Sweet Freedom Blueberry Muffins

As you probably already know, I am diabetic so very seldom eat sweet treats. But when I DO, I usually make them with Sweet Freedom instead of sugar. Widely available in most supermarkets,  it is a sweetener made from 100% fruit, with 25% fewer calories than sugar and a low GI rating which makes it much more diabetes-friendly than sugar. It comes in two varieties, dark which is intended for cooking and light which is intended for sweetening drinks and porridge, but I like to use both kinds both ways.  There are lots of recipes for using it on the Sweet Freedom website.

I was sent a bottle to test - not really necessary as I'm already a big fan! -  and decided to see if it would work in Blueberry Muffins. I was worried that the syrupy consistency in place of normal sugar might mean the mixture would be too sloppy and not cook through properly, but as you can see, this didn't turn out to be the case.

so, here is the recipe

SWEET FREEDOM BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 egg
125 ml skimmed milk
125 ml Sweet Freedom syrup
60 ml sunflower or rapeseed oil
125g fresh blueberries

This quantity should make 12, but I made 10 from it because I like having big muffins (fnarr fnarr.....).

Prepare your muffin tin by greasing it or spraying with non-stick spray (in case of spillages) and putting paper muffin cases in the holes, and pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C.

Sieve together the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. In another bowl, beat the egg then blend in the milk, Sweet Freedom and oil.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, then working quickly but gently, tip the liquid mixture into the well and fold together until just blended, then gently stir in the blueberries. Spoon into the paper cases  and bake in the pre-heated oven for about 17 minutes, until risen and golden.

Try to wait for them to cool down a bit before you eat them or you'll burn your mouth on a burst blueberry (don't ask me how I know that).

Back from holiday

I've not posted for a while as I've been away on holiday, on what should have been a dream cruise along the Danube. Unfortunately the Danube experienced severe flooding a few days before our trip, yet the tour company told us the holiday would go ahead with only minor changes. This turned out to be totally incorrect - the river was impassable and after several days spent moored in Budapest while the various people in charge argued about what to do, we were sent home five days early, having not really had any holiday at all.

I'll be writing more about the trip later, once I've caught up with all the phone calls and emails that I now need to send to the company!

Jane

Using up the scraps

My plan to reduce the Mountain of Stash has taken a bit of a blow the last few months as my craft-shopping habit has kicked in again, but this week I've been going through my scraps box to see what I could use up. There's a lot of stuff in there - bits left over from projects and kits, odd and ends that are just "too good to thrown away", interesting bits of packaging and advertising material that looked as if they might come in useful - I'd forgotten about half of it until I tipped it all out on to the table.

I selected a handful of co-ordinating pieces, using the colours in the patterned card as a guide

And put them together to create this

But really that hadn't started to make even a dent in the pile of scraps. Then I remembered the "Serendipity" designs that were popular about 15 years ago, and thought I'd see if I can remember how they were done. First I tore up a few toning papers into rough pieces

Then I stuck them down on to a piece of card - I chose a matching colour in case any showed through.  I used a wet adhesive and left it to dry before trimming the edges.

Next I stamped random swirls over with a silver pad and embossed with silver powder. The surface is very uneven at this stage, so you really need to use some kind of abstract design. Letters or a picture won't work as the patchy result would make it unclear. After embossing, I added further streaks and splodges with tow shades of glitter glue. When everything was dry, I left it to flatten overnight, under a pile of heavy books.

Finally I cut it into squares. I find the best way to do this is to mark the squares on the back and cut with heavy scissors or a guillotine. The layers of paper, card and glue make it too thick for a craft knife and a rotary trimmer could drag the torn, uneven paper edges.

I chose to make the squares about 1" (2.5cm) each, but other sizes or even shapes would produce interesting effects.  Once you have your shapes, let your imagination run free! Here are two cards made with mine

 

Having used up so many scraps, I just had to play along with The Craft Room Challenge,  because the current one is "Use Your Scraps"

And since everything I've used is old - even the technique - I'm also joining in with "Anything goes" at Use It Tuesday.

 

Serendipity

A few days ago, I ordered myself a new craft CD - planning ahead, I chose a double CD of Christmas designs. However the wrong one turned up - the one I received was "The Wine Buffs" by Katy Sue Designs. As soon as I saw the summary of contents on the back, I knew I had to have it, so I sorted out the payment details with the sender and dived straight in with it.

I've already blogged a couple of things I have made with it, here and here  and this time I have used a cartoon and sentiment that were intended as labels for a bottle shaped card,  trimming away the shaped outline to leave just the design. Many of the designs on the CD are perfect for men's cards - cards that are usually so hard to think up - so this CD is going to get a lot of use.

I'm playing along with:
Creative Craft Challenge #10 - Just Checking
CAS on Sunday #9 - Make it Masculine

Aged to Perfection

I was really pleased that this week's challenge on CD Sundays is "Aged to Perfection"  because the new CD-ROM I bought this week, The Wine Buffs from Katy Sue Designs, includes that exact sentiment, so it gave me the perfect excuse to play with my new toy.

There are some great shaped cards on the CD, and I decided to take a short cut by printing a wine bottle shaped card and then turning the card over to print the backing paper. Unfortunately I put the card back in the printer the wrong way round and ended up with the inside of the card lined with upside-down wine glasses. I rescued it, though, by printing a new backing sheet and bonding it to the card with spray adhesive (making SURE it was the right way up!) before cutting it out.

There are lots of labels to choose from for the front and back of the bottle - I went with two that tied in well with the challenge, and then added a blank label to the inside to write on. A couple of "cork" sentiments  added with 3d foam were all it needed to complete a very unusual card.

Meal Planning Monday - May 27th

Not exactly a plan for the week this week, just for three days. But first, a look back at last week's plan. Well, it DID seem like a good idea at the time - but it made us realise why we don't use packet and pre-prepared ingredients. After three days of food that tasted of nothing but salt, we abandoned the idea, and it was a relief to get back to "proper" food again!

This will be my last meal plan for a while, as the next few weeks sees us doing a lot of travelling and very little eating at home. And when we ARE at home, we'll be trying to use up odds and ends in the fridge so we can leave it empty.

But first, three days of normal routine, and the meals will be

Monday steak, bought from the farmer's market, with new potatoes sautéed with garlic and thyme, and an endive salad.

Tuesday spag bol with the rest of the endive

Wednesday Cauliflower, butternut and chickpea curry with rice

Despite not being a whole week, I'm linking up to Meal Planning Monday at At Home With Mrs M

A recipe for humour

I bet you thought this was going to be a food post, didn't you? But actually this week's Less is More challenge is a recipe - and the recipe is Humour, so that's the theme of today's card.

It's very hard to create a CAS card that is humorous, and I didn't have anything suitable among my stamps, but I've just got a new CD-ROM called "The Wine Buffs" and some of the cartoon toppers on it have a simplicity about them, with plenty white space, so I've incorporated one of them into my card, along with a  "wine cork effect" sentiment from the same CD.