Officially the gooiest, tastiest triple chocolate fudgey brownies in the world!

Triple Chocolate Fudge Brownies

A few friends and I held a dinner party on Tuesday night, all of us expected to bring along a dish, or wine or something equally tasty and I was given the huge responsibility of providing dessert. It was a great opportunity for me to get back in the kitchen and do some baking – something I love doing but just haven’t seemed to have the time for lately. Unsure of what would tempt everyone’s sweet tooth, I decided to go for my foolproof and always delicious Triple Chocolate Fudge Brownies which are always raved about by friends and family – especially when served warm from the oven with cherry or Baileys ice cream! Check out the recipe below and enjoy making!

Key ingredients for the recipe

Ingredients:

• 150g Dark Chocolate
• 125g Butter (at room temp)
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 150g Self-Raising Flour
• 75g White Chocolate
• 75g Milk Chocolate
• 3 Eggs
• 1 tsp Baking Powder

(Supposed to make 18 brownies but they never stretch that far!)

Times:

• It takes roughly 20 minutes to prep the ingredients
• Cook for 25 minutes
• Cool for 45 minutes
• Ready in 90 minutes (ish)

Perils of baking alone – no-one to help lick the bowls!

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C or Gas 4. Cut a piece of non-stick baking parchment a little larger than the tin, then snip into the corners and press the paper into the tin.
2. Half-fill a saucepan with water, bring just to the boil then turn off the heat and place the large bowl on top. Break the dark chocolate into pieces and cut the butter into pieces on the plate, then add to the large bowl. Leave for five minutes or until melted.
3. Now for the fun bit – put the white and milk chocolate into a plastic bag and hit with a rolling pin until broken into small pieces. This is for chocolate chips so worth chopping roughly if they don’t break up small enough.
4. Whisk the eggs and sugar in the second bowl for 5 minutes using an electric whisk until thick and very frothy. Stick with it for the full 5 minutes because the consistency does change at the end.
5. Pour the melted chocolate and butter mixture over the top and mix in very gently using a metal spoon. Sift in the flour and baking powder over the top and gently fold in.
6. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and sprinkle the milk and white chocolate pieces on top.
7. Bake the cake for 20 – 25 minutes until the top is crusty and the centre still wobbles slightly, then leave to cool and harden.
8. Lift the paper and the cake out of the tin. Remove the paper and put the cake on a chopping board cut into pieces. Can be stored for a couple of days, but never last that long!

Ready to go in the oven and looking delicious!

Top tips:

• Use the cheapest supermarket value chocolate – I find it has less sugar and creates a richer flavour for the brownie.
• Don’t use eggs from caged hens – I don’t know who honestly would in this day and age but I think you can taste the difference and quite frankly the eggs bind the mixture together, why not spend the pennies you save on the chocolate on good quality eggs?
• Be patient when melting the chocolate and butter together – don’t burn the chocolate!
• Blend the mixtures gently and patiently – don’t rush or stir too hard or the brownies will not be as light and won’t rise as well.
• You can also add walnuts, cherries or raspberries to the mixture which is also delicious.
• Melt any extra white chocolate and drizzle it from a spoon over the top of the cooked brownies to add an extra bit of sweetness.
• Serve with fruity or Baileys ice cream (cherry is also lovely) or whipped cream is also delicious and enjoy!

This is one of my favourite recipes and one I always make for family and friends – I hope you enjoy sharing it with your loved ones! Got a recipe you think I’d like? Leave me a link below!

 

Something smells good…

Chorizo and Broad Bean Risotto

This Friday, I’m planning on trying out another delicious risotto recipe, this time cooking for the boyfriend and his new housemate to break in the oven at their new house. Looking forward to this one, think I may enjoy it even more than the mushroom and blue cheese recipe I used before because it will have a more spicy and exotic taste. I love using chorizo in meals and letting other items cook in the oils and I love the use of broad beans in the recipe. I think I might edit the recipe slightly by using pancetta instead of just bacon, melting in some Mexicana cheese and possibly adding some wine – I loved the white wine undertones to the previous dish I made.

