Chocolate Fondue

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Chocolate Puddle Cookies

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Blackberry Almond Slice

Hey…

You there…

The only one that hasn’t made a resolution to be healthier in 2011…

The one that hasn’t promised to cut out all sweets and excess sugar….

You need to make this slice…

now.

For those of us that have vowed to be healthier, to exercise, eat our veggies and drink more water,  please avert your eyes for this one post (or may I suggest bookmarking this recipe for when your resolutions are doubtlessly broken… this slice is that good!).

I wanted to bake something sweet to take to Kris’ family on Christmas day, so upon my Aunty’s recommendation, I made this blackberry almond slice from my good old Delicious magazine.

After a bit of a shortcrust disaster (I totally mis-estimated the amount of butter that I added and it was way too dry and floury),  had no choice but to throw out the base and start again.

Also, just a little warning, the recipe is easy yet confusing, meaning that I accidentally tripled the sugar in the almond topping (and didn’t have extra almonds to start over).  I blame the glass of red wine that I was having with mum, but despite all the errors the slice turned out delicious.

A piece of this atop a scoop of vanilla ice cream will make you forget all the guilt of breaking your resolutions only days into January.

 

Photos from: my camera, Kris‘ camera and my brother’s camera (sorry they all look a little different… but it was fun to get a bit of help with my photos)

Recipe from Delicious Magazine, available here.

Just in case you get confused like me… I have added an (in my opinion) improved ingredients list that separates the sugar, butter and vanilla extract needed for each section.  See the original recipe for the full quantities required.

Topping:

• 200g flaked almonds
• 2 tbs milk
• 60g unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract

Shortcrust:

• 165g unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups (225g) plain flour
• 1/3 cup (50g) cornflour

Berry filling:

• 1/2 cup (160g) blackberry jam
• 1 cup (150g) thawed frozen or fresh blackberries

Healthy treats: Strawberry and yoghurt icy poles

Kris and I love our treats, especially during summer when it is so nice to cool down on a hot afternoon with an ice cream or icy pole.

One of my favourite snacks is frozen grapes, which are sweet enough to satisfy that craving and so simple to make, just throw them in a container in the freezer.

Another new favourite is fruit and yoghurt icy poles – with so many different combinations we will never get sick of them.  The best part is, if you make a smoothie you can just chuck the left overs into your icy pole tray and have a tasty treat ready to go, with minimal effort and reduced food wastage. I always freeze bananas that are a little overripe for use in cakes, smoothies and now in icy poles.

Over the weekend I snacked on the tastiest of strawberries, and thought that some kind of strawberry frozen yoghurt would be the perfect thing for a hot afternoon.  The idea for these originally came from One Charming Party, which is absolutely the cutest blog full of amazing party and food ideas!  Unfortunately my icy pole moulds are a lot smaller than they have used, and for some reason they were quite difficult to find… You would think they should be stocked everywhere!

As I wanted to go for a layered effect, I started with a strawberry puree, to which I added some maple syrup for a little sweetness.  I actually used frozen strawberries for this, but it would work just as well with fresh strawberries (you can definitely use cooking grade, they don’t need to look perfect, just need to be ripe and full of flavour).

Sshhhhhh don’t tell anyone but it was delicious on its own as a strawberry sorbet.

To make the strawberry yoghurt, I just added some of the strawberry puree to natural yoghurt, I didn’t really measure it out or anything, and the quantities would really depend on the size of the icy pole trays that you use.  I added a strawberry slice to make them pretty like the ones from One Charming Party, but of course mine are a lot messier.  Still delicious though!

Perfect for a summer afternoon.

Get in quick because they won’t last long…

Nom nom nom…

Flourless Chocolate and Raspberry Cake

Two of our wonderful friends had us over for dinner on our anniversary the other night, so of course as a good guest I thought I should bring dessert.  I’m always looking for an excuse to bake a cake to share with other people, as Kris and I would just eat the whole thing given the opportunity.

As one of our hosts can’t do gluten (even though it is SOOOO delicious), I thought it would be a great chance to try a flourless chocolate cake.  One of the best cakes I have ever tasted was a flourless chocolate cake with raspberries, and I knew I had raspberries in the freezer, so searched for a recipe to reflect this.

I didn’t plan to blog this as I was super rushed, so didn’t take photos as I went, but as soon as I took the first bite I knew that I just had to share this recipe.  It was a pretty easy cake to make, but takes a few steps, and it was pretty robust considering I ran out of both butter and brown sugar so used a bit less than the recipe called for.

This cake was almost like a dense brownie, soft and gooey in the middle as it was still warm straight from the oven, and perfectly crisp on top.  I didn’t believe the recipe that it needed 1 hour 45 min of baking, so baked for about 40 mins in our oven, and after a quick car ride threw it in the girls’ oven for another half hour.  When I thought it was finished I just turned the oven off and left the cake in there while we chatted the night away.

Oh it was just divine.  We were all quiet for one small minute while we enjoyed the first bite, the crisp crust sticking to our teeth.  If I ever hear a girlfriend has had her heart broken, I know that the perfect fix would be a girlie movie, a tub of ice cream and a huge slice of this cake, straight from the oven.  It was that good.

I threw some raspberries on from the freezer just for show (plus I love eating frozen raspberries, they are so good!), and despite my impatience they finally defrosted in time for me to snap some pics before we polished off the left overs.

There is nothing quite like a cake straight from the oven, but the left overs were still so good even though we didn’t warm them up.

Recipe from: Woman’s Day

Photos from: my camera, taken the day after baking

why I’m not a food blogger

Most food bloggers take immaculate photos of their ingredients, and pick up their camera throughout the entire cooking process, before precisely styling the final product to get the perfect shot.

I have so much admiration for bloggers (e.g. tartelette and bakerella) who show off their cooking with such amazing styling and  photography.

In contrast, when I cook the kitchen is a disaster-zone.   Needless to say, my camera stays far away from my grubby hands a majority of the time, except when I set out to take some photos – and then the whole process just takes far too long for a standard week night dinner.

I hope that explains why this post is very light on images. Also, my lovely boyfriend barely let me snap these photos before he gobbled these right up!

I cooked a veggo frittata for dinner last night and there was a bit of shortcrust pastry left over. Instantly I knew I was going to have to rustle up some kind of dessert.

Dessert usually takes planning – I don’t keep things like cream, custard or icecream on hand (because it would be way too easy to indulge nightly). I looked around the kitchen, saw the ripe bananas and knew it would have to be a spin on my banana, date and oat cookies (which are literally bananas, cut up dates and oats mixed together and put into the oven).

I had a bunch of macadamia nuts sitting in the pantry so threw those in the food processor, along with some walnuts and the dates, and then mashed the bananas in by hand.

I placed a small amount of the mixture into the centre of the pastry pieces and folded them up. I think they look like sweet little won-tons. They tasted so delicious that I barely got a chance to snap a single photo.

Oats were added to the remaining mixture to yield some healthy treats… if only we didn’t eat the whole batch in one go!