Hello all. The weather has been very nice and warm here in the Netherlands the last two weeks, so I thought it'd be appropriate to do a food post on summery snacks. And what's the best thing to eat in summer? Fruits, always fruits. So that's what I'll be using.

These aren't gonna be very difficult and complicated recipes, it's gonna be more of a simple throw together kind of thingy, since you shouldn't be too active and busy in the heat. I'll be showing a yellow fruits bowl, cookie butter strawberries and lovely peach cupcakes

YELLOW FRUITS BOWL
So this is gonna be a tropical kind of fruits bowl. I love mangos and pineapple, they're just the best fruits to eat in the summer and those two together is just heaven, really. I also wanted to try a fresh coconut. So I bought one for this and honestly, I cannot recommend to get one, because opening this one was a bitch. I tried to open it in every possible way and after probably half an hour I decided to call my mom to just get some pieces from the grocery store. As soon as I picked up my phone to call my mother, though, frustratedly giving some slams on the coconut still, the coconut finally decided to crack open. But then I couldn't get the coconut meat out.. Anyway, moving on, here's what you'll need for two bowls.



Ingredients:
⬩ 1/2 pineapple
⬩ 1 mango
⬩ 2 bananas
⬩ coconut, to taste
⬩ optional, 80% dark chocolate, to taste

How to:
Slice the pineapple and mango in cubes, all around the same size. Slice the bananas in parts. Grate the coconut (though if you prefer cubes of those too, then just slice them in cubes) and grate the dark chocolate as well. Throw the pineapple, mango, banana and coconut in a bowl and mix well, sprinkle the dark chocolate on top and enjoy :)

COOKIE BUTTER STRAWBERRIES
Okay, so I was eating lunch and we had some strawberries. I saw the strawberries and the cookie butter, and I just had to try. It turned out amazingly so I definitely had to share this. I made them a bit more fancy by covering them in chocolate. Perfect to take with you on a lovely picnic. Everything in this 'recipe' will literally be to taste tho. If you want to make 2 strawberries, you make two, if you want to make 20, you make twenty. If you can't find cookie butter, just crunch up some oreos and swirl them through some nutella.



Ingredients:
⬩ strawberries
⬩ cookie butter
⬩ milk chocolate bar

How to:
I like to keep the crown on, but if you don't want them then slice them off. Make a cut into the strawberries from the bottom to the top but stop just before the end so they're still attached. Open the strawberry carefully and put some cookie butter in the middle of the strawberry. Don't add too much, you want to keep the sides of the strawberry clean. Close the strawberry and squeeze it a bit so the butter spreads inside of the strawberry. Put the filled strawberries in the freezer while you melt the chocolate bar au bain marie. Leave some pieces to the side and add them once you take the pan with all melted chocolate off the heat. Get the strawberries from the freezer and stripe the melted chocolate over the strawberries. Place them in the fridge for the chocolate to get hard. Leave them for at least 15 minutes, or until serving. Do get them out 5 minutes before serving.

PEACH CUPCAKES
Who doesn't love cupcakes, right? I've had loads of cupcakes in my life, but I'm not sure if I ever had one with peaches. And as I wanted to do something with peaches, I decided to try to make them myself. So here are some lovely peach cupcakes for you, a bit more difficult than the other recipes but still very easy to make.


Ingredients:
⬩ 200 grams of flour
⬩ 100 grams of granulated sugar
⬩ 2 tbsp of caster sugar
⬩ 7 grams of baking soda
⬩ 100 ml milk
⬩ 60 ml sunflower oil
⬩ 1 tsp vanilla essence
⬩ 1 egg
⬩ 1 tsp of cinnamon
⬩ 3 peaches
⬩ salt

How to:
Preheat the oven on 180 Degrees Celsius. Slice the peaches in parts and put it a saucepan on low heat. Add some water and 1/2 tsp of the cinnamon. Stir and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. You can just leave this on the heat and go on but do keep an eye on the pan, keep stirring it every so often. Add in a bowl, the flour, the granulated sugar, the baking soda, 1/2 tsp of the cinnamon and a pinch of salt and mix till combined. In another bowl, add the milk, the oil, the vanille essence and the egg and whisk till combined. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and mix till combined. Set the bowl aside. Add the caster sugar to the peaches, stir it in and let it simmer for another minute or so. Turn off the heat and take the pan off the stove. Mix the peaches with a hand blender till you have a sauce, the peach pieces should still be visible, but have to be very small. Add 3/4 of the sauce to the flour mixture and whisk till it's combined. Get your muffin tin and put some fun muffin cups in them. Fill the muffin cups for 3/4 with the flour mixture. Add a teaspoon of the peach sauce on top of your filled muffin cup and swirl this lightly in. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

I hope you enjoyed this post and I hope you'll enjoy making these. Please tell me if you did, I'd like to know what you think!

Love, Ilona