Keto Chocolate Mousse

  As a Moose, I approve. 

(Bunny complained that the regular martini glasses weren't big enough. It's not a perspective trick.) 

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream 
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 
• 1/4 cup sweetner 
• vanilla extract 
• pinch of salt 

Sift the dry ingredients together and whip into a ... MOOSE... with the cream. Or whip the cream a bit and add the rest. Serve with generous amounts of Kahlua. Yet to find someone who doesn't like this. Takes about three minutes to make. 

Banoffee pie

 Why don't we have this on the blog? Because it's too easy?  I don't know. 

I usually made Banoffee with a blind-baked sweetcrust pastry base, then two tins of the caramel (or one, if you're not so sweet-toothed), then sliced layered bananas all over the spread toffee, then Chantilly (or just plain whipped cream). 

(Sweetcrust: about 250g plain flour, 125g butter (cold, cut up), 100g icing sugar, 1 egg, sometimes some lemon zest, splash of ice water or so if needed, pinch of salt. Or can decrease the sugar, replace the egg with water, use caster instead of icing, but whatever you do make sure you touch that butter as little as possible and crumb it into the flour and bind quickly. Also useful to roll out between cling film or baking parchment: it's always floppy.) 

However Flash made it the other day and instead of baked crust, used a biscuit and butter base, and frankly I think the nutty flavour went better with the caramel and banana. Plus it's even easier. 

As a side note, if you don't have access to tinned caramel, you can boil a tin of sweetened condensed milk for 45 minutes or so and it'll turn into caramel. I used to do this because condensed milk is about a quarter of the price of caramel. Now the part I can't afford is the calories on my tummy more than the pennies from the pocket. 

Chocolate Cinnamon Crumb Squares

Wouldn't rave about these but they do stick to yer ribs and they are chocolaty. Need some cream to go with them. Frankly can't taste the cinnamon.

For the crumble topping 

• 50g plain flour 
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder 
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon 
• 50g light muscovado sugar 
• 50g butter

For the cake 

• 200g plain chocolate 
• 175g softened butter 
• 200g light muscovado sugar 
• 3 eggs 
• 175g self-raising flour 

Make the crumble first and set aside. Make the cake (cream butter and sugar, melt chocolate, add, etc.). Pour into 20cm square tin, top with crumble, bake at 150 for 40 mins, until skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin for 10 mins then dust over with icing sugar and cut into squares.

Mr B (Breakfast/Snack Banana Slice)

Make a sponge in a slice tin, with 250g made up of flour, raw oats, and desiccated coconut and baking powder. Three eggs, 150g melted butter, vanilla essence. Mix, into lined slice tin, bake at 170c. When done, make a syrup in the microwave from a good dollop of golden syrup and a slosh of orange flower water. Spoon on top of the slice. Cool, cut into two layers. Lightly spoon cream over the base and layer with banana slices, replace top, dust with icing sugar. Rather tasty.

Pina Colada Cake

This was meant to be Russian Cherry Cake but we had no cherries. So we went all Puerto Rican instead.

You'll make three or four sausages of pastry filled with pineapple, sugar and coconut mix, roll them up into snakes inside a springform pan, and bake 'em at 170. I found the bottom baked less than the top because of the squidginess factor so it might be a good idea to foil up the top and put it slightly towards the bottom of the oven for longer.

For the pastry there's 3.75 cups of flour, 120g butter (melted), two teaspoons of baking powder, a cup of yoghurt and 0.5 cups of sugar combined. Yep, a lot of flour. I found I had to add a bit of milk into this mix because it didn't hold together well enough. Roll up, make yer stuffed snakes, curl 'em up. Cut as per normal cake. Rather nice, actually.

Iced Lemon Cake

An old tea-time favourite. 

For the cake mix: 

125g butter

grated rind 1 lemon

2 eggs

2 tablespoons milk

200g self-raising flour 

50g cornflour

0.5 teaspoons baking powder

Tin: 20cm round. Grease and line. Oven to 190c. Beat butter, sugar, lemon rind, then eggs,and milk and then dry ingredients. Bake for 40-50 mins. Turn out. 

