A Rather Blustery Day || OOTD

Well helloo there, long time no speak! I actually took a conscious hiatus from blogging this time to give me a little bit more time to plan ahead instead of the kind of haphazard impromptu approach I've always taken, and it's been great! No apologies here. I've had quite a lot going on so it's been nice to take a bit of time to pause and enjoy blogging instead of feeling under pressure to get the next post out.

So what's been happening? After five excruciatingly long months I finally managed to make it back to Lancaster for four days and it was utter bliss. I miss it so much all the time and despite it only being a short journey away by plane and train, finding time to visit between different commitments has been hard. I've only just got back but by the time this post goes up I'll already be back again for another visit, so I'm being really spoiled with time in Lancs at the moment. I'm sure I'll feel a bit differently about it when I'm back there for uni but for now I'm very much enjoying the novelty of passing visits.

While I was visiting, Carlo and I took a little scoot up to the Ashton Memorial, a huge monument overlooking the city. It's really cool and not even that far but I hardly ever go there due to the fact it's up an absolutely enormous hill and trekking up it is just horrendous. However, I decided to make an exception this time- mostly for the novelty-factor, once again- and it was lovely, but also incredibly windy. I'll disclose that these photos were carefully selected as the most presentable out of several dozen of me looking very windswept and vaguely disgruntled with watery eyes and my face completely obscured by hair. #BloggerLife. Oh, the glamour.

 Cardigan - New Look // Scarf - Dorothy Perkins // Jeans - Pull&Bear // Boots - H&M 

Recipe || Banana & Peanut Butter Cookies*

Apologies if the colour of my tea offends some people.

Most of those who know me well enough will have had at least some experience with how genuinely crap I am at baking. I don't know why, I don't know how, but even working with pre-prepared store-bought fairy cake mix has proved a challenge for me in the past. So, when Banana Moon Clothing first got in touch with me asking if I'd be able to whip up a banana-themed bake for their bloggers' Banana Bake Book, I was more than a little apprehensive, but decided I may as well put my best foot forward and give it a go nonetheless! 

I went for cookies because a) they're my favourite and b) they're really easy and only require a baking tray by way of fancy equipment (cake tins and that being quite fancy in my books). I'd also never tried a banana cookie before, and banana and peanut butter kind of sounded like a fantastic combination.

It wasn't until I was mid-way through the preparation stage that it occurred to me that apart from the chocolate chips the cookies didn't contain any animal products, since the banana in this case acts as a sort of egg substitute in the recipe. I'm not actually a vegan myself but I thought if any of you are you might like to try them. I used normal dairy chocolate chips for the cookies you see here but you could substitute them for diary-free chocolate chunks or just exclude them entirely to make the cookies completely vegan.

Recipe makes 25-30 cookies | 20 minutes to prepare | 10-12 minutes baking time

Ingredients

125g (very ripe) mashed banana

130g peanut butter

70g dark brown soft sugar

100g caster sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

165g plain flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

40g plain chocolate chips

Method

1. Mix together the mashed banana and peanut butter until combined, then stir in the dark sugar, caster sugar and vanilla. Combine the flower and baking power, add them to your mixture and stir until smooth. Finally, add your chocolate chips making sure they're well distributed throughout the mixture.

2. Cover the dough and chill it for at least one hour. In the meantime preheat your oven to 190°C/Gas mark 5.

3. Once your dough has been chilled roll it out into walnut-sized balls and lay about 5cm apart on baking trays lined with baking parchment. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes and then allow to cool before serving.

I can confirm that they're delicious with a cup of tea!

I honestly don't know how I managed it with my track record, but I was so pleased with this end result! This was actually the most successful batch of cookies I've probably ever made; a testament to just how simple this recipe is, I think!

* This post was written in collaboration with Banana Moon Clothing, though all views expressed here are my own.