Rocky Road Easter Nests
Barely a recipe this one. More an exercise in getting the kids into the kitchen and allowing them to become covered head to toe in chocolate .
Still, they taste quite nice, which is always a bonus. Firstly, then, you’ll need:
150g Green and Black’s Milk Cooking Chocolate
1 tbsp golden syrup
100g Rice Krispies
30g mini marshmallows
50g Maltesers
50g dried cranberries
50g brazil nuts
1 pack mini eggs
Firstly, then, melt your chocolate very gently over a saucepan of water. Turn the heat off as soon as the water is simmering. Remember, treat your chocolate gently!
When it’s melted, stir in the golden syrup. You can add a knob of butter if you like but I never bother. Then stir in the rice krispies making sure they’re well covered.
Now just add in anything you like, really. I used marshmallows, Maltesers, dried cranberries and brazil nuts, but you could use any combo of dried fruit/nuts/sweeties. Try to keep the volume roughly the same though:
Stir it all together, then pop into paper cases and add your mini eggs on top. Set aside for a while so they have a chance to set before you scoff them.
Happy Easter!
Chocolate, oat and apricot cookies
One of my golden rules here at English Towers 2 (and there aren’t many, in fact, I think that’s the only one – oh no, hang on, there’s the no saying ‘eurgh’ at the table… oh and then there’s not referring to one’s wedding vegetables as ‘nads’ – I hate that…) is that everyone has to have breakfast. I will never complain if I’m asked to cook poached eggs and toast first thing in the morning (which I often am) as I’d so much rather they ate something. Sometimes it’s just a biscuit or a slice of toast and a quick mug of hot chocolate (oh, there’s another golden rule – there’s a 5 marshmallow limit to each mug).
But here’s the rub: if they’re going to eat biscuits, or worse, force down a cereal bar first thing in the morning, wouldn’t you rather that you had: a) some control over the contents and b) the chance to sneak in some healthy stuff, even if it’s covered up by the taste of chocolate? Yes? Here, then, are my ‘not very healthy but better than a Weetos bar’ breakfast (or anytime) cookies:
You’ll need:
125g butter
150g dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla paste (or extract, never essence)
150g flour (make it wholemeal if you like)
50g oats
50g chocolate, chopped
Handful dried apricots, chopped
So cream the butter and the sugar until it’s light and creamy.
Then add in the egg, beating well, and then the vanilla paste:
Chop the chocolate:
then gently stir in, along with the flour and the oats…
and the apricots (chop finely first):
Blob the hideous-looking mixture onto a non-stick baking tray (a dessertspoon per cookie is about right):
…and bake at 180 degrees/gas 4 for about 12 minutes. They’re better when they’re still a bit soft in the middle.
Store in an airtight container. They’ll last a couple of days (what am I saying? they’ll last about ten minutes). Serve as a last resort ‘oh Mum, I don’t want any breakfast’ kinda thing with a glass of milk or a hot chocolate.
Sticky ginger ‘Guinness’ cupcakes for Paddy’s Day
So today is a happy and a sad day. I’m happy, because I love all things Irish, and we’d always have a wonderful day out at a pararde or a mad boat race or somesuch nonsense, and then a special St Patrick’s Day dinner at English Towers to mark the occasion. Sad, because I miss our lovely Irish home and even lovelier Irish friends. So this post is dedicated to all of them: wonderful, bonkers Jen, D&D Next Door, to the scrummy Mrs Lovely, and to Poppy’s Mum. I miss you all.
Guinness cupcakes, then. This idea was more to emulate the ‘look’ of Guinness, rather than the actual taste, which I have to admit I’m not a great fan of. Still, their dense gingery fudginess is certainly Guinness-like, and the light, soft topping of whipped cream adds to the effect. They don’t taste too bad, either, which is a bonus.
