Banana and blueberry muffins

It's national cupcake day! So to mark the occasion I'm making muffins....

Before I could start I had to ask myself what kind of muffins did I actually want to make? Initially I was thinking about a classic blueberry muffin - I mean who doesn't like a fresh batch of blueberry muffins.

We have lots of bananas in the house though so I need to use them......and chocolate chips....ooh the possibilities are endless.

Some differences between cupcakes and muffins are really quite obvious even before you have taken a bite. Muffins are large and mostly undecorated whilst cupcakes tend to be a bit on the smaller side and are often decorated with icing or frosting, sometimes lavishly.

However the main difference between the two sweet treats is that cupcakes follow a cake recipe whereas muffins follow more of a bread type recipe. The creaming method is hardly ever used when making muffins whilst it is most common in cupcakes; this is because the cupcake needs to be light and fluffy and therefore requires a lot of air to be incorporated into the mixture.

Therefore you can tell the difference between a cupcake and a muffin by its texture: cupcakes are light and fluffy whilst muffins have a thicker, denser texture.

Similarly cupcakes tend to contain more sugar (and thats not just because of all that icing. So if asked for a 'healthy bake' steer towards to muffin spectrum.

I have based my recipe roughly on this one by the Hairy Bikers yet true to form the actual recipe used varies quite a bit.

Now when I researched different recipes using banana they all said to mash it: I imagine this is because it gives the mix a more uniform banana flavour. I however decided to ignore this and slice them instead, thus adding an element of surprise when you come across a pocket of banana.

I chopped my walnuts into irregular chunks for the same reason.


For the muffins you will need:

250g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 ripe bananas (sliced)
150g blueberries
100g white chocolate chips
185ml milk
6 tbsp honey or sugar if you prefer
50g butter (melted)
50g walnuts (roughly chopped
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 180C

Line a cupcake tray with paper cases

Add the flour and baking powder into a large bowl making a well in the centre.

Pour in the melted butter, milk, honey and lastly the egg. Stir until incorporated.

Fold in all the additional ingredients being careful not to over stir the fruit as you will bruise the fruit and cause the juices to come pouring out.

Transfer into the cases and bake for 17-20 minutes.

Fangirling hard

I may have mentioned Coasts once or twice on this blog before (by Coasts I mean the band not the geographical terrain) and that would probably be because I'm fangirling….hard.

To be honest I hopped on the bandwagon fairly late in the game  when I randomly decided to go and see this indie rock band at the Wardrobe in October 2015. It wasn't  'random' though was it, it was fate.

Coasts returned to Leeds only a week later to play a free gig at Trinity Kitchen and guess who was front and centre.

Most people who I talk to and say that I'm going to-yet another- Coasts gig don't actually know who I'm babbling on about so here's the scoop:

The band, now known as Coasts, formed in Bristol in 2011 after attending the same university; Bath Spa uni - the very same one that I attended. 

I found out, when I asked them in Hamburg, that the guys (well Chris and Jimmy at least) did Performing Arts and graduated the same year that I arrived. (2009)

Coasts may be most widely known for having had appeared on the second season of Made In Chelsea or maybe you heard them on FIFA16.  They released their debut album in January of this year and have been blowing things out of the water ever since.

Earlier this year, in March actually, I kind of went to Germany to go to the Berlin and Hamburg dates of Coasts European tour yet alas I didn't have enough dollar to get to the U.S. for the American leg. *cries*




Alas this was not the case... insert awkward dialogue from the merch table:

However when Chris, Jimmy, Ben, David and Liam returned to the U.K. I knew that it was a 'go hard or go home' situation.

The original plan was to go to the first and last nights of tour (which were Bristol and Leeds) yet unfortunately  for me Coasts are just so awesome that Bristol was soon sold out….closely followed by all the tickets for Oxford being snapped up.

Last Thursday I woke up early to make a large batch of chocolate chip cookies before hopping into the car. Glasgow here I come!

Except before that could happen I may have had a ever so slight breakdown.

When I bought my tickets for the Garage 2 at Glasgow which I would then be able to pick up at the venue the website told me to bring along my confirmation email but the problem was that there wasn't an email to be found….anywhere.

The clock was ticking and I still didn't know where this email was. The doors at the venue were set to open at seven but it was nearing five and we still hadn't left the house and it was going to take four hours to get to Glasgow.

Imagine the scene, you're cruising along the M8 and suddenly you desperately need to go to the toilet. You can't stop though because otherwise you'll miss the gig completely. Hence the need for the bum shuffle dance as we journeyed further into Scotland.

