RECIPE | PEANUT BUTTER BLONDIES

Blondies AKA the sexier sibling of the classic brownie are a fudgy love affair waiting to happen

Blondies are ridiculously moreish without the hit of being too rich. It's almost impossible to make them without eating half the batter before you've put them in the tray... let alone devouring them molten hot out the oven.

Peanut Butter Blondies

As with any baking... to take it to a whole new level just add peanut butter!

Ingredients:

220g Plain Flour

1 1/2tsp Baking Powder

180g Butter

300g Peanut Butter

250g Light Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1 1/2tsp Vanilla Essence

75g Chopped Nuts

200g White Chocolate

Instructions:

1.  Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease and line a baking tin with baking paper.

2. Cream the butter and the sugar for 2-3 minutes with an electric whisk until fluffy and light in colour.

3. Add the peanut butter, eggs and the vanilla essence to the mixture and mix.

4. Fold in the flour and baking powder and combine until the mixture forms a batter.

5. Chop the white chocolate into small chunks and fold into the batter along with the chopped nuts.

6. Pour the batter into the baking tin and spread evenly.

7.  Place in the centre shelf of your oven and bake for 35 minutes or until firm in the middle.

LIFESTYLE | MORE BAKING AT INKWELL...

I had another afternoon of fun and baking at Inkwell last Friday, this time with my baking buddy David! We bake on the Friday afternoon so that there are cakes to sell in the Cafe the next day. Last week's cakes were a MAJOR success so I was asked back to bake this week!

To learn more about Inkwell visit my previous post HERE.

We made some nut and seed flapjacks...

Some peanut butter and banana muffins...

...and some smaller versions with cinnamon buttercream frosting.

(This was our first attempt at using a piping bag - please forgive us!).

Also in the kitchen was some delicious home made roasted red pepper soup...

...and some carrot and chickpea veggie burgers!

I love being able to experiment and get creative in the kitchen and it's great to know that we can do it for a good cause too. I'll be back again next week with some vegan cakes and a few more wonders.

Do you like my hat (and my flapjacks)?

RECIPE | WALNUT CINNAMON BUTTER

So we thought we'd jump on the nut butter wagon just to see HOW good home made nut butter actually is.

IT'S PRETTY DAMN GOOD.

WALNUT CINNAMON BUTTER

Ingredients:

200-400g of Walnuts

1/2 a teaspoon of Cinnamon

Sugar / Syrup (or sweetener of your choice)

Instructions:

1.  Place the walnuts into a food processor and process them on full power. This will take you about 10-15 minutes in total depending on how MACHO your food processor is (our's decided to heat/oversmoke after about 8 minutes!).

2.  The nuts should start to become finely ground and bind together. Everything will look like it has gone wrong as the nuts start to clump into a dough-like consistency!

HAVE NO FEAR.

3.  This is where your desired piece of cutlery (we chose a knife) comes in handy and saves the day.

In between every 2-3 minutes of processing you should stop the processor and scrape the nutty/doughy mixture from the sides of the container and then continue to process again.

You will soon start to become bored of nothing happening and think...

WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE WRONG?

WAIT.

WAIT IT OUT.

4.  All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the nuts will start to ooze their natural oils and the mixture will form into a smooth paste. At this point add your cinnamon and preferred sweetener. Then continue to process until the nut butter reaches your desired consistency.

...et voila!

VERY simple and easy 100% natural home made nut butter.