Recipes - Maria Runs

Baking with Tea India

Hey peeps,

I hope you are all OK and have been having a good week.

A while ago I was sent some lovely Tea India teas to try – you can see my review here. I loved them, especially the cardamom chai, so I was very excited when they contacted me again to try some different teas.

The masala chai was wonderful- the flavour of the strong spices comes through really well.

Good with breakfast pancakes 🙂

I have also used it in an iced chai latte- brew some lovely chai tea and leave to cool, then add to almond milk and a splash of chai syrup.

The black tea is lovely too- Andy loves strong breakfast tea so this is right up his street. But Tea India also sent me some recipe cards, so I did a spot of baking with the tea too. First up I tried this recipe for a simple tea loaf, which worked wonderfully.

It was delicious- nice and sticky.

I will be making it again for sure, but probably use less sugar as the dried fruit keeps it nice and sweet.

One of the recipe cards sent to me was for Spicy Black Tea Cookies, so I had to give them a go!

Simple ingredients:

125g butter (I used Pure spread)

100g soft brown sugar (I used half Sainsbury’s cinnamon sugar)

2 tea bags, leaves only

70g self raising flour

120g oats

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tsp mixed spice

First up, cream together the butter and sugar. Then add in the tea leaves, oats, flour and spices. Mix until combined. Preheat the oven to 160C.

Shape into a log and refrigerate to firm up, then slice into even sized pieces. The recipe said it would make 12, but mine made 15 I think.

Place on a baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes. I placed mine spaced well apart but they spread a lot, so I would say use 2 trays and leave them with big gaps between.

Leave to cool on the tray and then enjoy.

I always love it when my baking looks like the photo! Plus they are delicious- proper crunchy biscuits that go really well with a cup of tea. Funny that!

Do you love baking with tea (or coffee? I don’t like coffee cake!)- I love cupcakes flavoured with Earl grey or chai tea.

Baking Mad post half-marathon

Hey peeps. I hope you are all doing OK? My legs have not quite recovered from Sunday yet- I felt OK when I finished but I have felt shattered these past couple of days. So no running today, but hopefully I will be OK for the Sweatshop run tomorrow- that is my plan anyway.

I was kindly sent some baking goodies from Baking Mad. I often use their website if I want to make something as it is packed with different recipes (check out the summer baking ideas and the cupcake recipe section). I wanted to make something to have after the half marathon so I had a browse.

I love their website as it is packed with recipes. I fancied a fruity cake, and came across this recipe for Fruit and Spice Tea loaf. It sounded good to me!

First up, soaking the fruit in strong tea (I used 2 Tea India teabags) with the marmalade (which I made ages ago and keep forgetting about). I used mixed dried fruit instead of just sultanas.

Then you added in the rest of the ingredients (flour, sugar, eggs,spices) and baked in a loaf pan. Very simple.

I used wholegrain spelt flour and it worked really well. I also used cinnamon sugar in place of some of the normal sugar, which added to the spicy smell.

I found I needed to bake it for longer than the recipe said, but I am still getting used to our new oven.

It smelled wonderful while it was cooking. I think next time I might add a little drop of almond extract as I think that flavour goes well with the fruit and spices.

It was wonderful. It has the texture of banana bread- quite moist and quite dense. There is no butter in there- it reminded me of Phil’s amazing tea bread recipe– so it is a cross between a cake and a loaf. I think it would be lovely toasted and topped with peanut butter (but then, what wouldn’t?). The top is quite sticky, due to the sugar I imagine. I think also you could easily reduce the amount of sugar as the dried fruit makes it quite sweet. But it was just what I fancied on Sunday after lunch.

What would your post-race treat be?

A little plea + caramel shortcake recipe

Hey peeps!

