Marks & Spencer’s - Macmillan Coffee Morning*

Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you’ll have no doubt seen posters and adverts galore about Macmillan Coffee Mornings happening as we speak all over the country. I’ve certainly seen a few bakes sales this week at work and its fantastic to see lots of events taking place all over to raise that all important money. Having a coffee morning is the perfect opportunity for a catch up with friends and have some delicious cake all for a good cause. One in three of us will face cancer and the money raised at Macmillan Coffee Mornings will ensure that no one has to face it alone.

This year is the 7th world’s biggest coffee morning in partnership with M&S and all the stops have been pulled out to ensure this is the best one yet. Since 2010 thanks to the support of M&S customers and employees an incredible £6 million has been raised. By 2020, almost 1 in 2 people will get cancer at some point in their lives but you can help be there for even more people by taking part where you can. The Birmingham store is even inviting shoppers to join them for a coffee and a slice of cake on Friday 30th September.

Whether you’re baking or faking it this year you will find a fantastic range of treats in M&S stores this September including a delicious selection of cakes, biscuit and a new range of 13 flavours of cake and cookie mixes. I was lucky enough to receive a few goodies including this ‘Hot Stuff’ mug, Tatty Devine Pin Badge, Pure Ceylon Teabags and Thumbprint Cookie Mix. Whenever you treat yourself to coffee and cake in the M&S Café, a donation will go to Macmillan Cancer Support. I decided to make these strawberry and white chocolate thumb print cookies and bring them along to our Macmillan Coffee Morning at work where they were sold and eaten for charity. They tasted really delicious and went down a storm with the buyers. All I had to do was add butter and the rest of the mix was provided - 10% of the sale of this product is donated to Macmillan Cancer Support.

So if you have a work bake sale or the chance to attend a coffee morning, please pop in. Think of the lives you could change, grab a slice of cake and a cuppa and get involved. Remember – calories don’t count if it’s for charity! If you would like to learn more about Macmillan’s partnership with M&S, please visit their website.

*I received some items from M&S free of charge in exchange for this blog post. All opinions are my own and I was not influenced in any way.

Mars Bar Rice Crispy Cake Recipe

A couple of weeks ago I was looking for an easy sweet treat to make for my colleagues that didn’t need much preparation and I came across a recipe for these mars bar rice crispy cakes. With the perfect amount of gooeyness and crunch I couldn’t wait to knock up a batch of these and they literally took minutes to do.

Ingredients
8 mini mars bars
2 tbsps golden syrup
50g butter
Rice crispies
200g milk chocolate

Method
Combine the mars bars, golden syrup and butter in a pan and heat on low until melted. When you have a liquid consistency, stir in rice crispies until they are coated in the melted mars bar mixture. Once coated, press into a pan. Cover with 200g melted chocolate and pop in the fridge. Once cooled, slice into squares and enjoy!

These are so easy to make and take no time at all. They went down really well with my colleagues. I bought the mini mars bars from pound land so it’s a great value treat too and would be great for a bake sale.

Have you ever made these?

Cooking With Whey - Feat. Bulk Powders*

A few weeks ago now I was given the opportunity to try some products from Bulk Powders and create a delicious recipe that’s pretty much guilt free. Bulk Powders is the UK leader in high quality protein supplements, powders and food products. Head over to their website to find a huge range of products to match any training goal or lifestyle you may have. They pride their selves on high grade protein products and are passionate about effective training and clean eating. I was challenged to create a recipe so I created these amazing lemon meringue protein muffins which taste so good you wouldn’t even realise they are relatively healthy.

In my pack I received a bag of Pure Whey Protein  which is low in fat and Carbohydrates and great value for money. A 500g bag is just £8.99 containing 16 servings at just 56p a serving. It provides a quality protein source and is essential for anyone trying to build muscle. It comes in 18 flavours and I also received some sample packs of the Lemon Meringue Whey which was absolutely delicious when mixed as a shake. What I love about Bulk Powders is that you can buy sample ‘one serving’ sizes of all of the flavours for just 99p a sachet so if you’re not 100% sure if you’ll like it this is a great way to try before you commit to buying a larger bag.

The lemon meringue samples inspired me to create this recipe incorporating the ingredients sent to me by Bulk Powders. I also received a bottle of Liquid Egg Whites  which I used to make healthy meringues with. I love that this saves so much time and effort separating the eggs and these can even be stored at room temperature saving valuable fridge space. The egg whites contain only 1% carbohydrates and 0.5% fat meaning they are virtually pure protein and great for you. These are great for people who want to increase their protein consumption and help to grow that muscle mass.

If you’d like to make your very own protein cupcakes then read on.

Ingredients (Makes 4)

1 scoop Bulk Powders Pure Whey Protein 

½ teaspoon Baking Powder

2 tablespoons Liquid Egg Whites 

2 tablespoons Fat Free Natural Yoghurt

1 teaspoon Coconut Oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius and grease a muffin tin with a little bit of coconut oil on a tissue. Alternatively you can use paper cases as I have below.

Mix the protein powder and baking powder then add the egg whites and yoghurt. Mix well until you get a smooth consistency.
 

Spoon the batter into your muffin tins and bake for around 15 minutes until golden.

Top with protein meringues (recipe below).

