Glass Jars of Chocolate Caramel Yumminess!

Pat Whelan (@Pat_Whelan) posted a link yesterday to a site which had loads of brilliant ideas for using jamjars in unusual ways. I love using my spare pots as candle holders or to serve little desserts in but when I spotted cupcakes being baked in the oven in glass jars it opened my eyes! Loads of American bloggers seem to be experts at this form of baking so I decided to give it a shot using my foolproof chocolate muffin mixture. This is actually my mams recipe and it is so easy, quick and only uses four ingredients, five if you want the chocolate version which is compulsory with my sons and husband! This is exactly the recipe you need if you don't want to go shopping specifically for ingredients as they are all store cupboard favourites. I added a teaspoon of homemade caramel sauce to give it an extra little layer of taste and moistness.


Easy Chocolate Muffins (makes enough for 8 glenilen pots and 6 muffins)

8 oz margarine
8 oz caster sugar
4 eggs
10 oz self raising flour
1 oz cocoa powder
14 tsp of caramel sauce (optional)

Preheat oven to 180c
Lightly butter the glass jars
Cream the margarine and sugar together then add one egg at a time and mix well
Sieve flour and cocoa powder and mix lightly into wet mixture
Spoon into the glass jars until half full and put remainder into muffin cases
If using put the caramel sauce onto a layer of muffin mixture and then cover with another layer
Bake in oven for 15/20 minutes till skewer comes out clean
Allow to cool fully as the glass will remain very warm before indulging!

It's Mojito Time!

Staying in seems to be the new going out in our house, there is nothing we like better than having a group of friends over for some nice food and drinks. We have an arrangement that I look after the food end of things and hubs provides the entertainment, he can't sing or dance very well but he still manages to do a good job of it! Last night we had some friends over for an Indian themed evening, elephants on the table, loads of candles in jamjars and punjabi music all added to the atmosphere and of course the gorgeous wafts of Indian spices coming from the kitchen helped tantalize the taste buds. Two of my favourite flavours are mint and lime so these featured in a lot of my dishes and to complement the flavours I served jugs of Mojitos, I know they are not Indian but they are very refreshing to have with spicy food and have great flavour when freshly made. We had poppadoms, onion bhajis and pakoras to start, for mains we had chana masala, creamy chicken korma, bombay potatoes and lime basmati rice and last but not least my favourite part of any meal is always dessert and for this I made delicious white chocolate mojito pots. I surpassed myself with these little beauties, they were luscious!

White Chocolate Mojito Pots

500g mascarpone cheese
275g white chocolate
Juice and zest of 1 lime
2 tbsp white rum

Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a pot of water, take off the heat before completely melted and keep stirring until smooth.
Beat the mascarpone cheese into the chocolate until really well combined, add the finely grated zest and juice of the lime and the white rum and mix.
Spoon into pots (I used 6 of the glenilen yoghurt glass pots).
Refrigerate overnight or for at least 4 hours to allow to set completely.

I decorated my little pots with some fresh mint leaves that I had dipped in melted dark chocolate and allowed to set on baking paper and also some more lime zest. They looked so impressive and despite the lusciousness it was a lovely fresh taste to finish off a spicy meal. Have another get together planned for early December so need to get my thinking cap on to see what theme I will go with then!

Swirly Lemon Curd and Chocolate Buns

I have been meaning to make these buns since @donalskehan posted a version on his blog a number of months ago. Sweet dough flattened and spread with a filling of your choice before rolling, slicing, baking and eating. The original version uses a cinnamon butter as a filling but amazingly one of my friends doesn't like cinnamon so I had a look in my cupboard and came up with a lemon curd and chopped dark chocolate filling which was luscious and sinful. I love lemon curd and dark chocolate so this was a win win combination for me and my friend!

Ingredients

200ml milk

2oz butter

7g dried yeast

2oz sugar

375g cream flour

pinch of salt

4 tbsp brown sugar

1 egg beaten

For the filling;

100g lemon curd

100g dark chocolate, chopped

Method

Melt the butter over a low heat before adding the milk

When this is lukewarm remove from the heat and add the yeast, the 2oz of sugar and salt

Slowly add the flour until the mixture forms a dough, turn onto floured surface and knead for 3 minutes

Leave to rise in a greased bowl, covered, for 45 minutes

When dough has risen roll out into a rectangular shape

Spread the lemon curd on top and sprinkle over the chocolate

From the long side roll the dough to form a swiss roll shape before slicing into 12 pieces.
Place in muffin cases, brush tops with beaten egg and sprinkle over the brown sugar
Bake in a preheated 220 degree oven for 10 minutes or until they are golden on top
Leave to cool on wire racks

These delightful buns are best eaten on the day they are made but if you do have any leftover just give them a quick reheat in the microwave for a couple of seconds to freshen up the dough before enjoying with a nice cup of coffee and sharing with friends.

