Gingerbread White Hot Chocolate #BEDN

After pinning for my Winter Wishlist, I just had this idea to make a gingerbread white hot chocolate. There are definitely some recipes out there but I winged this one and it turned out to be pretty tasty! And easy to make.

Gingerbread White Hot Chocolate

Ingredients

Milk
Brown sugar
Cinnamon
Ginger
Nutmeg
White Chocolate
Whipped Cream
Marshmallows

Method

1. Using the cup you're going to drink from, measure out the milk to 2/3 full. You don't want it to be much more than that as when you add the white chocolate, the volume will increase and you also want room for whipped cream and/or marshmallows! Add to saucepan and heat (but don't bring to boil).

2. I added a teaspoon of light brown sugar. Now, a dark brown sugar or even molasses would probably be more suitable for a gingerbread flavour but I used what I had on hand. I had a sprinkle of cinnamon and ginger, I don't include measurements because for one cup, it's going to be too small to really measure. Just add to taste! You can add nutmeg too, I didn't because I didn't have it on hand. If you don't like any of these spices, leave them out! You could have it as a white hot chocolate or if you do add them in, you could also add in a spoon of coffee to make it more a gingerbread latte.

3. Break up white chocolate and add to hot milk. I got a small 100g bar from Tesco, I used it all because I like sweet things but you can use less. Or use a white hot chocolate powder if you want the taste but not the calories. Options do a white hot chocolate powder.

4. Whisk until chocolate is melted and then pour into mug. Add topping of choice (I add whipped cream) and dusted it with cinnamon and milk chocolate shavings.

5. Enjoy!

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Last week was my brother’s birthday, so I asked him what cake he wanted. ‘Chocolate. Chocolate fudge cake!’. I knew the perfect recipe to use, Lilly Higgins’ recipe from her book Make Bake Love. I had made it almost exactly a year ago but never posted it up here! It’s unusual in the sense that it uses yoghurt, it makes it quite a dense cake but it’s very moist. For me though the star is the buttercream icing, very chocolately and delicious!

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Adapted from Lilly Higgins’ Make Bake Love

Ingredients

125g dark chocolate, chopped

200g Demerara sugar

180g butter, softened

3 eggs

180g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

225ml natural yoghurt (I used vanilla flavoured)

1 tsp vanilla essence

Chocolate buttercream

55g butter, softened

230g icing sugar

40g cocoa powder

5 tbsp milk

Half tsp vanilla essence

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180. Butter and flour sandwich tins.

2. Melt the chocolate (either in microwave or over a double boiler) and leave to cool slightly

3. Beat the sugar and butter in a separate bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

4. Sieve the flour and baking powder together. Mix gently. Add the yoghurt, vanilla and melted chocolate. Fold in gently.

5. Divide the batter evenly and make a slight hollow in the centre (this will help the cake raise evenly and make sure there’s no peak in the middle. If there is, once the cake has cooled you can cut the cake with a serrated knife to level it off).

6. Bake 25-30 minutes. Leave to cool on a rack and sandwich together with one half of buttercream. Spread remaining on top.

7. Beat the butter with half the sugar. Add remaining sugar, the cocoa, milk and vanilla and mix.

Nutella Chocolate Ice Cream!

Yes, the title of this post deserves an exclamation mark at the end of it, it totally does. It’s Nutella Ice Cream!! I got The Icereamists book by Matt O’Connor for Christmas and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to make it. So I decided thanks to the hot weather I’d make some homemade ice cream. I visited The Icecreamist shop when it was in Covent Garden last week and treated myself to the From Rocher With Love ice cream, which is the recipe I used. However, I couldn’t find any Ferreo Rocher so I used the next best thing: Kinder Bueno. It worked, it was just as nice!

Nutella Ice Cream with Kinder Bueno Chunks

Adapted from The Icecreamists by Matt O’Connor

Ingredients

250ml Full Fat Milk

125ml double cream

2 egg yolks

88g caster sugar

225g Nutella (or any hazelnut chocolate spread)

1 Kinder Bueno Bar, chopped into chunks

Edible gold balls, to decorate

Chocolate sauce

Method

1. Heat the milk and cream in a pan on gentle heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture begins to steam. DO NOT LET IT BOIL!

