Green & Black's Chocolate Sticky Toffee Pudding

Isn't that just the perfect winter warmer?

I actually made this back in January shortly after starting this blog, but never got around to posting! I'd received the Green & Black's Ultimate Chocolate Recipes book for Christmas, and this was the first thing I decided to make from it.You can find the recipe here.

It's pretty straightforward to make: preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin. Soak the dates in a pan of simmering water for ten minutes and in the meantime, melt the chocolate in a microwave or bain marie.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl, beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the melted chocolate.

Sift in the flour, bicarb of soda and baking powder, then the dates and the water they have been soaking in. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 50 minutes.

While it's cooking, make the toffee sauce - put the golden syrup, brown sugar, butter, cream and vanilla into a pan and bring to the boil, then cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.

Pour the sauce over the top of the pudding when it is cooked. You can either do this in the tin or transfer the pudding to a serving dish then pour the sauce over. Any extra sauce can be poured into a jug and passed around for people to help themselves.

This is quite a heavy pudding so you need to leave room for it after a meal! It's a lovely winter warmer and the addition of chocolate - not something I'd put in a sticky toffee pudding before - was lovely. Obviously as this is from the Green & Black's cookery book you should use Green & Black's chocolate (though any kind would work!) and you could experiment with their different chocolate flavours - I think orange and butterscotch are flavours that would work well.

I'm sending this sticky toffee pudding to Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker, who is my co-host for Alphabakes and is running the challenge this month, as our randomly-selected letter is S.

I am also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked, as their theme this month is chocolate.

Handmade Christmas cards (2012)

Here are a couple of quick snapshots of the Christmas cards I made this year. I didn't have very much time at all so only made a few.

In the top photo from clockwise:

1) pyramid shaped card where I covered the three triangular sections with different backing paper and cut out "ho, ho, ho" from an old Christmas card, and added a few snowflake stickers as well

2) Gold card blank with Forever Friends Christmas stickers with a banner made of red card saying 'happy Christmas'

3) Silver card blank covered with blue festive backing paper where I cut out a square to let the silver card show through, and added some Christmas stickers and two pieces of silver ribbon across the bottom

4) Gold card blank with various snowflake die cuts and stickers and a round festive scene from an old Christmas card

5) Gold card blank with poinsettia (?) stickers that actually raise up from the card slightly and a 'merry Christmas' banner

6) Gold card blank with the top part covered by blue festive paper and a die cut with three Christmas trees mounted on top, and a white panel with a 'Christmas wishes' outline sticker

7) (centre) A white square card blank covered in festive paper with a star shape cut out of the middle to show the white card, and some Christmas stickers inside the star shape. It also has two small cardboard stickers on foam pads to stand out, that say 'someone special' and 'with love' - this one is for my boyfriend.



In the picture above, from top 1-r:
1)A white square card blank covered in festive paper with a star shape cut out of the middle to show the white card, and some Christmas stickers inside the star shape. It also has a 'seasons greetings' gold outline sticker in the top corner.
2) Silver card blank with 3D Christmas tree stickers, a strip of patterned paper across the bottom and some other stickers
3) White square card blank covered in festive paper with some children's stickers (penguin, Christmas tree, robin)
3)Bottom row: gold card blank with die-cut Christmas trees, silver snowflakes and I used a hole punch to punch out a row of Christmas tree shapes along the bottom
4) Card covered in festive paper and using Forever Friends stickers
5) Silver card blank with a star and some sticky ribbon

I need to start making my Christmas cards much earlier next year... maybe in January!

Meal Planning - Week 22

Monday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Macaroni cheese leftover from Sunday
Dinner Hot mustard tuna with herby cous cous from this recipe.

Tuesday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch baked potato with soft cheese and chilli flakes
Dinner salmon laksa from Slimming World Extra Easy All In One p174

Wednesday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Going out for a Christmas lunch with work to Strada - we've preordered our food as it was a group booking so I'm having lobster and champagne soup, roast turkey and chocolate torte.
Dinner This is the only night this week my boyfriend has time to see me (other than the weekend) :-(  It's his fault for not having finished his Christmas shopping! Still, I am spending Christmas with him this year for the first time so I will see lots of him next week. Anyway, I'm going to make creamy red pesto chicken with pasta from this recipe.