Can’t wait to taste it! Click on the picture to read the recipe in full.

Has anyone got any risotto recipes that they love? I’d love some contenders for my next try!

Getting homely as the winter nights draw in..

I’ve become rather excited about all parts of the festive season lately – I guess I have finally accepted the summer is over and now I need to get ready for the winter. To me, this means, food, food and more food. I’m now thinking about pumpkin soups, Christmas cakes, chocolate logs, cheese boards, roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, gravy and mince pies.

Just listing those was making my mouth water! So I decided to get ahead of myself and start celebrating the festive season. My mum bought a couple of pumpkins for us to carve out and although I seem to have lost much of my artistic skill since the last time I carved a pumpkin while at university, I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

My happy little pumpkin – I called him Doug

After I was finished, I scraped the rubbish into the bin, lit a candle inside my new friend, Doug, as I named him, then began to get out all of the baking bits and pieces. Sadly one of the women at my work that I like and admire the most is taking voluntary redundancy and because of the rate of it being processed, she is due to leave today. I wanted to do something nice for her last day so I decided to bake some mince pies because I know she loves my baking.

Baking mince pies

I have my own way of making the gorgeous little pies, I use a mixture of shortcrust and puff pastry for the bottoms and tops. I usually use shortcrust pastry on the bottom cup, fork some holes in the bottom, pop them into a muffin tray and fill the holes with delicious mincemeat.

For the tops, I use a heart-shaped cutter to cut out puff pastry, or shortcrust works just as well, and after coating them in milk, I pop the hearts on top. Bake in the over for around 15 minutes, or until golden brown and then take out to cool. Once they have cooled, scatter icing sugar over the top and enjoy!

TOP TIP: If you are feeling particularly decadent, make the whole mince pie with puff pastry – it melts in your mouth and is even better!

ADMISSION: No I don’t make my own pastry – I am fully able to and have done in the past, but don’t really see the point when it is never quite as nice as shop bought, takes a hell of a lot less time to make these pies (one of the attractions is it takes less than 30 mins to make a huge batch) and even the professional chefs use shop bought and recommend it.

The finished product – yummy!

Success – How I totally owned that risotto recipe

This was the result of last night’s first attempt at making my own risotto.  I went for creamy Gorgonzola and Portobello Mushroom with roasted vegetables. It was truly delicious and very creamy, with plenty of gorgeous white whine thrown in for good measure. A winner with all the family even though some don’t like mushrooms and others weren’t sure about blue cheese. I would say a fantastic success and I’ll definitely be making risotto again very soon – next time I plan to try another recipe with chorizo, red wine and broad beans. To create the dish pictured, find the recipe further down on my blog and throw in extra wine, cheese, mushrooms and water to make it extra delicious.

My first attempt at making risotto

Tomorrow I am cooking dinner for the whole family, including my boyfriend, so the pressure is on and I will be trying my hand at a new dish. I am going to attempt to make my first risotto, after falling in love with the dish at a number of restaurants recently. So far I have tried butternut squash and Wensleydale risotto and a salmon and asparagus dish.

I am going to be making Creamy Gorgonzola and Portabello Mushroom Risotto – it sounds delicious and I can’t wait to try it! Fingers crossed it all goes well. Click here for the recipe I will be using. I’ll take photos and let you know how it goes!

Raspberry, lemon and almond tray bake

I was invited to a friend’s house-warming party at the weekend and was excited to see her new place after months of hearing about it. Fitting with all my expectations, it was a cute little cottage that was exactly as I imagined – cosy and quirky with sloped floors and ceilings, and a wood burner to make it even more inviting.

A friend from work, she had invited all of our work girls and a couple of others we know – all of us keen bakers – and with so many of us travelling quite a distance to get there, we turned away from the wine we would have loved for what turned into a bit of a cake party! I decided to make one of my favourite cake recipes to share, while others made cake lollies, stout cake and banana cake – all very tasty!

