Littles Flavored Coffee

We all know that I’m mad about coffee.  It’s my fuel – I need it.  So when it was brought to my attention that Holland and Barret were going to be stocking Littles coffee, I was over the moon!  My parents treated me to a lovely selection of their coffees over Christmas and they were absolutely delightful.  As there is not a Waitross in Aberdeen, I’ve had no way of picking up any new flavours to try out, other than ordering online.  Nobody likes to wait for things to come in the post, so being able to restock every time I’m in town is something to smile about.

I’ve always been a lover of flavoured coffees – Beanies having always been my favourite.  However I’m very pleased to report that Littles are a very strong contender for first place now.

My trip to Holland and Barrett consisted of a jar of the Swiss French Vanilla Infused Coffee – which is absolutely delicious.  When you open the jar you get a very strong scent of vanilla – but what I really like is that you can still smell the coffee too.  Sometimes vanilla can over power the scent of everything – but this is not the case here.  Littles – you got it perfect!  Another thing that really pleases me was that you’re not left with a bitter or over powering taste at the bottom of your mug – which again can happen with some flavoured coffees.  Littles Swiss Vanilla provides you with a lovely mug of fuel, with an amazing aroma and smooth tasting coffee from start to finish! 

Holland and Barrett currently have them priced at just £2.99 a jar – which is a really great price for such a high quality product and a decent quantity too.  You can also pick up the Swiss Chocolate Infused coffee from H&B too – which I would also highly recommend.

My favourites so far have been the Vanilla, Chocolate Orange and Café Amaretto – however I have also had the pleasure of enjoying the Chocolate Caramel and Irish Cream too.  I currently have a jar of the Havana Rum flavour – which I am currently trying to decide if I love it… or if it is just a little bit too outside of my coffee comfort zone.  Give me another mug or two to decide, I’ll let you know later my verdict!
And if you're not yet convinced by these gems, Littles use natural flavours to create their beautiful coffees - making them perfect for those of us who are trying to watch what we are putting into our bodies.  These are great for sorting out a sweet tooth too, if you're trying to be good! 

I’m really looking forward to treating myself to their Island Coconut, Maple Walnut and Spicy Cardamom flavours soon – they are a top priority on my must buy list for next month!  Who knows, I’ll maybe even treat myself to a mix and match box too!
If you fancy trying out any of the Littles range, you can find them here at: https://www.wearelittles.com/product-category/infused-instant-coffees/
With such a wide variety of flavours to choose from - I'm sure that there will be one for everyone!

Have you tried out any of the Littles range?  Let me know what your favourite is below!

Until the next one,

Dolce Gusto Coffee Machine

This Christmas past, I was very undecided as to what I wanted from my parents – and so I asked them to surprise me!  Needless to say, I was absolutely delighted when I opened up my Dolce Gusto Coffee Machine on Christmas morning. 

The machine itself is perfect in size, it’s slightly larger than a kettle, yet small enough that you can leave it sitting on the counter all of the time.  It’s really simple and totally safe – which makes me happy as I can be very clumsy sometimes.  With this machine, I’m not at all worried about scolding myself… which is always a bonus!

To use, you fill up the water tank on the back of the machine to the maximum point – which I have found gives me a decent sized drink with every make.  Next, you press the on button on the side and wait for it to turn green, which only takes about 15 seconds to do so.  Finally, you pick your pods – one drink normally takes two pods (one for the coffee/tea and one for the milk) depending on what it is that you are making.  Pop in your pod, wait for the cup to fill up about half way, swap it over for the milk pod and hey presto - you did it!  You really couldn’t get a simpler coffee machine if you tried.

Mocha anyone?

My parents spoilt me this year with a variety of different coffee pods to try out straight away, which consisted of caramel mocha, regular mocha and vanilla macchiato.  However when I went to register my machine to activate the guarantee, this qualified me for an extra £10 credit to my account.  With the free credit burning a hole in my pocket and an extra £10 cash to spare, I went ahead and ordered a variety of drinks including: 1 x caramel macchiato, 1 x mocha, 1 x vanilla macchiato, 1 x caramel mocha and 1 x chai tea latte.  Each and every single one of these drinks have been absolutely delicious. I love how professional each drink looks and tastes – even watching it brewing from the two pods is mesmerizing. 

Each box contains 8 drinks, which is pretty good value at £4 when you take into consideration the amount that you can spend on just one drink at Starbucks and Costa (… I’m still guilty of this though!)  You can pick up the pods at most major supermarkets at the moment, however if you’re looking for a large selection to choose from – I recommend ordering direct from the Dolce Gusto website, as they have all their drinks listed and delivery is free!

