Easter No-Bake Chocolate Biscuit Cake

There has been a constant flow of Easter cakes, bakes and puddings in the food magazines over the past month. This leaves me with a long list of recipes to try, however in reality, the four days off over this bank holiday weekend has soon become jam-packed with friends, family and entertaining. This chocolate biscuit cake is one that can be quickly whipped up when you have people dropping in throughout the weekend- a very useful biscuit tin filler. My sister is keenly waiting at the fridge door to tuck into this chocolate biscuit cake after her chocolate-free Lent, I however tucked in as soon as they had been photographed!

There are many variations of chocolate biscuit cake but this simple recipe is straightforward and quick to make. You can experiment with the type of biscuit you use- personally I think the crunch of the Rich Tea biscuits are a cut above adding crumbly digestives. A selection of dried fruits or nuts could also add a nice twist to the recipe!

To Make Approx 20 Pieces You Will Need...

-400g Rich Tea biscuits 

-220g butter

- 85g caster sugar

-2 eggs

-2 tbsps drinking chocolate powder

-2 tsps cocoa powder

-2 tbsps golden syrup 

-100g milk chocolate

You will need to...

- Line a baking tray with cling film, I used one that was 28cm x 18cm.

-Put the biscuits into a sandwich bag- sometimes I use two to avoid holes in the bag, and crush using a rolling pin.

- Melt the butter and sugar in a pan over a low heat, remove from the heat and stir in the drinking chocolate, cocoa powder and golden syrup.

- In a small bowl, beat the eggs. 

- Pour the chocolate butter mixture into a large mixing bowl, stir in the crushed biscuits and the beaten eggs. Mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture is all incorporated. 

- Spread the mixture out evenly in the baking tray.

- In a small saucepan, heat some water and place a pyrex bowl over it to make a Bain Marie, break the milk chocolate into the bowl and stir occasionally until melted. 

- Pour the melted chocoalte over the biscuit mix in the baking tray and spread out using a spatula. 

- Place in the fridge or freezer for a few hours until set, or over night. 

Happy Easter 

Z x

Dreamy Chocolate Mousse Cake - Baking For Sport Relief 2016

As any avid Bake-Off fans will be aware, this week sees the return of The Great Sport Relief Bake Off, in which a handful of celebrity bakers will be taking to the tent in aid of Sport Relief 2016. This year, the 'Queen of Print' Orla Kiely has designed the limited edition aprons which the winning Star Bakers will be presented with, and as budding bakers ourselves, we have managed to get our hands on some! With our new look complete, it's time to get down to some baking - so here is our latest obsession - Dreamy Chocolate Mousse Cake. As it is in aid of Sport Relief, we have gone for something a tiny bit healthier than your average chocolate cake. With no flour, a whopping eight eggs and mainly natural sweetener, it's no wonder this cake has such a light, moussey and dreamy texture. It is ideal as a light dessert, alongside a dollop of smooth crème fraîche.

If you want to get baking for Sport Relief yourself, get your own lovely limited edition Orla Kiely Apron from TK Maxx, Homesense, or www.sportrelief.com. They retail at £12.99, with at least £5.25 going to Sport Relief, who use public donations to help people living incredibly difficult lives both in the UK and across the world.

Keep reading for our recipe and get baking yourself!

You will need...

200g 70% minimum dark chocolate

200g butter

Pinch of sea salt

8 eggs

100g maple syrup

50g caster sugar

Cacao/cocoa powder for dusting

Crème fraîche, to serve

You will need to...

- Grease and line a 24cm loose bottomed cake tin and preheat the oven to 160C.

- Break up the chocolate and cube the butter. Place both in a large bowl with a generous pinch of sea salt, and melt gently over a pan of simmering water. Set aside to cool slightly.

- Meanwhile, separate the eggs and whisk the whites in a large clean bowl until thick and fluffy and will hold a peak. 

- In a smaller bowl, whisk together the egg yolks with the sugar and maple syrup until they are pale, thickened and fluffy (ribbon stage).

- Gently fold the yolky mixture through the chocolate, then fold through the egg whites as gently as you can!

