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#guestpost week featuring Blissful Domestication

Today on #guestpost week we have the lovely Kerry from Blissful Domestication She has made this wonderful chocolate mug cake that looks totally scrummy. Over to you Kerry…..

Chocolate Mug Cake

I think these would make a great novel dessert for a dinner party, and as they only take 5-10 minutes to rustle up, you can impress your friends with minimal effort. I will be buying some prettier mugs for this very purpose!

As an added bonus of having chocolate cake in less than 10 minutes (as if one is needed!), because all the ingredients are mixed in the mug there is very little washing up to do- it’s win win really!

Ingredients

30g butter
4 tbsp hazelnut chocolate spread
1 egg
3 tbsp light brown sugar
4 tbsp plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

Method

Put the butter and 3tbsp of the chocolate spread in the mug, and microwave for 30 secs to melt. Mix together well.
Allow to cool slightly, then add the egg and beat well using a fork.

Add the sugar, flour and baking powder and mix in well with the fork until all the ingredients are incorporated.

Cook in the microwave for 30-40 seconds.
Spoon the last tbsp of chocolate spread into the middle, and cook for a further 40 seconds.
The top of the mug cake may look a bit moist, but if it is firm underneath it is done. Don’t be tempting to cook for longer as it can dry out the middle.
Sometimes the cake can spill over the edge, just wipe away any spilt cake mixture with a clean damp cloth whilst it is still warm.
I chose to just sprinkle the top of mine with icing sugar, but you could get more inventive and use cream, chocolate chips, nuts, anything you fancy really.
Enjoy!

NB. I am a home cook, and have had no formal training in preparing food. So these are just recipes that I use at home for the family. Whilst I have taken time to try and be as accurate as possible, some of the quantities are approximate. I am always keen to learn, so if you think the recipe can be improved upon please take the time to comment below.

Thank you Kerry for being involved in this #guestpost series. Brilliant to have you featured here and I cant wait to try cake in a mug – genius. You can find out more about Kerry by visiting her social media sites below:

Twitter: @blissfulkerry

Facebook: blissfuldomestication

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#guestpost week featuring Natalie from Hello Cuppies

I’m delighted to have Natalie guest posting today and joining in with the #guestpost week on my blog.

Natalie is a happy, and in her own words “late-twenties *cough* mid-30’s *cough*” 🙂 baker, blogger, veggie and Mum. Natalie established Hello Cuppies in 2012 and what started out as a baking and recipe blog has evolved into a lifestyle and personal blog sharing insights on the life of a Northern girl living down south. Natalie has been baking professionally since 2011 and picked up the caking bug after baking some cupcakes for a friend’s daughter. She is completely self taught and has developed her skills by experimenting, reading and testing recipes whilst creating lots of new flavours and combinations along the way. Natalie really dislikes over the top recipes and techniques so will try to keep things simple, but still as effective as possible.

Here’s her great post, over to you Natalie…

Healthy Homemade Granola Bars

Mainy from myrealfairy was kind enough to have me on-board with writing a family friendly recipe to feature as a guest post on her blog. I’d also recently received a few emails and spotted some comments on my Instagram photos with regards to creating a recipe for something healthy, and for something with a little less sugar so I thought this was the ideal opportunity to share a healthy(ier) recipe.

I’m so used to baking cakes and biscuit type desserts that actually coming up with something reasonably healthy was difficult. I struggled, not gonna lie! I scratched my head, did a little bit of googling for inspiration but couldn’t really find anything that was healthier but still scrummy. It then dawned on me that I needed to stick with what I know – fruit and natural flavours – and to set myself a bigger challenge – NO ADDED SUGAR – none… nada…zilch!

So here you have it, these protein packed granola bars are healthy and yummy! They store well, last well and taste even better a day or so after they’ve been baked. Oh, and they are gluten free too. Actually, thinking about it, if you could find a honey substitute (maple syrup maybe?) they could easily be vegan – challenge for ya there!

