A ménage à trois you won't want to miss - Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies

Sad, sad news people. The absolutely incredible 3 nuts Cookie Dough Peanut Butter I bought in New York at Smorgasberg market ran out last week. I was enjoying it in so many ways : spread on toast, mixed into my porridge, as a key feature in some very delicious chia seed puddings, and in all honesty, more often than not just straight from the jar and into my mouth.

RIP - gone, but not forgotten.

But every cloud has a silver lining, and I managed to pull myself out of my nut butter mourning and launch into recipe creation mode. Looking to recreate the brilliant combination of cookie dough, chocolate chips and peanut butter, this recipe is a combination of all things good and yum - say hello to Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes with Cream cheese Cookie Dough icing.

The touch of cream cheese with the cookie dough makes for a very smooth, spreadable icing. And it couldn't be simpler to make! To make the icing I literally whacked everything in my blender and mixed in the chocolate chips at the end. The icing is sweet (of course), but ended up as the perfect for the rich chocolate brownie recipe I chose to follow. Taken from the incredible food blog smitten kitchen, this brownie mix which uses just cocoa powder rather than melted chocolate.

Sweet cream cheese cookie dough icing meets rich cocoa brownies. The rest is history.

I tweaked smitten kitchen's recipe slightly, through the addition of swirls of peanut butter (chunky, please) and I opted for a mix of white and brown sugar, as I felt this would provide a good sweet balance against the rich cocoa flavor. I choose to make my brownies in cupcake molds, because...why on earth not?

Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes with a Cream cheese Cookie Dough topping

(This recipe is adapted to make 6 cupcake sized brownies, so if using 8×8-inch square baking pan, you'll need to double it)

For the Brownies
- 70 grams unsalted butter
- 60 grams of white caster sugar mixed with 60 grams brown sugar (1 cup)
- 30 grams cocoa power (this is a little less than 1/2 cup)
- 6 tea spoons of chunky peanut butter (a spoonful for each cake)
- A wee pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 30 grams self-raising flour (again, a little less than 1/2 cup)

For the Cream cheese Cookie Dough icing
- 1 1/2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
- 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, softened
- 40 grams brown sugar (1/3 cup)

- Drizzle of milk (if needed. Play this by eye, only adding if it seems too thick).
- 35 grams flour (1/4 cup)
- 70 grams mini chocolate chips (2/3 cup)

Baking the Brownies
1) Get the oven on, and set it to 190 degrees. Grease chosen mold for brownies.
2) Now we want to melt our butter into our cocoa - traditionally done in a heat proof bowl over a pot of bowling water, I actually managed this just fine in a microwave. Blasts of 20 seconds are recommended, just to check you aren't burning anything. Once combined, add your pinch of salt to the chocolate butter combo.
3) Now we want to add the egg. Use a wooden spoon, and stir in gently.
4) Once the egg is mixed in, it's time to add in the flour. Fold in until it can no longer be seen, and then your brownie mix is ready! Pour into baking tray/cupcake mold, and on top on each cake nestle in a teaspoon of peanut butter, so that the surface is flat.

Making the icing

1) Place cream cheese, butter, sugar and flour in blender. Whizz on high speed for about 10-20 seconds until you reach an even consistency. If it's looking a little lumpy, here's the time to add in that drizzle of milk.
2) By now you should be seeing a clear dough-like texture. Remove from blender and stir in chocolate chips (and plenty of them).
3) Once your brownies have cooled completely, bang your icing on top.

Now these look good. 

But I couldn't help add in just a little bit more chocolate for good measure. I melted some chocolate in the microwave, and swirled it into the icing...

Because chocolate, on top of chocolate brownies and chocolate chips is never a bad idea. Make these cakes and make some special people very happy. Or...

Just be one very happy baker and munch them all on your own!

Peanut butter, cookie dough, and brownie. The sexiest ménage à trois I can think of!

A huge thanks to my lovely roommate and the all-round likable human Juan Kattan for some of these lovely snaps. You can check out some more of his photos on his Tumblr blog.

Fiesta Colombiana!

I've had an absolutely great time being back in the UK. I've been catching up with friends and family, soaking up all things British and enjoying what feels like a million cups of tea (and many a mince pie too!). As happy as I am to be reunited with these British delights, I also wanted to share a bit of Colombian cuisine with my friends here in London too.

