Glossy Peanut Butter and Chocolate Tart

Ingredients

Half a packet of Digestives

100g Butter, melted

300 ml Double Cream

1 tablespoon Caster Sugar

Pinch of Salt

50 g Butter

200 g Dark Chocolate

A Jar of Sugar Free Peanut Butter

salt

Method

Crush the digestive biscuits and mix with the melted butter.

Press into a fluted tart tin, and put in the freezer to harden.

Melt 3 heaped tablespoons of peanut butter in a pan until liquid\, and spread across the harden tart shell.

Put the cream, sugar and salt in a pan and bring to the boil.

As soon as the cream boils, take it off the heat and stir in the chocolate and butter until smooth.

Pour carefully into the tart shell and leave at room temperature to solidify. Don’t put in the fridge or it won’t be glossy!

Melt another couple of tablespoons of peanut butter again, and drop small circles into the tart to form circles. Drag a toothpick through to form hearts.

Whip some cream and mix with the remaining peanut butter to make an accompaniment.

Look at that gloss!

❤

Daim Bar Pretzel Brownies or Bust.

The thing about attempting to go sugar-free is that that there are three types of people. The first is the medical necessity, whom I feel very sorry for, the second is the voluntary all or nothing, who I am confused by. The third is me, the ‘I really should try to think about my sugar and think about changing and also, what am I doing with my life, and I didn’t eat enough vegetables today, and isn’t the world in a terrible state and none of my clothes are quite ‘right” type. The worrier. We are super fun to be around in case you didn’t already guess that.

For the last 3 months or so London has presented me with some serious challenges. Amongst these challenges I felt like it might be time to challenge myself with something difficult, and make something positive happen. It worked- London is sunny again, and I am exploring to within an inch of life, and not to be an interminable bore, but adjusting my sugar intake has had something to do with that.

However, as I previously mentioned, I cannot get on board with the type of smug sugar-free person who happily tells you that she hasn’t had sugar for three months and just feels so fabulous. I don’t want to give up sugar. I love sugar. It makes most things taste better. It does. You are lying if you say it doesn’t. Stop lying. And stop telling me how zen you feel. Its called ‘crashing’…..some sugar will help with that.

So I came up with a compromise- 5 days off sugar, two days on. Sugar-free recipes are difficult, and to be honest, not for this blog. Try the ‘I Quit Sugar’ website for ideas, and be prepared to be always coming second to the real thing.  Today I just felt like it had been a while since I did anything truly decadent- so I bit the bullet for one day only, and made these. Enjoy with guilt and milk.

Pretzel and Daim Bar Brownies

I have tried a great many brownie recipes, tbh there’s only a few variations in each recipes. I started these brownies with a Nigella version from Domestic Goddess.

http://www.food.com/recipe/nigella-lawson-brownies-32053

Line a large tin with greaseproof paper, then lay out about 12 giant pretzels on top. Sprinkle over about 5 more.

I used a bag of  mini-Daims, but you could use about 4 bars. Chop with about 180g of white chocolate drops, and a packet of Rolos. When we go, we go hard.

Make the mix, and allow to cool. Stir in 2/3rds of the chopped chocolate.

Pour over the brownies.

Bake for about 45s, until the edges are cooked, and the middle still wobbles a bit. Turn it out after about ten minutes.

Sprinkle the rest of the chocolate over whilst the cake is still warm, and then put back into the oven (switched off, but still warm), for five minutes.

Photos!

   

Livi’s Homemade Christmas

Hello! This is the year of homemade presents, and just in case you are stuck for ideas- here are some homemade edible presents that are very easy and so cheap. Have a lovely Christmas and happy new year!

Livi’s Salted Pretzel Christmas Puddings

These are so easy 🙂 Just fill two piping bags, one with white chocolate and one with dark. Place the pretzels on a foil sheet, making sure they are flat. Pipe dark chocolate into the lower two thirds, and white into the top. Put some holly and berry Smarties on the top, and freeze them for about 10 minutes to harden them. 🙂

Livi’s White Chocolate Turtles.

