No-bake Chocolate Slice

My friend is rather partial to Altezano’s chocolate fudge slice and on Sundays she often takes home a bite as her wicked chocolate treat for working Mondays.  I reckoned I could make something similar (although as a disclaimer I have to say I haven’t actually tasted Altezano’s, just gazed upon it at the counter) and found this recipe on the Women’s Weekly website. 

I’ve made it three times in about as many weeks and feedback has been most favourable, even when said friend compared it with Altezano’s.  I love the chewy raisins and the balance between the crumbly base and smooth chocolate topping.  A real cure for Mondayitis.

I did promise the recipe after making it for some participants of a photography workshop held here at our house last weekend, so here it is.  I should point out that the experienced photographers did not take the photo - that was left to amateur me – but thanks to Eva for some pointers.

No-bake chocolate slice

175g butter


3 tbsp golden syrup


1 tsp vanilla essence


3 tbsp cocoa powder


1 250g packet digestive biscuits


½ cup desiccated coconut


½ cup raisins

250g dark chocolate melts* (or chopped chocolate) for topping

* I used Cadbury Melts

Line a 17cm x 27cm slice tin with nonstick baking paper.

Crush the biscuits in a food processor (or place in a plastic bag and beat with a rolling pin until crushed).

Place butter, golden syrup and vanilla in a saucepan and heat until butter has melted.  Stir to combine.

Add cocoa, crushed biscuits, coconut and raisins and stir to combine. Press firmly and evenly into the base of the prepared tin.  Set aside.

Topping

Place chocolate melts in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to melt. Stir until smooth.  Spread over the surface of the slice to coat evenly. Leave for an hour or so to set. Cut into bars or squares with a hot knife.

Store in an airtight container.

Chocolate Banana Loaf

All I have to do is tell you that I made this chocolate banana loaf and it was easy and it is delicious and the chocolate definitely is an improvement on just a plain, old banana loaf, especially if you really like chocolate, which I do and if you are only mildly passionate about banana cakes, which I am.

And I have to remember to tell you to make all the icing and not be like me one time when I wrote a strange note on this recipe telling me that half the icing was more than enough.  I lied.  I don’t know why I lied back then as I haven’t made this loaf in a while.  So I made half the icing because I believed what I said back then.  I was wrong.

All you need to know then is that you really, really should slather it with the all the chocolate icing because if you are anything like me, you know that this is the best part and if you don’t, you will regret it.

That was all I had to say.

The loaf is my entry for this month's Sweet New Zealand hosted by After Taste.

Chocolate Banana Loaf

150g (5½oz) butter, at room temperature

150g (5½oz) muscovado sugar

150g (5½oz) dark chocolate (I used 72% Whittakers Dark Ghana)

2 bananas, mashed

3 eggs, beaten

200g (7oz) plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

Icing

100g (3½oz) dark chocolate, broken into pieces

25g (1oz) butter

50g (1¾oz) icing sugar

1 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F).

Grease and line the base and sides of a 900g (2lb) loaf tin.

In a medium saucepan, gently heat the butter, sugar and chocolate until melted.  Stir well and remove from heat.

Add the banana and eggs, then sift in the flour and baking powder.  Mix until smooth.

Pour the mix into the loaf tin.   Bake for about 1 hour or so until the cake feels firm when pressed in the middle with your fingers.

Remove from the oven and leave in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing

Melt the chocolate and butter in a small non-stick pan.  Sift in the icing sugar then stir in the milk and beat well.  Spread over the top of the cake using a palette knife.  Leave to set.

Roasted Rhubarb Bircher Muesli

My last words on my very first blog post, aptly titled A Fine Start, were:

I also love Bircher muesli – but that’s another story…

So whilst it may be a bit late, I’ve finally gotten around to that other story, with a bit of a twist on the original.

It came about when I was swirling some just-cooked roasted rhubarb in its sticky, gingery-sweet syrup and I thought of scooping it into a creamy muesli instead of using the traditional grated apple.  

I could almost claim it’s a healthy food version of rhubarb fool (which was the original plan I had for the rhubarb) as rhubarb and cream do feature, but with wholesome oats, nuts, dried fruit and yoghurt.  Adding just a splash of cream balances the tartness of the rhubarb and gives a luxurious touch to breakfast time.  Hallelujah to that. 

