Sunken Mud Pies

You would have thought that the mere thought of mud would get me some sort of mental breakdown after the weekend I just endured. 

But I’ve wanted to make these for a long time and now it just seemed right to get it over and done with now.  I promise you won’t have to stomp through sticky, calf deep mud to get to these.  Promise. 

Tweaked from BBC Food here

Ingredients

Biscuit Base

150gr bourbon biscuits

40gr melted butter

Sunken Mud Filling

45gr good dark chocolate

45gr butter

1 egg

45gr golden caster sugar

50ml double cream

Makes six mini mud pies

Method

1, Make the biscuit base by crushing the bourbon biscuits into fine crumbs and stirring in the melted butter

2, Share equally between a six hole, well greased, muffin tin and press it down firmly, coming up slightly at the sides.

3, Put this into the fridge and preheat your oven to 160o/c whilst you make the filling.

4, Melt the butter and chocolate together and leave to one side.

5, Beat the eggs and sugar together until pale, fluffy and airy.

6, Gently fold in the melted chocolate/butter mixture and the double cream and gently fold with a spatula until combined.

7, Remove the muffin tin from the fridge and pour in around 2 and a half tablespoons of the filling mixture into each base.  You might have a little bit of filling left.

8, Bake for 15 minutes and leave in the tins to cool slightly before lifting out carefully.  The tops of the pies will be rounded but will sink when removing them from the oven.

9, Serve with raspberries and cream.  

We Should Cocoa: Chips and Dips

This month’s We Should Cocoa is held by Choclette at the Chocolate Log Blog.  You can see last month’s fantastic roulade and Swiss roll entries here.  There are some fantastic ones there and some have definitely been bookmarked for future reference!

This month’s challenge is strawberries and you can see how to enter here.  Get going! Eat strawberries and a copious amount of chocolate! For research purposes of course!

I was in the process of doing my usual Google of ‘strawberry glut’ for the impending one my parents are going to be victim to, when something a bit different cropped up.  Strawberry salsa.  Made with peppers, onions, coriander and limes.  Sounded utterly gorgeous and has been filed under my BBQ sides list.  (Compulsive list maker over here…).  But I have a sweet tooth.  How lovely would be to have a sweet salsa? But how would you serve it?

Nachos of course!

Chocolate Nacho Biscuits

Ingredients:-

125gr butter

100gr golden caster sugar

1 egg

220gr plain flour

1 & ½ tbsps of cocoa powder

Method

1, Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy

2, Beat in the egg

3, Sift in the flour and cocoa powder and gently fold together into a soft dough. 

4, Stick this in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to make it easier to roll

5, Preheat your oven to 160o/c

6, Take your chilled dough from the fridge and pinch off a lump the size of a golf ball

7, Roll this out as thinly as you can on a lightly floured surface and cut a circle that is roughly 15cm in diameter.  It doesn’t really matter what size they are because they are so thin, if you want to do big ones, go for it! I simply used a bowl and cut round that.

8, Cut each circle into six portions and carefully lift them onto a lined baking sheet.

9, Cut more in the same way and bake for about six minutes. 

10, Remove them from the oven and carefully lift each one up as soon as possible and mould over a rolling pin.  Leave until just cool.  This doesn’t take long as they are so thin.

11, Voila! Nacho cookies!

Fruit Salsa

Ingredients

10-15 strawberries

½ green crunchy apple (like a Granny Smith)

10-15 stoned fresh cherries

Finely grated zest of ¼ of a lime

Couple of tsps of lime juice

1 tbsp icing sugar

Method

1, Chop the fruit finely and toss together in a bowl.

2, Add in the zest, juice and icing sugar and stir to combine

3, Yeah, that easy.  Add different fruit/more of one type of fruit etc to taste. 

Serve with whipped double cream and chocolate nacho biscuits!

Orange Curd

I made this for my Tiger Swiss Roll.  And then made another batch because it was so nice.  Yup.  I’m blowing my own fruit curd trumpet. 

This only makes a small 190gr jar with a little left over.  It’s the perfect size for two people, but it does do well if you double it up etc. 

Ingredients

2 oranges

½ lemon

220gr caster sugar

3 eggs

50gr butter

1tbsp orange flower water

1tbsp orange liqueur

Method

1, Bring a pan of water to the boil and set a heatproof bowl on top of that making sure the water doesn’t touch the base of the bowl.

2, Zest the oranges and lemon and juice them.  Add them to the bowl.

3, Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and stir them gently until the butter has melted.

4, Slowly continuing heating up the curd until it starts to thicken.  If you heat it too quickly, it will split. 

5, When the curd is thick enough to leave a good coating on the back of a wooden spoon, remove from the heat and pour into sterilised jars.  

Pesto Swirl Bread

Ok.  I’ll admit it.  I’ve completely run out of ideas for packed lunches.  There is only so much cous cous, tuna sandwiches and pesto pasta a girl can take.  Time to shake it up?  Enter the swirl bread.  It’s jazzed up lunches for a couple of days at least!

Ingredients:-

500gr strong white bread flour

1tsp salt

1tsp sugar

15ml extra virgin olive oil

1 x 7gr sachet of easy blend yeast

Around 300ml-350ml warm water

3 to 4 tbsps of good jarred pesto

Couple of sundried tomatoes, chopped (optional)

Method

1, Sift the flour into a large bowl with the salt, sugar and yeast.

2, Add in the olive oil and about 200ml of the warm water and start to bring the dough together.  Add more water until the dough comes together and forms a ball.

3, Transfer on a lightly dusted worktop and knead for 5-10 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic and in no way sticky.

4, Stretch the dough out to form a rough rectangle with the long side the same length as your loaf tin.  (I just used my standard 1lb loaf tin)

5, Spread the pesto over the doughy rectangle and sprinkle the sundried tomatoes out evenly. 

6, Roll the whole thing up like a swiss roll and place into your lined or well greased loaf tin.

7, Put the loaf tin inside a large freezer bag and leave somewhere warm for an hour or two until doubled in size.

8, Preheat your oven to 230o/c, brush the top of the loaf with a little water, and bake for 15minutes and then turn down the temperature to 190o/c for the last 15-20minutes.  The bread should make a hollow sound when tapped on the base when it is cooked.

9, Turn out of the tin as soon as it is cooked and slice away to reveal that swirl. 

How do you guys make lunch interesting?  Come on, I’ve seen some of your beautiful bentos!