No-churn blueberry muffin ice cream

This has been a long time coming; for some reason I've just got out of the groove of things. I made this about three weeks ago; let me set the scene for you. It was a thursday, about 9 o'clock, I was up showered and already hot from running round the house, the sun was beaming down, there was not a cloud in the sky with temperatures expected to hit 30 degrees later that day. I walked through the kitchen and out of the corner of my eye spotted a tin of muffins longing to be eaten from the day before. With a little time to spare before meeting a friend, I decided to whip up some ice cream; how appropriate for the climate.

Two days later it was raining and for a week we were living with permanent grey skies, constant drizzle and the occasional downpour. I sort of took a mini holiday/sick week and pretty much spent the last week watching tv series with my laptop on my lap staring at a blank screen; bloggers block? Although I guess it was more lack of concentration than anything else. So here I am on a sunday evening writing this while my bed sheets dry with a coffee and film on standby as a reward for my spectacular efforts.

I guess this recipe is not quite so suitable now the season has changed, but I have always preferred my ice cream in winter; there's just something about the cold, eating ice cream and burying yourself in a sea of blankets. But if you're a warm weather ice cream lover, which I suppose most people are, just curl up by the fire and eat it, it's almost like it's summer again...right? You're just a little bit closer to the "sun".

When I said i whipped this up I wasn't kidding; I think it takes more time getting the ingredients out than it does to make this.

Blueberry muffins

Ladies and gentlemen throw your recipe books away because I have a blueberry muffin recipe that will knock your socks off; in the words of Justin Timberlake "these guys are DA BOMB!"

I'm sure most people have a blueberry muffin recipe tucked away in their cupboard that they always go back to, but this recipe is the best I've ever had; although I'm more than happy for you to prove me wrong. It's easy to make, moist, and with a crumb topping that involves the holy grail of ingredients; cinnamon, I wouldn't say no to multiple helpings.

Peanut butter cupcakes

Peanut butter cupcakes, need I say more? are you hooked already?

I can't imagine anyone disliking peanut butter apart from the people with nut allergies, I apologies but let me tell you; you are missing out. Let's just not talk about the fact my dad doesn't like it, although he does like satay sauce but I didn't think to get him to try one of these, and my sister doesn't like the peanut butter/chocolate combination, talk about blasphemy!

When I first found this recipe I couldn't wait to try it, although I spend a lot of time looking at food and recipes I'd never actually seen a peanut butter cupcake recipe, maybe I've just been blind for years but low and behold some genius blessed us with this creation. 

S'mores Frappé

Last weekend we had our annual family cycling holiday which as a child always signified the dreaded feeling of having to go back to school, in light of this I am bringing you one of my favourite frappé recipes to celebrate, or in some people's cases mourn the end of summer. Don't get me wrong I love summer but I am also a lover of the leaves changing, wrapping up warm and drinking take away coffee with mittens on, but enough about that I'm sure no one wants to think about the sun going into hibernation any time soon.

I'm not usually one to drink blended coffee because if I buy them it just feels like I should be spending that money on something that will last a little longer than 20 minutes and I'm not really someone who wants to consume 50 grams of sugar from drinking a cup of coffee. If I'm going to eat bad food I'd rather have a slice of cake and stick to almond milk iced coffee which takes less effort to make than putting on a pair of socks; it still tastes good, I just force myself to live in ignorance about how good the real stuff tastes. However a few weeks ago while my friend and I were having a movie marathon we decided to make Oreo frappés and there started my obsession with trying to put every flavour I could think of in my old, not so powerful blender.

Anyway, on to the recipe

First make the coffee, I use instant because I'm English and we're a nation of household instant coffee drinkers, so if you're doing this make it with a small amount of water, then add the 2 tsps of condensed milk so it dissolves.
Grind/chop/whack with a rolling pin/ throw around your kitchen the chocolate until it's in small pieces; you're aiming for it to be small enough to not get stuck in your straw. I use about 4 squares of a 100/200g bar of chocolate 20g is just a rough guide.
Add to the blender; 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream, 50 ml of milk (I use almond, but any milk of your choosing will work fine), a handful of marshmallows, the ground chocolate and the digestive biscuit (this is just the UK alternative to graham crackers so if you're from the US add accordingly).
You'll need roughly the same amount of ice cubes which fit in the glass you're going to serve your coffee in this is usually about 8-10 large ice cubes.
The coffee should have cooled slightly on it's own, add one of the ice cubes to the coffee and mix until the coffee is cold, then add the coffee and ice cubes and blend.

If you have a not so powerful blender like me you might want to add the marshmallows to the coffee and condensed milk to soften them, blend the coffee mixture first on it's own then add an ice cube to cool it. You can add the rest of the ingredients after the coffee is cold then blend like normal.

You might have to do your own tweaking as you may prefer your coffee sweeter, stronger etc. You can also add whipped cream on top and sprinkle on some chocolate or marshmallows, I just prefer mine without.

Enjoy!