2. While the milk and cream are heating, whisk the egg yolks in a heat proof bowl until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until pale and slight fluffy. Once the milk and cream mixture is ready, pour it gradually into egg mixture, whisking continuously to prevent scrambling.  Place the mixture back into the saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring frequently until the custard mixture thinly coats the back of the wooden spoon. Again, do not let boil!

3. Take off heat and add 150g Nutella to the custard and blend with stick blender. Pour the mixture back into the bowl and leave to cool at room temperature for about 30 minutes. It is important that the hot mixture is not placed into the fridge straight away.

4. Once cooled, cover and place in fridge, cooling for at least 6 hours but preferably overnight. To hand churn, pour mixture into a plastic container, cover with lid and freeze for 50 minutes. Remove from freezer and beat with electric beater or stick blender. Return to freezer. Repeat this step every 30 minutes for 2-3 hours. This makes sure the ice crystals that develop are small and evenly dispersed. Large ice crystals leave a gritty, sandy mouth feel and are no desired! If you have an ice cream machine, churn according to manufacturer’s guidelines.

5. Once churning is complete, heat the remaining Nutella (75g) in a microwave for 20 seconds and fold into the ice cream along with Kinder Bueno.

6. Return to freezer with lid and freeze for another at least another 2 hours or until mixture reaches scooping texture.

7. To serve, decorate with chocolate balls and chocolate sauce. Enjoy!

Dark Chocolate Guinness Brownies

Part 2 in my baking with Guinness adventure! One of the most popular desserts made with Guinness seems to be brownies. And I don’t have a problem with that! My recipes is inspired by the Beer Brownies found at The Kitchy Kitchen. The Guinness really helps to intensify the chocolate flavour, in a way that coffee does.

Dark Chocolate Guinness Brownies

Adapted from The Kitchy Kitchen

Ingredients

100g (3.5 oz) dark chocolate, broken into pieces

8 tbsp butter

4 eggs

200g (1 cup) granulated sugar

220g (1 packed cup) light brown sugar

30g (1/4 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder

130g (1 cup) all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

120ml (1/2 cup) Guinness

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease a square pan.

2. Sift together flour and cocoa powder in a bowl and set aside. Melt together the butter and chocolate over a low heat.

3. While the butter and chocolate are melting, whisk together the sugars and eggs until thick and shiny. While still beating, add the dry and wet ingredients in alternatively, until it is all evenly mixed. Do not over mix though.

4. Transfer to pan and bake for 40-45 minutes, until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.

5. Leave to cool in pan completely before removing.

These are lovely brownies, you definitely get the Guinness coming through but I liked it! Some chopped walnuts would be a nice addition. So I’m now a Guinness fan, as long as it’s in food and I don’t have to drink it!

‘Get these mother f**king snakes off my brownies!’

Romantic Chocolate Puddings

I made these chocolate puddings last year for Valentine’s Day and complete forgot to blog about them! They are too delicious to not share though!

Romantic Chocolate Pudding

Adapted from www.nigella.com

Ingredients

50g dark chocolate (or make a mix of dark and milk if you aren’t the biggest fan of dark chocolate)

50g butter, softened

100g caster sugar

50g self raising flour

2 medium eggs

1/8 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of salt

For the sauce

75g dark chocolate (or again a half and half mix of dark and milk)

23g butter

1 Crunchie Bar (optional)

Serves 4

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Chop or break the chocolate into pieces and then melt, along with the butter, either in the microwave or in a heatproof bowl of a pan of boiling water. Once melted, leave to rest and cool on countertop.

2. Beat the eggs and sugar together until thick, pale and airy (best to use an electric beater to do this unless you have strong arms!). Gently fold in flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

3. Fold in the melted cooled chocolate mixture, divide equally between 4 ramekin dishes and bake for 25 minutes.

4. To make the chocolate sauce, melt the chocolate and butter the same way you did the first time and then drizzle over the cooked puddings. Crush up some Crunchie (easiest way to do this is in a sandwich bag) and then add to the top of the puddings.

