RECIPE: BANANA MILKSHAKE

Hello!

As the weather is slowly (but surely) getting warmer, I've been drinking colder drinks a lot more. However, I've taken a particular liking towards banana milkshake because it's extremely refreshing, but also filling and delicious!

 I'm sure most people know how to make a banana milkshake, but everyone has different methods of doing things, and this is mine.

Ingredients

-Cinnamon ~ 1tsp

-Milk ~ measure this out by pouring 3/4 milk into the cup you're drinking from

-Syrup

-1 Banana

-Ice cream of your choice ~ 2tbsp

-Vanilla Extract ~ 1tsp

Equipment

- Blender

- Big glass

- Teaspoon

-Tablespoon

-Cutting board

-Sharp knife

1) Cut up your banana into small pieces like this:

The riper the banana, the more bitter your milkshake will be, so I recommend using a ripe banana.

2) Add in flavourings such as:

3) Add in the milk

You can use the milk type of your preference, but I used semi-skimmed as full-fat would make the milkshake extremely creamy-especially with the ice-cream in there too.

4) Your jug should now look like this:

5) Blend it all together to get this result:

Once you've blended it all you can either drink it now, or do the next step which I personally love doing.

6) Get the syrup and squirt it all around the mouth of the glass, the syrup will then drip down the glass leaving an affect like this:

7) Pour the contents into your glass and you have a banana milkshake!

Obviously making a banana milkshake doesn't require this much thought and writing about, but this is the way I like to make my milkshake! This certainly isn't too healthy because of the additional sugary foods like ice-cream and syrup, however these can be adjusted to fit your needs and wants.

 

DIY HOT CHOCOLATE

Hello!

I know the hype of making hot chocolate's is sort of over, however I've only just really started to make homemade hot chocolate and honestly it's the best thing ever. I thought this DIY might be helpful to some people on how to make it because I was unsure at first, but ended up mixing things together that looked right, and made something super yummy.

Ingredients:

1tsp vanilla essence

50g of chocolate

Milk (Measure this by pouring milk into a mug in which you will drink the hot chocolate from as you will get a perfect amount of hot chocolate)

Hot water 

Other Flavours:

 A pinch of cinnamon for spicy taste.

A little salt, and caramel syrup for a salted caramel hot chocolate.
Orange essence for a chocolate orange.

Utensils:

Glass mixing bowl

Wooden spoon

Tea spoon

Mug

Saucepan

Method:

 1. Pour hot water into the saucepan-make sure the saucepan is quite full up, and put the saucepan on the hob.

2. Place the glass bowl ontop of the saucepan, but check the bowl isn't too small and sinks into the pan.

3. Turn the hob onto a low-medium heat, then add in the milk.

4. Once the milk feels luke warm, add in the chocolate and keep stirring until the chocolate is fully melted. If the chocolate takes quite a long time to melt, turn the hob up.

5. Once everything is blended well, add 1tsp of vanilla essence or your own flavouring of choice and mix together.
 
6. Pour the contents into your mug and decorate with cream, marshmallows, chocolate curls. (The glass bowl may be quite hot so either wait for it to cool down, or use oven gloves if the bowl is too hot to handle.)

The Final Result:

I know this doesn't look anything special, but the taste is outstanding. I'm really pleased with how my drink turned out, especially as I randomly put it together and just used my instincts to decide how it should be made. What I love about home-made hot chocolate is that you can control what you put in, and how much. If you were on a diet then you can use a lower fat, dark chocolate and maybe use less chocolate and more milk, or only make a small amount.

Also, you can make a powdered mix of hot chocolate, which would last a very long time, and only cost a minimal amount. Find the recipe for powdered hot chocolate mix here.

REINDEER CUPCAKES

Hello!

Today I thought I'd change things up and do a baking post, so today you will learn how to make Reindeer Cupcakes. I'm no where near as good as a chef when it comes to cooking or baking, but I enjoy doing it in my spare time and thought these cupcakes were cute, and tasty enough to share with you!

