Tag: white chocolate

05Dec

Whisky and caramel cake bites

I will very rarely admit defeat when it comes to recipes. In the last few months I have developed a couple of cake recipes, baked them and failed them. Eventually I got the ingredients and methods rights but that meant a few flat, mushy attempts had to be foiled up and sent to the cake morgue, a.k.a. my bottom freezer drawer. The morgue was getting really packed and this was causing marital tensions. My husband is a minimalist when it comes to storage of any kind. So what’s a girl to do with all this cake? Cake pops, naturally.  Bad idea. I watched dozens of videos, researched what was the best brand of candy melts and was the biggest visitor to Bakerella’s site last month. And yet they were a complete failure. I wanted to make something special for my nephews birthday and it went catastrophically bad, to the point I was covered in yellow candy melt, ferociously throwing away all of the jelly tots cut out in the shape of pooh’s ears. And the question remained…what to do with all this cake? Cake pops’s closest (and low maintenance) relative, cake bites. And a grown up one at that.Maybe good
2 mins read
848 Views
07Oct

Cranberry, nut and chocolate cookies

  These are thank you cookies or as you say in German, danke cookies. Rather than doing the shop-bought stuff I like to give people all sorts of homemade gifts, especially edible ones such as cookies, sweets and savoury biscuits. I do this because it is the kind of present I would like to receive too, something people have put time and effort behind, from the buying the ingredients to making the wrapping look nice, it’s a process I love.  Before I took maternity leave I thought a lot about bringing a treat to the people I work with. I work in social services with a lot of adolescents, especially girls, so what do girls love most? Sweet things. So I decided on this recipe, it is only the second time I make it, the first was a couple of years ago when I bought my sister-in-law a nice glass jar. But it looked so empty so I made a batch of these to go with it. At the time I had the recipe on a little handwritten note but unfortunately I have misplaced it. So on this recipe I used both white and dark chocolate, Brazil nuts and cranberries.
3 mins read
534 Views
15Sep

White chocolate mousse tart

I look forward to the weekend when you get the door-stopper version of the paper and my favourite bit are the supplement magazines. They are a great source of food inspiration for me. On the other hand some of their food articles can also cause me great annoyance. Thing is I am quite naive when it comes to health, I will believe in what the professionals say and the papers and magazines have all sorts of professionals giving a whole lot of conflicting information. It’s all too much for my fickle mind. This revolt started when I read about the owner of the hottest new green juice bar in London in one magazine and then in the next there were big, fat quotes by Tracy Anderson saying that juicing vegetables get rid of all the nutrients and fibre. Last week carbs were bad, this week sugar is the devil and I am reading about this lady with a complete sugar-free diet. Completely free. I don’t know what I admire the most, her motivation or her ability to find the strangest spreads for her rice cakes. I know they are not telling you to do anything but I feel that we’ve become a little too obsessed with
4 mins read
662 Views
07Jan

Perfect monochromatic balance

I had to feed seven people last weekend with only a few hours notice. Had a whole chicken to roast with all the trimmings and with no time to go out and shop I had to devise a dessert from my cupboard items alone. I felt like I was on Masterchef. Knowing I had some chocolate in the cupboard I decided to leaf through my trusty Green and Black’s chocolate recipe book for the recipe with the least ingredients. The answer was mousse. Now, I am not a fan of mousse, any type of mousse, not even chocolate, I find them……boring. But, like I said, time was a-ticking and with a heavy main I reasoned it would add a fluffy, light end to the meal. Plus it is one of the least costly desserts you can make. I am not a snob when it comes to ingredients but as this recipe calls for so few I would advise using good quality chocolate, I used Lindt 70 to 80% cocoa solids. Marbled Mousse (serves 6) 125g dark chocolate, finely chopped 125g white chocolate, finely chopped 5 eggs 75g caster sugar 400ml double cream 1.Melt both chocolates in separate bowls and set
3 mins read
554 Views