Still in pursuit of the perfect chocolate brownie, then, I made these while my children were out making giant… erm.. appendages out of snow.  I would show you a video but they’re all disgusting and their grandparents might see.  I don’t know where they get it from.

These brownies are utterly lush and slightly more ‘grown up’ than the version I usually make (George’s chocolate brownies) but the recipe is mostly the same.  I think they benefit from being served warm as the ‘oranginess’ comes out more.

You will need:

200g dark chocolate (as dark as you dare – see below)

170g salted butter (MUST be salted – or add a pinch if using unsalted)

3 tablespoons marmalade (I used rindless for a smooth result)

3 eggs

200g soft brown sugar (caster is fine if you don’t have any)

110g plain flour

Preheat the oven to gas 4/180 degrees.

Melt the butter, chocolate and marmalade in a bain-marie (you know the drill… bowl over a saucepan of just-simmering water – don’t let the bottom of the bowl come into contact with water).  Don’t use the microwave – I’ve no idea why but melting chocolate in the microwave REALLY offends me.  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 to cool to room temperature.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and frothy, then pour in the cooled chocolate/butter mixture, stir well, then add in the flour.  Stir briefly until the flour disappears.

Pour into a well-lined baking tin (I use a lasagne tin, but a square cake tin will do).  Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is cracked and shiny.  The centre should still be slightly soft.  Serve warm or allow to cool and place in an airtight container

For the orangettes, choose a really dark chocolate – try Green & Black’s or Montezuma’s do a brilliant, rich Ecuador 70% dark chocolate that I’m just slightly addicted to.  Melt two or three squares in a tiny jug and just dip small pieces of Orangette into them.  If you have any trouble buying the orangettes (basically, candied orange peel – I got mine in my Good Fork hamper), you can make your own, or try Amazon (believe it or not).

These would be beautiful served at the end of a dinner party with the dark chocolate orangettes, little cups of very strong espresso coffee and maybe some freezing cold shot glasses of Cointreau too.

(Best get rid of the snow willies on the front lawn first, though).

Moving swiftly on from healthy eating, then, we must remember there are those of us at English Towers (the gangly, floppy haired ones and the skatery types) that still want a little something after school or dinner and demand treats, preferably piled up in an ungainly, chocolatey tower when doing A level revision.

This, and I don’t say this lightly, is my best chocolate brownie recipe ever.  I make it such a lot that I know it off by heart.  Oh yes, it’s been tweaked and added to (pistachios, chopped up Cadbury Fudge bars, rum-soaked raisins), but the plain old dark chocolate version is the one we love.  I also have to make this whenever the Death Wish Dude’s lovely mate, George, comes to visit as he’s a bit of a fan.  You’ll need:

200g dark chocolate (I swear by Bournville – already in a handy 200g size, dark but not too bitter)

170g salted butter (MUST be salted – or add a pinch if using unsalted)

3 eggs

200g soft brown sugar (caster is fine if you don’t have any)

110g plain flour

Preheat the oven to gas 4/180 degrees.

Melt the butter and chocolate in a bain-marie (you know the drill… bowl over a saucepan of just-simmering water – don’t let the bottom of the bowl come into contact with water).  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 to cool to room temperature.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and frothy, then pour in the cooled chocolate/butter mixture, stir well, then add in the flour and any extras you’re adding (nuts… raisins… smarties… whatever).  Stir briefly until the flour disappears.

Pour into a well-lined baking tin (I use a lasagne tin, but a square cake tin will do).  Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is cracked and shiny.  The centre should still be slightly soft.  Serve warm with ice cream (or if you’re serving as a dessert, whisk some cream with a bit of icing sugar and a slug of booze) or allow to cool and place in an airtight container

One word of warning: cut them small.  They won’t last long.

So you’re going to love this. No, really, it’s a winner.

How about…

Home made jaffa cakes? Wait… wait…

In the shape of Christmas trees!

I know, right?

If, like me, you’re now wild with excitement (or even if you’re not) do have a go at making these little beauties. They taste absolutely fab and can be made in normal paper fairy cake wrappers if you’re not imbued with quite as much Christmas spirit as me.

On to the ressup, then. You will need:

115g butter

115g golden caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

125g self raising flour

To decorate:

Rindless marmalade

100g dark chocolate

So make the sponge in the normal way: beat the butter and sugar until really light and creamy, then beat in the eggs a dribble at a time and then the vanilla. Finally, stir in the sifted flour.

If you’re using one of these silicone moulds (I got mine in John Lewis), give it a spray with some cake release (mine’s Dr Oetker and is incredibly good) to stop the little suckers sticking. Plop a scant dessertspoon of cake mixture in each ‘tree’, and bake at 180/gas4 for 10 – 15 minutes until just golden.

Allow the cakes to cool and then turn them out. If they’re a little rounded on the top, you might need to just cut off the very top (which will actually be the bottom, if you see what I mean) so they sit right.