For the meringues I simply whisked a cup of the liquid egg whites  with an electric whisk until they formed stiff peaks. I then folded in half a packet of the lemon meringue protein powder sample.

The mixture smelt delicious, I then popped a dollop of this onto a baking tray and put in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for around half an hour until the mixture hardened into a meringue texture. I noticed that the meringues were tinted yellow, I think this is due to the protein powder. These were not like your conventional sugary meringue but tasted like a great alternative and went really well topped with the muffin and gave it that little bit of sweetness. You could even crumble the muffin and the meringue into a bowl of fat free yoghurt for a really tasty healthy treat.

If you’re interested in cooking with whey  and trying some recipes out yourself, head over to Bulk Powders – The Core  for many more recipes incorporating whey.

*I received these items from Bulk Powders free of charge in exchange for an honest review and to create a recipe. All opinions are my own and I was not influenced in any way. Please see my disclaimer for more information. 

Chocolate Creme Egg Cookies

Can you believe I still have creme eggs left? It's crazy! I didn't want to just eat them all in one go so decided I would bake them into cookies. These turned out so good, and were all eaten on the same day! To find out how to make these, keep reading!

Ingredients (makes around 8-10 large cookies)

180g unsalted butter at room temperature.

300g Caster Sugar

250g Plain Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1 Egg

50g Cocoa Powder

5 Creme Eggs

Method

Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.

Then add your egg, and mix well.

Add your dry ingredients and mix until you get a dough like texture. If it is too sticky, add more flour. If it is too dry, add a dash of milk.

Chop up your creme eggs into small pieces. I popped mine in the fridge for a while first so the 'goo' wasn't all sticky.

Mix the creme egg into your cookie mixture.

Roll into balls and pop onto a greased baking tray. Spread these out as they do grow quite large! I think mine were slightly too sticky but that didn't affect the final outcome, it just made my hands a lot messier!

Bake for around 12-15 minutes on 180 degrees C. When these come out of the oven they do not look cooked, they are still gooey. This is perfect. Leave them to cool for around 25 minutes and they will harden on the outside, but remain soft in the middle. So delicious. Enjoy!

Easy Easter Treats – Chocolate Nests

With Easter right around the corner, I thought I would talk about some of my favourite Easter treats and tell you how to recreate them. I always remember my mum making these every Easter. I think it was just an excuse to buy and eat mini eggs which is the same reason I am doing this today. These are so simple to make, and cost next to nothing to make. The hardest part is actually making them into cakes and not eating the mixture direct from the bowl!

Ingredients:

300g Chocolate (I used milk but feel free to vary this!)

1 bag of Mini Eggs

300g Cornflakes

Cupcake Cases

(Makes approx 12)

All you have to do to make these is melt the chocolate, and slowly fold in the cornflakes until they have a good covering of chocolate. Scoop the coated cornflakes into cupcake cases and add a couple of mini eggs to the top of them. Leave to cool and the cornflakes should stick together nicely, like little nests!

It really is that simple. These are great, and go down a treat with people of all ages – trust me!

Let me know if you’re making any Easter treats!

Love, Tanya - Tanya Burr Cookies

I recently went cookbook shopping when I spotted Tanya Burr's new book Love, Tanya half price in WHSmith. Upon reading other reviews, it seemed I might be a little bit above the target age range but I decided to flick through.

I really liked the layout of the book and it seemed like a nice book to read. The cover is very similar to the last book I reviewed by Gayle Forman don't you think?

Tanya is from Norwich, as am I and I actually remember the days when I would see her and Jim vlogging around Norwich before and she has done amazingly well in the past few years to build up her brand.

I love that there are so many different chapters in this book ranging from Tanya's favourite products, top tips and bits about her life. My favourite section has to be the baking section and as soon as I got to this part, I raided the house for baking ingredients and low and behold we had enough to make the milk and white chocolate cookies.

There are a lot of photos in the book and that's another thing I love about it. The pages are broken up nicely and there isn't walls and walls of text. The recipes were really easy to read through and follow and the photos of the finished products complimented them nicely.

I'm pretty sure the recipe said this makes 10, but I made my cookies extra chunky.

The cookies were absolutely amazing. They didn't even last the night! Tanya was right in saying to take these out even though they look like they need longer. I ate mine straight from the oven and they were crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside. Perfect!

Overall I really like this book, the design is nice and it's very interesting to read especially as Tanya is from my hometown. I almost feel a sense of pride! It's the type of book you can pick up and open at any page and find something interesting to read. It's also a nice book to read with a cup of tea snuggled up in bed.

Tanya has done a video on how to bake these cookies which you can find here if you wish to make these yourself. 

Have you bought this book? What do you think?

Rocky Road on a budget..

The other day I was looking for a Rocky road recipe, when I found this really easy one by Nigella Lawson. (Click here)

It required minimal ingredients and literally took 5 minutes to make. I also chose budget friendly ingredients, and it still tasted amazing. I bought my ingredients from Sainsburys, and used the cheapest options where possible.

I weighed out my biscuits and crushed them in the bag, ready to add to my melted chocolate, butter and golden syrup mixture.

It tasted better than it looked!

I then added my biscuits and marshmallows and placed it into a tray and left it in the fridge overnight.

I then took the rocky road out of the fridge, and cut it into bitesize chunks, which I then ate far too many of! Oops. They tasted great though, you should definitely try them!