Blueberry & Banana Muffins

These are the type of thing I make a batch of at least once a week & always have to hand to fill in as breakfast or snack on the go. They’re super easy to make & you can switch out the blueberries for any other kind of berries when in season or use frozen during the winter months. Freeze your own if you have the freezer space or I like the Irish brand Bunalun as their frozen berries come in small paper boxes which are recyclable so preferable to soft plastic packaging which is not currently recyclable here.

Makes about 10-12 muffins (depending on baking case size)

Ingredients:

• 2 bananas, mashed

• 2 eggs, whisked

• 4 tbsp maple syrup

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 200g ground almonds/almond meal

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• Pinch of sea-salt

• 75g blueberries

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180℃/350℃/Gas 4 and line a muffin tray with baking cases

2. Whisk together the bananas, eggs, maple syrup and vanilla extract.

3. In a separate bowl mix the ground almonds, baking powder, cinnamon and sea-salt. Pour in the wet ingredients and stir to combine.

4. Add the blueberries and fold into the mixture. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking cases, place into the oven and bake for about 25mins or until a skewer comes out of the centre clean.

Upside-down Spelt Pear Cake

I haven't posted in a while but happy New year & I hope you're 2017 is going great so far. To start off my year of recipes this is a sticky, comforting kind of cake, perfect for a January day. I love a good upside down cake as they tend to range from being really moist to being a gooey mess, which is pretty much my kind of cake! This cake uses spelt flour which is easy on digestion than wheat & coconut sugar which is much less refined than run of the mill plain white flour. You can play around with how you lay your pears, overlapping they whole way around looks great too. You could also try using different fruit like apples or quince or throwing in a few seasonal berries.

Ingredients:

• 115g butter, plus 2 tbsp for bottom of the pan
• 200g coconut sugar, plus 2 tbsp for the bottom of the pan
• 3-4 ripe pears, peeled, cored and sliced into quarters
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of sea-salt
• 125g spelt flour, sifted
• 1/4 tsp bread soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 100ml almond milk, or milk of your choice

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180ºC/350ºC/Gas 4. Melt 2 tbsp butter with 2 tbsp coconut sugar in the bottom of an ovenproof frying pan, over a low heat. Add the coconut sugar to the pan and stir until the sugar has melted.

2. Arrange the pear slices on top of this and remove from the heat.

3. Beat together the rest of the butter and coconut sugar. Add the eggs one at a time beating between each addition. Add the sea-salt and vanilla extract and mix through.

4. Fold in the spelt flour, bread soda, cinnamon and ginger. Lastly add the almond milk and bring together. Pour the cake batter over the pears in the pan, transfer to preheated oven and bake for about 40 minutes or until cooked through.