Classic Caggs

Do you ever have those times were nothing seems to be going right? When life's just a little bit rubbish? These cookies are perfect for those times when you need a pick-me-up.  To make double chocolate chip and sea salt cookies you will need: 150g soft butter 80g soft brown sugar 80g granulated sugar  1 egg 225g plain flour 1/2 tsp baking powder A generous pinch of sea salt 50g dark chocolate chips 50g white chocolate chips Preheat the oven to 160 ° C and prepare your baking trays by putting a piece of greaseproof paper in them Pop the soften butter in your bowl Throw in the two sugars and beat together along with the egg Sieve in the plain flour and baking powder Add a generous pinch of sea salt and the chocolate chips and give it all a good stir to combine Spoon out 1/2 tablespoon amounts of the dough, roll into a ball and flatten into a patty (a little bit thicker than you want your finished cookie as they will spread in the oven!) Spa

In my eyes, a girls night in calls for a pretty special supper. My housemate Aimee and I had been talking for ages  about having baked Camembert, and we decided that seeing as it was only us in the house, tonight was the perfect opportunity to have it.  For rosemary and garlic baked Camembert you will need: 1 whole Camembert 2 cloves of garlic, sliced in half A few pinches of fresh rosemary Dipping implements - we went for a nice crusty ciabatta Preheat your oven to 180 ° C If you don't have a ceramic Camembert baker (and why on earth wouldn't you?!) then you can just wrap the Camembert in silver foil instead. Unwrap the Camembert and use a sharp knife to cut the top bit of rind off to expose the cheese beneath Place the Camembert in your ceramic baker (or on the silver foil) and stab the rosemary stalks into the cheese. Make a few slits and push the sliced garlic in.  Pop the sliced-off rind atop the cheese, put the lid on the baker (or w

This is one of my absolute favourite vegetarian lasagne recipes. It's much less faff than the traditional minced beef one (which, don't get me wrong, I love too!) and is a whole lot healthier.  To make sweet potato and spinach lasagne you will need: 3 medium-sized sweet potatoes (approximately 700g) 1 tsp of dried sage (or 4 fresh sage leaves, chopped) 2cm knob of ginger, peeled and grated 500g mascarpone cheese 2 tbsp milk 1 egg 75g toasted pine nuts 100g parmesan 70g spinach leaves 10 lasagne sheets, or e nough sheets to make 2 layers of pasta   (but it'll be totally dependent on the dish you're layering everything up in!) A little bit of parmesan to grate on the top Preheat the oven to 170 ° C and kick things off by peeling and dicing your sweet potatoes, pouring over enough boiled water to cover then and cooking for 10 minutes until they're soft enough to mash In the mean time you can prepare the white sauce. Pop the sage, gr

This is a bold claim, but I'm pretty sure this is the best cake I have ever made. Luckily I had saved the occasion for baking my best-cake-ever for one of my closest friend's birthdays. The cake itself has a whole blitzed up orange in it, meaning that it is not only really orangey (and very chocolatey), but also super moist. It is basically a Terry's chocolate orange in cake form.  The recipe is based on the  BBC Good Food  recipe (but I personally think mine looks much prettier!) To make the chocolate orange cake you will need: 1 large orange 100g dark chocolate 3 eggs 280g caster sugar 240ml sunflower oil 250g plain flour 25g cocoa powder 2tsp baking powder 100ml double cream 150g plain chocolate Terry's chocolate orange pieces to decorate Set a pan of boiling water on and push an apple corer through the middle of the orange. Place the orange in the boiling water for 20 minutes to soften it up. Blitz the whole orange and set to one side. Preheat

Hummus. Houmous. Hummous. Hommos. Humos. Hommus. Hoummos.  However you fancy spelling it (I've gone for the Wikipedia page spelling - apparently houmous is the English spelling) hummus is super easy to make. It's quite simply a question of blitzing up chickpeas and deciding what flavour combination you fancy; this one is of the paprika and lemon variety but you're welcome to adapt to suit what you like! To make a generous bowl of homemade hummus you will need: A 400g tin of chickpeas 1 crushed garlic clove 3 heaped dessertspoons of creme fraiche 3 teaspoons tahini paste  Juice of half a lemon Few shakes of paprika (to taste) Few shakes of cumin (to taste) Salt and freshly ground pepper (to taste) Kick things off by draining and rinsing your chickpeas. Throw them into the container that the blitzing is going to take place in. Crush in your garlic clove (quite important to crush it in rather than throwing in whole as you don't want to get a mangled

Before I even get started on this post, I feel I should say a massive apology that my blog hasn't been updated in such a long time. In addition, I'd like to say that I really do appreciate it when my friends tell me they read my blog; I'll try and keep more up-to-date with it from now on! Right. Tonight is the penultimate night my friends and I will be together for quite a few weeks as we're all off on placements around the country. This called for a pretty special cocktail to start our Friday night off. Luckily, my best friend Aimee's mum knew of just the thing.  For Jane's Caribbean Rum Punch (which gives 3 pints/16 glasses) you will need: 175g granulated sugar 175ml boiling water 4 limes, juiced 4 lemons, juiced  400g tinned mango, blitzed (or if you can find 400ml mango pulp even better!) 300ml white rum 1 litre tropical fruit juice 1 litre lemonade Ice cubes and/or frozen fruit to decorate Start off by stirring the 175g of granulat

These delights came about as a result of watching cookery programmes over breakfast. Never a good idea. Luckily they're being given away to a friend so I can't eat them all myself. This recipe is courtesy of  Lorraine Pascale  so all credit has to go to her for creating something so deeply delicious! It's a no-baking recipe, so all you'll need is a microwave for melting and a fridge for chilling...and a blitzer if you can't be bothered with the hassle/mess of smashing biscuits up!  To make a tray of chocolate covered peanut butter squares you will need: 150g butter 250g digestives (or chocolate covered ones if you're feeling particularly naughty!) 200g brown sugar (I went for dark brown sugar as it's a deeper flavour than light) 300g crunchy peanut butter 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 100g dark chocolate 100g milk chocolate  Melt 150g of butter in the microwave and pop to one side Blitz the digestives and brown sugar

I'm going camping with friends for the weekend and had made a  Dorset Apple Cake  (with the addition of a teaspoon of cinnamon in the batter)...before realising one member of the group can't eat gluten. And so these vanilla and strawberry cupcakes were born!  If you didn't want gluten free cupcakes, you need only swap the rice flour and cornflour for the usual self-raising! I managed to get 11 cupcakes out of the mix, rather than the usual 12. Next time I think I need to share out the batter a little better! For gluten free vanilla and strawberry cupcakes you will need: 50g butter 75g rice flour 75g cornflour 50g caster sugar 1/2 tsp baking powder (make sure it's gluten free!) 1 egg 100ml milk 1 tsp vanilla extract 120g strawberries Preheat the oven to 180 ° C and line the muffin tin. Melt 50g of butter Weigh out 75g of rice flour and 75g of cornflour and sieve into a big bowl Add to the sieved flours 50g of caster sugar and 1/2