-Pour the mixture into your tin, and set it inside a deep baking tray. Place this on the over shelf and pour an inch of boiling water into the tray around the cake.

- Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, checking after 20. The cake should be just set with a slight wobble in the middle.

- Leave to cool on a wire rack before removing the tin. Dust with cacao powder before serving alongside a dollop of good crème fraîche.

Bake yourself proud!

C & Z x

Hotel Chocolat Easter Treats & Toscakaka Cake

With Easter just around the corner, Hotel Chocolat offered to send me some of their seasonal treats to sample, which I obviously gratefully accepted - I'm only human! Hotel Chocolat never disappoint with their innovative seasonal chocolate collections, and this year is no different with their Egglet H Box providing a sophisticated and interesting alternative to your traditional Easter Egg.

Raspberry Supermilk

Salted Caramel

With fifteen little Egglets in ten different flavours ranging from a zingy Raspberry Truffle to a boozy Calvados Caramel, there really is something for everyone. My personal favourites were the Coffee Caramel (the ideal after-dinner treat) and the Speckled Praline - a smooth and moreish nutty centre sealed in caramel chocolate speckled with vanilla seeds - A-mazing. So amazing, in fact, that it has inspired the following Toscakaka recipe… 

Toscakaka is a Swedish cake with a vanilla and orange flavoured sponge and a chewy, almondy, caramely topping that oozes into the sponge when baking and gives the cake a praline-like flavour. It is really simple to make, and would make an ideal Easter centrepiece if you're feeding friends and family next weekend. Scroll down for the full recipe…

You will need…

3 eggs

150g caster sugar

Zest of 1/2 an orange

1tsp vanilla extract or paste

150g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

75 ml milk with a drop of lemon juice

75 g butter - melted

And for the topping…

150g toasted flaked almonds

125g soft light brown sugar

100g butter

2 tbsp whiskey

You will need to…

- Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 9 inch springform tin.

- In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla and orange zest until thick and pale.

- Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and gently fold into the egg mixture.

- Mix together the melted butter and milk, then fold this into the cake mixture too. 

- Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and bake for 20 minutes.

- In the meantime, make the praline-like topping by combining the almonds, sugar and butter in a small saucepan.

- Bring this mixture to a rapid boil and cook for about a minute, then remove from the heat and stir in the whiskey.

- After 20 minutes, carefully take the cake out the oven and gently spoon the almond mixture on top, taking care not to disturb the partially cooked sponge.

- Return the cake to the oven to cook for another 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

- Leave to cool in the tin and serve with a generous sprinkling of icing sugar. 

Enjoy! C x

Malteaser Cake

This Malteaser Cake is always a show stopper. During my cooking jobs in Scotland over the summer this cake was a favourite for afternoon tea, and I assure you it takes a very hungry army of people to demolish the whole thing in one sitting! Infact, it is so rich and chocolately that it could almost be served with cream as a pudding. I have enjoyed many an hour sitting aligning every malteaser to make this cake look symmetrical - the first time I made it, it certainly didnt look like my latest one in

these photos! 

To serve 12 hungry people you will need... 

For the chocolate sponge 

150g soft unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

150g self raising flour

100ml sour cream or double cream

4 medium eggs

50g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder 

a pinch of salt 

1/2 a vanilla pod or a few drops of vanilla extract 

For the icing (these quantities ususally make a bit extra)

100g dark chocolate

550g icing sugar 

250g soft butter

2tbsps milk/water 

4x 135g malteasers (make sure you have enough or else you wont cover the whole cake!) 

You will need to... 

-Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4 

-Grease and line two 8 inch loose bottomed cake tins

-Put the butter, sugar, flour, cream, eggs, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and vanilla into the large bowl of an electric mixer and mix until smooth. 

-Pour the mixture into the two cake tins and bake in the oven for 25/30mins or until a skewer comes out clean, Leave to cool for a couple fo minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

- When the cakes are cool make the icing, First melt the dark chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water stirring occasionally. 

- Put the icing sugar in the electric mixer (no need to sieve if using a mixer) then add the butter and and milk/water until light and smooth. Then pour the melted chocolate in with the mixer still running. 

