KUMPULAN MASTER BLOG

These cappuccino brownies were made for my dad, the biggest coffee-lover that I know! On Father's Day weekend, I went to stay with my dad so we could meet up with my sister and her family for brunch at Giraffe. During the day, he was busy gardening in between watching the Euros, and, not being much of a football fan, I got the baking itch. I wanted to make something for him that he would really like. He always denies that he has a sweet tooth, which everyone in the family knows is a lie, but there are some flavours he particularly does like. Ginger, lemon and coffee would always be winners. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with coffee. I don't mind the occasional latte, I love coffee flavoured baked goods, and espresso ice cream is just gorgeous. But I hate instant coffee as a drink. I hate the after-taste. I don't even really like 'proper' coffee for the same reason. Give me a nice cup of strong tea any time! My Dad on the other hand, loves swish coffee. He...

Potato Salad with Bacon- new potatoes mixed with bacon and spring onions and dressed with mayonnaise. A quick and easy summer side dish for your buffet or BBQ. Jump to Recipe I love potato salad, really love it, especially if it's a delicious home-made one with new potatoes. The first time I ever had potato salad, it was a packaged one from a supermarket. Inside were little cubes of almost hard potato, pieces of white onion and a very watery, acidic sauce, which I am guessing was supposed to be mayonnaise. Needless to say, I didn't like it. I was quite young at the time and it was only a few years later, in a Home Economics lesson, when I made a real potato salad for the first time, that I realised it wasn't supposed to taste like that! Last weekend I was making a buffet lunch and I wanted to pep up the side dishes a bit. I started with the Lemon and Garlic Giant Couscous Salad and then moved onto the potato salad. New potatoes, check. Spring onions, check. Mayonnaise, che...

Not everyone likes chocolate cake. I know, those people are just weird! Only teasing, my Dad is one of them. So, whenever I am baking for a crowd, I always try to have an alternative for the 'no-chocolate' folks, and lemon is my go-to flavour. I made a lemon and lime drizzle cake for my Dad's 70th, which he loved, but for my husband's birthday tea, I wanted to go really lemony with these 'Very Lemony Cupcakes'. 'Very Lemony Cupcakes' have lemon zest, lemon drizzle and lemon curd all happening in one cupcake, and they are just little bundles of citrus deliciousness. If you don't like lemon, you won't get on with these! When making citrus cakes, I always used to do battle with the finest side of a grater for zesting fruit, and quite a battle it was! As I seem to need to zest quite a lot, eventually I treated myself to a zester. It was quite pricey for a single utensil, but it's worth its weight in gold. It glides over the fruit so easily, zes...

Home-Made Houmous- it's quick and easy to make your own houmous and this recipe can be adapted to suit your own taste. Great for buffets, parties and lunches. Jump to Recipe There's something about houmous... (or hummus if you're anywhere except the UK!) that really makes me feel like summer has arrived. The first time I ate some, I was totally wowed by the taste. It probably seems strange now, but houmous wasn't readily available in the 80s when I was growing up. It started to appear in the early 90s and now has entire sections of the "dips" section in the supermarket devoted to it. My first experience of houmous was of the plain kind with carrot sticks- gorgeous. Now, I hardly know what to choose from lemon and coriander, roasted red pepper, piri piri and so many others for my houmous fix! At university, I had a house-mate who made her own houmous and swore by it for warding off colds and minor illnesses. I don't know if there's any truth to that, b...

I asked my husband what birthday cakes he would like for his family birthday tea, and he replied with- chocolate. That's it, just chocolate. With that rather flexible license to bake, I played around with a few ideas and settled on some kind of chocolate cake/cheesecake combo. These Chocolate Brownie Cheesecake Cupcakes have a lovely, soft, chocolatey sponge with patches of baked cheesecake distributed through them. They are, in one word, delicious! I had a fair bit of trouble with the cheesecake mixture, namely that it was very runny. I have had this recently with cream cheese icing as well. Quite frustrated, I googled around and discovered that this is an issue with British cream cheese. Even the full fat varieties have quite a lot of liquid in them compared to US versions, which are much more dense. When cooked, it tastes the same. It's the consistency during the process that's the issue. I have explained as best I can in the method, how to handle it. Cream cheese issu...

