Chocolate Log Christmas Cake - Bakemas Day 24

It’s Christmas Eve and the last bakemas post of the year is here! Although I am kind of looking forward to a day off I’m pretty bummed I have to stop with the festive bakes.

Almond & Brandy Christmas Porridge/Oatmeal - Bakemas Day 17

If there’s ever a time to sneak a little brandy in your breakfast it’s definitely Christmas.
Full disclosure: I'm not saying you should do this everyday, I do not promote breakfast drinking...I just promote Christmas...and eating...and recipes...and maybe they contain brandy...occasionally...when the season calls for it.

Raw Christmas Pudding - Bakemas Day 6

Cranberry & Clementine Quinoa Salad

Christmas is over and I feel like I was so busy this year I didn’t have time to enjoy it. Mental note for next year: be more organised! Maybe I should start making Christmas cards now, that’s something I always run out of time to do; I’m sure that’s very idealistic thinking I can’t imagine I’ll actually start doing that. So after 24 days straight I took three whole days off and in those three days I spent entirely too much time thinking about this blog, whoops, there goes my "time off"! It took me a long time to get round to making this, I’m pretty sure I’ve had this idea stacked away in the back of my brain for about 3 months and I think the only reason it took me so long is because I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. I know that sounds crazy, why come up with the idea if you don’t think you’ll like it (I seem to be good at that) but for some reason I always think I don’t like Clementine’s but whenever I eat them I really enjoy them. As a kid I wasn’t a fan of the texture so the idea puts me off, my sister and I used to suck the juice out and leave the rest. I also really dislike going about my daily life and someone peeling a Clementine in the near vicinity of me, the smell really bothers me, not that I don’t like the smell it just bothers me a little. Is this making any sense? Anyway Clementine’s in salads are my new favourite thing, just staring at these pictures makes me want to go make a quinoa salad with Clementine’s in. I'm glad a friend told me that it sounds good because I found this ridiculously delicious, way more than I could have ever expected. This wasn’t actually the plan when I came up with this but after eating this I realised it’s the perfect salad for leftover meat, the mix of the cranberry and clementine would go to well with turkey or ham. It would also be a good serving salad for a party, cranberry sauce on the side. If you don't want to add meat and you want a little protein sunflower seeds are tasty with this (I forgot to photograph that bit I was too busy eating).

Carrot cake (healthy & sugar free)

Summer is coming, the sun is out, or at least it's trying, which means it's leisure cycling season in my house hold. Most weekends we go for a ride, and usually that ride involves; country roads, fields, country houses/farms, sun and sometimes cake in a tea room. As much as I enjoy cycling pretty much 75% of the reason I go is to see the houses along these random country roads. There's something about cycling in the sun that instantly brings on cravings for carrot cake, or is it just me? Maybe it's the many times we stopped at the church around Mildenhall every year and got carrot cake. I've only been on one bike ride this year (it was pretty horrific) but it instantly made me want carrot cake, and flapjacks, but that's completely besides the point.

I found this recipe on green kitchen stories after getting back from a ride, hat's off to them their blog is amazing, I made a few modifications because we can't easily get fresh dates here and I wanted it a little more carroty. I was a little apprehensive making this not really sure if it would be to stodgy or if it would turn out too bananary but I was rather impressed. Also I must mention, coming from someone who doesn't like cream cheese, this icing almost tasted like unset cheesecake mixture, I would have eaten it by the spoonful while I was whipping it up if it didn't have to go on the cake.

Flapjacks (Wholesome & processed sugar free)

When I think of flapjacks I think, healthy, lot's of nut's and seeds, high energy and again, healthy? but your regular flapjack recipe, which is oh so misleading, is not usually all that healthy. Yes, if you pack it full of seeds and nuts it does make it feel healthier but even so, they're still usually full of a lot of sugar and butter.

When I was out with my mum a week or so ago, we went to a Harris + Hoole coffee shop in between food shopping, let me just add I love love loved their crockery! As I was walking around the food shop I started talking about eating flapjacks and the joy that's involved with all things flapjack related; we only went to the cafe for coffee, but coincidentally they had sugar free banana flapjacks, so we bought one to share. Surprisingly, note: I am not a fan of bananas, it was oh so tasty, it didn't actually specify if they had artificial sweetener added which I don't actually use or eat but I figured why not give banana flapjacks a go.

I'll be honest this recipe is completely different to the flapjacks at Harris + Hoole, theirs had more of a raw texture (even though we asked and it's baked) however this flapjack actually tastes like a regular flapjack, granted you don't get that sugary taste, although if that's why you're eating flapjacks you've clearly been living under a very large rock without any baked goods, but this flapjack is a pretty wholesome healthy version without lacking in taste. I feel like you'd be able to give this to anyone and most people wouldn't notice the difference.