Citrus Side Salad

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

My savoury comfort food has to be baked sweet potato. Rub it with coconut oil, sprinkle on some salt and then let it do its thing in the oven for a good 45minutes (depending on size) at 180-200 degrees celcius. Perfection.

 Yes, Yes, I know, baked potatoes can be incredibly boring - often i crave the simplicity but sometimes they just don't cut it. Sometime you just have to make the extra effort and make them a little more special. That's where my Baked Sweet Potato Fries come in. Deliciously crunchy, soft and sweet with a little paprika kick, these babies are addictive.

Chocolate Pecan Oatmeal Cookies

Cookies have to be my favourite comfort food. Sometimes a good batch is all you need to get you over those hump days.

Minnie Mouse Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting

Hello everyone, it's been a while! I'm sorry for the radio silence recently, I hope you didn't miss me too much but I can promise that Bake it Blonde is back and better than ever! So for my first post back I thought I'd show you some adorable Minnie Mouse Cupcakes that I made for my friend Nettie's birthday recently.

Kitchen Challenge: Chocolate Eclairs

It’s time for a challenge. I created this blog as a way to share my passion for baking and cooking with the world, but also to push myself to experiment and try new recipes and ingredient combinations. This month I challenged myself with choux pastry. Pastry is an area in which I feel I can do the basics, shortctust mostly – enough for pies and tarts, but have always been nervous to experiment with. Until now I had associated éclairs and profiteroles as desserts that needed to be bought, not made – I had certainly never dreamed of making them myself.

Chicken Cobb Salad

While I love baking all sorts of rich, gooey desserts, every once in a while we all need something healthy. Or at least something which pretends to be. Healthier if you will.

Essential tips for BBQ-ing

We’ve all been there, the sun comes out and of course no one wants to be inside for a second longer than they have to be, let alone cooking away in a hot a kitchen. That’s why the humble BBQ is the perfect way to create simple, tasty dishes with minimum fuss and maximum outdoor exposure.

Flourless Chocolate Cake (Gluten Free)

So I have a little confession to make. I have never baked a gluten – free recipe before. To be fair, I am not gluten intolerant and therefore have had no real reason to, but at the minute I am all about pushing the boundaries and trying new things.

Summer Fruits Hand-Pies

So things have been pretty hectic recently.

Salted Caramel Banoffee Bars

In case you missed it, over the weekend I made this incredible salted caramel sauce. However I soon realised that there was only so much that I could eat with a spoon straight out of the jar. There is a limit, and I reached it. So I decided to use it to make salted caramel banoffee bars. Just look at that gooey caramel centre…

Salted Caramel Sauce

Happy Bank holiday guys and girls!! For once the sun is actually shining and now is the time to treat ourselves. I can’t think of a better way to do this than with homemade salted caramel sauce. I made this a couple of days ago and it has been staring at me from the fridge ever since.

While I obviously recommend eating this out of the jar with a spoon, this sauce is also fantastic drizzled over ice-cream, brownies or quite frankly, anything else your heart desires.

Mushroom and Asparagus Risotto

For me, there is little else more comforting that a big bowl of carbs. Pasta may be the obvious choice for a carb-fest but when done right, Risotto can be a welcome break from the norm. In this dish the earthy, woody flavours of the mushrooms are lightened with the crunchy asparagus and makes a wonderfully comforting Spring dinner.

Fresh Raspberry Victoria Sponge

Weekends aren’t proper weekends until they involve cake. I baked this little beauty up on Saturday morning and by Sunday it was almost gone,I may or may not have had a slice for breakfast.

Bank Holiday Brunch

A truly simple, easy-going brunch recipe.
Classic smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, elevated with a creamy, garlic spread.

Easy, Weeknight Chilli Recipe

When the sun is shining, a bowl of chilli might not be the first dinner option that comes to mind. While dinner tables are being filled with salads, the somewhat wintery chilli is often overlooked. Not at my dinner table! I love the comforting embrace that a steaming bowl of chilli can give you, and if paired with salad or tortilla chips it can easily transition the seasons and remain a weeknight staple.

Double chocolate, fruit and nut bark

With Easter coming up, I’m hugely into homemade gifts at the minute - Pinterest I blame you. A little extra effort to give gifts a personal touch that make even the simplest of creations pretty special.

Simple Scones

Is anyone else watching Mary Berry’s cooking show over on BBC1? I’ve been watching it on iPlayer and I have to say, she is wonderful. The passion she has for simple, traditional recipes is incredible and they always manage to look mouth-wateringly good. After watching the episode on afternoon tea, I was inspired to make some scones, plus I still have ton of jam to get through – 5 jars, what was I thinking? It’s a lovely, quick recipe made with store cupboard ingredients – perfect for when you have guests over or just feel like putting your feet up and nibbling on something a little more refined. Serve these still warm with butter, jam and lashings of clotted cream if you’re feeling naughty.

Perfect Chocolate Brownies

Hello Everyone!! How’s your week going? Mine’s going pretty well, get things done and planning for the weeks ahead, with Easter, Mothers Day and my mum’s Birthday coming up it going to take some serious organisation to get everything sorted. I feel particularly motivated at the moment and I think it may have something to do with Spring being just around the corner.

Last weekend was the first time this year I have been able to relax, with helping Patch move house various trips to the country and to Brighton – see here - and sorting out my own life it was a welcome change to plan to relax and enjoy the sunshine. You’ve got to make the most of it as we all know that it won’t stick around very long.

