Ingredients

400g dark chocolate, broken into chunks

25g cocoa powder

250g golden caster sugar

250g butter, plus extra for greasing the tin

1 tbsp ground ginger

140g ground almonds

6 large eggs, separated

For the icing

100g butter, chopped

50g dark chocolate, broken into chunks

200g icing sugar, sifted

2 tbsp ground ginger

A few chunks of crystallised ginger, cut into small chunks

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease a 20 x 30cm cake tin, and line the base and sides with baking parchment. Melt the chocolate, cocoa, sugar and butter together in a saucepan over a very low heat. Once the chocolate and butter have melted and sugar dissolved, remove from the heat and stir in the ginger and almonds, followed by the egg yolks, one at a time

2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Using a metal spoon, stir a couple of spoonfuls of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen before very gently folding in the rest.

3. Gently scrape into the tin. Bake for 30-35 mins until the top looks set and the centre doesn’t wobble too much. Sit the cake tin on a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

4. Once cool, make the icing. Put the butter, chocolate, cocoa, icing sugar, ground ginger and 4 tbsp water in a pan. Gently heat, stirring, until you have a smooth icing. Pour over the cake (still in its tin), leave for 1-2 mins to cool slightly, then scatter over the ginger. Cool completely (you can also store in the fridge if you bring out to room temperature about 20 mins before serving) before cutting into bars.

The photos don’t do these chocolate gingerbread brownies with fudgy icing much justice! Needless to say, they weren’t around for long.

This post is part of my photos for #ColourMyEveryDay – an Instagram photo challenge with @adventuresandteaparties. Find out more about it in my previous post, where I also shared some lovely autumnal recipes. What new recipes have you been making recently?

Post updated 12th February 2020.

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Easter is so late this year! I’m so ready for a holiday and looking forward to having some family time together. 

But it wouldn’t be Easter without a little treat or two, and this year I found this simple and delicious recipe for Mini Egg rocky road, which really is a treat! You can make it with or without the fruit, depending on your taste. It’s super easy to make so will be perfect if you need a last-minute Easter treat!

This recipe is originally from BBC Good Food online.

Ingredients

225g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

100g unsalted butter, cubed

2 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp golden syrup

100g rich tea biscuits

50g mini marshmallows (chop up larger ones if you can’t find these)

50g dried cranberries

200g chocolate mini eggs

Method

1. Line a 20 x 30cm traybake tin with 2 sheets of cling film (in a criss-cross pattern). Put the chocolate and butter in a large bowl set over a saucepan of gently simmering water, and melt until smooth and glossy.

2. Remove from the heat and add the cocoa powder and golden syrup. Mix together until fully combined and leave to cool at room temperature for about 15 mins.

3. Put the biscuits in a freezer bag and use a rolling pin to bash them, leaving some pieces chunkier than others. Stir into the cooled chocolate with the marshmallows, cranberries and 150g of the mini eggs.

4. Pour the mix into the tin and press down with the back of a spoon until even. Scatter over the remaining mini eggs, pressing them in a little, and leave to set in the fridge for 1 hr.

5. Remove from the tin and cut into bars to serve. Will keep for up to 1 week in an airtight container – if you can make them last that long!

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Mississippi mud pie is a traditional American pudding and it is a real treat – definitely one for a special occasion! We made a smaller one for our day-after-Valentine’s meal that used just half of the amounts given here, which served 4 (so more for dessert tonight – yay!). This is another recipe from Gordon Ramsay’s ‘World Kitchen’.

Ingredients (serves 8)

Biscuit base:
200g digestive biscuits
60g lightly salted butter (we used unsalted)
60g good quality dark chocolate, chopped (we used Green & Black’s 70%)

Chocolate filling:
180g good quality dark chocolate, chopped
180g unsalted butter, diced
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
90g dark muscovado sugar
90g light muscovado sugar
200ml double cream

Topping:
100ml double cream, well chilled
2-3 tbsp icing sugar, to taste
chocolate shavings, to finish

Method

1. To make the base, crush the digestive biscuits in a resealable bag and, once evenly crushed, tip into a large bowl. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Stir until smooth, then take off the heat and pour over the crushed biscuits. Mix until evenly combined.

