KUMPULAN MASTER BLOG

It was the first ever Batter Week on GBBO last week, and after a great deal of umming and aahing, I have made a Banana Toad in the Hole as my contribution to the #GBBOTwitterBakeAlong Batter is a tricky beast. I have great success with pancakes, but home-made Yorkshire puddings are a bit scary. It's partly because my mum is the absolute Queen of Yorkshire Puds. Hers rise to epic proportions and everyone fights over the last one. Her Yorkshire tin got a bit past its best after so many years of use, so she threw it out and bought a new one. She claims that her Yorkshires have never ever been as good again, but they taste pretty great to me! As I had chickened out of doing individual Yorkshire puds, I decided to go for what is effectively one giant Yorkshire and make Banana Toad in the Hole. I sweetened the batter with caster sugar, added cinnamon and laid sliced bananas in the batter. Yum! It's a bit like a pre-built pancake. Even better when you pour some of the chocolate sauce ...

Chocolate Banana Caramel Cupcakes- indulgent chocolate banana cupcakes with a caramel centre and chocolate icing. They are perfect for children's parties and they also use up any ripe bananas that you have. Jump to Recipe Chocolate Banana Caramel Cupcakes are exactly what they say on the tin- chocolate and banana cupcakes with caramel hidden inside and a rich, fudgy, chocolate ganache topping. For the caramel, you can make your own if you're a caramel whizz, but to save time I used a tin of Carnation Caramel, which is available in all the big supermarkets (home baking aisle). I decorated my cupcakes with mini smarties for a party feel, but you could use sprinkles, chopped nuts, white chocolate chips or anything else that takes your fancy. The fudgy topping is so rich and delicious that I would advise limiting how much you use on each cupcake to avoid overwhelming the cake, especially if you are adding other toppings as well. For young children, you might want to leave the topp...

If you're a regular Twitter user you have probably seen the #Teacher5aday tweets that trend regularly. It was borne out of this blog post by Martyn Reah- #teacher5aday which was a call to action to teachers to take better care of themselves and each other, so that they don't burn out, give up the job that they love and contribute to a predicted recruitment crisis. Sadly, the crisis is upon us 18 months later, so it's more important than ever that we look after each other. The hashtag has spawned further related hashtags that you might have seen: #teacher5adayread (encouraging reading for pleasure, not work) #teacher5adaysew, #teacher5adaycook and so on. Then Vicki Vincent (@MissVicki_V) wrote a great blog post about #teacher5adaybreakfast . It was about the importance of us 1) actually making time to have breakfast and 2) trying to make it a healthy one, instead of the usual teacher practice of racing round on an empty stomach and grabbing a biscuit as you fly past the sta...

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...

We got back from holiday last week to an empty fridge. This is because I like to be organised when I go on holiday, using everything up, giving away anything still in date that hasn't been used. We had booked a supermarket delivery in the last couple of days of the holiday, so we knew food would be arriving shortly after we got back. There was one thing that had escaped my attention in the big clear out though- the fruit bowl! So, there were 2 totally black bananas staring back at me when I went in the kitchen. That coupled with half a packet of chocolate chips meant banana bread was on the agenda. With everything else going on that day, I didn't get round to doing it until 10pm! A bit of late-night baking runs in the family. My mum is always doing it. Banana bread keeps so well, you can store it for several days in an air-tight tin. For other 'using up ripe banana' recipes, click here: Banana recipes .