Showing posts with label Chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chocolate. Show all posts
Raise your hand if you are a big fan of brownies! I thought so . . . me too! I simply adore brownies of any kind. I make really good brownies.
When I worked at the manor the Mr liked for me to bake him a pan of brownies at least once every couple of weeks. I am sure that missed my brownies when I finished working there.
My brownie recipe produces dense, fudgy brownies, depending on how long you cook them for. You can cook them a bit longer if you want cakey brownies, but . . . come on . . . fudge . . .
I remember attending a cooking show when I lived down South. The Celebrity Chefs on it were the Tanner Brothers and Paul Rankin, with guest star Vanessa Phelps.
They did a Brownie Challenge and what they made were not Brownies in my opinion . . . .
They were wet and gloopy. You should be able to hold a good brownie in your hands to eat it. It would have been impossible to hold those.
I was most disappointed. Most disappointed . . . I guess I expected more from Celebrity Chefs than that.
What you see here today is my regular brownie recipe amped up with the addition of three kinds of chocolate chips.
Well, semi sweet chocolate chunks, white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips.
You could use butterscotch chips if you can find them and if you can't find either butterscotch or peanut butter chips, add milk chocolate chips in their place.
They get stirred into the batter prior to baking and then when the brownies are finished, you melt a few more and flick them melted . . .
one at a time over the top . . . decoratively like . . .
I wanted to bake something nice for my next door neighbour and her son. She has been ever so kind to us throughout this pandemic.
Whenever she is getting a grocery order, or her friend Julie is going to the shops for her, she always messages me on facebook to ask me can she get me anything.
That has been a real gift to me. Milk, bread . . . prune juice, butter, whatever I am in need of.
It is really thoughtful of her and I so appreciate it.
Because she has fibromyalgia and diabetes she is on the ultra vulnerable list and gets delivery slots for things much easier.
I would have thought with my husband's age, his cancer, radiotheraphy combined with my diabetes and high blood pressure we would have been on the list as well, but nope! We are not.
It doesn't make sense but it is what it is.
In any case Max and Cory have been really good to us and so today I baked these brownies for them to show them just how appreciate we truly are.
I hope that they like them! I confess, I did keep a few back for me, but only a few because one . . . I am a diabetic and shouldn't eat stuff like this and two, my husband hates chocolate bakes. (I know, not human)
Triple Chocolate Fudge Brownies
Yield: 16
Moist and delicious with full on chocolate flavour, these are everything a good brownie should be, with three different chocolate chips inside and a glaze of the same after baking!
Ingredients:
For the brownies:
- 240g (1 cup) butter
- 140g (1 cup) plain flour
- 4 ounces good quality bitter chocolate
- 4 large free range eggs
- 400g (2 cups) sugar
- 1 TBS vanilla essence (YES 1TBS)
- Pinch salt
- 45g white chocolate chips (1/4 cup)
- 45g semi sweet chocolate chunks (1/4 cup)
- 45g peanut butter chips (1/4 cup) (if you can't get those, use milk chocolate chips)
To glaze:
- 2 TBS chocolate chips, melted
- 2 TBS semi sweet chocolate , melted
- 2 TBS peanut butter chips, melted (if you can't get those, use milk chocolate chips)
Instructions:
- Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/350*F. Grease and flour the bottom of an 9-inch square baking tin. Tap out any extra flour.
- Melt the butter along with the chocolate over low heat in a large pot. Allow to cool, then stir in the sugar, eggs (one at a time) vanilla, flour and salt, mixing with a wooden spoon and being careful not to over mix, no more than 50 strokes! Fold in all of the chocolate chips
- Pour batter evenly into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out a little wet if you want fudgy brownies. Bake until it comes out cleaner if you want cake type brownies, about 40 to 45 minutes for the fudgy ones.
- Flick the melted chocolates one at a time over the top of the brownies and then place them in the refrigerator to cool completely before cutting into squares to serve.
If you wanted to, and you had brownie mix in the house, you could just make that and stir the three chocolate chips into them and then melt some to drizzle on the top afterwards. Not quite as good as these I am sure, but whatever floats your boat!
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I saw these marshmallows at Asda the other day and I just could not resist picking up a package! They are so cute. Little snowman faces. I just couldn't pass them by without picking up a package! (or two)
Hot cocoa has never been my favourite drink. First of all I am not fond of chocolate milk, or chocolate ice cream. I adore chocolate candy and chocolate bakes, but when it comes to milk, I could take or leave it.
Add to that the fact that most hot cocoa powders you get to use at home and largely disappointing. You end up with watery hot cocoa with lumps and bits of cocoa powder in them, because no matter how hard you try you just can't get the cocoa to dissolve completely!
About the only place you can get a decent hot chocolate is at one of the coffee shops and then it costs more than a coffee and is far too sweet for my taste.
Todd, on the other hand, really loves a nice cup of hot cocoa, although in all truth he finds the packaged hot cocoa mixes a huge disappointment as well.
