Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whilst at home this weekend Scott and I baked gooey chocolate chip cookies and they were scrummy!

Usually when we decide to bake I end us baking and Scott fafs about, but this time he was very helpful and helped equally which made the biscuits/cookies extra special. Cookies are extra specially nice when their warm and the chocolate chips are still soft, and they remind me of break time in school where we'd all que to get the best warm cookies form the canteen!

Ingredients:

250g (9oz) plain flour 

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

170g (6oz) unsalted butter, melted 

200g (7oz) soft brown sugar 

100g (3.5oz) caster sugar 

1 tablespoon vanilla extract 

1 egg + 1 egg yolk 

250g (9oz) chocolate of your choice, chopped into small chunks

Optional - Desiccated Coconut  

Method:

Preheat your oven to 170°C / Gas mark 3-4. 

 In a big, dry bowl, sift your flour, bicarb & salt together. Set to one side.

In a separate bowl mix together your sugars & butter. 

Next beat in your eggs & vanilla extract.  Add to the dry mixture and stir thoroughly! you can add your chopped chocolate and nuts/dried fruits if you fancy (hazelnuts are good!!).

Line a baking sheet with greasproof paper and make small ball shapes out of the dough. Place on lined baking sheet quite spaced apart and cook for 10 - 13 minutes (until they are lightly bronzed at the edges). I sprinkled a little desiccated coconut on some but thats up too you!

Leave to cool on a wire rack (if you can!!)

I really like separating the yolk from the white!

I had mine once they had cooled slightly but were still soft and warm :) yum!

Scott was a big fan too and has devoured quite a few already :P...

Simple Brownies

Chocolate Brownies..... Need I say more?

They `re my ultimate cake, yes I have finally decided (for now at least) that brownies are my favoruite kind of cake. I've never been a massive sponge fan, and I'm defiantly a chocolate lover, so naturally I tend to dip towards brownies as my go-to cake when i'm out.

I've made brownies a few times myself, but never really found a recipe that worked quite right for me - until now people :)...

 Ingredients:

185g Butter

185g Dark Chocolate

85g Plain Flour

40g Cocoa Powder

100g chocolate (white,milk,or dark)

3 Large Eggs

275g Caster Sugar

Method

Melt the butter and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over some hot water (on the stove/hob) or in the microwave if you prefer. Leave the melted mixture to cool.

Preheat your oven Gas Mark 4, or 180C   Line the bottom of a 20cm square tin (or the nearest size you have).

Mix together the flour and cocoa powder. In a separate bowl mix together the eggs and caster sugar. It's best to use a hand mixer/machine so the mixture becomes thick and creamy.

Poor the egg/sugar mixture into the cooled chocolate and butter. Fold in gently (I hate this bit). Chop the 100g chocolate into chunks (I use a sharp thick knife on the chopping board to do this). Sprinkle over the mixture, along with the dry ingredients and again fold.

Poor carefully into your lined tin. I topped mine with a few chopped pistachio's! 

Bake for 25 minutes. (ours took a little longer as Scott kept opening the oven.... The mixture should be left a little gooey, but if its still wobbling when you take it form the oven, give it another 5 minutes or so!

This is the pretty marbling effect that happens when your 'gently' (Im so impatient with folding) the brownie mixture.

I drizzled a few chopped Pistachio nuts on the top for a little colour pop! But you could try and nut or dried fruit you fancied! Cranberries and freeze dried raspberries work great too.

And then it's ready :) Ideally you should leave the brownies to cool before eating as they do taste better that way and are a lot easier to cut!

Frozen chocolate banana's

I have a new food obsession, again....

These frozen chocolate banana's are too die for, honestly, I can't describe how delicious they are (providing you like chocolate and bananas?!)

I was inspired to make some after finding them on this blog 'Smile and wave' and I couldn't wait to give them a go :) Scott absolutely hates banana's so unfortunately these weren't to his taste, but if your a banana freak like me then I can guarantee you will think these are awesome! They are also dead easy to make (a little messy) and use a lot of the ingredients I used for my Dipped chocolate ice cream cones recipe!

What you will need:

Banana's (3-4 ripe ones)

lolly pop sticks/ cake pop sticks

200g milk, dark or white chocolate

nuts, sprinkles, m&m's, marshmallows, dessicated coconut etc

 Method:
Divide you banana's into three parts per banana, roughly 3 inches each.
Now insert your lolly pop stick about 3/4 of the way up each banana.
Lay your banana's on a sheet of baking tray paper, and freeze for 2-3 hours (or overnight).

