Malteser Bars

Oh it's been a while since I posted a recipe! But moving house is not conducive to baking, so recipe posts will be heavily interspersed with more general life posts for the foreseeable future. But to make up for this, I promise that these recipes are THE BEST. They're all little gems that are easy to make, even with the most limited kitchen equipment. They also pack up really easily so you can take them with you to enjoy on long journeys.

First up, not for anyone looking after their figure, Malteser Traybake. There are a million and one versions of this online, and there's a simple reason for that. It's absolutely delicious. So I'm going to jump in on the action and share my recipe. Be warned  though, once you've made the traybake, it won't be around for long - they're so naughty, they are impossible to resist!

Malteaser Traybake

100g Butter

300g Milk Chocolate

100g White Chocolate

3tbsp Golden Syrup

250g Digestive Biscuits (crushed)

225g Malteasers (half crushed)

1. Melt the butter, golden syrup and 200g of the milk chocolate together.

2. Mix the crushed digestives into the melted liquid, followed by the crushed maltesers.

3. Press into a lined tin and leave to set for around two hours. Melt the remaining milk chocolate, spread evenly over the surface of the bake, then melt the white chocolate and drizzle over the top.

Week Twenty Eight

GUYS! We're more than halfway through the year!! Isn't that madness? Only half of 2014 left! I'm really proud I've managed this long on my weekly photo posts, so fingers crossed the rest of the year is as successful.

Monday - This is a slight cheat, as I didn't take this photo on Monday, I took it about two years ago on a field trip. But, on Monday it won me the School of Biological Science Prize for Photography, so I think it's fair to share it. I was so excited to win, and there's some truly talented photographers in our year so I'm not really sure how I managed it!

Tuesday - Drinks with friends. 

Wednesday - The best fish and chips in the UK (like actually).

Thursday - Clearing out the alcohol cupboard made me want to party not pack.

Friday - Grad ball!

Saturday - Last meal at my favourite place, the Sand Dollar (I've talked about it MANY times on this blog). We popped in before our long drive south, and savoured every mouthful. A wonderful meal was topped off with an incredibly generous gesture from the manager, who refused to let us pay because we'd been there so often in the last four years. I have to admit, I nearly burst into tears in the middle of the cafe! I'm excited to move on, but leaving the Frozen North isn't going to be easy.

Sunday - At the station with our bags, ready for a big adventure! There's a few posts scheduled in the next three weeks, and I'll endeavour to keep up my usual Sunday posts, but I may be on the quiet side. Fear not though! You'll be able to follow all of my adventures on my Instagram, @dearbaker92

Week Twenty Seven

Wow wow wow. This is late. Life is busy and without structure, which means I'm finding it very difficult both to put up posts and catch up with the blogs I love. But better late than never, so here are last weeks photos of the day, and I'm looking forward to catching up on what everyone else has been up to recently very soon!

Monday - BURGER

 Tuesday -  Aberdeen has a lot of sculptures of dolphins dotted around at the moment, and I ran into this guy as I was heading down the town. You can find out more about the Wild Dolphin Project here.

Wednesday - A tasty recipe coming your way soon!

Thursday - A lovely little present at the end of my last shift at the museum.

Friday - Last lunch at my favorite place for a bite to eat on campus!

Saturday - Cocktails with my family.

Sunday - A decadent chocolate pudding after Sunday lunch.

Croquet!





A few weekends ago Ben and I took a drive down to his parents house to help them celebrate their 30th Wedding Anniversary. They live in a pretty little village surrounded by beautiful countryside, and it provides a perfect escape from the city. We were blessed with glorious sunshine for a good chunk of the weekend, ideal for playing with the croquet set Ben and his siblings had bought as an anniversary present. 

Bar messing around with a set when I was really little, I'd never played croquet, certainly not by the real rules, but I really enjoyed it! It's easy to tell if you're doing well (or badly...) and is competitive enough to appeal to me without being so much effort you actually feel like you're playing a sport. At least that's how we played it - maybe officially it's seriously high pace? 

Hmm... probably not.

 

 

I always associate croquet with Alice in Wonderland, but this time the only flamingo to be seen was on my toes! Possibly the only reason I went barefoot.

"He shoots, he scores!" 

100% sure that isn't the right phrase, but you get the picture. Can anyone educate me on how to properly celebrate getting a ball through the hoop?

Week Twenty Six

Well I once again had a busy, busy week. So busy, in fact, that by Saturday I was so out of it that I managed to snooze away the whole of the afternoon. I can't lie - it was a great cat nap. Once again, this is a food heavy week, but I don't imagine you've come to expect much else!

Just as an aside, I'm delighted to say that the video I posted about earlier in the week won my magazine £500! So a big thank you to anyone who watched it or shared it, that really makes an enormous difference to us.

I hope you had a lovely week :)

Monday - Ben got some good news about his postgrad, so we cashed in our Tesco vouchers and went for lunch at Prezzo.

Tuesday - Ben took me for ice cream at the beach!

Wednesday - It's mandatory to go the whole hog when you have a friend round for breakfast.

Thursday - Love a good photo booth

Friday - A sneak of my dress for grad ball which arrived in the post when I was down in London. It's pink and sparkly and so not me, and I LOVE it. 

Saturday - It was finally time to take baked camembert to the next level.

Sunday - The International Market came to town!

Help!

I love science, I absolutely do. I plan on spending the rest of my life trying to persuade other people to love science. But I write this blog as a distraction from science, as a way to clear my head. And so I don't normally bring science into it, other than maybe a quick photo of the day now and then. 

But I break my rule, just this once, today.

 I depart from my "normal" blogging and ask you a favour. I'm currently Editor-in-Chief of a student run science magazine, which you can read here. We print around 6000 copies a year, which are available for free, all around Aberdeen and sometimes further afield. 

We provide unrivalled opportunities for students to get into science writing, into science communication (I definitely have my position to thank for my last job and my future post-grad). However, we are completely self funded, relying mainly on selling advertising space and sponsorship.

We're currently in the finals of a competition run by RBS, which could mean we win £5000. 

£5000 will fund the magazine for a full year. But we only win £5000 if we have the most views on our video, after that it goes down and down and down... So, after much more waffle than I intended, I get to my point. 

Please watch the video above, and if you can, share it! Both my team and I will be forever appreciative. 

Week Twenty Five

I had a busy, busy week, spending the start of the week with Ben's family, then heading on a whistle stop visit to London for the UK Conference for Science Journalists, before flying back to Aberdeen to start packing things up. 

The coming week is just as busy, I'm clocking in as many hours as I can at the museum before I leave, then I'm back in London on Thursday night for an awards ceremony. I can't wait for next weekend when I'll be able sit still for a while. Are you really busy at the moment, or are you enjoying a bit of down time?

Monday - Looking for Harry at Durham Cathedral.

Tuesday - Inadvertently continuing to look for Harry...

Wednesday - My first conference!

Thursday - Trying to clean this guy - he's meant to look like this but the poor thing has been gathering dust for goodness knows how long. 

Friday - Mmm pudding!

Saturday - Starting to pack my flat up, and I realise that I have a recipe book shaped problem.

Sunday - I went to Sainsbury's for eggs and came back with a really cute rucksack for my summer holiday! I've been searching for the right one for ages, and I'm so pleased I found the perfect one at such a good price!