Category Archives: Food

Dangerous Chocolate Brownies

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Almost foolproof, and the only equipment needed is a saucepan, a spoon, and a baking tray.


Ingredients

  • 200g butter
  • ½ cup cocoa
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 1 cup flour
  • ½ tsp baking powder/soda
  • 2 eggs

Optional Extras

  • Block of chocolate, broken
  • Chopped Walnuts
  • White chocolate chips
  • Habanero sauce 😈

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C, grease or line a tin. 
  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and cocoa together on very low heat
  3. Add the salt, sugar, and vanilla and mix well.
  4. Take the pot off the heat and sift in the flour, then mix Mix it in. 
  5. Add the eggs, but make sure that the mix is not too hot. (otherwise the eggs will start to cook early) Beat them in really well.
  6. Add any extra ingredients you’d like, either mixed in the batter or on top.
  7. Spread evenly in the tin and bake for 20-25 minutes, preferably it’s still a little bit gooey.
  8. Wait until cool, then tip out and cut into pieces. (it will be a bit too soft when first taken out of the oven)

Substitutions

The recipe works very well with substitutions:

  • Dairy-free: swap butter for oil, skip heating step. Use dairy-free chocolate for extras.
  • Gluten-free: use gluten-free flour substitute.
  • Egg-free: swap 2 eggs for an equivalent amount of banana or applesauce.

The Brownie Game

For some fun, make two otherwise identical batches of brownies – one with habanero sauce, one without. Present mixed together in one pile. 🤯

Honey Cake

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Honey Cake

Serves 12 or so?

This lovely cake is very tasty, quick and simple to make, and light but moist.
It was an accidental invention – the first time I made it, I was trying to make biscuits!

Ingredients:

  1. 11/2 cups plain flour
  2. 1 cup almond meal or “LSA” or almonds ground up in a food processor
  3. 1 cup castor sugar
  4. 11/2 tsp baking powder
  5. 250g butter, softened
  6. 2 eggs
  7. 1/2 cup honey
  8. 75 mL milk
  9. 300ml whipping cream

Method:

  1. Mix the dry ingredients (A-D) in a bowl,
  2. Add everything else except the cream (E-H) and mix well.
  3. Line shallow baking trays with baking paper and spread the mixture out thinly.
    The recipe covers 2-3 trays.
  4. Bake at 180 degrees (170 degrees for fan-forced) for 10-15 minutes, until the edges brown slightly.
  5. Cool the layers completely, and cut into even-sized sheets.
  6. Whip the cream (I) to stiff peaks.
  7. Build the cake in layers, spreading cream between each layer.
    It might be easier to make several smaller cakes.

Serve with a hot or cold refreshing drink.

Chocolate Mousse Cake – vegan

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So good! Don’t tell your guests that it’s vegan, and they’ll never guess…

Vegan Chocolate Mousse Cake

Makes a 20cm dia cake – Serves 8


Vegan Chocolate Mousse Cake

Cake

  1. 11/2 cups plain flour
  2. 1 cup brown sugar
  3. 1/4 cup cocoa
  4. 1 teaspoon baking soda
  5. 1/2 teaspoon salt
  6. 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  7. 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  8. 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
  9. 1 cup water
  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C, and line with paper or grease a 20cm round cake tin.
  2. Sift A-E together into a bowl.
  3. Add the remaining ingredients, mix with a blender until smooth.
  4. Pour into cake tin, bake for 45 minutes, or until cake skewer comes out clean.
  5. Remove from oven, allow to cool, remove carefully from the pan for further cooling.

Mousse

  1. 1 block (200-250g) dairy-free dark chocolate, melted.
    (Many dark chocolate brands use milk solids, check the ingredients)
    (An easy method to melt chocolate; break it into squares and microwave for 20 seconds at a time, stirring well each time, until all melted)
  2. 1 packet (250-350g) of silken tofu
  3. 2 tbsp milk (coconut, almond, rice etc)
  4. 3 tbsp icing sugar
  5. 1 tsp vanilla essence
  6. Generous pinch of salt
  1. Put all ingredients together in a bowl.
  2. Blend at high speed for several minutes. The mousse should be completely smooth.

Assembly

  1. Half a jar of strawberry jam
  1. Turn the cake out of the pan.
  2. Using a long bread knife, cut the cake in half horizontally. Put the lower half on a plate, and the upper half aside.
    (The cake will be fragile, so take care to prevent it from cracking)
  3. If your cake tin is the spring-form kind, place the ring over the cake.
  4. With a spatula, spread the mousse over the lower half of the cake.
  5. Place the upper half of the cake over the top.
  6. Melt the jam in the microwave (about a minutes) until molten.
    (Warning: Hot jam is hot.)
  7. Spread/pour the jam over the top of the cake.
  8. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour.

Serve on its own or with ice cream/sorbet.
If vegan: Do your best to keep everyone else away from your precious cake. Precious…

Cherry Ripe Cheesecake

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I’m having trouble getting good photos of my desserts… they keep being eaten! Here’s another hard-to-photograph success; Cherry Ripe Cheesecake!