One exception is the Strawberry Hot Cocoa Mix that I make myself. That is perfectly delicious. I saw a recipe on a blog called Baking Mischief the other day for a creamy rich hot chocolate sized for one person the other day and so I printed it out and decided to try it for Todd.
Oh boy . . . this is the Cadillac of Hot Chocolates! Its rich and creamy and quite delicious!
I adapted it to our tastes and measures. I left out the espresso powder as we don't drink coffee drinks in our home as we are Latter Day Saints.
Do feel free to add it if that isn't a problem for you, its only 1/4 tsp. I also adapted it so that I could make it in the microwave without having to dirty a saucepan.
I confess I had a little sip and it was absolutely gorgeous! That's coming from me who doesn't really like hot chocolate, so you know it must be really good! Todd felt very special when I set this down in front of him.
Creamy and Rich Hot Cocoa For One
Yield: 1
The perfect cup of cocoa, rich and creamy and beautifully sized for just one. You don't get much better than this!
ingredients:
- 1 TBS white sugar
- 1 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder
- pinch salt
- 1 TBS boiling water
- 160ml whole milk (2/3 cup)
- 80ml heavy cream (1/3 cup)
- 2 heaped TBS semi sweet chocolate chips
- your favourite toppings (marshmallows, whipped cream, etc.)
instructions:
How to cook Creamy and Rich Hot Cocoa For One
- Combine the sugar, cocoa powder, salt and boiling water to make a paste in the bottom of a measuring cup. Add the milk, whisking to combine well. Put in the microwave and microwave on high for one minute. Whisk in the cream and return to the microwave and microwave on high for one minute longer. (Keep an eye on it. You don't want it to bubble over.) Add the chocolate chips and whisk all together to melt the chocolate chips. Transfer to your favourite mug, top as desired and enjoy!
There are ways that you could adapt this to someone who needs to watch their sugars. For one, leave off the marshmallows. Two you could use a granulated sugar substitute instead of real sugar. You could also use evaporated skim milk instead of cream and semi sweet milk instead of whole milk I would leave in the chocolate chips however. We can't take away ALL of the fun and goodness can we?
Those of you not familiar with it will probably wonder what Rocky Road is. Scrumptious, indulgent and easy to make, it is simply a refrigerator cake composed of melted chocolate, crushed biscuits, dried fruit, etc.
This gets pressed into a pan and then refrigerated until set and solid and then you can cut it into squares to eat. It is said to be Prince William and Harry's favourite dessert.
The recipe I am sharing with you today is a play on that theme, as well as an unusual take on the American S'mores. These are scrumptious, indulgent, and very easy to make.
Instead of crushed and crumbled biscuits/cookies, it uses crisp rice cereal and salty pretzels. Mini ones, or larger ones broken into bits. I think the smaller ones work better.
There is no dried fruit in it, but there is plenty of chocolate . . .
Two kinds are melted together . . . dark chocolate and milk chocolate . . .
along with butter, golden syrup and a quantity of mini marshmallows.
If you haven't got golden syrup you can use corn syrup. It will work fine. Once these ingredients have all melted and are amalgamated . . .
You stir in the pretzels and the crisp cereal . . . mixing everything well together.
You will need an 8-inch square pan lined with aluminium foil, large enough to be able to lift the squares out when done.
The chocolate cereal mixture gets spooned into the prepared pan and then lightly pressed to compact it a bit. Don't press too hard . . .
The remaining marshmallows get sprinkled over top . . . these two press down lightly so that they adhere to the chocolate mixture a bit. Again, not too hard.
After chilling for a couple hours until solid you take the pan out of the fridge and pop it under a hot grill to gild the marshmallows on top, golden brown . . . that's it. Ooey, gooey, sweet, salty, rich and indulgent, creamy and crisp . . . chocolaty. What more could you ask for?
Yield: Makes 16 bars
Rocky Road S'Mores
Sweet, salty, gooey, crisp and chocolaty!
ingredients:
- 75g butter (1/3 cup)
- 1 TBS golden syrup
- 150g white mini marshmallows, divided (3 cups)
- 200g dark chocolate, broken into bits (7 ounces)
- 100g milk chocolate, broken into bits (3 1/2 ounces)
- 50g crisp rice cereal (1 1/2 cups)
- 100g salted mini pretzels (about 2 1/4 cups)
instructions:
How to cook Rocky Road S'Mores
- Line an 8 inch square pan with aluminium foil. Set aside.
- Place the butter, golden syrup and half of the marshmallows into a heavy bottomed saucepan. Heat over low heat, stirring until melted and amalgamated. Stir in the chocolate, stirring until the chocolate melts. Remove from heat and stir in the rice cereal and pretzels. Press this mixture into the prepared pan. Scatter the remaining marshmallows over top, pressing down lightly. Place in the refrigerator to chill for 2 hours.
- Preheat the grill/broiler to high. Pop the rocky road (still in the pan) under the grill for about 45 to 60 seconds until toasted golden brown. Remove immediately. Let cool.
- Cut into squares with a wet knife to serve. Store in an airtight container.
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