Healthy banana and carrot cake cupcakes

So I've only got two weeks until my holidays and I'm not feeling particularly bikini ready, however these are lovely for a healthier desert substitute! I have a lot of spare carrots so decided to use them up and make a carrot cake, but as I'm being healthy I thought i'd use the hairy bikers healthy recipe, however I decided to change it to better suit the ingredients I have in my house and my personal tastes! Enjoy they, taste great...

 Ingredients 

2 carrots (grated)

1 Banana 

100 ml of extra virgin olive oil (the original said sunflower but I didn't have any and they worked fine so I would say either!)

100 g of soft brown sugar

200g self raising flour

2 tbsp of vanilla essence 

3 large eggs 

Method 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees 

Beat the eggs in a bowl and add in the oil and flower 

3. Mash the banana (I usually do this with the back of a fork!), the add to the mix

4. Put in the carrots, vanilla and other spices you wish, cinnamon or nutmeg would work well, oh and nuts would be nice too if that's your thing!

5. Pop in the over for 15-20 minutes until they are golden and brown!

6. For decoration I sprinkled mine with icing sugar and nuts, so feel free to decorate however!

7. Eat them! 

Carly

xoxo

Salted Caramel Brownies

Hey guys another foodie Friday post for you here this week I made Alexa Chung's Salted Caramel Brownie Recipe, If anyone watched the Celebrity bake off for comic relief I loved how relate-able Alexa was and how she couldn't really cook but these came out great! Here's the recipe with my few little tips...

My Attempt

Ingredients

For the salted caramel filling

• 150g/5½oz granulated sugar
• pinch of sea salt
• 125ml/4fl oz double cream
• 10g/¼oz salted butter, softened

For the brownies

• 180g/6¼oz plain flour
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 300g/10½oz dark chocolate, minimum 65-75% cocoa solids
• 150g/5½oz unsalted butter
• 4 free-range eggs
• 220g/8oz light brown sugar
• 150g/5½oz caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

To decorate

• 100g/3½oz good-quality white chocolate

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/180C Fan/Gas 5. Grease a 32x23cm/13x9in tin and line with parchment.
2. For the caramel, put the sugar in a saucepan and melt over medium heat until dark brown in colour. Remove from the heat and carefully add the salt and half the cream. (CAUTION: boiling sugar is extremely hot. Handle very carefully.)
3. Once the mixture has settled, add the remaining cream and butter. If the mixture is lumpy warm it over a low heat and stir until smooth. Pour into a jug to cool.
4. For the brownies, sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt into a large bowl and set aside.
5. Melt the chocolate and butter in a pan over medium heat, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
6. Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until thick and pale. Whisk in the chocolate, then fold in the flour mixture until just combined.
7. Pour half the batter into the tin and smooth the surface using a spatula. Add a thin layer of the caramel, making sure to leave the edges clean. Add the remaining batter and gently level the top. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Allow to cool completely in the tin.
8. Meanwhile, melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water (do not allow the bowl to touch the water). Leave to cool slightly then use a fork to drizzle it over the brownies. Leave the chocolate to set slightly before removing from the tin and cutting into 12 brownies.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/salted_caramel_brownies_33478

Okay so my tips from this recipe are as follows...

1. When melting the sugar it can get quite smokey so make sure you have the strongest extractor fan level on your oven, I still did but managed to set my fire alarm off! (does not encourage people to try your food)

2. Use more caramel, the recipe says to not put it near the edge however I think these would be even more delightful with caramel oozing out, because my attempt was more lightly flavored where I feel it would be more indulgent. 

3. I used milky bar white chocolate for the top and this turned out really well, i wouldn't worry about expensive chocolate for the topping. 

Hope you enjoyed this recipe and tips, I took mine into work and they were devoured in under thirty minutes flat! Make sure to send me your attempts and subscribe and comment with your own tips!

love Carly xx

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Hi guys so today I thought I'd share my chocolate chip cookie recipe, this is the first recipe I used to ever make cookies and from them I've switched this recipe up using Terry's chocolate orange (V.popular), Rolos and Milky bars as well as normal plain chocolate. I actually made them for my flatmates in freshers week and people from my entire block "popped" by to sample them!

This recipe is super easy and one I literally use all the time, I know it by heart now and It creates lovely chewy cookies going up to any size you wish really, I have actually made them into one giant cookie once because I had a lot of spare mixture. Millies eat your heart out!

Okay so for this recipe you will need....

250g of plain flour 

170g unsalted butter, melted

200g dark brown sugar ( Soft is best best but I've used demera before and that works too!)

100g Caster Sugar 

1 Egg 

1 Egg yolk

1/2 tea spoon of bicarb of soda 

1/2 table spoon of salt 

As much chocolate as you want! 

