Recipe of the Week - Flapjacks

Oh I do love a flapjack. A gooey, stodgy, syrupy flapjack is sometimes better than a brownie and always far more superior and underrated in my mind to a cupcake. The only problem is recipes vary hugely, some are too floury and dry, some are too crumbly and fall apart, some go rock solid and crunchy, some are way too chewy and stick to your teeth like superglue. The even more annoying thing is I have tried so many recipes in the past from sources online that I always forget which is a good one. Anyway, here is a good one, a very good one. It has banana in (which is my idea of heaven), but any banana-phobes out there can substitute for sultanas if you so wish. So quick and easy are these scrummy little treats that I have unashamedly whipped up three batches in the last week.

I am sharing this recipe with you via the ever talented super bakers The Baking Twins, their new baking blog is here, go follow!

Ingredients
150g salted butter
75g caster sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
250g porridge oats
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 mushed bananas

Method
Melt the butter, golden syrup and sugar in a pan
Mix in the vanilla, banana and oats
Spread into an 8inch square tin
Bake and 180 for around 20 mins
Cool in the tin then turn out onto a chopping board and chop into thick fingers

The Natural History Museum

Honey is obsessed with dinosaurs, really really obsessed. Potty training involves watching Jurassic park on the iPad, (the scary T-Rex bits not the namby pamby Triceratops bits,) and any walk anywhere always ends up hunting for dinosaurs in bushes and behind trees. So a trip to The Natural History Museum has been on the cards for a while.
I haven't been for about ten years and it did not disappoint. The dinosaur section has been completely redone, the main event being a moving, roaring, giant animatronic model of a Trex at the end of a walkway, which roams over the top of huge skeletons of a Camarasaurus and a Diplodocus. Honey loved it, and we had to sneak back in to see the Trex so she could watch it's fearsome roaring until we finally dragged her away. The whole thing was hugely interactive for children with lots to see and do and despite being packed didn't seem crowded or rushed.
Another point to mention is that the museum is free entry, which is a rare thing on a family day out. We did gladly make up for this in the museum shop however. The baby changing facilities were clean, easy and always free, and there were lots of very helpful staff ready to point us to where we wanted to go. One of which pointed out that due to huge queues at the main entrance you can walk straight in round the side through the smaller Exhibition Road entrance where there is rarely ever a queue.

The whole day was a delight and I am sure we will be heading back for another dinosaur hunt again very soon.

For more info see the Natural History Museum's website here.

Crocheting

I've recently got into crocheting, I basically wanted something easy to be able to do in front of the TV in the evening which wasn't looking at my iPhone and which I could pick up and put down. My granny had tried to teach me to knit when I was little and I hated it, so that was out and the crochet needle it was. I followed a couple of The Party Artisan's awesome tutorials on YouTube and got hooked (you can watch them and check out her other fab projects on the blog here, thank you Carolyne!) However the problem started when I decided to google ideas. Knitting has had a huge resurgence but crocheting seems to be still trailing behind in cool, and so I became swapped with rather naff, twee things I did not want to make or millions of uninspiring dated granny blankets. Now I do love granny squares but truthfully I think they may be a little out of my remit at the moment.

It was then I randomly came upon The Purl Bee. Basically the coolest knitting and crocheting blog around where I found the inspiration above. It is part of The Purl Soho, a gorgeous little shop on Broome Street in Manhattan, they do classes, patterns, beautiful yarns and buttons, the list goes on. So while I'm perfecting my double crochet and saving for some super soft Merino, whilst crocheting some multicoloured crochet balls (see below), I will be writing a list of projects to begin from the glorious Purl Bee.

If you know of any other inspiring crochet projects please let me know!

My first ever, wobbly, holey, but perfect crochet ball!

GUEST POST - Recipe of the week - Amazing Cadbury's Creme Egg Brownies

This week's recipe is a guest post which comes courtesy of the brilliant, beautiful, blonde, baking twins Rozzie and Lizzie. The twenty-two year old twins bake, a lot, from beautiful cakes, to delicious bread, yummy muffins, gooey cookies, sticky flapjacks, scrummy cupcakes, and that is just the sweet stuff. After posting the above pictures and recipe on Facebook they quickly went viral and became a Facebook phenomenon, reaching 25k shares in three days (so apologies if you have seen and tried these already). Luckily for me the girls are sharing the recipe with me, and you, too. So without further ado here it is, the best damn brownie recipe you'll ever try.....

AMAZING CADBURY'S CREME EGG BROWNIES!

185g unsalted butter
185g best dark chocolate
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
3 large eggs
275g golden caster sugar
6 Cadbury’s Crème eggs cut in half.

Preheat the oven to 160C and grease a 20 cm square baking tin.
Melt the butter and dark chocolate together either in the microwave or in a bowl over boiling water.
Break 3 large eggs into a large bowl and tip in 275g golden caster sugar. With an electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar until they look thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes. You will know it's ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume.
Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse, and then gently fold together.
Hold a sieve over the bowl of eggy chocolate mixture and sift the cocoa and flour mixture, shaking the sieve from side to side, to cover the top evenly. Gently fold in to the mixture.
Pour into the baking tin and cook for 15 minutes then take out of the oven and gently press the cadburys crème egg halves into the mix, spacing them apart evenly. Put back in the over for another 5-10 minutes.
Leave to cool before removing from tin and cutting into squares.

For the very few of you who aren't creme egg fans try substituting in oreos or a few mini eggs for the creme egg halves they are just as yummy!

If you want to follow Rozzie and Lizzie on Twitter and see more of their wonderful baking creations you can do so on twitter here and here.

Ps These two really are ones to watch, if they don't have a book or cookery show out soon I'll be very surprised!