Syrup 

2tablespoons water 

2 tablespoons lemon juice 

50g caster sugar 

1 tablespoon arak, ouzo or cointreau 

Heat into a syrup, saturate cake with it. 

When done, drizzle over thick icing and sprinkle on some lemon peel for cuteness. Nice crumbly textured cake. 

Spiced Chocolate Cake

A REALLY DENSE delicious chocolate cake that will turn your insides into a high-class confectionery store.

(We did 1/2 of this and it still lasted days)

Melt 250g dark chocolate with 250g butter and 185ml water. Cool. Combine 125ml buttermilk, 2tbsp instant coffee, 2 tbsp oil and 4 eggs. Add in 2 cups flour (plus 2 tsp baking powder), 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 2.5 cups sugar, grated nutmeg (lots) and cinnamon. Mixy mixy. Add the melted chocolate and give a final flourish before baking at 160 for well over an hour.

When it's done, tip it upside down and drizzle over with brandy until it can take no more, then tip it right right way up and give it some more. Cool completely.

Make icing by melting 250g butter with another 250g chocolate, cooling, and slurping over the top.

Boy was this cake good. The pic is of the half-sizer.

Chocolate Swiss Log

Whisk 100g of caster sugar with three whole eggs, until it's all thick and creamy and leaves a trail. Stir in a mix of 75g plain flour and 25g cocoa powder and 15ml hot water, pour into a lined Swiss Roll tin and bake at 180 for about 8-9 minutes until it's pouffy and done. Tip out onto a sugar-sprinkled sheet of baking paper and roll it up while it's hot. Set aside to cool.

The mix I filled it was a cream-cheese and lemon zest, which worked very nicely. Covered it with a simple dark chocolate ganache and all good. Fed 8 as a very light but yummy dessert.

Peach and raspberry cheesecake

For the base: a 250g packet of Arnott's Granita biscuits and 100g butter, melted. Blend, mix, press into lined base of slice tin. Chill for 30 minutes.

For the cheesecake mix, first rough chop and microwave one peach. Chuck in blender with 2 x 250g packs cream cheese, 120g sour cream, two eggs, some vanilla, and 1/2 cup sugar. Pour onto chilled base.

Sprinkle 100g raspberries over the mix, then arrange thin slices of peach over the top to cover everything. Bake at 150 c for 45 minutes. Open oven door and let cheesecake sit there until it cools. Then chill for 2 hours. Yes, this is a bit of a marathon. Eventually, after that, they let you eat it. You deserve it by now, you're probably famished.

,,, Addendum....

OK So I made this once, and it was a great success and very tasty but for next time I want to try to following:

• Leave out the raspberries, they amount to nothing. If you want the flavour make a coulis for after. 
• Increase the peach puree by about three times in the mix, leave out some of the cheese and increase by one egg. Maybe add a tablespoon of cornstarch or so. Also add some lemon zest. 

Custard Tarts

You know those custard tarts you buy in the shop that have disappointing amounts of custard and don't taste of anything? This isn't one of them.

Pastry:
250g flour, 185g butter, 1.5 tbsp icing sugar, 1 egg yolk, iced water. Blind bake in four/five generous muffin tins, 10mins with pastry beads 10 mins without, at 200 degrees.

Custard:
1 can condensed milk, 1.5 cups milk, 2tbsp custard powder, 1 eggs, vanilla essence. Cook in saucepan until thickened. Pour into tart casings, chill. Consume with nutmeg grated on top.

Custard Cornucopias

Nothing could be easier. 

1) Make custard. (Custard powder's fine. Microwave is not only fine but excellent.) 

2) Chill. (Both you and the custard.) 

3) Wrap ready-made puff pastry round pastry horn moulds. Bake. Until both the pastry and your ego are puffed.  