The original recipe I've taken this from (http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/4807/best-big--fat--chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies.aspx), suggests 325g of chocolate and I've used less than this before and it's been no problem. I wouldn't worry about baking chocolate either I use ASDA's own and that's just as nice.

Method 

1. Pre -heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and line or grease baking trays.

2. Cream together the butter and two sugars until they're well mixed.

3. Add the egg and egg yolk. 

4.  mix in the flour, salt, bicarb and vanilla and mix well

5. Finally add in your chocolate and mix well. The mixture should be kind of sticky but not totally wet.

6. Take two Tablespoons Full per cookie and drop them onto greased baking trays. You can flatten them if you want but by careful not to pancake them as they'll be too thin, either way is fine it'l just alter the shape of your cookie. 

7. Bake for around fifteen minutes until golden around the edges, they may not look entirely done in the centre but that's part of their cooling process. 

8. EAT THEM

My Terry's Chocolate Orange Variety

Okay guys hope you enjoyed this post, Ill be back next week with a new recipe, but I think another cookie recipe may be a bit boring and I'm making salted caramel brownies today, so think ill update you on that recipe next week,. 

Subscribe, like and comment away and make sure to check out my instagram for a sneak peak of the brownies,  love Carly xx

Tripple Chocolate Cookies

Hi Guys and welcome to my first Foodie Friday. It's my plan to share a new baking recipe I've either tried or amend on a Friday, as when better to have a treat day than the weekend! 

This week, I'm sharing Tanya Burrs Tripple Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe and my observations and little amendments. 

This is the original recipe...

To make 10 (rather large) cookies you will need: 

200g butter

300g caster sugar 

1 large egg

275g self-raising flour

75g cocoa powder

a little dash of milk 

a large bar of milk chocolate (Cadburys is my fave)

a large bar of white chocolate

a large bar of dark chocolate (this is totally optional - only add if you are a dark choice fan. Sometimes I add Daim bars instead of dark choc for a yummy toffee crunch!)

Method:

Pop your oven on to 200 degrees celsius 

Cream together your butter and sugar 

Crack in your egg

Stir in all the dry ingredients

Add a dash of milk if your mixture is looking dry

Break up all of your chocolate and throw it in, using your hands to get it into the dough

Line 2 trays with baking paper (the cookies will spread in the oven so don't place them close together)

Pick up a 10 small handfuls of cookie dough and place them onto your trays

Pop them into the oven for 11 minutes - I have found this to be the perfect baking time. When you get them out they will not look cooked, it is vital you know this, as it will be very tempting to leave them in for longer and then they'll be hard and overcooked once they are cool. Just take your cookies out after 11 minutes and leave them to cool for about 30 minutes.

Now enjoy a deliciously warm, melt in your mouth cookie with a nice cup of tea!

Share with friends and family (optional)

http://www.tanyaburr.co.uk/?blog=blogs/archive/2015/05/02/my.chocolate.cookie.recipe.aspx

Tanya Burr's Cookies

Okay so here's my thoughts and advice on following this recipe. 

1. I didn't use a Daim bar just milkybar and dairy milk but this is personal choice and they were still chocolaty and sweet enough. I feel when I next make these though I will be experimenting with all the different types of chocolate I can imagine. 

2. The mixture was very dry at first so I did have to combat that by adding quite a bit of milk however that wasn't a problem.

3. When putting these cookies on the tray I would just put them in more of a blob type shape rather than flattening them down, like I did with mine, making them look more flat and typical cookie like and defying the point of the use of self raising flour.

4. You may not need the full eleven minutes, mine were starting to look ready (in the cookie sense, IE still not cooked but done in the oven) around nine minutes and they were fine. 

5. Enjoy and only share I'f  you're in a really good mood!

My Attempt

Okay guys that's my first cookie recipe shared with you all, I may try and make July cookie month so look forward to a new cookie recipe next Friday, In the meantime I'll be back on Monday with a make up Monday post!

If you want to see more baking pictures, feel free to follow me on instagram 

https://instagram.com/carlymcleary/

ALOHA!

Hi everyone, welcome to my new blog, I thought I'd share a little bit about myself and let you know about my blog. Hi I'm Carly, I'm a twenty year old, constant worrier, obsessive tea drinker, book lover, chocoholic, pinterest lover, psychology student, fashion obsessed, foodie. Think that about covers it. I originally started my first blog Quirky Mondays in January and feel like it was a great start for my writing but now I feel like I know where I want to take my new blog and feel ready to properly make it exciting and interesting to read. So read away, subscribe away, comment away and I hope you enjoy! 

Carly 

xx

“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” 

Lewis Carroll