The Chocolate Hub

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I was sent some chocolate from the lovely people at The Chocolate Hub a couple of weeks ago to try and review on my Instagram page and thought I might as well do a blog post!

The Chocolate Hub make luxurious handmade chocolate slabs and circles. All of their chocolate slabs are 160 calories or less which make them the perfect treat to indulge in whilst on any weight loss plan. That’s 8 syns or less if you are following Slimming World! They weren’t kidding on their website that they are nearly as good as Hotel Chocolat and Lindt! The chocolates were truly delicious and would make a perfect gift for anyone who isn’t following any weight loss plan too.

I got sent the selection pictured below and put the syn values on there. There are so many different types of chocolate slabs as well as circles to choose from, head over to their website to check out the options, prices, etc. https://chocolatehub.co.uk/

Most of the chocolates are suitable for vegetarians, but you can check for any other allergens and full ingredients list on their website too.

My favourite one was the white chocolate circle with the jammie dodger, I don’t usually opt for white chocolate but this combination was amazing. The little stars were also really nice on their own or you could put them into your breakfast for a little indulgence. I didn’t get a chance to eat the Flower Power Milk Chocolate slab as my hubby nabbed that one and he loved it too! All the choccies were a great hit with all of us at home.

Porridge with white chocolate jammie dodger circle

Porridge with white chocolate jammie dodger circle

If you are thinking of placing an order, The Chocolate Hub have kindly given a discount code for all my followers. Use code ‘Rahema’ for 20% off any purchases. I have seen some really nice combinations on the website that I really want to try so will be placing an order soon.

Let me know what you think of them, hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I am x

The Chocolate Hub chocolate

The Chocolate Hub chocolate

Syn Values

Crushed digestive white chocolate slab – 7.5 syns

White button milk chocolate circles – 2.5 syns each

Jammie dodger white chocolate circle – 3 syns each

Flower power milk chocolate slab – 8 syns

Crushed oreo milk chocolate stars – 1.5 syns each

 

Slimming World Changes

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By now you’re probably aware that Slimming World has shared some exciting news that will take place at the end of the year/ new year. I have posted below a copy of what has been shared. Remember you can find out more info about this from your SW consultant. He/she will be able to answer any questions if you feel confused after reading this. To me, it is all good news! How fab is it you can now enjoy both milk and cheese options in the same day without counting one of them as syns? And I am so excited that paneer has finally made it to the healthy extra A choices. What do you think of these changes SW will be introducing? Have you already started to put them in place?

EXCITING NEWS!!

Food Optimising changes from Christmas!

Our Nutrition team here at Slimming World regularly review the latest scientific and nutrition research, food trends and product information to make sure our generous Food Optimising stays bang up-to-date and in line with current guidance, so that you can achieve the very best weight loss results in the very healthiest way.

…

To help you achieve your dream in 2019, you’ll receive a special limited edition NEW MEMBER PACK FOR FREE when you come along to group during Christmas week or New Year week. And, in it, you might spot a few changes to Food Optimising:

1. Enjoy an additional Healthy Extra ‘a’ choice every Extra Easy day – for even more calcium and even more choice!
2. Due to new nutrition information:

A handful of Free Foods have lost their P symbols – baked beans, broad beans, mung beans and all varieties of peas (except split peas)

A few Healthy Extra ‘a’ choices have changed.

A Healthy Extra portion of whole cow’s milk has increased to 200ml

The Healthy Extra portions of rice and almond milk have both decreased to 400ml

40g Paneer cheese is now a Healthy Extra ‘a’ choice!

Some products are no longer Healthy Extras:

Kelloggs Special K Milk Chocolate Delight Bar

Sweetened dairy-free milk

Reduce fat/light soft cheese (including Philadelphia Light)

Soft goat’s cheese

3. And on an Extra Easy SP day, enjoy at least half a plate of Speed food, and the rest Protein-rich food as usual. Plus two Healthy Extra ‘a’ choices and one Healthy Extra ‘b’ choice and, to boost your weight loss further, a maximum of 10 Syns.

This is in addition to the changes we let you know about earlier in the year, that fat-free flavoured yogurts canned pasta in tomato sauce and instant mashed potato now have a small Syn value, and that some vegan-friendly products including canned jackfruit and plain/smoked seitan are now Free Food.

