Chocolate Dipped Macaroons

We've always had a thing for macaroons; the sweet, chewy coconut is always yummy; but when paired with bitter dark chocolate they're extra delicious. 

They are also some of the easiest things to make. They require few ingredients, little time and keep for a while so there's no rush to eat them (although it's hard to resist). 

We whipped up a batch the other day after finding desiccated coconut on sale for 50p a bag! 

Now we have a plate full of macaroons which make the perfect afternoon snack. 

Ingredients

200g desiccated coconut

150g of dark chocolate 

115g sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract 

3 large egg whites

Start by preheating your oven to 180°C . 

Empty your coconut into a large bowl. 

Separate the eggs, keeping only the whites.

 Add the sugar...

Beat the egg whites until light and fluffy. This is key as it gives the macaroons the light and 'chewy' texture. 

Add the egg whites to the sugar-coconut mixture.

Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract. 

Mix lightly with a wooden spoon, then use your hands to smoosh the mixture all together.

Squidge small balls of the mixture and place on baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or until they start to brown a little on the top. 

Take the chocolate and break into small pieces. Then place in a glass bowl sitting on a pot of boiling water and melt the chocolate until its smooth.

Dip the the macaroons into the chocolate. As the macaroons can be quite delicate and the chocolate quite thick, we ended up coating them in chocolate using a spoon. 

Once coated, allow to cool. 

Then enjoy your deliciously chocolatey macaroons! What a treat!

We're intrigued with the idea of chocolate chips in the macaroons as well as outside of them. Or maybe chocolate covered macaroons. Hmm...

Love,

Samara and Fiona

xxx

Banana and Oat Cookies

I was inspired to make these cookies after seeing a similar recipe on The Burlap Bag that comprised of only two ingredients- banana and oats. The simplicity of these cookies seems to good to be true... not to mention as they only contain banana and oats they must be super healthy, so I tested out a batch. 

They were indeed delicious, easy to make and so good for you! So I tweaked the recipe to make them a bit jazzier. These cookies aren't as healthy as the two ingredient version but they are still a lot healthier than regular cookies because they contain no butter, sugar, flour etc. 

They are also easily adaptable so you can add in or take out whatever you want. 

Ingredients

2  large banana's (or 4 small ones)

1 cup of oats (90g)

1 tsp cinnamon

25g of white chocolate

25g of dark chocolate

25g of raisins

25g of walnuts

Preheat your oven to 190°C.

Start by peeling the bananas and chopping them up into small-ish pieces. 

Mash them up and add the oats and mash up even more, as much as you can. I used a potato masher for this. 

Add the cinnamon. 

Either add chocolate chips, or use regular chocolate and chop into fine pieces. Throw these into the bowl with the walnuts and raisins. 

Divide the mixture into cookie sized amounts and place them on baking tray. I used our silicon baking tray which is great and makes cleaning up 10 times easier. 

Bake for around 15-20 mins. It really depends on how you like the cookies, I prefer them to be crunchier on the outside and a bit gooey in the middle and 20 minutes is perfect for that!

And enjoy! We polished them off in about 2 hours and plan on experimenting further with different add-ins.

I want to try them with blueberries, pecans and m+m's!

A perfect snack for any time in the day and a great healthy recipe!

Let us know if you come up with any fabulous add-ins we need to try...

lots of love, 

Samara 

xxx

Mango Lassi

Following our recent post on Alphonso Mangos, we have discovered a substitute for the 9 months of the year when they are out of season - Alphonso Mango Pulp! It has all the flavour of a fresh mango, however it is tinned and can be bought all year round. It is easily available at your nearest Indian supermarket, and even in some conventional supermarkets (we found some in Waitrose). 

Our favorite way to eat the pulp is in a Lassi, an Indian yoghurt-y drink (almost like a healthy milkshake!). The recipe only requires three ingredients; mango pulp, yoghurt and milk.

To serve two, pour about 200 ml of mango pulp into a blender.

Add four tablespoons of yoghurt...

...And a big glug of milk.

Then blitz for a few seconds until it's smooth...

...Pour into two glasses and enjoy!

In this heatwave we have also been freezing the Lassi to make ice lollies- a perfect way to cool down! 

To get the two-tone effect, pour a little of the Lassi mixture into a lolly-mould, allow to freeze (around 30 mins), and then top up with mango pulp and freeze for about an hour.

Lots of love,

Fiona, Samara and Anna 
xxx

The Honey Harvest

Last weekend the three of us were beckoned down to the country to assist our Dad with the first honey harvest of the year. He has been keeping bees for a while now, but this is the first year with a plentiful honey crop, so the troops were called in to help. I'm not sure any of us were quite prepared for the stickiness that ensued!

The first stage is to remove all the honeycomb from the hives. Each of these frames are filled with honey which need to be extracted (and we had 8 crates to get through!).

Some of the comb ends up 'capped', which means it has been completely filled with honey.

After us fawning over how smart the little bees are to make such a beautiful pattern, we were given the task of "de-capping" the comb, which soon became a bit of a competition to see who could do it the fastest!

Once the panels have been de-capped, they are placed into this terrifying looking contraption, and spun to extract all the honey. We learnt the hard way that if you forget to put the lid on, the entire room (and us) gets covered in a thin but very sticky layer of honey- oops!

It's overwhelming how much honey is produced, and soon enough it's time to tap it into huge buckets.

Some of us (Fiona) had to restrain ourselves from acting like Winnie the Pooh and sticking our whole hands in it in order to eat it!

Once all the honey has been collected (all 116lbs of it!) it gets filtered, and finally jarred.

Now the only challenge is, what to do with so much honey?!

Lots of love,

Fiona, Samara and Anna

xxx