After Eight ice cream sundaes

December 11, 2013December 13, 2013Posted in Puddings and desserts, RecipesTagged after eight, children, chocolate, Christmas, ice cream, mint, mint choc chip, sundae10 Comments

In the words of Perry and Bing and may other crooners, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Our tree went up at the weekend and suddenly the house feels transformed into a magical, sparkly wonderland. It’s the earliest we’ve ever put it up. My husband doesn’t think we should have a tree until Christmas Eve, but I’ve been working on him over the years and, having been to the children’s school Christmas fair the day before, it just felt right for it to go up last Saturday.

We also made these After Eight ice cream sundaes at the weekend, which got us into the festive feasting spirit. Wow – they were good. Indulgent, rich and decadent, just like a proper sundae should be. Not of course, something you should eat every day though. But for a Christmas treat, these are just the ticket.

I must admit, I haven’t eaten After Eight Mints for some years. I associate them with Christmas as a child back in the eighties. I can clearly remember being at my grandparents’ house in Lancashire for Christmas and having them at the end of a meal. As the grown ups were chatting, I pretty much worked my way through the box, and I couldn’t deny how many I’d eaten as the evidence was there in front of me in the form of a pile of those little black envelopes. I’d forgotten how much I like them. And my children seem rather partial to them to. It was a battle keeping the grubby little mitts off them so that I had enough to make this dessert.

The good people at After Eight sent me some of their goodies to experiment with: a box of After Eight Mints and their After Eight Collection, a selection of dark and white mint chocolates. The challenge was to come up with a dessert featuring their chocolate mints. As my children adore mint choc chip ice cream, an ice cream sundae was the obvious choice.

These sundaes are very simple to make; more of an assembly job really. There are chocolate brownies at the bottom. Feel free to bake your own, but I made things easy on myself by buying some. Next comes a layer of forest fruits, which bring a touch of tartness to the proceedings. You need it to cut through all that rich sweetness. Then there’s the After Eight ice cream. Even if you don’t fancy making the whole sundae, do try making the ice cream – it’s a lovely take on the classic mint choc chip and really couldn’t be easier to create.

Melted After Eight Mints combined with a little cream conjure up a wonderful chocolate sauce, which is loving drizzled over the ice cream before topping with whipped cream for that extra level of indulgence.

So there you have it – my simple After Eight ice cream sundaes. You’re welcome!

After Eight ice cream sundaes

Makes 4 large sundaes

Half a litre vanilla ice cream
300g box of After Eight Mints
4 chocolate brownies, cut into bite-size chunks
300ml double cream
250g forest fruits (fresh or frozen)
After Eight Collection chocolates for decoration

Place the ice cream in a bowl and allow to soften at room temperature for about 10 minutes.

Chop half the After Eight Mints into small pieces. Fold the mint pieces into the ice cream, spoon into a plastic carton, cover and place in the freezer until it has re-frozen.

To make the sauce, place the remaining After Eight Mints and 100ml of the cream in a saucepan over a gentle heat. Stir until the chocolate mints have completely melted and the sauce has formed. Leave to cool.

Whip the remaining cream in a large bowl until stiff.

Place the brownie pieces at the bottom of four sundae glasses and top with a couple of spoonfuls of the frozen fruits. On top of the fruits place a couple of scoops of the chocolate mint ice cream and drizzle with a generous smothering of chocolate mint sauce. Finally, spoon whipped cream on top of each sundae and decorate with a pretty chocolate from the After Eight Collection.

Dig in and enjoy to your heart’s content!

Disclosure: this post is sponsored by After Eight who paid me to develop this recipe and provided me with complimentary boxes of After Eight Mints and the After Eight Collection.

As this pudding definitely fits the description of a Festive Treat, I’m entering it into December’s Teatime Treats hosted by What Kate Baked and Lavender & Lovage.

And these sundaes would be great for parties, so I’m also entering them into Four Seasons Food hosted by Delicieux and Eat Your Veg.

My children adored the sundaes, so I reckon they would also make a good entry for December’s Family Foodies challenge over at Eat Your Veg, where the theme is Kids Christmas.