Thursday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Thai green chicken soup from Slimming World's Little book of soups  p62
Dinner steak and homemade chips

Friday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Leftover soup
Dinner I'll need something quick as I'm planning on baking a lot tonight, so I think I'll have sausage risotto - cheating using some Uncle Ben's microwave rice!

Saturday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch I'll be in quite a hurry as I will only get back from Slimming World just before 12 and we need to leave for my parents' by 1.30 so I think I will have some pasta
Dinner We'll be at my parents' house this evening and as my boyfriend is so fussy I know my mum is planning to do something he will like - sausage and chips.

Sunday
Breakfast Still at my parents' so I will probably have toast or something (though knowing my mum she will have bought crumpets!)
Lunch My mum is cooking roast beef - she does the best roast potatoes!
Dinner Back home - depends how late we get back, I could have some pasta

Chocolate cinnamon rolls

These would make a lovely breakfast for a special occasion (such as Christmas) and would also be good as a dessert

Sometimes you just get lucky.... I decided to take part in this month's Random Recipes and was trying to see what I could bake for some other blogging challenges, and it happened that my random recipe fell neatly into several categories.

The challenge for this month's Random Recipes was to use a cookery book we had received last Christmas. I only (!) got two cookery books last Christmas, both from my boyfriend's mum, and both were signed as she knew the people behind them, which was pretty cool. So it was a toss up between the Galvin Cookbook de Luxe - full of complicated French recipes - or the Green & Black's Ultimate Chocolate Recipes - the new collection, which of course is full of lovely chocolate recipes. And the first one I came to on my shelf was.... Green & Black's. Phew!

I opened the book at random and it opened on Arianna's Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls - perfect as the Tea Time Treats December challenge is chocolate, and the We Should Cocoa December challenge is chocolate and cinnamon! So that worked out really well :-)

I was quite pushed for time so I decided to adapt the recipe and make the basic dough using my breadmaker rather than follow the instructions in the recipe, so I also used the ingredients suggested by my breadmaker cookbook.

You need:
1/2 tsp yeast
250g strong white flour
1 tsp sugar
25g butter
1 tbsp milk powder - though I didn't have any so used a dash of milk instead
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
100ml water

for the filling:
100g brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
100g butter or marg
100g dark chocolate

for the sauce:
25g butter
50g brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Put all the ingredients for the dough into the breadmaker, put on the dough setting and leave for 2 hours 20 mins. Simples!

Put the dough in a warm place and leave for 1.5 - 2 hours until it has doubled in volume.

Roll out the dough to a large rectangle

Spread the butter onto the dough leaving a small gap around the edge.

Mix the sugar and cinnamon for the filling and spread over the buttered area.

To make the sauce, melt the butter, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a pan then pour into the bottom of  a baking tray.

Break up the chocolate and arrange over the dough

Roll up the dough and slice into rounds

Pour the cinnamon sauce into a baking tray and space out the dough rolls. Leave in a warm place to prove for 45 mins

Preheat the oven to 180C and bake until the rolls are puffed up and golden brown - I think this took 15-20 mins.

These tasted amazing! I had two for breakfast on Sunday and they were quite rich and indulgent which is why I think they would also work as a dessert, but they were really lovely. My only concern with the recipe is that it didn't actually say how long to bake the rolls in the oven, and also that the whole thing takes a long time! There's no way I could make these starting from scratch in time for breakfast, so I started it the night before, but it's hard to know when is the best point to stop. I ended up making the dough, leaving it to prove until doubled in size, then putting it in the fridge overnight and doing the rest in the morning. That worked quite well, but it was still fairly time consuming in the morning.

I'm sending these to Random Recipes hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen

... and also to We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot, as their theme this month is cinnamon.

I am also sending this to Girlichef's Bake Your Own Bread challenge

This recipe also fits in with the Tea Time Treats December challenge, where the theme is chocolate. TTT is hosted by Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked.

In my opinion this is also a Christmassy recipe - the combination of chocolate and cinnamon, and having hot rolls for breakfast during the Christmas holidays - so I am also sending this to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Laura of Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of Dolly Bakes, as their theme is Christmas.

 

I'm also sending this to the Spice Trail's cinnamon challenge.

Food from Fiction - Turkish Delight

"It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating," said the Queen presently. "What would you like best to eat?"
"Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty," said Edmund.

The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious.