If you’ve spotted that one of your favourites is no longer a Healthy Extra, you’ll get plenty of ideas in group for Free Food and Healthy Extra alternatives. And if you’d love to adopt some of those changes from today – feel free!

Extra Easy SP

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Please note: This post has been edited to reflect the changes Slimming World has announced this week.

Picture this, a weekend spent going over your syns limit, some may be worth the extra syns, others not so much. Then you remember weigh day is looming so you’re in need of a quick fix, hands up who turns to Extra Easy SP for a miracle maintain or even a loss that week?

Well, let me tell you that this isn’t why this plan was designed! Extra Easy SP is not a quick fix to undo damage you have done, you might get lucky and maintain or even lose that week but realistically many of us do not. As a consultant I had a few disappointed members who after an over indulgent weekend or mid week event followed by the Extra Easy SP for a few days didn’t get the results they’d hoped for.

I can assure you that when followed 100% without tweaking the plan and definitely not after going over your maximum syns over a day or more, it will give you the results you want. The plan is designed to re-boot your motivation if you’re struggling a bit, it is perfect for those getting closer to target and are looking to shift those last few pesky lbs or for those that may have a special occasion looming and are in need of a weight loss boost.

If you are thinking of giving Extra Easy SP a go please bear in mind that this isn’t a plan suitable for everyone. It is recommended that if you are mum-to-be, breastfeeding mum, 16-17 year old member, Free2Go young member, or have diabetes or kidney problems, you are expected to continue to follow Extra Easy every day or Free2Go if applicable. Extra Easy SP is not suitable for you to follow.

If you’re a standard member and none of the above applies to you, then it is recommended that you follow Extra Easy SP for a week first. If you love the results you’re achieving, you can either:

  • continue Extra Easy SP days, building in some standard Extra Easy days to ensure you’re getting a well balanced diet

or

  • add another Healthy Extra ‘A’ choice each day to ensure you’re getting plenty of calcium. If you prefer not to add an extra Healthy Extra ‘A’ choice, you can have one regular size pot of yogurt instead

So how does Extra Easy SP work? It’s simple! Before I explain  I just want to point out that as a consultant I would only have recommended this plan for those members that had grasped Extra Easy fully, if you’re not familiar with the basics of the plan then you may find this one a bit too restrictive. You can read more about the basics here. If you are familiar with Extra Easy then this will be easy to understand.

When choosing to follow Extra Easy SP, you will be ensuring that all your food choices contain an S (speed) and P (protein) symbol only. You will need to look into your food optimising book and familiarise yourself with your fave S and P foods. Planning will also be key to ensure you get the results you want.

Omelette filled with cherry tomatoes, beans, spring onions & mushrooms

Omelette filled with cherry tomatoes, beans, spring onions & mushrooms

Step 1 – Free Foods (S and P Foods)

Speed foods are very low in energy density which means they have very few calories for their weight. You will need to fill at least half of your plate with Speed Free Foods. The more Speed foods you choose, the better the weight loss as you’ll be eating less calories! Look out for the Speed Free Foods in your food optimising book with the S symbol next to them on the fruit and veg pages.

Protein rich foods will satisfy your appetite and keep you feeling fuller for longer. The choices for P symbol foods include fish, lean meat and poultry, eggs, pulses and meat replacements. Look carefully over the pages 14-19 for those foods that contain the P symbol and aim to have half of your plate with these foods.

On top of all the S and P foods you can eat, you can also use all the store cupboard staples listed on page 21 of the book freely and enjoy the drinks listed on page 23.

Step 2 – Healthy Extras

You can choose:

  • two Healthy Extra ‘A’ choice

and

  • one Healthy Extra ‘B’ choices

To power up your weight loss even more, look out for Speed Healthy Extra choices with an ‘S’ symbol

Step 3 – Syns

Enjoy 5-10 syns as usual. These should not be used for foods that you’d have on Extra Easy. For example Pasta! We all know that plain, dried pasta is a free food but you can get varieties that contain syns (Pasta & Sauce packets or Mug Shots etc). Please don’t use your syns on those! When following Extra Easy SP 100% your food should contain S and P symbols only and your syns should not contain any other free food element. Hope this makes sense!