I went for Raspberry, lemon and almond tray bake – a sweet almond cake topped with tart raspberries that makes a moreish treat!

The ingredients are:

• 125g plain flour
• 200g caster sugar
• 150g unsalted butter
• 75g ground almonds
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• juice of one lemon (3tbsp)
• 2 large eggs
• 200g fresh raspberries
• icing sugar, to dust

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (350 F/Gas 4). Line the base and sides of the cake tine with baking parchment.
2. Sift the flower into a bowl, add the baking powder and ground almonds, and mix well.
3. In a pan, melt the butter, sugar and lemon juice together, stirring until well combined.
4. Stir the syrupy mixture into the dry ingredients, then mix in the vanilla extract and the eggs, one at a time, then mix until smooth and well-combined.
5. Pour into the tin, then scatter the raspberries over the top. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until golden, when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
6. Cool in the tine for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool completely on a wire rack. Dust icing sugar on top before serving, then cut into rectangles.

A day of vintage shopping and exploring off the beaten track in my favourite city

After a week of stressing about lots of little things, it was time to unwind over the weekend by spending a little time with my loved ones and trying something different. Saturday was spent in Norwich with my boyfriend, after waking up first thing, we decided to head to the city for a day of browsing the lanes – neither of us needing to buy anything just fancying a look around the city in the sunshine.

First of all we went to the Patisserie for a drink and some gateaux – I indulged in the double chocolate, while Mark went for the chocolate mousse combined with fruit smoothies and chocolate milkshakes. Absolutely delicious – I can never resist this place because all of the cakes look so gorgeous.

After, we headed into the lanes where we wandered among the cobbled streets for hours, popping into little boutique and vintage shops, found adorable cafes and delis that we had never seen before, including one that was selling a type of venison salami. The sun came out in force and it was a beautiful day, which only added to the feeling of being on holiday – I love when you rediscovered a place so familiar to yourself just by wandering off the beaten track.

After a few hours, we suddenly came across this huge vintage and antiques shop, Looses Emporium, which looked incredible. We were instantly sucked in and began to explore the enormous warehouse and its contents. We found some amazing items – mainly furniture that made me wish I were moving out so I could fill my home with these unique pieces – but also books, clothes, ornaments and much, much more. Here are some of my favourites:

A vintage Lotto machine..

A throne!

Obviously need one of these for above the mantlepiece!

Still in perfect working condition – such a beautiful tone to the music that you just don’t get from iPods etc…

As suggested by my friend – a sex gong! Haha

And my favourite item of the day – a classic novel..

Then, after two and a half hours of exploring (which included a flea market we found upstairs where Mark bought the purple 50’s bowling bomber as pictured above and an original 1960’s kimono), we moved on to Aladdin’s Cave, which was just down the street where I had to persuade Mark not to buy a life-size statue of Jesus for his new living room.

Both stored were amazing for one-off pieces and for finding something a little different, something we both love to do. Mark is moving into a new house, that his mum and step-dad are renovating in order to rent out, with one of his mates at the start of November and he is really excited to furniture shop for his own home. The place he shares now with two friends is filled with furniture and items that don’t belong to Mark, either to the others or they were given to the boys. He is definitely getting to that point where he wan’t to have a home to call his own and to have all his own things, rather than just a room in a house.

It was an amazing day and nicely rounded off with a meal in a Tapas restaurant we discovered which had the most amazing food. We shared a selection of dishes including Patatas Bravas, prawns in garlic and oil, mozzarella sticks in breadcrumbs with garlic mayonnaise, meatballs in a tomato sauce with peas, and a phenomenally tasty chorizo, bacon, and pea stew in a smoky tomato sauce that fired up my taste buds.

It was so nice to spend a day with Mark, just the two of us, exploring somewhere we both love. We haven’t had enough couple time lately and haven’t appreciated each other as much as we should so it was nice to be together away from everything and everyone at home.