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Hi everyone! Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful Easter Sunday. I thought I’d share these recipes I’ve been making over the last couple of days. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed making all these goodies and I hope you like them as much as I do!

Following on from my successful bread baking last week, I decided to try my luck at making some hot cross buns. Hot cross buns are one of my favourite things, especially toasted and spread with lashings of butter!

Apple, Cinnamon and Raisin Hot Cross Buns (vegan, makes 16, adapted from this Baking Mad recipe)

• 625 grams of strong wholemeal bread flour
• 75 grams of golden caster sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tbsp of dried yeast
• 100g of raisins
• 2 chopped apples (I used a golden delicious and a braeburn)
• 50 grams of vegan spread
• 100mls of unsweetened soy milk
• For the crosses on top – 3 tbsp of plain flour mixed with water to form a paste

Mix the flour, sugar, salt and spices together in a bowl. In a jug, mix the raisins with 50mls of boiling water, 100mls of cold water and the dried yeast. Leave somewhere warm for 10 – 15 minutes until the surface has become frothy. While the yeast is activating melt the vegan spread over a low heat and add the soy milk. Add the spread and soy milk mix, the yeast, water and raisins and the chopped apples to the flour and mix until it begins to form a dough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and kneed for 10 minutes – don’t worry about the bits of apple falling out, just smoosh them back in ;-) Divide the kneeded dough into 2 and roll each piece into a sausage shape. Cut into 8 equal sized pieces and nip the ends to form a bun shape, then place the buns on a greased baking sheet (you’ll need two sheets) Repeat with the other piece of dough. Cover lightly with cling film and leave some where warm until they have doubled in size (mine took about two hours).

Pre heat the oven to 200c. Make up your plain flour paste and pour into a small plastic bag. Snip the end off and pipe on your crosses. Bake the buns for 15 – 20 minutes until golden brown, they should sound slightly hollow when tapped on the bottom. Serve warm or toasted spread generously with vegan butter and jam:

These were just amazing! They tasted absolutely wonderful and so much better than shop bought ones. Absolutely worth the extra effort! Thanks to Maria for the tip about soaking the raisins in with the yeast, I think it made them extra plump and juicy :-)

For my next recipe I wanted to use up some frozen puff pastry sheets I’ve had since Christmas. I decided to make this very simple but delicious recipe to take to my parents for our family get together this afternoon:

Lazy Courgette and Pesto Tart (serves 4, can be vegan if using vegan pasty and pesto)

• 1 sheet of ready made puff pastry defrosted (check that your puff pastry is vegan if needed)
• 2 tbsp ready made pesto (again, use vegan pesto if desired)
• 2 medium courgettes
• Fresh basil to serve

Pre heat your oven to 220c. Lay the pastry sheet on to some greased foil or directly onto a baking sheet. You may want to roll the pastry out so that its slightly bigger and thinner. Spread the pesto onto the pastry leaving a 1 cm gap around the edge so the pastry can puff up. Finely slice your courgettes into thin rounds and layer on top of the pesto. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until the pasty has become golden brown. Scatter with chopped basil and serve immediately or allow to cool and serve cold.

I just made half of the recipe above and used the other piece of pastry to make something for the carnivores – a tomato, ham, mushroom and cheese tart. This tasted really good too, the richness of the pastry was nicely complemented by the fresh tasting pesto and courgettes. To take along with the tarts, I also wanted to make some cupcakes! I’d booked marked this lovely straightforward recipe from Sharon’s blog and decided to slightly amend it to make it a little lower in sugar (my Grandma is diabetic) using more whole grain flour and xylitol instead of some of the sugar. I also wanted to make a rich decadent tasting icing like a ganache (which is traditionally made with cream and melted chocolate) and came up with the idea of using the ultimate healthy secret ingredient!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Secret Ingredient Chocolate Ganache (makes 12 cupcakes, adapted from Bit of the Good Stuff Vegan Chocolate Cake)

• 1 1/4 cups of spelt / whole meal flour
• 1/2 cup of plain white flour
• 3 tbsp of cocoa powder
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup xylitol (I used perfect sweet brand)
• 1/4 cup unrefined caster sugar (or more xylitol)
• 1/3 cup rapeseed oil
• 1 cup unsweetened soy milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Pre heat the oven to 180c or 350F. Sift the flours, cocoa powder and baking powder into a bowl. Combine the zylitol, sugar and oil the add the soy milk and vanilla extract. Pour the wet mix into the dry and stir until just combined. Fill your cupcake cases 3/4 full with the mixture and bake for 18 - 20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Transfer to a rack to cool before icing.

Secret ingredient chocolate ganache icing (will top 12 cupcakes generously)

• 1 large ripe avocado
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp agave nectar or maple syrup
• 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips

In a food processor blend the first 3 ingredients until smooth. Melt the chocolate chips and add the melted chocolate to the food processor to combine with the other ingredients. Use immediately or transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until the ganache has firmed up. 

To ice the cakes - you could use the ganache in a piping bag but I just used a small flat spatula to swirl it on top of each cake before decorating with some rice paper sugar butterflies:

These cupcakes turned out so well! They have a moist, dense, chocolately sponge and the ‘ganache’ tastes suitably creamy despite being diary free!

I think those hot cross buns are going to become an Easter tradition! Do you have a favourite recipe for Easter / Spring celebrations?

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great Easter!

James got me this Lindt dark chocolate bunny and then also surprised me with a Green & Blacks Dark Chocolate egg!

I've had a super Easter break spent doing many of my favourite things - spending time with friends and family, cooking, baking and of course eating ;-) I've also had some time to chill with James which has been great, I feel like my batteries have been well and truly recharged! On Friday I baked my hot cross buns, saw my best friends and ate this delicious Thai red butternut and chickpea curry:

It was extremely good for something that was so easy to make!

