Cheesy Scones

Whilst I was in the Supermarket one day last week I was hit by a sudden craving for a lovely cheesy scone, smothered in oodles of butter ~ very unhealthy I know, but to be enjoyed occasionally in moderation!

I found some in the bakery department and popped them into my basket along with the rest of my shopping. I looked forward to eating this cheese scone all the way home. Imagined myself smothering it in butter and then sitting with my feet up and enjoying it with a nice cuppa. But this particular cheese scone was a BIG disappointment! Desperately lacking in any kind of flavour, rubbery in texture and heavy enough to sink a very large battleship!

Anyway ~ this morning I took it upon myself to turn these ingredients into some lovely homemade cheesy scones. This is what you need if you decide to have a go at making them yourself ~

175g self raising flour

a pinch of salt and pepper

25g margarine

75g of grated cheese

half a teaspoon of mustard powder

1 medium egg

2 tablespoons of milk

First preheat your oven to 220 degrees or gas mark 7 and grease a baking tray ~

Mix the flour, salt and pepper and mustard powder in a bowl and then stir in the grated cheese, keeping a little aside for the top of the scone ~

Mix to a soft dough with the egg and milk, again keeping a little aside to glaze the top ~

Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it is about 1.5 cm thick and then cut into rounds or triangles ~ you should end up with about 8 scones ~

Place on your baking tray and brush with the remaining egg and milk mixture and then sprinkle on the rest of the grated cheese ~

Finally bake for about 10 to 15 minutes until your scones are lovely and golden brown ~

Smother your golden, cheesy scone in oodles of butter and enjoy with a nice cuppa ~ much nicer than any you can buy in the supermarket! :O)xx

Gruffalo Cookies

My two small people LOVE the Gruffalo ~ in fact, to be honest with you all, I rather like the Gruffalo too!

A Gruffalo? What's a Gruffalo? For those of you who might not know ~

He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.

He has knobbly knees, and turned out toes, and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.

His eyes are orange, his tougue is black, and he has purple prickles all over his back.

(As described by Julia Donaldson in her book The Gruffalo).

But here in our house we think he is lovely!

At Christmas time my small people got a Gruffalo cookie kit ~ which came with a ready made cookie mix and a fabby little Gruffalo cookie cutter. They loved the whole experience of making the cookies and decorating them, and of course eating them! As they enjoyed them so much I thought that I would surprise them when they came out of school yesterday afternoon with another plate of Gruffalo cookies. It had absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that I wanted a go at making these cookies all by myself!

This time I just made a basic shortbread biscuit ~ 250g plain flour, 175g butter and 75g caster sugar ~ then you just::

Mix the plain flour and the sugar together in a bowl and rub in the butter ~

Knead until it forms a paste ~

Roll out on a floured surface to about 1cm thick and then cut into Gruffalo shapes ~

Bake at 160 degrees/Gas mark 3 for about 20 minutes ~

Leave to cool and either leave them as they are or decorate with chocolate icing and chocolate sprinkles ~ which looks exactly like Gruffalo fur!

And then ENJOY!! :O)xx

Baking Day ~ Banana & Chocolate Muffins

Yesterday was deemed a Baking Day here and I decided to bake something from my new Nigella Lawson's Kitchen book which I got as a pressie at Christmas time.

This book is huge! And very heavy!

Nearly 500 beautifully illustrated pages to drool over. But it is totally jam packed with lots of very tasty recipes ~ most of which sound very yummy and seem relatively easy to make! The recipe of choice yesterday was Chocolate Banana muffins ~ which I thought sounded just the thing to enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

Here is the recipe ~ courtesy of Nigella ::

3 very ripe bananas
125mls of vegetable oil
2 Eggs
100g of soft light brown sugar
225g of plain flour
3 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 x 12 bun muffin tin


First preheat your oven to 200 degrees or gas mark 6 and line your muffin tin with papers ~ although to be honest, I don't own a muffin tin so all I did was bung some regular cake cases onto a baking tray and that worked just as well!


Next mash up the bananas ~ either with a fork or with an electric mixer, then whilst still mixing, add your vegetable oil followed by the eggs and the sugar.


In another bowl mix up the flour, cocoa powder and bicarb and add this mixture to the banana mixture whilst beating gently. Once mixed, spoon the lovely gloopy chocolatey mixture into your paper cases and bake in the oven for around 15 minutes.


Once they are done, allow to cool slightly and then enjoy with a nice cup of tea and a favourite blog or two!


Oh............ and just for the record they were very tasty ~ at their best, warm and straight from the oven. Although they would be just as yummy served warm with a dollop of creme fraiche or some good vanilla ice cream too.

I hope you all have a lovely and enjoyable weekend and I'll see you again next week :O) xx

Baking Day

When I woke up this morning I immediately knew that I wanted to bake today. I haven't done any baking or making of any yummy things for eight whole months ~ as all my baking things have been packed away pending the sale of our little house.

However, this morning I decided that enough was enough and I rummaged about in my kitchen cupboards looking for suitable alternative baking utensils to use ~ and managed to scrape together enough substitutes.

I fancied something nice and sweet to have with my mid afternoon cup of tea and made some Fudge Slice ~ very yummy, very sweet and very moreish too!

This is a lovely recipe and it is just like eating fudge, but a lot easier to make......

The Ingredients are ~

225g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
225g butter
225g sugar
397g tin of condensed milk
200-250g chocolate ~ use either milk, plain or white, whichever you prefer!

First melt the butter, sugar and condensed milk together in a pan over a low heat until the sugar has completely dissolved.

Then bring the mixture to the boil and boil for 3-5 minutes stirring continuously until the mixture thickens and begins to turn golden. Take extra special care not to burn the mixture or you will get little black bits in your fudge.

Remove from the heat and add your biscuit crumbs. I find that there is something quite satisfying about bashing biscuits into crumbs with a rolling pin ~ it's very theraputic!!

Next pour the mixture into a traybake tin and leave to set. I usually line my tin with tin foil to make it easier to remove. There is nothing worse than having all your hard worked ruined by the refusal of the fudge to come out of the tin and be eaten!

Once the mixture is completely cool, melt your chosen chocolate and spread over the top. Stick the tray into the fridge and once the chocolate has set you can then cut the fudge into small squares.


Finally ~ put the kettle on, make yourself a nice cup of tea, put your feet up and ENJOY............... :O) xx