Homemade Skinny Frappucino (Dairy Free)

I love frappucinos, especially when it's hot outside, and I decided to make my own dairy free version at home. I chose to do this because I have lots of unsweetened almond milk which needed using up. After a bit of trial and error, I've got the recipe pretty much as I want it, and I thought I'd share it here.

Ingredients:

4 Large Ice Cubes

1/2 Teaspoon Instant Espresso (I used Nescafe)

1 Mug Boiling Water

200ml Unsweetened Almond Milk

1/2 Teaspoon Truvia

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Coffee Syrup (I used Monin, not sugar free)

Method:

First, prep the chilled coffee. Add the 1/2 teaspoon of espresso to a small mug of boiling water and chill in the fridge.

Put the ice cubes into a jug blender, followed by the chilled coffee and the unsweetened almond milk. Next, add 1/2 a teaspoon of truvia and a teaspoon of the coffee syrup (I used vanilla, but other flavours work just as well).

Blend for about a minute, then serve. If you want to, top with whipped cream and sauce,

This has about 45 cals per serving versus 95 in a Costa or Starbucks skinny frappucino.

Percy Pig Cupcakes

I am currently addicted to the little porcine devil known as Percy Pig. For those of you not familiar with this character, he is a chewy sweet available from Marks & Spencer. He comes in many different varieties, and I decided that the original Percy would look very cute on top of a cupcake.

Percy comes in grape and raspberry flavours, and after being unable to find any cupcake recipes in these flavours which I felt would compliment him, I settled on a vanilla cupcake. I've made a few of the Hummingbird Bakery recipes, and have always found them to produce a delicious sponge, moist and light. The recipe I used can be found here.

The only change I made to the recipe was using skimmed milk instead of whole milk, and it produced the perfect amount of mixture for 12 standard sized cupcakes. I baked them for 18 minutes at 150 degrees in my fan oven, and they came out perfectly. I have never made buttercream frosting with milk in the recipe before, and was a little concerned that it may be a bit runny, but it actually came out beautifully. It tasted lovely and creamy on top of the cupcake, and the actual cake itself wasn't overpoweringly sweet. Again, the quantity was just about perfect for the number of cakes, and there was very little waste. I didn't pile it on as I wanted to keep the tops of the cakes relatively flat, but if you like lots of buttercream, you may need to make a little more.

I found that a 100g pack of Percy Pig sweets contains exactly 12. I bought two of these packs (they were on offer) just in case I needed any more, and may use the second bag to whip up another batch as these are a scrumptious alternative to chocolate cakes, and I think they look incredibly cute.