Before leaving Barranquilla I hit up the supermarket to stock up on certain Colombian goodies. With a night out in London on the cards, I thought it was the perfect excuse to host a Colombian themed pre-party at mine.

I assessed what ingredients I had to hand (along with what would be available in the UK), and set out making my menu. To drink I chose typical aguardiente (think sambucca but smoother), agua panela cocktails (brown sugar water...in my opinion made to be mixed with rum), and juice from a fruit called borojo, as I had brought over the pulp.

To eat, chicken wings and traditional arepas were on the menu, made with corn flour which I bought from Colombia. These were topped with guacamole and tomato salsa, which also went nicely with the patacones al horno I served (recipe found here). On my local high street I even managed to find yucca, a root vegetable popular in Colombia. The yucca was boiled and served with fromage frais, which I hoped would be some kind of equivalent to the delicious costeño dip suero, which is a bit like sour cream.

When one of your desserts comes from a package, you know you're in for a classy dinner.

And of course - dessert was compulsory. The cake from my previous post featured, as did natilla - a traditional Colombian flan, made from panela, served with cream and strawberries. This came freshly from the packet, and I felt very retro chic serving flan with whipped cream.

To list all the recipes here would be far too lengthy, but really a lot of them were quite basic. The tomato salsa was simple but classic, from none other than the goddess that is Delia Smith (check out her recipe here). 

The chicken wings (seen above in the glass bowl) were marinated in a last minute concoction of what I deemed to be a 'Colombian-inspired' sauce, and they turned out to be really tasty.

To give them a go, you need:

'Colombian style' marinated chicken wings

-2 tbsp cumin seeds, ground
-2 garlic cloves
-Generous drizzling of olive oil
-A spoonful of chilli sauce (depending on how hot you like it)
-A tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter
-A large handful of coriander leaves
-Plenty of salt and pepper
-3 tbsp of thick greek yogurt.

All whizzed in a blender, this made a lovely thick marinade for the wings. Coat wings in marinade from anything up to 24 hours before serving (the longer the better really), and then cook at 180 degrees for about 45 minutes.

Soon enough, the food was ready and the feast was served!

My retro flan and passion fruit sponge were accompanied by the very welcome addition of Celebrations - and now I really feel like it's Christmas. Overall it was a lovely evening spent with wonderful people, catching up and sharing a great variety of food (and drink...). 

Here's to Colombian food reaching London, and catching up with old friends. I intend on bringing back a few British treats to Barranquilla too, but fear the delights of Heinz baked beans may be lost on the Barranquilleros. Still, a girl can always try!

British Baking (with a Barranquillero twist)

Guess who's back in London for Christmas? After bidding a brief farewell to my beloved Barranquilla, I touched back down in London to spend Christmas with my friends and family back here in the UK. One of the many exciting things about being back home is being close to all the little things I love - especially my collection of cookbooks!

I do really love a good cookbook.

I spent an evening curled up in bed back with my old friends Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson and Mary Berry. Having brought back various Colombian goodies with me, I could just envision one of Mary Berry's traditional English cakes with a new Colombian twist to it. And what cake is more traditional than the classic Victoria Sponge? Proving that often less is more, this simple sponge cake with just a touch of jam, cream and fresh berries is a much-loved classic and an iconic British bake. Dare I fiddle with this?

Fiddle I did, and to much success! Replacing the British strawberries with Colombian arequipe (dulce de leche to Argentinians,caramel to you and me), a touch of coconut and a passion fruit cream, here is my twist on the traditional English sponge.

Ingredients

For the Cake:
225g of butter (at room temperature, plus a bit extra for greasing the tins)
225g of caster sugar
225g of self-raising flour
2 level tsp baking powder
4 large eggs

For Filling:
200g Arequipe/Caramel
150g cream cheese
100g double cream, whipped
100g icing sugar
2 generous tbsp of desiccated coconut
Passionfruit pulp from 5 passion fruits

Equipment:
Two victoria Sponge tins
A good whisk!

(Have you noticed anything about the measurements for this cake? Equal amounts of butter, sugar, and flour. Add in 4 eggs and 2 tsp of baking powder and you have the backbone of about 100 delicious sponge-cake recipes. Learn these ingredients, practice this cake, and you have mastered a classic. How easy is that?!).

Method:

Line cake tins with cake tin liners or grease with some butter. Preheat oven to gas mark 4/180 degrees/350 Fahrenheit.

