Chocolate Courgette Muffins

Let’s talk about courgettes. Or zucchini. Whatever you call them, it’s impossible to avoid their charms and abundance during the summer months. When we were in Italy a few weeks back our neighbour gifted us a bowl of freshly picked courgettes and their flowers which we respectively grilled, grated into a frittata with pecorino and softened in butter. Back in the UK we picked an enormous bag full from the local farm and while most made it into savoury dishes, I couldn’t resist saving a few for some sweeter baking experiments. Continue reading →

21May2018

Peanut Butter & Jam Thumbprint Cookies

With one bowl, seven simple, store-cupboard ingredients and ten minutes in the oven, these easy thumbprint cookies are the perfect recipe to have up your sleeve for a sunny day. The kind of day when you’ve eaten your fill of ice cream, don’t want to spend too long in the kitchen but fancy a little something sweet to finish off a meal or snack on. The speed with which these thumbprint cookies can be produced, combined with wholesome ingredients and a lack of raw egg mean they’re also perfect for baking with toddlers, where time is of the essence, as is licking the bowl and spoon. Continue reading →

14May2018

Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Cookies

I have a close friend whose key life events have aligned rather nicely with mine. We got married within a month of each other and our little boy and girl arrived around six weeks apart. We’ve been able to share tips and maternity leaves and the kind of conversations that might leave friends at different stages of life gasping with boredom (table planning, nappy contents, lack of sleep . . . the usual). We’re both now pregnant with baby number two (we’ve swapped, this time round she’s having a boy, we’ve got the girl) and I wanted to bake a little something special for her baby shower. This is a lady who loves Nutella, so when I spotted these Nutella stuffed beauties on Jess’s blog, I knew they needed to be made.
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7May2018

Classic Flapjacks

When I was pregnant with Nino, brownies and ice cream were my Sunday evening indulgence. It wasn’t a pregnancy craving per se: brownies and ice cream are the treat that never fails to cheer me up, my dessert island dessert. But I’m pretty sure I ramped up consumption during those nine months. Ice cream, vinegar, beef mince 😉 This time round, however, baby girl – or the body containing said baby girl, to be precise – has different ideas. Ice cream still appeals but eating it any later than lunchtime simply isn’t on the cards. If you suffer with heartburn outside of pregnancy, my heart goes out to you (quite literally, it burns). So last weekend, after dinner, I sadly ignored the good stuff calling to me from the freezer and – feeling disproportionately sorry for myself – looked to the cupboards instead to rustle up something sweet.

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30Apr2018

Brown Butter, Miso & Dark Chocolate Blondies

Brown butter and blondies go hand in hand. Thrown in chopped dark chocolate and walnuts and you’re close to my idea of baked bar perfection. But miso? Turns out the staple so many of us use in soups can add a nutty, buttery quality to all sorts of baked goods.

Of course miso in dessert isn’t a new idea. But I found myself desperate to try it after watching the latest episode of Chef’s Table. This series is all about pastry and Momofuku’s legendary Christina Tosi is first to the pass. Of course I knew about cereal milk ice cream and crack pie, but I wasn’t familiar with her story, her ethos, her attitude to life. An aside, Christina Tosi is awesome, go watch the programme if you need to know why. Continue reading →

23Apr2018

Wholemeal Spelt Soda Bread

With just four ingredients, no kneading and twenty minutes cooking time, this wholesome little loaf could not be easier to make. Unless, of course, your two year old pulls the glass bowl you’ve been mixing ingredients in off the side and smashes it onto the floor. After two years of next to no television, Nino has recently discovered the delights of Peppa Pig and, more specifically, Mr Bull. A large, loveable rogue, Mr Bull’s primary tasks in life seem to be making noise, digging up roads and breaking things (usually by accident). The perfect role model for a toddler. Needless to say, Nino’s suggestions that ‘Mummy mend it with superglue’ as we stood surrounded – barefoot – by shattered glass were met with a weary raised eyebrow. Continue reading →

16Apr2018

Ginger Molasses Cookies

Last week we celebrated Nino’s heart day. Two years since he underwent over ten hours of open heart surgery. Two years in which we’ve all changed and grown in so many ways. Two years full of life and love which somehow also, cliché as it sounds, zipped by in the blink of an eye. Nino’s wasn’t the only heart we celebrated last week. An hour long scan of a tiny, second, fingernail-sized heart came back looking more than positive too. Although we’ll need to monitor that little muscle over the coming weeks, a healthy little life appears to be blossoming and we’re more than over the moon.

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3Apr2018

Peanut Butter Cup Blondies

Are we too close to Easter for me to be posting another chocolate recipe? Or are you riding a wave of sugary goodness – the week a write off for those whose overindulgence spilled over into Monday, the rest of the year a free for all for those who gave up chocolate for Lent? Let’s just say that wherever you sit on the chocolate-guilt-joy spectrum at this current moment in time, this recipe is one worth filing away for the future. These blondies are good. Continue reading →

21Mar2018

Date & Banana Flapjacks

Butter, sugar, oats. These are the things that flapjack perfection is made of. Could you ever create a healthier, ‘sugar free’ version to match this deliciousness? Well yes, if you use dates. Because sweet, sticky, sumptuous, natural Medjool dates are 80% pure sugar. They call them nature’s candy for a reason.

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12Mar2018

Chocolate Easter Egg Brownies

Two weeks ago The Little Loaf turned six. I failed to mark the occasion here and, if I’m honest, would have forgotten about it completely had I not received a little note from WordPress informing me of the event. I’m not normally one to let anniversaries sail by – I’m the personality type who likes to look at progress, and anyway, who in their right mind turns down an excuse for celebratory cake? – but this season of our lives is just so busy that the superfluous seems to get pushed out of the picture. Continue reading →