No Bake Nutella Cheesecake

I'm sorry for the long, unexpected silence- Mr E and I are having car issues at the moment, having killed our own and then, most unfortunately, somehow passing on that misfortune to my Sister in Law when she came to our rescue! I'm so grateful to my brave colleague who, with no concern for his own car, has kindly been giving me lifts to and from work. Never have I been so aware of how much we use our car until it became unusable- I don't think I'd realised before how much of the planning in a day is so easily dealt with by having a car to hop into at any given moment!

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No Bake Lime Cheesecake

Today I was going to tell you about my obsession with appetisers, and the mini taco cups that we made at the weekend (yum, by the way), but I'm not. Instead, I'm going to tell you about Lime Cheesecake.

Yummy, creamy, light and fresh Lime Cheesecake.

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Ice Cream Sunday: Lemon Meringue Ice Cream

Last week I was a bit self indulgent with my choice of flavour for Ice Cream Sunday; Raspberry Ripple has always very definitely been my favourite. I'm not completely selfish though- the very same day I decided to try and make what I thought was Mr E's favourite.

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Ice Cream Sunday: Raspberry Ripple

Is it weird that I have a freezer full of ice cream in the middle of winter? As much as I'm enjoying this Ice Cream Sunday feature, and as much as I love ice cream, I do wish I'd had this brainwave a little earlier in the year- you know, back when the weather meant that ice cream was all I wanted for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

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Ice Cream Sunday: Brandy Butter Caramel Sauce

It's Christmas Eve Eve; tomorrow we're having Christmas number 1 with my family, on Christmas Day we're having Christmas number 2 with Mr E's family, and right now we're curled up with chocolate and wine and the best season finale the creators of Homeland ever could have given us. What I'm saying is, I'm going to keep this brief!

Last week we had Mince Pie Ice Cream for Ice Cream Sunday, and I promised you a pretty special sauce to go with it... so I'm keeping that promise.

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Salted Caramel Pecan Bites

Moment of complete honesty... I usually shy away from sharing recipes that I've just served to friends/ family (unless they're one of our regular dishes that I've made a million times) for two reasons: a) I'm usually too busy making them to think about taking photos at the same time and b) I'm always a bit nervous that I only like them because they're to my taste and I know all the hard work I put into them... I'd hate to think that they might read one of my posts and think "it wasn't all that"! Tonight though I've decided to be brave... we had a Christmas party with some friends this week and served these little dudes... and the sweet compliments we received gave me the courage I needed to go ahead and share them.

Have you ever had Daim bars? The yummy hard caramel bars with a thin coating of chocolate... the ones you can buy in Ikea? Well that's the sort of caramel we're talking about here... crunchy, buttery and smooth. Just instead of chocolate, we have pecans and just a hint of salt. Yum scrum.

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Ice Cream Sunday: Mince Pie Ice Cream

This year we have persuaded Momma to let us share some of the load of Christmas dinner... so my big sister is on starters, and I'm on dessert duty. I'm not entirely sure what my brother is bringing... I'm sure he'll say he's the entertainment, but I'm hoping for drinks (if you're reading this, I'm quite partial to Whisky Sours...)!

Knowing the incredible volume of food Momma always serves up (I get my lack of quantity control from her) I've decided to stay away from heavier desserts like Christmas pudding... more often than not, in our family at least, people are so full the idea of tucking into a heavy pudding really doesn't appeal! So instead I've been experimenting with new takes on Christmas favourites; taking the familiar flavours and presenting them in a slightly different way.

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Ice Cream Sunday: Ice Creme Brulee

Welcome to another Ice Cream Sunday! How has your week been? Are you getting excited about Christmas; or are you getting stressed about all there is to do between now and Christmas? I seem to spend most of my time teetering on the brink between the two... curled up with a mug of Mulled Cider in front of the fire and our twinkly Christmas lights (exciting), mulling over the ever growing to do list we have to get through (daunting)! We'll get there though- I have a list, and when I have a list I'm a girl on a mission. It also helps that this year we're making all of our Christmas presents; so instead of braving the traumatising Christmas crowds I have an excuse to shut myself in my wee kitchen for hours on end! I should probably say now, I won't be blogging about these gifts until next year (I know of at least two recipients who read this... hi, Momma! Hi, big sis!) but I will at least post pictures of them once they have been opened!