I was inspired to make Turkish Delight by a baking challenge I came across on the Mad Scientist's Kitchen, called Kids' Delight, that involves making things aimed at children. This month the theme was cooking from story books - any children's story from Enid Blyton to Harry Potter that features food (though I wouldn't fancy trying Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans!). That got me thinking about food in fiction - I've read a few novels recently that have centred around food, and actually contain recipes at the start of each chapter, like Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan, which I highly recommend. So as well as making something from a children's book for this particular challenge, I'm going to make it the first post in an occasional series on my blog, where I bake from books and make food from fiction!

When I started thinking about the Kids' Delight baking challenge, and tried to remember books I'd read as a child, a few things sprang to mind - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, goat's cheese and milk from Heidi, the raspberry cordial episode from Anne of Green Gables, Paddington Bear's Marmelade Sandwiches..... and, of course, the evil Queen's Turkish Delight that she uses to tempt Edmund in the Chronicles of Narnia.

My family only ever ate Turkish Delight at Christmas so it's also something I heavily associate with this time of year. I was also looking for some edible gifts I could make so thought this would work perfectly! Of course, I'd never tried to make Turkish Delight before so wasn't sure how it would turn out, but I gave it a try!

I used this recipe from the Good Food Channel.

You need:
25g powdered gelatine - this worked out as two sachets
255ml water
4 tsp rose water
450g caster sugar
3-4 drops red food colouring
3 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp cornflour

Mix the gelatine, water and rose water in a pan, and add the sugar.

Heat gently until the sugar and gelatine have dissolved, stirring the whole time. I used my wonderful auto stirrer so I could get on with things in the other room and not have to stand over the pan!

Bring to the boil without stirring. This is where being distracted doesn't help... I brought the mixture to the boil while the autostirrer was still stirring. You're then supposed to simmer the mixture for 25 mins and it was being stirred almost the whole time.... it doesn't seem to have done any harm though!

Remove from the heat, add the food colouring and leave to cool.

Pour into an oiled tin - I didn't think the quantity this made was enough to pour into a square cake tin (which had been my original intention) so instead I greased and lined a plastic lunchbox.

Leave to set for 24 hours. It doesn't say if this should be at room temperature or in the fridge, so I put it in the fridge.

Cut into squares.

Mix the cornflour and icing sugar and toss the Turkish Delight in the mixture.

This should keep for quite a while in an airtight container, ideally you should place greaseproof paper between the layers.

I recently went to Ikea with my boyfriend and his mum; they wanted one piece of furniture which ironically was out of stock, because we ended up buying a trolley-full of other bits! I'd only ever been to Ikea once before, years ago, so was quite excited to look at everything in their "market" area and homewares section in particular - they have some great baking bargains!

I picked up this set of three tins for only £5 - I think they look quite Christmassy, and perfect for using with my Turkish Delight to give as a gift.

I'm sending this to Mad Scientist Kitchen's Kids' Delight challenge:

and also to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Laura of Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of Dolly Bakes, as their theme is Christmas. To me, Turkish Delight always says Christmas, and I am intending to give this as a Christmas gift.

Mini tomato, pesto and goat's cheese tarts

Oops, I don't seem to have taken a photo of the tarts once they were cooked!

I made these when I had several people round to dinner recently - my parents (who were staying with me), my boyfriend and his mum. I was planning to do a pretty big pudding - in fact I made both this Sachertorte and this Queen of Puddings - so I wanted the main course itself to be fairly light. I served a selection of different flavoured tarts - as I was catering for meat eaters and vegetarians, and a couple of quite fussy people to boot - along with sweet potato fries, potato fries (again for the fussy ones!) and salad.

I bought these mini tartlet tins on Amazon for only a few pounds a while ago and hadn't gotten around to using them yet.

As I was quite pushed for time, I bought some ready made shortcrutst pastry. I used the tart tins (which have loose bottoms) to cut out the pastry.

I was pretty much making this up as I went along - or as I prefer to call it, freestyling! I spread the pastry bases with a little red pesto.

Then I added some goats' cheese

Some cherry tomatoes, chopped ham and cheddar- I did variations for vegetarians and meat eaters

A selection of tarts waiting to go in the oven!

The tarts were quite small so I allowed 2-3 per person along with the side dishes. I also think these mini tart tins would be good for desserts, like a mini key lime pie or a mini chocolate tart.

