Happy Banana Bread Day

We love a food inspired celebration day at Ellie Ellie, and today is Banana Bread Day! What better way to celebrate and dig into some well earned treats than making your very own (and very simple) banana bread!

There are all types of different additions to the basic banana bread, and having tried chocolate chip banana bread, we highly recommend it! As well as other flavours we have yet to try, such as blueberries, nutella and carrot.

Here's an easy recipe for you to follow:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c, 350F, Gas mark 4 and sift the flour bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large mixing bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

3. Add the eggs, mashed bananas, buttermilk and vanilla extract to the butter mixture and mix well. Then fold into the flour mixture.

4. Grease a loaf tin and pour the cake mixture into the tin

5. Back for about an hour, or until well-risen and golden brown.

6. Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

Happy Baking!

Ellie Ellie Wears

Although we can feel Spring in the air (hurry up Spring), Winter is very much still here, with a light dusting of frost here and there and a chill to the air and Ellie Ellie Wears this week includes this very cosy Fair Isle Cardigan from Boden, which is in a lovely green colour. We've paired this cardigan with these comfy essential trousers from Crew clothing, but the cardigan would also be great with grey or pink jeans. Add a splash of colour and neon with our new pencil stud earrings (launching on the 27th of March), and keep cosy with this knit hat from Seasalt. A cosy winter look this February!

Fair Isle Cardigan: Boden clothing
Pencil earrings: Ellie Ellie
Essential trouser: Crew clothing
Knit heat: Seasalt

www.ellieellie.co.uk 

Get the flour ready!

This Tuesday is one of the best food celebrations ever, Pancake Day! We will be celebrating by making pancakes in the morning in our Ellie Ellie kitchen, with various different toppings to go with them. In case you don't know how to make pancakes, and prepare you for Tuesday, here is a simple recipe so you can stock up on the vital ingredients.

All you need is: 

- Plain flour

- Eggs

- Milk

- Sunflower oil for frying 

- Pinch of salt. 

Simply: 

1. Put the flour, eggs, milk and a pinch of salt into a bowl or large jug, then whisk to a smooth batter. Set aside for 30 mins to rest if you have time, or start cooking straight away.

What is your favourite topping? We've got chocolate sauce as a favourite, lemon and sugar and strawberries in the office!

A Week of Kindness

Random Acts of Kindness Week is upon us, and if you don't know what this week is about, take a look at the RAK Week Website! We are celebrating RAK week by spreading a little kindness to others, whether a neighbor, a friend or family member or a complete stranger.

It can all start with a smile at one extra person throughout the day, or making something yummy to share at work. We've been baking some sweet treats throughout the week for all of the office to enjoy!

What little step will you take this week for a random act of kindness? As Valentine's day is coming up you could send a friend a letter or card or some flowers!

What will you be doing?

www.ellieellie.co.uk 

Valentine's Day Sweat Treats

Valentine's Day is a great day to celebrate love and happiness, with your other half, husband or close friends. It's also a great time to get into the kitchen and make some less than ordinary (probably heart shaped) food goodies. We've found some great ideas for valentine's snacks and breakfast ideas that can be easily made on the day!

These delicious looking skewers are simply made from strawberries, marshmallows and brownie pieces. 

These great looking eton mess skewers are made from pieces of shortbread, strawberries and whipped cream. 

Get different types of fruit and cut our heart shapes with a small cookie cutter to make colourful fruit skewers. 

For fried egg lovers, simply cut out a heart shape in some toast and pop it in the frying pan and fry an egg in the middle. 

www.ellieellie.co.uk 

Small Business Sunday Event!

Last Friday we had the pleasure of going up to the ICC in Birmingham for the annual #SBS event with Theo Paphitis. Theo is best known for appearing on BBC Two's Dragons Den, with other entrepreneurs and investors, and he started Small Business Sunday, shortened to SBS in 2010 as a Twitter initiative for small businesses.

Small businesses tweet Theo on Sunday evening and he chooses 6 lucky winners who he retweets on a Monday night. Ellie Ellie won an #SBS retweet from Theo in 2012 and we continue to tweet and communicate with other winners as the SBS family expands. 

We had an absolutely brilliant day last Friday at the event, it was great to meet so many other small business owners and fellow winners. 

Theo Paphitis was introduced and opened the day with a look at the new SBS website, which is a great platform for all winners to communicate and network together. 

There was also a question time panel which was very interesting, with entrepreneurs from Gandy's, Made.com and St Tropez passing on their business wisdom to all of us. 

If you would like to find out more information about SBS, take a look at the brand new website! 

Valentine's Day Recipe

Valentine's Day wouldn't be the same without some kind of heart shaped snack, and we've created the ultimate Valentines victoria sponge heart cake.

Ingredients:
- 200g caster sugar
- 200g softened butter
- 4 eggs beaten
- 200g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp milk

Firstly I made a heart shape from baking paper for both the cake tins, and buttered the sides. This will make the cakes easy to get out of the tin when they've cooked.

Collect all your ingredients together, and mix together your caster sugar, softened butter, baking powder and self raising flour. Once this has created a smooth mixture, add in the beaten eggs and milk.

Pour the mixture into your cake tins and cook for 20 minutes until golden. 

I cooled my cakes down, and topped them with icing sugar for that finishing touch, adding some butter cream icing and jam in the middle! 

www.ellieellie.co.uk

Top Valentine's Day Picks!

We are so excited for all our new Valentine's Day products, and we've picked our top 5 to show them off!

Our Message in a cookie cutter set includes three cookie cutter shapes, including a heart, where you can then add your message and stamp it onto the icing! These would be perfect for a token gift this Valentine's day!

Our new Heart cake tin and small heart tins are great for baking up a treat this Valentine's Day! The small tins can be used for a small cake, or if you'd prefer, can be used for breakfast to make heart shaped eggs. 

Our Personalised Map Pendant Heart is always a favourite of ours on Valentine's Day, the most thoughtful gift to capture a memory of a special holiday, honeymoon or wedding location.

Our new Valentine's day proposal cracker is an exciting way to propose to your other half this Valentine's day, it comes to you undone at one end, so you can put your special gift in and tie it up ready to use!

Our Sweet Heart love gums are delicious (we've tried them) and are a super token gift this Valentine's Day, we can personalise the jar for you for that extra special touch! 

What will you be giving your other half this Valentine's Day? 

www.ellieellie.co.uk