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Ice Cream Sunday: Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Sometimes I'm a little slow to catch on. When I say 'sometimes' I really mean often. Oh, and by 'often' I really mean always. I like to think it's because I'm cautious and sensible by waiting to see if something's just a fad or if it will stick around, but really I'm just a bit oblivious. This definitely goes for fashion (I'm only now beginning to think that 'shoe boots' might be here to stay?), films (everyone raved about "Slumdog Millionaire" when it came out in 2008, but I didn't catch on until 2011) and even food!

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Ice Cream Sunday: Mini Magnums

Last week I shared with you our way of making Magic Shell. By now I'm sure you're more than familiar with our favourite easy way to make ice cream. So, for this week's Ice Cream Sunday, I thought we'd have a little bit of fun with the two!

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Ice Cream Sunday: Homemade Magic Shell

I was thinking; an ice cream sundae isn't really an ice cream sundae without a sauce of some form, is it? Therefore, I can't really do "Ice Cream Sunday" without sharing a couple recipes for sauces and toppings, can I?

No.

So that brings me to today's offering- homemade magic shell! Do you remember that wonderful sauce you used to get when you were a child (if you'd been good) that would set as it rested on the ice cream, and make that amazing cracking sound when you broke through with your spoon?! That's magic shell, and I am as entranced and enthralled by it now as I ever was then. Perhaps even more so, now that I know the method behind the magic- it's so simple, I think I find that even more amazing than the magic trick itself!

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Ice Cream Sunday: Butter Pecan Ice Cream

It's Ice Cream Sunday! I've decided that I'm going to really enjoy this feature... because it gives me an excuse to make ice cream. Not that I really need an excuse- this feature only started last week, and I'm pretty sure that even before that I had four different flavours on the go in our freezer. I like to think that's because I like to give dinner guests a variety of choices, but really it's because I just. can't. help. myself! It's so much fun coming up with new flavours!

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Marshmallow Fluff for my Amazing Big Brother

A few weeks ago I posted one of my recipes to Facebook, and I got the following comment:

"So (not that I've looked at your blog/used the search facility or anything) I noticed that Laura has several mentions in the last few months while your readers have yet to find out you even HAVE a brother. This needs sorted, or I'm going to cancelled that planned visit to York."

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Ice Cream Sunday: Toasted Marshmallow Ice Cream!

So you may have realised already that I love ice cream... and if you hadn't, then let me tell you- I LOVE ice cream! Not the healthiest of obsessions, but oh well...

Now that I have found the easiest, quickest and yummiest way to make a simple ice cream, as I told you about in my Cookie Dough post, we've been having a lot of fun coming up with new flavours to try. Instead of randomly sharing them, we wondered if you guys would enjoy a new feature on the blog... every Sunday, we're making it Ice Cream Sunday! (Did you see what we did there?)

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Copycat Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Would you judge me if I told you I had ice cream for lunch yesterday? It's OK if you do, I usually would, but I'm pretty sure that by the end of this post you'll be convinced that it was an entirely acceptable thing for me to do...

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Zingy Lemon Rolls

I like to keep my promises. In my last post, the one about Quesadilla Pie and our £5 date night challenge, I told you about zingy lemon rolls and promised you the recipe- so here we go.

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Lemon Mousse Cheesecake

Mr Ellwood claims not to be a dessert person. If ever I say I have a craving, he gives me this look that conveys a sense of disappointment in my weakness, and I usually change my mind (it's not fun eating dessert on your own, is it?!).

Mr Ellwood has been revealed for the fraud that he is, and never again will I let his look of disappointment have any bearing on my dessert related decision making... for if he dares to so much as hesitate, I will simply say;

"Lemon Mousse Cheesecake "

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Nutella Mousse Shots

Do you have a fallback recipe? You know, the one that no matter what the occasion, no matter how busy you are or how pushed for time, no matter how limited your budget is or how picky your guests might be it never lets you down? If you do- please share it! If you don't, then please feel free to adopt this one for your very own.

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Stem Ginger Ice-cream

Amongst my amazing friends, there are a number of girlies whose birthdays (including mine) all fall within two months (ish) of each other. This year we decided to use this as a tenuous excuse for a wonderful night out, so off we traipsed to see the musical "Dirty Dancing" at the theatre.

I hope you realise how much I'm fighting the urge to say we had the "time of our lives".

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