5. Enjoy!

My Halloween Party

Ok, so two posts in one day about Halloween, probably should have done them earlier than this but I wasn’t feeling great. I had a Halloween party for my birthday Saturday night (I will be doing a 25 Before 25 update seeing as I am now 25!). I had a great time organizing it!

This was the bathroom. We added a red light bulb for an extra creepy feeling, added cobwebs all over the place, wrote REDRUM on the mirror and put the creepy doll complete with axe and ‘blood’ (strawberry syrup!).

Here’s Mike the Mummy! We got some white clothes, stuff with them newspaper and then wrapped him in a ripped old sheet. Luckily the sheet was off white anyway so we didn’t have to tea stain it or anything. Got the idea from this video. We also added a red light bulb to that half of the kitchen.

I also got some warning tape from Tesco that said ‘Enter if you Dare’ and put it on the front door, but never got a picture of that unfortunately.

My cupcakes! Jack Skellington and vampire puncture marks. All I did was cut the top off cupcakes to level them off, add a bit of icing to it (jam would work too), rolled out and cut out ready to use fondant, stuck on top of cupcake and then used icing pens to fill in details. Simple but effective!

Brain cake pops! I got the idea from this post here. The broken ones happened because the chocolate wasn’t thick enough, I suggest doing a double layer of white chocolate at the beginning to make it stronger.

Brain hemmorrhage shots! Inspired by this post. But instead we used pear schnapps.

These weren’t made, my boyfriend bought them for me, but they’re too cute not to add!

I also had a jelly brain made from a big jelly mould I got from 2 Euro shop, Jelly shots and Jelly Shots in the shape of pumpkins and skulls that I made in a silicone ice cube tray.

We played snap apple and also I made a pinata in the shape of a Mummys Head but didn’t get a good shot of that.

 

And you can see my costume here, I was Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games.

We had a great night, I really enjoyed it. If you are looking for other Halloween treat ideas, check out my post on Witches Fingers and last year’s post about random Halloween treats I made. Enjoy!

Cake Batter Fudge

I’ve made this twice already and I love it! It’s so so simple and so quick to make. The worst thing is waiting for it to set!

Cake Batter Fudge

Adapted from The Pursuit of Hippieness

Ingredients

1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk

3.5 Cups (works out at almost 400g) white chocolate, chopped or broken into bits

3 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/4 of a tsp Almond Extract (original recipe called for 1/2 tsp, I found it too over powering. You could go for 1/8 tsp if you really don’t want a strong taste)

Sprinkles

Method

1. Pre-line a pan (I used a square baking pan) with tin foil and spray with some cooking spray (or brush some oil on). Put the condensed milk and white chocolate into a microwavable bowl and microwave until white chocolate has melted. Stir to blend until smooth.

2. Add the extracts and stir. Add the sprinkles, stir slightly to mix in. Pour mixture into pan and then sprinkle some more sprinkles on top so they sit and stick to the top.

3. Let rest in the fridge to firm. The first time I made this, it wasn’t firming so cut into pieces and turned them upside down, this helped to firm. I think it wouldn’t firm as I didn’t have enough chocolate in it, so definitely make sure you have enough.

4. Enjoy!

30 Days of Pinterest: Day 9

In my head, when I started this challenge I wanted to try and vary the things and pins I did. But in the back of my head I knew that might not happen, especially since I mainly use Pinterest for baking and cooking ideas.
Yesterday I made some Mini Egg Easter Cupcakes and gave them all to my family, save the few mini ones I made for my boyfriend and I. Today I was really craving cake but not the long wait (yes, 15 minutes was too long for me!). And then I remembered. I remembered I had pinned a Cake in a Mug recipe. OH. JOY!
The pin lead me to this Babble post on a chocolate and caramel cake mug recipe. I must have anticipated I’d want to make this as I actually bought some caramels on Friday. Success!