INGREDIENTS

This recipe yields 16 to 20 granola bars and shouldn’t take you longer than 15/20 minutes to pull together.

65g pecan pieces & 65g almonds (loosely chopped or blitzed in a food processor)
45g pumpkin seeds
85g dried cranberries
130g of quick-cook oats (I used gluten free)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of ginger
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon orange zest
100g of smooth peanut butter (Whole Earths is my favourite)
175g of runny honey
5 tsp of vanilla extract

METHOD

Line a 8-inch tin with parchment paper (you could use a bigger tin if you didn’t want them so chunky)
Pour the oats into a large mixing bowl and then add both nuts, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, cinnamon, ginger, salt and orange zest. Mix to combine.
In a smaller bowl, mix together the peanut butter, honey and vanilla extract until all combined and smooth.
Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix them together until the two are evenly combined and no dry oats remain. This will be tough – if it’s too easy and too smooth add a few more oats.
Transfer the mixture to the prepared tin and use your spoon to press down and make sure the mixture is even and packed together. I used my hands too as it was easier to tell if it was all compact.
Cover with cling-film and chill for 1 hour in the fridge.
Bake bars at 200 degrees (fan) for 30 minutes (conversions are here if you need them)
When cool lift out of the tin using the parchment paper edges and slice in to bar type shapes.

If you make these do let me know!

Thanks to Natalie for these yummy treats and for being part of our #guestpost series. You can read and find out more about Natalie and her work through her media sites below:-

Blog: http://hellocuppies.com

Orders: www.cuppiesncream.co.uk

Twitter: here

Facebook: here

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#guestpost week featuring Kayla from Kayla Loves

Todays guest post blogger is Kayla who has created this delicious recipe for us all to indulge in. I’ve recently come across Kaylas blog and love the way she writes and has very creative ideas. Enjoy……

My name is Kayla and I run the blog kaylaloves.com. I’m a 23 year old mum from Tasmania, Australia. I have been blogging for just over a year. I love baking and creating delicious food for my husband and son. I’m very excited to bring you this recipe! It’s one of my favourites as my mum would make it for my siblings and I when we were little.

My mum was always baking when I was a kid and still bakes now for all her grandkids! My all time favourite thing that she would bake were melting moments! Since these are my favourite I thought they’d be perfect to share! These are extremely easy to make with just 5 ingredients in total!

Lemon Melting Moments

Ingredients

Biscuits:

200g of butter (softened)
½ cup of icing sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 ½ cups of plain flour

Lemon Buttercream:

50g of butter (softened)
1 cup of icing sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Method

Preheat your oven at 150℃
Cream your butter with an electric mixer until pale
Add in the icing sugar, vanilla and plain flour and mix until it looks like popcorn
Combine to a dough with your hands
Make 16 small balls with the dough
Press a fork into the top of each of them to flatten them out
Let them set in the fridge for about 5 minutes then put them in the oven and bake until the edges are a golden brown

While you wait for your biscuits to cool you can make your lemon buttercream.

Cream your butter with an electric mixer until pale
Add in the icing sugar and lemon juice and mix until smooth

Putting your biscuits together can be really fun! I like to put my buttercream into a piping bag and pipe the buttercream in using a star tip so it looks extra fancy, but you could always just use a knife and spread it on!

If you make these I hope you enjoy them as much as my family and I do and let me know what you think of them!

Huge thanks to Kayla for writing this piece for this guest post series – be sure to leave her some lovely comments and check out her social media sites below:

Instagram: kaylaaloves

Twitter: @kaylaloves_

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#guestpost week featuring Tracey at One Frazzled Mum

Thanks very much to Tracey for joining in this week of guest posts here. Tracey was one of the first people I really got to know when I started blogging and she has always been supportive and encouraging to those bloggers around her. Tracey is a single mum to 10 year old Olivia. She says she is permanently on the go, always confused and never without coffee! Over to Tracey now for a bit more about herself and her guest post.

