Every day I'm truffle-ing

What a funny joke.

Super Rich Chocolate Truffles

• 200g dark chocolate broken up
• Same weight of double cream (about a medium sized tub)
• 40g butter
• Cocoa powder

Heat cream till it just starts to boil and pour it over the butter and chocolate and mix really well until it's silky smooth. Pop it in the freezer for a couple of hours until it sets. Throw some cocoa powder over your work surface and pull out a bit of the ganache with your finger tips (it will still be really melty) and drop it into the cocoa powder. Roll the ganache around in the cocoa until it forms a ball - repeat with the rest of the mixture. So easy! These little chocolaty things are definitely best kept in the fridge. 

Oh non! Mes macarons échoué.

I am being defeated by the macaron. Macaroning isn't the kind of past time best suited to my 'bung-everything-in-make-it-up-as-you-go-along-doesn't-matter-if-you-can't-find-the-kitchen-scales' method of baking, but I shall try again soon.

Healthy breakfast healthy breakfast...

Right, I will agree that this breakfast dish looks kind of dodgy and really quite unappetising. But it's delicious and healthy and keeps you going all morning.  And it's pink.

Bircher Muesli 

• Muesli/oats
• Raisins/any other dried fruit you fancy
• Walnuts/almonds etc
• Apple (cut into chunks)
• Strawberries (sliced)
• Raspberries
• Grapes 
• Natural yogurt to bind it all together
• Apple juice (just a glug to loosen it up)
• Some seeds 
• Whatever other fruit/nutty/seedy bits you want!

I haven't put the measurements because it doesn't really matter, my Mum makes a giant bowl of it and keeps it in the fridge to last all week. It does look gross but I promise that it isn't. Basically just mix everything up together into a giant pink sludge. DONE!

Please Sir, may I have some more?

Crumble cake

As the fact that I'm going to be off to France for a whole scary year in about two months starts to feel a bit more real (one-way flight has now been booked - agh!) I decided to make a deliciously English cake.

Blackberry Raspberry Crumble Cake

• 190g butter
• 190g plain flour
• 190g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 30ml milk 
• Half a teaspoon of cinnamon
• 150g of raspberries and blackberries (frozen or fresh)
• 50g walnuts or pecans (chopped up)

Pre-heat your oven to 170c and grease a loaf tin. Whiz your butter and sugar together for ages until it's nice and fluffy - it is best to use an electric mixer but if you're braving it and doing it by hand then I salute you. Mix in the three eggs one by one, then chuck in the dry ingredients and milk and mix really well. Add the fruit and the chopped nuts - the recipe I was using asked for pecans but I only had walnuts (we all know the walnut is inferior to the glorious pecan) but in the end the walnuts worked really well so the choice is yours! Little warning: if you're using frozen fruit you may need to leave your cake in the oven for a bit longer because the frozen-ness of the berries messes up how quickly your cake cooks.

Lovely Crumbly Topping

• 20g butter
• 50g plain flour
• 50g soft light brown sugar
• 30g chopped up walnuts (or pecans)

Rub together the butter and flour with your fingertips until you have little breadcrumbs and then rub in the sugar and the nuts. Sprinkle this over your fruity cake and then pop it in the oven for about an hour. When it's done you should be able to stick a knife right into the middle of the cake and it should come out clean.

Leave it to cool a little bit before tipping it out of the tin - your lovely English cake is done!

A proper grown-up cake

                                                                     
This cake is a grown-up cake. It's super rich and chocolatey and dark and there's not a sprinkle, marshmallow or a marzipan girl in sight.

Dark Chocolate Orange Cake

• One big fat orange (about the size of your fist, or if you have unusual fists about the size of a normal-sized fist)
• 3 eggs
• 250ml sunflower oil
• 100g plain/dark chocolate melted (stick it in the microwave for a minute or so)
• 280g caster sugar
• 35g cocoa powder
• 250g self-raising flour

Pre-heat your oven to 160c (fan oven, turn it up 20c or so for a normal oven) and greese up a 9inch(ish) tin. Beat your eggs, sugar and oil till smooth then zest the orange into the mixture and squeeze in all the juice - do it over a sieve or something so you don't end up with a cake full of pips. Shove in the rest of your ingredients and mix it up really well. Pour it into the tin and pop it in the oven for around 50 mins. Let it cool completely before topping with...

Dark Chocolate Ganache

• 200g dark chocolate all smashed up into bits
• 300ml double cream

Heat the cream slowly on the hob until it starts to boil - stir it the whole time or it will burn and go really gross. Pour the hot cream over the broken-up chocolate and mix really well, leave for an hour or two while it sets then spread it over the top of the cake. Grate some orange peel over the top if you want to give it some colour, you can make 'candied orange peel' by boiling sugar and water and sticking orange peel in it or something but I don't think my patience will stretch quite that far. Voila, a sophisticated caked!

                                 

A massive birthday cake

My Natalie turned 18 so we made her a huge raspberry cake with a mini Nat on top, she melted a bit and her hands were about the size of her head but it's the thought that counts! (and the taste obv)

Ailsa having funsies

Faye gettin the dishes done

Choux pastry and a profiterole disaster

It was my mum's birthday last week and I attempted a profiterole tower thinking it would a pretty impressive yet relatively easy birthday surprise. It wasn't. The choux pastry itself was fine and filling them with the cream was really fun but the whole dipping-them-in-chocolate-stacking-them-with-caramel-making-a-tower-thing pretty much flopped (literally). Due to the fact the tower was not a pretty sight there are no final pictures but I will go through the steps of making choux pastry - I made chocolate eclairs recently and they looked so cute but completely forgot to take a picture!

Choux Pastry (makes about 6-8 chocolate eclairs, double up like me if you want more!)

• 30g of strong white flour 
• A teaspoon of caster sugar 
• 25g butter
• 80ml of water
• 1 large egg, whisked

Set your oven to 180c (fan oven) and line a baking tray with baking paper/grease it. Heat your water and butter in a pan on the hob mixing until you have a melty buttery watery soup. As soon as it starts to boil take it off the heat (don't let any of that water evaporate as this is what puffs up the pastry) and throw in the flour and sugar all in one go and mix it up until it forms a kind of soft dough. You'll only have to stir if for a minute or two and it should look like this:

When you've got something that resembles this add in your whisked egg BIT BY BIT - don't just chuck it in at once because your mixture will curdle. Add a teeny bit at a time mixing in between until your pastry no longer looks like dough and starts to look all smooth and glossy like this:

Next put your lovely shiny mixture into a piping bag and pipe into the shapes you want. Little circles for profiteroles and longer tubes for chocolate eclairs.

Pop them in the oven for 10 minutes then turn the heat up an extra 20c and leave them there for a further 15 minutes until they're looking golden and crisp. Stab each of the buns with something sharp (like a knife) and leave them in the turned-off oven for the insides to crisp up. Use a piping bag to fill them with cream and spoon some melted chocolate on top and you're done!