First up I was very excited because over the weekend I got an email to say my entry to the Whittard Afternoon Tea Blogger Carnival had been selected as one of the final ten! I would love it if you would vote for me (mine was number 10- the info is all here)- all voters get entered into a competition to win a year’s supply of tea! And if you don’t want to vote, have a look as there are some very pretty and tasty entries.

On Sunday I did some baking- it is Andy’s brothers birthday next week, and his favourite is caramel shortcake, so that is what I made for Sunday tea.

The base for this is super easy- combine 100g margarine (I use Pure spread) with 4 tbs brown sugar, and cream together. Stir in 125g plain flour and 45g rolled oats, press into a pan (I use a brownie pan lined with baking paper) and then bake for 20-25 mins at 180C.

The caramel is pretty easy too- in a pan have 25g butter, 25g brown sugar and a tin of light condensed milk, and gently heat. Keep stirring. Once the butter has melted, let the mixture bubble away; keep stirring- it will eventually thicken a little and darken.

The base needs to cool for a bit before you pour the caramel over it (only for 5 or 10 minutes).

Yum look at the swirly caramel.

Then melt some chocolate for the topping. I like to add a little coconut oil as then the chocolate won’t reset completely solid and be much easier to slice. I probably used 100g plain chocolate, then 50g white chocolate over the top (but this ended up being too much white chocolate).

Leave to cool, and then slice.

It is not actually shortcake/ shortbread, but I prefer this base as it is more crumbly, and the oats add interest to the base. Plus the caramel is much softer than some recipes (some of them it goes more like toffee and is hard to slice/ chew)- this is a gooey oozing caramel, seriously it is gorgeous.

I left some slices large to take around for tea, and then cut the rest into smaller squares and took them into work today- they were all gone by lunchtime!

In running news, I was feeling fine today, but I went out on a 4 mile run and kept having to stop and walk as my legs were so stiff. So I promise I am going to get the foam roller out this evening, and perhaps have a walk tomorrow to help loosen them, if I have time.

Night! And thanks in advance for anyone that votes for me 🙂 (Andy would call you all enablers as you are supporting my tea addiction, but hey, he has that addiction too!!)

Anything you are slightly addicted to??

Lemon drizzle cake with lavender

Yes, I have been using more of that lovely lavender infused sugar. Although I made this a couple of weeks ago now, I am just getting around to posting it!

So tasty!

I used the lemon drizzle recipe from The British Bake Off book which is very similar to this Mary Berry one (but they are all pretty similar I find). I missed out about 50g of the sugar and added in the lavender sugar, and baked as usual.

I tried to colour the lemon drizzle, but that did not really work so well! The reason why I love these cakes so much is that you make this lovely soaking syrup (water + lemon juice) and pour it over the warm cake. This adds to the lemon flavour, but also makes the cake so moist.

I was sent these cute little daisies from Dr Oetker, so I used a few to decorate. They are basically rice paper, so they are edible.

Perfect for afternoon tea. Although the lavender flavour is not very strong. Every now and then you would get a bite which tasted a bit of lavender, but really this tasted like lemon cake. I am going to try some biscuits next and hope that it comes through more. Fingers crossed. I am worried that it will go all soapy if I add too much, but so far I don’t think I have added enough. I am having fun experimenting with it though.

This morning I had another gentle run- I feel so much better if I have been outside and had some fresh air, so I went on an out and back route (onto the fields for a bit)- out for about 1.85 miles, then turned around and straight back again. I could have stayed for much longer but I am conscious that I want to do a long run tomorrow and don’t want to be too tired.

My i-herb order arrived the other day- I used the last of my peanut flour the other week, and when I went on to look I saw they still had gingerbread tea in stock! How exciting! I then noticed that until the end of May they are doing an extra 5% off (I think you can get 10% off if your order is over $40, but seeing as the limit for importing to the UK is £15 I have not risked a more expensive order), so I have ended up ordering a few more things.

