Maria Runs - Maria Runs

Battenburg Baking

So, last weekend I was flicking through my favourite cake recipe book (The Clandestine Cake Club book) and noticed the recipe for Battenberg or Battenburg, depending on what book/ website you go for. I love almond cake, and marzipan, but have never made one before. Well, no time like the present!

You can get special tins, but the book had instructions for how to divide a normal tin in half using folded baking paper.

Also, I don’t have pink food colouring, but I had red. The plan was to use only a little, but as you will see, it is rather more shocking pink than pastel! Anyway, what I would do next time is weigh the bowl so I could work out the weight of the final mixture, as I did it by eye and ended up with more pink mixture.

After the cake cooled, I cut it into the four slices and trimmed the ends. Again, I might trim the ends after assembling next time, as the marzipan needed neatening too. Although the offcuts were a good bonus! I did this while the Grand Prix was on- I quite like having a project like this that I can get on with in the living room.

Stuck together with warmed apricot jam, and then rolled in marzipan.

I bought some new plates this week, and they were the perfect size and shape- amazing!

We took it to Andy’s parents for tea, but we didn’t eat it all so we left them a few slices and we had some to take home too.

We enjoyed a slice each on Wednesday (good post run pudding).

I am really glad I had a go- it was a bit time consuming to assemble, but it looked really pretty and tasted good too.

Battenburg- yay or nay?

Salad Sprinkles

On a side note, Andy’s old phone used to show the weather each day, and light rain was classed as “sprinkles”, which I think sounds so much nicer.

But this post is about a different type of sprinkle.

Sainsbury’s kindly sent me some salad sprinkles and I have been enjoying them on so many meals.

Salad 1:

Pea shoots, cherry tomatoes, avocado, tomato salsa, hummus and Italian sprinkles.

Salad 2: Sliced cos lettuce, cherry tomatoes, avocado, salsa (yes, bought salsa so had to use it on most salads!), hummus and oat cakes, pine nut sprinkles.

Salad 3: Roasted vegetable cous cous, mixed leaves, cherry tomatoes, salsa again, halloumi cheese (grilled for a few minutes), pine nut sprinkles.

Salad 4: Pea shoots, cherry tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, avocado, wenslydale+cranberries, sour dough with sundried tomato+basil hummus (which is my favourite hummus- I am always very happy when I manage to buy some), Italian sprinkles.

Salad 5: Caramelised onion and black bean dip + avocado on ryvita, spinach, tomatoes, pine nut sprinkles, balsamic dressing.

The toasted seed and pine nut one was my favourite- containing sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and pine nuts) as it was simple and added such a good crunch.

The Italian style sprinkle was lovely too, with mixed seeds as well as dried red onion and sundried tomatoes for more flavour. Each packet was listed as one serving, but I found them to be pretty generous (25g is a lot of seeds!) so I would say you could easily have them over 3 or 4 meals.

They also sent me a dried fruit & honey seed sprinkle but I keep forgetting to buy yoghurt to put it on, so I shall look forward to that another day.

Do you love a bit of crunch on your salad? If I go to a place with a salad bar I will always add something for crunch, but at home I don’t tend to. We have pine nuts which we have on pesto pasta, so I don’t like adding them to salads as then they get used up too quickly! I also like it when you can add a few dried cranberries or raisins, but again when I make salads at home I forget about add-ons like that.

* I was sent the salad sprinkles in exchange for a blog post, and was sent a voucher to purchase additional salad items with.

Epic afternoon tea

Last week I was off to London to see some friends. We try to meet up in the holidays, and recently have been going for afternoon tea as it means we are left to it and can spend hours catching up.

Andy dropped me off at the station on his way to work, so I had a bit of time in London to myself.

It was a lovely sunny day, so I headed to Trafalgar Square.

We live pretty close to London but don’t go in that often. According to my friend this giant chicken has been there for ages, but I had not seen it before.

I also popped to the Wholefoods in Piccadilly, for a cold drink but also a little browse.

