Peanut Butter and Chocolate Biscuit Bars

Hi everyone I'm back with another recipe and this one is super sickly and amazing and a perfect treat for the weekend! It's also very very easy to make!

Ingredients

200 grams of Digestive Biscutis (Crumbs)

200g Icing Sugar 

250g of Peanut Butter (Smooth or Crunchy is fine, I used a mixture)

225g Butter, metled

300g Chocolate (I used milk)

Method 

1. Mix together the digestive crumbs, melted butter, peanut butter and icing sugar. (The icing sugar is to taste and you may need less than the stated amount, so add this gradually and keep tasting!)

2. Pat the mixture into a greased brownie or cake tin.

3. Melt the chocolate and pour over the top of the mixture and pop into the fridge.

4. Once the chocolate has set on top make sure to cut the squares, you don't want to leave it in the fridge too long because it will become too hard to cut and be difficult to get out of the tin. I'd suggest storing them in a cake tin or tupperware rather than the fridge.

Enjoy! 

This recipe was my adaption of the following recipe...

 from http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/18871/no-bake-chocolate-peanut-butter-squares.aspx

Terry's Chocolate Orange Brownies

Hello everyone, thought I'd share this delightful recipe with you, this one is one of my own adaptation, I can't remember where I got the original one I adapted from though, my apologies! I have to say this is one of the most delightful brownies I've ever made and went down a massive treat!

Ingredients 

100g plain flour 

50g of caster sugar

200g dark chocolate

4 eggs

350g caster sugar

200g butter 

2 terry's chocolate oranges.

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a brownie tin (you could use a cake tin), with greaseproof paper. Lots of butter could work too, however greaseproof paper is better.

2. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a bowl.

3.Whip the eggs and the caster sugar in a bowl until the mixture doubles in size (it should be meringue consistency) and add to the chocolate and butter mixture.

3. Sift together the flour and cocoa powder and add them to the bowl. 

4. Chop up one and a half of the terry's chocolate orange and pop them into the mix.

5. Spread the mixture evenly across the brownie tin, then line the remaining orange slices across the top.

6. Pop in the oven for 30-35 minutes, you can keep them in longer depending on how gooey you want the centre.

7. I pop mine in the fridge after they've cooled to help set the fudgy bits.

Enjoy! 

White Chocolate & Raspberry Cheesecake

One of my new favourite recipes and an easy modification of my basic cheesecake recipe!

Ingredients 

1 Large bar of White Chocolate
Squirty Raspberry Jam.

2 tubs of full fat cream cheese

1 Packet of HobNobs 

1 cup of butter (melted)

1 and 1/2 cups of icing sugar 

3 teaspoons of sugar

 

Method 

1. Start by bashing your hobnobs into crumbs making sure there's no big biscuit chunks and that you have a bowl of nice crumbly biscuit!

2. Add in the melted butter and sugar gradually and mix well, make sure the mixture looks damp throughout but not greasy and soaked, feel free to add more or less depending on how it looks. Pat this mixture into the bottom of a cake tin.

3. Add to the two tubs of cream cheese in a bowl and add in the icing sugar gradually staring until it tastes sweet, you may not need all of it its personal preference but its essential to use the icing sugar as it helps set the mixture.

4. Melt the chocolate and add gradually again this is to personal preference and depends on how chocolatey you like it at this point, so don't feel you need to add it all. I added little bits of jam into the mix to layer the flavouring throughout.

5.Add this on top of the crumb mixture and pop in fridge to set for two hours.

6. Use more jam to decorate the top.


Enjoy Everyone!

Winter Crumble Tart

Apologies for my lack of posting recently and for my inappropriateness of this recipe due to the time of year! Never the less, a lovey recipe taken from the lovely Mary Berry, the only thing I changed in this was that I used a lot less flour than suggested as the pastry was getting super dry!

Enjoy Baking! 

Ingredients

For the pastry

225g/8oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting

125g/4½oz chilled butter, cut into cubes

30g/1oz caster sugar

1 large free-range egg, beaten

For the filling

4 large Bramley apples (about 1.2kg/2lb 10oz), peeled, cored and cut into small chunks

150g/5½oz caster sugar

275g/10oz fresh blackberries

For the crumble topping

175g/6oz plain flour

100g/3½oz butter, at room temperature, cut into cubes

50g/1¾oz rolled oats

100g/3½oz demerara sugar

50g/1¾oz hazelnuts, roasted and chopped

custard or double cream, to serve

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6.

2 For the pastry, pulse the flour and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs (or rub the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl using your fingertips). 

3 Add the sugar, egg and 1-2 tablespoons of cold water and mix again until the mixture comes together as a smooth dough. 

4 Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and roll it out into a circle that's about 3mm thick and large enough to line the tart tin. Press the pastry into the base and sides of the tin and make a small lip around the top with the excess pastry. Prick the base all over with a fork, then chill in the fridge for 15 minutes. 

5 Line the chilled pastry case with baking paper and baking beans, then bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes, or until the lip of the pastry is light golden-brown. Remove the baking beans and paper, then reduce the oven temperature to 160C/140C Fan/Gas 3 and bake for a further 8-10 minutes, or until the pastry case is crisp and golden-brown all over. Set the pastry case aside in its tin to cool, leaving the oven on. 

