What I ate today #WIAT - Quick & Easy meals for a healthy weight loss!

Today was a pretty chilled day for me! Other than writing up some blog posts and working on a few essays, I didn't really do much throughout the day. I took my three daily dog walks, and enjoyed them just as much as I always do, but I didn't really leave the house other than that, I didn't engage in any activities and I didn't really snack much! That is a big thing for me. I snack like a b*tch, snacks are my nemesis, I can eat appropriate meals, in appropriate sizes but snacking is where I will win or lose in the day. Today was a winning day.

BREAKFAST

Today I had a simple breakfast, I wasn't too hungry, but needed something more than cereal! I decided on some fruit and a bit of yogurt. I'm a fruit addict, I eat too much if anything, and I'm working on it, but for now, I overdo the fruit!

BREAKFAST

BREAKFAST breakdown: 3tbsp greek natural yogurt, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 banana, 1 gala apple. Sprinkling of milled flaxseed and chia seed.

SNACK breakdown: Lots of water, A chocolate and orange Nakd bar.

By the time lunch came around I wasn't feeling like much, so I just had another apple and a huge bottle of water. I actually felt good afterwards, I wasn't completely stuffed full, but wasn't left hungry. However, most days I CRAVE lunch, so this was a minor blip. 

SNACK breakdown: Less water than I'd usually have, as I've said before, I'm terrible at remembering to drink. My left-over 1/2 banana from breakfast!

DINNER

For dinner, I prepared a simple, quick meal, all home-cooked. I didn't have a lot of veggies, but stayed full anyway. 

DINNER

DINNER breakdown: 2 small sweet potatoes (skinned, sliced and oven baked - with olive oil, salt and pepper). A piri-piri marinaded chicken breast (120g). And a couple of handfuls of peas. Although my dinner was very simple, I enjoyed it, it was easy to eat, and not too complicated to make. Just what I like!

TOP FREE WEIGHT-LOSS/FITNESS/HEALTH APPS

As you may or may not know, there are a lot of 'health' apps now available on app stores. I've probably tried and tested at least 60-70% of them, and am going to give you all a list of some of my ultimate favourites that I honestly couldn't live without! These are apps for all different kinds of things, but all involve healthiness or fitness etc.


My Top Apps for Health/Fitness:

1. EARTHMILES - FREE 
• Earthmiles is a new app that I have come to love. I actually downloaded this because I saw the beautiful Carly Rowena tweeting about it. I have never looked back. I find the community of people great, and LOVE the concept of the app. If you've never heard of this app before it's great. It's basic concept is to reward people for their fitness. Whether this be a marathon or just the 10 steps they take, you get earthmiles points for everything that you do (fitness wise) in a day. This is tracked through the health app on an iphone, or many other fitness apps: nikefuel, runkeeper, fitbit etc. With your collected earthmiles you can redeem your miles for money off vouchers for fitness classes, fitness equipment or healthy snacks etc. in your local community and online. However, earthmiles also run competitions for walking and running every couple of weeks were you can try your best to walk/run as much as you can and win some amazing prizes. A recent walkathon gave away around £200 of loot, so it's pretty good too. Moreover, I feel as though these activities and the idea of the app, as a whole, definitely give you more motivation to walk a bit further or do another run, which is amazing for your fitness!           
2. PUMP-UP - FREE
• Pump-up is an app with an amazing, heart-warming, supportive 'fit' community. The best way I can think of to describe this is as the fitness orientated instagram, meaning that people post photos of what they're eating, or the exercise they're doing, and other people can comment supportive comments or their congratulations etc. on the post. I've never seen any bullying or any negative energy on pump-up which I do find on instagram, and I absolutely love the positive community that exists there. It's a beautiful thing to find in today's society.                                                                                                                                 
3. WATER LOG - FREE
• A pretty basic idea, there are many of these apps out there, some costing a few £'s. I love this one because I find it the easiest to use and it's free. The app allows you to track your daily water intake against your recommended intake and notifies you to drink more throughout the day. I love this app, as I find that I want to fill the bar, and drink as much as I can, which I don't find, without an engaging app like this one. Water is so important for your health, but also for your skin etc. water can change a lot about your physical and mental state, therefore it's essential to keep hydrated. Although you can track water intake on my fitness pal, I like the other features of the app, and that the focus in entirely on water. I'm really bad with hydration, and need to force myself to remember to drink throughout the day, so an app like this is perfect for me.                                                                             
4. NIKE RUN APP - FREE
• This is a pretty person-specific app I feel. I LOVE it. However, it is only really useful for those of us who love to run/or are getting into running etc. and want to track their different runs easily. Firstly, I love the lay-out of this app, it's functionality is great, and it's extremely easy to use. The app tracks your run/jog/walk by showing your route, through the location tracking on your phone. You press 'start', run as you would usually, with your phone in your pocket, or on an armband (meant for running with no pockets). The phone then tracks where you run, your speed and the time the run takes you. I, firstly, just enjoy seeing my run on the map, and seeing how I did that day, when I arrive home. However, I also enjoy looking back through my previous runs and seeing my progress or if I've beat a record etc. Therefore, I like this app as a basic running tracker (much like runkeeper) however, find it the most easy to use, and the most functional. The app also allows for sharing your runs to social media, although I don't really use this option, and so couldn't comment on it's usefulness.                                                                                                                    
5. HEALTH - FREE
• Perhaps, the most well known app, health comes with every (updated) iphone. This is the reason it ranks low on this list, it isn't compatible with a lot of devices, and therefore a lot of people can't take advantage of it. However for those with iphones, health is often underrated. It does track a little many steps and doesn't have the most amazing features, but as a basic fitness tracking app it works pretty well. I use health every day. It automatically tracks your steps, km distance travelled and stairs climbed (among other things) every day, and allows you to view your past data and average data. I also find this a motivational tool because I like to try to beat my records, and exceed my goals, meaning that I'm always pushing for a couple of extra steps here and there. These steps mean a lot to health and to fitness, just walking around for 20 minutes a day is a major improvement on not walking at all, and therefore taking 10's of thousands of steps per day is great as an extra goal.