1) Cube butter and place in a large bowl. Add in the caster sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs (crack in one at a time).
2) Here you can use a hand or electric whisk to combine ingredients. You want to do this at a slow speed to gain a nice soft mixture which should drop off your whisk when lifted up.
3) Spread mix evenly between two tins and pop in your preheated oven for between 20-30 minutes, until cakes are starting to shrink away the sides and are springy when pressed. Take out and leave to cool - and when cooled the cakes can be removed from tins.
4) Now time for our filling! Get out your arequipe (or caramel, should the case be - carnation sell a
good ready made one), and spread with a smile on top of the base layer. If it's a little tough, a quick blast in the microwave helps its spreadability.
5) To make the icing, firstly whip your double cream until it is thick. Then add in cream cheese, your desiccated coconut, icing sugar and passionfruit pulp.

(To get your passionfruit pulp, simply put seeds in a strainer, and mush into the mesh with a spoon.)

6) Sandwich second sponge on top, and smooth over a bit more cream. Here your artistic license is at play - warm up and drizzle over some more caramel, dot on a few passion fruit seeds - whatever your heart desires!

A simple sponge cake tropically transformed into a coconut, caramel and passion fruit delight. Serve with a nice cup of English tea, or a shot of aguardiente (a Colombian alcoholic spirit) - that choice I will leave up to you!

Plantain, how do I cook thee? Let me count the ways...

Commonplace in many Latin American and African cuisines, the plantain is a member of the banana family. Its colour varies from green to black depending on its ripeness, and while inedible raw, this starchy vegetable lends itself to a wide array of both savoury and sweet dishes when cooked. Here in Colombia you can't go far without finding some platano somewhere along the line, and recently I've been testing out a few recipes. Starting with ripened plantains, here are two variations of how they can be served, either savoury or sweet.

The 'Jacket Plantain'

The other day, getting home tired and hungry, I routed around for some dinner. Faced with these simple ingredients:

I could feel a good late night dinner calling. To make this savoury, stuffed plantain, you will need:

-1 yellow ripe plantain

-2 tomatoes, finely chopped

-1/2 onion, finely chopped

-1 can of tuna

-1 avocado, sliced

-1 lime, for a bit of juice squeezing

-Adobo seasoning (this is just a mix of paprika, oregano, salt and pepper. Use these if you have!).

Method
1) Slice off the ends of the plantain and place it in an oven, heated to 190 degrees. Leave to cook for 20 minutes, and get on with your filling.
2) Heat some oil in a pan, and cook the onion until it takes on a translucent colour. Add in your seasoning followed by the tomatoes, and cook for 10 minutes.
3) Open and drain the can of tuna, add it into the pan. Turn off the heat and add in avocado chunks. By now your plantain will be cooked - take out of oven, carefully peel off skin and slice in the middle to open up like a book.
5) Place in your tomato filling, and finish with a squeeze of lime juice and avocado slices.

A quick and healthy dinner, in under 20 minutes

That's dinner done then! But what if you've already had your dinner, and are looking for something sweet to finish it off? Well here is potentially the easiest dessert recipe ever. With a similar cooking method to the 'Jacket Plantain', this sweet dessert contains the wonderfully exotic flavours of coconut, papaya and mango. 

Plantain 'Split'

-4 ripe plantains
-1 mango, cut into chunks
-1/2 papaya, cut into chunks
-1 can of coconut milk
-2 tbsp brown sugar
-Handful of desiccated coconut for sprinkling

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 190 degrees, cut the ends off the plantain and place them in their skins in the preheated oven..
2) While they are cooking, get on with making your coconut cream. Pour coconut milk into a bowl and add in brown sugar. Either with a whisk, hand whisk or blender, whizz up milk until it takes on a thicker texture. Once it looks like it has a bit of body, it's ready.

Curvaceous coconut cream.

3) When plantain skins are black (20 minutes or so), take them out of the oven and (just like for the jacket plantains) peel them and open up like a book.
4) Now pour/spoon over coconut cream, and pile on fruit. Sprinkle generously with desiccated coconut, and a touch more cream for good measure.

A tropical treat for any day of the week! Feel free to play around with the fruit you use to fill your plantains. Maybe you could go for some berries? Perhaps even some chopped up oranges with a dash more sugar would go well. It's a really easy dessert and a nice spin on a well-loved classic.