Anniversary card for my parents

This blog seems to be 90% baking and 10% craft so I thought it was about time I put up another craft-related post. This is an anniversary card I made for my parents who celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary yesterday. I used a ready-printed card blank - that is, the square patterns are on the card itself. I layered a piece of pink paper over the top and edged it with an outline sticker and added the words 'Happy Anniversary' and some hearts and flowers which are also gold outline stickers. I bought the 'mum and dad' and 'with love' stickers from Ebay I think - they are really cute, with lettering on white card edged with silver and a foam sticky pad to attach them to the card, so they stand out.

Meal Planning - Week 21

I put on half a pound last week; I wanted to lose half a stone by Christmas but I really don't think it will happen any more. But I'm going to make a real effort this week!

Monday
Breakfast I'm going to try making some Slimming World pancakes this morning, if they are good I will put the recipe up!
Lunch I'm probably going to the youth club in the evening so will want a proper lunch, I will take some chicken curry (the Thai green curry from the Weightwatchers book) and Bombay potatoes to eat at work. 
Dinner As I will be out I will take some food with me; I've bought some Quorn cocktail sausages- which are 2 sausages for half a syn, much lower than "real" sausages! And I also have some cooked chicken - I need food I can eat on the go really and mean I don't get tempted by the chip shop on the way home!

Tuesday
Breakfast SW pancakes or homemade frittata depending on what time I get home on Monday night (as I haven't made the frittata yet)
Lunch Baked sweet potato with soft cheese and chilli
Dinner Tonight I'm going to see Handel's Messiah, which I'm really excited about as I've never seen it performed - though I have been in it twice! My school choirmaster was very ambitious and I don't recall ever singing anything that wasn't some great choral work and quite often in Latin too, and we used to sing in Salisbury Cathedral which was amazing!
Anyway... it starts at 7 so we will have to grab a quick dinner before it starts, we will either go to Giraffe (restaurant) or maybe have a hotdog from the Christmas market on the Southbank if we are really pushed for time. That's assuming we are still going as my boyfriend is currently ill...

Wednesday
Breakfast Homemade frittata
Lunch Probably a sandwich, if I remember to buy any bread, as it's not something I actually buy very often
Dinner Hopefully having my boyfriend over to dinner; I will make the sausage hot pot with Lea & Perrins on p.112 of the Branded Cookbook as I didn't make this last week. My boyfriend usually wants a dessert; I think I should make up some sugar free jelly as I thought that would be free but the Slimming World website tells me actually has 1.5 syns for the packet (mind you I wouldn't eat the whole lot in one go) and I could do Angel Delight for my boyfriend as he loves that. I also bought some Bird's Dream Topping which I thought might be nice to go on top but I've now discovered is 12 syns for the packet!

Thursday
Breakfast Leftover frittata
Lunch Leftover sausage hot pot
Dinner It's our work Christmas party; they've not mentioned anything about food - last year it was a sit down meal and we had to choose our menu in advance so I assume this means it will be nibbles or buffet-style this year. I'm going to take some cooked chicken and maybe also some pasta to eat before I go so I don't get too tempted by the unhealthy sausage rolls!

Friday
Breakfast Frittata or SW pancakes if there is any left, otherwise cereal
Lunch Jacket potato
Dinner I've got some leftover mini meat pies in the freezer, they are tiny and I think there are only two left so I will have them with plenty of vegetables and possibly a Weightwatchers dessert I picked up in the supermarket.

Saturday
Breakfast Probably cereal
Lunch Spaghetti al tonno - I think I was going to make this last week or the week before but I didn't; it's quick (as I get back from Slimming World around 11.30) and tasty.
Dinner Will invite my boyfriend over to dinner; I'm tempted to make Sloppy Joes so I can enter them in Alphabakes but I'm not sure my boyfriend would like them, or that I particularly would either! In fact I didn't even know what they were until Googling them just now... they sound kind of weird! So an alternative I found when flicking through a Weightwatchers cookbook is a turkey stroganoff. I quite fancy making the chocolate scones I found in one of my Weightwatchers cookery books too.

Sunday
Breakfast I'm planning to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast
Lunch Out for a pub lunch with some friends, hoping to have roast turkey and all the trimmings!
Dinner May be back quite late so will want something quick, so I may make some macaroni cheese as then I can have the leftovers next week.