I’m really looking forward to trying out the other varieties of drinks available for my Dolce Gusto machine, especially the cold brewed ones, as I am yet to experiment with these.

Have you tried any of the Dolce Gusto range?

Until the next one,

Lauren x

Chocolate Chip Cookies

So on Wednesday, I was feeling a little creative and decided that I was going to put my baking hat on and go a little nuts.  I’m not a baker, and so by nuts, I mean I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  I followed a recipe on the BBC Good Food website listed below, only I doubled the recipe.  I wanted to make big, chunky cookies, and so doubling the recipe meant that I would still get the same amount of cookies as the standard batch, just bigger!

You will need:

300g salted butter (soften before use for an easier mix)

160g brown sugar

160g granulated or caster sugar

Vanilla extract (to your preference)

2 large eggs

450g plain flour

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2tsp salt

400g chocolate chips

The above ingredients are for the double batch that I made, for a standard batch, simply half the amount per item.

To start, you should preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5.  After this, I then lined four (that’s right, I had four trays of cookies) with a non-stick greased baking paper to stop them from sticking to the trays. 

Next, you mix the butter and sugars into a bowl, and beat them until thick and creamy.  Once this was done, I then added in the vanilla (which I’m not going to lie, I added about half a 90ml bottle to the mixture), and slowly poured in the whisked eggs.  The toughest part was sieving in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the salt to the mixture and mixing it all together until it came to the cookie dough.  The mixture was so tough that I actually managed to snap a wooden spoon, how many of you can say you’ve done that whilst making cookies?!  

RIP

Finally, you add in the chocolate chips and stir them in so that they are mixed all the way through.  I used two bags of milk chocolate chips on Wednesday when I made them, and today used three bags, one milk, one white and one dark.  I will be following today’s footsteps forever more, just so you are all aware.

Finally, you’re ready to scoop them out onto your trays and pop them in the oven.  I placed large round blobs of the mixer on the trays, I managed approx. 7 cookies per tray.  Because they were larger, the cookies did take a lot longer to cook (today about 20-25 minutes) – but it is totally worth the extra time!

Once cooked, leave them for about 5-10 minutes and tada!  You’ve got yourself a tasty, and very calorific snack… enjoy!

Please note, that this recipe was sourced from BBC Good Food, I simply altered the recipe to my own preference :)

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2459643/vintage-chocolate-chip-cookies

What’s your favourite dessert to bake?

Until the next one,

Lauren x

Sympathy for the Skin Body Lotion

The name of this lotion intrigued me from the moment that I first spotted it in Lush about a year ago.  I have always been a big fan of their Charity Pot Lotion, and so it took me a while before I decided to branch out of my comfort zone and give this product a whirl.  This was an online purchase, and so it was the ingredients that attracted me to it.  I love to smell nice, I have a phobia of smelling bad, and so the vanilla was a winner from the get go.  The cocoa butter and banana were an added bonus too -  I knew that this concoction would smell delish, and that these three ingredients would be nourishing for my skin, never mind the whole other list of goodness packed in there too.  

This lotion is very light to put on, it rubs in nicely and although feels greasy – absorbs really quickly into the skin making it feel really supple and hydrated within ten minutes of applying.  I tend to use quite a lot of this at one time, my skin gets really dry super quickly, however if you have fairly normal/healthy skin I imagine that this product would last you a very long time as you probably wouldn't need to use  a lot.  When my skin is particularly bad, I like to use this on my face before I apply my makeup.  It works brilliantly as a base before applying a primer, which makes me love it even more as there are very few moisturisers that I have come across that would allow me to do this.  I will however point out that you do only need a tiny bit to make sure you’re not left feeling really greasy. 

Running very low 

At £5.95 for a 100g tub and £11.95 for 240g – I give this product a 9/10 as it does everything that I need it to do for my skin.  I love everything about it, the smell the feel, the results it gives.  It only looses one mark simply for the price.  I wouldn’t normally pay so much for so little, but because I (at the moment) have my skin reasonably under control, I don’t need to use it as often.  However because this product is packed in a Lush black pot, if you clean them and keep them until you have 5, you can pick up a free fresh face mask.  So it's not all bad, really.   Sympathy for the Skin is a firm favourite moisturiser of mine, and I would recommend it to anyone – regardless of their skin type.  The nutrients packed into this lotion would do good for everyone's skin, and make them smell yummy also.

What's your favourite body lotion at the moment?

Until the next one,

Lauren x