s baking blog and as I was baking this weekend, I wondered if she allowed guest writers?"       I do!!

"One of my standard bakes is Banana Loaf (no French connection – sorry!) and as we were having friends round for coffee followed by a walk I thought it would be a good thing to eat before exercise to give us energy and a bit of a healthy aspect (bananas and nuts, 5 a day?) (Actually our friends couldn’t make it due to snowy conditions so we had to eat the cake ourselves!)"

"The recipe I have is in my ‘old recipe’ file so I guess it’s from the mid-nineties. It’s from my sister-in–law, Lorraine and was given to me along with a Carrot Cake recipe – more healthy options! There is also a tip from my other sister-in-law, Anita, who introduced me to freezing ripe bananas when you have too many, so they can be used in recipes. I think the recipe actually works better with frozen bananas, perhaps because of the moisture content. That may explain why the bananas in the photo look rather black and not too appetising!"

Banana Bread Loaf    serves 10

Ingredients: 

200g Self-Raising Flour

1/4 tsp Mixed Spices

100g Butter or Margarine

400g Ripe Bananas (before peeling)

150g Caster Sugar

80g Chopped Pecans (or whatever nuts of your choice!)

2 Lightly Beaten Eggs 

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.
3. Rub butter and flour together.
4. Mash bananas and add eggs.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the butter and flour mixture and mix. Don't over mix.
6. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix again.
7. Pour into the loaf tin and cook for 1 hour 10 minutes.
8. It should be ready when a skewer comes out cleanly but this is nomrally longer than 1 hour 10 minutes! 

"It's very easy to make and, of course, goes well with a cup of tea!"

I'd definitely recommend making this delicious banana loaf. It's made from the sort of ingredients that you tend to just have in anyway and literally takes about 5 minutes to make! Thanks Mum...you have permission to make another contribution sometime in the future!