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Cheat’s Cinnamon Rolls

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Good evening, everyone, a late post tonight but I promise you, a yummy one once again 🙂

The Brick Castle gave me the inspiration for this one on Monday. I do love cinnamon rolls but I find the bought in ones generally too greasy and heavy after a few bites so I have been forever looking for a good, semi-healthy recipe. I say semi-healthy because dough is generally seen as the bad guy in the nutrition game and if you add to the equation sugar and fat then things get one a bit…on the wrong side of the track.

But since my appetite was whetted with the very visually appealing recipe mentioned above I decided to see if I can healthify it a bit and was very pleased with the results (read: I ate most of it myself over two and a half days. Blush…)

Right, ingredients used:

  • puff sheet, ready rolled,light version
  • 55 grams of cane sugar (I am not for very sweet desserts, plus fruit in puddings brings its own sweetness and flavour)
  • 50 grams of butter
  • 250 ml orange juice (used initially to soak the plums for a minimum of half an hour and then in softening the linseed )
  • cinnamon (around 2 teaspoons)
  • 200 grams prunes (or raisins or both)
  • milled linseed (I didn’t actually weigh how much I used, I added to the prune and orange juice mixture until it formed a paste)

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Baking tips:

  • do soak your prunes (or raisins) in orange juice for at least half an hour. It softens them and gives your rolls a lovely, citrusy aroma
  • once your prunes are soaked, simply add your sugar, milled linseed and cinnamon to the bowl
  • spread your pastry sheet
  • cover it from corner to corner with your cinnamon paste009 (4)
  • roll in lengthwise
  • cut your roll into eight equal pieces
  • place cut roll into a buttered-up baking tray

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  • Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes.
  • Pull them out, cover them with honey and place again in the oven for another 10 minutes.
ta-da, ready to rock and roll :-)

Ta-da, ready to rock and roll 🙂

I really enjoyed making and eating these rolls. I will be definitely making them again over Christmas, baby bump allowing 🙂

recipe-of-the-week

Thrifty second pregnancy shopping

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Okay, I am six months pregnant officially but my thrifty shopping started a few weeks back.

You see, things are different from when I was first pregnant.

Since then, many changes occurred in our lives:

– We moved house SEVERAL times and in the process most of the baby things and apparel were donated/lent to friends/damaged/lost.

– I was working as a substitute teacher back then and making my own money to buy things for baby. This time we decided it was best for me to stay at home at least until baby is six months so I have to watch the pennies hubby is working extremely hard for.

– Most importantly, I was a new mum and had no clue about thrift shopping and wanted everything brand new for baby.  I was reading all the glossy mummy magazines and wanted all the stuff those cute babies were featuring.

This time around, I decided to do it totally different, to the delight and relief of my hubby :-).

I started by asking friends for apparel they no longer needed. This is how I ended up with a brilliant Maxi Cosy baby car seat and its stand for £30 only! I also have the promise of a baby cot (once baby is big enough to move into it) and the big, sturdy pushchair I lent to a friend once Emma grew out of it will be coming back to us once baby is born.

Then, I kept an eye on nappy bargains in Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s and fair enough, a few weeks ago, I found this brilliant offer: 200 first-size nappies(a month supply, more or less), half price, at £15!

Another thing I accidentally ended up making money from were my Tesco Clubcard vouchers. Because we moved so much in the last few years, we inevitably lost track at times of our post and consequently, of our Tesco Clubcard vouchers. This September I was looking to exchange some of my recent vouchers into cinema tickets when I went onto the Tesco Clubcard website and upon logging in was very pleasantly surprised to find vouchers worth around £10. Instead of using them straight away in the store, I decided to swap them over in the Clubcard Boost and ended up with £40 worth of coupons!!

Last week I went and bought a playmat, a bouncy seat and 10 packs of wipes with them.

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Mums’ market, a haven for mummies who want to sell/buy pre-loved baby items at modest prices was another bargain hotspot find for me. I got baby’s Moses basket with stand, two mattresses and three mattress sheets for £10 and LOADS of baby-grows of various sizes and a very cuddly snow suit for £5. Couldn’t ask for more, could I, now?

Our £10 Moses basket and stand

Our £10 Moses basket and stand

Baby drawer

Baby drawer, most things bought from Mums’ market.

For me, being a thrifty mummy brings a bit of needed magic to these cash-strapped times. I feel that I am contributing to my family’s well being in this way and bask into hubby’s praise every time a new bargain is presented.

What did you do to save costs when you had your baby? Does thrift shopping make you go yey or ney, no way?

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My first ever pumpkin pie!

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You must know this by now about me as I have said it so many times: I LOVE autumn and everything that is associated with it! When I still lived in Romania I loved the leaves changing colour and falling and the crunchy noise they made when walked upon. I loved my mum’s winter can and preserve-making and a good baked potato with plenty of butter. Since I moved to Northern Ireland I came to love everything that has to do with pumpkin: pumpkin soup, pumpkin carving and now, this year, for the first time, pumpkin pie baking!

I researched a lot for the perfect pumpkin recipe last week. I pinterested, I Googled, I checked other mummy blogs for tips and advice. In the end, I decided to sum the knowledge I acquired into my own(sort of) recipe, taking bits and bobs of advice from here and there. But I will acknowledge the contributions: Mummy Alarm gave me the idea of decorating the top of my pie and reinforced the need to prebake my pastry before adding the pumpkin mix.  MumWhatsForDinner gave me the idea to replace sugar with condensed milk and sent me looking for a good pumpkin pie spice mix. And finally, CanadianLiving made me feel less of a qualified baker by their use of ready made pie pastry!

Because I am pregnant and because I am not a very confident baker I used ready-made pumpkin puree and pastry. It came out really nice (I had my Canadian-born friend test it for me and got the mmmmm…of approval) so I don’t think I will bother making my own puree and pastry next time either!

This is all you need to make this pie. Oh, and an egg, I forgot to include it in this picture!

This is all you need to make this pie. Oh, and an egg, I forgot to include it in this picture!

I saw MummyAlarm using this trick and actually placing the baking tray OVER the pastry and then molding it in so I followed her example:

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I should have left some more pastry hanging over the edges as it slightly shrinks in the oven but I will know better next time.

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I added baking beans (well, I didn’t actually have baking beans so I used soup mix pulses as a substitute) over parchment paper and baked my pastry at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Any dry pulses work well as baking weights.

Any dry pulses work well as baking weights.

Meanwhile, I prepared my pie mix: 400 grams of pumpkin puree, one egg, half a tin of condensed milk and one teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground ginger and ground allspice. It came out lovely and flavoursome but if you prefer your deserts mild then leave out the allspice.

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Once your pastry case is baked and slightly cool, add the pie mixture on top, smooth it over and add it in the oven for another 30 minutes. If you are lucky enough to have budding little bakers in the house, ask them to help cut out some pastry decorations to go on top of your pie.

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My pretty little baker helping me cut out pastry stars. We would have loved some maple leaves but had no appropriate cookie/playdough cutters so stars worked a treat too!

Take your pie out of the oven after 30 minutes and let it cool off for a little while(if you can!)

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Enjoy with a dollop of cream or a good helping of vanilla ice cream! I had none so I had mine plain.

Not bad for a first time, not bad!

Not bad for a first time, not bad!

Hope I have demonstrated that pie baking isn’t all that difficult. I truly enjoyed making it and I am now looking for other simple and flavoursome recipes to use the rest of my pumpkin puree!

recipe-of-the-week

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