The perfect RAINBOW CAKE!

It was a family birthday party last week, and I decided to bake something a little bit fun, and a little bit crazy. Birthdays are a time to splash out, and have fun, especially in baking. Since I wasn't baking for a child (or someone who would enjoy a themed cake) I decided to have a look online for a imaginative idea and put some skills to the test. I hope you enjoy this post about how to make a delicious and PERFECT rainbow cake!

Now, keep in mind that this cake involves a lot of...stuff. By that I mean, a lot of bowls, gel colouring, layers, tools, cake tins etc. because of the nature of a rainbow cake, it involves a lot of preparation and a lot of organisation, before and during the actual baking process. For that simple reason I would reccommend that you read everything in this recipe a couple of times before proceeding, that you organise your workspace well and that you allow yourself a lot of time to do things properly, and perhaps slowly, instead of rushing and ending up with a messy result.

This cake looks in-freaking-credible, but you know what the best bit about it is, it tastes AMAZING too!

What a slice of absolute heaven! Perfect for children and adults alike!

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Cake Ingredients:

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750 g- Self-Raising Flour 

750 g - Caster sugar 

100 ml - Milk (Whole or semi-skimmed - if preferred)

9 - Large Eggs (In an emergency medium should be fine, just add a dash of milk if necessary)

750 g - Softened Unsalted butter (or salted, but exclude the pinch of salt)

Pinch - Salt

2 tsp- Vanilla Extract 

Various - Colour gels/pastes - In the colours of the rainbow, or your preferred colour choice.

Cake ingredients.

Colour paste

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Cake Procedure:

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1. Pre-heat your oven to gas-mark 4 or equivalent (170 degrees c)
2. Put softened butter and caster sugar into a bowl, and mix with an electric mixer (or wooden spoon etc.) until light and fluffy (usually around 5 minutes - but can depend on mixer speed). 
3. Crack one egg into your mixture and combine and repeat until all eggs are added. 
4. Combine vanilla extract and milk into this mixture.
5. Slowly fold in your flour (with a spoon, spatula etc. - be careful not to knock out too much air).
6. Split your batter into 6 bowls (roughly measured by eye, or if you feel the need to measure exactly, you can weigh the entire amount of batter and then divide that by six)
7. Add around 1/4 tsp of colour paste to each bowl until you have all of your rainbow colours. Make sure the batter in each bowl is quite colour concentrated (as it will lighten when baking)
8. Combine the colour into the batter (be careful not to knock the air out of the batter - be gentle)
9. Line your cake tins with baking paper or with butter and flour - see here for method and add your cake mixture
10. Bake in your pre-headed oven for about 20 minutes (Check every so often to make sure you don't burn the cakes, as every oven has a slightly different cooking time (even at the same temperature)). Poke your cakes with a skewer to check if they're cooked, if this comes out clean, remove the tins from the oven. If not, leave for a couple more minutes and try again. 
    