You will need:
170g Irish butter, softened
200g dark brown soft sugar
3 eggs
2 tbsp black treacle
170g self raising flour
2 tsp ground ginger
First, then, beat the butter and sugar. Soft brown sugar is the way to go here – you want the toffee, fudgy taste that it adds:
Make sure it’s really pale and fluffy before you move on to the next step:
Add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition, then add the black treacle. Mix well.
Now, sieve the flour and ginger, and add in to the mix.
Stir gently, without overworking the mixture. Spoon into muffin cases and bake at 180 degrees/gas 4 for about 15 – 20 minutes until just springy in the middle. Remove to a rack to cool.
Meanwhile, if you want to make cream cheese icing, just whisk about 100g of cream cheese like Philadelphia with a squeeze of lemon and 200g sieved icing sugar. Or you can just spoon over some whipped cream. Or ganache. Or just normal glacé icing. Or just leave them plain. I’m all-encompassing on the topping front. It’s just how I roll.
Obviously you can use ganache (click here for how-to guide with Green & Black’s), but then you’ll lose the ‘pint of Guinness’ effect:
If you’ve got far too much time on your hands like certain people I know *cough*, then you can make really pathetically bad shamrocks out of chocolate to adorn your cupcakes, or pop on a little bit of greenery (make sure it’s edible – this is lemon thyme).
NOTE: As a little trial, I did reserve a bit of the mixture and add in a couple of tbsp of Guinness. The result is pleasingly earthy and not at all unpleasant. I would suggest that it was more of an adult taste, but well worth a try.
However you make them, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you enjoy them and have a wonderful St Patrick’s Day.
Oh, and this is especially for my wonderful BFF, Jen:
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig
(See, Jen, all your teaching wasn’t in vain – look at those ‘fodders’! LOL xxx)
Arsebiscuits!
My sister in law (who is a sweet, gentle creature) once told me that many moons ago, during a lovers’ tiff with my brother, she was so cross she took the tomato sauce bottle and wrote ‘SHIT’ on the kitchen floor in ketchup. You see? Naughty words are a form of therapy. And with this in mind, laydees and gentlespoons, I bring you the arsebiscuit.
I’ve been banging on about them for so long, and have now persuaded so many of my Twitter followers to rush out and purchase arsebiscuit kits (nope, I’ve no idea why they don’t do them on Amazon.co.uk either), I thought I’d better crack on and get you all a good recipe upon which you can work out all that existential angst (or just write rude words).
Here we go then:
100g butter
100g caster sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
200g plain flour
30g cocoa
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Firstly, preheat your oven to a measly gas 3/160 degrees. Make sure you have either a well-greased baking sheet or a sheet of Bake-o-glide, as these buggers will stick if you let them.
Now, beat the butter and sugar really well until it’s pale and fluffy. Then beat in the golden syrup (remember, dip the spoon in boiling water first):
Sieve all your dry ingredients, then work them into the butter mixture with a fork (don’t use the processor, you want crisp, snappy biscuits, not concrete).
This does make quite a crumbly dough, but remember you’re going to mess it about with your hands, so be patient, it will come together.
If you’re using the bake-o-glide, you can roll and cut straight onto it, otherwise, you’ll have to be brave and make your biscuits then transfer them to your baking sheet with a spatula.
So just roll your dough out until it’s about 1/2 cm thick, pushing the edges in with your fingers until you get a rough rectangle.
Now you can let rip with your lettering machine, or just use biscuit cutters to make shapes (if your children aren’t quite at the ‘SHIT’ biscuit stage), or even just a knife to cut them into squares.
Bake for about 15 minutes. They obviously won’t change colour much but will be firmer to the touch.
For your delectation, I produced for you (insert fanfare):
The ‘tidy your room or else’ biscuit:
The ever-popular ‘shut your face’ biscuit:
Or maybe you prefer the brevity of the ‘shut up’ biscuit?:
Sadly, the ‘oh shit’ biscuit cracked a bit, but somehow this adds to the overall message:
…the Englishmum.com biscuit:
And sadly my actual ‘arse’ biscuit didn’t come out very well:
First one to provide photographic evidence of selling these beauties at the school fete gets a prize.