2. Tip the crumb mixture into a 23cm cake tin with a removable base, and press it down using the back of a spoon. Make sure the base and sides are covered, and then put in the fridge to chill. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas mark 4.

3. To make the filling, melt the chocolate and butter together (as above) and then leave to cool slightly. In another large bowl, beat the eggs and muscovado sugars, using an electric whisk, until thick and doubled in volume. Whisk in the cream and then fold through the chocolate and butter.

4. Pour the mixture over the biscuit base and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes until just firm. Allow to cool completely before removing from the tin (I used a fluted tin here – would not do that again!).

5. For the topping, whip the cream with the icing sugar until it holds soft peaks. Spread this over the top of the cooled pie and finish it with a scattering of chocolate shavings.

6. Enjoy a big slice!

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This is possibly one of my favourite desserts ever, and it’s surprisingly easy to make! If you don’t like chilli chocolate then you could just use good quality dark chocolate, but the chilli gives it a nice warming aftertaste. I used Lindt chocolate for this recipe, which comes from The Hairy Bikers’ Great Curries. It goes really well after a curry – make sure you check out my posts about the Chicken tikka masala and Saag aloo which are also from this great book!

Serves 4-6, depending on ramekin size

Ingredients

200g plain dark chilli chocolate
200ml double cream
50ml semi-skimmed milk
extra-thick double cream or creme fraiche for serving

Method

1. Put the chocolate on a sturdy board and chop it finely with a good strong knife.

2. Pour the cream and milk into a saucepan and bring slowly to the boil, while stirring. Remove from the heat.

3. Tip the chocolate into the pan with the cream and stir vigorously until the chocolate melts. Pour the mixture into 4 or 6 small ramekins or espresso coffee cups (anything small and heatproof will work!) and leave to cool.

4. Cover with cling film and chill for at least 2 hours before serving. If leaving to chill for more than 2 hours, remove from the fridge 30 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

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This is a delicious combination which makes normal flapjack just that bit more special. The recipe is from the Gu Chocolate Cookbook (another book that comes highly recommended if you have a sweet tooth – you’ll want to make everything! I’ll definitely make these again but will probably double the flapjack amounts and chocolate – we used a brownie pan to make it in, and it didn’t stretch quite far enough. I’ve written the original amounts here. It does taste really good if you chill the flapjack in the fridge overnight before baking, just to make it really chewy.

Ingredients (for a 16 x 25cm baking tin)

125g unsalted butter
50g light soft brown sugar
Pinch of salt
100g golden syrup
1 tbsp condensed milk
225g jumbo oats
100g dark chocolate (original recipe suggests 50% cocoa, but we went for the 85% stuff!)

For the caramel layer

75g light soft brown sugar
75g unsalted butter
200ml condensed milk

Method

1.For the flapjack base, tip the butter, sugar and salt into a pan. Add the golden syrup and condensed milk and gently heat to melt everything together.

2. Tip the oats in and mix well. Scrape the oaty mixture into the baking tin, spread out evenly and cover with cling film. Put it in the fridge to rest overnight if you have time.

3. Preheat the oven to 170C/Gas mark 3 and bake the flapjack for 10-15 minutes or until just starting to go brown around the edges. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

4. Whilst the flapjack is cooling, make the caramel layer by gently heating the sugar and butter in a saucepan, stirring until melted. Add the condensed milk and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5-8 minutes, stirring continuously until the caramel has thickened slightly.

5. Pour the caramel onto the flapjack base and give the tin a tap on the work surface to remove any air bubbles. Place in the fridge to set.

6. When the caramel has set, break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Spread it over the caramel and place it back in the fridge to harden. When the chocolate has set, cut into pieces and enjoy – try not to eat it all at once!