And the winner is.....

Thank you all so much for entering my competition and for all the lovely comments! 55 entries altogether which was fabulous! So after a row between the boys about who was picking the number and with an independent observer present the winner is @michaeltwomeybutcher ! Send me on your address so I can post your prize! :-)

Makes one feel posh dipping biscotti in espresso!

Its a well known fact among my friends that I love all things posh. Fancy candles that I never light, fresh coffee, a pineapple in my fruit bowl* and 80% cocoa chocolate in my press! Of course I am writing this in jest with my tongue firmly in my cheek but I do love a bit of posh! My hubs knowing me inside out recently bought me a lovely stove top coffee pot and I am enjoying brewing my daily coffee with it, always love to have something nice with it and what could be more authentic than a biscotti. There seems to be a huge amount of recipes on the world wide web for them but Nigella never lets me down so I used her lovely recipe from Feast.

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 100g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• few drops almond essence
• 125g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 50g blanched almonds
• 75g dark chocolate chips (Obviously I used high % cocoa chocolate and chopped it up!)

  

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Whisk egg and sugar till it falls in ribbons from whisk
Beat in vanilla and almond essence
Fold in flour, salt and baking powder slowly in batches
Fold in almonds and chocolate
Pat dough into a log like shape and place on baking parchment on baking tray

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden
Leave cool for 5 minutes then slice diagonally
Place back in oven on parchment for 10 minutes then turn and bake for further 5 minutes
Cool on wire rack
Make coffee and dunk!



I felt very sophisticated sitting at my breakfast bar drinking my coffee and nibbling my biscotti. Try the recipe and you can feel posh too!

*are pineapples posh?? :-)

Little competition to say thank you!

I am a bit of a twitter addict. Actually replace bit with huge. I love the interaction, the fun and the humour of all my twitter pals. I was inspired by all the foodie tweeters to start my own blog and I love to see my stats and am amazed by how widespread my readers are! Trinidad & Tobago, South Africa, Australia, America and Russia all regularly dip in! I love finding new things to bake and write about and I love reading other blogs and getting inspiration from them. I have had almost 5000 hits and to celebrate am having a little giveaway. Most of us are Jamie Oliver fans and I have a copy of his new book "Jamies Great Britain" and a little surprise to give away. To enter just leave a comment below, tweet me or facebook me by Sunday 6th November and I will enter you into the hat. Will get one of the kids to pick out the winner so there will be no cheating! Thank you all for your fabulous company and for all the lovely comments I have received!

Spooky Halloween Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes!

I have confessed before about my love of cookery books, am always happy when I have a lovely new one to look through and a cup of coffee in my hand, throw in a slice of cake and I may as well be in heaven! The Great British Bake Off arrived during the week and what a gorgeous book it is, loads of stuff in it that I want to make and eat. Isaac (3) thinks that John our postman is brilliant as he is always bringing parcels to us, he has not quite grasped the whole middle man situation as of yet! Well I hope wherever you are that you have just as generous a postman as we do!

Chocolate muffins are always a big hit here with adults and kids alike so when I spotted the recipe for Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes I decided that I would try them. I have never used melted chocolate in a cupcake recipe before its usually cocoa powder however I don't think there is any going back after trying these!

Ingredients (makes 12)

• 175ml semi skimmed milk
• 150g self raising flour, sieved
• 125g caster sugar
• 100g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa)
• 60g unsalted butter
• 1 large egg, room temperature, beaten
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Place cupcake cases in a 12 hole muffin tin

Heat milk, chopped chocolate and one third of the sugar in a saucepan over a low heat

Remove from heat as soon as it is melted and give it a good stir to combine

Beat the butter until creamy

Add sugar and vanilla and beat till light and fluffy

Gradually add the beaten egg

Next add a third of the flour and stir, followed by a third of the melted chocolate mixture and so on until everything is in the one bowl.

Fill the cases with a ice cream scoop

Bake for 15-18 minutes until well risen

Leave to cool for two minutes before cooling completely on a wire rack



Buttercream Icing

When i make buttercream icing I never really measure anything but just combine in a bowl until I achieve the taste and texture I am looking for so all measurements here are approximate and to my taste.

100g butter

100g icing sugar

1 tbsp cocoa powder, sieved

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy

Add the cocoa powder and beat to combine

At this stage you can smear the cupcake with the buttercream or else level of the top of them and pipe it on. I used a Wilton 1m nozzle to decorate mine. I started off on the outside of the cake and worked inwards to the middle then piped another swirl on top of this. I used little plastic Halloween figures to top some of them which the kids absolutely loved and I left the rest plain. Totally delicious and most definitely on the "make again" list!