In which my mojo returns and I make ganache with Green & Black’s
So as you know, I kinda lost my blogging mojo.
It all started to really bug me. I mean, what am I exactly? A foodie blogger? In which case, should I concentrate on food, and not talk so much arse? Or am I a ‘mummy blogger’ (how I hate the term)? A foodie mummy blogger? A foodie blogger who’s also a mummy? A doggy blogger? A foodie doggy mummy blogger? A blogging mummy foodie… er… dogger?
I think I’m kind of ‘none of the above’, really. I’m a blogger who happens to be a mother of two ridiculously fantastic and hilariously funny boys of whom I’m immensely proud. And I’m a foodie. But I’m also a wife, a very occasional journalist (One article this year so far, count it: one.), and a daughter of quite the most spectacularly mental parents you could wish for. I write about food, yes, and I write about kids, but then I write about all sorts of old rubbish besides those two things and an awful lot more besides: greyhounds, chickens, ‘bollocks’ pies, sexual gymnastics…
So I decided I wouldn’t pigeonhole myself. I would let my verbal vomit run free. I would practice ‘no holds barred’ blogging – ‘blogging sans frontieres’, if you would. And do you know what? My mojo came back.
The return of the missing mojo was also partly due to the lovely chaps at Green & Black’s sending me a mahoosive parcel of chocolate. I mean, whose mojo could remain missing when surrounded by about ten different flavours of the most fabulous chocolate in the world?
And seeing as we’ve got the ginormous Cupcake Challenge in the offing, I thought I’d say a few words about chocolate and a few more about ganache:
A few words about chocolate
Chocolate, especially decent chocolate like Green and Black’s needs gentle treatment. That means that melting it in the microwave is a bit of a no no in my book, as the microwave can create hotspots and burn the chocolate or turn it grainy. The best way is to place it in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Make sure the water isn’t touching the bottom of the bowl, and when the water starts to bubble, just turn it off and allow the chocolate to melt gently. I’m a bit anal, but I don’t like to stir until it’s completely melted:
Furthermore, there’s no point in bunging in a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk (as nice as it is) – you need something good quality with a high cocoa content, and for cooking, good cocoa butter content will make for easier melting. I tried Green and Black’s Milk Cook’s Chocolate (one of many in my stash) and was really pleased with the result: melted easily? Check. Nice milky taste? Check. No hint of graininess? Check. Furthermore, each little square weighs exactly 5g. Magic!
A few more about ganache:
There’s some kind of ridiculous snobbery about ganache. I mean, just because it’s got a poncy French name it doesn’t mean it has to be poncy itself: it’s just cream and chocolate for goodness’ sake. If you make it runny you can pour it over things as a glaze, or if you make it stiffer you can make truffles, you can chill it and whip it and then pipe it on things too, but it’s still just chocolate and cream.
Anyhoo, so just whisk your cream into your melted chocolate until you get the required consistency (as above), then pour or spread over your cake as required. For piping, bung it in the fridge, then give it a whisk before filling your piping bag.
Et voila. Ganache. Magnifique, n’est-ce pas?
(Oh and these little beauties are red velvet cupcakes, taken from an awesomely, beautiful new book called ‘Eat Me’ by Xanthe Milton which is due to be published on Mar 4th – and guess who’s getting a review copy?!)
English Grandma’s special spiced rum and raisin brownies
So English Grandma was visiting last week. It was her birthday and as usual here at English Towers, this meant that the birthday person had the honour of choosing their own cake. Except of course English Grandma didn’t really want a cake, in fact, didn’t really want to be reminded that she was 70 at all. It’s a great age, though, I reckon. It’s the same age as Raquel Welch (about whom the term ‘looks good for her age’ equates to calling the north pole ‘a bit nippy’) and Ralph Lauren, for goodness sake, who’s classier than Ralph?