Love heart double chocolate cupcakes

October 9, 2013October 24, 2017Posted in Cakes and biscuits, RecipesTagged children, children's party, chocolate, cooking with children, cream cheese, cupcake, dr oetker7 Comments

There’s been a bit of a baking frenzy in our house recently. There was a PTA cake sale at my daughters’ school last week and we decided to get all creative with these love heart cupcakes with a double chocolate and cream cheese topping. Jess hates buttercream so cream cheese is a good alternative.

Sometimes I just can’t be bothered to bake for the cake sale and at the last minute we’ll resort to buying plain fairy cakes or biscuits, which the kids will decorate with gaudy-coloured icing and a few sprinkles. But other times I go the whole hog. And this was one of those times. I was definitely spurred on by my earlier success with a classic Victoria sponge and also by a big bag of chocolate goodies from the kind people at Dr Oetker. My youngest daughter Mia, who is a self-confessed chocoholic, couldn’t believe her luck when she opened up the parcel.

Dr Oetker are running a competition, challenging UK bakers to come up with their most creative chocolate cupcake and I thought I might try my chances. One lucky baker will win the fantastic prize of a trip for two to New York City, the home of the cupcake. The closing date is 17 October 2013 if you fancy having a go too. Pop over to their Facebook page for more details on how to take part. Having seen the other hugely impressive entries, I don’t think I have even the slightest smidgen of a chance of winning anything but it’s the taking part that counts, as they say.

The cupcakes were a big hit at the school cake sale. Admittedly they’re a bit more of a faff than I’d usually go in for when it comes to decorating cupcakes but it was worth it to see the children’s faces when they spied them. And if you fancy a pretty-looking sweet treat, the love heart cookies on their own seem to go down rather well with the little ones.

Love heart cookies

Makes around 40 cookies – so you’ll have plenty left over to enjoy later

250g butter, softened
140g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
a drop or two of red food colouring
300g plain flour
pinch of salt
25g dark chocolate
hundreds and thousands

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Add a couple of drops of red food colouring and combine well.

Sift in the flour and salt and mix thoroughly to form a dough. You’ll need to get your hands in at this point.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking parchment until it is roughly half a centimetre thick.

Use a small heart-shaped cutter to cut out your cookies, or work freehand using a sharp knife.

Line a baking tray with more baking parchment and carefully lift the cookies onto the tray, spacing them apart a little.

Bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes until just firm to the touch. Remove from the tray and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

Place the dark chocolate in a small bowl and melt in a microwave. Using a teaspoon, drizzle chocolate onto each love heart cookie and then sprinkle on some hundreds and thousands.

Chocolate chip cupcakes

Makes 12 – six chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate chips and six plain cupcakes with dark chocolate chips

125g butter, softened
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
125g self-raising flour
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
2 tsp cocoa powder, mixed with a few drops of water into a paste
25g white chocolate chips
25g dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6.

Put the butter, caster sugar, eggs, flour and vanilla extract into a food processor and whizz until smooth. Add the milk and mix again.

Split the mixture equally between two separate bowls. Into the first add the cocoa paste and mix in carefully. Then add the white chocolate chips and stir until well dispersed through the mixture. Into the second bowl of plain mixture add the dark chocolate chips and again stir in.

Line a 12-bun muffin tin with 12 muffin cases.

Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until the cupcakes are springy to the touch and just golden on top.

Remove the cakes from the tin and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

Double chocolate and cream cheese marbled topping

100g cream cheese
200g icing sugar
75g white chocolate
75g dark chocolate

Scoop the cream cheese into a large bowl and sieve in the icing sugar. Beat together until thoroughly combined. Place half the mixture into a second bowl.

Place the white chocolate and dark chocolate into two separate bowls and melt in the microwave. Add the white chocolate to one bowl of topping mixture and the dark chocolate to the other. Combine well.

Place alternate spoonfuls of white chocolate and dark chocolate topping into a piping bag until it is full. Swirl a generous amount onto each of the cupcakes.

And finally, top with one of your pretty love heart cookies.