Hi, One Frazzled Mum is my outlet to get the words out of my head that keep me up late at night whilst allowing me to indulge in my passion of writing my own short pieces of fiction.

Why I Like My Daughter To Feel Uncomfortable

These days it’s very rare I watch adverts on TV. Very rare. Mostly thanks to an ever so slight addiction to Greys Anatomy hence I am getting my money’s worth on my box set subscription with Sky. There are hardly any adverts on the box sets. So if I do end up having to watch them it is because of Olivia. The Disney Channel and Greys Anatomy are pretty much the only things to grace our screens so far this year, so you could be forgiven for thinking the only ones I have seen are all baby and toy-related. But actually, they aren’t.

As we were sat in my bedroom, watching Disney Channel of course, before bed. I looked up from my laptop and Olivia was looking undoubtedly uncomfortable. I could hear what was on TV and I watched her shift in her position perched on the end of my bed with a felt tip in her mouth and colouring in page in front of her. She wanted to watch but I could see her squirming ever slightly. Eventually, her eyes found their way back down to what was in front of her.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. I had seen it before many a time and I welcomed it. Yes, I know how awful that sounds. I welcomed my child feeling and acting uncomfortable. Do I derive pleasure in this? Is it a form of punishment and I force her to do it on a regular basis? Yes and No. No I don’t force her nor is it punishment, but sometimes yes. I like to see her feel a little uncomfortable at times. Watching her, and from my perspective at least, being exposed to things she may never encounter in her lifetime personally.

What on earth did she see you are thinking? A charity advert. You know the type. Where the narrator tells you of the story of the young child on screen who walks all day to fetch water for their family bare foot and the water isn’t clean. Designed with the shock factor at the forefront to grab your attention and want to help. To make you feel something, anything about what you have just watched and be compelled to do something about it. 30 seconds is all they have to reach you. So it’s a short sharp tug at your conscience (and heart strings) in the hope you will donate to their cause.

For some adults, the general consensus is that this way of fundraising has lost the aforementioned shock factor and maybe you think so too, but to a 10-year-old? A 10 year old who lives worlds away from the poverty endured by the children in these plights, the shock factor is well, it’s pretty shocking and hits right in it’s intended spot.

And I welcome it. Is it wrong for her live in complete oblivion to what is happening in the world around us? Should I leave her, living in a first world country as she is, to be protected from the harsh realities of the outside world and be left to live happily in ignorance thinking it’s not her life so it’s not really her problem? Is that the type of daughter I want to raise in today’s world? No, it’s not. Yes, the images are a little disturbing. The topics slightly uncomfortable for some. But does that mean we brush it under the carpet and shy away from it.

Because in my experience ignorance breeds ignorance and by sheltering our children from the world around them it gives them an unrealistic view of how others live their life. Sure I have limits, I mean I’m not going to start letting her watch Crimewatch or regularly tune into the crime and investigation channel. But how do we expect our children to learn about other countries. About other ways of life if they have no experience of it? No knowledge, no frame of reference. Even if all they know comes from just a TV advert.

How do I know sitting at my laptop on this day in 2017. That that TV advert didn’t just have some fundamental effect on her. One which could change the way she thinks about the world good or bad? Could it be the catalyst to propel her away from wanting a future lived in front of a video camera to one of a more caring selfless nature? Because if she is unaware of the issues faced by many people every single day of their lives, how can she fully explore the world around her.

So as her mum I welcome this advert and those like them. In an age where children are molly coddled and protected from anything and everything more than ever before, I do welcome this. The more they make her think and feel. Act and react to what she sees around her the better in my opinion. For there is a big wide world out there and she is part of its future.

Huge thanks to Tracey for writing this piece especially for this series – be sure to leave her some lovely comments and check out her social media sites below:

Twitter: @frazzledmumblog

Facebook: one frazzled mum

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When Mainy met Piers …well…sort of….

