Delicious Alchemy - Ginger Bread Mix

Christmas was made for baking! I love baking all year round but I find at Christmas it feels a little more fun and I also find I have more people to feed my bakes to!

I wanted to make these Delicious Alchemy ginger breads quite a while ago, but as my oven decided against it, we have only just made them this weekend! My best friend, Rosie, came over on Saturday and with prosecco and Christmas films in hand we decided to have a festive day!

This recipe is super simple like all DA's mixes and only takes a few minutes to mix together! After mixing, we rolled out the dough. Using some festive mini cutters we cut out a variety of shapes and popped them in the oven, just until they were golden. We managed to make about 30 mini cookies, which would be great for a buffet or share around an office!

Once out of the oven and cooled we decided to ice the cookies,at which point we realised icing biscuits is not our forte! But we had a few successful ones! We managed to salvage some candy canes and mittens from our awful icing!

Flavour wise, these gingerbreads are lovely with spicy and warm notes. There is a hit of sweetness from the golden syrup and I found that these biscuits have a good snap but aren't too hard.  This simple baking mix results in very successful biscuits and Rosie, who is not gluten free, really enjoyed them too!

This pack retails on the Delicious Alchemy website for £2.00 so is a very inexpensive way of catering this Christmas. ASDA sell pre-made gingerbread men, which comparatively are more expensive and not half as fun to make!

I'd love to know what you like baking at Christmas! I am hoping to make the stuffing from DA over the coming week!

Hannah x

Boxing Day Inspiration! Pulled Pork Sandwiches!*

Ham is a classic boxing day staple. If you are looking to mix it up this year but still want to serve pork and the typical roasted or boiled ham is becoming a bore, why not try pulled pork instead?

This super simple recipe doesn't even need much attention, so perfect for when you want to be socialising with friends and family, rather than standing over a stove all afternoon!

For the pulled pork recipe you will need:

• Boneless Pork shoulder, as this is the best for pulled pork as it's easy to shred
• Sweet Mandarin BBQ sauce, any will do but this one is gluten and nut free! 
• Warburtons Newburn Bakehouse seeded sandwich thins (to make into sandwiches)

For this recipe the only tool you need is a slow cooker so minimal mess too! 

Put the pork shoulder, if you don't have a boneless one, remove the bones first, and place in the slow cooker on low for 8 hours

Once cooked, remove the pork and shred, ensuring you remove all fat. 

Drain the slow cooker of any liquids, place the pulled pork back in, mix in plenty of the BBQ marinade and put back on low for another hour. 

Once the timer goes off, that is it! Simple no fuss food! Perfect for parties if you bought £5 worth of  meat, it could easily serve up to 8 people. 

To serve I love pulled pork with the Warburton's sandwich thins which are free from dairy and gluten so this whole meal is suitable for those with gluten and dairy allergies as the Sweet Mandarin Marinade is also free from these allergens! 

Cook up some chips, make a salad and bring out all the left over party food from christmas day and enjoy! 

Hannah x   

*Some products in this post were sent to me to try, all recipe ideas and opinions are my own

Apple Crumble Using Warburton's Gluten Free Orange and Sultana Loaf!*

The colder months have well and truly hit us and so I have been after more warming, filling comfort food. When I received the Warburton's Artisan Cob with Orange and Sultanas, I just knew that this was calling to be used in a recipe!

With half of the loaf I am going to make a bread a butter pudding, but as my oven decided to break down and I am currently waiting for a new part, I have had to get creative with a slow cooker, microwave and cooking torch!

Apple crumble is one of my favourite warming puddings and I am always looking for ways to add a little twist to traditional dishes. So when I saw that this bread is more sweet than savoury, I wondered if making the loaf into breadcrumbs would make a more sweet topping for a crumble rather than the more typical use of breadcrumbs in savoury foods, so I gave it a go!

So here is what I did!

You will need:

• Two cooking apples
• Brown sugar
• Cinnamon 
• Warburtons Newburn Bakehouse Artisan Cob with Orange and Sultanas

Method:

This recipe would more than likely work better in a oven but as I only had a slow cooker at the time this is what I did!

Chop the apples into squares, I like mine rather small but this is personal preference. 

Put the apple in a small pyrex dish and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon through the apples to sweeten. I do this unmeasured and when it looks enough I stop, but I would say I put about half a cup of sugar and half a teaspoon of cinnamon per two apples. 

Cut a slice from the centre of the loaf about an inch thick and with a blender or food processor blitz this into breadcrumbs. 

Mix the breadcrumbs with about half a cup of sugar. I tried this recipe without adding butter to this mix to see if a dairy free version is possible, and it worked well as the sugar binds the topping slightly but you could always add butter or a dairy free spread and combine this to create a breadcrumb consistency if you wanted a richer flavour and a more bonded crumble.

I then put this is the slow cooker for 2 hours, if you were using an oven I would give the crumble about 30-40 minutes. 

If cooked in the slow cooker the top will not have crisped as you would typically expect from an oven cooked crumble. To create this crispiness, sprinkle some extra brown sugar on the top and heat with a cooking torch.

Enjoy with custard or cream, this winter warmer will surely put a smile on the families faces! 

Hannah x   

*This product was sent to me to try, all recipe ideas and opinions are my own 

Simple Mills Chocolate Cupcakes*

Now it's the first of December I think I can officially get Christmassy! Last week I was preempting the festivities by baking some chocolate cakes and adding some snowflake sprinkles!

Simple Mills are one of my favourite baking mixes when I want a quick bake. With all natural ingredients and being free from gluten, dairy and soy, these mixes are great for most dietary requirements.

Simple Mills mixes can be found on Make it Gluten Free Ltd's website and this particular pack retails at £5.20 and claims to make 12 muffins, although mine made 15, which after eggs and flavourings makes these about 50p a muffin. Which I think isn't too unreasonable!

To make these muffins all you need is eggs, oil and vanilla flavouring. Mix these together and then slowly incorporate the dry mix. Then bake until risen, which takes 20-30 minutes and that's all there is to it! The whole process only takes about 40 minutes.

In terms of frosting, I used a butter and cream cheese mix, of course these can be swapped for dairy free alternatives to create the same affect. In a bowl put 300g icing sugar, 50g butter, 125g cream cheese and 1/2-3/4 cup cocoa powder, depending on how chocolatey you would like it. You can also add some vanilla, but as there is quite a bit in the cake mix, I decided not to. Then just mix until it's a smooth icing. Spread or pipe onto the cakes. In the move I had misplaced my piping bags so I had to spread the icing this time! Then add sprinkles! Done!

I would say that these muffins do need a frosting to prevent them tasting too dry as the cupcake itself is quite dark in flavour. The icing gives it the lift it needs and if I had any I think they would have looked great with some edible glitter to finish them! Everything is better with a bit of glitter!

If you have baked this mix in any of the other ways suggested on the pack, I would love to know what you thought!

Hannah x

*This product was gifted to me to try, all opinions are my own