Now, take a spoonful of the marmalade and pop it onto a board. You should then be able to cut little slivers off this blob to pop on top of each tree. Melt the chocolate in a bain marie (bowl over just –simmering water, but you knew that, right?) and spoon over each blob of jelly.

And there you have it. Chocolatey, orangey AND Christmassy. I’m LOVING that.

I’ve entered these into Choclette’s ‘We Should Cocoa’ chocolate challenge, the theme of which this month, unsurprisingly is… orange!

So after all the emotional turmoil of Monday’s blog post (thank you, from the bottom of my heart, if you took the time to comment), my thoughts obviously turned to cakey buns.  What I needed was some serious yummage. Stat.

Firstly, a little admission: they went wrong.  Oh yes, spectacularly so.  What I intended was a soft chocolate spongey muffin, topped with a dollop of salted caramel and enveloped in a gorgeous piped swirl of chocolatey meringue icing.

Sadly, my meringue icing ended up looking like a large pile of gritty snot in the bottom of the KitchenAid.

Ah well, onwards and upwards.  I whipped up some ganache, dolloped it on and it was just as good. Just don’t ask me to make meringue icing EVER again.  Mkay?

For the muffins, then, you’ll need:

200g chocolate, melted (half of this is for the ganache)

170g butter, room temp

150g caster sugar

3 eggs

150g self raising flour

1 heaped tbsp cocoa powder

Basically, just cream the butter and sugar together until it’s really light and fluffy.  Mix the eggs gently with a fork, then dribble them slowly, a bit at a time, into the mixture until they’re all combined.  I find sometimes that if you lob in a whole egg it can curdle the mixture (although, this can be rescued with a spoonful of flour, admittedly).

Now stir in the flour and sifted cocoa, then fold in half of the melted chocolate.  Dollop a tablespoon of mixture into each of 12 muffin cups placed into a muffin tin and bake at 180/gas 4 for about 20 minutes or until just springy to the touch.

For the ganache, you’ll find the recipe here.

When the cakes are cool, dollop a teaspoonful of Marks and Spencer’s quite delightful salted caramel sauce (an extortionate 4 Euro a pop – no wonder I felt the need to use it up), then cover with a blob of your cooled ganache (feel free to pipe it – I’d lost the will to live by this stage).

Stuff into face, sighing gently and pondering the meaning of life, the universe and everything.  A cup of tea can help too (it was too early for gin).

And… breathe.

Okay, so we’re clear that cake decorating is not my forté, evidenced by this hideous monstrosity that practically made my husband weep on his 44th:

I don’t know what it is.  I mean, I love cooking, love baking… but I just don’t seem to have an artistic bone in my whole body.

Still, it’s Hallowe’en and I thought ‘sod it, I’ll give it another go’.  Here, then, is my Hallowe’en scary spider cake.

The first bit’s easy.  It’s just a lovely rich chocolate cake.  You will need:

150g dark chocolate, melted

170g butter

170g soft dark brown sugar

3 eggs

145g self raising flour

25g cocoa powder

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees/gas 4, and grease and line a medium cake tin.  I use bits of Bake-o-Glide that I have already cut to shape:

Melt the 150g chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (remember not to let the bowl touch the water and turn it off as soon as the chocky starts to melt).  I used Dark Chocolate Toblerone, thinking it would look a bit ‘muddy’, but use whatever you like.

Meanwhile, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time (remember if it curdles just bung in a spoonful of the flour).  Next, sieve the flour and cocoa and stir gently into the mix, then add the cooled, melted chocolate.  Bung the mixture into the tin and bake for around 20-30 minutes (it will depend on how wide your tin is).  I always think it’s best to take it out a little earlier than you think as this keeps it more moist.

For the ganache:

150g chocolate, melted

Double cream

3 or 4 tbsp icing sugar

A little water

Now, allow your cake to cool while you melt some more chocolate (you can melt 300g in the first place and just use half for the cake if you like).  Pour in enough cream to get a smooth, quite runny ganache, and pour it all over your cake.  Allow this bit to firm up.

Then mix up the icing sugar (don’t overdo it with the water, you want it to be dribbling consistency not runny), and pipe in concentric circles on your cake.

With a cocktail stick, and starting at the middle, drag lines out through the icing to the edge of the cake to get your ‘web’ effect.

For the spider, I used fruit pastilles (who knew you could roll out a fruit pastille eh?).

I rolled out two black ones as flat as they would go, then snipped them into strips.  I then gave them a little roll with my fingers to make them ‘leggy’:

Then I used another one, with some red bits snipped off, for the head:

I know, it’s pathetic, and I sincerely hope you can do better.  In fact, I’m hoping you’ll be joining my Autumn Bakeoff. There’s a beautiful cookbook from Diana Henry to win, and a special Chef Bear from Build-a-Bear for the winner of the Hallowe’en children’s section.  There’s still a couple of weeks to go.  Go on, make me look shabby, see if I care.

Here’s an brand new and exclusive look at the new Kitchen Kit, ably demonstrated by the man himself, and giving you a brilliant take on Eton Mess to boot:

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!

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.

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)

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.