Disclosure: Dr Oetker provided me with a complimentary selection of cooking chocolate and cake decorations for this post. No money exchanged hands and all opinions are totally my own.

In the parcel I received 72% Extra Dark Fine Cooks’ Chocolate, 26% White Fine Cooks’ Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Chips, White Chocolate Chips, and Hundreds and Thousands, all of which I used in this recipe.

Cookies with a kick

July 3, 2013Posted in Cakes and biscuits, RecipesTagged cherry, chilli, chocolate, cookie, dan may, ginger8 Comments

“Now that’s got a good kick” is a phrase you hear a lot in our house. My husband and I are rather partial to hot, spicy food you see. We are complete chilli fiends. Even our children like things nice and spicy, especially our oldest, Jessie, who enjoys hot chilli sauce on pretty much anything.

Chilli with chocolate is a favourite combination; they really are a match made in heaven. We’re forever trying out different chilli chocolate bars and generally complaining they don’t have enough of a kick. I was thinking about coming up with my own chilli chocolate creation when I came upon this cookie recipe in The Red Hot Chilli Cookbook by Dan May. I couldn’t resist. Dan’s recipe calls for stem ginger, but I didn’t happen to have any in. Instead I found some dried cherries in the cupboard and opted for those, as much for the charming alliteration as anything else.

If you like chilli and chocolate, you really must give these cookies a go. They are absolutely delicious and very, very moreish. The sweet, chewy cherries and big, fat chunks of richly bittersweet chocolate contrast beautifully with the savoury, fiery bursts of chilli heat. They were a little too hot for Mia, our five-year-old, but I’d made her a version using ground ginger instead of chilli, which suited her. But Jessie loved the chilli bad boys as much as her parents.

Chilli chocolate and cherry cookies

Makes 8

100g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp hot chilli powder
50g caster sugar
85g soft butter
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp milk
100g dark chocolate, broken into large pieces
60g dried cherries

Preheat the oven to 180°C / gas mark 4.

Sift into a large bowl the flour, baking powder and chilli powder and stir in the sugar. Add the butter, vanilla extract and milk and mix together to form a dough. Next add the chocolate and cherries and combine well using your hands.

Divide the dough into eight balls and squash down a little until they are about 6cm in diameter. Arrange on a baking sheet covered in greaseproof paper. You may need to use two baking sheets, as the cookies will spread a little as they bake.

Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes until the edges are just beginning to turn brown. Leave to cool and firm up on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dan May says to enjoy them with a big mug of tea, but I liked mine with strong coffee. And apparently they will keep for a few days in an airtight container but ours didn’t last that long.

If you do need to bake a non-chilli version, simply substitute the chilli powder with a teaspoonful of ground ginger.

Salted peanut butter and dark chocolate truffles for Father’s Day

June 10, 2013June 12, 2013Posted in Cakes and biscuits, Puddings and desserts, UncategorizedTagged chocolate, chris evans, lindt, marmite, peanut butter, salted, truffle12 Comments

It’s not long until Father’s Day, so if you’d like to make the daddy in your life a little homemade sweet something that’s not too sweet and is, in fact, also a little bit salty, how about some of these…?

The lovely people at Lindt recently sent me some of their 70% Cocoa cooking chocolate to try out and so my daughter Mia and I decided to put it to the test by making some chocolates for Daddy.

My husband Jason is a big peanut butter fan and it’s the usual topping for his toast in the morning. Following a rather bizarre tip a few months ago from Chris Evans on his breakfast radio show, Jason’s now taken to combining peanut butter with Marmite on his toast. He loves it – something to do with the contrast of the sweet and salty apparently.

So that’s what gave me the idea for the filling for these chocolate truffles. Don’t worry, there’s no Marmite in there – just a pinch of salt to give that deliciously moreish sweet-savouriness, plus they’re topped with a little sprinkle of chopped salted peanuts too. The gorgeously smooth, dark Lindt chocolate works very well with the crunchy, gooey peanut centre, making for rather sophisticated truffles despite the main ingredient being every little (and big) kid’s favourite.