Lemon and Garlic Giant Couscous Salad- a fresh zesty salad, the perfect side dish for your buffet or BBQ. Jump to Recipe This giant couscous salad was one of my offerings at a family party. This weekend was supposed to be my husband's birthday lunch at a local restaurant. After all the organising to get everyone in one place at one time, at the last moment we realised it was the local regatta. Chances of finding a parking space for the booking we had made, were very slim, so on Saturday we cancelled and I started a bake/cook-a-thon to make lunch for everyone at home! I made home-made bread rolls with various fillings, lemon cakes , chocolate cheesecake brownies , home-made houmous , and potato salad with bacon. I was looking for something that would be suitable as a side dish and would double up for people watching their weight, as we had a couple of guests who were in that mode and I know it's difficult. I love side dishes. I am always attracted to them at BBQs, possibly more...

As it's summer, you'd think I would be putting the slow cooker away. Nope, still using it for new recipes. This week it's Slow Cooker Italian Chicken Pasta Sauce, which is a bit more summery than a stew, I guess! Essentially, this was a twist on my Very Garlicky Slow Cooker Lemon and Rosemary Chicken (longest recipe name ever!). You can find the original recipe here: Very Garlicky Slow Cooker Lemon and Rosemary Chicken Recipe I highly recommend it. It's useful for so many things! I'm obsessed with it, using it in salads, sandwiches, jacket potatoes and so on. But back to this pasta sauce recipe. It's a simple slow cooked pasta sauce recipe with shredded chicken, garlic and rosemary in a pasta sauce. Spoon it over some pasta, sprinkle it with a bit a cheese and you've got a delicious lunch or dinner. If you're going for the Full Monty, serve with garlic bread and a side salad. It's great for making ahead in a big batch and freezing. If you are goin...

Slow Cooker Beef Goulash- a slow cooker recipe for beef goulash, a delicious paprika based beef stew, perfect for using cheaper cuts of meat. A warming winter recipe to serve with rice or mash. Syn-free on Slimming World. Jump to recipe I'm always looking for good freezer meals to have ready for lazy days and days where there's no time to cook. Slow cooker meals are perfect for this, and today's is Slow Cooker Beef Goulash. Goulash is a Hungarian dish; most people know that, but what you may not know is that there are several varieties of it eaten in Hungary and even more adaptations across the world from Albania to the USA. It was traditionally a simple, humble dish eaten by shepherds but it has changed over the years with some varieties including red wine, for example. What doesn't change though, is the use of paprika, the signature of any good beef goulash. For this slow cooker beef goulash recipe, I have kept it simple- beef, onion, red pepper, tomatoes and spices....

The Ultimate Cheat's Banoffee Pie- a quick and easy version of the classic dessert, to feed a crowd. Jump to recipe Are you one of the many people, like me, who thought that Banoffee Pie was an American thing? I was quite surprised when I found out that Banoffee Pie is, in fact, British. Banoffee just sounds American doesn't it? Maybe it's because they are so good with inventing insanely delicious desserts, that all the yummy involved in a Banoffee Pie seems like it must have been designed by them. Banoffee Pie was actually invented by two British men called Nigel McKenzie and Ian Dowding at a restaurant in East Sussex called The Hungry Monk in the 1970s. The original recipe had a pastry base and coffee in the whipped cream. It was also spelt 'Banoffi' at the time. I have always liked Banoffee Pie, and the fact that my husband had never tried it seemed like a good excuse to make one. I made it my mission to make this recipe as simple as possible because a quick des...