Ocado now stock the kids ranges of these, so I had tried the chocolate and chocolate orange versions (they are coconut milk based drinks, and are delicious)- of course seeing the word “chai” I was sold straight away. I did buy a few bits in there too. Although I wish I had bought a few more of these chai drinks as they are so tasty.

Restrained purchases: Carrot, apple and cinnamon granola, cacao powder and some raw chocolates.

Then I walked to meet my friends. We went to the BB Bakery in Covent Garden (well really it is off The Strand and really near Trafalgar Square)-and it was amazing.

There was a tea menu, which I love, and the teapots were so pretty (and each one different) with little infuser balls hanging in them. We were also given some orange juice- this seems to be at a lot of afternoon tea menus now. All the crockery was pretty but mis-matched-I loved that to.

This was for 3 of us to share, and they had put all the vegetarian sandwiches together. It was a mountain of food! A little blini thing, cream cheese + cucumber sandwiches, ciabatta bread with tomato and mozzarella, a little quiche (I don’t really like them so didn’t have mine, but it is nice to have some variety). Also there were 3 of each cake- sometimes you have to bargain or cut them in half, but we all had the same. A lemon meringue tart, a ginger cake topped with custard and fresh berries, a strawberry cupcake with strawberry icing (this was really good- we all thought it would be a plain cupcake with pink icing, but it had fruit in the cake, and the icing tasted really fruity too), a macaroon, and the most amazing squidgy pecan brownie. The bakery also sell cupcakes and brownies, and I would say if you are nearby have a look and treat yourself because they were so good. (Also, we booked in advance so it was a little cheaper I think, although their website seems to have 2 different prices so I am not sure).

All the while they kept offering to top up our teapots with fresh water, and hours later when we had finished most of the tier, they brought out warm scones with home-made jam and cream. No photos of those though!

We ended up being there for about 4 hours I think! A good catch up! Then it was time to brave the rush hour tube and get the train home. I was planning on walking back from the station, but it was much later than I thought we would be, so Andy picked me up which meant I could get to body pump on time. It turns out that afternoon tea is pretty good fuel for pump!

I would not like to live in London, but I do like being close by and it is great to be able to pop in for the day. Do you enjoy being a tourist to places close to you?

Feeling the parkrun love!

(But, no pancakes…..)

So after getting back from holiday I had a bit of trouble getting back into a running routine- going away for the weekend didn’t help things. But on Monday morning I headed out on a gentle 3 miles to try and help re-set my body clock. I had stiff calves, probably from the long car journey the day before, but it was good.

I was so nervous before Sweatshop- each week different people come so I never know if I will be on my own or with someone, and missing a few weeks meant I would struggle with the speed. I ran with other people for about half of it, then I got caught when crossing a road (the others managed it, and I had to wait a bit) so was a bit behind. But all good. The hip (which was niggly after a long bus journey, flight and car rides) had been behaving. Body Pump went well- I was careful during squats and lunges, but I think in a way it helped.

When Saturday rolled around it was time for parkrun- hooray!

Photo: <3 parkrun and now we have a sign !

I was so excited about the flag that once I had finished and queued up to have my barcode scanned, I went back to the car, got my phone and went back to take a picture.

I was so excited to see that we have a flag! It makes it seem official. Plus it marks the start properly- usually at just before 9 most people have to shuffle back as they are all too far forwards. I wanted to keep under 10 minute miles. I knew I was not in speedy form, but also knew that I could go faster than my Monday shuffle. But I didn’t want to get a sore hip again, so that felt sensible but also challenging.

I was really pleased with how I managed- I kept glancing at my watch to check my pace. The course is along a path, 3 laps of the lake, and back along the path.. During the second lap of the lake the wind really picked up, and at that time I was creeping towards 9.55 min miles, but of course on the other part of the lake the wind was behind me. For ages I was behind a tall man pushing a buggy, but he seemed to be going a fraction too slowly so at the start of the final I overtook him. I was then regretting it- he was a good windbreaker so I should have waited!

