Author: Maria Runs

Secret Santa

Hello everyone.

This is what was waiting for me when I got home last night! How exciting!

Rewind- First, thanks for the comments (a few of you noticed that I did not post/comment this week)- on Tuesday I ended up in hospital. Skip the next bit if you get queasy. I thought it was another UTI as it was the same pains, but after being taken in an ambulance to another hospital, having loads of exams, waiting for scans (got the final scan on Friday) it turns out I have a big cyst  (about the size of an orange) which will need to be removed. I actually signed myself out last night as I was getting rather stir crazy waiting around to see the doctor, as they said it would not be an emergency op but a routine one in the new year sometime. I am hoping that I can go on a plane as we are meant to be going on holiday on Friday night. No use worrying about that now. Anyway, I won’t go on about it- I will know more when I ring the hospital tomorrow. Seems like the UTI’s this year were perhaps this cyst instead.

Onto exciting things- I unwrapped the pretty presents and the lovely card, to find out they were from the lovely Jemma:

How nice does Gingerbread spice tea sound???? It was very exciting upwrapping all the presents- some chocolate munchy seeds (looking forward to trying these), some mini luna bars (I love mini things), some packets of Justin’s nut butter (we can’t get this in the UK which makes it even more exciting!), a yummy looking Clif Mojo bar (Jemma must have known my clif bar obsession!) and a delicious looking Kashi granola bar (which again I have not seen in the UK and am really looking forward to trying).

Thanks Jemma– these pressies were perfect- tea and snack bars must make up half my diet haha! 🙂 And you know how much I love gingerbread men too! Just need to find space in my tea cupboard!!

Anyway these gifts were perfect- thanks so much to Laura for organising the secret santa swap- it has been fun. I noticed that Jess posted about the bits I sent her- it was fun putting that package together too. I will be spending some time over the next few days catching up and seeing what other lovely gifts everyone sent/ received.

Bye for now.

Best Brownie recipe ever!

I have tried other brownie recipes (normally when I get a new recipe book) but nothing matches up to these. They are chewy, gooey with a crispy top, have a really rich chocolate flavour and take hardly any time to make (and hardly any mess too- just a pan to clean- no bowls or anything).

They are based on a recipe from a really old recipe book called “Greatest Ever Cookies” which I got from one of those discount book shops. I can never find it on amazon or anything like that.

I use it as a basis for any brownie recipe- add in anything you fancy.

Ingredients:

100g butter/ Pure spread

175g caster sugar

30g dark brown soft sugar

120g dark chocolate

1 tbs golden syrup

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

100g plain flour

25g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

Line a brownie pan with baking paper, and preheat the oven to 180C.

In a medium saucepan melt together the butter, chocolate, sugars and golden syrup. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

Weigh out the flour, cocoa and baking powder so it is ready (I put it in a cup).

Beat in the eggs and the extract (quickly as you do not want the eggs to scramble), then gently fold in the flour mixture.

If you are using any add- ins then add them in now.

Pour into the brownie pan and bake for 20-25 mins- they will have risen a tiny amount and the top will look shiny and a little cracked. They will be soft when you take them out of the oven, but they will firm up as they cool.

Leave them to cool completely before slicing, otherwise they are really hard to cut. Then try not to eat them all at once!

See how gooey they are in the middle- Heaven! 

Variations that I have tried:

Double chocolate– add some chocolate chips into the mix/ sprinkle chunks of chocolate over the mix in the pan.

Mint chocolate– swap the vanilla for peppermint extract, and / or add some chopped minty chocolate.

Chocolate cherry– soak some dried cherries in warm water (this plumps them up a bit) before adding to the mixture.

Ginger and orange chocolate– Use orange extract and add some chopped crystallised ginger, and 1/2 tsp ginger/cinnamon.

White chocolate and raspberry– Mix in some white chocolate chips and sprinkle with frozen crushed raspberries.

Chocolate pecan– mix in some chopped pecans.

Coconut chocolate– take out some of the mixture and mix with dessicated coconut, swap the vanilla for coconut extract, then pour the coconut mix on top of the normal mix.

I keep meaning to try out a vegan version with flax eggs instead, but have not had the courage yet. If anyone tries it out, let me know!

Which would be your favourite brownie flavour?

Also I got an email today saying that a shoe designer (Patrick Cox?) has launched a cupcake book, called Cox Cookies and Cake , and they are having a competition to win a signed copy of the book, here. If you fancy it 🙂

PS I would love it if you would “like” me on facebook- there is a link on my home-page now. Cheers 🙂

Festive cupcakes!

My day started with pumpkin baked oatmeal from the lovely CCK website- recipe here– while listening to Hard Fi as we are off to see them tomorrow- woo!

I used one packet of gingerbread porridge, more spices, a big dollop of pumpkin puree and 1/2 cup coconut milk and baked for 25 mins. It filled 2 ramekins, and I had them both. Yum! I will be having this again for a weekend breakfast 🙂

Then I was off to the course run by Sweet and Floral (for anyone vaguely local).

