#GBBO Comes to Life #HBBakeOff

It's not every day where an email pops into your inbox offering to cover travel expenses to London. For a day trip. It's also not every day where you get the opportunity to bake alongside Ugne from the Great British Bake Off.

Holland & Barrett put on an incredible day for all my fellow Free From bakers where we would get the chance to bake an incredible Pecan, Apple and Pear cake that was completely vegan, gluten and lactose free! It was the Deliciously Ella recipe but we used cranberries instead of raisins to make it slightly more christmassy! 

The whole day was incredible, Ugne is such an incredibly lovely person and was so down to earth and an absolute pleasure to meet (and have a little gossip with!). She also really liked my cake, which was definitely a bonus! The whole day was hosted at Cactus Kitchens which is where Saturday Morning Kitchen is filmed and honestly, it was the kitchen of dreams (far better than my student kitchen). It was also very pinterest which was an absolute bonus.

And because I'm doing Vlogmas this year, I did a little vlog on it! 

Thank you so much to Holland and Barrett for inviting me - and if you're Free From anything, you can get all your go to ingredients here.

4 comments day out, food, manchester beauty blog, manchester fashion blog, out, recipe, uk beauty blog, uk fashion blog

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Cheap, Quick and Easy Vegan Student Meals: Vegan Fajitas

When I used to eat meat, chicken fajitas was one of my favourite meals - it was salty, satisfying and was so quick to do. I've not really craved meat since I went vegan but I have been missing fajitas.

This is such a cheat recipe but I do have my own "marinade" if you don't want to buy premade mixes.

I use the Old El Paso Fajita mix in Smoky BBQ because it's actually vegan (it contains soy protein) so that's what I tend to use however if you're wanting to cut down salt, mix 2 tbsp paprika, 1/2 tbsp garlic powder, 1/2 tbsp onion powder and 1/2 tbsp Cajun Mixed spice for an equivalent version. It's surprising how many ready mixes and sauces are actually vegan (many don't want to label things vegan because they aren't made in vegan factories), just make sure you read the ingredients just to be sure. Often if things say they're vegetarian, they're also vegan just look out for egg and milk in the ingredients.

But I used the mix. As my filler, I went for mixed peppers and mushrooms to give a variety in texture. I'm not big on onion but that could also be a nice thing to chuck in.

The Recipe:

• Coat your veg in your spice mix and let sit for five minutes
• Cook in non stick pan (cut out that oil!)
• Serve on a wrap with lettuce, cherry tomatoes and a sprinkle of vegan cheese.
• Enjoy!

These took close to ten minutes to make and are such a hit - they're so yummy and cheap to make!

How are you liking my student meal series? Have you tried anything yet?

14 comments food, manchester vegan blog, recipe, vegan

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Quick and Easy Vegan Student Meals: Thai Inspired Noodle Soup

I'm not sure what it is, but noodle soup brings back so many fond memories, one of them being my school lunches in Bangkok which nearly always consisted of a noodle soup consisting of rice noodles, some sort of meat, loads of veg and a broth of some sort. But the big thing was the broth. Salty, sour, sweet and spicy were three tastes that Thai food always manages to interweave so I set about making my own version.

The best part is that this is basically made up of odds and sods from my cupboard and is so incredibly easy and cheap. 

It's so important that you get the broth right as this is what the veg and noodles soak up so you've got to make sure it holds loads of flavour. This is how I did it:

Broth:

• 2 Kallo vegetable stock cubes
• 500ml of boiling water
• 2 tbsp Soy Sauce
• Half an onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 chopped carrots
• Frozen spinach
• Half a cauliflower, chopped up
• 200g of mushrooms

Add the boiling water to the stock cubes, allow for stockcubes to dissolve and then chuck in the soy sauce, stir and then the veg.

Allow to simmer for about 1 hour, throw in the noodles. Enjoy!

This makes enough for two people because it's meant to be soup heavy so I pop them in tupperware to enjoy during the week! They taste amazing and the veg can be whatever you'd want to use. It really hits the spot and is so much better than a pot noodle.

If you're not sure what kind of noodles to use, I buy noodle nests from Blue Dragon but you could always use the noodles from pot noodles, just not the seasoning!!!

Is this something you might make at home?

7 comments food, recipe

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The Weekend Bake: Cupcakes from Heaven

I like to bake and its a bit of a stress thing for me as well - during my ALevels, there were new cakes each day! But I also like coming up with recipes (all by myself!!!!!) and this one is completely original. A by Ellie spectacular. Blueberry and white chocolate cupcakes with a white chocolate ganache (but the icing isn't really necessary).

This recipe was originally meant to be raspberry and white chocolate which is a sure fire combination and my all time favourite combination but low and behold, the local co-op was out of raspberries so I swapped them for blueberries and this may have been the best thing to happen to my recipes for a long time.

For the cupcakes:
300g plain (or self raising) flour
2 tsp baking powder
150g golden caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
225ml milk
50g butter (melted)
100g fresh blueberries
100g chopped white chocolate

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases.
2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and stir in the sugar.
3. Crack the egg into a separate bowl and whisk in the vanilla extract, milk and butter.
4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry and add the raspberries and chocolate, take care not to overmix.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes until they've risen.

For the ganache:

300g unsalted butter, soft

1 tsp vanilla extract

650g icing sugar

150g white chocolate, melted

1. Cream all the ingredients until smooth.
2. Ice cupcakes when they've cooled down.
3. Decorate as you wish!

All in all, these worked brilliantly, the tartness of the blueberries meant that they weren't too rich and that the white chocolate ganache didn't make it too sickly! I also learnt that I can't ice cupcakes to save my life.

Let me know if you've tried any recipes lately!

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11 comments food, lifestyle, recipe

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