For the next recipe, I have looked to common food trends for inspiration. The popularity of dishes such as spaghetti squash and cauliflower crust pizza highlights how we can use vegetables to substitute certain carbohydrates. While traditional pizza and pasta is wonderful, a slightly lighter substitute every now and then is a nice way to try out new recipes, as well as being a healthy option. This next recipe replaces rice with green plantain, and works really well - give it a go and see what you think!

For my Plantain Fried Rice, you will need:

-1 large green plantain

-1/2 onion

-1 red pepper

-1 green pepper

-Half a can of sweetcorn

-Drizzle of honey

-Salt and pepper

-Dash of chilli sauce

-Lime zest (a tad)

1) Firstly you want to chop your plantain really small. I managed this with a box cutter, which pushes the veg through a grate, but this could be just as easily done with a knife.

Your 'rice' grains'.

2) Cook your onions for 2-3 minutes, just to give them a bit of colour. Then, add in your plantain, tomatoes, red and green peppers. Add in salt and pepper along with lime zest.

3) Stir well and make sure it doesn't burn. As you don't want this to be greasy, if it looks like it's sticking to the pan add in some water. 

4) Cook for a further 10-15, add in sweet corn, and just before taking off the heat add your drizzle of honey and chilli sauce. Finish with a squeeze of lime and that's it! 

A great veggie meal in itself, or why not thrown in some grilled fish or seafood on top?

Continuing on with our green plantain and healthy alternatives, we arrive at the popular dish that is patacones. Patacones are fried plantain rounds that often sit alongside many other fritos, which are a typical street food. Cheap, tasty and filling, these fried snacks will certainly keep you bouncing until lunch.

30p for a frito...i'll take 3 please!

Patacones are not once but twice fried green plantain rounds. While delicious, they obviously aren't the most health-giving food out there, so I took on a challenge. Could I make healthier, baked patacones,without making any Colombian abuelita shudder in disgust at the very concept?

The answer? Yes! Easy to make, and far better for you than the original, these baked patacones will allow you to sample some Colombian food while watching your waistline. For this recipe you will need:

-1 green plantain

- Drizzle of olive oil

-Salt

-Lime...

And that's it! And as if this wasn't simple enough, we're even going to use a microwave. If you don't have one, just stick it in the oven, but for double the time.

Method
1) Cut off the ends of the plantain, and slice the skin all along one side, so steam can escape.
Microwave at full force for 6 minutes, or in the oven at 200 degrees for 12-15. 
2) Chop diagonally into 3-4 cm slices and use whatever you have to hand (a pan, a chopping board, a glass) to flatten each slice into a flat round.
3)Place on a baking sheet, generously cover with olive oil, salt, and a squeeze of lime juice. Bake at 200 degrees celsius for 15-20 minutes, turning over once or twice.

And out come delicious, crispy baked patacones! Sure they taste different to their fried siblings, but they are still darn good. These serve as a great base for a whole range of toppings - try your hand a typical colombian hogao (a tomato and onion sauce) or why not try some guacamole? Equally you could try some cooked up mince meat, or even a poached egg. Or, serve as they are, with another shake of shake and squeeze of lime.

With four different recipes, ranging from savoury to sweet, you've got no excuse not to give these dishes a whirl. Put down your dreary old potato and try something more exciting. Rich in vitamin C and A, plantains are paleo-friendly and are incredibly versatile and easy to cook with. So what are you waiting for? Head on down to your nearest international supermarket or large supermarket and get cooking!

Quinoa, Sweet Potato and Spinach Baked Eggs with Berry Frozen Yogurt

You can't beat a good egg. Poached, fried, scrambled, in an omelette or a frittata, there're so many things you can do with eggs. They are also filled with goodness. Eggs contain a whopping 18 different vitamins and minerals, provide us with the highest nutritional quality protein of all food sources and are a source of omega-3 fats (the healthy fats). So it's fair to say these little-shelled beauties pack quite the nutritional punch. But should you be looking for something slightly more exciting than scrambled on toast, this could well be the dish for you.

Cooked in a tomato-pepper sauce with quinoa, spinach and mashed sweet potato, these baked eggs are a great lunch or dinner dish to share. Served with a mixed leaf, tomato, avocado and pomegranate salad and some quick homemade frozen yogurt, this dish was the main of choice for a summer lunch alfresco at mine with some of my very lovely friends. 