Chocolate and Caramel Cake in a Mug

Ingredients
4 tbsp plain (all purpose) flour
4 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg (beaten)
3 tbsp milk (full/semi/skim, it’s up to you)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 caramels
Method:
1. Add all the ingredients except the caramels to a bowl. Mix until smooth and there’s no lumps.
2. Transfer into a large enough mug. Put the caramels into the middle of the mixture.
3. Place the mug on a clean plate. Microwave on high for 1 and half minutes. Keep an eye on it around the 1 minute mark to make sure if doesn’t spill over too much. Even if it does, it should fall on the place. If the cake isn’t down after that time, put it on for another 30 seconds.
4. Enjoy! You can eat straight from the mug or else put it out on the plate.
Not the prettiest of cakes but definitely tasty! It makes plenty of cake, I actually gave half of it to my boyfriend. If you find yours a bit too dry, then you could add some chocolate or caramel sauce to it.

30 Days of Pinterest: Day 8

Day 8 of 30 Days of Pinterest fell on Easter Sunday and while I’m not particularly religious, I decided I was going to bake some cupcakes for my family. With mini eggs on top. And that’s what I did!

I took inspiration from Like Mam Used To Bake’s nest cupcakes, as well as this pin too. I decided to use the same recipe that I used for my chocolate truffle cupcakes.

Chocolate Nest Cupcakes

Ingredients

150g Butter, softened

150g Caster Sugar

175g Self Raising Flour

50g Cocoa powder

3 eggs, beaten

Vanilla Essence

About 2-3 tablespoons melted dark chocolate

For the Icing

75g Butter

150g icing sugar

50g melted dark chocolate

Mini Eggs

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Cream the butter and the sugar together until fluffy.

2. Add in half egg mixture and half the flour and cocoa powder and beat.

3. Add remaining egg mixture and vanilla essence and beat.

4. Fold in remaining flour mixture. Once it is fully folded in, fold in some of the melted truffle mixture.

5. Spoon into liner and bake for 10-15 minutes or until a knife or toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean (length of time to bake will depend on how big you make the cupcakes). Leave to cool fully before icing.

6. To make the icing, melt the white chocolate either in the microwave or in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Take off heat and let cool.

7. Cream the butter and icing sugar together. Once smooth, add the white chocolate and mix to incorporate. To make the nest shape, put icing into a piping bag with a star nozzle, make a circle and add some to the centre of the ‘nest’ so the mini eggs will stay in place.

I also crumbled up some Flake bars and sprinkled over some of the nests to give it more of a ‘twiggy’ look. I also chose green cupcake liners for the effect of grass or leaves.

Also I ended up with a little cake mixture left over, so I decided to make some smaller cupcakes with only 2 eggs on top. I thought they looked so cute, almost too good to eat! Almost…

Rainbow Cookies!

I love Pinterest! It’s one of my favourite websites, has great ideas for a whole range of things. My favourite being recipes. Especially baking and dessert recipes! I actually made these last summer and forgot about writing the post until now. Super simple to make and even more impressive than shop bought ones!

Rainbow Cookies

Adapted from How Sweet It Is

Ingredients

270g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

170g butter (melted and cooled. Microwaving is the fastest way to melt, leave it stand for roughly 10 minutes after to cool)

200g brown sugar

100g caster sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

2 tsp Vanilla extract

Handful or two of M&Ms (original recipe calls for mini ones, I used crispy ones though. Choice is really yours)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F). Sift the flour and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, mix the butter and sugars together until combined. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and stir until mixed.

3. Gradually add the flour and mix until a dough forms. Don’t worry if it looks a bit crumbly at first, it will all come together (use your hands if you think you need to). Fold in M&Ms.

4. Divide the dough (if you want larger cookies, use large balls). Using your hands, shape each portion into a ball and then pull each ball in half. You are then going to stack one half on top of the other, with the ‘rough’ part (from where it was pulled) facing upwards and then squish both halves together.

