Hey y’all, just wanted to let you guys know I’m officially a yummly publisher! You can find all the recipes yummed from my blog here
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See ya tomorrow!
I’m shaking things up a little here on Giraffes Can Bake today, today’s yummy treat isn’t for our tummy’s but for our feline friends’! I saw this recipe for Tuna Catnip Kitty Treats on Joy the Baker a few weeks ago and I knew I needed to make them for my baby! It’s Gryff’s birthday (full name: Gryffindor Severus, pictured above… and several times below!) on Saturday – yep, he’s a Valentine’s baby, and I like to spoil him whenever I can. I’m not going to try and pretend I’m not a crazy cat lady, but I also don’t have any shame over it! A fair warning to you here, this is going to be a pretty photo heavy post – I mean, you can’t have too many cute cat photos can you?!
I love Gryff like he was my own child, he is my own child, so he gets birthday presents on his birthday just like any kid – and this year he turns 4 years old! And my sweet 4 year old boy deserves some yummy homemade treats, he’d happily eat birthday cake but I figured these would be a little better for him! Now, people who have met Gryff will probably roll their eyes at me calling him “sweet” because, well, he’s a beast cat! He’s gotten a lot more mellow in his old age, but he’s still a bit feisty – I have quite a few scars from him trying to kill my arms! But he’s a sweet boy when he wants to be – he snuggles me at night (even if he pushes me out of my spot on the bed) and he gives me kisses on command (you guys are now probably realising why I’m single haha). He’s also a greedy boy and he’s technically on a diet, but since he lost 5lb (he used to weigh 17lb!) I’ve become a bit lenient with it. Still, he shouldn’t be having too many treats so he’ll be sharing his birthday treats with the other kitties in the house.
(the above kitty is Piper, she used to belong to my older sister but she didn’t get along too well with my sister’s eldest son so my mum took her in. She’s very sweet to us humans, but the other cats can’t even look at her without being told where to go!)
I know making homemade treats seems like a lot of effort to go through when there’s plenty of store bought treats you can buy that cats love, but these are really simple to make with very few ingredients. They have tuna for protein, an egg and some olive oil for good fats and soft fur, catnip for that extra kick and flour to bind it all together. While cats didn’t evolve to digest gluten most can process it just fine, however if your cat does has a gluten intolerance of course you’ll want to use a gluten free flour (such as oat flour, like Joy uses). And with that you have yummy treats that cats love – I had lure them onto the backdrop with catnip to start with, but once they had a taste of the treats they couldn’t get enough! Because these have egg and tuna in, you’ll want to store them in the fridge.
I can’t help but wonder what is in catnip that just drives cats crazy! I bought a 1oz tup of dried catnip (which ends up being A LOT of catnip) and opened it up last night and I was surrounded by 7 cats instantly, they then spent the night rolling around in it and eating it. I opened it upstairs just for Gryff first of all and at first he looked intrigued and then when he realised it was catnip he came running up with giant eyes and stuck his face in it! Whatever it is, I’m very thankful for it – not only does it make these treats irresistible to the kitties, it provides lots of entertainment for us humans too!
(the above kitty is Elsa, my mum brought her home from her work’s yard after the cat that lives there had kittens. I warned her about bringing home the kitten of a probably feral cat, but it turned out okay because Elsa is the mushiest thing ever!)
I don’t even feel guilty for not sharing a human treat today, because look how happy these kitties are! I’m sure plenty of you have cats you love too, so you can still benefit from this recipe. Maybe one day I’ll make some doggy treats too, for you weird dog people (just kidding, dogs are fine I guess!). I’m gonna bring these along to Fiesta Friday this week too, it’s about time we brought our furry friends along to the party I think!
This recipe does make quite a few treats, I had a second batch in the oven when I took these photos so that’s not even all of them. We have 8 cats here so we shouldn’t have a problem using all these up, but if you only have 1 or 2 you might want to halve the recipe since they’ll only be good for about a week. And while these are very kitty friendly of course, they are still treats and should be given fairly sparingly like you would any other treat – tuna is perfectly safe for cats to eat but only in small quantities due to the small amounts of mercury that may be present. Also, for male cats, too much fish in their diets can cause a build up in the urethra and cause blockages – always makes sure your cats have plenty of fresh water around to keep them hydrated, even if you feed them wet food! A healthy kitty is a happy kitty!
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Hi guys!
