Maria Runs - Maria Runs

Christmas pudding and Bakewell tart bars!

Last week I was kindly sent some new nakd bars for me to try for the blog.

I had already tried the Christmas Pud bar (Sainsbury’s stock them- I have found them in two so far), and although I liked it (fruit and spices are a good combo), it was not my favourite. I told Andy I thought I could taste the alcohol (he thinks I am ridiculous, but I did think that the hint of natural flavour was hinting at the alcoholic pudding).

But, the Bakewell tart ones, well, they might be my new favourite flavour. As someone who can happily cut a slice from a block of marzipan, I am rather fond of that almond extract flavour, and this bar has it. I thought it had dried cherries in there too, but it didn’t. I mean, I could go on for ages about the wonderful natural ingredients of dates, nuts, raisins and natural flavour, and how they survive a week being squashed in the bottom of my bag, and how they are the perfect snack size etc etc. But I am sure you all know how much I love them already, so I won’t.

Anyway, I loved it so much that I ordered a case on their website (they were having 20% off, although when I checked it had changed to a multi buy offer). I also bought a mixed box of Trek and nakd crunch bars, and they included a couple of freebies.

I tried the cocoa chaos bar- tasty. Although it made me think of Professor Chaos. Just me?

Do you like the sound of the new bars? I am thinking of wrapping one Christmas pud bar in marzipan to make a Christmas cake bar. Good plan.

* I was sent the bars to try, but all opinions are my own.

My favourite baking book

Ages ago I bought myself a copy of The Clandestine Cake club recipe book.

I have to say, I have never had a bad recipe from it, and now it is pretty much my go-to book for any cakes that I want to make.

Last weekend Andy’s parents were back, and I fancied making a carrot cake for Sunday tea. Now, I love carrot cake but have often struggled to find a good recipe- they are either too dry, or crumbly, not spiced enough or don’t seem to bake properly because of too much carrot.

The search is over.

The CCC book has a wonderful recipe- the sultanas are soaked in orange juice, it has nuts (I used pecans and not walnuts), not too much carrot, spiced and just delicious.

Also, I have never made a good cream cheese icing, but again I have found it!

I added orange zest to the icing because I had used the juice for the cake, and also I just love orange cream cheese icing.

Perfection. I am already wondering when I can make it again!

I also made some banana bread, again using the CCC book.

One for work (with cream cheese icing, although a slightly different recipe) and then a plain one for home.

Mmmmmmmmm, banana bread. Keeping me going after long days at work, runs in the evening and more work after that.

I feel like I need to do a Julia and Julia style bakeathon- bake everything in the book! I have already made caramel cake, red velvet cake, battenberg cake, elderflower cordial cake, Dutch Speculaas cake (had a sort of home-made marzipan centre layer), lime and coconut loaf, lemon polenta cake, white chocolate and raspberry loaf and harvest spiced apple cake. And they have all been amazing. But there are 120 recipes so it is going to take me a while!

What is your favourite recipe book?

Cake and Bake Show 2014

So, it seems a long time ago now (over 2 weeks now) that I went to the Cake and Bake show in London, with one of my friends.

It was at Earl’s Court, and we managed to get into to London pretty early. We each bought one of the programmes which came with a goody bag, although I am not sure it was that good value- I like the bag though and use my one from last year a lot.

We were greeted by this cake:

Mary Berry atop a unicorn, with Paul Hollywood in the mud.

There were loads of amazingly decorated cakes as there were competitions going on, but I only took a few photos.

This was one of my favourites- no idea why but it seemed to rebel against the cutsey pink cakes, plus who doesn’t love afternoon tea?

We browsed the stalls for a bit (choosing which brownie stall to go for at lunch). A few times we queued up for a Dr Oetker goody bag, but each time we got near the front they ran out, ah well.

How do people manage to take photos of themselves in the mirror without posing in such an awkward way??

I bought myself a new apron (from the messy baker if anyone is interested)- they had loads of cute styles and when I went last year two friends bought them and I didn’t. It came with a free badge, so I chose this one:

It must be true if my badge says it!

After eating a brownie for lunch (while we were sitting down we saw Chetna and the beard guy from the bakeoff), we headed to our workshop. We watched a demo of piping different buttercreams which was really good. We could have had a try but it was a bit busy.

We had a final visit around the stalls where I came across the Ms Cupcake stall (and I remembered I had bought something delicious from there last year- a nanaimo bar)- so I had to visit and get something. Then it was time to get the train home, and unpack my goodies.

My apron (the link with white spots thing), some flavoured icing sugars for buttercream (I bought salted caramel, pistachio and black cherry- by Sugar and Crumbs), and some tea. The sugar was in the goody bag.

I also bought Andy a red velvet cookie sandwich from Ms Cupcake, but we ended up sharing it as it was huge.

Another lovely day out- there were so many stalls with freshly bakes breads and cakes (stalls from Borough market etc) and of course plenty of baking paraphernalia.

Now I am off to look at the Ms Cupcake book again and decide if I should treat myself…

Coconut water winner!

Hey peeps!

A quick one here, just to announce the winner of the Naked coconut water giveaway- I put names into a hat and Andy drew out out.

The winner is:

Anna (Anna the Apple).

Congratulations!

If you could send an email to me with the address that you would like it sent to, then I will let the people at Naked know.

15k with deer and parrots

Yep, you read that correctly!