….well not really at all! However there is a little story I’d like to share with you……. Yesterday I had a slightly different thing happen to cut through the day-to-day school run, work type of thing. I got retweeted by Piers Morgan …not the biggest thing to happen I agree but to me it added some excitement, a bit of a laugh and certainly an eye-opening experience to my day.

Here’s what happened…. I like to watch Piers and Susanna on Good Morning Britain in the morning as I think the whole ‘thing’ they have going on is pretty compelling and takes me back to the type of chemistry of Johnny and Denise on the channel 4 Big Breakfast sofa years ago (too early for some and a throw back memory for others). To be fair I think the whole team has a good balance and it suits me to have it on while I’m doing all the things I need to do to get the family ready for the day ahead. Yeah it’s sort of yelling, telling the boys to hurry up and putting my make-up on in the dark with normally tango faced horror results….normal stuff.

So, later in the day while I was scrolling through my phone, after work and waiting for my car to get sorted I came across a link to an article. It was about how Ewan McGregor had left the GMB studios where he was scheduled to be interviewed by Piers and Susanna because he found out it would be Piers interviewing him. Now apparently he then left because he disagreed with some comments Piers had made about a recent rally in America where people had flooded the streets of Washington in protest to the Trump administration. This link then took me to an article Piers had written in the daily mail in response to this.

Now, by this time I am stressing in the garage because the kids are due to come out of school in 20 mins and the garage I’m in is 15 mins away from there and my car is nowhere to be seen. I had already given the receptionist the story of how I needed the car quickly because of the kids etc but nevertheless the car is not there. I decided to read this one article so that I could divert my stress and give them another couple of minutes to produce my car and set me on my way. The article was really pretty good, a little direct and clearly taking a swipe at Ewan McGregor but it was direct and made some good points about pointing the finger and being able to debate if you feel strongly about something. It also made me smile in the ‘oh my goodness this will set the cat amongst the pigeons’ sort of way. So, because I enjoyed it I tweeted it and tagged Piers Morgan in – just because I felt like it at the time.

I then leapt up and made another plea for my car which by sods law was being driven round to greet me just as I was starting to huff and puff at the receptionist. I didn’t think anything of the earlier tweet until I stopped outside school, amazingly still having a couple of minutes to spare and checked my phone. To my surprise Piers Morgan had decided to retweet my tweet! Now bearing in mind he has over 5 million followers it has the potential to get quite a bit of coverage. I smiled at that and though it would be a good story to tell the boys when they came out of school, a little bit of fun to add to the ‘what we all did today’ stories that we fill up our home run with.

When we got home I had another quick little look and realised that there were a few comments coming through that were OK and people were retweeting which was ok but I started to see that some were being really rude and offensive. I just stood there and was really taken aback. What was strange was the strength of either love or hate towards Piers Morgan and now me by association. Any real message was getting lost, pushed aside by people’s twitter relationship with the man himself.

When I wrote “Great and interesting read, spend 5 minutes and have a look” In my naive head I meant just that, that I thought it was interesting and because it had fitted right in with the 5 minutes I had I tweeted words to that effect. No more – No less.

What people seemed to read into that was…. 1. I think everything Piers Morgan says is true. 2. I agree with everything Piers Morgan has said, did say and will ever say, whenever that may be. 3. I’m an awful person for reading anything that he writes.

Such an eye opener because shock, horror but I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me and I’m sure that there would be many things to disagree on. Exactly the same as my own nearest and dearest to me have different views which we can all talk about and get an understanding of even if we don’t agree.

What I did learn from this merest of delicate brushes with the wider twitter world outside of my cosseted blogger circle? Well, First and foremost I learnt that I need to think before I tweet. Secondly there are loads of people just waiting to pounce and shout their views, however mean or bitchy they come across they seem to revel in that outlet. But thirdly….. and on the flip side – look at this photo!!!

The one and only time I’ll see stats like that! Now it’s back to the world of being happy with 3 retweets for me!