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Last week we had a pre-birthday celebration for our lovely friend Hannah, and everyone brought something along to contribute to the meal. We were set the challenge of making a birthday cake – but what sort of cake do you make for the person who made you the most amazing wedding cake?! So we decided to go for a super-chocolatey cake, but found two recipes that we liked. Tom was in charge of cake making and went for a combination of the two recipes: the first was by Rachel Allen and the second was from The Cooking Ninja blog. I was in charge of the frosting, and this originally comes from a Mary Berry recipe that we also found on the BBC Food website. You’ll need to use a 21cm loose bottomed cake tin, lined on the bottom and buttered on the sides – best to get this ready before you start!

Ingredients

250g good quality dark chocolate (we used Green & Black’s 70%)
210g butter
250g caster sugar
5 eggs
75g ground almonds
50g flaked almonds
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt

For the frosting
200g white chocolate (the Green and Black’s white chocolate works really well!)
150ml double cream
125g whole fat cream cheese

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Toast the flaked almonds a little in a pan.

2. Melt the dark chocolate and the butter in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Separate the eggs; beat the yolks together with the sugar and the cinnamon in a large bowl.

3. Beat the egg whites in another bowl, together with a pinch of salt, until you have stiff peaks.

4. Once the chocolate and butter have melted, add them to the yolks, sugar and cinnamon mixture, along with the ground and toasted flaked almonds. Mix well before folding in the egg whites.

5. Bake for around 45 minutes and then leave to cool in the tin.

6. For the icing, break the white chocolate into a bowl. Heat the double cream in a pan, until very hot but not boiling and pour the hot cream over the white chocolate to melt it. Stir until melted and set aside to cool for a few minutes.

7. Spoon the cream cheese into a bowl then gradually add the white chocolate mixture and stir until combined. Set aside to cool a little, until thick enough to ice.

8. Spread the icing over the top and sides of the cake. I sprinkled some white chocolate stars over the top to make it look extra special.

This is a really rich and indulgent cake – if you’ve got a sweet tooth like me then you’ll love it! Enjoy!

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We had the most amazing chocolates at our wedding, which were from The Chocolate Spa in Alnwick, Northumberland. After deciding that we didn’t want to have individual wedding favours, we settled on having a box of handmade chocolates on each table. One of my ex-students once bought me a box from The Chocolate Spa and since then we’ve been hooked!

A few months ago, we went up to Alnwick and bought a selection of chocolates. One of my bridesmaids, Tiffany, had the very important job of helping us taste them – it was tough, but someone had to do it! My favourite was the wild forest cup (the purple one) because it was so fruity and creamy!

The only thing left to sort out was a box to put them in, and we came up with the idea of having heart-shaped boxes. But as is often the case, when you’re looking for something specific you can’t find them anywhere! My Mum managed to find some in TKMaxx but they were full of other chocolates (that we had to eat…) and they needed covering. So the next challenge was to find some paper to cover them, which we found in Paperchase. They have a fantastic selection of handmade paper, but we settled on this lovely heart paper. Tom did a brilliant job of covering them!

We went back to Alnwick a few days before the wedding to buy the chocolates that we wanted – it was a very hot day and the lovely staff were doing a great job of keeping everything cool! The chocolates certainly went down well on the day!

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Ingredients

200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
175g unsalted butter
325g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs
Icing sugar for dusting

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3. Boil the kettle and line the tin.

2. Put the chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (use the boiling water from the kettle to make this quicker). Don’t let the base of the bowl touch the water, and leave until melted and smooth.

3. Remove from the heat. Add the sugar and stir really well until incorporated. Add the flour and then stir really well.

4. Add the eggs (all in one go – not like a cake!) and mix until thick and smooth. (It might seem like it will never mix, but keep going!)

5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tray and bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes, or until flaky on the top but still soft in the centre. Be careful not to overcook otherwise the edges will become hard and crunchy.

6. Leave to cool completely before slicing and dusting with icing sugar. As you can see, this isn’t my strong point – I end up with loads or hardly any! The book says this make about 12, but if you use good quality chocolate they will be really rich, so I cut them into 18 pieces.

7. Enjoy your brownies with a cuppa

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