Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Recipe: Easy Banana Loaf

Here's a very simple, easy recipe for using those unwanted overripe bananas. You know the ones that have gone a bit brown and don't look very appealing to eat, the ones you look at and think are not safe to eat - almost a bit like these:

Overripe Bananas

The thing with overripe bananas is, they are much more sweet than just straight-off-the-shelf bananas. The more overripe, the better.

This recipe is easy, and you can pretty much add whatever you want to it - walnuts, raisins, sultanas, chocolate chips...

Ingredients:
Around 3-4 overripe bananas, mashed
110g butter, softened, plus a little extra for greasing your loaf tin
70g caster sugar
40g soft light brown sugar
210g self-raising flour (if you don't have this particular flour, use 200g plain flour with 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/4 tsp of salt)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten

Firstly preheat your oven to 180 C.

Line and grease your 900g/2lb loaf tin, ready for your finished mixture.

What to do:
1. Cream together the butter and sugars.
2. Add the beaten eggs to the butter and sugar mix and stir, it might look a bit curdled but that's okay.
3. Tip in the mashed bananas. It'll still look curdled, again that's okay - it should start to look a lot better once you add the flour.
4. Sift the flour, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda into the egg, butter and sugar mix and fold.
5. Pour into your lined and greased loaf tin.
6. Bake for 45-50 minutes.

Next, you'll end up with a delicious-looking, moist banana loaf:

Banana Loaf

Remember to leave your loaf to cool down a bit, before removing it from the tin.

Banana Loaf

I don't know what the best thing is to have with a slice of banana loaf, a cup of tea, maybe? Butter? Personally, my partner and I love a scoop of vanilla ice-cream over a warm slice. Scrum-diddly!

Friday, April 26, 2013

Baby Checklist

I can't believe it - I will be 31 weeks pregnant in two days. Only 9 weeks to go until my little bundle of joy is here with us. I can't wait to hold him/her, have cuddles and kisses and look into their big beautiful eyes.

I feel as though I've gotten no where in terms of shopping for baby things... the things I've listed as 'already got' below are mainly stuff that have been given to me or that my mum has kindly bought. I've been off sick from work since early December (I suffered from Hyperemesis Gravidarum until I was around 22 weeks), and so haven't been earning anything. Now I'm receiving maternity allowance, but for the next month or so will have to be used to pay off debts that have accumulated over the past four months.

Anyway, here's my baby checklist and whenever I buy/receive something from my 'things I still need/want' list, I will make a new blog post.

Things I've already got
- Cot for our bedroom
- Car-seat
- 10 long-sleeved sleep-suits
- One hat, 4 pairs of scratch mittens & 6 pairs of socks
- Two packs of nappies (newborn & size 2)
- Baby bath & support
- 4 packs of baby wipes
- Various sample-sized products including nappy rash creams, baby lotions, baby bath and shampoos.

Things I still need/want
- Moses basket for downstairs
- Pram
- Short-sleeved sleep-suits
- Two cardigans/jackets
- Changing mat
- Bibs
- Changing bag
- Nappy bags
- Bouncer

:)

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

I've Moved

Hello everyone.

I've finally moved my website over from thatblogginggirl.com, which I designed especially as a beauty blog. However, since finding out I was pregnant in October, priorities have changed. I can no longer afford to pay for the domain name and hosting so decided to move to a free Blogger account. It's taken me awhile to edit all the CSS to get it looking how I want it, but it's worth it - I'm extremely pleased with how it's turned out.

So this blog will be a mixture of everything - babies, cooking, baking, beauty, lifestyle, personal and anything else I can think of.

Please follow me on Bloglovin' and Bloggers.