Calendar Cakes - May

Sunday 19th May was World Baking Day and was also the theme for this month’s Calendar Cakes challenge.

The principle was simple: go on the WBD’s website, pick and bake a recipe of your choice.

The recipes are rated from 1 “I bake and cross my fingers” to 100 “I bake therefore I am”. The recipes come from food bloggers, chefs, cookbook authors…and are from different countries but surprisingly, none are from France. Anyone knows why?

I hard quite a hard time deciding what I was going to make as I wanted to bake something I'd like. I’m not fussy but there are a few things I don't really like like the mix of chocolate and fruit. I’m not a big fans of nuts in cakes either. I also didn't want to buy any special ingredient that I would only use for this recipe and never again.

With that in mind, I went through the cakes and then I got a bit confused by the rating. For example Red Velvet cupcakes are rated 73/100. I’m not disrespecting the author the Red velvets are quite easy to make.

After quite a lot of thinking ;) I decided to go with #63: Renuka's Malva Pudding, a recipe from Renuka Lallbahadur, a South African amateur baker.

The recipe was pretty easy but again, I wouldn't rate it that high. It is a plain cake that reminded me of a Pain de Savoie, cake I used to make nearly every Sundays when I was younger. I also really liked the sauce, which reminded me a bit of a salted caramel sauce.

You can see I’ve pocked the cake to let the sauce sink in.

 

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I’m submitting this cake to the Calendar Cakes Challenge, hosted by Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes.

What’s for dinner? week #21

As I said last week, I’ve started watching a bit closer what I eat. I try to limit my sugar consumption and eat more fruit and veg. I’m also trying to exercise a bit more and it’s actually paying off so I’m going to keep going that way.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been having a smoothie for breakfast, a sandwich with meat and veg for lunch and a “normal” dinner as Boyfriend needs “proper food”. I however watch my portion.

So, what’s for dinner this week?

• Monday: Pork + ratatouille & couscous
• Tuesday: As I come back late from the gym, I usually cant be bothered making dinner so I’ll just have a Dunkan pancake. Boyfriend will have a curry or something. I actually didn’t eat this pancake last week as I didn’t go to the gym
• Wednesday: Mini Bouchées à la Reine & Salad
• Thursday: Eggs & pasta for her; bacon & pasta for him –> This is our usual Thursday meal.
• Friday: We’re going out for dinner with Boyfriend’s parents

Have a lovely week

What’s for dinner? Week #20

Last week, I started including more fruit and veg to my meals and watch my carbs. I’m not following a strict low carb diet but I really need to limit my sugar intake. And despite going only once to the gym, I still lost 1Kg (about 2lbs). Isn’t that great? This obviously motivates me to keep watching a bit more what I eat and as it gets a bit more sunny outside, I’m even tempted to start running again! As I did before, I’m going to follow the Couch to 5k program and hopefully all that added together will help me shift more Kgs.

• Monday: Chicken stir fry
• Tuesday: As I come back late from the gym, I usually cant be bothered making dinner so I’ll just have a Dunkan pancake. Boyfriend will have a pizza.
• Wednesday: Grilled salmon & veg (+ rice for him)
• Thursday: Eggs & pasta for her; bacon & pasta for him
• Friday: Lemon chicken & veg (+ noodles for him)

Have a lovely week

What’s for dinner? week #19

I don't know about you but a lot of my Twitter feed are about diet, bikini body, get ready for summer and so on. The more I read them and read about what people eat, the more I think about the way I eat myself. I’ve been feeling a bit sluggish and let’s say it “fat” lately and the fact my parents came a few weeks ago with suitcases full of French goodies may have actually caused it ;) I’ve also noticed that we actually don’t eat that many vegetables. We do eat fruit but veg, not so much. And if I eat veg, they would always be the same.

I’ve just discovered Julia, who posts YouTube's video about her “SummerFit” plan. She exercises quite a lot (well, more than me) and eats very healthy meals. I’ve been watching her videos and she inspired me to introduce more veg into my meals (and maybe to exercise a bit more than what I currently do).