No sooner had we pulled up into Sauchiehall Road and walked through the doors (I didn't even need that bloody email) than Coasts came on stage with Wallow. I loved the feeling of walking into the club and being met by a wall of incredible sound.

The Glasgow crowd were hilarious and I especially loved the chanting of 'Game Of Thrones' before Wolves.  Somebody even even ended up splashing beer over my head which was actually quite welcome because it got very, very sweaty.

We were spending the weekend at our cottage (another couple of hours further on) so at the end of the set we weren't able to linger. There was just time to give Chris the box of cookies.

Fast forward a few days and we have a familiar situation yet in reverse as now we need to get back to Leeds.

My sister was supposed to be meeting me at the Brudnell Social Club yet as she was pulling out of the drive her car broke down.

Coasts were going to be on stage in approximately forty minutes time and neither of us were there yet.

If I thought that the Glasgow crowd were great then Leeds was totally insane! Forget Game Of Thrones this was more full on stage invasion. Completely epic!

You  know when you are about to a really famous person and/or someone you really admire and get super tongue tied and nervous - well you would have thought that I'd be over that by now as I had kind of met Coasts once or twice before *ahem*

Jimmy: hey we've seen you before.

Chris: yeah she came to Glasgow...and Germany

Me: *thinks* I wonder if they liked their cookies

Francisco and Guido

On the top of the hill in the small village of Talla, Tuscany there is an old monastery complete with lots and lots of Madonna statues (as in Mary not the pop singer) and friezes. Yet today, the house of religious importance has been renovated into a large seven bedroom villa complete with swimming pool. 

The first few days of our trip were spent lounging by the pool and forgetting about the stresses of ‘the real world.’ In my case this was also where I finished the first book of the trip. 

Francis De Assisi came from a wealthy family of La Verna yet he shunned all of his worldly possessions in favour of living a life of faith. Sleeping in a cave, with sack cloth on his back Francis De Assisi would spend his days preaching. Notably the patron saint of merchants, animals and the environment arranged the first live Christmas nativity scene in 1223 and a year later, during a state of religious ecstasy, received the stigmata from an apparition of spheric angels.  (The stigmata are the wounds that Jesus bore during the crucifixion.) 

In case you wanted to know, Francis De Assisi's saint day is on the 4th October. 

The Basilica of Francis De Assisi (also known as Francessco) was built in commemoration of the saint and it was a trip to this monastery that sparked a debate about the saint’s life as well as religion in general. 

Another formidable character of our trip was Guido of Guidi the proprietor of Poppi Castle during the 13th century. Throughout history, as was the case in a number of European countries, (i’m looking at you Germany) Italy was divided into various ‘contandi (districts) and the Guidi family was in charge of Tuscany……until those of Florence had something to say about it. - That’s the Medici’s right? although I think they might have come later. 

The stronghold, complete with a moat and bellower has seen many owners in its time and with each new age a new extension or refurbishment arrived with it. Therefore the castle we see today varies hugely from the castle Guido if Guidi knew in the 1200s. 

The town of Poppi was also a spot of intense; especially as they had some quite good ice cream and I particularly enjoyed the fact the streets to and from the town were lined with…yes you guessed it….poppies!! 

The highlight of our trip, at least for me, was a trip to a small family run bed and breakfast in the next village where we were shown how to make proper egg pasta. Pasta can be made with our without egg (for example spaghetti does not contain egg)  however I find that the egg in the pasta gives it much richer flavour and gives it a more silky texture. 

Our pasta masterclass was followed by a five (yes five) course meal including antipasti, prima (the freshly made pasta) , Secondi (meat, in our case wild boar or chinghale) and finally dessert of a mascarpone cream. 

Feeling suitably stuffed I was ready to go home yet our day was not over as we were now the tables turned and it was our turn to make pasta….however there was only room for one person so sat back and watched. dammit

James, proved to be quite the dab hand at pasta making and was even given a 10 out of 10 for his pasta which was evenly rolled to perfection. Alas, when cooked the next day, the pasta was underdone and therefore did not reflect the effort that had gone into it. 

When I was told that I would be visiting Lake Trassemano I imagine a cute little beach surrounded by cafes and other such tourist traps with changing huts and outdoor showers. A random patch of grass in the middle of a car park was not however on my wish list. 

Not to be perturbed however I decided to don my swimming costume and have a dip in the lake.  Not two minutes into our swim though and at least fifty dogs started to bark manically. It appeared that our spot was also home to the local dog house and apparently it was feeding time.