I watched the second episode of Eddie Izzard’s Mandela Marathon challenge this morning (if you follow my facebook page you might have seen I watched the first episode the other day)- I found it so interesting as I didn’t know much about the history of South Africa at all. Then I was off to The Waffle House to meet up with some friends- the weather was gorgeous so we had a little walk around the park after. Here’s hoping that we have plenty more days like this to come.

Any plans for the weekend? Anyone else enjoyed watching Eddie Izzard?

Getting 10K ready

Hey peeps!

Happy Saturday!

Look what came in the post yesterday:

Eeek! Only a few weeks until the half marathon! Although I have realised I have an extra weekend- for some reason I thought all I had was next weekend, but I have the weekend after that too. So, 10K race tomorrow, 8 miles next weekend and 9 or 10 miles the weekend after. It’s all going to be fine folks!

On Friday after work I went on a run. I could not decide what route to do, but when I got up near the fields I decided to go on that loop as it is about 4.5 miles which is what I fancied.

I took my phone with me in that new belt (which by the way I got on really well with- it is basically like an elasticated belt, so I didn’t adjust it. I wore it more around my hips with the little compartment on my lower back, and I basically forgot I was wearing it) so I could take some photos. A grey day, but still the fields are so relaxing.

Pretty bluebells along the way.

That is where I fell over the other week. It does not look that bad but it is downhill and the ground is very solid and rutted. I walked that bit just to be on the safe side!

After that we had some dinner and chilled out in front of a film (In Bruges, which I found very funny, except for the gory bits)- I painted my nails which takes a while. I have found that if I use the base coat it stops my fingers from getting stained, then on top of the polish I use that top coat which not only means they dry quickly, but also means that the polish lasts for about a week before chips start appearing. (Also I got my next free drink voucher from Starbucks through, how exciting).

This morning I was up early as my brother and I were helping out at Parkrun. I was originally going to be scanning the barcodes at the end,but my brother got that job, then I was going to be handing out the chips as the person hadn’t turned up, but then they did, so I ended up collecting in the chips and writing down the barcode numbers of any ones that would not scan.

I really enjoyed it- seeing the people at the front charge back to the finish line after about 16/17 minutes was amazing. There was a man who had turned 65 and finished in about 20 minutes- so amazing. All the people watching clapped and cheered the runners over the line; there were kids running who were urged to sprint finish, there were first timers who had managed to run much faster than usual, and there was a teenage volunteer who ran as a back marker. One of the volunteers (who had a pb of 21 mins or something) had made her child come and help out even though he usually runs, because she felt that the community aspect of it was important for him to learn. The time whizzed by- suddenly we were collecting the chips from the last runners- it felt like ten minutes but it was forty minutes after the run had started. One of the marshals was chatting and it turned out that he wasn’t even a runner- he had just signed up to help. I just think that is wonderful that people will give up their time each week (the runners helping out is one thing as they ask you to help out three times a year, but the people who don’t even run it are the ones who really make the event a proper community one).

When I got home I needed to warm up a bit so had a big cup of black tea with mint (not that minty though).

I has to wait for Andy to get back from his run (he did 8 miles as he is not doing the 10k tomorrow) and then made us some breakfast.

I used my new blender for the first time! It has been a bit chilly, but I wanted to use it, and Andy wanted something refreshing after his run. I blended a couple of cups of frozen cherries, a few chunks of frozen mango with some almond milk, a little cocoa powder and vanilla extract. We had that in a bowl with chopped banana, papaya and strawberries, and added some muesli in too.

Super tasty.

I have quite a chilled out day planned- a bit of housework, maybe planting some fruit bushes later, maybe a bit of baking.

Tomorrow I am hoping to get that sub 60 min 10K. The route has changed from previous years, so who knows if that is realistic, but I think I am capable of it- I’m going to look at the pacer bands on the lucozade website (I need to do 9.29 miles which I think I should be able to do)- I might look at the km splits too as I am not sure whether they have mile or km signs or both.

What are you up to this Saturday?