Cherry Ripe Cheesecake

Makes a 25cm dia cheesecake

Base

A: 375g good-quality chocolate biscuits
B: 125g butter, melted
C: 3tbsp cocoa (for chocoholics)

Process biscuits in a food processor until very fine. Mix in cocoa.
Add melted butter and stir together.
Line a spring-form tin with paper and press the mixture into the base and sides of the tin.
TIP: Pour about 2/3rds of the mixture in, and make the sides first! Then pour the rest in and flatten out a base.
Place in the fridge to set.

 Filling

A: 200g dark chocolate
B: 4 large cherry ripe bars
C: 1 tin black cherries, drained
D: 750g cream cheese, at room temperature
E: 100g caster sugar
F: 3 eggs

Chop up chocolate and cherry ripe bars, place in a double boiler to melt.
Beat cream cheese and sugar together until smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time.
Once chocolate has melted take it off the heat, and ensure it’s not too hot.
Beat in the chocolate mixture and cherries.
Pour the filling into the springform tin, and smooth out the top.
Bake at 180°C for 50 minutes.
Switch off the heat and prop the door very slightly ajar, let cool for 45 minutes.
Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Topping

A: 300g cherry jam
B: Cherry ripe bars, to decorate

Microwave jam in a heatproof bowl until liquid.
Pour evenly over cheesecake.
Chop or slice cherry ripe bars as desired, decorate top.
Place back in fridge for at least 5 minutes before serving.

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Almost ready to eat!

 

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And almost gone!

 

Salted Caramel Sauce

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Left-over cream, what can I do with this? Cribbed a few recipes together, and improved the technique.

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Salted Caramel Sauce

A. 500g caster sugar
B. 150mL water
C. 300ml double cream
D. 250g butter
E. 1 heaped tsp salt

  • Heat cream, butter, and salt in a small saucepan, at low heat.
  • Stir occasionally, continuing on with the recipe, and switch heat off and cover once the butter is dissolved.
  • In a heavy-based medium saucepan, heat sugar & water together until the sugar fully dissolves.
  • Increase the sugar mix’s heat to high, and bring to the boil.
  • When boiling cover the pan for 2 minutes, to allow the buildup of steam to dissolve any grains of sugar on the sides.
  • Uncover the pan, boil without stirring.
  • Watch pot carefully! When mixture reaches >170ºC and becomes golden, remove from heat. (IR thermometers are great)
  • With a long-handled spoon stir the mixture, while very slowly pouring in the cream/butter mix. The mixture will foam up a lot!
  • When all combined, put back onto medium heat, still stirring.
  • Bring mixture back to the boil for a few minutes, lifting the pan off the heat if it threatens to boil over.
  • Let cool for 10 minutes, then taste test. You might need to sample several times.
  • Pour into jars, over ice cream, cakes, whatever you like.

Salted Caramel Peanut Chocolate Tarts

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Here’s my new very dangerous tart recipe.
Not for diabetics or those with heart conditions!

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Pastry

A. 250g plain flour, sifted
B. 3tbs cocoa powder, sifted
C. 3tbs pure icing sugar, sifted
D. 165g chilled unsalted butter, chopped
E. 30ml (2 tbsp) chilled water

  • Process all ingredients except the water in a food processor until fine powder.
  • Add the water, process until combined.
  • Turn out onto floured board, knead for 1 minute, roll into a ball, cover with glad-wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
    …
  • Divide the dough into 8 portions, then for each portion;
  • Roll into a 12cm-dia circle, place into an 8cm-dia flan case, trim excess with a knife
  • Place on a tray in the freezer for 30 minutes
    …
  • Preheat oven to 200ºC.
  • Cover the cases with baking paper and pastry weights, bake for 10 minutes.
  • Remove and bake for 5 minutes longer – should be dry to the touch.
  • Let cool completely.

Salted Peanut Caramel

A. 300g caster sugar
B. 180ml water
C. 250ml double cream
D. 120g salted peanuts, finely chopped

  • In a heavy-based saucepan, dissolve sugar & water at low heat until the sugar dissolves.
  • Set heat to high, and boil without stirring. Occasionally remove sugar crystals from the side of the pan with a wet pastry brush.
  • Watch pot carefully! When mixture reaches 160ºC and becomes deep golden, remove from heat. (IR thermometers are great)
  • With a long-handled spoon stir cream quickly into the mixture – it will foam up!
  • Put back onto medium heat. Stir for at least 2 minutes, until mixture is smooth and bubbles up again.
  • Let cool for 30 minutes.
  • Stir in peanuts.

Ganache

A. 150ml double cream
B. 150g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

  • Chop, process or grate the chocolate into small pieces, put in a jug.
  • Heat the cream (but do not boil), then tip into the jug.
  • Stir with a spoon until the chocolate is combined, then mix with a stick blender until smooth.

Putting it all together

  • Pour caramel into each case, leaving room for the chocolate layer, tilt cases to spread caramel
  • Put back in freezer for 5-10 minutes
  • Pour ganache into each case, tilting to ensure coverage.
  • Place a few flecks of sea salt in the centre of each tart.
  • Chill until served.

The tarts will be very rich. Serve with cream or ice-cream.