Cocoa Coconut Cake

Hello, hot weather! For me coconut is such a summer flavour, and I'm always looking for ways to incorporate it into cooking. This is a perfect, chocolately, fudgy cake with a deep nutty twist. Its dense and the flavours just smack you in the face - my kind of cake!

My mum made this and it was such a hit I had to try it out for myself! It's a very simple recipe, but the cake you get at the end of it is killer.

It’s like a mix between a brownie and a cake, and it also makes delicious cupcakes. For the cupcakes, I baked for 15-20 minutes instead of the full cooking time and decorated as normal.

Ingredients for the cake

• 90g desiccated coconut
• 325ml reduced-fat coconut milk
• 275g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 45g cocoa powder
• Pinch of salt
• 200g soft unsalted butter
• 225g light muscovado (or light brown) sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs

For the buttercream

• 75g coconut milk (take some of the hard part from the tin above)
• 50g unsalted butter
• 300g icing sugar (you might need more)
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1-2 tsp milk, if necessary
• Chocolate sprinkles/dessicated coconut, to finish.

Thai Green Cauliflower Soup

A pile of filled tupperware makes me happy.

"The diet starts Monday.."

But the meal prep begins Sunday night!

So, we all know of my vegetable woes.  I don't like them, as a group. I particularly hate cauliflower. It's a terrible substitute for rice and for mashed potatoes. It's just not starchy carby delicious and that's ok. It is its own thing.

Cauliflower can shine on its own without being something else. My boyfriend and I were on holiday in Croatia last year and found a little place with the most delicious food. Their fish was a revelation, but in particular the soup was the best soup I've ever had. It was like a veggie Thai green curry, and the thing that surprised me the most was that it had cauliflower in it. Delicious, healthy and silky-smooth with lovely background spice. 

Blending that veg up in a soup transforms it and it becomes magic.

Gold star for cauliflower.

Nutella Porridge

Om nom nom.  I want to eat this all over again

I am first off going to apologise for my hiatus. It was a bit of an accident, I had a terrible chest infection and then jetted off to Italy! Oh my god, the food. The blog will have a distinctly Italian flair soon enough as I recreate some of my favourites.

In the meantime, I’m going through a bit of a porridge phase, and it was a quick leap between making regular porridge and adding a dash of Nutella to it. Also, because of my travels, Nutella has been a large part of my diet recently. In the hotel breakfasts in both Milan and Venice, mini packs of Nutella sat nestled alongside the jam and butter. That is how fundamental it is there. What a world.

There isn’t really anything which Nutella cannot improve. It is the mainstay of the perfect breakfast food: Nutella and pancakes, Nutella and waffles, Nutella straight from the jar with a spoon..

And now, stir it though some porridge while it is cooking, and turn it from a dull oat-a-thon into a bowl of nutty, chocolately, creamy delights. This is one of my absolute favourite breakfasts, so warming and filling and nourishing, it really can’t be beat.

Chocolate Coconut Icelollies

Okay, so it has been really hot in the UK these past few days, so I bought an ice-lolly mould. Don’t judge me, I needed it. It was warm! It is still warm! I'm not built for this kind of heat when I'm not on holidays.

Remember Mini Milks? They were my favourite lollies as a child (and now.. cough). These are pretty much the (simple!) homemade, coconut version of the chocolate one.

Well, why are you still reading? Go, make haste and get making these bad boys, before we all melt!

Chicken Laksa

It's really messy. Messier than this photo gives credit for.

Got this recipe from Jamie and his 15 minute meals. Or, as I call it, “Hannah getting flustered and making a huge mess in the kitchen over 35 minutes.” Seriously, I never use as many pots/pans/chopping boards/food processors and knives as when I make stuff from this book.

I have never had nor made anything remotely like this before but the spiced, salty, thick and creamy broth is fantastic. In fact, it is so incredibly flavourful that you could easily eat this without the meat. 

Usually, I am not a fan of noodles (RICE 4EVA), but this is a definite improvement on the boil in the bag variety. And it uses my favourite veg. I think that peppers or baby corn could work instead of the green beans, but I always just work with what I have.