Please forgive me for this recipe and photo free post, but it is important
October is Lupus Awareness Month in the UK and if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that raising awareness for Lupus is something that is close to my heart.
With that in mind, I would like to use this blog to help raise awareness and funds for Lupus UK. I’ll be doing this by doing a small giveaway during the month of October.
I’m making this post for two reasons. One is to ask you what kind of things you might like to see in this giveaway. I would like to include something I have made that will ship well worldwide and a few purchased items that I like to use in my baking. This giveaway is for my readers so your opinions are welcomed and encouraged!
The other reason is to open up the opportunity for any of you to donate something to the giveaway! No donation is too small and as long as it’s family friendly and is shippable (I would pay shipping) anything you’d like to donate is acceptable and would be so greatly appreciated! If you think you would like to donate something, please drop me an email at michelle@atipsygiraffe.com so we can discuss it further.
Ideally the giveaway will start on Friday October 3rd and run until the end of the month when the winner is announced. But this is not yet finalised.
Thanks so much for reading 🙂
– Michelle
The chocolatey, hazelnutty goodness of a Ferrero Rocher, all wrapped up into a yummy cupcake
Chocolate and Hazelnut are a match made in heaven, it’s true, I read it in the bible; “and on the 6th day, God created chocolate and hazelnut in His own image, to spend eternity together. However some old dudes heard Him wrong and wrote it down as Adam and Eve”. That’s how it goes in my bible anyway!
And that is why Ferrero Rocher’s are so yummy. And Nutella. And all things Chocolate Hazelnut. The only way to make them better is to put it in a cupcake. Like I said, heaven!
I promised you guys these cupcakes when I shared my Valentine’s Day cakes, sorry it took me so long I’m the worst, I know! The recipe I used was my fave chocolate cake recipe, in this post I’ll give you the recipe for the chocolate hazelnut swiss meringue buttercream and chocolate hazelnut ganache.
What you wanna do is make up a batch of chocolate cupcakes and let cool. Make up the ganache, which is double cream, chocolate and Nutella and leave to cool for about 10 minutes, meanwhile cut circles out of the centre of each cupcake, saving the cut outs. Fill the cupcakes with about a teaspoon of the ganache and replace the centres, trimming them where necessary. Make up the swiss meringue buttercream, it takes a while to make but it’s so so worth it. Before you add the Nutella when making it, set about a quarter of it aside to decorate with. There’s a lot of butter in swiss meringue so make sure you’re working in a cool environment when decorating with it. Swirl the Nutella SMBC on top of the cupcakes and drizzle with some of the ganache. Put a swirl of the white vanilla SMBC on top and place half a Ferrero Rocher on top. Yum!
[recipe title=”Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache”]
Ingredients
Method
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[recipe title=”Chocolate Hazelnut Swiss Meringue Buttercream”]
Ingredients
Method
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Favourite Frostings!
My Favourite Chocolate Cake!
Happy Valentine’s Day
What do you when you have 15 egg yolks laying around? Make chocolate mousse of course!
I love most things meringue based, so while all these egg whites are living full and delicious (yet short) lives, the egg yolks are left to wallow in their unfulfilled destinies.
So if you’re anything like me you often have a lot of egg yolks laying around and nothing to do with them. There are plenty of things you make with egg yolks; crème pâtissière, custard, crème brûlée, mayonnaise, hollandaise etc. I wanted something nice and easy that could be eaten by itself (and wouldn’t require a chef’s torch!), and that’s where the mousse came in.
I used a Martha Stewart recipe for this, but slightly adapted as I didn’t have as much cream as I thought I did and I had less chocolate (I was also going for a recipe that I didn’t have to buy anything for, it was 9pm after all). Despite the lack of cream and less chocolate it was still the richest chocolate mousse I have ever eaten, I could only eat a few spoonfuls!
Ingredients:
Whisk the egg yolks, 2 tablespoons sugar and 150 double cream in a medium saucepan. Heat over a medium/low heat, stirring constantly for 3-4 minutes, do not boil. Remove from heat and strain into a bowl. Whisk in melted chocolate and vanilla. You’ll end up with a custardy consistency. Chill until cooled.
With an electric mixer, beat remaining cream and sugar together until stiff peaks form. Stir 1/3 of the whipped cream into the cool custard mixture, and then every gently fold in the rest of the the cream with a rubber spatula.
Spoon into serving dishes, cover and chill for at least 30 minutes before serving.
And voila! Your egg yolks have new meaning and can die satisfied!