I did one before and this one was a Christmas cupcake one.

We made:

A present wrapped in a bow, and a snowman.

A bauble (with glitter!!!).

We used a knife to create stitching detail on the bow- how clever.

I think the snowman is my favourite- so cute.

We also made a cheeky elf and a Father Christmas.

All of them together. It was such a relaxing way to spend Sunday morning/ lunchtime. There were only 6 of us, so we all sat around a big table. Rolling out the icing, colouring some of it, cutting it out…. it is all just really enjoyable.

After that I went on a quick run (4 miles- trying to get up to the 60 mile challenge- I think I have done 35 miles now) in the freezing cold! Then it was a quick shower before dashing over to Andy’s parents.

Doing the course reminded me of when we used to do art at school or uni- I always found it so relaxing. I was always al-right at art, not brilliant but it is always something I used to love (even though I am not that good with the really fiddly bits)- something about the colours, cutting, just doing something physical which you don’t have to concentrate too hard on, but at the same time your mind cannot wander to other things (work!)- I just love it- the three hours whizzed by. I loved science lessons too (for the opposite reasons- so interesting and they were so logical) but art somehow is just so relaxing.

What was your favourite lesson/ subject at school?

More festivities

Evening all

I am sure by now everyone has their Christmas decorations up. Well, we are not allowed ours up as Andy thinks it might be bad luck? (Last year we were meant to go away but the plane got snowed on– we bought a little Christmas tree for the weeks before we went away- so it makes sense that if we don’t get one then we won’t have to stay and use it, right?).

But it does not mean I cannot be festive! The Christmas Fayre at school today was just lovely- (I even wore my Old Navy happy holidays top!)

Happy Holidays 2008!

and really put me in even more of a festive mood. Pumpkin gingerbread pancakes were a good festive breakfast too.

They never look good in my photos but trust me it was all about the taste!

On the way home I popped to Starbucks (2 actually!) but not for a chai latte (didn’t think it would be good pre-run fuel)-  in their 2 days of Christmas offers mugs were half price. I saw a lovely one a while back so decided to hunt it down. I could not resist a cinnamon roll either!

We shared one this afternoon with some Teapigs chai. Mmmmm.

I got home at about 1pm, and got ready for my run. I went out and did 8.5ish miles (my regular route)- I did consider 10 but I was so hungry (and cold- the wind was cold) so headed home. It was about 3 by the time I got home and I was starving! Not surprised seeing as my breakfast was at about 9am!

I had a go at a vegan Christmas cake this afternoon- from Vegetarian magazine although I made a few changes.

It will look better once it is covered in marzipan 🙂 Tomorrow I am going on a Christmas cupcake decorating course so I am hoping to have some good ideas for how to decorate the cakes. Other than that I have been relaxing- I had a busy week and somehow did 4 runs (Saturday- 4, Sunday- 8, Monday-5, Wednesday 4) plus aerobics and pump, and normally I would have had another rest day. I was meant to be going out to dinner after work yesterday, but I left work late (super busy) and had such an awful headache- my eyes were hurting as I was driving home looking at all the headlights, so I skipped that in favour of an evening on the sofa!

I might even write our Christmas cards later.

Are your decorations up yet?

Are you after anything in the Starbucks sale? And also, does anyone have one of the Starbucks cards? They seem really good- surely there must be drawbacks??

My love for all things gingerbread

Evening all

I have been busy on a few baking projects over the last few days. On Saturday it is the Christmas Fayre at school and the PTA had a plea for baked goods to sell. It is a shame I have been so busy with work otherwise I would have made more (I would have loved a day off just to bake for it!), but I am pleased with what I managed to make. We were not allowed to have nuts in them, (so no mini Christmas cakes or anything) so I went for a gingerbread theme.

Yesterday I made some gingerbread cookies.

Little gingerbread men:

And some hearts and stars:

I got some writing icing from Sainsbury’s and had fun drawing on them, but the thing is it is quite sticky- a bit worried it is all going to peel off as I have currently wrapped them in clingfilm.

Today I made some gingerbread cupcakes from the new Hummingbird book.

Then I used my new sugarflair colours to make coloured icing and cut out little gingerbread men;

Which went on top of the cakes alongside the fudge icing from Veganomicon :

Look at the cute case from Paperchase too:

They have little snowmen and gingerbread men and things like that 🙂

Plus it now smells totally amazing at home- I love gingerbread so much 🙂

And to make myself even more festive I have been wrapping presents for the blogger secret santa!

So exciting!!

Oh, and anyone with children (or a class) might like this website for an online advent calendar. We look at it each day in class and it is fab- you find out about traditions in a different country every day.

What is your favourite thing to do/ buy at a Christmas fayre? The bottle raffle is always so popular but as I don’t drink alcohol it always seems a waste to buy a ticket. They have a secret present room where children can buy and wrap presents for their parents which I just love (although of course I do not buy things from it!).