Jason was very happy with his early Father’s Day present. I fully expect the whole lot to be gone by the time I get back home from work this evening. The one thing he said they could do with was perhaps a touch of chilli. He’s a major chilli head as well you see. Maybe next time.

Salted peanut butter and dark chocolate truffles

Makes 24 chocolates

4 digestive biscuits, crushed
125g crunchy peanut butter
50g butter, melted
70g demerara sugar
good pinch of salt
200g dark cooking chocolate
25g butter
handful of salted peanuts, finely chopped

In a bowl, combine the crushed biscuits, peanut butter, melted butter, sugar and salt and chill in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

Taking a teaspoonful at a time, shape the peanut butter mixture into balls and place on a baking sheet covered in clingfilm or baking parchment. Freeze for 15 minutes.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a microwave or over a double boiler (a bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water) and mix together well. Using a cocktail stick, dip the peanut butter balls into the chocolate, ensuring it is entirely covered. Place on a plate covered in clingfilm and sprinkle each one with some chopped peanuts, working quickly before the chocolate sets.

Chill in the fridge before placing the chocolates into petit four or mini cupcake cases.

And if you want to give Daddy some chocolate this Father’s Day but don’t fancy making your own, we can recommend Lindt’s Strawberry Intense, another sample they sent us, which is rich and dreamy without being overly sweet. You see their full range of Father’s Day chocolates on the Lindt website.

Disclosure: Lindt provided me with sample bars of their 70% Cocoa cooking chocolate and Strawberry Intense. No money exchanged hands and the views expressed here, as they are throughout my blog, are completely my own.

Chocolate meringues

May 24, 2013May 24, 2013Posted in Cakes and biscuits, Puddings and desserts, RecipesTagged Aga, bbc good food, chocolate, egg, egg white, meringue2 Comments

One of my many and varied jobs at the moment is editing a magazine called Manna. I’m thoroughly enjoying working on the summer issue as the theme is Food & Farming, which means I get to talk to people across Somerset who are involved in producing our food.

One of the highlights so far has been interviewing an incredibly inspiring farmer called Anita near Clevedon in North Somerset. We chatted solidly for three hours about the rewards and challenges of running a farm while bringing up a family, stopping only when her husband popped into the kitchen to let us know one of the cows was calfing and to see if I’d like to take some action photos. Of course I jumped at the chance and I very nearly blubbed when the gorgeous little heifer came into the world.

As well as the herd of dairy cows, Anita also has free-range poultry. At the end of the interview she insisted I take away with me a huge tray of eggs. I loved the fact they were all sizes and colours. These are the ‘imperfect’ ones the supermarkets won’t take.

While we do appreciate eggs in our house, we’d have been hard pushed to get through this little lot, so I shared them with my good friend Sarah. We’ve been enjoying more than our usual quota of eggy breakfasts and I’ve made a batch of lemon curd. But of course, we also had to make meringues.

I’d seen a recipe for chocolate meringues on the BBC Good Food website and have been meaning to give them a try, so here was the perfect opportunity. Mine turned out nowhere near as neat and pretty but they tasted just the ticket; light and crispy and a little bit chewy. The plain chocolate also stops them from becoming overly sweet. Which means you can easily much your way through quite a few in one sitting.

The original recipe suggests you put all the meringue mixture into a piping bag and then “make a hole in the mixture all the way to the funnel tip. Pour the chocolate into the hole.” I don’t have the most delicate of touches admittedly, but I just couldn’t pull this off, even after several attempts. So instead I simply layered the meringue and the chocolate in the bag, which worked OK. If you can get it to work, please come back and tell me how you did it!

Next time I make them, I think I might try adding some chopped nuts to the chocolate. And maybe sandwich them together with some whipped cream for an indulgent dessert…

Chocolate meringues

This is a recipe I adapted for the Aga. For a conventional oven, take a look at the original recipe on BBC Good Food.

100g dark chocolate
4 egg whites
1 tbsp lemon juice
200g caster sugar

Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a small bowl. Microwave on a low setting for a minute and then stir. Repeat again for another minute and so on, until the chocolate has just melted. Allow to cool a little while you move on to the eggs.

