Pancake Day with Aldi

The nice people at Aldi sent me a box full of yummy pancake related items to test out.

It included:

Classic Pancakes – 99p, 480g (pack of 8)

Classic Pancake Mix – 69p, 232g (10 servings)

Lemon Juice – 29p, 200ml

Dairyfine Milk Chocolate Buttons – 35p, 70g

Grandessa Pure Canadian Maple Syrup – £2.99, 250ml

Grandessa Hazelnut Chocolate Spread – 99p, 350g

Fiddes Payne Vanilla  Sugar – £1.09

We have tried some of this out we haven’t had time to try it all. We decided to give the ready made a go and save the mix for Tuesday.

Now I know some people hate the idea of readymade or mixes but I have a total block when it comes to pancake or Yorkshire puddings. I can never get them right not matter what recipe I use so I often reach for the packet mix for them.  I had never had readymade before.

You can eat them hot or cold, we warmed ours in a hot frying pan. 

I had my favourite filling bananas and chocolate spread.

 

My OH had lemon and vanilla sugar.

The Grandessa Hazelnut Chocolate Spread is *really* nice. Thick, rich with a good hazelnut taste to it.

OH enjoyed his but thought the Vanilla Sugar had a weak taste. We both agreed that the pancakes were really nice, a good texture and taste and you would never know you hadn’t made them yourself well apart from my disasters. I would buy them again.

I will be testing the Pancake Mix on Tuesday with my 3 year old, I will post some pictures afterwards.

Apart from the Grandessa Hazelnut Chocolate Spread and Grandessa Pure Canadian Maple Syrup which is available all year round the pancake items are on special buy and are in store as long as stocks last.

Aldi have some great recipes for Pancakes on their website.

Peanut Butter and Jam Filled Heart Shaped Biscuits

I did a little bit of experimenting this week and made my own large jammy dodgers. As its Valentines next week I decided to make heart shaped ones. 


I was just going to just fill them with jam but my daughter who is 3 thought they would be better with Peanut Butter as well and she was right!


I made 4 large biscuits and because my daughter was helping we baked the cut out hearts and use the remainder dough to make mini heart biscuits but if you want to make just the large ones I reckon you could get 5-6 out of this dough.


Ingredients 


225g of plain flour
150g of cold butter cut into cubes
125g of caster sugar (plus a little extra to sprinkle)
1tsp vanilla extract or bean paste
Peanut Butter
Jam


If you are making the mini ones then you may want some icing sugar, food colouring, decorations. 


To Make


Preheat your oven to 180/160 fan/gas mark 4


Line a baking tray with baking paper


Sift the flour into a large bowl and then add the butter


Using your fingertips rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs


Add the sugar and vanilla and stir and then form a ball of dough


Roll to 1cm thick and cut out your large hearts. You will need 2 per heart.


Using a smaller heart cutter cut out a heart in half of the larger ones.


Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 15 mins or until they are golden brown.


The smaller ones will take about 8 mins


Leave on a wire rack to cool

Once cool you can fill you hearts.


Spoon a small amount of peanut butter of the base heart and then top with jam

Place the heart with the cut out on top 

For the smaller hearts decorate in anyway you like. I make a lemon icing for mine I just 
added a few drops of lemon juice to the icing.

My daughter went for pink icing, silver balls and hearts!

I have entered this biscuits in English Mums Baked With Love Bakeoff. 

The In Season Challenge - February

Are you ready for your next In Season Challenge? I had a great response to first one using Savoy Cabbage.

If you are not sure what the In Season Challenge is, I explain all bellow.

Each month I choose an In Season ingredient and your challenge is come up with a recipe that includes it.

 Here is what you need to do:

1.       Post a recipe on your blog that uses the chosen ingredient.

2.       Email the link to me at makeitbakeit@hotmail.com (you can send links to recipes you already have your blog) by the deadline.

3.       Add the badge to your post or blog (optional).

I will create a post with links to all of the recipes and then choose my favourite as the challenge winner.  (We may not always have a prize)

This month’s In Season ingredient is….

Apples

I love apples but I don’t cook with them very often. I am looking forward to some great recipes.

Please send links to me by 6pm  Sunday 4^th March and I will post links to the recipes on Monday 5^th.

Happy cooking!

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The In Season Challenge - Savoy Cabbage

I am very excited about my first In Season Challenge! I have some great recipes to share with you.

Each month I will choose an In Season Ingredient and the challenge is to come up with a recipe using that ingredient.  

The In Season ingredient for January/February was Savoy Cabbage and I wasn’t let down!

So without further ado here they are:

The very first entry comes from Aly at Plus 2.4 and she has made a Shepardless Pie in the slow cooker.

Tasha at WAHM BAM has come up with this great Three Cabbage and Chick Pea Soup.

We have two Sausage and Cabbage Bakes! The first one is from Vanesther at Bangers and 

Mash is looks great with sliced potatoes on top.  Howard at Gifts from Nature has a very simple Winter Warmer Cabbage and Sausage bake.  

Last but not least is Ali from Over a Cuppa with a fantastic recipe for Savoy Cabbage Stir Fry.

This month we have a prize for two of my favourite recipes (a really hard choice)

The lucky winners of a Dairy Diary are:

Ali and her Stir Fry and Aly with her Shepardless Pie. Ladies if you can email me your address please.

A huge thank you to everyone that submitted a recipe I look forward to trying them out.

Come back on Wednesday for the next In Season Challenge.