I have been making pancakes for breakfast now for months, initially just on weekend mornings after a long run, but now I make them for weekday mornings too.
Category: Breakfast (Page 1 of 2)
I have made a lot of hot cross buns in my time, for example these wholewheat hot cross buns and my even healthier hot cross buns a couple of years later.
However I really really like Hot Cross Buns, so I felt it necessary to bake them again this year. To me it feels a little like Christmas baking. You know with the oven on, baking, cinnamon, mixed spice, sultanas etc. Admittedly in previous years at Easter it wasn’t so cold that it actually felt like Christmas!
My mum is in New Zealand on holiday this mother’s day, sunning herself on a beach, whilst I sit in Edinburgh in surrounded by at least an inch of snow.
Back in May 2010 I made wholewheat hot cross buns and I got a pretty good reception on them.
It’s not exactly the right time of year for Hot Cross Buns but I gave them another go, but then breads and sultanas never really go out of season!
So how can I claim these are healthier than my wholewheat 2010 buns? Well this time I substituted coconut oil for butter, low fat coconut milk for milk and Light At Heart sugar for, uhm, sugar.
I guess I should be up front about it – I was given Light At Heart sugar for free by Tate and Lyle, however I had been hearing about stevia based products for years and been dying to try them. Unfortunately until December 2011 they weren’t allowed to be sold in Europe! The good thing about Stevia based sugar is that it’s half the calories of normal sugar but it’s all natural. (i.e. Not weird Splenda type stuff that was invented in a lab).
The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.
A week ago or so I bought my first tub of buttermilk, despite not knowing what I was going to use it for. Since then I have spent time trawling for recipes but none of them really caught me. None of them made me want to get off the sofa (where I have generally relocated since getting the iPad) and actually make something. In the end I had a sudden craving for pancakes and it turned out to be a convenient way to use up the buttermilk, strawberries and creme fraiche I had in the fridge.
Now please don’t take away my food blogging license – but I am going to tell you a secret. Until Friday I had never boiled an egg.
I’ve fried eggs, poached them, scrambled them, made omelettes and frittatas but I’ve never hard or soft boiled an egg.
Yesterday in the UK the weather seemed to really turn a corner, there were blue skies, and you could feel the warmth from the sun. It was perfect and long past overdue!
I have been meaning to try these muffins for a while, originally because I thought they might give me a shot of sunshine despite there not being any really sun to speak of. However for once the recipe and the weather aligned and I got a perfect Spring muffins.
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It’s a long time till Good Friday, but these are too good to wait for! I have a special love of fruit bread, especially those spiced with cinnamon, so hot cross buns have always been a favourite of mine.
The supermarkets have been selling Hot Cross Buns since after Valentines Day, but I am yet to buy a single one. I made a promise to try to make more things myself. At Christmas I refused to buy mince pies and instead made my own – and I would never buy them again now. Why should it be any different for Hot Cross Buns?
I am finally home, and after almost a week away there is only one thing I want. A home cooked meal, and maybe if you’ll give me a second option – some sleep!
Atlanta was wonderful and I met so many great people, including Nancy a fellow food blogger from The Dogs Eat the Crumbs. As some of you may know I am an almost anonymous blogger, so it was lovely to meet another food blogger – to be able to talk about what we do.