There’s a touch of recipe here for the roasted rhubarb and Bircher muesli but the finished dish is more of a tailored assembly.  In other words you are free to change the amounts or ingredients to suit your own preferences. 

I stole a few toasted nuts from the jar of my homemade toasted muesli, but raw nuts would be fine too.  It’s a bit like standing in front of the selection of toppings for ice creams or frozen yoghurts in a food mall (not that I actually do this, you understand); the options are many, although in this case probably healthier.  I like to keep it fairly simple.  

If you are a fan of raw food, stick with the original and substitute the rhubarb with one green apple, grated (with skin on).  

And so my story, started so long ago, is finally complete.  I do like a sense of closure, don't you?

Roasted Rhubarb Bircher Muesli

Serves 2

Start this recipe the day before you want to eat it.  You will have enough rhubarb for the Bircher muesli and some left over.

Roasted rhubarb 

1 bunch (approx. 500g) rhubarb, washed & cut into 2.5cm chunks

¼ cup brown sugar

the juice and rind of 1 small orange

½ teaspoon ground ginger

Bircher muesli

60g (1/2 cup) porridge oats

1/2 cup milk* (use apple juice if you prefer)

½ tbsp single cream

* I used full cream milk

To serve: 

Greek yogurt

Roasted rhubarb

Juice of 1/2 a small orange

a drizzle of maple syrup or honey

almonds, chopped

brazil nuts, chopped

a few cranberries

some extra rhubarb for the topping

Roasted rhubarb

Preheat oven to 180 C. 

Place the rhubarb on a lined baking tray.  Add the sugar, orange juice, ginger and rind and mix thoroughly until the sugar and ginger dissolve in the juice and the rhubarb is coated. 

Place in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until the rhubarb is tender.  Pour rhubarb and syrup into a covered container and leave to cool or refrigerate overnight.

Bircher Muesli

The evening before, place oats in a container and cover with the milk and a splash of single cream.  Mix well.  Cover with lid or cling wrap and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning when you are ready to serve, add about a 1/3 cup of Greek yoghurt, 1/3 cup of the roasted rhubarb and the fresh orange juice.  Mix well – if it’s too dry, add more yoghurt or orange juice or both until you get the consistency and taste you want.

Drizzle with maple syrup or honey.  Sprinkle with the chopped nuts and some cranberries.

Top with the extra chunks of roasted rhubarb.

You might also like toasted muesli
from my very first blog post.

Coffee + walnut cupcakes

This was supposed to be about coffee and walnut cake but I’d misplaced the recipe.  I’ll call it serendipity for these are just the texture and taste I was looking for in my cake; reminding me of good old-fashioned coffee and walnut cakes we had in Edinburgh way back in my childhood.

They deliver just the right amount of rich coffee mouthfuls, crunchy with chopped walnuts and topped with a light coffee mascarpone cream.  I think they’d also taste good with a coffee buttercream icing so I will make that the next time around when I can practice my piping skills L. 

I topped the cakes with walnut halves and the remainder with chocolate covered coffee beans.  I preferred the latter mainly because there are already plenty of walnuts tucked inside and the beans give them a contemporary look.

These are for Sweet New Zealand, a monthly blogging event hosted this month by Delissimon.

Coffee & walnut cupcakes

makes 12 cupcakes

2 tsp instant coffee

100ml boiling water

100g butter, softened

50g light brown sugar

50g muscovado sugar

2 large eggs

100g self-raising flour

a pinch of salt

35g walnuts, chopped finely

walnuts/chocolate covered coffee beans for decoration

Icing

200g tub mascarpone

2 tbsp muscovado (or dark brown) sugar

3 tsp cold coffee mix (from recipe above)

Heat oven to 180°C. 

Mix the two teaspoons of instant coffee with the boiling water and leave to cool.

Place paper cupcake cases into a 12-hole cupcake tin.

Beat the butter and two sugars together until creamy.  Add the eggs, flour and 4 teaspoons of the cold coffee (keep leftover coffee aside to add to icing) and a pinch of salt.  Beat to combine.  Stir in the chopped walnuts.