It was my lungs that were struggling more than my legs though! My time was 29.34, so under the 10 min miles I wanted to do. All good.

I had promised Andy I would make us French toast if he waited for me to get home. Yummy. We bought some brioche, so for two of us I whisked up 2 eggs, a little almond milk (maybe 50ml) and some vanilla extract. and soaked the bread for a bit. I put a little coconut oil in the pan and then cooked them one slice at a time, although I am not sure if the coconut oil was actually needed.

Served with fruit, maple syrup and even a little maple butter (my word this is heavenly stuff).

Andy started his while my final one was cooking.

On Sunday I went out for a long run. I could not decide and initially thought I would do about 6, but the weather was cool so I took advantage and did 8.2 miles (but with a lot of stopping, sorting out the podcasts to listen to, and getting some cash out). I went for French toast again after- it’s the new pancakes.

One with nutella (covered up the burnt bit, shhh), one with maple butter

On Monday I went out for breakfast with some friends, and this morphed into brunch and the lunch time! I had to pop to town on the way home so had a nice wander around town in the sunshine, and then after dinner we had a walk- my legs needed something gentle after the weekend.

This Tuesday I did a 5 mile run first thing- I found a new part of the fields to run on, although one part was not really path so I had to slow right down for fear of twisting my ankle! I had a lot of work to do, but again managed to have a walk before dinner for a little extra bit of fresh air.

On Wednesday I was working at home, I walked up to the shops before lunch, did a massive house clean (how does everything get so dusty so quickly? ) and also started doing the Kinetic Revolution 30 day challenge. I have set up a page for me to track how I get on, so pop there if you fancy finding out what I am going on about (this post is already pretty long!). Sweatshop was good- we did the longer fields route that I found on Tuesday, and all my Sweatshop miles began with a 9, which I was pleased with. The lungs are getting it back! Although on a side note my Garmin has been playing up again- those were identical routes but it took so long to find a satellite signal that one run was 5.15 miles, the other 4.65! Quite a difference!

I am really looking forward to parkrun again this Saturday- I am aiming to get half way to 50 (so 25) before the end of the year, which I think should be achievable although we do have a few weekend away/ races, so we shall see. I want to beat my time from last week too- here’s hoping for cool weather but not too much wind.

For more parkrun love, last Saturday I came across this video: which made me more excited too! I think parkrun suits the autumn- the weather is cooler and the air is crisp, so getting out for a brisk 5k is just perfect before heading home to warm up again.

Have you ever had maple butter before? I saw it on Oh She Glows, but have not tried making it myself yet, although after buying some this summer and seeing how wonderful it actually is, I might have to give it a go…

Living by the sea

I love to visit the seaside. Brighton is one of my favourite places to visit, and I love pretty much anywhere along the south coast too. Where I live is pretty built up- not much green space between towns at all. It is great living so close to London, and within reach of several towns and cities, but I do love it when we get away for the weekend and get to see the sea.

A few years ago I had a trip to Devon with some of my friends. Luckily we didn’t actually see any sharks. We did have fun walking by the sea, playing mini golf and getting a “ferry” (turned out to be the size of a rowing boat) to another part of the coast.

Andy and I like our weekends away as well, and Dorset is one of our favourite places to visit.

A walk along the beach is just amazing for blowing away the cobwebs- relaxing and recharging at the same time. And who would not want to see a view like this?

Wherever we go (this country or abroad), Andy will always look in the estate agents windows to see what property costs there. Where we live prices are rather inflated as we are so close to London, so sometimes it is a bit annoying to see how little a 3 bedroom house would cost if we lived further away from London. But then we had a look at properties for sale in Devon and realised that perhaps living by the sea is a bit more expensive!

Would you like to live by the sea?

Do you like looking in estate agents windows?

*I was sent a voucher in exchange for writing this post, all opinions are my own.