Peanut Butter Granola Bars

It's halfway through your school or work day and you find yourself barely awake since you've probably not had as much sleep as you'd wished for the night before. This peanut butter granola bar is perfect for a pick me up snack, and since they contain oats, the energy will be slowly released throughout the rest of the day so that you don't come crashing down an hour after eating one.

Ingredients:

-180g rolled oats

-33g peanuts, chopped

-95g peanut butter

-85g honey

-dried fruit, seeds, nuts, choc chips etc. (optional)

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to gas mark 4.

2) Combine the oats and peanuts.

3) Melt the honey and peanut butter and add to the mixture.

4) Throw in any optional extras of your choice. (I used dried cranberries and dark chocolate chips)

5) If, at this stage, the mix is too dry add in more melted honey or peanut butter. 

6) Put the granola bar concoction into a lined tray and bake for 25 minutes. 

7) These granola bars also work as none bake by putting them into the fridge for an hour. 

I hope you enjoyed this simple recipe, stay around for another blog post next Sunday! :) 

Becky x

Sugar-Free Banana Bread

Banana bread has to be one of my favourite types of loaf cake. I love how moist the cake is and that you can add in pretty much anything you like such as chocolate, dried fruit or nuts. Instead of using sugar in this recipe, I replaced the ingredient with dates. Medjool dates are the best for baking, however I used the dried, stoned dates by Whitworths which worked fine as long as I had let them soak in some water for a while. Although the title of this post says that they're sugar-free, my dark chocolate chip loaf obviously isn't, however, my walnut version is. 

Ingredients
- 3 ripe bananas
- 175g ground almonds
- 150g self raising flour 
- 75g butter
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 medjool dates (72g stoned dates)
- 50g of optional dried fruit, nuts, chocolate etc.
- Handful of flaked almonds (Optional)

Method
1) Remove any stones and place dates in a bowl of water if they're hard.
2) Mix the ground almonds, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg.
3) Add in any optional extras. 
4) Melt the butter in the oven on gas mark 4 in an oven proof dish or mug. 
5) Mash the dates to form a paste and add the bananas and mash together. 
6) Add the vanilla to the mashed banana and dates.
7) Remove the melted butter from the oven and add to the banana mixture. 
8) Pour the wet and dry mixture together and combine. 
9) Evenly distribute the banana bread batter between two loaf tins and sprinkle with a handful of flaked almonds or any other extra you wish (I used chopped walnuts on one and dark chocolate chips on the other).
10) Bake for 30-35 minutes. Poke with a sharp knife or cocktail stick and remove, if clean, the loafs are cooked. 
11) Remove from the tins and place on a cooling rack. 
12) Let the loafs cool before slicing. 

I hope you enjoyed this recipe post, stay around for another next Sunday! :) 

Becky x

Spider Web Halloween Cupcakes

Since Halloween is only a few days away I thought it'd be appropriate to do a post inspired by the day. This recipe was inspired by a few different cake decorations and styles I saw on Pinterest which I combined together.  

For the cake you'll need...

- 175g Self Raising Flour

- 175g Sugar

- 175g Butter (at room temperature)

- 3 Eggs

- Orange Food Colouring

- Vanilla Extract or Orange Flavouring

- 25g Cocoa Powder

- Splash of Milk

For the topping you'll need...

- Chocolate

- 100g Butter

- 200g Icing Sugar

- Orange Food Colouring

- Vanilla Extract

Method

1) Melt the chocolate, put into an icing bag with a small hole in the end, and on top of a lined baking tray, draw out spider webs. Pop the spider webs into the fridge to set whilst you make the cakes. 

2) Preheat the oven to gas mark 5. Prepare the cake tins.

3) Beat together the butter and sugar in a bowl, then whisk the eggs and add to the mixture bit by bit.

4) Sift the flour and add to the wet mixture. 

5) Split the mixture between two bowls. 

6) Add orange food colouring and vanilla extract to one bowl and combine. 

7) Sift the cocoa powder into the other bowl and add a splash of milk (about 1-2 tbsp) and combine.

8) Share the orange cake mixture between the cake cases so that they're all about 1/3 full. 

9) Fill up the remaining 1/3 of each case with the chocolate mixture.

10) Place in the oven for about 12-15 minutes until they ounce back when you press them with your ring finger, or when a toothpick is put into one and it comes out clean. 

11) Remove the cupcakes from the baking tray and allow to cool down on a cooling rack. 

12) Once they've cooled down, begin to make the frosting by whipping together the butter, icing sugar, vanilla extract and orange food colouring.

14) Put the frosting into a piping bag and decorate the cakes however you'd like.

15) I finished mine off by getting the chocolate webs I made earlier and popped them into the top of the frosting. 

I filled mine a bit too full here, so I'd recommend putting less into the cases. 

I hope you enjoyed this Halloween post, stay around for more in the future! :) 

Becky x