Spoon the mix evenly amongst the paper cases.  Bake for 18-20 minutes until the tops spring back when pressed lightly with your fingers.

Cool for a few minutes in the tin and then transfer to a cake rack to cool completely.

Once cool, spread the icing as thickly as you like over the cakes and top with a walnut or chocolate covered coffee bean.

Icing 

Beat the mascarpone, sugar and coffee together until smooth. 

Maltesers Ice Cream

Summer has come and gone (although we are still doing well weather-wise) and not once did I use my ice cream maker.  Not that it's a fancy-pancy one, but I did get excited about hauling it out of its box (yes, it lives in its box still) and trying out some of those fruit ice creams I'd been drooling over.  Sadly they never came to fruition (unintended pun!).  So I was kind of excited about this recipe until  I realized it didn't even require an ice cream maker.  Oh well, maybe next summer...

In the meantime, we can make the most of our Indian summer and try this creamy vanilla ice cream with little crunchy nugget bites of malt and chocolate. For those experiencing winter, It will just have to be hot chocolate or malt drinks, I'm afraid.

Maltesers Ice Cream

300ml single cream

40g caster sugar

2 eggs, separated

1 drop vanilla essence

1 small bag Maltesers (40g), crushed

Whip the cream until thick, cover and chill.  

Place the sugar and egg yolks in a bowl and beat until thick and fluffy.  Fold into the cream with the vanilla and chill again.

In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until thick and fold them into the ice cream mix, ensuring they are fully combined.

Pour into a freezer-proof container (an old ice cream container is perfect!) and freeze for about 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the ice cream is just beginning to freeze.

Fold in the crushed Maltesers and mix through.  Freeze for at least six hours or overnight.

This ice cream is best eaten within a couple of days.

For a touch more luxury you might like this 

Strawberry semifreddo with strawberries and Italian nougat

Recipe adapted from The Utterly Unrefined Cookbook (Billingtons).

Chocolate Chip Cookies and a revamp

See what my lovely girl has done to my website.  I love it!  I had tired of the old design but being rather timid with technology has been a bit of an issue when it came to revamping the blog.  Sometimes I wish you could keep the old posts on the old template and revert to the new design from "this point forward".  But you can't so I hope you like the new design.

Chocolate chip cookies

I seem to have lost my baking mojo.   This happens, I suppose, when there are just two of you and you wonder who is going to eat all that cake you are going to bake (and the answer is usually me!).  So I’ve been drifting around aimlessly looking at one recipe or another hoping something caught my eye.  And it did. 

These may not be chocolate chip cookies as you know them – soft, chewy and chocka with chocolate – and I admit I was tempted to double the quantity of chocolate bits (and go ahead, you are welcome to).  But I quite liked that these biscuits showed some signs of restraint.  They baked crisp and you get to taste more of the actual biscuit, and there is the odd chocolate chip if you are lucky! 

I’d be happy to make these again as a good alternative to the more indulgent version.

Chocolate chip cookies

225g (1/2lb) self-raising flour

a pinch of salt

150g (5oz) butter, diced

100g (4oz) caster sugar

50g (2oz) dark or milk chocolate bits

1 egg, beaten

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.  Add the diced butter and rub in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Stir in the sugar and the chocolate pieces.  Mix in the beaten egg and bring the dough together into a ball.  Knead lightly on a floured surface until smooth.  Roll into a ball or log shape, cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 180°C (350°F).  Roll out the dough fairly thinly on a lightly floured surface and cut into rounds with a 5cm (2 inch) biscuit cutter. 

Place the biscuits on a lined baking tray, leaving a space between each to allow for spreading.  Prick the biscuits with a fork and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until golden.

Remove from the oven and leave on the tray for a few minutes, before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe slightly adapted from a very old Marks & Spencer* cookbook.

*Marks & Spencer is a department store in the UK.

Sweet New Zealand

There is a lot of sweetness to celebrate this month in New Zealand, not least a long, hot summer now stretching into autumn (with apologies to farmers).  And this weekend is Easter with its proliferation of eggs, bunnies and chickens, mostly of the chocolate variety. But what could be nicer than food bloggers dropping their delectable concoctions in my mailbox?  Come let me share with you the roundup for the month of March.