5. Place the dough rough sides up on baking tray, leaving enough space between them to allow for spreading.

6. Bake for 12-15 mins (large) or 8-12 (regular size) or until slightly brown. Don’t let it brown too much as you want the cookie more chewy than crunchy.

7. Let them cool completely and enjoy!

You could add different chocolates in if you’d like. How would you make them?

Two Birthday Cakes!

So I’ve been a busy bee recently when it comes to baking! I made a cake for my brother’s late 21st party (due to him gallivanting around the U S of A for the summer) and one for my other brother’s 18th birthday. And I have another one to make this week for yet another brother! (I have many brothers!).

Only had time to get a quick shot of this in the fridge and no time at all to get a picture of it sliced as it was devoured immediately!

I used the big cupcake mould as I did for the Pig Cake. For both cakes I used a chocolate Madeira recipe (similar to this one here, but double to amounts).

For the 21st cake, I made a dark chocolate ganache, similar to the one made for my Chocolate cook-along, used some silver sparkly gel icing pen for the writing and some silver balls.

For the 18th giant cupcake, I made a white chocolate butercream icing (like this one here), added a tiny bit of butterscotch sauce in between the layers as well and decorated with Toffee Crunch chocolate fingers, Smarties, Malteasers and Magic Stars. It was fun to decide what went on the cake!

Golf Cake!

For my sister’s birthday back in March, I made her a pig cake. So when my sports mad brother turned 13 on Friday and seeing as he’s on a golf kick at the moment, I decided to make him a golf cake! A It was my first time experimenting with sugar craft so go easy on me. It’s a golf ball, tee and flag in the rough.

For the actual cake mix, I made a simple Madeira batter that I used to make these cupcakes for my sister last year, divided the batter into two cake pans.

For the buttercream icing, I used the same recipe in the link above. To make it chocolate flavoured, I mixed one dessertspoon of cocoa powder with a teaspoon or so of hot water to make a very thick paste , added it to the icing and mixed until incorporated. I used a small about to sandwich the two cake layers together and used the rest to cover the entire cake. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

For the ‘dirt’ effect, I crumbled two Flakes in a bowl and the fixed it onto the cake.

For the golf ball, tee and flag, I bought some fondant icing sugar and made the paste and dyed some of it with food colouring. I used liquid colouring, though I think gel would work better. I don’t think I fully succeeded to get the right consistency so I would like to try it again. But it did the job! I carved in 13 into the flag (which is on a cocktail stick) and

Last thing was the grass. I melted some white chocolate, dyed it green and then dripped it onto grease-proof paper to make ‘blades’. With that, some I stuck into the cake and the rest I chopped into small pieces and sprinkled over the cake for shorter blades.

My brother seemed to like the cake. I’ve now got to put my thinking cap on for ideas for cakes, 18 year old, 21 year old and 9 year old! So plenty more cakes for September.

Rocky Road

Last month was my friend’s birthday and I was arranging a last minute sort of get together and wanted something quick and easy to bring along. So I decided to try make some Rocky Road!

I decided to turn to one of my favourite YouTube cooking channels, Sorted Foods. I love their recipes and how much fun they seem to have while cooking. I think it really shows the enjoyment you can have when cooking. Here’s the video.

I varied my recipe slightly but that’s the beauty with rocky road, you can chop and change the ingredients to suit your taste. You can add different nuts, some dried fruit or some desiccated coconut.

Rocky Road

Adapted from Sorted Food

Ingredients

300g plain chocolate, chopped into pieces

120g butter

30g golden syrup

150g digestive biscuits

Handful of mini marshmallows

Handful of chopped macadamia nuts (or nuts of your choice)

Method

1. Place a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water. Add chocolate, butter and golden syrup. Melt until smooth and glossy.

2. In a plastic Ziploc bag, add the digestive biscuits and bash with a rolling pin. Don’t crumble them too fine, you want some large-ish pieces.

3. Add the biscuits, marshmallows and nuts into the chocolate mix and stir to coat everything.

4. Line a square baking tin with cling film in both directions and leave some over hanging. Transfer rocky road mixture into the tin and smooth out. Cover the top with the extra cling film and place into fridge for a few hours to set.

