One Year Later... A Sweet Giveaway to you!

Some recent pictures from our wee world... (click to enlarge in gallery view!)

 
Smashed Cherry Chocolate Chunk Pancakes

(with a lovely glass of coconut milk!)

Adapted from Joy The Baker's Smashed Raspberry Chocolate Chunk Pancakes.  I love Joy's blog and think her ideas, pictures and stories are lovely!  I would truly recommend her blog!

These pancakes were yummy, I drowned them in maple syrup and made another batch the next again day.  I used an egg replacer to make mines vegan and we were out of strawberries, plus, I was wearing this cherry dress so had to pick cherries!  And my give-away is cherries too!  It seemed like too much of a geeky coincidence to refuse!  Doh! It's been really bright and sunny here, it feels like spring must be coming, the snow drops and crocus flowers are here!

Give-away

This last year has seen my wee blog grow, follower wise!  (Hello new follower people!)  I have enjoyed sharing our wee moments here and there!  I have especially enjoyed meeting over the wires some wonderful like-minded people who have given me smiles!  To thank you follower folk I wanted to do a wee giveaway, as I have come to observe this is a natural thing to do in the blog universe!

I figured from a wee gander through the followers thingy that most of you are ladies and I found these when sorting through everything we own and it just kind of fitted with how this post was going cherry-wise, haha!  I hope someone likes them!  I think they are cute!  I have a lot of things with cherries on them, 6 dresses would you believe!  Most of them I will end up selling.  This cute dress I found in a charity shop in Jersey and so it reminds me of lovely Jersey and the fun had there, I think I'll hold onto this one!

So, all you need to do to win this sweet cherry necklace and brooch is:

 1, be a follower of this blog in Google Friend Connect!
 2, comment telling me your email address or contact link so I can contact you, and if you fancy comment what your favourite dessert involving fruit is! 

I am a vegan as some of you might know, I have been vegetarian since I was tiny and went vegan properly about 7 or 8 years ago, but to be honest, I have been a pretty unhealthy vegan up until this last year or so when I started to read a lot more in depth about nutrition and what I should be eating!  I have mostly been eating raw lately (ignore the masses of cakes and chocolate! I said mostly!) and am looking for some inspiration to adapt 'normal' (as most seem to say) food into raw or at least vegan foods! :)  So your favourite fruity desserts might give me some ideas! ;)

* The wee suitcase is not included in the giveaway, I have had that since I was a tiny wee one, in-fact I think it actually belongs to my big brother, or did :) This giveaway will close this time in two weeks, I will pick a winner using a random number generator thingy! Until then, have a wonderful time!  Enjoy eating some fruit! x

Cherry, Chocolate and Rum cakes...

Some recent pictures from our wee world... 

A wee change for my hair!  I used Lush's darkest henna for eight hours and boy did it make my hair feel gooooood!  Unfortunately my hair didn't go black like I was expecting but more of this chocolatey red colour... Kinda' appropriate for these cakes!  I'm going to have to do another henna job though if I want to go black!  The conditioning properties showed my split ends a good time so it's not so bad!

I made these cakes a wee while ago and they got devoured by all instantaneously!  So I had to make them again, and again, and again!  By far the best cakes I have ever made!  I kind of just made up the recipe from many years of vegan cake baking experience!  Luckily I wrote down roughly what I did so I hope these are just as good! MMM... yeah they are.  I put a lot of chocolate in them so they don't really need a frosting, they always get eaten before you can do that anyway!  The smell when they come out of the oven made my tummy rumble. 

Here is the recipe! (vegan of course!)

Cherry, Chocolate and Rum cakes...

Ingredients:
2/3 cup vegan chocolate chips (I used chocolate buttons last time!)
1/4 cup cherry soy yogurt (I used Alpro cherry yogurt, one wee pot)
1/2 cup black cherry jam / preserves
1/2 cup coconut milk (or soy milk) (or chocolate coconut milk -oh my! :D)
3/4 cup brown sugar (or granulated sugar if you must!)
1/2 cup rapeseed oil (canola oil)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of rum (I used dark navy rum)
1 cup and two tablespoons of all purpose flour
1/3 cup cacoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and line your muffin pan with your cupcake/muffin liners.

Mix the yogurt, jam, milk, sugar, oil, vanilla and rum into a large bowl and mix until no large lumps. 

Sift in the flour, cacoa, baking powder and baking soda and again, mix until there are no large lumps.  Add the chocolate and give it another good mix!

Fill the liners until they are between 3/4 full and full and then pop them in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes. 

They will be done and ready to transfer to a cooling rack when you can pierce each cake with a spike and it comes out clean (not covered in sticky uncooked cake ingredients!) :)

They are soft and spongey, I think the yogurt and jam makes them really moist and lovely! :)
x 

I am thinking of doing a wee followers giveaway in my next post!  For it will have been a year at the end of the month since I started this blog and the amount of followers has past 100!  I just have to think of something sweet and special to give away to you!  If only I could post you some cakes!!! x