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What does your fairy form look like?

While I was writing a piece this morning I was attaching a picture when my son squealed that the picture looked like me as a fairy!

Not only was this very flattering, I also think it was through those gorgeous rose tinted glasses that only your children could have. The exuberance of youth is wonderful.

This got me thinking about what forms our fairy avatars would take. It’s a fun little game that you can do and have a little bit of fairy tale fantasy to break up your day. How would you look and what would you do if you were a fairy for a day? I would really love to hear from you to see what form yours takes.

Comment here or tweet me @myrealfairy using the #fairyform hashtag to join in. You may already be very clear on how your fairy looks or this may get you thinking and creating, either way, enjoy and I can’t wait to see and hear from you ✨

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Happy New Year

A One Off Christmas Week Linky #mainyloveschristmas

I do..I love christmas and I have decided to host a one off christmas linky where you can add up to 3 posts on whatever theme you like. As it’s a one off christmas week linky #mainyloveschristmas you can add old, new or trial posts just for this link up.

One of the other christmas bonus points to this link up is that you don’t have to add a badge, just link and promote yourself and your fellow bloggers. This link up is just for this week and you choose how much you want to participate.

This is a random link up so the posts shuffle around and are not listed in time order.

The link up starts Sunday December 18th at 6pm GMT and closes Friday December 23rd at 6pm GMT.

Tweet here to tell others about this link up, the more the merrier! Happy Christmas! #mainyloveschristmasClick To Tweet

Suggested guidance for participating:

I’d love it if you commented on the host post and at least one more for every post you link up.
Tweet using the hashtag #mainyloveschristmas @myrealfairy when you link up and you’re away!
Tweet, pin, stumble and share using all the wonderful ways you wish and let the blogger know when you comment how you have shared their post.
Use the hashtag #mainyloveschristmas
Enjoy and read something you wouldn’t normally click on.
Have fun

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The Liebster Award

I was so pleased to be nominated for the Liebster Award by Ali over at Ali’s Upside Down World please go over there and check out her great blog. Thanks so much Ali:) It’s so nice to be put forward by another blogger for the work you put in and Ali is someone who’s blog I admire.

So, for those of you who might be wondering what the Liebster Award is, it’s a blogging award, given by bloggers to other bloggers to give recognition for their work. It’s designed to showcase blogs and promote their online community presence. You can discover lots of new and brilliant blogs out there from going through the list of Liebster Award winners. From the research I have done the questions you have to answer change slightly over time which I think is great and reflects the creativity of writing and passing the baton on from blogger to blogger.

If you go to the end of my post you will see the 7 tasks I need to complete in order to complete my Liebster Award and these will be passed on to the people I nominate.

So, onto number 1 which I have completed above; thanking the person who nominated you. Number 2 is the Liebster Award badge which is proudly shown in my picture header.

Number 3 is to say a few words about my favourite blog. This took some time as I have quite a few favourites so I am going to talk about one which I love and I’m going to nominate the others.

It’s Carol over at Virtually All Sorts . She has a such a good view on life and this shines through on her blog. In her own words “My blog focusses on the good and happy in life, and if it’s not all good and happy, I turn it around to see the bright side.” Carol has some great flash fiction pieces that are well worth a read and I would recommend popping over to her to have a look. Carol has also been supportive of my writing and I’m glad to have her as a blogging buddy. Thanks Carol!

Number 4 is also tricky. I think that it’s pretty difficult to think of some facts about myself which wont make me sound too odd but here we go….

Today I’m wearing odd socks and I squeezed my sock coated feet into flip flops to hang out the washing…classy!
I’ve got an underactive thyroid.
Blogging is my new chocolate.
I still eat a hell of alot of chocolate so I guess I blog a fair bit too.
I can’t save money, I spend every penny I earn, but I’m not in any debt.
I keep forgetting I’m in my forties.
When I eat strong cheddar cheese the hairs on the back of my neck go up and my neck tingles.
I cannot abide celery…
or the sound of polystyrene, it makes my mouth water.
I am amazed and very pleased that you read to the end of this list, well done:)

So I have been thinking who to nominate and who I love to read. I would like to make it clear that being nominated by me comes with no pressure to do it, it means that I love your blog and think you deserve to know that:) Complete if you wish and feel free to copy and paste the rules from this post.