 

Ingredients

- 125g/4½oz butter, softened 

- 175g/6oz caster sugar 

- 2 free-range eggs

- 200g/7oz self raising flour

- 2 tbsp cocoa powder

- 100ml/3½fl oz milk 

- 100g/3½oz dark 70% cocoa solids chocolate, melted

- 2 tbsp Irish cream liqueur (optional)

For the chocolate icing:

- 50g dark chocolate (chopped)

 - 3 tbsp double cream 

 

Decoration:   

- giant chocolate buttons 

- crisp-coated chocolates (such as Smarties or M&Ms) 

- mini pretzels (preferably plain)

- black or dark chocolate writing icing

- mini marshmallows (sliced)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3. Line a 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases.

2. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Gradually beat in the eggs until well combined, then sift in the flour and cocoa powder and mix until combined. Fold in the milk, melted chocolate and Irish cream liqueur-if using.

3. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until well risen and lightly firm to a touch. Remove the cakes from the tin and set aside to cool on a cooling rack.

4. For the icing, heat the chocolate and cream in a saucepan over a low heat until the chocolate has melted. Whisk the mixture until smooth and set aside to cool slightly.

*Decoration Time*

1. Spread the icing over the top of the cupcakes until well covered.

2. Press a chocolate button onto the cake as a nose.

3. Stick a crisp-coated chocolate on top using a little icing to hold the sugar coated sweet on the button.

4.  Stick on two slices of marshmallows as the eyes, and use the black writing icing, or dark chocolate for the pupils.

5. Cut 2 little slits near the top of the cupcake big enough to fit in the pretzels.

6. Firmly slot the pretzels into the slits, don't apply too much pressure otherwise the cake will split.

The finished result:

If you made these cupcakes then I'd love to know how they turned out, I hope you enjoyed this baking post and enjoyed the cupcakes if you made them!

MAKING CUPCAKES

Aloha!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, what did you get up too? Well, I made Vanilla Cupcakes, so that's what this post will be about-How to make Vanilla Cupcakes. My blog isn't about cooking, but I thought this would be something nice and different for you all.

Preparation time: Less than 30 minutes.

Cooking time: 10 to 30 minutes maximum.

  Ingredients

• 110g/4oz butter or margarine, softened at room temperature 
• 110g/4oz caster sugar
• 2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 110g/4oz self-raising flour 
• 1-2 tbsp milk

For the buttercream icing 

• 140g/5oz butter, softened 
• 280g/10oz icing sugar 
• 1-2 tbsp milk 
• a few drops food colouring

Note

Depending on the size of your cupcake tin and cases can change how many cupcakes you will get out of the mixture. I got 8 cupcakes from the mix, but my cupcake tray holes were quite big. 

 

Method

1.  Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin/cupcake tin with paper cases.
2.  Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale by hand. Beat in the eggs a little at a time and stir in the vanilla extract.
3.  Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon, adding a little milk until the mixture is of a dropping consistency. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.
4.  Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
 5. For the buttercream icing, beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth.
6.  Then add the remaining icing sugar with one tablespoon of the milk, adding more milk if necessary, until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
7.  Add the food colouring and mix until well combined.
8.  Spoon the icing into a piping bag with a star nozzle and wait until the cupcakes are cool before piping.
9.  Once the cupcakes are cool pipe the icing using a spiralling motion onto the cupcakes in a large swirl.

10.  Add any decoration you want onto the cupcakes and make them your own!

Here's how mine turned out:

I made my icing mint green, and used the icing colour you get before adding any colourings, I also added some little sprinkles on the top because they made the cupcakes look very cute! (Please take note I am not a chef or amazing at piping so i'm sure yours will look much better). For the icing I used a piping bag from Tala which you can buy here, the set comes with 8 nozzles, a piping bag, and a tin to keep it all in.

Cupcakes are great for any ocassion, you can decorate them to fit in with whatever occasion-If it's a Wedding then you can do cupcakes with white buttercream icing, and decoration on top to match the theme colour in the Wedding. If you were doing the cupcakes for easter then you could do yellow, pink, and purple buttercream icing (the colours of mini eggs) with mini eggs and chicks on top. There are endless possibilities on how you could decorate cupcakes which is what's so great about them!

I hope you enjoyed learning how to make cupcakes, and have a good week.

Recipe courtesy of BBC.