Breakfast Banana Bread

Found this in the Co-Op Magazine and it is now my ultimate go-to for a healthy grab and go breakfast! Make a loaf at the start of the week and it's great to take with me for an early start on campus or an easy breaky at home.

Makes 1 Loaf

Ingredients: 

• 1 1/2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 banana, sliced (for decoration)
• 1 tbsp honey
• 50g light brown sugar
• Handful of walnuts
• Handful of raisins
• 75g oats
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 150g self raising flour
• Vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 75g natural yogurt

Simple Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 180∘C
2. Beat together sugar, eggs, oil, yogurt, honey, vanilla extract and mashed banana
3. Add the flour, baking powder and oats
4. Stir in the raisins and nuts
5. Pour into a lined loaf tin and decorate the top with the sliced banana
6. Cook for 1 hour or until a knife comes out clean
7. Leave to cool

Blondies

Another made-up recipe on a chilled evening in with the girls. Perfect for that super-sweet tooth.

Makes 16 blondies

Ingredients: 

• 4oz butter
• 2oz caster sugar
• 2oz soft brown sugar
• 100g white chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 4oz plain flour

Simple Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees 
2. Beat together sugar, eggs and butter
3. Sift in the flour
4. Chop the white chocolate into chunks and stir into mix
5. Bake for 30 minutes

Chocolate Cheesecake

I made this recipe up with one of my housemates for our first house meal in 4th year. We were cooking a roast and decided a chocolatey dessert was 100% necessary but we couldn't be bothered to head out to the shops on a hungover Sunday evening so made do with what we could find in the cupboards. The outcome was surprisingly successful!

Serves 8

Ingredients: 

• 100g butter
• 160g digestive biscuits
• 250g cream cheese
• 100g milk chocolate
• 100g icing sugar
• 1 square white chocolate (to decorate)

Simple Steps:

1. Crush the biscuits into a large bowl then melt the butter and add. Mix them together then lay out in a small dish and flatten the biscuit base using your fingers. Put in the fridge.
2. Melt the chocolate in a separate bowl then add the cream cheese and stir together.
3. Sieve in the icing sugar and mix.
4. Cover the biscuit base with the chocolate cream cheese topping.
5. Grate white chocolate on top for decoration.
6. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours before serving.

Chocolate Brownies

Not only do these brownies taste AMAZING, they are also super easy to make and work out much cheaper than a lot of recipes out there since they barely use much chocolate despite tasting uber chocolatey. I love them served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Delish.

Ingredients: 

• 55g cocoa powder
• 50ml boiling water
• 85g unsalted butter/margarine, melted
• 225g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 100g plain flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 100g chocolate chips

Simple Steps:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line a 20cm (8") square cake tin.
2. Mix together the cocoa powder and boiling water then add half the melted butter.
3. Add the rest of the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla and mix.
4. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and mix.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Pour into the baking tin and bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until the top is firm to touch.
7. Cut into squares and leave to cool in the tin.

Tips and Tricks:

• Mix it up by using a combination of white, milk and dark chocolate chips.
• If you haven't got chocolate chips, cut up bits of a chocolate bar works just as well and is also a cheaper alternative.
• If you really don't have time, pick some up from Bread Ahead in Borough Market (2 for £4)

Banana Super Smoothie

This is my absolute favourite thing to have for breakfast. I started making it a few weeks ago and now I can't start my morning without it - tastes like you're drinking a chocolate milkshake yet it's actually full of healthy stuff.

Ingredients: 

• 1 Frozen Banana
• 200ml Soya/Almond/Cow's milk (almond is my fave as it's sweetest)
• 50ml water
• 1 tsp raw cacao powder

Simple Steps:

1. Put all the ingredients into a jug or blender
2. Blend using a hand blender or blender
3. Enjoy!

Tips and Tricks:

• Leave the ingredients together for about 5/10mins just to soften the banana a bit - it will be much easier to blend this way
• Ditch the water and reduce the milk to 100ml for ice cream!
• Optional extras would be 1tbsp smooth peanut butter or a squirt of honey/maple syrup

Lemon Polenta Cake

I'm having a bit of an obsession with polenta at the moment. It's dirt cheap to buy and really versatile - you can make everything from savoury chips, creamy polenta as an alternative to mashed potato, and even use it in cakes as I've done here for a lemon polenta cake. It gives this cake a lovely almondy crunchy texture so is worth giving a go if you want a change from a standard fluffy sponge!

Serves 6-8

Ingredients: 

• 125g soft margarine  (Stork)
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 70g polenta
• 100g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 lemon
• 50g granulated sugar

Simple Steps:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160°C
2. Beat butter and sugar together in a bowl.
3. Mix in the eggs one at a time until combined.
4. Gently fold in the flour and baking powder and polenta.
5. Grate the lemon and add zest to mixture.
6. Squeeze half the lemon and add juice (save the other half for the glaze).
7. Pour the mixture into a lined 7" cake tin.
8. Bake in the oven for around 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
9. Leave the cake in the tin.
10. Make the glaze by juicing the other half of the lemon and mixing together with the granulated sugar and pour over cake in the tin.
11. Allow to cool then put onto a plate and serve.

Tips and Tricks:

• Make the glaze while the cake is cooking to save time so you can put it on as soon as it's out the oven - the lemon juice will infuse in the cake better to give it a fruiter taste.
• Try other alternatives such as orange instead of lemon for a citrusy twist!

Banana Bread

This was a semi-made up recipe I came up with in order to use up the black bananas that were sitting in my fruit bowl. Always use over-ripe bananas when making banana bread, they seriously add to the moisture and flavour.

Serves 6-8

Ingredients: 

• 5oz Plain Flour
• 4oz Caster Sugar
• 2oz Butter
• 1 Egg
• 2 Extra-ripe Bananas, mashed
• 1tsp Baking Powder
• Splash of milk

Simple Steps:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C
2. Beat butter and sugar together in a bowl.
3. Add the egg, mashed banana and milk and mix together.
4. Gently fold in the flour and baking powder.
5. Pour the mixture into a lined loaf tin.
6. Bake in the oven for 1 hour.
7. Allow to completely cool on a cooling rack before eating.

Tips and Tricks:

• Banana bread keeps for days and can actually taste better the day after baking. Keep in a tin and enjoy!
• You can also add things to the recipe to add more flavour. Try a handful of chopped dates or chocolate chips.

No Fuss Yoghurt Cake

This is probably one of the simplest baking recipes I have. It's super-quick to make and you don't need weighing scales, dreamy for those times you find yourself in a poorly-equipped kitchen and have to whip up a cake for a friend's birthday. I had to make this cake almost every day when I was working my ski season as a Chalet Host. That's probably about 200 times - you can see why Chalet Girl Bum is such an issue! The fact it's made with yoghurt means it should even rise at high altitude in the mountains, fail safe.

Ingredients:

• 1 125g pot of natural yoghurt
• 1 pot of vegetable oil
• 2 pots of sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4 pots of flour
• 1 sachet baking powder
• Icing sugar
• Sweets e.g. Smarties, Haribo (for decoration)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
2. In a large mixing bowl add the yoghurt, then rinse out the pot to measure the other ingredients
3. Add the oil, sugar and eggs and mix
4. Add the flour and baking powder and beat until smooth
5. Pour the mixture into a lined baking tin and cook in the centre of the oven for 25-30 minutes
6. Mix icing sugar in a bowl with a little water to form water icing
7. Allow cake to cool before pouring icing on top
8. Decorate with sweets and let the icing set before serving