For this dish, you will need:

Egg Bake

200g quinoa (mine is red and white blend - I really like the colour and texture, but normal quinoa would work just fine)

3 sweet potatoes, peeled (add in 1 tbsp grainy mustard, a squidge of tomato ketchup and a generous grind of black pepper for mashing)

Half a big bag of spinach 

2 peppers

1 onion

Can of chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp of tomato pesto
1 tsp of harissa paste
1 tsp oregano

9 eggs

Salad

Big bag of mixed leaves

A couple handful of cherry tomatoes

1 large avocado

Any seeds/nuts you fancy to scatter over

Seeds of half a pomegranate

Maple syrup (or honey) and olive oil for drizzling
Good grinding of salt and pepper

Homemade frozen yogurt

150g frozen raspberries

250g yogurt of your choice 

2 tbsp of honey

Start with the frozen yogurt so it can chill in the freezer while you do the eggs. This really is the very simplest of desserts, and always goes down well. The ingredients are variable, and you can use any frozen fruit or flavour yogurt you fancy. I went for raspberries and used a mix of vanilla and greek yogurt.

Place the frozen fruit and yogurt into a blender, and blend until minimal fruit chunks remain and the yogurt and fruit are completely combined. Pop it into a tupperware like this one here:

And into the freezer it goes. It's good to serve when it's still a bit soft, as if you leave it to really freeze up it gets a bit crystallised. It's just an incentive to eat it all up in one go really!

Now let's get cracking on the eggs. Cook your quinoa for 15 minutes, and while this is happening you can peel and chop your sweet potato into cubes, ready for steaming or boiling. If you can, steam them as this retains more vitamins, and in a steamer like this:

It's dead easy. You want to steam or boil them for the same time the quinoa is cooking, and while they're both cooking away we can get on with the tomato sauce.

This is a simple tomato sauce with a few key add-ins.

The harissa gives it a slightly spicy, tomato-y tang, and the tomato pesto adds a rich creamy flavour. Oregano is to tie it all together making some form of italian-type sauce, but again...as with my energy bars, this recipe is a bit of an improvisation, so work with what you want to make a tasty tomato sauce!

Our sauce is going to have onions, garlic and peppers - I used one red pepper and one yellow. 

Cook the onions for 5 minutes and then add the sliced peppers. Here you want to add in your harissa, pesto and oregano, followed by the chopped tomatoes. If you have a hand blender feel free to whizz this up -I used my food processor, but it could equally be left chunky.

With the pesto, harissa and pepper mix you have a delicious tomato sauce that would trump any shop bought equivalent. With the sauce done, it's time to attend to our quinoa and sweet potato. Take the quinoa off the heat and drain, and mash the potato. Here I threw 1 tbsp grainy mustard, a squidge of tomato ketchup and a generous grind of black pepper. Now mix all together in the pan with spinach until wilted...

And you have the base for your eggs! Spread in a baking tray, and make little circular indentations for eggs to nestle in. Crack in eggs, and don't worry if the whites spill over their allocated mini-holes.

That goes into the oven at 200 degrees celsius for about 10-15 minutes, and now we can make the salad. There's no real art form involved in this, it really is just a combination of all the ingredients in a bowl, and for the dressing I chose a very simple olive oil drizzle with a touch of maple syrup - I use this slight sugary touch to really bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes. If you find the task of deseeding pomegranates slightly daunting, fear not. See this youtube clip for a quick and easy way to do it!

Serve all together, bringing out the frozen yogurt just before serving. 

The muffins served alongside the yogurt were baked by my wonderful friend Lily, and are from an Ottolenghi recipe. They were truly sumptuous - nutty and rich but not overly sweet, they went down a treat. I found the recipe reposted on the website What Rachel Ate, which is also a fantastic blog.

All this delicious food, and the company of some gorgeous girls and sunshine. A perfect afternoon!

A berry, berry good loaf

I always think you can't go wrong with a loaf cake. Some of the best and most classic of cakes lend themselves very well to this bread-like shaped bar of deliciousness - lemon drizzle loaf anyone? Banana bread slice? Perhaps a carrot cake loaf? I'll take all three.

The great Nigel Slater was not wrong when he said 'There is something elegant and timeless about a slice of plain cake', but sometimes you want to mix things up. So taking our classic lemon drizzle, I wanted something equally as moist and lemony, but perhaps with more fruit, and why not throw in some chocolate while we're at it...