And that is all there is to the plan! You can get a food diary designed to help you when following Extra Easy SP from your consultant. I find the food diary is an essential tool as it will help you understand your eating pattern.

You can also get a 7 day Extra Easy SP menu from the Slimming World website to give you some ideas or use the recipe books and magazines available in group to find your own fave recipes that you can enjoy when following this plan.

 

 

No-Bake Cheesecake

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A super easy dessert you can whip up in a few minutes. My family love this cheesecake and now they can make it themselves with this recipe! This isn’t a SW friendly recipe, you can however work out the syn values yourself by working out the syns for all the ingredients and dividing by the number of servings you get.

You can top the cheesecake with pretty much anything you want. When I am pressed for time, I add chopped chocolate (as pictured), or grate a couple of digestive biscuits over it. Other toppings I love to add to the cheesecake are: fresh strawberries pureed and sweetened with a little icing sugar and crushed meringues (best to do this just before serving), crushed oreos, Ferrero Rocher, mango or passion fruit. What do you like to top your cheesecake with? Comment below with your fave toppings.

You can vary the biscuits you use for the base to include your favourite one – if I am making an Oreo flavoured cheesecake, then I’d use Oreo biscuits for the base and I would also add crushed Oreos to the cream mixture too.

Enjoy and feel free to tag me in your creations x

No-Bake Cheesecake

No-Bake Cheesecake

 

Ingredients

  • 250g digestive biscuits (crushed)
  • 100g butter (melted)
  • 600ml cream cheese
  • 100g icing sugar
  • 284ml tub Elmlea double cream
  • Vanilla extract

Method

Make the biscuit base first – crush the biscuits in a blender or you can crush them by hand. I usually get my kids to do it as they absolutely love bashing the biscuits with a rolling pin! Place the biscuits in a clean bag and bash it with a rolling pin until it is finally crushed. Add the melted butter and mix well. Place the biscuits in a flan dish and place it in the fridge for at least 15 minutes to firm up.

Mix the cream cheese with icing sugar (don’t overmix as the cream cheese will turn runny). Mix until the sugar is evenly mixed. Add the Elmlea cream and vanilla extract and mix till it makes soft peaks.

Add the cream to the biscuit base and chill. Add topping of your choice before serving.

Carrot & Walnut Halwa Cake

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This is a recipe inspired by the super talented Saliha Mahmood Ahmed (Masterchef Winner 2017) from her latest recipe book ‘Khazana’. The original recipe contained a variety of different nuts as well as sultanas but I have adapted this slightly and used only walnuts in this recipe. The original recipe also asked for the cake to be cooked in 2 tins but I am quite lazy so ended up using only 1 deep cake tin (10′ round tin), which meant that the cooking time for my cake was a lot longer. If you split your cake batter into 2 tins, remember to reduce the cooking time accordingly.

Overall this was quite an easy cake to bake and it was enjoyed by everyone!

Carrot & Walnut Halwa Cake

Carrot & Walnut Halwa Cake

 

Ingredients

  • 200g light brown muscovado sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 250ml sunflower oil
  • 50ml milk
  • 300g plain flour, plus extra for coating cake tin
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 50g butter
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 400g finely grated carrots
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 100g walnuts, roughly chopped (plus extra for decorating)

Icing

  • 300g cream cheese
  • 125g icing sugar
  • 100ml double cream

Method

Pre heat the oven to gas mark 4 and grease a cake tin with spray oil and flour. Set aside till needed.

Mix the muscovado sugar, eggs, sunflower oil and milk in a large bowl and whisk until all ingredients are well combined. In a separate bowl, sift the flour with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and set aside.

Melt the butter and the caster sugar in a pan till all the sugar has dissolved. When the butter has foamed, add the grated carrots and mix thoroughly. Cook for about 5 minutes till the carrots have softened and add the spices, mixing it well into the carrots. Remove the pan from the heat and add the chopped walnuts and let it cool slightly.

To finish the cake batter, mix the bowl with flour into the bowl of wet ingredients alongside the cooked carrots. Mix it thoroughly with a wooden spoon and pour the batter into the prepared cake tin.