Plus, there are so many bonuses to being 70: you can be as outspoken as you like, wear odd socks, shave your dog’s hair into weird patterns, use beer towels for curtains (Hubby actually had an aunt that did that) or walk around with your hair sticking up like Fr Jack out of Father Ted, because, let’s face it, who’s going to say anything to you about it? And even if they do, you can club them with your handbag and get away with it. Bonus.
Anyhoo, digressing. So I had to think of a nice dessert which would please the chisellers, who insist on cake at birthdays (what child doesn’t) and be unbirthdaycakey enough to please the mother. I know she likes rum and raisin and I toyed with the idea of rum and raisin ice cream, but then the cake-ish issue reared its ugly head again. ‘I know!’, said #2,’ birthday brownies!’. Fabulous. And for an added twist, I thought I’d get the rum and raisins in there too. Here goes, then:
3 tbsp rum (I used Morgan’s Spiced Rum)
Couple of handfuls (about 50g) raisins or sultanas
200g dark chocolate (this one was from Lidl and had a very pleasing ‘snap’ to it)
170g butter (salted is best with chocolate, or add a pinch of salt)
3 eggs
225g caster sugar
110g plain flour
1/2 tsp ground mixed spice
So first preheat the oven to 180/gas4 and plop the raisins into the rum to soak. Melt the butter and the chocolate in a bain-marie (yes, I know you know, but some people don’t, so I still have to point out that we’re talking about a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, not touching the bottom of the bowl):
When the butter and chocolate start to melt, turn the heat off and let it melt gently using the residual heat. When it’s all melted together, put it to one side to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, take out your Very Special Anniversary KitchenAid (or a whisk and a bowl, if you’re not as lucky as me). Crack in the eggs (if you don’t have a small red chicken with an attitude problem who lays eggs that are approximately half her body weight, don’t worry, they sell eggs in Tesco too)…
…and whizz them together with the sugar until they’re nice and fluffy:
I’d just like to point out that this is a complete excuse to use the KitchenAid as I’ve actually just mixed the eggs and sugar with a fork before now, and it comes out exactly the same. Still…
Fold the flour and mixed spice in to the eggy sugary mixture - nice and gently because (altogether now): working the gluten in the flour too much will make the end result tough:
…and finally, stir in the melted chocolate and butter and the rum and raisins:
Put some bake-o-glide or greaseproof paper in the bottom of a lasagne tin, pour the mixture in:
… and bake for about 35 minutes until the top is all cracky and shiny, but the inside is still retaining a hint of gooeyness.
Leave to cool slightly.
Fight off children, reminding them that this recipe contains alcohol and is therefore for the over 18s only, and serve with a flourish, or some vanilla ice cream, to 70 (shhh) year old birthday girl.
Oh, and absolutely no singing of ‘happy birthday’, okay? She might hit you with her handbag.
Happy (belated) birthday, Mum!
The perfect chocolate cupcake
So this week is National Cupcake Week (as if we needed an excuse to eat cupcakes anyway), so I thought we’d go ‘back to basics’ today with a ressup for the perfect deeply darkly chocolatey cupcake with added… (you can get this)… chocolate! ‘Tis dead easy and a thing of beauty. Brace yourselves, then:
For the cupcakes, you’ll need:
200g bar dark chocolate (something with high cocoa solids is best) – remember only half is for the cupcake mix, the other half is for the ganache.
170g butter, softened
170g caster sugar
3 eggs (fresh from the chicken, preferably, but if not, room temperature is better than straight from the fridge)
115g self raising flour
55g cocoa powder
Double cream
First, then, preheat the oven to 180/gas 4. Snap the chocky into squares and melt it in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water (bain marie, blah blah).
