Another 20 minutes and inspired by the GBBO

Come on admit it, the Great British Bake Off is probably the best programme ever to be shown on the tele. Apart from anything that includes Ryan Gosling. I love my nana but if I didn't have her, I would want Mary Berry to be my nana. She is the coolest nana on earth.

I completed another 20 minute run yesterday and it felt great. I only covered 3.06km and I usually would have hit 3km in 18 minutes but I know I need to build up my pace again, and I haven't especially been pushing myself. My goal this week was to do 4x 20 minute runs and so I'm half way there already. I've been setting my alarm for 6am each morning to gear myself up for a morning run and I'm going to try and tackle that tomorrow. My running idol Janae over at Hungry Runner Girl loves to run in the morning and she's inspired me to get out there and do it. Tomorrow will be my day!

I didn't run today after work because I knew I'd be busy baking up these amazing delights.

Chocolate brownies

My colleague at work brought these brownies in for her birthday yesterday and they were so delicious that I had no choice but to steal the recipe from her, which is out of a Hummingbird Bakery recipe. She said they were really easy to make and she wasn't lying.

 

The hardest part was melting the butter and chocolate over a pan of water because I always forget to pick up a big heatproof bowl so I have to make do with a small measuring bowl. I actually gave up near the end and microwaved it, which I guess is cheating but I was at risk of 1) spilling over the pan of water 2) burning my hand and 3) setting fire to the tea towel covering my burning hand.

 

Then easily peasily the melted chocolate was mixed in with caster sugar, flour and 3 eggs, and poured into my new baking tin - who else loves a good baking purchase? (I spent zillions today whoops)

 

Into the oven for 40 minutes, and it's just come out of the oven and looks nice and flaky on the outside, hopefully it's gooey on the inside but I'm waiting for it to cool before I do anything to it, because I don't want to ruin it and end up having to eat it all....

 

These brownies are to take into work for my birthday at the weekend. A couple of my bosses are in tomorrow so it's an extra excuse to celebrate early :)

 

Lime pie

 

My second bake off, a lime pie is for my friend's birthday tomorrow, and the recipe was from my lovely friend C who served this up on one of her Thursday night bake off nights for us, and it was DELICIOUS. I couldn't believe how small the ingredients list is and how easy it was to make. If your kind of puddings are the ones that are full of ingredients that are bad bad BAD for you, then this pie is definitely for you ;)

 

DC did a good job of helping me out by bashing some ginger nut biscuits and mixing it in with some melted butter, before setting down my base, which went into the freezer for 30 minutes.

 

I took on Mary Berry's tip of microwaving my lemons and lime for 30 seconds each to help them juice better. Before this I zested all 4 and kept both the zest and juice to one side.

 

The mixture was just 200ml of double cream with a tin of condensed milk (I warned you that this pie will fatten you up), mixed with the zest and juice.

 

It thickened up a lot when stirred, and then it was poured over my base to make this yummy looking pud. Although I maybe grated my fruit a bit too thickly so I'm not sure how it'll turn out! It isn't baked, just goes into the fridge overnight and hopefully tomorrow morning it'll be perfect to take over to my friend's house tomorrow evening.

 

Just call me Mary!

 

Dans x