In a clean, large bowl add a tablespoonful of lemon juice to your egg whites and whisk until they form stiff peaks. Then add a tablespoonful of caster sugar and whisk it in, then whisk in another and repeat until you’ve worked in all the sugar. Your meringue will now be looking sumptuously thick and glossy.

Line a couple of baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Spoon a little meringue into a piping bag and then pour in a little chocolate. Keep alternating until you’ve filled the bag. Pipe meringues onto the baking sheets about 4-5cm across, taking care to space them well. Keep going until you’ve used all your meringue mixture. Depending on how big your piping bag is, you may need to refill once or twice.

Start by baking the meringues at the top of the roasting oven for 5 minutes and then transfer to the bottom oven for 40-50 minutes. Check every now and again as you don’t want them too crunchy. I think they’re perfect when they’re still a little chewy.

Round Up: March’s Recipes for Life Challenge

March 28, 2013August 7, 2013Posted in Competitions and challenges, RecipesTagged beetroot, cake, carrot, cheese, Chez Foti, chocolate, chocolate log blog, crazy kitchen, Garden Deli, meatballs, muffin, pancake, pizza, recipes for life, salad, soup, swallow charity, under the blue gum tree4 Comments

Beetroot, carrots and cheese. Those were the three ingredients selected by the cookery club at SWALLOW for this month’s Recipes for Life challenge. And they did indeed present quite a challenge.

But I should have known I could rely on you food bloggers to deliver the goods. We received a surprisingly diverse range of recipes this month, showing just how versatile these humble ingredients can be…

Sarah from The Garden Deli got the ball rolling with this sumptuous Carrot and Beetroot Soup with Cheesy Croutons. Featuring garlic and cumin, this beautiful soup is a proper winter warmer and I love the croutons for dunking topped with one of my favourite cheeses, Wensleydale.

I experimented with some Beetroot and Carrot Pancakes for my first entry and, while they tasted pretty good – particularly with the herby mascarpone on the side – I was a bit disappointed the pancakes didn’t turn out pink like the batter!

Last month’s challenge winner, Chez Foti came up with this fantastic Roasted Roots and an Easy Roasted Roots Pizza. Louisa’s dish brings together sensational seasonal roasted root vegetables on top of a quick and easy wholemeal scone pizza base, not forgetting lots of lovely mozzarella. Yum!

Helen from The Crazy Kitchen really did go crazy with not one, not two, but three entries for Recipes for Life. Anyone who was stumped by the three set ingredients this month – look and learn! First up were these incredible Baked Cheesy Meatballs with Beetroot Sauce. Now don’t they look good? And a crafty way to sneak vegetables into unsuspecting children…

Another fiendishly clever way of disguising veggies comes in this gorgeous Two-of-your-five-a-day Chocolate Cake – the second entry from Helen at The Crazy Kitchen. “It’s sooooo good!” was the verdict of Helen’s 10-year-old, beetroot-hating daughter! Say no more!

There’s been a lot of talk on Twitter and food blogs recently about the 5:2 diet. So much so, my husband and I are both giving it a go. This Beetroot, Carrot and Cottage Cheese Salad, the final entry from The Crazy Kitchen’s Helen would definitely make a delicious lunch for a 5:2 fasting day and I plan to give it a try very soon.

I love the look of this Roasted Vegetable and Goat’s Cheese Risotto from Under The Blue Gum Tree. It sounds so simple to make but you just know it’s going to be absolutely packed full of flavour, with the gorgeous creaminess of the goat’s cheese a perfect partner for the earthiness of the root vegetables.

I wish I could bring you pictures of this Beetroot, Carrot and Goat’s Cheese Tatin from Martin at The Tempest Arms as it sounds simply divine and should look stunning. But I promise to make it very, very soon and I will post photos when I do.

Meeting the lovely Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog was one of my highlights from the Bristol Blog Summit earlier this month, which also gave me the perfect opportunity to persuade her to enter Recipes for Life. She promised she’d try, and I was very pleased to see she was true to her word with these ingenious Beetroot, Carrot and Goat’s Cheese Muffins. As with all Choclette’s recipes, there’s some chocolate in there, as well as a little kick from a touch of cayenne pepper. I look forward to trying them out.