These are really popular and so quick. I make mine in Madeline moulds, to give them a pretty shape.

On a tray lined with foil, or a silicone Madeline tray, place as 24 pecans at intervals. This is tricky- but try to balance a Rolo on top of each nut. Bake in the oven for upto five minutes, on a low heat. I have burnt so many, so I suggest sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the oven, bake-off style. When the Rolos still have their shape, but are being to melt, take them out and push another pecan on the top of each one- does not have to be neat, in fact, it’s better if it isn’t. Leave to cool, then pipe melted white chocolate over the top to encase them. Freeze for 10 minutes to harden.

Livi’s Rocky Road Sheet

 Melt 200g of white chocolate in a bowl over some boiling water. Spread out a large piece of foil, and pour the chocolate on. Use a knife to spread it into a rectangle, keeping it fairly thin. Next, use whatever you like to cover it. I used mini marshmallows, crumbled shortbread, pecans, and a drizzle of mint chocolate- but Rice Krispies, caramel, freeze dried raspberries, ginger nuts and hazlenuts. Freeze for ten minutes and cut/smash it into bits.

Stay Unchained ❤

A fondant fancy for people who don’t fancy fondant.

I am not really a fan of icing….at all. I have covered cakes in the most inventive icing I can think of to make sure the cake looks special or pretty, or beautiful, or super fancy, but inevitably I will pull it off and smudge it across the plate, and play with it for a couple of hours. Its so sweet, and causes an ache in my tooth that I feel for days. Unfortunately, it makes baking so much more special, so I just suck it up, make it- then ignore it.

However, I wanted to try something for this blog, something that Mary Berry perfected years ago, but I needed to try and get around the inevitable sweetness and creepy smoothness of fondant icing. So I came up with this instead. And I really like it. A Lot. The sponge is modelled on the HummingBird’s vanilla cupcake mix.

Livi’s Passionfruit and White Chocolate Fancy

Ingredients

Sponge

240g Plain Flour

3 tsp Baking Powder

280g Caster Sugar

80g Butter

3 Eggs

240ml Milk

Tablespoon of Vanilla Essence

Passionfruit Buttercream

3 Passion Fruit

125g Butter

300g Icing Sugar (a bit more just in case)

Marzipan

Coat

600 g White Chocolate

Vegetable Oil

200g Dark Chocolate

Method

Beat together the butter and sugar- it’ll look sandy.

In a separate bowl beat together the eggs, vanilla and milk. Add to the butter and sugar.

Beat in the flour and baking powder.

Pour into a large rectangular roasting tin and bake at 190c until golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Whilst it bakes, make the buttercream.

Mix the butter and the icing sugar together until thick and smooth- add the icing sugar bit by bit, taste testing as you go!

Scoop the insides of the passion fruit out, and add to the buttercream bit by bit. It will separate a bit, add more icing sugar to smooth it out.

When the cake is cooled, use a ruler to cut it into 3 by 3cm squares.

Assembly

Thinly roll out the marzipan.

Cut each square in half horizontally.

Sandwich them together with buttercream.

Dirty ice the outside (smooth the icing around to ensure the crumbs don’t get everywhere.)

Once the whole cube is covered in icing, place a 3x3cm square of marzipan on top .

Melt the white chocolate. Add a few tablespoons of oil to the chocolate until it is thin enough to pour.

The next move is up to you! You can pour over the chocolate, or dip the cakes, or use a spoon. I dipped them using a slotted spatula, then topped them up with a spoon.

Put in the fridge until the chocolate sets.

Melt the dark chocolate and drizzle over.

Woah…mammoth instructions, but just so worth it I promise. Not too sweet and full of gorgeous flavours. Passionfruit in particular is such a fresh and gorgeous taste, and it beats fondant hands down, no contest.

Photos?

I’m going to go and see if one if left from last night. Have a great week!

❤ Stay Unchained

 

I wish I was a plumber

Happy New Year!!