6 For the filling, place the apples, sugar and 2 tablespoons of water in a large, deep, lidded saucepan and cook over a medium heat, stirring gently, for 4-5 minutes. Cover the pan with the lid and bring the mixture to a gentle simmer. Simmer, without stirring, for 5-10 minutes, or until the apples have softened but still retain their shape. 

7 Stir the blackberries into the cooked apples and continue to simmer for a further 5-10 minutes, or until all of the fruit is just tender. Set aside to cool.

8 Meanwhile, for the crumble topping, put the flour and butter into a large mixing bowl and rub the ingredients together using your fingertips, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the remaining crumble topping ingredients and rub them into the mixture until small clumps have formed. (Alternatively, pulse all of the crumble topping ingredients in a food processor - there is no need to wash this out after making the pastry.) Set the crumble topping aside.

9 Suspend a colander over a bowl and strain the cooked fruits, collecting the juices. Spoon the fruits into the cooked pastry case. (If there is too much fruit to fit into the pastry case, add the remaining fruit to the reserved fruit juice.) 

10 Sprinkle the crumble topping all over the fruit filling and bake the tart at 200C/180C Fan/Gas 4 for 20-25 minutes, or until the crumble is crisp and golden-brown. 

11 Meanwhile, boil the reserved fruit juice in a saucepan for 3-4 minutes, or until thickened to a syrup. 

12 Serve the tart warm, in slices, with the extra fruit juice spooned over it and either custard or cream on the side.

Taken from - http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/winter_crumble_tart_74434

Malteser Blondies

Hey Guys, so yesterday I was hit with the urge to bake, I mean Sundays are the perfect lazy day for whipping up some form of baked goodie and yesterday was no exception. I decided to try GBBO winner Jo Wheatley's recipe and they didn't disappoint, I've popped my few little notes at the top here before posting the recipe!

Edits*

1. I didn't have horlicks so used a white hot chocolate instead which tasked lovely also. I feel like malteser hot chocolate would work really well here also!

2. I followed the baking time on the recipe exactly and it led to mine being over baked, mine were done after around twenty- twenty five minutes, so I should have just taken them out. 

Okay so here's the recipe taken from Sainsburys magazine, hope you enjoy making these yummy little (or big depending on how you cut them) treats! 

Carly xoxo

Ingredients

100g White chocolate chopped, plus 50 extra for the topping

125g unsalted butter

225g of light brown sugar

1 tbsp of vanilla extract

3 large eggs beaten

100g plain flour

50g self raising flour

4tbsp of horlicks

1 35g bag of maltesers

60g of chopped milk chocolate 

• Steps 
  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C, fan 150°C, gas 3. Lightly grease a 20cm square baking tin and then line it with baking paper.
• 2. Place the 100g white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Add the butter and melt gently together over a pan of simmering water. Remove from the heat, stir until smooth and combined, and leave to cool slightly.

• 3. Add the sugar, vanilla extract and beaten eggs to the slightly cooled melted white chocolate and butter. Stir well to combine.
• 4. Sift both of the flours and Horlicks powder into the chocolate mixture and stir until smooth. Fold in 100g Maltesers and the milk chocolate and spoon into the prepared tin. Bake on the middle shelf for 35-40 minutes.
• 
  
  5. Leave to cool in the tin. Melt the remaining white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Meanwhile, lightly crush the rest of the Maltesers. Drizzle over a little of the the melted white chocolate. Then scatter over the crushed Maltesers, and finish with the remaining melted chocolate. Cool, then cut into squares.

When your baking goes wrong... #1 Cookies

Hey guys so we've definitely all had mishaps in the kitchen before and there's always a way to salvage it and make something out of a bad situation. I thought I'd share one of my best disaster avoiding ideas, if your cookies have gone up in smoke, figuratively of course then my best suggestion is turning them into cookie dough sundaes.

If your cookies are too soft in the middle or too crispy, then what I always do is rip or snap them into pieces and make sundaes! So line a mason jar or Sundae glass with broken up cookie and add ice cream, keep layering them as you go and if you have some toffee or chocolate sauce, pop that in to! To top I always try and keep a big part of crispy cookie to stick in the top, as a fan, it looks great and then go to town decorating, if you have it whipped cream, spare chocolate from the cookies make a truly scrumptious sundae and no one ever needs to know that wasn't the original end game! 

Also if your cookie did go wrong, it went wrong for a reason and this helpful diagram I found curtsey of pinterest is perfect at explaining why! 

So happy baking whether it goes right or wrong, have fun, It doesn't have to be a total disaster! 

Carly xox

Traditional Cupcake Recipe

Hey guys there's nothing better than a traditional cupcake made with vanilla buttercream, they look delightful and taste gorgeous and are a great place to start if you want to bake something quick and easy! This is my personal recipe which I use every time!

Ingredients

For the Cakes 

100g Self Raising Flour

100g Butter

100g Caster Sugar

2 Eggs 

1 tsp of vanilla essence 

1 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp of milk

For the Icing 

50g of butter

150g of icing sugar 

1 tsp of vanilla essence 

1 tsp of milk 

Method

1. Start by preheating the oven to 160 degrees C and lining a cupcake tray with cases.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together, before adding the eggs one at a time and beating them in.

3. Fold in the flour and baking powder.

4. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until you have a smooth and thick mixture.

5. Divide the mixture into cupcake cases.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

7. For the icing gradually beat the icing sugar into the butter and add milk, tasting is the best way in my opinion to know when the consistency between ingredients is correct.

8. Once the cakes are cooled completely, ice away and decorate how you wish!

Carly xoxo