Happy Thursday afternoon!

Thursdays are always good days to celebrate with something sweet and a cup of tea (which I happen to be doing right now...good english breakfast tea after my lecture, with a toasted hot cross bun for good measure ;)...they mean the weekend is nearly here! 

This weekend is especially exciting for me as I am jetting off to the (hopefully) warmer climate of Lyon, to visit my friend (and bridesmaid). Looking forward to lazy days, wine, and above all, the sweet treats I can find in the patisseries...I may even allow myself a few sugary treats over the next few days!

Last weekend, however, my sister came to visit! She is an incredible baker, and seems to just 'whip up' ingenious delicious and scrummy goods, whilst staying unbelievably tiny. She was horrified at the thought that I've given up sugar (for a longer time than I care to share) and came up with the most delicious treats for me, which I just HAD to share!

Sugar-free Sultanas Cookies

This truly is a sugar-free treat that you cannot miss out on!

If you don't like sultanas though...I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere ;) (but you can get them super cheap at Morrisons) and...I know sultanas/raisins have a lot of sugar in themselves, but I'm not giving up fruit too, that would be pretty boring!

This is a very 'improvised recipe', so add what ingredients you do have, and keep adding stuff until you think they look like they've got a soft consistency...

You'll need:

75g butter (salted)

a lot of sultanas/raisins

a few slices of banana

A few drops vanilla essence

40g oats

90g self-raising flour

First things first, mix together a handful of sultanas (75g) with the butter, using a hand-liquidiser thing. This may sound odd, but it gives the butter a sweet taste.

Then mix in the banana so it's a puree. 

Add the oats and mix in the rest of the sultanas. Don't liquidise these ones!

Then add the flour, don't be tempted to add too much flour because more flour means tougher cookies, and you want them nice and soft!

Make sure it is quite sticky and uncomfortable to roll in your hand.

Spoon out onto greaseproof paper on a baking tray and make round 'mounds' of them.

Bake at 180*C, for around 15-20 mins, keep an eye on them!

They are incredible eaten warm, so either eat them straight from the oven, or if you've managed to save some, pop them in the microwave for 50 seconds. 

They are delicious on their own, or, as I have recently discovered, even more incredible smothered in whipped cream...go on, give it a try!

I would even choose to eat these many a time over a chocolate cookie (and that is saying something!)

Have you got any ingenious sugar free treats you'd like to share with us?

With all my love, Sophie x

P.S. Did you see that rose I just 'snuck' in to my last pic....couldn't resist, my (fiance) got it for valentines...most beautiful thing ever! Did you get anything fun/pretty/funny/romantic?

Haven't  posted in a while but this next recipe is worth it's weight in gold.

Gooey Chocolate Pots

They are abolsutely delisious and will get you scraping the pots clean (fab no washing up)!

I first tested out the recipe for a dinner party with friends and lets just say everyone fell silent savouring the awesomeness as they ate and one friend even tried to put her face in the pot to get out  every last bit! 

So for Valentines day and my uni dissertation draft handing in day I decided to treat my self and others to the chocolate delights again!

They are so so simple to make using ingredients you probable have in the cupboards anyway.

You will need:

• 125g plain chocolate (I used a cheap variety and they tasted fab so with good quality probably will taste even better!)
• 125g butter
• 3 large eggs
• 150g caster sugar
• 35g plain flour
• extra butter and flour for the ramekins.

There is no real method for this recipe but easiest to follow these instructions:

• Break the chocolate up and put it into a microwaveable bowl with the butter and then heat in microwave until melted together.
• Whilst chocolate and butter is in the microwave put everything else into a mixing bowl and combine together well.
• Then once chocolate/butter mix is melted pour that into the mixing bowl, stirring it all in with the other ingredients in there already.

And that's it, the mixture is made... Easy peasy.

You can leave that mixture now for a few hours if you want it doesn't really matter or pour into pots straight away.

For the pots I used glass ramekins but as long as there oven proof then thats fine.

Once you are nearly ready to scoff them set the oven to 200.°

Rub the insides of the ramekins with a little butter and dust with flour so the flour sticks to the butter.

 Divide the mixture between  5 ramekins and put them on a baking tray and into the oven the little delights go.....

I usually cook them for about 10 minutes or until I can see the sides slightly cracking and the tops of them still a little squishy (that means the gooey goodness inside is just right).

Serve immediately and enjoy.

Even more yummy served with a little (or a lot) of cream or with some strawberries ( trying to be a little healthy).

They really are amazing, every time I have made them everyone raves about them, one friend even said they were better than the ones she had eaten from shops or restaurants... :) 

So go ahead make your own gooey pots of chocolatey heaven, and try to eat all five pots to your self!

Happy Pancake Day Friends!

So, the obvious choice for the post today was to delight you all with our brilliant and amazing pancake skills...the dream was to 'enlighten' you with tips for pancakes throughout the day... breakfast pancakes, maybe brunch pancakes (if we're pushing it...),lunchtime pancakes, with a finale of dinner time pancakes. (maybe with dessert pancakes added on for good measure).

We felt this would have adequately summarised our love (and Sophie's obsession) with this glorious batter topped with delightful and scrummy treats! Maybe couldn't even sleep because I was so excited for Pancake Day!

Alas, (fabulous word) TO NO AVAIL!

I can pretty much conclude that this was a disaster. Not even really sure why!

I think our problem started when we attempted the french style 'crepe'. 

Now, this is not normally the type of pancake that I (Soph) would celebrate over. Not that I would refuse one, I'd happily gobble one right up...

But the American style pancake is where my heart is at.

So for some unknown reason, we decided to go with the thin ones....

(we have chosen specifically NOT to include the recipe because they were a DISASTER. We are ashamed and urge you.... do not try these at home ;)

maybe where we went wrong was choosing a recipe that included water.

WATER??

strange choice...

However a fab idea and something that managed to save them enough to be edible was the addition of cinnamon to the batter. Nice one.

We did in fact munch away on them...fairly happily, after adding a lot of lemon (and Sophie did actually even add a sprinkling of sugar...sshhh! it was necessary)

Enough to not actually want to make them for brunch, or lunch...

Although we may do an alternative 'Toad in the Hole' for dinner...yum!

I think next time we'll stick with American style, with maple syrup and crispy bacon.... mmmm....

How did your pancakes turn out???

Our updated version of the carrot muffin..... Yummmm! Squirty Cream best thing EVER! 

Excited for our first post!!

Today at our normal 3.30 afternoon scrummysweets sweets break, we were bored of our usual hot cross buns, the ones we don't particularly enjoy (more about that later) so...

As work was not happening today we decided  to make something yummy to make to inspire us to keep working.

As Sophie is not eating sugar at the moment and us being too lazy to go to the shops for cake ingredients we decided to make these sugar free mini carrot muffins using ingredients we already had!

Loosely following an American recipe (using cups) we used a small coffee mug instead for our measurements and hoped for the best....

1 cup of self raising flour

Half a cup of melted butter

2 eggs

3 grated carrots

Good table spoon of honey(substitute for sugar)

1 and half teaspoons of cinnamon

And here is the result (using our perfectly placed props to make it look more appealing)..

Actually tasted pretty good, although a little more honey and some added raisins would have made them even better... We did manage however to scoff two each in the space of a few minutes so calling them a success considering they are basically sugar free and not having to spend a penny on ingredients! 

Around 90 calories each they are a new scrummy afternoon treat to be enjoyed with a cuppa... In fact boil the kettle we are onto our third! 

Enjoy :)