Bake in the oven for around 75 minutes. After that time is up, check if the cake is done by inserting a wooden skewer into the middle of the cake. The skewer should come out clean if its done, if it doesn’t, then bake for a further 10-15 minutes till it is done.

Once the cake is baked, let it rest in the tin for a few minutes before removing it from the tin and let it cool completely on a wire rack before icing it.

To make the icing, put the cream cheese in a bowl and mix till it is smooth (this only takes a few seconds, try not to be tempted to over mix it or you could end up with runny cream cheese!). Add the icing sugar and the double cream and mix till it starts to thicken and it is smooth. Again don’t be tempted to over mix as you could quickly end up with a very runny mixture and you won’t be able to ice your cake.

Once your cake is completely cool, cut it in half and add some icing to the middle. Sandwich the cake together and use the rest of the icing to spread all over the top and sides of the cake. Use a palette knife to create a smooth finish. Use more chopped walnuts to decorate the cake.

Slimming World – The Basics

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Please note: This post has been edited to reflect the changes SW has announced this week.

One of the questions I get asked often is how does Slimming World (SW) work? So I’m going to give you an overview of the plan. It is a very easy and simple plan to follow. If you’ve ever tried any diets in an effort to lose weight before and maybe were not as successful as you’d hoped or just want to give SW a go, please be open minded! You may be surprised at how generous the eating plan is, but it all works perfectly well together when you follow the simple 3 steps bellows.

Step 1 Free Foods

Most of the food you will be eating from will come from a list of foods called Free Foods. These are called Free Foods because they are unlimited – you can have as much or as little of these foods as you like without weighing or measuring a single thing! Sounds great, right? So what exactly are these Free Foods you may be wondering? These are foods that are naturally lower in calories and high in satiety (that means appetite satisfaction). You can fill up on these foods whenever you like as long as they’ve been cooked without any fat or oil. You will be able to find the full list of the hundreds of Free Foods available to choose from in the Food Optimising book you receive when you join a SW group. The following is just a summary of what is included:

  • Fruit – only when fresh or frozen whole (cooked, canned, dried & pureed fruits are NOT free foods)
  • Vegetables
  • Fish
  • Meat & Poultry (including some vegetable proteins)
  • Dairy products – fat free natural yogurts, low fat plain cottage cheese, quark
  • Eggs
  • Rice, pasta & grains
  • Beans, peas & lentils

Enjoy filling up on these foods any time, day or night, without any limits! Free Foods will keep you feeling fuller longer than other foods – especially protein rich foods such as lentils, eggs, meat and poultry.

To ensure a healthy balance of food, SW recommend you fill at least 1/3 of your plate with Speed Free Foods where you can and make them your first choice between meals. Speed Free Foods are even lower in calories which means it will help you lose even more weight. In your food optimising book, these food will be marked with an S. These will include fresh or frozen fruit and fresh, frozen, canned or pickled vegetables.

One main point to remember with fruit is that fruit is only a Free Food when it is fresh or frozen and whole. That means cooked, canned, dried or pureed fruit will not be a Free Food when consumed in those forms.

On top of all these Free Foods, you will also be able to use some store cupboard staples freely to add flavour and variety to your meals. Things such as herbs and spices, stock pots and cubes, soy sauce, tomato purees, fat free dressings (vinaigrette, Italian or French style dressings, must be 50kcals or less per 100ml to be Free), low calorie cooking spray (must be 1 calorie or less per spray to be Free), Marmite, Tabasco & Worcestershire sauce.

Drinks that are included in the Free Foods list include:

  • Water – still or sparkling!
  • Coffee
  • Tea (including herbal teas)
  • Sugar free/ diet fizzy drinks
  • No added sugar cordial

Swap sugar for sweetener tablets in your drinks! Any milk used in your hot drinks is not a Free Food but comes under Step 2 Healthy Extra s below.

Step 2 Healthy Extras

In addition to all the Free Foods, you can choose 2 options from the Healthy Extra choices to ensure you are getting enough calcium and fibre in your diet. You can make two choices a day from the Healthy Extras A choice and one choice a day from the Healthy Extra B choice. Again, you will find a full list of these choices in your food optimising book or the SW app.

