Tag: dark chocolate

26Apr

Banana split with brigadeiro fudge sauce

Things I am loving at the moment: I no longer listen to the radio. Some may think this is a bad thing but in my car I have a very narrow range of stations, mainly consisting of songs that are on the chart playing on a very annoying loop. I downloaded an app called Castbox and have started to explore the world of podcasts. My absolutely favourites are The High Low and Dear Sugar Radio. I can’t get enough of Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond. I want to go out and have a beer with them. Weekends without my phone. It actually died and I didn’t even try to charge it. I forgot about it and it was all good. Re-watching old films that I was too young to understand when I watched it first time around: As Good As it Gets, Donnie Darko and Good Will Hunting eBay. I am planning my sister’s hen do whilst on my night shifts. I am going for a mermaid theme. All the glitter and streamers arrived on time and on point. Condensed milk. I’ve decided that ganache is well over rated as a sauce and that brigadeiro sauce should take the crown.
2 mins read
1155 Views
23Jan

Dark chocolate and ginger cheesecake

I always set my alarm to give me a good hour for breakfast before I need to leave the house. It always amazes me when my work colleagues say they get out of bed 5 minutes before they have to leave the house and then have their toast in front of their computer. I’m sorry but that would bring my quality of life down by about 10 points. I can’t function properly for the rest of the day if my day starts in a rush. Having my eggs with a cup of coffee in bed whilst catching up on last evening’s Bravo is my happy place. Then I leave plenty of time for my makeup and hair. All sounds very regimented right? Not so much because I never really plan my packed lunch/dinner and have to rush last minute to try and make a mediocre salad to eat later that day. I never make that a priority and end up leaving with a cereal bar or maybe a smoothie for lunch. Not cool. This week I prepped like a boss, got a few bits of tuppaware and stacked them with a nice turkey fried rice in the fridge. In the
3 mins read
1509 Views
07Feb

Gâteau au Chocolat

I think chocolate lovers like me are always in the search for the perfect chocolate cake. I know a lot of people try numerous recipes with often the same result: too sweet, too dry or not chocolatey enough. Sometimes you get all these disappointments in one cake! How many times has a chocolate cake enticed you because it looked so amazing, and then after the first bite you were filled with disappointment? I think my husband and I suffer even more compared to your average chocolate lover as we are both lactose intolerant so a lot of recipes are no good for us, and the substitution of cow’s milk with soy or almond milk loften leaves the cake dry as the substitutes do not have as much fat. So after a lot of trying and testing I am sharing with you a chocolate cake recipe that has become one of my true favourites. It is not your average children’s birthday cake, it’s a french recipe so by nature I feel it’s a little more refined. And it fits the saying “less is more”, and believe me reader I have this recipe ready on by Iphone’s copy and paste clipboard because
3 mins read
678 Views
05Dec

Marzipan and cinnamon hot chocolate

December is definitely my favourite month. I love what it brings: the chill outside, the snow, the traditional German Christmas markets, family gatherings…My love of December is so great I chose to get married on this month two years ago. Call me crazy but to me there’s nothing more romantic than a winter wedding. And December would not be December without a hot drink to warm our cold bones and help us relax after a long day, right? I will be openly frank here and say that I am being bad. I’ll tell you why: I was planning on posting a recipe of traditional mulled wine to share with all of you but I decided to be a little selfish. Selfish because mulled wine contains alcohol and, dear readers, I am teetotal at the moment as I am breastfeeding. I guess I could have made a litre of mulled wine and just photograph it for the blog. Or let my husband loose with it. But it is Christmas time, a time for sharing. Plus it would be so sad to make mulled wine and not have a drop to drink. So I have adapted a delicious recipe of marzipan hot
3 mins read
880 Views
07Oct

Cranberry, nut and chocolate cookies

  These are thank you cookies or as you say in German, danke cookies. Rather than doing the shop-bought stuff I like to give people all sorts of homemade gifts, especially edible ones such as cookies, sweets and savoury biscuits. I do this because it is the kind of present I would like to receive too, something people have put time and effort behind, from the buying the ingredients to making the wrapping look nice, it’s a process I love.  Before I took maternity leave I thought a lot about bringing a treat to the people I work with. I work in social services with a lot of adolescents, especially girls, so what do girls love most? Sweet things. So I decided on this recipe, it is only the second time I make it, the first was a couple of years ago when I bought my sister-in-law a nice glass jar. But it looked so empty so I made a batch of these to go with it. At the time I had the recipe on a little handwritten note but unfortunately I have misplaced it. So on this recipe I used both white and dark chocolate, Brazil nuts and cranberries.
3 mins read
717 Views
07Jan

Perfect monochromatic balance

I had to feed seven people last weekend with only a few hours notice. Had a whole chicken to roast with all the trimmings and with no time to go out and shop I had to devise a dessert from my cupboard items alone. I felt like I was on Masterchef. Knowing I had some chocolate in the cupboard I decided to leaf through my trusty Green and Black’s chocolate recipe book for the recipe with the least ingredients. The answer was mousse. Now, I am not a fan of mousse, any type of mousse, not even chocolate, I find them……boring. But, like I said, time was a-ticking and with a heavy main I reasoned it would add a fluffy, light end to the meal. Plus it is one of the least costly desserts you can make. I am not a snob when it comes to ingredients but as this recipe calls for so few I would advise using good quality chocolate, I used Lindt 70 to 80% cocoa solids. Marbled Mousse (serves 6) 125g dark chocolate, finely chopped 125g white chocolate, finely chopped 5 eggs 75g caster sugar 400ml double cream 1.Melt both chocolates in separate bowls and set
3 mins read
752 Views