Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mar 10

Dangerous Ingredients

Are these the most dangerous ingredients you can find in the kitchen? Migraine inducing, tooth achingly sweet, waistline expanding total yumminess!

dangerousingredients

Today I was in need of a chocolate hug and this chocolate fridge cake (recipe here) certainly gives you that. No cooking required apart from melting the chocolate so you get the satisfaction of preparing something delicious without all the faff (and the washing up!) … the hardest part is waiting for it to set in the fridge!

chocfridgecake

I’ve been making this for years, sometimes I add raisins and sultanas.  You could add a splash of rum or similar to the chocolate mix but not too much or you’ll end up with sloppy biscuits. How about some coconut? I’ve even added a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter before … this gives a softer, slightly velvet texture to the finished cake (I left out the cherries for this version).

I’d love to know if you try it, and whether you make any different additions.  I just thought, how about leaving out the marshmallows and cherries but replacing them with fudge chunks! Mmhmm 🙂

It’s a short post from me today, Monday has been a busy day and now I must sleep so that I can wake up tomorrow and be the kind of woman that the devil is scared of!

 

Mar 8

Can I have another one … ?

brownies

They taste like heaven!

I couldn’t ask for better endorsement for my new brownie recipe, could I? Brownies are our celebration cake, what the children ask for at birthdays instead of a traditional cake.  Today we were celebrating my 10 year olds success with her school in a recent dance competition 🙂  These are gluten free, sticky, chewy and downright naughty!  You can find my recipe here.

fougassepre

I made a rosemary and olive fougasse and a couple of chocolate orange loaves using the sourdough starter.  We had the fougasse with minestrone soup for tea, it went down a treat.  I can safely say however, that olives are not all of my children’s favourite food!

The fougasse rose beautifully, it was deliciously fluffy and light … nothing like my first ever sourdough loaf which was tough enough to be used as a house brick! The olives add a juicy saltiness that worked well with the soup.  I added 1tsp finely chopped rosemary to the dough mix, next time I’ll add 2 tsp as I wanted a more fragrant loaf.

Food brings people together … ‘the family that eats together, stays together’.

fougassebrokenfougassebaked

This is the chocolate orange loaf, it’s tasty but the orange flavour isn’t pronounced enough so more tweaking is required.  I’ll post the recipe when I’ve perfected the flavour.  Going to try some different orange extract next time and it’s an excuse to order from one of my favourite places, Lakeland Limited!chocorangeToday I was asked why I bake when I’m so busy raising my four children on my own and running a small business.  It’s not a question that has a simple answer.  Baking gives me time to put those errant thoughts in my head straight. Kneading bread dough for 10-15 minutes gives me the time to reflect, work out what is important, to let go of and accept those things that I can’t change no matter how much I want to change them. Yes, it would be easier to buy bakery foods from the supermarket and I’m not a slave to the sourdough (we still have plastic bread for school lunches) but  I wouldn’t get the satisfaction and the calm within me if I didn’t bake. It’s a sense of achievement.