Healthy Extra A choices are dairy foods that are a good source of calcium. These include the following:

  • 350ml skimmed milk
  • 250ml semi skimmed milk
  • 400ml unsweetened calcium-enriched plain soya drink
  • 40g reduced fat Cheddar/Emmental
  • 30g Cheddar/Double Gloucester/Red Leicester/Gouda/Emmental
  • 50g Mozzarella
  • 35g Halloumi
  • 3 Mini Babybel Light cheeses
  • 2 Laughing Cow Original Triangles

Healthy Extra B choices are foods that contain a good source of fibre. These will include many high fibre wholegrain cereals, wholemeal bread, crispbreads, cereal bars, nuts & seeds, dried, canned & cooked fruit. Below are some options you can chose from:

  • 40g unflavoured porridge oats
  • 45b Bran Flakes
  • 40g Weetabix Crispy Minis (Banana/Chocolate Chip/Fruit & Nut
  • 2 Weetabix (including flavoured varieties)
  • 2 SW Hifi Bars/Alpen Light bars
  • 4 Ryvita Dark Rye/Original
  • 60g any wholemeal bread
  • 16 almonds
  • 35 pistachio nuts
  • 2 level tbsp. sunflower seeds

You must ensure that your healthy extra choices are weighed and measured accurately. Please do not guess or estimate!

Step 3 Syns

On top of all the Free Foods and the Healthy Extra choices, you can choose ‘Syns‘ – these allow you to enjoy the foods that many diets ban! All food that isn’t Free has a Syn Value. You can enjoy between 5-15 Syns a day (your consultant will be able to help you decide the number of Syns to aim for each day). You will find Syn Values at the back of your food optimising book or on the SW app (a fab tool available for all SW members).

So now you’ve got an overview of the SW food optimising plan you can see that it is not that difficult! It is a simple, easy to follow plan that is suitable for everyone. You will get a lot more in depth information when you join a group and receive support from a knowledgeable and supportive consultant and of course great motivation and ideas from fellow slimmer’s. Remember, this additional support occurs during Image Therapy, so always aim to stay in group until the end of the session.

Hope you find this useful, if you have questions or need me to clarify anything, please comment below.

 

 

Kheema Biryani

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I love a good biriyani and this recipe is so easy to make and perfect for us slimmers. All the taste without any of the syns!

Serves: 4

Syns: FREE

Time Taken: 45-60 minutes

Difficulty: Moderate

Ingredients

  • 1 kg chicken mince
  • 2-3 onions, chopped
  • green chillies, to taste (optional)
  • 1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
  • 1 tsp garlic/ginger paste
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cumin powder
  • 1 tsp coriander powder
  • 1 tsp red chilli flakes
  • 1 tbsp garam masala
  • Food colouring deep orange or yellow, just a few drops
  • 4 cups of white rice
  • Low calorie cooking spray

Method

Put mince and all the spices in pan, add enough water to cover mince meat and cook for around 30 minutes.

Boil the rice separately. In a pan of boiling salted water, add your rice and cook for about 8 minutes. You do not want to cook the rice fully at this stage. Once cooked, drain the water off the rice and place the rice in a colander.

In the pan you cooked the rice, spray the bottom and sides of it with a low calorie cooking spray. Put in a layer of the rice at the bottom of pan then layer some keema on top and layer again with rice and sprinkle with both food colours then keep repeating the method until rice/keema finishes ending with rice.

Cook for about 20 minutes on low heat.

Lost Mojo

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Hands up anyone who is struggling with their weight loss?

You started off so well on your journey but lately you have lost your focus, feeling like you cannot do it anymore. You know deep down that you still really want to lose weight but you’ve had days, weeks or even months when it felt harder to stay focused. Your willpower has gone, abandoned you. Maybe its the summer holidays, friends and family are over, your own kids have their needs and planning goes out of the window.

Perhaps some other life event or living life itself simply gets in the way and your commitment to slimming gets pushed to the back of the queue. That doesn’t mean we cannot regain focus or determination again.

