Tag: birthday


Aug
2016

Lactose free carrot cupcakes

categories: Cakes, Cooking

I found this recipe for carrot cake about 5 weeks ago, and had it in the back of mind all this time. Then this week at work a morning tea was organised to celebrate one person returning from 5 weeks leave and another’s birthday. What a perfect opportunity to pull this lactose free carrot cupcakes recipe out and give it a try!

The original recipe was both vegan and gluten free, but as I’m only lactose intolerant, I made a few alterations based on the ingredients that I could source easily here in Australia. This converted the cakes into being lactose free, but if you’re after gluten free or Vegan, try out the original recipe!

The result was delicious and the cupcakes disappeared within about 3 minutes of hitting the table! I opted for making cupcakes instead of cakes so it would cool quicker and be easier to transport on the bus, but I plan to make this recipe again as a cake this weekend!

Carrot cupcakes | MeaganMade.com

These cupcakes are beautifully moist, and with the carrots I can convince myself that they are relatively healthy. The cream cheese icing is the perfect balance to the cake, sweet but not overly so, and I was pleasantly surprised by the lactose free cream cheese that I used!

Kelly very generously gave me permission to re-post the list of ingredients with my modifications, so here it is:

Cake Ingredients

  • 2 cups plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1¼ teaspoon cinnamon
  • ⅓ teaspoon ginger
  • ½ cup organic cane sugar
  • ½ cup light brown sugar
  • ⅓ cup organic canola oil
  • 3 Tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 cup grated carrots
  • 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
  • ½ cup water

Frosting ingredients

  • 2 cups icing sugar
  • 113g lactose free cream cheese (I used Lidell’s brand), softened
  • 4 Tablespoons buttery spread (I used Nutellex), softened

Carrot cupcakes | MeaganMade.com

For the instructions, head on over to The Pretty Bee and let me know if you have any other recipes that you’d like me to try!

Happy cooking,

Meagan x

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May
2016

Birthday Doughnuts

categories: Cakes, Cooking

Ever since I found out I’d become lactose intolerant, I’ve been on the hunt for a lactose free doughnut recipe. It’s one of the things I really miss, and haven’t been able to buy pre-made or in a packet mix! I’ve tried cake mixes piped into doughnut tins, and while it is tasty, it still wasn’t quite “right”.

Well, I stumbled upon this recipe a few weeks ago on Pinterest, and I thought it would be perfect for my dear friend Lisa’s birthday. You see chocolate is one of her favourite food groups (along with lollies), closely followed by veggies!

Now you might be wondering what this has to do with doughnuts? Well the chocolate and lollies is easy to understand, but the vegetables? The secret ingredient is…… Kidney Beans!

Lactose free doughnuts

I know it sounds strange but trust me it works! It’s a rich dense doughnut and you can’t taste the beans at all. Now the original recipe is vegan and it can be found here on Sina’s blog, but I’ve modified it a little to use lactose free ingredients in place of some of the ingredients that I couldn’t find here. I also substituted the hazelnut topping for hundreds and thousands (or sprinkles for those of you overseas).

Sina has very generously allowed me to repost her recipe here with my few alterations and Australian conversions:

Ingredients

  • 1 420g can red kidney beans
  • 1 cup almond milk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 cup self-raising flour
  • 1 150g bag of Sweet Williams chocolate chips (or your choice of vegan or lactose free chocolate)
  • 4 tablespoons hundreds and thousands

Method

  1. Rinse and drain the kidney beans. Place them into a blender together with the brown sugar, almond milk, and cacao and blend until the mixture is smooth.
  2. Then transfer it to a medium bowl and stir in the flour and vanilla extract. Spray the doughnut pan with cooking spray or grease it with lactose free or vegan spread.
  3. Either use a spoon to fill each doughnut or fill the batter into a Ziploc bag and cut off one edge.
  4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius and bake the donuts for 9-11 minutes. Allow to cool down in the pan for a couple of minutes, then move them to a cooling rack.
  5. In the meantime, make the chocolate glaze. Melt the lactose free (or vegan) chocolate either by using a microwave or place the chocolate into a heatproof bowl and place it over a pan of barely simmering water. Once melted, cover the doughnuts with the chocolate and sprinkle with hundreds and thousands.

The birthday girl and I have enjoyed snacking on these doughnuts, the recipe made 12 doughnuts plus a few extra mini-cupcakes. Make sure you visit Sina’s page for the full and vegan version of this recipe, it’s a great site!

Happy cooking,

Meagan x

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Apr
2016

Crochet Turtle Amigurumi

categories: Craft, Crochet

Recently it was my friend Alicia’s birthday, and she absolutely loves turtles, so I set out to hunt through Pinterest to see what sort of turtle patterns I could find.

I stumbled upon a few crocheted turtle amigurumi that were really cute, but there was one in particular that kept catching my eye. I Pinned a few, planning on revisiting them the next day, but next thing I knew, Alicia had liked them – Whoops! Turns out that I hadn’t added them to the secret board as planned, but at least I had the reassurance that she’d like it!

The image in this pin was just too cute to resist, so I clicked through and purchased the pattern from LuvlyGurumi’s Etsy shop.

I’ve been crocheting for just over a year, and this is my second amigurumi that I’ve attempted, but the pattern was very clearly written and easy to follow. It is written in US crochet terms, and I found a fantastic tutorial for Invisible Decrease in Amigurumi, a technique that I needed for this project but I’ll be using again in the future. The left-handed version can also be found on her YouTube channel.

This cute little turtle even comes out of its shell, and while I have changed up the colours a little, I am very happy with how it turned out.

Crochet Turtle Amigurumi

This turtle was very well received by the birthday girl, who luckily hadn’t paid attention to whose pin she was liking, so it was still a surprise!

Perhaps my little turtle will inspire you to make your own, I know I look forward to purchasing some more of LuvlyGurumi’s patterns!

Happy Crocheting,
Meagan x

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