Ages ago I signed up to this race, when it was the Wholefoods breakfast race. There was a choice of 5, 10 or 15k, so I went for the latter thinking that I was doing a 10 mile race the week before, so would be fine for that distance.

The t-shirt I ordered when I booked it still said Wholefoods

But at some point it changed over to Breast Cancer Care run, and I think possibly the route changed too as I was expecting to run along by the Thames. Originally I was going to drive down there, but this week the email said that the roads and car park would shut by 9am (my 15k wave didn’t go until 10.20) and I didn’t fancy getting up too early for a 90+ min drive on my own. So we booked a hotel, drove down after dinner on Friday, and then this morning Andy dropped me off at the park before he was off to Southampton.

The website was rather vague, saying that there were train stations but the start was quite a distance, but didn’t specify anything. The walk I did turned out to be 2k.

I saw a stag sitting in the ferns on the way up. I had my bag with me (the website said there was a bag drop) but when I got there someone came up and snatched my bag out of my hands and snapped at me “you missed it”- I felt really bad as I didn’t realise it had a closing time. I arrived at 10.10 so only just in time. There was a warm up, and I am not making this up, they did static stretches and at one point the lady said “if it’s not hurting you are not stretching enough”. What now???

The run briefing on the start line was a bit worrying as the guy was telling us “turn right at the first split point, remember to turn right, then later turn left, the repeat this bit”- I was very confused but luckily the course turned out to be well sign posted. Anyway, we had tags for shoes but there was no mat to cross at the start line. I hung back a bit as most of the 15k group looked pretty hardcore!

The course was lovely- it looped down to where I had come in (the stag was still there) and then up alongside more beautiful parkland. There was a large herd of deer further along- I was pretty happy spotting them while I ran. We ran the 5k route first, so at 4k people were cheering “not long to go”- er, not long until 1/3 of the way! The marshals on the route were great too, all cheering and chatting to the runners, and the photographers were shouting out “smile” before they took the photos.

Just before the 5k mark another runner started chatting to me, and we ran together until the 10k point when she picked up the pace a bit. At the 5k point we had to run past the finish line and then started a loop with 5-10 and 11-15k markers (we ran it twice). This loop was pretty (more herds of deer) but it was fairly undulating, with a few out and back parts which can feel a bit disheartening when you can see everyone on the “back” bit. Also the final 2k of each loop was uphill and into the wind- tough! I saw that at the 10k point (again right by the finish- very jealous of all the 10k runners at that point) at 58 minutes, so I was pretty pleased with my pace. At one point I thought I saw parrots- several birds flew across my path and they were bright green- I did wonder if they were woodpeckers, but they were too big and had such long tails.

I was very relieved when I reached the 14k marker, but that final k seemed to go on for ages (did I mention it was uphill?).

I crossed the finish line and felt really dizzy for a moment, and a marshal handed me a handful of powergel fruit puree things, and then someone else gave me some coconut water. I was after my bag, but it turned out that the finish area was different to the start area, and as I had missed the van (I didn’t know there was a van) so I had to walk back. The weather was OK- quite humid and it didn’t rain, but I was getting quite cold so the way back. I also saw more deer, but my phone was in my bag so I couldn’t take a photo.

I finally reached my bag and put my hoodie on.

I also took time to admire my medal!

Then it was time to try and get home. Rater naively I thought that seeing as the race was in London, public transport would be fine. I asked a marshal where I could get a taxi from, and she pointed me to another gate, so I walked down that way. A deer ran across the road, and I saw the parrots.

One was right in the knot of that tree but flew away as I took the picture.

There were some public toilets so I popped in to change before heading out of the park. It turned out the road was a red route, so no chance of hailing a cab. I found a couple of bus stops but they weren’t going to Wimbledon (where I needed to get to) so I walked to a parade of shops and called a taxi (my phone battery was going at this point so I was rather nervous). The taxi cost £20! Oh my goodness me! There was a sign saying 3 miles to Wimbledon common, but I didn’t think the station was that close so I didn’t fancy walking it.

Then, I got to the station, had 2 mins to get a ticket and catch a train (phew- also I was planning on listening to some podcasts, but could not because of my phone battery- had a free magazine in the goody bag which I held out hopes for, but it turned out to be Grazia- what a load of rubbish that magazine is) but then that train cancelled itself at Kings Cross, so I had to get off and wait….. urgh by this point I was so tired. I had not had lunch (I had one of the powergel fruit things, a mini bag of popchips and some water) and just wanted a shower. My mum picked me up from the station and took me home- I think I got home at half 3! Not ideal! I mentioned the parrots to my mum, who said what they were (some sort of parakeet or something) and said that they had one in their garden once. At least I wasn’t hallucinating!

Random goody bag including mission deli wraps, Bear cereal and more poweraid fruit puree stuff.

But I do love the medal!

Anyway, 15k done. Beautiful scenic route, loved seeing the deer, but think I should have thought it all through a bit better! Think local races are more my thing!

Now I just have to wait and see if I get an official time 🙂

EDIT- I didn’t get the text in the end, but just looked it up and I finished in 1:30.41- I am pleased with that as I think it compares to my 10 mile time.

Although a rather spectacular positive split- my 5k’s went 27.58, 30.32 and 32.11! (And in fact I think I did the first 5k even quicker as there were no mats on the start for the chips so I think everyone “started” at the same time, whereas at the 5, 10 and 15k points there were mats).