- Place the sponge on the plate you will be serving it on- it is difficult to move once you start covering the cake in malteasers. Then using a palet knife, spread the chococlate icing over the bottom layer before placing the second layer on top and covering the top and sides of the whole cake with icing.

- Then begin to stick the malteasers on, I find doing it in straight lines makes the neatest looking cake!

Enjoy, Z x

Ginger, Apricot & Chocolate Spelt Cookies

These sweet little cookies are perfect for spring - fresh, fiery and fruity. This recipe is based on Heidi Swanson's Ginger Cookie recipe from her brilliant book Eat Natural Every Day, although I've adjusted a couple of the more obscure ingredients slightly to make them more student-friendly. The combination of flavours may sound a bit intense, but surprisingly they work really well together - with the fiery ginger, fruity apricot and bitter chocolate balancing each other out. The spelt flour gives the cookies a nutty, earthy flavour which tones down the sweetness too, and also makes them a little more dense and filling than your bog-standard biscuit - they're kind of like posh gingernuts. Enjoy fresh from the oven with a mug of something warm and comforting. 

To make approx. 30 small cookies you will need...

35g demerara sugar

85g dark chocolate, finely chopped

115g spelt or wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 heaped tsp ground ginger

A pinch of salt

60g butter

30ml black treacle

50g caster sugar

1 tbsp grated fresh ginger

1 small egg, beaten

85g dried apricots, finely chopped 

You will need to...

- Put the demerara sugar into a small bowl and set aside. Chop your chocolate and apricots finely.

- Heat the butter in a medium sized saucepan until just melting, then stir in the treacle, caster sugar and fresh ginger. The mixture should be warm but not hot. Add in the beaten egg, then the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and ground ginger - mix well. 

- Stir in the apricots and chocolate. 

- Chill the mixture in the fridge for about 30 minutes, until it firms up a bit.

- Preheat the oven to 180C and line two trays with baking paper.

- Scoop the dough out in level tablespoons, then tear those pieces of dough in two and roll each piece into a ball.

- Drop the little balls one-by-one into the bowl of demerara sugar and roll around until the outside is well covered in sugar crystals. 

- Place the sugary balls onto the prepared trays, leaving plenty of space between them to allow for spreading. 

- Bake in the oven for 7 - 10 minutes, until the cookies have puffed up a little and are dark, fragrant and cracked on top. They will still be a little soft so allow to firm up a bit on the tray before serving.

Enjoy! C x

Valentine's Day Delight: White Chocolate Mousse

This is not strictly a Valentine's Day recipe, infact I usually make it in the summer when the strawberries are at their juiciest. However, it doubles up as a romantic pud so why not see if you can impress the other-half or alternatively indulge your single friends! I am aware that the average student house does not contain a set of mousse rings, so I have developed my own tactics for this recipe, which involves cutting up cream or yoghurt pots to make DIY mousse rings. This is a Mary Berry classic adapted to be more student-friendly, and of course if required it has a romantic decorative twist for Valentine's Day...

For six mousses you will need...

50g dark chocolate

75g hobnob biscuits

200g white chocolate

200ml double cream

200ml crème fraiche

225g strawberries

6 mousse rings if you have them, or if not,  DIY using yogurt pots (see below)

             

You will need to...

- Melt the dark chocolate in a bain-marie.

- Meanwhile, bash the hobnobs with a rolling pin in either a freezer bag or large mixing bowl. When they are finely crushed, stir in the melted dark chocolate. 

- Lay the mousse rings on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. 

- Press the biscuit base into the mousse rings using the back of a metal spoon. Make sure that they are all even and not too thick.

- Chill in the fridge to set whilst you make the filling.

- Melt the white chocolate in a bain-marie, then stir in the crème fraiche and double cream.

- Chop the strawberries into even, thin slices, then remove the bases from the fridge and line the mousse rings with your sliced strawberries.

- Spoon the white chocolate mixture into the middle of each ring - make sure they are only filled to about 2/3 full otherwise it will not hold when the ring is removed.

- Put the mousses back into the fridge and leave to set for about 4 hours.

