Lavender Hand Cream Recipe

My hands require lots of TLC, they're always cleaning, washing, gardening and I have never really found a commercial hand cream I am happy with so I thought I'd have a go at making my own with pure natural ingredients...

Ingredients:

100ml sweet almond oil
2 heaped tbsps coconut oil
2-3 tbsps olive oil
1.5oz grated beeswax
35 drops of lavender essential oil

Method:

1. Heat the oils together until warm.
2. Take off the heat & stir in the grated beeswax.
3. Place in the fridge for 5-10 mins to begin cooling.
4. Add the lavender and mix well, it will start to thicken so place into a jar to cool completely.

It smells divide & only a little is required each time it's used.

Homemade Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients:

For truffles:

50g butter

300ml cream

300g chocolate

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

For coating:

Chopped nuts

Icing sugar

Cocoa

Method:

1. Place the butter & cream in a pan on a low heat, until the butter has melted and the cream is simmering.
2. Break the chocolate into pieces and place into a bowl with the vanilla essence.
3. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate & stir until smooth.
4. Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours (or overnight).
5. Rub some sunflower oil onto your hands & roll teaspoon sized balls of the mix into balls.
6. Roll the balls in the coatings as above to cover them & place into small paper cases.

Can be wrapped up as a lovely homemade gift for someone.

Magic Mango Mess

Ingredients:

1-2 fresh mangoes

300ml whipped cream

100g meringues

50g white sugar

Method:

1. Peel & destone the mangoes and cut the flesh into centimetre squared pieces.
2. Whip the cream.
3. Crush the meringues.
4. Gently fold the sugar, crushed meringues and chopped mangoes into the whipped cream.

ENJOY on a summer's day as a lovely fresh dessert!!!

Meringues

Freshly baked meringues

Ingredients:

3 egg whites

110g caster sugar

2 tsp corn flour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to Gas 1 or 100C.
2. Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff.
3. Add half of the sugar and whisk until it is glossy.
4. Fold in the other half of the sugar and corn flour.
5. Dollop teaspoons full of the mixture onto a baking sheet (or greaseproof paper) on a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes, until crisp and golden.
6. Allow to cool before removing from baking sheet with a pallet knife.

Serve as part of a dessert or place whipped cream between 2 meringues and squeeze together...

Homemade Scones from the Be-Ro book

Golden brown scones cooling

I own a really ancient Be-Ro recipe book which belonged to my grandmother and this is a recipe from this book, which is still as good as more modern recipes for scones.

Ingredients:

225g self-raising flour

pinch of salt

50g margarine

25g caster sugar

50g sultanas

1 medium egg beaten with enough milk to make 150ml of liquid

The mixture

Method:

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 7 or 220C.
2. Rub margarine into the flour and salt mixed together.
3. Add the sugar and sultanas and mix well.
4. Add egg mixture, but save a little for brushing the top of the scones.
5. Knead the mix together.
6. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to ~1cm thick and using a cutter, cut out rounds.
7. Re-roll and cut out more rounds until you have used up the dough.
8. Place on a baking tray and lightly brush with the leftover egg and milk mix.
9. Bake for about 10 minutes until golden brown.

Serve with whipped or clotted cream, butter and jam as part of an afternoon tea!!

Quick Banoffee Pie

Seen as it's Valentine's Day I have posted a recipe which you could make a special treat for all your loved ones in your life.

It is another fab recipe thanks to Carnation website, great for using up those old bananas :)

Ingredients: see Carnation website - Quick Banoffee Pie

Ingredients for Quick Banoffee Pie

Method:

For the rest of the recipe, click the links above...

...the result of my creation... DELICIOUS!

Quick Banoffee Pie