4) Pipe cooled custard into horns (with a snipped-off sandwich bag works fine). 

5) Dust with icing sugar. 

Kids yum 'em.

Apple Fritters

Great breakfast or snack - or even dessert.

Batter:
1 cup flour
1 egg
1 scant cup milk
vanilla
approx 40g melted butter
a few spoons of sugar

this will coat about 5 medium sized apples, though it's a bit of a toss-up. I would do about 1.5 apples per person so theoretically this would be enough for about 3 people. Depending on their level of hunger.

Peel and core the apples, slice them into reasonably thick slices ring-wise, microwave covered in cling film for about 5 minutes or until they're somewhat soft but not falling apart. Cool them a little before you coat in batter (besides, it's hard to handle otherwise).

Shallow fry, and sprinkle with icing sugar as they come out of the batch and go into the serving bowl (so you don't get a bunch of sugar on top at the end and none on the bottom). Serve with maple syrup and/or cream. Or even ice-cream.

Apple Crumble

Nothing wrong with serving apple crumble as a breakfast. It's fruit, carb, and sugar. Standard breakfast stuff. If you have ice cream with it it's dairy as well.

About 1.2kg apples
about 250g flour (plain)
about 180g sugars of whatever colour you feel inclined towards
about 130g butter
spices of your inclination (probably nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom rather than chili and paprika but anyway)

Crumble up the crumble mix. put spices in where you like. If your apples are sour or you need extra fillings, sweeten your peeled and chopped apples. Apple mix on bottom of dish, crumble on top. Well that's the traditional one anyway. Bake for about 40 mins in 180 degree oven. Serve with ice-cream or cream to hungry people for breakfast, snack, or dessert. Or just because it's Tuesday.

Mixed Plum Tart

Prep up a 22cm flan tin and an oven to 200 C.

Pastry:
125g butter,
55g icing sugar
225g plain flour
1 egg & some cold water

Filling:
100g softened butter
110g caster sugar
1 egg, 1 egg yolk
1 cup almond meal
35g plain flour
6 or 7 plums, stoned and cut into wedges.

Blind bake the pie crust until 'getting there' (not too much). Filling: beat butter & sugar, add aggs, beat, add almond meal and flour. Spread over base. Arrange plum wedges evenly (and prettily) over the filling, back for 30 minutes. Meant to be served cold, if you can wait. (It gets much easier to cut when cold.) Pretty yummy.

Easy Apple Cake

I didn't cook this one myself so I hope the details are right - kids loved it and it was pretty quick to make.

Apply part: peel and chop 'some' apples  and stew them with some cinnamon, ginger and similar spices and sugar to your taste. Cool a little and blitz into a puree. End up with about 200-300g's worth, probably.

Cakey part: used a plain vanilla cake mix. Or you could to an equal-weight standard mix with 3 eggs and 180g each of flour, sugar and fat.

Mix. Bake. Yum. Really moist, so leave yourself some time to bake this one, at 180.

Marzipan Pouffies

There’s no marzipan and they’re not hugely poufy, but still, that’s what they are. Good emergency I-Need-Something-Sweet-Now item from store cupboard. You need:



Two frozen sheets of puff pastry

1 cup almond meal

0.5 cup icing sugar

A few slurps of Amaretto or almond essence (optional)

1 egg

A few dried apricots (optional)

Lay one of the sheets flat on a greased baking tray. Combine the almond meal, sugar, and the white of the egg (keep the yolk) with just enough Amaretto or almond essence and water to make it into a thick paste. If you’re using the apricots, chop them up and add too. Spread on the bottom sheets, cover with the other, seal round the edges. Combine the yolk with either more amaretto and a bit of sugar or just water and brush over the top, bake on high until it’s done (golden and… poufy).

 You can serve this warm with ice cream over the top in squares, but it’s a little hard to cut the bottom layer in a bowl. I think the sick-cut method when they’re a bit cooler (making them delectable finger food) is preferable.