The last few years have been tough for me, even more since the middle of last year. Although I tried my very best to food optimise as best as I could, most of the time I was failing. I was failing at the weight loss immensely. All my meals are picture perfect but behind closed doors I was (and still am) taking comfort in the food that I know I shouldn’t be eating. I stopped caring about myself a long time ago and I am now at a low point in my journey, it feels as if for every step I take forward I end up taking 2 backwards. I know it has to stop.

When I first joined Slimming World back in 2011, it took me just over a year to lose 4 stones. I was extremely determined at the time to lose weight to both feel and look better. Once I reached my goal I maintained my weight loss for a couple of years and thought that being a SW consultant would help me stay focused on my own weight loss journey. How wrong was I? I loved my role as a SW consultant (I did that for over 5 years) and seeing so many of my members of my groups lose weight with my help gave me such a wonderful feeling, but I was neglecting myself in the process.

It began slowly but I started to dislike the way I looked and I began to feel like a fraud standing in front of my members in group when I was failing myself. I know most of my members did not think any less of me but the few that commented on my weight did upset me. There is such an expectation from members and everybody else around me that I wonder if they even care about what others may be going through, including their own Consultants? There’s no support network for consultants that are struggling, that’s something that Slimming World should look into.

I know the answer to get back on track is to join a group. I’ve tried that a couple of times recently but repeatedly failed. I was not prepared to commit or make the right changes and those bad habits were still there. I know the SW plan inside out and know what I need to do so I thought I’d share what I will be doing to get myself back on track and hope this will help anyone else who may be struggling too.

Understanding emotional grooves

Most of us know that we don’t just eat when we are hungry – comfort eating, boredom eating, social eating, picking without thinking – they’re all common behaviours that some of us slip into at times. And that is okay! Knowing when your danger times are will help you understand your emotional grooves and you can then put plans in place to protect yourself from sabotage. Developing a fruit habit and filling the fridge with Speed food snacks will help turn a potentially dangerous time into something far more manageable.

Planning

Once you understand when your danger times are, you can set about planning your day/week. I like to spend a half hour with my favourite recipe books and food optimising book and then plan what I will be eating for the week. Some people don’t like to think that far ahead and that is okay, you can plan a couple of days in advance or even plan your food for the day. Planning is the key to success though! Knowing what you will be eating will give you a great sense of control. I like to plan in detail – I write down everything on a planner and try to stick to it as much as possible. On my planner I will have all my meals written down as well as snacks, syns and healthy extras. I tend to keep syns to 5-10 on my planner, and if for any reason I need to use extra then I am covered!

Meal Planner

Meal Planner

 

Food Diary

Alongside my planner, I will be using a food diary to keep track of the food actual eaten. You can buy food diaries online to keep track, but you don’t need anything fancy. You can just jot it all down in a notebook and that works fine. You just need to keep note of what you’re eating and should you need it in the future you can easily refer back to it.

Body Magic

I must admit that this is one the parts that I struggle with immensely but know that it can happen if I make the time! I am usually full of excuses as to why I don’t have the time to fit in any exercise but I am hoping that by planning in some sort of body magic in my planner, will help me ensure I actually do it! I am not a very active person, so for me personally body magic will come in the form of walking. I have a treadmill at home so no excuses for not getting any walking in if the weather is bad!

Be kind to myself

One of the main things that I need to concentrate on is being kind to myself. If I have a bad day or if I don’t make a good choice I will not beat myself up about it and will be kind to myself. Having a wobble doesn’t have to mean giving up on my weight loss.

Support network

I know that the best way to keep on track on my weight loss is to be a part of a support network in a SW group, and that is how I lost my weight originally. But this time, I will be going on this weight loss journey on my own. I find the support I get on social media is fab and am hoping that by documenting my own weight loss journey online will help me to get back to where I was before. If I struggle on my own, then I will bite the bullet and get myself back to a group!

Cupcakes

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I asked a while ago on my Instagram poll if people wanted to see non SW food on my blog and the majority did so here is one to start off with. This is a very easy and simple cupcake recipe, my go to recipe, it is so easy to make that even my younger kids can make them (they’re 8 & 10 years old) without any supervision from me. Obviously if your children have never cooked before, please make sure you supervise them at all times.

