Homemade strawberry jam

Happy Monday everyone!

I am back from my work trip and I am so happy to be back home! Last week, hubby brought back strawberries from work and as there were too many to eat I decided to make some jam with the left overs.

It was my first time making jam and I found it so easy I’m wondering why I didn’t give it a go earlier. Here is the recipe I used.

• 400 g strawberries
• 300 g caster sugar
• the juice of 1 lemon

I just put all my ingredients in a pot over the heat and brought everything to a boil, then I put it on low heat for around 40-45 min, making sure to stir from time to time (every 10 min or so) and that’s it! I think the consistency is really good, if you like your jam a bit firm, I would suggest either cooking it for longer or adding some agar to it.

I thought that overall it was super simple and I wish I had given jam a try before today. Are there any recipes you’ve tried that ended up super simple and that you wish you had given a go earlier?

Advertisement

DIY burlap gift bags

Happy Monday! 

With Christmas inching closer by the minute, I’m making sure that all the presents I already have are nicely wrapped and tucked under the tree. 

I’ve been making a few small items to gift this year and I’ve seen some really cute drawstring burlap bags in stores that looked perfect to wrap those gifts. The already made bags were pretty expensive though compared to just buying the burlap so I decided to make my own using stuff I already had at home. 

You will need some burlap, coloured thread of your choice, a needle and as an option you can also use embroidery thread to stitch some festive design at the front of your bag. 

I used already cut burlap sheets, which I cut in half to get a long strip. 

I stitched a candy cane on the front of my furure bag (but really you can stitch anything), making sure to leave enough space at the top to fold over twice in order to hide the raw edge. I did the same on the other short side of the rectangle. 

I then top stitched each of the folded short edges. Making sure I had the wrong side of the stitching facing, I sewed the sides of the bag. Finally, I turned the bag with the right side out and I threaded a cotton cord just underneath the top stitching. 

That’s it! Let me know if you try to make one of those yourself, or if you have any cool and original gift wrap go to 😊

X

Montecaos Recipe

Hi guys!

Lately I have been obsessed with MasterChef! The new season started a few weeks ago and it has really given me the drive to cook and bake more. Today I want to share with you my family’s Montecaos recipe. These little biscuits are originally from North Africa, and my family adopted them and brought them back when they emigrated from Algeria. The good think with those is that they are completely Vegan, and I have found that more and more people don’t eat animal products so it’s a good recipe to bring if you are baking for lots of people and you don’t know if they eat animal products. I have also tried them with a gluten free flour (a mix of rice flour, corn starch and tapioca starch) and they work really well either way!

So let’s get to it! To make around 12 biscuits, you will need:

• 250g flour
• 125g sugar
• 100g peanut oil
• ground cinnamon or chocolate powder

Preheat the oven on 180°C. The cooking has to be perfect so make sure your oven is at the right temperature before baking any of your biscuits.

Mix the flour and sugar roughly together before adding the peanut oil.

Knead the mixture until you obtain a dough with the consistency of wet sand. It shouldn’t be so wet that it is sticky but it should also stay together quite well.

Roll into small balls of dough and rest on a baking sheet.

When the oven is at 180°C, bake for 5 minutes at 180°. Then, turn the oven down to 150°C and bake for an extra 5 minutes. I normally turn off the oven at this point and let the biscuits in until some of them show cracks at their surface (note that this only happens with the ones made with normal flour, the ones made with gluten free flour don’t normally crack).

Let them cool a little and sprinkle with cinnamon or chocolate powder.

And you have them! Delicious crunchy sandy biscuits 🙂 I made two different batches this time, some with and some without gluten. Can you spot the difference?

If you try them I would love to hear from you and see some pictures maybe 🙂

 

X

How to make a pompon

Hi guys!

Today I want to share with you how to make a pompon with only 2 pieces of cardboard, some yarn and a pair of scissors 😊

So here it is, you need to cut 2 rings that are the same size in cardboard.

Then you put both rings together and tie the yarn on the rings. Make sure that your yarn ball is small enough to fit through the centre of your ring.

Your next step is to wrap your yarn around your ring. The thicker you wrap it the bigger your pompon will be.

  
This is the hardest step, you need to cut the pompon. Put your scissors in between the two rings and make sure you hold on to your yarn while you cut. Then use a thread of yarn in between the rings to tie your pompon together.

 

Your last step is to tidy up and make your pompon more even by cutting off the threads that stick out.  

Here it goes! Your pompon is finished! Hope this was clear, don’t hesitate to ask me if a step is unclear. You can use pretty much any type of cardboard.

X

Emma