5. Remove from tin by pulling up the cling film and cut into squares.

And here’s the spread! A lemon cake, rainbow cupcakes, scones, rocky road and sweeties. Yum!

Peanut Butter Blondies

I’ve spoken before about recipes that seem to follow me around. Recipes that I see in books and online that keep pop up and just seem to follow me around, begging to be made. This was certainly the case for this recipe. I first saw it in Rachel Allen’s Bake. Every time I open up that book for find another recipe, I always pass this one and think ‘I must make these some day!’. And yet I always passed over it, despite really wanting to make it! Then I saw it on The Katz Miaow and when my blogiversary came around, I knew it was the perfect excuse to make these! And for those that don’t know, blondies are essentially brownies made with white chocolate.

Peanut Butter Blondies
Adapted from Rachel Allen ‘Bake’
Ingredients

125g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

100g butter,at room temp

150g peanut butter (recipe calls for crunchy,I used smooth)

175g soft brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

1tsp vanilla essence

75g white chocolate, chopped

Handful of mini marshmallows

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 170°C. Butter the sides of a 20 x 20cm square cake tin and line the bottom with greaseproof paper.
2. In a bowl, cream the butter and peanut butter together until soft and fully mixed. Add the sugar, eggs and vanilla essence to the bowl and mix until combined.
3. Sift in the flour and baking powder. Add white chocolate chips and mix to form a dough.
4. Place dough into the baking tin and smooth until level. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes or until top is golden brown.
5. Remove from oven and allow to fully cool in tin. This is important, to let it set.
6. Cut into squares and serve! It goes well with vanilla ice cream. I served it with butterscotch sauce.

Chocolate Marmalade Cake

Ok, I think I made it clear that I’m a big fan of Babaduck Babbles, I’ve posted recipes from the blog twice before (here and here). When I saw the recipe for Chocolate Slump Cake, I swear I was drooling. And I put it top of my things to make list.

There’s a bit of work with it, but trust me it’s so worth it. It comes out almost like a brownie, especially around the sides of the pan. Babaduck used a square pan, but suggests that you use round pans if you wish. I opted for the square one and if you want the fudgy brownie like edges, then I suggest you do too!

Chocolate Marmalade Cake

Adapted from Babaduck Babbles

Ingredients

100g Orange Marmalade(I used one with very little visible peel), 125g Caster Sugar, 150g Butter (at room temp), 150g Dark Chocolate (chopped), 4 Eggs (separated), 50g Cocoa Powder, Salt, Icing Sugar (for dusting)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190°C. Grease and line the bottom and sides of baking tins.

2. Blitz marmalade in a food processor until slushy. I don’t have a processor (sob!), so I used the blender. It takes longer but gets the same results.

3. Add sugar to marmalade and blitz until sugar is incorporated. I added a tiny dash of water to loosen the mixture up a bit as it wasn’t blitzing for me.

4. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Remove from heat and immediately add the chocolate. Allow this to sit for 2-3 minutes before stirring to fully melt the chocolate. Add the sugar and marmalade mixture and transfer to large bowl.

5. Beat the egg yolks into the mixture, then add the cocoa powder and stir until fully mixed.

6. Beat the egg whites and a pinch of salt until soft peaks form (you don’t want them too stiff). Fold the egg whites gently into the chocolate mixture until fully incorporated.

7. Transfer into baking tin and mix for 30 minutes or until the centre of the cake has fully baked.

8. Allow to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes, then remove carefully and peel off paper. I was impatient and the centre of mine hadn’t fully set, so when I took it out it fell apart a bit. Still tasted nice though!

9. Dust with icing sugar and enjoy!

This is a very very rich cake, so a little goes a long way. It’s lovely hot or cold and would go lovely with some good quality vanilla ice cream or some good old whipped cream. I’m dying to make it again, Babaduck thinks it would be lovely with lime marmalade and I have to agree with her on that! It would probably be delicious.