Leave it aside to cool slightly while you beat together the butter and sugar until they’re really light and fluffy (did I mention I have a shiny new KitchenAid to perform this task? Yes? Oh okay then).
Now add in the eggs one at a time, beating really well after each addition.
Sieve the flour and cocoa into a bowl and fold them gently into the mixture.
Now, grab your melted chocolate and pour HALF of it into the mixture. Stir briefly to combine.
Dollop into paper muffin cups in a 12-hole muffin tray, or if you’re really greedy and want to make MASSIVE cupcakes, then just make 8 and stuff them very full.
Bake them for about 15/20 minutes (the bigger ones will take longer) or until the centre springs back up when you push it with your finger. Leave them to cool on a wire rack.
Now, for the ganache, take the rest of your melted chocolate, place it into your shiny new KitchenAid (oh yes, okay, you can use a bowl and a whisk if you don’t have one) and whizz whilst gently pouring in just a slosh of double cream. Don’t go mad – you need it thick enough to pile lusciously on top of your chocolatey cupcakes:
Finally, lock the door, take your cupcakes and sit in the corner of the kitchen, stuffing them into your face in a slightly deranged manner. Or if you’re really mental I suppose you could even share them.
Fetch the defibrillator! Double chocolate cookie dough brownies
So my lovely friend, fellow Disney 7 adventurer and blogger, Laura, kind of acts like my chocolate pimp – any sign of any chocolate action anywhere on the web and she’s all over it – it’s gatherered up and sent to me before I can blink. I like this. Which is why Laura is my friend.
Here, then, is Laura’s latest discovery – sniffed bloodhound-like from the bowels of the interweb and delivered to me ready to be fiddled with and muddled with and twiddled with and delivered to you, sparkly, new and fattening. Aren’t you lucky? Many thanks to the incredibly clever lady at One Ordinary Day for sharing this one.
Double Chocolate Cookie Dough Brownies
First, then, you need to make some brownies, for which you need my double, triple, quadruple, tested brownie recipe:
200g bar dark chocolate
170g butter
3 eggs
225g caster sugar
110g plain flour
110g nuts if you want, or chocolate chips, or nothing – see if I care…
So melt the butter and chocolat in a bain-marie (bowl over saucepan of just simmering water – not letting bottom of bowl come into contact with water – you know the drill). Turn the water off when it’s just bubbling and stir the mixture gently until it’s combined. Take it off the heat and allow it to cool to blood temperature (one doesn’t want extra scrambled eggy bits in one’s brownie, trust me).
Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and sugar together. I don’t put raising agent in my brownie as I guess they’re supposed to be quite fudgy and heavy, but I whisk the eggs and sugar to add a few bubbles. Don’t if you don’t want to – it’s just me being picky.
Now, pour in your chocky/butter mixture, stir until combined then bung in the flour and the whatever else you’re using: cherries/chocolate chips/nuts, etc. Or nothing.
Line a lasagne tin or baking tin with greaseproof (or have bits of bake-o-glide cleverly cut into the right shape, if you’re really anal about it *cough*), pour in the mixture and bake for about 35 minutes at 180/gas 4 until the top is shiny and cracked but the middle is still dense and squidgy. Leave to cool.
Now, for the cookie dough mixture:
130g butter, softened
130g muscovado sugar
100g caster sugar
4 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate, chopped (or chocolate chips)
200g plain flour
So whizz up the butter and sugars with the electric whisk, add in the milk and vanilla and whizz some more. Stir in the flour (it seems a lot, but it all goes in eventually). Finally, stir in the chocolate chips. Spread over the top of your cooled brownie and refrigerate.