A peek into the world of raw food starts us off with this exquisite looking entry from Nicola of Homegrown Kitchen. Nicola made this for Purple Cake Day and the poignant and inspiring story behind this can be found on her post. I am so pleased she chose to enter with this, much admired by me,  Raw Blueberry 'Cashew' Cheesecake.    I am in awe at the wonderful colour and can only imagine what it would be like to bite into the creamy berry filling and chewy chocolate base. Nicola says it is so delicious and so good for you and I am certainly not going to argue with that.  I just long for a slice.  Sigh.

Sweet New Zealand creator Alessandra Zecchini dishes up her Apple Slice Cake made with Oratia Beauty apples.  Don’t you just love their name?  Apparently it’s an incredibly simple and quick recipe that makes an amazing apple cake. 

Alessandra has several blogs (I don't know how she does it, I have difficulty with one) and this second entry comes from her Only Recipes site.  Delectable Bergamot Orange Cupcakes topped with candied Bergamot Orange peels. Sounds exotic – and I have to say I am in love with that chair.

Mairi’s curiosity was piqued by a recent raw food class she attended and this dish, Fruit Salad with Honey Nut Crumble, stood out for her.   I’m not surprised as it really took my fancy too.   It looks so tasty with fresh summer fruits and a date & orange syrup.  Do check it out as Mairi has written about the rest of the raw food dishes too.

For those moments when only chocolate will do, Julie at Domestic Executive heads to the kitchen to make this, descriptively named, Anti Chocolate Nemesis Brownie.  In her words – it packs the same, if not better, chocolatey punch as a sugar and wheat version.  Or so my friend told me.  I believe a reliable brownie recipe should always be in one’s repertoire and I willingly add this one. 

In the unlikely event that it has escaped you, this is Easter weekend and Lydia of Lydia Bakes has played Easter Bunny by giving us her take on the famous Cadbury Crème Eggs – Creme Egg Cupcakes.  Love it!  Lydia is a real creative talent in the kitchen so you know these are going to be good.  Vanilla fondant filling, topped with chocolate buttercream and a mini crème egg on top.  Come on, you know you want to and Easter is a great excuse for a chocolate gorge.

Nutella + crostata. Those two words would be enough to warrant a look at GreedyBread Michelle’s entry but if you really require persuasion let me tell you her bad boy Nutella and Crostata tart (or the mini version) is very easy, very delish and very quick and you can slip in a cup of coffee while you’re waiting for the pastry to rest. Now, who can say No to that? 

I love the bunny that pops up everywhere on Genie’s Bunny Eats Design blog; he (she?) is so cute. This time topiary Bunny is guarding these Banana Hakanoa Mini Cakes (so much prettier than banana muffins). If, like me, you didn’t know what Hakanoa is, well it’s a ginger syrup. Bunny, or no bunny, these cakes look very appealing and that thick cream cheese frosting does it for me.

Fragrant cardamom is one of my favourite spices and I am always keen to see how it is used in both sweet and savoury dishes.  Inspired by a plum and cardamom jam, Sue from Couscous & Cousciousness has used it here to give autumn warmth to her Plum  & Cardamom Cake.  I love that she has frozen single serves ready for breakfast on the run or a quickfire dessert.

Jess, a Californian now living in New Zealand, makes people laugh with her stand-up comedy routine as well as promoting fitness and healthy eating on her blog Jessness Required.  So don’t be fooled by the names Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Easter Eggs (top) or No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookie Balls (bottom), these are her healthy versions.  Go on, take a look and experiment a little.

Last but not least will be me and my Peach Pie with Lemon Pastry.  Well it’s not actually mine it belongs to Nigel Slater but I am so glad I baked it.  It is everything a summer pie should be: fragrant golden peaches, light, lemony pastry and crispy crust.  It leaves you wanting more.

And if you want more, don't forget Sweet New Zealand will be hosted in April by Monica from Delissimon. 

I’ve had fun hosting Sweet New Zealand for March and bringing these recipes and blogs to you.  Have a Happy Easter.