RECIPE | COURGETTE BROWNIES

A healthy(ish) twist on the indulgent classic.

These brownies keep well and stay delightfully moist.

* To make these even HEALTHIER you can replace the oil with half a cup of over ripe mashed banana and leave out the chocolate pieces and nuts.

COURGETTE BROWNIES

Ingredients:

125ml Vegetable Oil

300g Caster Sugar

250g Grated Courgette

2tsp Vanilla Essence

40g Cocoa Powder

250g Plain Flour
1tsp Salt

1tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

80g Chopped Walnuts

100g Dark Chocolate (chopped into small pieces)

50g Chocolate Chips

Instructions:

1.  Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease a 22x33cm baking tin.

2.  Get a large mixing bowl and combine the oil, sugar and vanilla essence, mixing until it is blended.

3.  Sift the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbanate of soda, baking powder and salt into the mixture and get mixing!

4.  Add the grated courgette, along with most of the walnuts, dark chocolate pieces and chocolate chips (make sure to leave enough for a generous sprinkling of each to go on top of the mixture) and MIX.

5.  Pour the mixture into the baking tin and then sprinkle with the rest of the dark chocolate, chocolate chips and walnuts.

6.  Place the tin in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes (depending on the heat of your oven).

RECIPE | COFFEE AND WALNUT LOAF

A classic cake turned into a LOAF. Oh how I love to make loaves.

They are kind to me because:
(a) They ALWAYS work and...
(b) It feels less naughty eating a loaf than a cake!

COFFEE AND WALNUT LOAF

Ingredients:

Cake:

90g Walnut Halves/Pieces

125g Butter

210g Caster Sugar

2tbsp Milk

1tsp Vanilla Essence

3tsp Instant Coffee

2tsp Cinnamon

300g Self-Raising Flour

2 Eggs

Icing:

2tsp Instant Coffee

2tbs Boiled Water

80g Icing Sugar

Instructions:

1.  Preheat your oven to 160°C and grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.

2.  Put the walnuts onto a baking tray and place them in the oven for 10 minutes. Give them a good shake after 5 minutes to make sure that all are nice and toasted. Once removed from the oven, split the walnuts into two halves and set aside.

3.  In a saucepan, place the butter, sugar, milk and instant coffee and simmer on a low heat, stirring until the butter has completely melted and you have a smooth mixture.

4.  Sieve the flour and cinnamon into a mixing bowl and in the middle make a well.

5.  Add the butter/coffee/sugar/milk mixture to the flour.Whisk the eggs with the vanilla essence and add them to the mixture, followed by half of the chopped walnuts. Stir the mixture until it is evenly combined.

6.  Pour (or slop!) the mixture into the loaf tin and then sprinkle the remaining half of the walnuts on top. Place the tin in the oven for 40-45 minutes (depending on your oven).

7.  Once removed, leave the cake in the tin to cool.

8.  Once it is cool enough to remove, take the cake out of the tin and place onto a wire cooling rack.

9.  To make the icing: Combine the hot water and coffee in a mug and then gradually add it to the icing sugar, stirring until it forms a nice gloopy consistency. Drizzle the icing over the top of the cake.

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.