Salted Caramel Brownies

So, I’ve just come back from a fortnights holiday to hot and sunny Croatia and I slightly over-indulged. I had a lot of icecream. And frozen yogurt. And alcohol.

What I’m saying is, it was amazing.

And that theme of overindulgence should continue just one more day.. Which brings me to this post.

I love brownies. I love how easy they are to make, I love how delicious they are, I love when they’re all squidgy and fudgy and nearly falling apart when you cut them. So this is the next in my long line of brownie posts.

I have a terrible confession though (which I may have made before).. I can’t make good caramel. It’s really damn difficult for me (file this under “Can’t make correctly” before fudge). So, this is one of those times when I take a shortcut and use ready-made canned caramel. Sorry. Please, make your own if you can do that. I’ll stick to my tin and keep my saucepans un-burned. Caramel continues to cause me slight difficulties here because the top of the brownies burned a bit due to the caramel bits "catching".

Red Pepper Butterbean Dip

I have ABANDONED the blog while I'm on my holidays, I'm so sorry.

Just dropping in to post this dip, a perfectly summery thing. There is something about it which just calls to be eaten outdoors, on a table filled with yummy dips, hummus and pate. For me, that's better than dinner, the nibbles that come beforehand. Especially with an aperitiv or two!

This is a really simple but effective dip that can be whipped up in a hurry. It is a great accompaniment to Middle-Eastern style dinners, but just as good with some tortilla chips dipped into it. It’s nutty and slightly tangy, delicately spiced and an all-around good dip.

I buy a lot of butterbeans with good intentions, so my cupboard is always full of them.  I have a tendency to over-buy all kinds of beans (like 3 tins with every grocery shop) because I never check what’s in the cupboard beforehand, and I’m deathly afraid of running out of beans. If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, come to my house. There’s beans to last us YEARS.

Touch wood, there’s no sign of zombies coming (I’ve not got red on me), so I’m always looking for ways to use them up in new and delicious ways. And this makes a nutritous and delicious dip.

Coconut Flour Brownies

The American system has come to my rescue, because my scales have run out of battery! So this recipe is in cups.

Part of this healthy eating kick is exploring a new variety of cooking. I’m not so much a fan of veggies, and I find them kind of boring. So I’m branching out into “raw” and cleaner baked goods. I spotted some coconut flour in Asda on my last shop, and I had to have it! I was a bit worried because the flour packet was teeny and expensive, but upon reading up on it, you need to use a lot less coconut flour than regular flour. That’s because it is very good at soaking up the wet parts of your recipe, so you need about a third of the amount of coconut flour that you’d normally use.

The thing that sold me was the recipe on the back of the box for pancakes! Pancakes are the ultimate breakfast food for me. Recipe coming soon.. I love pancakes so much..

This is my second time ever baking with coconut flour, so I slightly overdid the flour in this recipe because I got nervous to use too little. Therefore, I’ve adapted the final written recipe accordingly so you can get the correct fudgy texture. I went with mint chocolate (my FAVE), but if you don’t want that, just sub in plain chocolate. The coconut flour isn’t overpoweringly coconutty, so the mint doesn’t clash, but this could be awesome with coconut flour and added desiccated coconut.