All posts filed under: Recipes

Decadent Chocolate and Ginger Mousse

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Easter is upon us and all I can think about is chocolate. But, rather than settling for a shop bought Easter Egg this year, I’ll be making a delicious, rich and decadent chocolate mousse. Why not try it yourself – enjoy as a dessert or a very naughty sweet treat. Ingredients 250g dark chocolate (I used 70% Lindt) 50g unsalted butter, softened 9 eggs whites 6 egg yolks, beaten 50g golden caster sugar 1 tsp ground ginger Extra chocolate shavings to sprinkle on top Method 1. Melt chocolate in bain marie. When melted, stir in the softened butter until smooth 2. Whisk egg whites until frothy but not stiff. Add half the sugar and whisk until stiff. Add the rest of the sugar and whisk until the egg whites stiffen further. Fold in the beaten yolks using a metal spoon. 3. Whisk half of the egg whites into the chocolate until thoroughly mixed, then fold in the second half until evenly combined 4. Pour into glasses and leave to set 5. Sprinkle chocolate shavings onto …

Sticky Black Gingerbread

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Another day, another recipe. A girl that I used to work with made a fantastic batch of gingerbread for a Macmillan coffee morning competition that we held in the office last year. She took the recipe from the Leiths School Baking Bible and won the competition hands down. Her prize was a delightful bottle of Laurent Perrier champagne, lucky girl. So, inspired by her fantastic baking, I decided to bake a batch myself. I have the book that she used at home and it had been sitting dormant on the shelf for a while so I put it to good use! I adapted my recipe to include nutmeg, which worked really well! The result is a light, airy and fluffy gingerbread – It is best left for a day so that the flavour really has time to kick in. Ingredients 225g butter 225g dark muscovado sugar 225 black treacle 290ml full fat milk 340g plain flour 2 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground nutmeg 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda 2 eggs, …

Mayonnaise Chocolate Brownies

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A really good advertising campaign has recently caught my eye and I’m sure it has caught the eye of a few other women too. I bake at least twice a week and since I don’t have an office of hungry, sweet toothed girls to share my creations with anymore, a lot more of it goes into my own stomach. Now while my tastebuds and stomach may not be complaining, my waist line might be! My first ever batch of brownies was what started my roller coaster ride filled with sugar, flour, butter, eggs, sugar and chocolate. So when I saw the advert for using mayonnaise instead of butter, I was very intrigued. Normally I don’t like to mess – it took me a while to come to terms with chocolate cake baked with beetroot but when I eventually tasted it, I realised that it was amazing and you couldn’t taste the beetroot at all. These Hellmann’s Mayonnaise and Green & Blacks chocolate brownies are gooey, chocolatey, absolutely delicious, so easy to bake and 55% lower …

Maple and Pecan muffins

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I love breakfast foods, which is why I’ve been making a lot of loaves and muffins recently. Since it was pancake day this week and I bought a bottle of Maple Syrup especially, I thought I’d carry on the theme and make some Maple Syrup and Pecan Muffins. I have the Hummingbird Bakery book but their recipe called for more buttermilk than I have in the fridge so it was back to the drawing board. I came across a recipe from Nigella Lawson, which uses wheat germ. I had some oat germ in the cupboard which needed using so I decided to substitute it. There is no sugar or butter in the batter – instead I used milk, vegetable oil and of course, maple syrup. The result is a light and fluffy muffin with a delicious crunchy sugary and nutty topping. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they’re healthy but i’m sure they’re not as bad as your regular muffin. I have an American cup measure so I used this – if …

New Zealand green lipped mussel linguine recipe

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I have seen mussels popping up a lot recently and I suddenly realised that I have never cooked them before. I wanted to do something about it but my supermarket had ran out of fresh mussels by the time we arrived on Sunday afternoon (can’t blame them really) so we had to settle for already cooked mussels. To spice it up a bit and make it look prettier, we also bought a few New Zealand green lipped mussels. This is such an easy dinner and absolutely delicious. It only takes a few minutes from start to finish. Ingredients (serves 2) 100ml dry white wine (I used Orca Bay) 20ml single cream 4 tbsp olive oil pinch of chilli flakes 1 clove garlic, finely chopped 200g linguine 2 tbsp curly leaf parsley salt and pepper to season squeeze of lemon Method 1. Boil the linguine in salted water 2. Meanwhile warm the wine and olive oil in a pan 3. Add the garlic to the wine and cook for about 5 minutes 4. Pour in the …