I am wary of making New Year’s Resolutions because occasionally I break them….all the time. My lists from when I was younger are cringy- ‘be more me’, ‘ask him out’ and the very ambiguous… ‘be cooler’. This year I have steered clear of any concrete goals, but have written in my 2014 diary that it would be a good idea to try out more of my own recipes.

So this week I have been obsessing over a very particular type of biscuit. In my days as an MA student, I would frequently stock up on biscuits to see me through that 3 am slump in the library. The 3am slump traditionally happened when I would realise that I had simply written ‘add footnote’ during the early stages of the essay. Being unable to recall where this came from, when I found or, or who I should attribute it too, it was traditional for me to shut my eyes, reach for the biscuits and just gently remind myself why I was doing a Masters anyway. Largely this would be because it was too bloody expensive to jack it in and become a plumber (genuinely respect and envy plumbers, and and I am dangerously under-qualified for this to be my dream), so I would continue, thinking about my other, brilliant life of fixing drain blockages and having loads of cash.

Anyway- this is not a blog about my life decisions, luckily, so more about the biscuits. They are pear and dark chocolate, gluten-free, which I usually find a bit weird, but these are glorious . The library sold them in small packets of two…wickedly expensive, but gorgeous, and since I can’t find a box of them anywhere, I thought I would try to make them. 

But being completely unsure of the recipe, and not knowing where to start tried three ideas out, with varying results. So, in the style of an Arctic explorers journal, only much less impressive, I have documented my attempts here.

All three start with this recipe for Viennese Fingers, from Woman and Home online.

Ingredients

• 100g unsalted butter, softened
• 25g icing sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 100g plain flour
• 1tsp cornflour
• 1/4tsp baking powder
• 100g milk chocolate, chopped

You will also need:

• A baking tray lined with baking parchment and a piping bag fitted with a medium star nozzle

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3
2. Tip the butter and sugar into the bowl of a freestanding mixer and beat until pale and light. Add the vanilla extract and mix again. Sift the flour, cornflour and baking powder into the bowl and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined
3. Spoon the dough into a piping bag fitted with a medium star nozzle and pipe 10cm-long fingers onto the prepared baking tray. Bake on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for 10–15 minutes until pale golden
4. Remove from the oven and cool on the baking trays for 5 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack until completely cold.

So once you are here, you have three options.

Option One

This was my favourite. Cool the biscuits. Mix a tub of pear puree with enough icing sugar to give it a glace icing consistency. Pipe this down the centre of each biscuit. Put in fridge until firm, then cover the icing completely with dark chocolate. My camera broke during this….as you can see.

Result: Crunchy, Sort of pearish, delicious

Option Two

After baking, pipe a line of icing down the middle, and sandwich two together. Refrigerate. Dip half in chocolate.

Result: Much more peary, less crunchy, still delicious.

Option Three

Add an extra 50 grammes of flour to the mix and 1 1/2 tubs of the pear puree. Bake as normal. Dip the base in chocolate.

Result: Soft, peary- but a bit weird…..sort of grows on you.

Tried this one with Gluten-Free flour as well, not sure what the effects were, but they are still, you know…..biscuits.

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and have an amazing new year xxx

Stay Unchained<3

 

A tale of two cakes…

Ahhh a new challenge. I was asked by a friend to make a birthday cake using an enormous cupcake mould, and I accepted, because who doesn’t love a last minute baking challenge….and this was a last minute challenge of the most exciting.

The mould!! I examined it for a good ten minutes, thinking about sciencey things like oven temperature. The tin is quite deep and wide, so I was a bit worried about the damn thing actually baking all the way through. After this initial assessment, I decided to kill two cakes with one tin, and make a practice cake that could also be a congratulations on your PhD/Happy 4th of July present for my lovely American boyfriend.

Oh mayte, am I glad I did that.

Cake One

So…the plan was to whip up a quick almond sponge, fill it with berries and whipped cream, ice majestically and present to my boyfriend with a casual, ‘well….I had the time and I love you’. Here’s what he was presented with a manic 3 hours later.