Finally, to make sure your guests really suffer a coronary, melt another 100g of chocolate and drizzle it all over the top. Chill to finish. Serve in very small pieces as this is very, very rich indeed. Oops, sorry, I just drooled a little on the keyboard, let me get that…
Dark chocolate and peanut butter brownies
The little man’s school doesn’t allow any form of pre-packed sweets or snacks in their packed lunches. That means no crisps, no sweeties and absolutely no chocolate bars. Now I’m not an ogre, and while a healthy sandwich, some carrot sticks and an apple might be the way to go, it’s a bit bloody boring, frankly. So I like to slip in a small something to perk up his lunch a little – on the understanding that all the healthy stuff has to be eaten first, obviously. Home-made snackage is, happily, completely acceptable, so my current obsession is tray bakes, muffins, biscuits and flapjacks – anything to enliven the tupperware, as it were.
This one turned out pretty well, and, as I explained to him, peanut butter is good for you too, which makes this practically a health food (and if he’s not looking, I slip in some finely chopped dates, which add a nice toffee taste as well as being good for him):
175g dark chocolate
100g butter
70g crunchy peanut butter
2 eggs
170g caster sugar
110g plain flour
Preheat the oven to gas 4/180 degrees. Melt together the chocolate, butter and peanut butter in a bain marie (or a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water):
Remember not to let the water touch the bottom of the bowl – you want it all to melt very gently. Turn off the heat as soon as it’s starting to melt and continue to stir occasionally, letting the residual heat melt everything together.
Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and sugar together (spiky hair optional):
When it’s really light and fluffy, sieve in the flour and fold gently through:
Now pour in your melted butter, chocolate and peanut butter mixture and stir gently until just combined, then pour into a baking tin:
Pop it into the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, until even and slightly cracked on top. Remember you want to retain some squish in the middle. When cool, cut into squares and store in an airtight container, ready to enliven the lunchbox (or if you’re feeling all posh, serve warm with whipped cream). I guess you could say they’re nutty but nice. Ahaha.
In other news, EnglishGrandma is a-visiting, and last night I tried out the recipe that I’m going to co-post with Curious Wines (you’re going to love it – they’re going to choose wines for us to complement one of my recipes). Trouble is, after spending a whole afternoon toiling over oven-roasted butternut squash risotto, and chicken breasts stuffed with a sage, apple and red onion stuffing, taking step-by-step photos of the whole process, my camera promptly turned itself off and I lost every single photo. Not. Happy. Still, it came out well. I’ll just have to repeat the whole thing and photograph it all over again. Tsk.
Ooh and in other other news, I’m a Disney Blu-Ray Ambassador! Yay! Lots of film reviews coming your way, including one each from the English Smalls. Be afraid.
Oaty chocolate chip cookies: not a diet option, admittedly
Ah, the Easter hols. Don’t you just love them? Being a total heathen, I’m not particularly interested in the religious stuff, but hey, copious amounts of chocolate, fluffy bunnies and not having to get up to take the kids to school? Bring it on. This morning, then, found me pottering in the kitchen and doing some severe damage to my chocolate chip cookie recipe. I know, I love a fiddle. I just can’t help myself. Actually I think this one’s much better than my original - posted back in 2006 (can you believe that?), but see what you think:
125g butter
150g brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g flour
50g oats
100g chocolate, chopped
So cream the butter, then add the sugar and beat together until it’s really light. Add the egg and vanilla and beat again until pale and fluffy. Stir in the flour until it’s just combined, then add the oats and chopped chocolate:
Dollop the mixture in spoonfuls onto a baking tray. I used an ice cream scoop to make really massive cookies, but if you’re not such a disgustingly greedy pig, you could make smaller ones.
Bake at 180/gas 4 for about 10-12 minutes. Don’t overcook them as you want them really lovely and soft in the middle. Serve while still warm with a nice cup of tea.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of yummy stuff, pop over to the Daily Spud’s gaff, and check out her amazing sticky toffee pudding recipe - try it and die of happiness. Here’s my attempt, which was happily scoffed on Sunday:
There. If I haven’t succeeded in gumming up your arteries completely by now, I must be damned close. Enjoy!