This is a dish we eat quite a lot in our house, so I just had to enter it – my Beetroot, Carrot and Feta Cheese Salad. It’s ever so simple and ever so tasty, and a great way to create a summery-feeling salad with winter vegetables.

The final entry came in at the very last minute but I was so glad to see it – a Carrot and Beetroot Cake with a Cream Cheese Topping from Lucy at The Bell Inn. Again I sadly don’t have photos of this one but when you read the recipe you just know it’s going to taste good and I absolutely adore beetroot and carrot in cakes. Another one to try very soon.

But of course, what you’re waiting to hear is who did the SWALLOW cookery club choose as this month’s winner? Well, Lucy at The Bell Inn came a very close second with her Carrot and Beetroot Cake but first place goes to… Helen from the Crazy Kitchen for her scrumptious Baked Cheesy Meatballs with Beetroot Sauce. The group said they particularly liked the sound of the oozy cheese in the middle of the meatballs. Me too!

So a huge congratulations to Helen for her well deserved win – a small prize will be arriving in the mail very soon. Thank you so much to everyone who entered their wonderful recipes this month, and watch this space for the next set of three ingredients for April’s Recipes for Life challenge.

Bye bye baby: a birthday party and chocolate cake for my five-year-old

March 25, 2013Posted in Cakes and biscuits, RecipesTagged birthday, cake, celebration, children, chocolate, cream, Jamie Oliver, party, raspberries, the return of the naked chef9 Comments

My youngest turned five today. While of course I’m brimming with maternal joy and have loved sharing every moment of her anticipation in the run up and bubbling over of excitement on the day, my emotions are also tinged with a touch of sadness. It feels like my little baby is growing up too fast. When she was four I could just about get away with thinking of her as big toddler. But now she’s five, she’s a proper little girl. Bye bye baby.

We celebrated Mia’s birthday on Saturday with a party. It was a small do at the house with a handful of school friends from her reception class; quite an old-fashioned party really, without any party entertainers, bouncy castles or spectacular cake sculptures.

The highlights of our party were simple delights: playing with balloons, a messy chocolate cake covered in hundreds and thousands, fizzy flying saucers, old school games like pass-the-parcel and musical bumps, getting gluey making Easter bonnets, telling fart and poo and bottom jokes while gobbling chipolatas and party rings, and playing a new game we invented called pin-the-nose-on-the-Mia. Turning five is lots of fun!

The chocolate birthday cake is very easy to make, especially if, like me, you’re not a natural-born baker. It’s the kind of cake that actually looks better if it’s not too perfect. Fill it with whipped cream and your child’s favourite soft fruit – we went with raspberries. Pour over the icing and cover liberally with sprinkles, Buttons, Smarties or whatever your little one’s favourite happens to be – this also happens to be the perfect way to disguise any imperfections.

The end result is a celebration cake fit for a five-year-old. It’s a tried-and-tested party cake recipe from one of Jamie Oliver’s early cookbooks, The Return of the Naked Chef. I first made it when my oldest daughter turned one, and have been baking it ever since.

Chocolate birthday cake

3 tbsp cocoa powder
200g caster sugar
200g soft butter
3 eggs
200g self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp flaked almonds
200ml double cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
2 large handfuls raspberries (or any soft fruit of your choice)

For the chocolate icing

100g butter
100g cooking chocolate
100g icing sugar
3 tbsp milk

Decorations – hundreds and thousands, Smarties, Buttons or the like

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Grease and line the base of two 20cm cake tins with baking parchment.

In a cup mix the cocoa with 4 tablespoons of boiling water until smooth.

In a large bowl, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the cocoa mixture, eggs, flour and baking powder and mix well. Fold in the almonds.

Split the mixture between the two cake tins and bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the oven. The cakes are ready when an inserted skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool before removing the cakes from the tins.

To make the chocolate icing, place the butter, chocolate, icing sugar and milk into a bowl and place over gently simmering water in a pan. Stir until it’s all melted and blended together. Allow to cool a little.