She’s also inspired me to go back to “Green Smoothies”. I used to drink them last summer but stopped as I couldn’t be bothered washing my blender every days. I’m going to give it another try and I’m planning to have a smoothie for breakfast all this week. My lunches this week will mainly consist of salads. We’ll see how that goes…

Anyway, on to this week’s dinners:

• Monday: Chicken, couscous, roast vegetables
• Tuesday: Cauliflower mac & cheese + broccoli
• Wednesday: Pork steaks + garlic mash + veg
• Thursday: Stuffed peppers + side salad
• Friday: Salad

 

Have a good week

Review: Danio

I was recently asked if I wanted to try out Danio, the new Danone’s yoghurts. I love yoghurts and eat at least one a day so I obviously accepted. I was sent a gift voucher to buy them myself but this appeared to be quite tricky as I tried a few different supermarkets, at different times but they were always sold out. I ended up buying them separately as I could never find a shop where the 6 flavours were available.

So, what is so special with Danio?

“Danio is a super thick, super tasty yogurt over a layer of delicious fruit on the bottom.
The secret behind danio's super thickness is that it's made to Danone’s strained yogurt recipe which uses more milk than standard yogurts to make it amazingly thick and high in protein. Danio is produced by Danone's yogurt experts in Poland.”

Danio contains no preservatives, no artificial flavours or sweeteners and are suitable for vegetarians.

As I said earlier, Danio is available in 6 different flavours: strawberry, passion fruit, cherry, peach, blueberry and raspberry. 3 of them are 0% fat and the 3 other are very low fat.

I’ve now tried them all and have to say I find them quite similar to the Total split pots. I do prefer the Danio as they are less sweet than their counterparts. They are about the same size (160g), which I find a bit too big. I would happily repurchase them if they were the usual 125g pots. Danio retails at about 85p from all major UK supermarkets.

My favourite flavours was I think the peach one. I really liked the chunky pieces of peach. My least favourite was actually the strawberry one (strawberry yoghurt is usually my fav.) I think the fruit layer was a bit thinner than the other flavours and also a bit bland.

If I was to repurchase them, I would probably get the peach one and the passion fruit one. I don't think there are other proper passion fruit yoghurts on the market and I really liked the little pips.

Have you ever tried Danio? Did you like them? Which one was your favourite?

Clandestine Cake Club

Have you heard about Clandestine Cake Club? I’d heard about this club quite a long time ago when watching the one show a document on TV and decided to check out their website. Apparently everyone had had the same idea as their website was down. I then forgot about it and thought of it again a few months ago.

The principle is that you sign up to their website (it’s free), join your nearest group and you get the details for the next cake gathering (date, place and theme). You then bake a cake, take it to the party and enjoy your evening.

They do have some rules though: you’re not allowed to bake any biscuits, pie, brownies, cupcakes…

So, on Monday night, I went to my very first Clandestine Cake Club. The theme was “bake a cake from your favourite book”.

I did struggle a bit with this as I don’t really have a favourite book. I use a lot of them and also use the web. Still, I decided to use “The Great British Book of Baking” and made a lemon drizzle cake.

The meeting was at 7pm. I got back from work at about 5pm so I had to hurry to make it. I’m telling you, I’m not good at baking under pressure. My cake ended up ok (not especially good looking but still ok) and was still warm when we ate it.

We were about 15 ladies there. In turn, we introduced ourselves and presented our cake and book. Funny enough, the lady who introduced herself right before me had made the exact same cake from the exact same book as me. Quite a few people actually chose to make a lemon cake.

We then cut the cakes and enjoyed some slices (oh yeah, plural) with tea and coffee and chit-chatted.

I really enjoyed my evening and cant wait for the next one.

Thanks again Ellie for hosting it.

Here are some of the lovely cakes I got to enjoy!

What’s for dinner? week #18

• Monday: As I’m going to my very 1st Clandestine Cake Club, my dinner will consist of lots of delicious cakes. Boyfriend will have some microwave meal.
• Tuesday: I’ll be back late from the gym so dinner will be a simple salad.
• Wednesday: It’s Boyfriend’s turn to go out tonight so I’ll make myself a nice little bowl of bolognaise.
• Thursday: Steamed cod fillets and tomatoes with pilaf rice.
• Friday: Sticky chicken & noodles

Have a lovely week