Jordans Country Crisp tropical pavlova

Just before Christmas I was sent two boxes of Jordans Country Crisp to try, thanks to the hecticness that is Christmas it's taken until now to finally get around to trying them! For those of you that don't know Country Crisp is a mixture of crunchy oaty clusters that come mixed with a variety of delicious additions such as chocolate or strawberries.I've actually tried Country Crisp lots of times before, like a lot of people it's one of my favourite cereals and something I've grown up with. What I didn't know was that there is a Country Crisp Appreciation Society and that there was more to Country Crisp than pouring milk over it for breakfast, you can cook with it too!I was sent a whole page of recipe ideas to try and then found even more on their website, there are brownies, scones, muffins and loads more, the recipe I most liked the sound of was the meringue layer cake with cream and tropical fruit.

The original recipe called for layers of meringue baked on a bed of Country Crisp stacked up with whipped cream and tropical fruit. I borrowed the idea to make a Country Crisp pavlova with tropical fruit and passion fruit cream. The meringue base is made to a basic meringue recipe (egg whites, sugar) with a little of my home-made vanilla extract for flavour, the twist is that I spooned the meringue on top of a layer of chocolate Country Crisp before baking which gave it a fantastic crunchy texture and a lot more flavour than just plain meringue.The topping is made from cream whipped with the juice of two passion fruits then topped with chopped mango, kiwi fruit and more passion fruit. The finished pavlova was the perfect dessert for New Years Day, it wasn't to heavy which was a relief to everyone after all the heavy Christmas food, plus it brought a bit of sunshine into my house so we could all forget it was -3c outside!

Energy food challenge - Banana chocolate flapjacks

Last May I cycled along the Camino De Santiago route across Spain, 550 miles in all including two mountain ranges. On the very first day we had 14 miles of non-stop uphill.

A long way up!

You're probably thinking, what's this got to do with food? Well Hopie over at hopie's kitchen has laid down an energy food challenge. Her Mum is preparing to cycle 109 miles to raise money for research into blood cancers. Nearly 1 million Americans are suffering from some form of blood cancer and each year 53,000 die, I'm sure you'll agree it is a very worthy cause. Naturally cycling all that way will require a lot of energy. Hopie's chalenge is to create a recipe for energy food, whether it is a main meal, snack or drink. I thought back to my time cycling in spain, the food that powered us up all those hills was flapjacks. They are ideal for cycling with as they easily be stuffed into a bag or pocket without coming to too much harm and are packed with energy, not to mention how delicious they are!

My entry for this challenge is flapjacks, but no ordinary flapjacks. I made Chocolate covered banana, honey and walnut flapjacks! The banana flavour comes through really well, it also helps keep the flapjacks soft and moist. Honey and walnuts just seemed a good idea and what can't be improved by chocolate?I am very pleased with how these turned out, this is exactly the kind of food I like to take with me when I go on long bike rides.

Enter the energy food challenge here. Get your entries in before the 22nd November!