Ok, do let’s talk about what went wrong shall we?

1. GREASE! GREASE THE MOTHER FLIPPING TIN! I thought I did, but no- three sticks of butter and a roll of greaseproof paper and you might be nearly there. The above monstrosity is what happens when you deftly rub a thin slick of oil in the vague direction of the tin. No- butter, flour and greaseproof paper- it’s your only chance.

2. Patience. I will not lie to you readers, I hacked that thing out with a knife. The bottom came out in 3 billion pieces.  Say it with me……easssssy does it.

3. A drizzle of glace icing only works when the cake itself holds a perfect smooth shape. See above.

4. Colour scheme- obviously, it had to be red, white and blue, for the colour of the ‘Murica (and France and England and so on), I used freeze dried raspberries, and coloured some granulated sugar blue to dust the top with. However, these significantly undelicate colours do not work on a cake that has no grace or beauty itself.

So, armed with hindsight and renewed determination (and energy- that cake actually tasted great), I had a go at the serious one. What do you think?

Stay Unchained ❤

Experiments with Macarons

I have a serious case of ‘if someone else can so can I’, and it’s no different with macarons. After several experiments with recipes for the basic mix, I have decided that Ed Kimber’s is the most reliable and least like to sink/burn/fail and leave you bereft and empty.

The base recipe can be found here, just alter the food colouring accordingly.

http://www.frenchweddingstyle.com/wedding-macarons-with-edd-kimber/

Using this recipe, I have played around with fillings and flavours- here are three of my favourites.

Rose and Raspberry

So this is a variation on the above recipe, I think it needed a sharper element.

I coloured the shells using pink gel food colouring, which is bake stable and doesn’t make the recipe too runny to work. The filling is a buttercream, coloured with a darker pink (Waitrose natural pink) and flavoured with rose water to taste. Then ice both shells to protect them from the raspberry juice, and crumble a raspberry across the one of the shells.

White Chocolate and Sea Salt

This macaron was coloured with yellow gel colouring. The filling is white chocolate ganache- melted chocolate with a splash of cream mixed in. I added Maldon Sea Salt to taste- its a sweet hit followed by a gorgeous salt aftertaste. My favourite!

Dark Chocolate with Mint

I left the shells natural for this macaron, which gives a beautiful pure white colour. The filling is ganache made with dark chocolate and cream, as before, but with a generous splash of peppermint oil stirred in.

Have fun playing with colours and flavours….and design. Here’s what you can do with a paint chart….

Stay Unchained<3

Blog Inspiration: Chocolate Mint Fish Biscuits

This blog post is a tribute to a rather lovely blog I discovered recently called ‘Playing with Flour’. In addition to its fantastic name and beautiful photography, it has thee most gorgeous chocolate biscuit recipe.

Here is my (much messier) attempt! And check out the blog….it’s lovely!

Chocolate Mint Fish

These are crunchy chocolate biscuits with a chocolate and mint ganache, covered in mint chocolate. Brilliant. I couldn’t find mint chocolate on short notice, so I used Lindor with peppermint essence to make the filling. ‘Playing with Flour’ used these beautiful flower cutters, but I only had pigs or fish. …Since you ask, a result of purchasing a bizarre collection in which I only really needed the heart cutter. I used both, but the fish are cutest (pigs are still pretty cool though). I started with a delicate brush of chocolate, but I had so much left, and I wasn’t really trying to impress anyone- so I threw the remainder alllll over.

Crunchy Choc-Mint Cookies

Stay Unchained<3

Dissertation Snacks

I am an MA student, and therefore in a period now of severe dissertation stress, which means in turn that I need snacks, all the time. The other day I was working, and due to a deserted campus the only thing on offer was biscuits. And I had a revelation….

ginger chocolate biscuits. Beautiful. So I had a go. I used this recipe for the biscuit, http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8852/ginger-biscuits.aspx, but added a touch more ginger.

Then came the fun part, using tongs, I dipped each biscuit into 85% dark chocolate, and put in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Messy and so much fun.