Anyway, on Saturday morning I decided that an indulgent its-ok-because-I-deserve-it weekend was nothing without an equally indulgent treat to go with it. I got out my recipe book and finally decided on these chocolate brownies. Now I know that the title claims ‘Perfect Chocolate Brownies’ but don’t be put off, I don’t blame you for being hesitant -a brief scroll through Pinterest and you will find hundreds of recipes claiming to be ‘Perfect’ or ‘The best’ but believe me these really are.

I can say this with 100% certainty due to the fact that no matter how many tweaks and changes that I try to make, I always prefer the original. I am not ashamed to say that this is not my recipe, all glory should be directed towards Hummingbird Bakery for these beauties.

The perfect mixture of a chewy, slightly crisp crust that cracks slightly when bitten into and a dense, gooey, fudgy chocolate centre that is the epitome of any brownie. Best served with ice cream (I chose raspberry sorbet as that what I had, but a high quality vanilla would go great here as well) and slightly warm from the oven.

What you’ll need:

• 200g dark chocolate
• 175g unsalted butter
• 325g caster sugar
• 130g plain flour
• 3 eggs
Icing sugar or ice cream to serve

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 170 celcius (325F)

Weigh out your chocolate and butter and melt them together over a saucepan of water. A gentle simmer is enough here as you don’t want to burn the chocolate, just melt it.

Give it a quick stir and your butter and chocolate should turn beautifully glossy and smooth like this:

Mmmm just look at that chocolate, silky and enchanting...

Once you’ve torn yourself away from scooping up the melted chocolate and letting it drizzle off the spoon in a come-hither fashion, you’re going to need to add the rest of the ingredients.

Add your sugar, 3 eggs and the flour into your chocolatey goodness. The end batter is quite thick so it is best to incorporate the ingredients into small stages – I stirred in the sugar, then the eggs and then the flour in three separate stages in order to ensure it was mixed well and there were no pockets of flour lurking within.



Spoon into a buttered baking tray (mine was 33 x 23 x 5cm) and let it bake in the oven for 30-35mins. You want to bring it out when the bottom third of a toothpick comes out clean, mine took 30mins. This will ensure that your brownies are beautifully gooey when cooled. Once you take it out of the oven, let the brownies rest in the baking tray for 5-10minutes and they should release easily.

Cut into thick slabs and serve to hungry friends. Believe me the smell of freshly cooked brownies brings them from far and wide.

This recipe made 8 very large brownies, which I later then cut into 4 to make cute little bitesize pieces for a BBQ we had that afternoon.They went down a treat!

xx

P.S. I’d love to see if any of you try these
– post your pictures on twitter and don’t
forget to tag @bakeitblonde so that I can see!

2-Ingredient Healthy Pancakes

I do realise that healthy and pancakes aren’t two words that usually go together, and no I haven’t gone insane. These pancakes are healthy and delicious.

I’m going to be honest here, these are not the fluffy, decadent pancakes that you see stacked up and drizzled in syrup - and with only two ingredients they never will be. What they are though, are a damn good alternative.

The trick here is to use about 3-4 tbsp mashed banana per medium- sized egg. For us, this worked out to be roughly one banana per egg. Looking up recipes online, some suggest adding a little baking powder to give them some extra lift but I skipped this and they still turned out really well. Golden brown, stacked up high, with fresh raspberries on top.

Decorate with your favourite topping and enjoy your pancakes – guilt free!

xx

The Jam Man

Have you ever been to Herne Hill Farmers Market? No? You should. And here’s why - the Jam Man. Every three Sundays or so the jam man heads on down to Herne Hill and sets up his stall selling jams, marmalades and chutneys.

The jams he sells are amazing, I mean seriously good. Patch and I went a little overboard and bought 5 pots between us - he does only come every three weeks so we thought it wise to stock up! After a lot of deliberation and a lot of taste testing, we decided on Plum Jam, two Apricot and Lemon conserves, Raspberry and Apricot conserve, and Strawberry conserve.

Here they are in all their greatness:

And with Pancake Day just around the corner I knew exactly what to pair them with!

Here’s my recipe for perfect pancakes:

What you’ll need

• 110g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs (medium or large)
• 200ml milk (I prefer to use almond milk as I think it adds extra depth to the flavour)

What to do:

1. In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour and add the salt
2. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the eggs
3. Begin to whisk the eggs and the flour until they form a thick paste (this is important to you don’t end up with too many lumps in your pancake batter)
4. Gradually add small quantities of milk and whisk until the batter is smooth
   *at this point it helps to let the batter rest, leave it as little or as long as you like but I would say a minimum of 10 minutes. I often mix the batter and then leave it in the fridge (covered) overnight so that it is ready for when I need it in the morning. Give the batter a quick mix if it separates a little.
5. Melt a knob of butter or a little oil in your frying pan, it needs to be a medium temperature so take care not to let your butter burn
6. Pour a ladle full of batter into the frying pan and then swirl the batter so that it coats the bottom of the pan in a thin layer
7. Once the batter is semi-cooked ontop and the surface is peppered with small bubbles (about 1-2 minutes depending on the thickness of your pancake) flip the pancake and let it cook on the other side for a further 2 minutes.

It should look golden-brown and delicious.

Serve with whatever toppings take your fancy – lemon and sugar, banana and nutella, ice cream, golden syrup. For me it was a no brainer – jam!

Happy Pancake day everybody
xx