Whip the double cream until it forms soft peaks and sweeten with icing sugar.

Remove the baking parchment from both cakes. Place one a wire rack, over kitchen towel or newspaper, and spread the whipped cream over the top, almost to the edge. Scatter the raspberries on top.

Place the second sponge on top and press down. Drizzle the chocolate icing over the top – you’ll be glad of the kitchen towel or newspaper at this point as the chocolate drips and gloops everywhere. Decorate with your chosen treats. Leave the icing to set before adding the candles and serving to your young birthday girl or boy and their party guests.

Spicy chocolate and beetroot cake

February 18, 2013October 25, 2016Posted in Cakes and biscuits, Puddings and desserts, RecipesTagged Abel and Cole, beetroot, cake, cardamom, chocolate, cream cheese, ginger, mascarpone, veg box18 Comments

We’re getting lots of beetroot in our weekly veg box at the moment. And that is a very good thing as I have come to rather like beetroot in recent years. Whereas once I’d automatically roast them in the oven and serve alongside a roast joint, I’ve discovered just how versatile the humble beetroot can be. It’s wonderful raw in winter slaws or sweet and sour salads, partners well with a tangy goat’s cheese in a simple tart, and it’s incredible juiced with carrot and lots of ginger.

Beetroot is also fantastic in cakes and has a natural affinity with chocolate. These brownies for example always go down well with my children and are so incredibly moist and gooey. So when I saw an Abel and Cole recipe for a beetroot and chocolate cake which also used fresh ginger and ground cardamom, I knew I had to give it a go at the earliest opportunity.

At the weekend we all went to London to stay with my Dad and Step Mum, or as they’re known to the kids, Grandad Chris and Nana Sue. Since Nana Sue had treated us to her heavenly clementine polenta cake the last time they came to stay with us in Somerset, I felt it only polite to return the favour by taking some tasty homemade offering. And of course it had to be this chocolate, beetroot and ginger concoction.

After a lovely Sunday morning brunch in Highgate, followed by a walk up Parliament Hill to look out over the hazy London skyline, a couple of games of What’s the Time Mister Wolf? and some tree-climbing and green-parakeet-spotting, a cup of coffee and a slice of cake was very much required. While my Dad looked a little dubious at first, the chocolate, beetroot and ginger cake seemed to go down with all, children and adults alike – even Dad, with the whole family making lots of positive mmmmming noises as they got stuck in.

As well as using fresh ginger in the cake itself, the Abel and Cole version also adds ginger to the mascarpone topping, along with orange zest. I opted to leave these out, and I’m glad I did as I think a calmer, creamy topping acted as a perfect foil for the spicy cake.

Spicy chocolate and beetroot cake

150g cooked beetroot
150g dark chocolate
1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated
6 cardamom pods, seeds extracted and ground to a powder
125g plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3 eggs
200g soft butter
150g caster sugar
100g mascarpone cheese
200g cream cheese
75g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.

Puree the cooked beetroot in a food processor. Pop into a bowl along with the dark chocolate, broken into pieces, and heat gently in a microwave for a minute or two until the chocolate has melted.

Combine the chocolate and beetroot well, then mix in the grated ginger and cardamom powder. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks with the butter and caster sugar until pale and creamy. Whisk the whites until they form stiff peaks.

Gently fold the egg yolk and butter mixture into the flour. Then gently fold in the egg whites, a spoonful at a time. Finally stir in the beetroot and chocolate mixture.

Grease an 23cm cake tin with butter and dust with flour. Pour the cake mix into the tin. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. You want it be a little soft and gooey in the middle. Leave to cool on a wire tray before removing from the tin.

To make the topping, simply put the mascarpone and cream cheese into a large bowl and sieve in the icing sugar. Mix together well. When the cake is cool, use a palette knife to spread over the mascarpone topping. Dig in!

As this cake features both chocolate and ginger, I’m entering it into February’s We Should Cocoa, a blog challenge created by Chocolate Teapot and Chocolate Log Blog, and hosted this month by Blue Kitchen Bakes.

