Waffles with Chocolate Sauce

I got a waffle iron for my birthday - actually a combined sandwich toaster, panini press and waffle maker from Robert Dyas, as I thought that would save on space. I finally got the time t try it out.

To make the waffle mixture, you need:

2 eggs

2 cups plain flour

1 and 3/4 cups milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tbsp caster sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

This makes quite a few so it might be a good idea to halve the mixture if you want to serve two.

Beat the eggs and the flour

Then beat in the other ingredients until you have a smooth batter

This is the waffle maker; you change the plates depending on what you are making (the picture on the box shows the panini press).

Fix in the waffle plates and spray with Fry Light.  Close and wait til the waffle maker gets hot - in this case a light comes on.

In the meantime I made a simple chocolate sauce from melted chocolate and double cream.

 The plates on the waffle maker are very shallow so even though I tried not to overfill it, I still found a lot of batter ran out over the sides, and the waffles that it made were pretty thin. I guess this is because it's a 3-in-one machine and I think in retrospect I'd rather have a proper, deeper waffle maker, but I don't really have enough storage space in my kitchen as I would still want a sandwich toaster as well.

Here are the waffles that I made

Serve with the chocolate sauce and whipped cream. They did taste really good.

The theme for this month's Breakfast Club challenge is continental, and according to this month's host Victoria from A Kick at the Pantry Door, that includes waffles. We had these waffles for dessert but you could easily serve them for breakfast with fresh fruit; you could make the batter the night before then it wouldn't take long to heat up the waffle maker in the morning. Cleaning it afterwards does take a little longer though!

Peach and Raspberry Breakfast Pot

I'm always trying to think of different things I can have for breakfast, as I try not to have cereal or toast for breakfast if I am having a sandwich for lunch (part of the idea of the Slimming World plan). So it also has to be something healthy, and preferably something that is quick to prepare and eat or that I can take to work and eat at my desk. I bought some peaches and had some raspberries left over from this recipe so decided to use them as the basis for a breakfast pot.

First I poured a few spoonfuls of Special K into a dessert glass; you could also use muesli.

Next add a couple of spoonfuls of fat free Greek style plain yogurt, and a little sweetener such as Splenda, or honey or agave nectar if you prefer.

Swirl in some raspberries or raspberry puree. I preferred to whiz the raspberries in a blender to make into a puree which I then stirred through the yogurt.

Slice a peach and layer the slices on top

As my boyfriend has had a kidney stone I've been thinking about foods that are high in fibre. I previously bought a packet of hemp seeds from a health food store for a smoothie I made and had a lot left, so I sprinkled a teaspoonful on top of the peaches.

I thought putting it on top would give a satisfying crunchy topping though you could also mix it in with the muesli layer.

Here's a side view of the breakfast pot; I also made one in a plastic container to take to work and eat straight from the pot. It was delicious and really filling, I wasn't hungry again until lunchtime.

I'm sending this to Breakfast Club, hosted this month by Elizabeth's Kitchen as the theme for June is high fibre. I'm looking forward to seeing what other ideas people come up with! The challenge was created by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours.

This used up leftover fruit and cereal from a packet I already had open, so it was actually a quite thrifty breakfast. For that reason I'm sending it to Credit Crunch Munch, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All. This month it is guest hosted by Anneli at Delicieux.

Raspberries are the ingredient for this month's One Ingredient Challenge, hosted by Nazima at Franglais Kitchen and Laura at How To Cook Good Food.

Chocolate Croissants or Pain au Chocolat

 

I have a breadmaker, which I don't use often enough - it never seems a good idea when I'm trying to follow a Slimming World diet and because I live on my own (with my cat... which makes me sound like an old spinster!) I feel like I'd never get through a whole loaf of bread before it goes mouldy. So the breadmaker stays gathering dust in the corner of my kitchen....

 

.... until this weekend, that is! My parents were staying and, inspired by a few different blogging challenges, I decided to make some pain au chocolat for breakfast.

 

I followed the instructions in the booklet that came with my breadmaker, which were pretty straightforward. Place the following in the breadmaker:

 

1/2 tsp yeast

300g strong white flour

1 tsp sugar

25g butter

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

150ml water

 

And put on to the appropriate setting - in this case "basic- dough- 2h 20". And press start! (Yes I know it's a bit of a cheat....)

 



 

This makes you a lovely ball of dough. Unfortunately that's not the end of it and there's still a lot to do!

Roll out your dough

Dot the top third with butter

Fold the bottom third up to the middle and the top third down to the middle like so. Cover and chill in the fridge for 30 mins.

Roll out again and repeat the process with the butter and folding and chilling.

Divide the dough into four

Cut each square into triangles. They are quite small at this stage. You're supposed to now roll out each triangle to make it bigger, but I found that very difficult to do while retaining the triangular shape, so ended up just stretching them out a little with my fingers.

It's amazingly easy to make these look like proper croissants - at least it is easy in principle! My dough was quite soft so it doesn't look very neat. All you do is roll up the triangle starting from the wide edge, finishing at the point, then bend it into a curved shape.

I wanted to make some of my croissants into pain au chocolat, and used these Cadbury's Chocolate Chunks

 

I placed a chocolate chunk onto a piece of pastry before I rolled it up

 

 

Here they are, ready to prove then go in the oven. The only downside is that this whole process takes so long- 2 hours 20 to make the dough, an hour of chilling plus time to roll it out - then 20 minutes to prove and 15 minutes to cook, that there was no way I was going to do this first thing in the morning before breakfast! So I made the croissants right up to this point then left them in the fridge overnight. Luckily it didn't seem to do them any harm!

 

 Now (or the next morning)allow to prove in the oven at 40C for 20 minutes, until they have doubled in size.

 

 

Brush with beaten egg or milk. Cook at 220C for 15 minutes until browned. I can't believe this look like proper croissants, I assumed they were really hard to make but they are not at all*!

* Provided you use a breadmaker

 

 

 

Here you can see the chocolate in the middle. These were delicious!

 

The theme for this month's We Should Cocoa challenge is breads or yeasted sweet dough bakes that incorporate chocolate, so these fit perfectly. The challenge this month is hosted by Franglais Kitchen and originally comes from Chele at Chocolate Teapot and Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog.

 

 

Calendar Cakes, hosted by Laura of Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of Dolly Bakes, came up with a bit of a different theme for their challenge this month, of bread, rolls and buns, so I am also sending them these chocolate croissants.

 

Finally here's a challenge I've not taken part in before: Breakfast Club, run by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours, and this month hosted by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog. November's theme is chocolate!