Month: October 2016

Apple Crumble

Yet another week gone by and still no driving! After my housemate took me to the local shops I came away with 7 granny smith apples and no idea what to make with them. After a quick Pinterest search, I found this pin for Apple Crisp – which from what I can tell, we call Apple Crumble here in Australia!

While the recipe contained some dairy, I was able to convert the ingredients to lactose/dairy free ingredients! I swapped butter for Nuttelex and milk for almond milk. And boy was this recipe delicious!!

Apple Crumble | MeaganMade.com

When cooked, the sauce becomes almost caramelised and bubbly, especially fresh out of the oven. I spread the crumble over the top by hand, but cheated a little using the 2mm slicing attachment on my Magimix food processor to save time. While it made quite a lot of mess, the result was truly worth it!

Apple Crumble | MeaganMade.com

I served it up with some of my lactose free Peter’s ice cream, and while it was warm it melted right over it. Absolutely scrumptious, luckily Lisa was home  – otherwise I may have eaten it all by myself. By some miracle there was still some left today and it tasted delicious cold, almost as good at it did yesterday!

Apple Crumble | MeaganMade.com

You should definitely give this recipe a go!! If you have a recipe that you think I should try please let me know in the comments below!

Happy cooking,
Meagan x

Blood Orange Chocolate Cupcakes

This week my lovely housemate took me to one of my local shops and I got to pick out some fresh produce for myself for the first time in a month! Once the excitement wore off, I stumbled across some blood oranges and couldn’t resist putting them in the trolley. Once I got home, I realised I’d have to find something special to make with them, and stumbled across this recipe for chocolate cupcakes with a blood orange icing.

With all of the extra time I’ve been spending at home with this ankle, I’ve been doing a lot of extra crochet – so much so that I’ve injured my thumb so have to give it a rest for a bit til it’s all better. In the meantime, I’m focusing on my cooking and finding delicious recipes!

I’d never actually had blood oranges fresh, always in drinks, but I knew how much I loved orange and chocolate flavours together and thought this would be a winner. Since I didn’t have enough fruit to use all of her recipe, I decided to focus on the blood orange flavour and the icing of Amanda’s recipe.

Blood oranges | MeaganMade.com

I mean, look at those colours, there is no way that I couldn’t make these the focus of my cooking this weekend. With my ankle still on the mend, reducing the juice into a syrup was a little taxing, but I managed to move a chair into the kitchen to give my ankle a break between stirs. I think I reduced the syrup a little too far in the end as once it cooled it became more like jam in texture. But never fool my work didn’t go to waste and it worked well once I mixed it into the icing. The citrus flavours cut through the sweetness just a little and this combined with the chocolate was perfection. I also brushed a little of the warm syrup onto the warm cupcakes as per Amanda’s suggestion in her recipe.

As for the cupcakes, I totally cheated and used an awesome box mix that I’ve discovered that is both lactose and gluten-free. It’s tried and tested for me, and I just separated it out into 12 cupcake liners.

Blood orange chocolate cupcakes | MeaganMade.com

 

I piped the icing on last night ready for photographs this morning. I noticed a few have gone missing overnight so I’m assuming this means they got the housemate’s seal of approval too! 🙂 These are so tasty, I’m trying to make them last – but you might notice there are not 12 in the photo above, whoops!

If blood oranges are in season in your area you have to give this a try! Let me know if you have any other recipes for me to try with blood oranges!

Happy cooking,
Meagan x

Aladdin C2C Blanket – Part 1

Last week I saw Aladdin the stage production here in Sydney and it was amazing! I was so inspired by the visual fair that I decided to put together an Aladdin C2C blanket based on the colour scheme of the production.

Somehow, in person the colours seemed even brighter and more spectacular, and the voice of each of the actors was amazing. For me, as in the movie, the genie absolutely stole the show.

I chose the colours for this blanket from my stash, and even though the wool is 100% acrylic, it works up lovely and soft. I picked the wool up at Spotlight for smaller amigurumi projects but they’ve come in handy for this blanket.

Aladdin Blanket - Colour choices | MeaganMade.com

I’ve been seeing a lot of C2C (Corner to corner) blankets on a crochet group that I belong to on Facebook and thought it was about time that I give this technique a go. I was amazed at how quickly it started to come together, but had to stop because my wrist started to get sore. The colour order that I’m working on is:

  1. Red
  2. Purple
  3. Light blue
  4. Dark blue
  5. Yellow
  6. Light green
  7. Orange
  8. Magenta

Aladdin Blanket - Part 1 | MeaganMade.com

I’m partway through the yellow row at the moment and I need to sew in the ends, but I’m enjoying the process so far. Other than the order of colours, I didn’t do too much planning. I’d like to make the blanket a lap size for the lounge, so I’ll have to judge the size as I go, but think I’ll end up with a few repeats of the set of colours.

Aladdin Blanket - Part 1 | MeaganMade.comTake a look at Bella Coco’s tutorial on YouTube if you’d like to learn this technique! I always find her videos easy to follow, but this video is the simplest that I’ve found to date. If you can make Granny Squares you shouldn’t have any issues with the C2C technique.

I’ll keep you guys posted with my progress on this blanket, and will post updates to my Instagram account too, so make sure you’re following me!

Happy crocheting,
Meagan x

Lemon Bars

Since I’ve been spending a lot of time at home with my feet up, I’ve been spending even more time on Pinterest than normal! One of the many things I added to my boards was this delicious looking recipe for dairy free Lemon Bars. The original recipe was both Gluten Free and Dairy Free, so I’ve decided to make a few alterations and make it this week!

While the recipe does take a while from start to finish, most of the time is spent with the slice in the oven or the fridge. And it was well worth the time spent, and luckily it gave my ankle a bit of a break too! This recipe actually involved more interpretations than I’d planned since I was out of more ingredients than I had realised!

Lemon Bars | MeaganMade.com

For the shortbread layer, I had originally planned to substitute the Gluten Free flour mix for normal plain flour which I quickly realised had run out. Since I was out of plain flour, I substituted it for 1.5 cups of normal self raising flour and omitted the flour mix, gum and baking powder. I made the lemon layer as per the recipe, using the corn flour option and poured it over as soon as the shortbread layer was done.

When the slice came out of the fridge after the final baking, the layers remained distinct yet gooey, and was really delicious. It won the housemate seal of approval too, and I don’t think they’ll last too long!

Lemon Bars | MeaganMade.com

I hope that you’ll head on over to Sheena’s page and try this dairy free lemon bars recipe for yourself!

Happy baking,
Meagan x