Kathleen Aherne

Jen – Practical by default

Ashley Geeky Mama

Kim Northumberland Mam

Andrea and Paul Topsy Turvy Tribe

The Rules

Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog. Try to include a little promotion for the person who nominated you. They will thank you for it and those who you nominate will also help you out as well.
Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)
Write a 150-300 word post about your favourite blog that is not your own. Explain why you like the blog, provide links.
Provide 10 random facts about yourself.
Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 200 followers.
List these rules in your post.
Once you have written and published it, you then have to: Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post if you don’t have all the information so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

It’s A Winner!

The online world has made it so easy to enter competitions and you also get some instant gratification that your entry has been received. Back in the day when I was a child we had our saturday morning programme ‘Swap Shop’ and we would wait all week for it to come on our screens. Then if you wanted to enter a competition you had to write the answer on a postcard, post it and wait until the following saturday to find out if you had been lucky and won. Just imagine all of those huge mail bags full of slips of paper, it seems crazy now to think that all over the country people were walking down to their postbox clutching their ‘hopefully’ lucky entry ticket. Fast forward to now and look how easy it is. Click of a button and you’re in it to win it, amazing!

I was doing a little research a couple of months ago on how to host a competition on my site as I thought it would be something fun to do. Now, I don’t know if this ever happens to you but I normally start out with one thing in mind and then the internet lures me somewhere completely different! This time wasn’t so bad but I did find myself entering a whole host of different competitions on different sites and platforms. The thing is, a week or so later I had an email and I had actually won something; a £50 voucher from first choice lighting. Now this isn’t a sponsored post, I have put the link in there because a) I actually won and I’m still over the moon! and b) I was really pleased by the lovely emails I received from Amy who contacted me about my win.

One of my winning lamps!

I ordered the most stylish lamps I’ve ever owned and it all came out of the blue from that whirl of entering a few weeks ago.

Since then I’ve been having about an hour a week entering different competitions and giveaways and guess what…I haven’t won again! But..I do keep trying:)

I have also really enjoyed hosting the competitions on my site and they have been so successful that I’ve even put in a new menu header on my blog so they can be found easier. Have a little look if you have time. There are loads of ways to host competitions and giveaways and I’m enjoying using the different programmes to make this happen. This is one of the fun sides of blogging for me, finding out new ways to enhance my blog and to bring something fun to my readers. I will follow this post up over the next couple of weeks with one which lists the sites to promote the competitions and the different methods that are available to use.

I’ve also virtually met some great online compers who really know a thing or two about how to seriously go about it. One of them is Tracey and I first saw her online when she entered one of my competitions. I saw on her twitter page that she focused completely on entering and sharing competitions. She agreed to contribute to this post and I’ll hand you over to her now where she will tell you a bit more about it…

“I’ve been entering competitions for the last 5 years or so and soon found out that I love entering blog competitions the most. I have won lots of amazing products over the years including my highest value win a designer double bed & mattress worth £1,500. I don’t have a favourite win because I truly love everything I’m lucky enough to win whatever the cost of the prize.

My top tip is to be organised, find a competition website to enter competitions from, my favourite is Competition Database for it’s sheer ease and speed of entering and being able to customise the website to what competitions you want to enter. Then go free-style and search yourself for competitions. Usually ones that have not been picked up by competition listing sites have fewer entries.

I have shared blog competitions on competition listing sites, I tweet every blog competition that I come across so please feel free to follow me and enter from my tweets”.

You can follow @Tracey_Peach on twitter to see more and maybe strike it lucky.

So, go forth and see what’s out there to win, most of all enjoy it!