11. Cool your cakes in the tin for 5 minutes and then place them onto a cooling rack until completely cool. If you try to frost the cakes when they're hot, the frosting will melt, so make sure they are completely cool before decorating.

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Frosting Ingredients: 

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300 g- Unsalted Butter - Room Temperature

700 g - Icing sugar 

4/5 tbsp - Milk (Whole or semi-skimmed - if preferred)

1 tsp - Vanilla Extract 

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Frosting Procedure:

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1. Mix your butter with an electric mixer (hand or stand) for around 5 minutes on a high speed, until light and fluffy.
2. Sift your icing sugar into this mix in parts, and mix well in between each addition.
3. Combine vanilla extract and milk into this mixture.
4. Beat on a high speed again for around 2/3 minutes

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Useful decoration tools:

---

Spatula - 
http://amzn.to/1SpFwcb
http://amzn.to/235Cr8F
Pallette knife (Essential for icing smoothly - especially on bigger cakes) -
http://amzn.to/1RsoI7X
http://amzn.to/1SpFocx
Measuring utensils:
http://amzn.to/1SpFCAk
http://amzn.to/1SpFEs6
http://amzn.to/1SpFHEb
http://amzn.to/1Rsp66h
Cake stand -
http://amzn.to/1SpFLUm
http://amzn.to/1SpFMrm
http://amzn.to/1Rsp7XU
Mixer -
http://amzn.to/1SpFSzp
http://amzn.to/1SpG0Pq
Mixing bowls -
http://amzn.to/1RspcuO
http://amzn.to/1SpFXTK
Cake turntable (essential for smooth icing on big cakes) -
http://amzn.to/1RspmSP
Cake tins -
http://amzn.to/1SpGh50
http://amzn.to/1SpGiWv
Colour paste / gel -
http://amzn.to/235CDEI
Cake Leveller - http://amzn.to/1T40y2F

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Decoration Procedure:

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1. Once your cakes are completely cooled, you're ready to decorate!
2. Use a cake leveller or serrated knife to cut the tops off of your layers (because of discolouration and texture) 
3. Trim the outside edge off of your layers by cutting round the cake layers with a knife. It's good to use a circular shaped item such as a plate or cake round which is slightly smaller than your cakes in order to make sure you are left with a perfectly round circle. With the left-over bits of cake here that you've trimmed off, save them for later. A small amount are used for decoration, but they're also very useful if you want to make some colourful cake-pops.
4. Place your plate/cake board onto a turntable if you have one. Spread a small amount of icing onto this board, which will ensure your cake sticks to the board/plate and doesn't slip around.
5. Put your purple cake level onto your cake board and add a dollop of frosting. Level this out and continue until all of your levels are completed. Make sure you do your colours in reverse order, so purple first, then blue, green, yellow, orange, red.
6. Once all of your layers are piled high with frosting in between we can finally see the cake coming together! Now you need to apply a crumb coat! - I've linked what this is if you're unsure, but it's pretty simple! You just need to frost the outside and top of your cake with a thin layer of frosting and level it off, this doesn't have to be the neatest, it's only to lock in crumbs that could colour your outside decoration! 
7. In order to allow the crumb coat to do it's magic, place the cake into the fridge for about an hour, so that this coat firms up and locks in these pesky crumbs!
8. Now frost your cake properly, with a palette knife (cranked mini palette knifes are useful) and ensure even sides to your cake, levelling the top too! This is the final piece of decoration, apart from a special touch of colour, therefore, it's important that you take your time and make sure it's neat. You could also take the #nakedcake approach if desired. 
9. Now crumble up some of them bits of cake you put away earlier, and sprinkle on top, in a design or randomly for a bit of colour on top. You could also add sprinkles if desired!

Cake whilst levelling process

Left-overs 

Final Product

Final Product

Final Product

Final Product

A foolproof way to ensure your cake never sticks to the tin!

I was thinking about this post recently. I feel as if this is a well known tip in terms of how to make sure cakes don't get stuck in their tins and a way to prevent such a heartbreaking disaster from occurring. However, I still see people these days flailing about with baking paper and trying to cut it to size to ensure their cake doesn't get stuck. That, or they trust the non-stick quality of their tins and come to regret it later when they're spent some much time and effort baking and they can't remove their bake from it's tin!