Melt your chocolate ( I use the hot water and stove method) until fully melted. Set aside for a minute or too to almost cool. While waiting you can start chopping nuts , or making small  piles of toppings.

Now there are two ways for the next step, you can either dunk the bananas into the chocolate, and then into the toppings, or you can spoon the chocolate on and then sprinkle to toppings over that way. I have to say either way is quite messy, but I preferred spooning the chocolate on.

Now place back onto the baking tray paper and freeze for about 20 minutes, or until the chocolate has set. And that's it! 

 This picture makes me giggle, it reminds me of Stonehenge almost?!

 I prefer the chopped coconut and dark chocolate version :)

 Here is a sneak peak of the chopping board I used to add the toppings with - As you can see  I'm a messy cook, but these were well worth the spilt chocolate for!

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

 As I have said before, Peanut butter is one of my favourite foods. I could eat peanut butter until it came out of my ears, especially when it's paired with chocolate. Reece's Peanut Butter cups are a brilliant American snack/treat where they produce this very combination!I gave my own version a go this week and they were incredible, potentially one of the nicest things I've made and eaten in a long time! They are creamy and yummy and not as salty as Reece's which means you can eat more (very dangerous). Mine were slightly larger as I only had brown muffin cases opposed to mini muffin cases, but to be honest more can't be a bad thing! It takes a lot to impress all the members of my family at once, but this time EVERYONE was a big fan and we enjoyed them for a dessert after our evening meal.

I prefer crunchy peanut butter, but thought smooth would be more similar to the original version, but in the future I may give the crunchy type a go!

 

 Scott is also partial to Peanut butter, especially Reece's, and devoured a good half of what I made, the greedy piglet....

  Once again I like to have my afternoon sweet treats with some milk, as apparently it's good for your bones / teeth etc. But really I just like the taste :)

 I used milk chocolate for the majority, but Dark chocolate would work equally as the peanut butter is very sweet. All in all I was very impressed with my new culinary triumph! In other news it's not long until the tearoom is open at my parents shop homewoodbound collections... SO EXCITED

Chocolate tiffin cake

Chocolate tiffin is my go-to cake of choice when I'm out. Sometimes I fancy a brownie or a Victoria sponge, but generally I tend to edge towards a tiffin. I think it's because I am such a chocolate monster, that I sometimes get bored with all the sponge in cake. My friend Cecily, and boyfriend Scott think I'm quite irritating when I eat all the icing and filling of a cake but leave the sponge. I don't know about you, but to me that's the best bit! Tiffin however doesn't have sponge, especially not dry sponge, as it consists of a biscuit base, soaked in butter and syrup and flavoured with cocoa powder - YUM.

Sometimes it can have big chunks of biscuit, or can be finely crushed, sometimes it has nuts, cherries and dried fruit, and sometimes it's plain. But it HAS to have a lovely thick layer of milk (preferably milk, but dark will do) chocolate on top!

Recipe adapted from This page

Ingredients: 

110g (4 oz) butter

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons golden syrup

4 teaspoons cocoa

225g (8 oz) digestive biscuits, crushed (some fine and some chunky)

1 handful of raisins , and or glacier cherries, dates etc

225g (8 oz) milk chocolate

1. Melt the butter and syrup in a saucepan. Careful not to burn the butter. Now add the cocoa powder and sugar.

2. Crush the digestive biscuits. You can do this by hand or in a food processor. I place the biscuits into a freezer bag and use a rolling pin to crush them, which is good as it finely crushes some parts and leaves some good chunks too.

3. Now add  your biscuits and handful of fruit/nuts to your wet mixture. Give them all a good mix so the dry ingredients are all covered.

4. Pour mixture into a Swiss roll size tin and press down. Melt the chocolate and pour over the mixture in the tin.  Refrigerate for roughly and hour or until ready to serve.

 

 I like mine with a cup of tea. It doesn't really need anything with it as it's so delicious and rich as it is.

  This is also a lovely little plate I found in a box of things my mum had bought at an antiques fair last week. The colours of the flowers are really cool, and I like that their not just pinks and daintily coloured. The maroon works well with the dark green, and really sets off the cake !

 This cake doesn't last very long in our house! My mum is also a big tiffin fan, and my dad and Scott just like cake generally, so they regularly enjoy eating the concoctions I find myself making.

Earrings, Kisses and Scott

 My earring collection is nicely expanding. The Skelton’s are glow in the dark for Halloween!

Mum bought these Hershey's kisses from Selfridges in the Trafford centre yesterday. Yummy.  

Polaroid picture of Scott, Molly, Ella ( the choccy labrador's) and Harrison the cat.