- When ready to serve, carefully remove the mousse rings and serve with a romantic heart-shaped strawberry slice for Valentine's Day, or on other occasions, a sprig of mint or spoonful of fruit coulis will suffice!

Enjoy! Z x 

Flapjacks for February

There is no way of disguising the fact that flapjacks aren't the healthiest of foods, however as treats go, they're pretty damn good. The oats mean they are incredibly filling, making them great for an on-the-go sugar boost when you find yourself flagging. Although forced to use soft brown sugar (we had no caster sugar in the house), we will definitely be using it again, as it turned the flapjacks an amazing, deep golden brown and made them deliciously chewy. We got a bit creative with our flavours (procrastination from uni work does this to you), creating three different types using the additions of fruit, nuts, chocolate and spices. Needless to say, these are ridiculously easy, and a perfect starting point for any amateur baker. Once you have your basic flapjack mix, feel free to concoct your own 'perfect bar' to suit your tastes - here are our favourites...

Raisin and cinnamon spiced flapjacks

Plain flapjack with a double chocolate topping

                                                                   You will need...

200g butter 

200g soft brown sugar 

5 tbsp golden syrup

400g rolled oats (if you like them gooey use less!)

Optional additions such as...

Cinnamon and raisins 

Flaked almond and dried cherry

Dark and milk chocolate drizzle

Cherry and almond with a dark chocolate drizzle

You will need to...

- Pre-heat your oven to 180C. 

- Line a 20cm square baking tray with baking parchment.

- Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a large saucepan, do not allow the mixture to boil. 

- Remove from heat and stir in your oats until they are covered in the mixture. 

- At this point add in any extras such as nuts, fruit or spice.

- Press the mixture into the baking tray and bake in the oven for 15-20 mins 

- Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly before cutting into squares.

- Leave to cool completely before drizzling with a melted chocolate of your choice. 

Enjoy! C and Z x

Chocolate Salami

This Italian-inspired chocolate salami is certainly different, although the rich chocolate, amaretti and nuts combined with the sweet bursts of cranberry mean it is undoubtedly Christmassy. This makes a sophisticated alternative to a chocolate yule log or a currant/raisin-free Christmas cake replacement. As quite an eye-catching and unique dish, it would also make a good centre-piece for any party held over the festive period. This recipe is an adaptation of Nigella Lawson's 'Chocolate Salame', but feel free to personalise it with your own preferred combination of fruit and nuts. Delicious served with a cup of tea or glass of something stronger, chocolate salami is a Christmas indulgence with a difference. Ensure you make it the day before to make sure it is nicely firmed up.

For 20 generous slices you will need...

250g dark chocolate

250g crunchy amaretti biscuits

100g soft butter

150g caster sugar

3 large eggs

2 tbsp amaretto liqueur

2 tbsp cocoa powder

75g whole blanched almonds (roughly chopped)

75g dried cranberries (roughly chopped)

50g whole shelled pistachio nuts (roughly chopped)

Icing sugar to decorate

You Will Need To...

- Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water then set aside to cool. Place the biscuits into a bag and bash them with a rolling pin until they resemble rubble.

- Cream the butter and sugar together until the mixture is light and soft, then beat in the eggs one by one. Stir in the amaretto liqueur. 

- Sift the cocoa powder into the cooled melted chocolate, stir until combined then add this mixture to the egg mixture. When you have a smooth chocolatey mixture fold in the crushed biscuits, chopped nuts and cranberries.

- Put this mixture in the fridge to firm up for about half an hour. 

 - Place 2 large, overlapping pieces of clingfilm on your work surface, and tip the chilled mixture onto this. Mould it into a long log about 30cm long - this can be quite messy - you have been warned!

 - Cover the log with the clingfilm and roll it until it is a smooth round cylinder. Twist the ends by holding both ends and rolling the log towards you.

- Place the log in the fridge to chill overnight - this will ensure it is firm and slices well.

- Once it is set, sprinkle icing sugar onto a large piece of greaseproof paper and roll the log into it. This makes it look like an authentic salami. To add more authenticity, use some string to tie it up (see pics).

- Serve cold in generous slices.

Enjoy! C x