The EASIEST way to make sure a cake doesn't get stuck is to make sure you properly grease it! The way I do this, which works out every time is to take a small amount of butter and put it into the tin. Rub this around with your fingers (the heat will cause the butter to melt) until the entire cake pan is oily, including all around the sides, or in any corners. Next take a small handful of flour (self-raising for cakes) and put this into the tin. Hold the tin kind of diagonally and pat it off of the palms of your hands, distributing the flour everywhere, including the sides, the flour won't come out, unless you turn the tin upside down. This is often referred to as the butter and flour method, but let me tell you, it works. Just try this and you'll never waste baking paper or time again!

Delicious banana and maple syrup cupcakes topped with a carmalised nut brittle!

SO, if there's one thing to know about me as a person, it's that I LOVE bananas. I mean, I am addicted to them, especially in baking. I love the natural sweetness of banana in cakes and bakes, and find that it allows the cake to have a good all-around sweet flavour, without the (sometimes crazy) amount of sugar.

I actually saw a recipe featured in a baking magazine in January, featuring a banana cupcake, topped with a brittle, making it look insanely yummy. I added this tip into my family's maple and banana bread, and instead baked the batter in cupcake cases! You could also go for a more classic approach, and make a full banana bread loaf, but cupcakes are good for parties and events, or for easy access as a snack around the house! I have also found you a video on Jamie Oliver's youtube channel of a similar recipe, therefore, if you would like to watch someone making a similar recipe, to see the process fully, or to follow along with, do have a look here!

These lovely little cupcakes include (makes 12):

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Cake Ingredients:

---

120 g- Plain Flour (You could substitute for self-raising flour and exclude the baking powder)

90 g - Caster sugar 

20 g - Soft brown sugar (Could use dark muscovado sugar but it will be quite bitter)

2 - Large Eggs (In an emergency medium should be fine, just add a dash of milk if necessary)

1/2 tsp - Bicarbonate of Soda 

1 tsp - Baking Powder

110 g - Softened Unsalted butter (or salted, but exclude the pinch of salt)

Pinch - Salt

Handful - Nuts (If desired) - Hazelnuts, pecans etc.

1 and 1/2 - Bananas - Ripe

2 tbsp - Maple syrup

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Cake Procedure:

---

1. Pre-heat your oven to gas-mark 4 or equivalent
2. Put softened butter, and both types of sugar into a bowl, and mix with an electric mixer (or wooden spoon etc.) until light and fluffy. 
3. Mush your banana in a separate bowl and add to your butter and sugar. Mix until combined.
4. Crack your eggs into this mixture, along with your maple syrup, and combine.
5. Slowly fold in your left-over dry ingredients.
6. If desired, add some chopped nuts. 
7. Line a cupcake tin with paper cases, and fill about 3/4 of the cases with your cake batter.
8. Bake in your pre-headed oven for about 20 minutes (Check every so often to make sure you don't burn the cupcakes, as every oven has a slightly different cooking time (even at the same temperature)). Poke your cupcakes with a skewer to check if they're cooked, if this comes out clean, remove the cupcake tin from the oven. If not, leave for a couple more minutes and try again. 
   
9. Cool your cupcakes in the tin for 5 minutes and then place them onto a cooling rack until completely cool. If you try to frost the cakes when they're hot, the frosting will melt and you will have some messy cupcakes (don't worry, they'll still be delicious).

The optional brittle includes (method from Jamie Oliver's Youtube):

Finished brittle

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Brittle Ingredients:

---

Handful - Choice of nuts (Your preference. I love hazelnuts. Pecans work well with banana bread - very classic mix)

1/2 tbsp - Butter 

100 g - Caster Sugar

60 ml - Water

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Brittle Procedure:

---

1. In a small saucepan, add your caster sugar and then water (try to cover as much sugar as possible)
2. Let this come to the boil (it will take some patience)
3. Whilst this is happening, lightly oil some greaseproof paper (so that the hardened brittle cannot stick) and place this on a surface/baking tray/plate etc.
4. Once this mixture is a golden colour (see photos) remove from the heat.
5. Immediately add your butter into the mixture and stir together.
6. The mixture will bubble because of the addition of the oil. Once this settles down a bit, add your nuts, into the mix, ensuring they are properly combined, and fully covered. 
7. Pour your mixture onto the prepared paper and spread evenly, allow to cool and harden.
8. Leave this until your cakes are frosted and then add to the top as some decoration. 