Saturday started with a 5 mile outdoor run. I'm still going garminless so 5 miles is an estimate and it was probably pretty slow but it felt good to be outside! I got home from my run and changed straight back into my pjs which I wore for most of the day while we watched TV (more Dexter) it was bliss! 

My post run breakfast was a butternut cherry bomb green smoothie topped with roasted soya nuts, dried cherries and pistachios: 

I love how sweet this smoothie is! I also ate more hot cross buns and random snacks of millet puffs with coconut flour sauce / peanut flour sauce and blueberries, chocolate almond butter cups and tahini with jam on spelt crackers etc, it was just that kind of a day! I also had my usual green juices to balance it out and did fit in one half decent meal, a big salad with romaine, red pepper, carrots, red onion, olives, chickpeas and balsamic, dijon and hemp oil dressing:

After that I finally got dressed and we headed off for a night out! I think I've mentioned before that James is really into his music, we thought we go and see a singer / songwriter called Juan Zelada at The Cluny in Newcastle. We really enjoyed the gig, James has posted a review over on his blog. Before the gig started we had a drink at the bar and I couldn't resist this:

Organic vegan cherry beer! It tasted gorgeous, I've had the strawberry beer from the same brewery and that was delicious too. 

Yesterday I thought I'd treat myself to a tasty breakfast - two of my hot cross buns toasted, first with Justin's chocolate hazelnut butter and then another with vegan spread:

Both accompanied by some strawberries and lots of coffee:

I used up the soy milk leftover from my baking to make some frothy vanilla coffees, yum!

It was after breakfast and once I'd iced my cupcakes and baked my tart that the fun started. Due to a computer fault, half of Durham had no water supply! I hadn't even had a shower so wasn't best pleased. I had been planning on a lovely Easter outfit OOTD but no such luck! We were going to my parents anyway so we went early so I could get washed. Luckily the water came back on later in the day, what a relief! Lunch was fab though: 

I had some of my lazy courgette and pesto tart with salad and some bulgar carrot salad and a roast veg and couscous salad my Mam had picked up from M&S. I had a couple of plates like this plus two of my tasty cupcakes and mountains of fresh fruit. I felt totally stuffed but still found room to eat most of my dark chocolate bunny! To help feel a bit rebalanced after all of that I made a green smoothie:

This was spinach, courgette, vanilla sun warrior, cinnamon, water and ice. I followed it up with a big pot of kuricha tea and spend the rest of the day in my pjs lying on the couch:

What a weekend! Today I’m just trying to get myself pulled together for going back to work tomorrow and back to reality!

How did you spend your Easter break?

Can you believe its Wednesday already? I think I could get used to these short weeks! I hope that getting back to normality after the Easter break is going well for you! Today I’m dropping in to join the WIAW party as usual, I thought I’d share my eats from Monday which for us in the UK was a bank holiday (not sure if other countries had Monday off too?)

I mostly spent the day like this:

That would be lying in bed with my pj’s on and my iPad attached to my knees while watching random bank holiday movies like The Mummy 2 and Knocked Up. I did manage to make it out of the house for the gym and more food – I do have some priorities you know ;-) Anyway, once I’d managed to drag myself out of bed I made myself the usual lemon and warm water:

Then I had breakfast -  porridge made with 1/2 cup of oats slow cooked in 2 cups of water with some frozen blueberries, pecans and a drizzle of maple syrup on top:

Blueberries, pecans and maple syrup go really well together and are one of my favourite flavour combos! I also had a big mug of this green tea and earl grey mix:

The gym doesn't open until 10am on a bank holiday so before I went I popped to the shops for a few groceries and then got my workout in. For some stupid reason they have totally rearranged the gym so the tiny weights area with dumbbells is pretty much right on top of the mats for doing core work. Talk about an accident waiting to happen! I did my usual 5 minute cross trainer warm up followed by a strength session – my first workout from the next phase of Female Body Breakthrough and then followed by HIIT on the step machine and bike.

Once I got home, un packed the groceries, had a shower and changed right back into my pj’s I was starving and all I wanted was a big fat green smoothie! Don’t ask me where I’ve come across the pineapple and carrot combo before, but something in my mind made me think it would be delicious, and I was right! Into the blender went a load of spring greens, half of this massive pineapple (I said I was hungry) and two of those carrots…

..plus a scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, ground flax, maca, water and ice. My toppings of choice were sunflower seed butter, coconut and raisins:

This tasted awesome! I had that bowl times two including double the toppings to fill me right up. Pineapple and carrot, who would have known? I drank green tea all afternoon and then a while later I started feeling snacky so had a couple of apples from the fridge:

Then a bit after that I decided I wanted some chocolate! I had about half of my Green and Blacks Dark Chocolate egg along with some pretzels and another green tea:

I really enjoyed that chocolate. The chocolate and pretzels eaten together at the same time tasted fantastic, gotta love the sweet and salty combo! For dinner I warmed up some of my lazy courgette and pesto tart and served it up with some green beans roasted in balsamic vinegar and sea salt and some steamed broccoli:

That tart really does taste good, there’s something incredibly naughty about flaky puff pastry! Those roasted beans tasted pretty epic too. I was quite stuffed after the chocolate from earlier plus that dinner but I still wanted something sweet to finish the day. I ate a few sliced strawberries and a mug of liquorice and cinnamon tea:

I have to admit a lazy day like that was just what I needed. I know it wasn’t really that lazy, I did go to the gym after all, but compared to how I spend most days it was definitely much slower paced and relaxing. I love just lying in bed watching movies sometimes!

How do you like to spend ‘lazy days’?

P.S please check out my Coyo Coconut Yoghurt GIVEAWAY!