If you’d like to work out the syn values for the cupcakes, you’ll need to work out the syn values for each ingredient and then divide it by the number of cupcakes made. The recipe below makes 12 cupcakes and I’ve worked out the syns value for you this time (without the icing) but that is not something I will be doing for future recipes – I have a lot of dessert and cake recipes to share and knowing the syn values will shock me and you! I will leave that for every reader to work out for themselves.

So, when using a light margarine such as Flora light to make these, the syn value for each cupcake will be 5.5 syns. If you choose to use regular margarine then the syns go up a little, each cupcake will then be 7 syns each. It is not that high to be fair and homemade goodies always taste so much better than shop bought, so definitely worth the syns. You could potentially have 2 cupcakes within your daily syns allowance!

The kids decorated the cupcakes simply by mixing icing sugar with water (until they got a sightly runny consistency) and topped them with sugar strands and balls and mini marshmallows. You can buy halal mini marshmallows from your local Asian supermarket but I like to get mine from Leicester – from a place called Mr. Burger! (yeah it is not a restaurant, they sell a whole range of frozen goodies and things from South Africa too, as well as tubs of halal sweets).

Don’t forget to tag me on your posts when you make these, I love looking at everyone’s posts, and feel free to share the recipe x

Cupcakes made & decorated by the kids

Cupcakes made & decorated by the kids

 

Makes: 12 cupcakes

Time Taken: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

  • 115g margarine
  • 115g self raising flour
  • 115g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Beat the sugar and margarine together till light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs, one at a time, and mix thoroughly after each addition.

Add the flour and try not to overmix at this stage. Add the vanilla.

Pour the mixture into 12 muffin cases and cook in a pre heated oven for 15 minutes on gas mark 4.

You can check if the cupcakes are cooked by inserting a toothpick in the middle of one cupcake. If it comes out clean, then your cupcakes are done! If not, then leave them to cook a little longer. Try not to be tempted into opening your oven door too early, this may result in sunken cakes!

Firecracker Chicken

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Last night I decided to try another one of Spicentice kits – Firecracker Chicken! I adapted the ingredients slightly to adjust to what I had at home and it was delicious.

I thought Firecracker Chicken sounded spicy and was worried that the hubby would find it too spicy but it had just the right amount for him and the kids. I added chilli flakes to mine as I love hot food! I eat super spicy food so for me this was a mild spice kit but I know many will probably find this just right for them. Below is the list of ingredients you will need to make this recipe with the spice kit, it is quite a straightforward recipe.

I used Crucials Chilli Ketchup for an added spicy kick but you can use just regular ketchup. Remember to double check syn values for yourself as different brands of sauces vary in syn values.

We all loved this meal and would have it again.

Enjoy x

Spicentice Firecracker Chicken

Spicentice Firecracker Chicken

Serves: 4

Syns: 2 syns per serving

Time Taken: 45 minutes (plus marinade time)

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

  • 3 chicken breasts
  • 2 medium onions, chopped
  • 1 tbsp ginger/garlic paste
  • 1 cup peas
  • 1 pepper
  • 1 lime
  • Spring onions
  • 2 tbsp tomato ketchup
  • 4 tbsp dark soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
  • 1 tbsp plain flour
  • Spicentice Firecracker Sachet
  • Jasmine rice to serve

 

Firecracker Chicken with Jasmine Rice

Firecracker Chicken with Jasmine Rice

Method

Chop the pepper and onion into quarters, and chicken into bite sized chuncks.

In a large bowl add the tomato ketchup, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, the juice of 1 lime, 100ml water and Spicentice Firecracker Sachet. Then add 1/2 tbsp. ginger/garlic paste and the chicken. Mix all ingredients together and leave to marinade for at least 15 minutes.

Heat low cal spray oil in a wok over a medium heat. Add the remaining ginger/garlic paste and stir fry for a few seconds. Scoop out the chicken from the marinade and stir fry until the chicken is almost cooked through.

Add plain flour to the leftover marinade sauce and whisk thoroughly. Add to wok with extra water if needed (100ml). Allow to simmer, then add the onions, peppers and peas. Stir fry for 5-10 minutes and then garnish with spring onions.

Serve Spicentice Firecracker Chicken with Jasmine Rice.