When to turn off the heat

When butter is added and nuts are ready to be added

The amazing maple frosting includes:

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Frosting Ingredients:

---

120 g - Butter 

300 g - Icing sugar

2/3 tbsp - Maple Syrup 

---

Frosting Procedure:

---

1. Beat butter until soft and fluffy (easier to use a hand/stand mixer)
2. Slowly add the icing sugar in parts (unless you want icing sugar everywhere). Combine these together. 
3. Add 2 tbsp of maple syrup and beat with your mixture until a good consistency has formed (not runny, but light and soft enough to spread). If the mixture is too wet add some more icing sugar, and if it's too stiff add another tbsp of maple syrup).
4. Put this aside until your cakes are cool and then frost them with as much or as little as you like (if your kitchen is quite hot you might want to refrigerate this whilst your cupcakes are cooling so it keeps its consistency).

I hope you all love this recipe, as I did very much enjoy the addition of the brittle as a crunchy topper and fancy decoration. However, feel free to stick with the more classic version and just make the cakes alone or together with the frosting. As I said a banana/maple banana bread recipe is one of the most popular in my family in generations! And that's without frosting or carmalised nuts as decoration. Whilst not being the most beautiful looking bake, it tastes AMAZING so this recipe is also pretty good! Try the cake at least, if you like something a little less sweet, or a little less high-maintenance!

Equipment I use: 

Spatula - 
http://amzn.to/1SpFwcb
http://amzn.to/235Cr8F
Pallette knife (Essential for icing smoothly - especially on bigger cakes) -
http://amzn.to/1RsoI7X
http://amzn.to/1SpFocx
Measuring utensils:
http://amzn.to/1SpFCAk
http://amzn.to/1SpFEs6
http://amzn.to/1SpFHEb
http://amzn.to/1Rsp66h
Cake stand -
http://amzn.to/1SpFLUm
http://amzn.to/1SpFMrm
http://amzn.to/1Rsp7XU
Mixer -
http://amzn.to/1SpFSzp
http://amzn.to/1SpG0Pq
Mixing bowls -
http://amzn.to/1RspcuO
http://amzn.to/1SpFXTK
Cupcake tray -
http://amzn.to/1SpG5Tb
Cupcake cases -
http://amzn.to/1RspiT2
Cake turntable (essential for smooth icing on big cakes) -
http://amzn.to/1RspmSP
Baking sheet -
http://amzn.to/1Rspodi
Cake tins -
http://amzn.to/1SpGh50
http://amzn.to/1SpGiWv
Colour paste / gel -
http://amzn.to/235CDEI

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(This post is not sponsored, all opinions are my own. I have included one affliliate link, however).

Healthy and simple - super-seed cinnamon-nut granola (VEGAN)

I awoke last week to a beautiful sunny day outside, the kind of day that just makes you want to bake everything in existence and yet be the healthiest you've ever been. I decided to try to accomplish both!

I'd like to share my new cinnamon-nut granola which is completely healthy and balanced for breakfast, and tastes damn good too. The best thing about this recipe however, is the fact that there are no real necessary ingredients and no real measurements! Feel free to stray from my recipe and adjust this to your personal preferences.

This superfood, nut and seed filled granola includes:

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Ingredients:

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3 cups - Basic oats (You can find these anywhere really)

3 tbsp - Coconut oil (Can now be found in most shops/stores)

1 cup of each - Choice of nuts: I used whole hazelnuts and almonds and some flaked almonds

1 cup of each - Choice of seeds: I used Linseed, Flax seed, Pumpkin seed, Sunflower seeds, Chia seeds etc.

1/2 cup - Wheat Bran

1 cup of each - Dried Fruit: Raisins etc.

4 tbsp - Agave nectar: Substitutions - Honey, maple syrup etc.

4 tsp - Cinnamon 

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Procedure:

---

1. Pre-heat your oven to gas-mark 4 or equivalent
2. Stir together all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl (with the exception of the cinnamon). Set this aside.
3. Melt the coconut oil and agave nectar in a saucepan on the stovetop, stirring until completion. When this mix is fully melted, add the cinnamon to dissolve.
4. Pour this mixture into your mixing bowl, and thoroughly combine with the dry ingredients (with a spoon or your hands). Once you have combined your ingredients, set this aside
5. Line a large baking tray with grease-proof paper and fill with your mixture. Make sure the tray is evenly covered.
6. Bake your granola in the pre-heated oven for around 30 minutes, or until the oats are crisp and golden, make sure to remove from the oven every 10 mins (or when the top layer of mixture has become crunchy) to mix around and ensure an even bake. 
   
7. Cool your granola and store in an airtight container, ready to enjoy in the morning with some milk or yogurt.

I thoroughly hope you enjoy this delicious granola, it really is a family favourite!