Chocolate pancakes for Shrove Tuesday

February 7, 2013Posted in Puddings and desserts, RecipesTagged chocolate, pancake, pancake day, runner's world, shrove tuesday9 Comments

Normally I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to pancakes: I like mine made simply from eggs, flour and milk, and served with nothing more than sugar and lemon. But when you start writing a food blog, some kind of transformation happens and you get all adventurous and creative, looking for new twists and takes on the old standards.

Last Pancake Day I made some sublime Lemon & Ricotta Pancakes adapted from a recipe in The French Women Don’t Get Fat Cookbook by Mireille Guiliano, which helped me realise that change can be good.

I am currently in training for the Bath Half Marathon. (It takes place on 3 March, I’m running it for SWALLOW Charity and you can sponsor me here! Apologies – public service announcement over!) And because I’m in training I bought a copy of Runner’s World magazine about a month ago in the hope it might inspire me. Naturally, I turned directly to the recipe section and haven’t looked at another page.

I discovered in the magazine a wonderful array of healthy pancake recipes. Runner’s World food writer, Pam Anderson shares her basic virtuous pancake recipe, the perfect blend of carbs and proteins required by runners containing wholewheat flour, rolled oats and buttermilk, and then goes on to offer a whole host of variations on the theme.

I was rather intrigued by the chocolate version and so cooked up a batch last week. I made a few tweaks to the recipe, mainly to make them a little sweeter and lighter. Admittedly we ate ours as a pudding, topped with vanilla ice cream and winter berries, but we all thought they were absolutely delicious, if not quite as healthy as they really ought to have been. And if you’re looking for something different on Shrove Tuesday, particularly if you’re giving up chocolate for Lent, well this could be just the thing. Take a look too at the Runner’s World website where they have 40 more delicious pancake concoctions based on this same recipe.

Chocolate pancakes

Makes 16 small pancakes – serves 8

150g plain flour
100g wholewheat flour
30g rolled oats
75g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
20g cocoa powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
285ml buttermilk
195ml milk
2 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil, plus more for frying
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Combine the two flours, oats, sugar, salt, baking powder, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl.

Gently whisk together the buttermilk, milk, eggs, oil and vanilla extract, pour into the dry ingredients and mix everything together well. Finally stir in the chopped chocolate.

Heat a little oil in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. When the pan is hot, pour in a small amount of the batter – to form a small pancake roughly 10cm across. Depending on the size of your pan, you’ll probably be able to cook two or three at a time.

Fry the pancakes for around two to three minutes on each side, and then keep warm while you continue working your way through the remaining batter.

I served ours with winter berries and vanilla ice cream. Whipped cream, chopped nuts, sliced banana, honey and maple syrup would all make scrummy alternatives.

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Banana, apricot and chocolate bread

January 28, 2013October 24, 2017Posted in Cakes and biscuits, RecipesTagged apricot, Baking with Kids, banana, banana bread, banana loaf, cake, chocolate, Linda Collister9 Comments

I don’t know a single child who would turn down a slice of banana bread and my daughters are no exception. And for us parents, giving our little ones a slice of homemade banana bread when they get home from school feels just so, well, wholesome.

This is a lovely take on the standard banana bread; the addition of apricots keeps it extra moist, while the chunks of chocolate are a gooey treat. My recipe is loosely based on one I found for banana loaf in Baking with Kids by Linda Collister. It is indeed a great cake to bake with your children, who will no doubt enjoy mashing the banana, beating the eggs and licking the bowl at the end.

Banana, apricot and chocolate bread

100g butter
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
75g demerara sugar
75g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
75g plain chocolate, chopped
100g dried apricot, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.

Grease a 900g loaf tin with a little butter and line with greaseproof paper.

Gently melt the butter over a low heat and set to one side to cool slightly.

Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl, add the sugars and combine. Make a well in the middle.

Pour the melted butter and eggs into the well, and add the mashed banana, chocolate and apricot. Mix everything together thoroughly.

Spoon the mixture into your prepared tin and bake for 50 to 55 minutes. When it’s ready, the top should be a lovely golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Allow the banana bread to cool completely on a wire rack before removing from the tin and peeling off the paper.