Low and behold the Lemon Yogurt Poppyseed loaf, with summer berries and a white chocolate drizzle.

It is a real beauty, and pretty darn simple to make too. What are you waiting for?!

For this loaf of loveliness, you will need:

150g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
90 ground almonds
175g caster sugar
200ml natural yogurt
50ml sunflower oil
3 medium eggs
Zest and juice of 2 lemons
25g poppy seeds
75g white chocolate
150g berries

I've adapted the recipe from Red Magazine's website and you can see the original here. My version favours more ground almonds and less flour, and more yogurt instead of oil - this is the trick for a really sumptuous moist bake in my opinion. You don't have to buy expensive fresh berries, and I was very pleased to find some of these hiding in my freezer

For £2 you get about twice as many berries frozen as you do fresh, and after 20 seconds at full whack in the microwave they're about the same (careful though, too long and you end up with berry sauce - a mistake I've previously made).

The joy of this cake is that it really is so simple to make. You just mix the flour, almonds, baking powder, caster sugar, poppy seeds and lemon zest in a bowl, then in a large jug (or blender if your lazy like me) combine the yogurt, eggs, oil and lemon juice. When that's done mix the dry ingredients well into the wet mixture and pour into your loaf tin (which you will have greased already, naturally).

It goes into the oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees celsius. 

Leave out to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes, then take out of the tin and leave for a further 10 minutes. Now comes the fun bit - berry placing and white chocolate drizzling!

Melt your white chocolate in the microwave and then...drizzle away. I like using a small dessert fork as you instantly get three little drizzles going on at once, but a knife does pretty much the same job. After one layer of drizzle, pop on your berries- the melted white chocolate should help them stick. Then, just because it's so much fun, drizzle again! And there you have it.

Just make sure you get to it before your greedy family members!

Goodness gracious great balls of...energy?!

I love a good snack. Who doesn't? Sweet or savory, we all know snacking is the healthy way to get us through the day, keeping energy levels balanced and making sure we keep our bodies fuelled for whatever the day might throw at us.

I love exercise and all things active, and since having discovered CrossFit 2 years ago (if you've no idea what this is and want to read up, check it out here), I am always eager to get into the gym and tackle a new workout. A lot of energy spent on exercise = more energy needed in! And while crisps and chocolate are great every now and then, I really enjoy finding healthy, wholesome ways to fuel my body, and what better way than some delicious energy bars from your very own kitchen?

I'm a massive fan of Nakd bars, which come in an array of flavours, but at about 70p for a small bar it isn't the cheapest of snacks. So I thought...why not make my own? After reading up on a few energy bar/ball/nakd-type bar recipes on the internet, I gathered my things and got set.

The ingredients are very much what you can see above -I added in a scoop of protein powder (mint chocolate flavour) but if you don't have this to hand don't worry. The nuts themselves contain a fair bit of protein and are a far better natural source, but if you are someone who's interested in ways to get more protein into their diet, protein powder is an easy way to do so. It also happens to taste delicious, but steer clear of any rocky road flavour!

To make these balls of yum you quite simply need:

200g dates (chopped or unchopped it doesn't matter, but they do need to be pitted)

200g nuts (use whatever nuts you fancy! I went for majority brazil nut with some almonds thrown  in for good measure)

50g grape nuts (or use oats, or any crunchy cereal)

2 tbsp cocoa powder

50ml milk (or dairy alternative)

As you can see from all my extra annotations, the ingredients in this are very much interchangeable. Add in what you want and sub-out what you don't. I'm not wild on dates, despite them making a great base for bars like these, and next time might swap half dates for sultanas. If you wanted, at the end you could add in some dried cranberries or chocolate chips - all ideas to be playing around with.

The next step is to pop all these ingredients in a blender/food processor, and whizz (technical term) constantly until you have a sticky, gooey dough.

 Then all you do is squidge the mixture down into a tray lined with baking paper, and pop in the freezer for about half an hour. After the mixture has really set you can lift out your baking paper and cut into bars. Even easier than this, I choose to mould my dough into silicone cupcake cases in a muffin tray. This recipe gave me seven generous portions, which look like this:

All ready to be wrapped in cling film or foil and taken for picnics/post-gym snacks/be eaten as cakes to have with tea! Although do bear in mind that in this tropical heatwave we seem to be experiencing at the minute these are likely to melt, so the cooler you can keep them the better.