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

Bread….

As an antidote to cold feet and icy weather, I embarked on a bread making afternoon. Since fresh bread is essentially the elixir of life, I thought I should share some photos. Brrrrr. All these breads started with the same basic recipe:

Easy Bread Dough

500g plain/ strong bread flour (I ran out of the latter, and the first seemed to work!)

10g dried yeast

teaspoon of sugar

10g salt

300ml hand hot water

Dissolve the sugar in the water. Activate the yeast by mixing it with the sugar water with a fork, and leaving it for ten minutes in warm place, until foamy.

Mix the salt with the flour and make a well in the centre. Pour in the yeast. and mix until it forms a rough dough. Turn out, and knead until smooth. Place back in the bowl and cover until doubled in size.

Cottage Bread

Made by splitting the dough into 2:1, and placing the smaller on the larger. Score with a sharp knife.

Rosemary Foccacia

Add 4oml of oil to the original mix. Knead and leave for a couple of hours, stretch it to fit the tray, drizzle with oil, and leave again. Dimple with your fingers, and  stud with fresh rosemary.

Cheddar and Chili Flatbreads

Split the dough into 12 balls. Push small pieces of cheddar into a hole in the top, add chili flakes and salt and pepper. Pinch closed, and roll into discs. Fry in vegetable oil for 2-3 minutes until brown and crunchy! (We had them with homemade curry….I recommend it!)

Stay Unchained<3