Cheesecake Chocolate Eggs

Posing as real half boiled eggs, alongside servings of sweet puff pastry soldiers, these would be an amazing treat for Easter or if you want to create something a little quirky. So simple to make and with so much of a wow factor, these must be top of your to-do list.

This Easter I wanted to do something different and a little less complicated seeing as I had final year exams to revise for. Compared to my Mango PanEggs, these were a breeze to make. I had the utmost fun constructing them and of course, they tasted just as divine as they looked - so my guests said. 

[A late post, but as they say better late than never hey!]

Ingredients:
6 Kinder eggs (or any similar sized hollow chocolate eggs)
250g marscapone
100g philadelphia
80ml double cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
100g digestive biscuits
50g caster sugar
1/2 can mango pulp (you won't use all)
1 puff pastry sheet
1 egg.

Method:

• Heat a knife and carefully cut the tops off the eggs and place in egg moulds or an egg box.
• Mix the marscapone, philadelphia cheese, caster sugar together.
• In a food processor, grind the biscuits until they resemble all crumbs, not too fine. Fill the base of the eggs with these.
• Add the vanilla and slowly add the cream and whip until soft peaks form.
• With a piping bag and a round nozzle, pipe the cheesecake mixture till about three quarters of the way through.
• With the back of a teaspoon scoop out a tiny bit of the cheesecake from the middle of your eggs.
• Fill the mini holes with mango pulp to resemble the yolk.
• Cut the puff pastry sheets into thin strips to resemble soldiers and brush with a beaten egg and some caster sugar and place in the oven until risen and gold in colour.

These are really so easy and so effective to do! You don't have to make the puff pastry soldiers if you don't have that much time, but I just thought they went well with these 'half boiled eggs!'

You'd be a fool not to try these out next Easter!

Dainty Cook xox

Mushroom 'Mould' Cake.

A dense dark chocolate truffle cake, filled with chocolate cream and ruby-red raspberries, you would have to be a right fool to not eat this peculiar beauty. 

Yes, you read that correctly. I have indeed posted a recipe stating how to make a 'mouldy' mushroom CAKE. This cake has definitely gone off the radar (ha, see what I did there - gone off - did you get it? You got it right?!) for simultaneously pertaining to be 'disgusting', indulgent and über cool. It takes vintage to it's literal meaning.

For me, this was a spontaneous sculpture that I was itching to do. If any of you know me, I have many cravings each hour/day/week. A friend of mine uttered the phrase 'chocolate cake' and there it was, BAM, fixed in my mind, transforming me into a beast until I appeased my appetite. So, I popped down to my local Sainsbury's, bought the ingredients and was ready to bake.

But there was una problema..

I did NOT want to bake a standard chocolate cake. Incase you've guessed already, I'm a huge fan of raspberries and chocolate. When they both marry together, they produce offspring in your mouth, bursting out full of this awesome indescribable flavour. So gooood. Anyway, weird and slightly poor analogy aside; I was as per, grown tedious of making the same old chocolate buttercream cake, topped with berries, coated with cigarellos - yawn - boringgg.

And then, I was truly inspired. I witnessed a photo: a page from Lily Vanilli's book which had meringue shaped mushrooms. *Light bulb moment*

Next thing I know, this ensemble was assembled.

Ingredients:
200g softened butter
200g caster sugar
200g self-raising flour
50g cocoa powder
4 medium eggs
Pinch of salt
Milk to loosen (optional)

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
• Combine the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, usually this takes 5-7 mins. 
• Add the eggs one at a time until well-combined.
• Sift in the flour cocoa powder and add the salt.
• Beat together until it forms a smoooooth mixture.
• Dash in a tablespoon or two of milk if the mixture is super thick.
• Dollop the mix in either two 8 inch sandwich pans or an 8 inch cake tin and bake for around 30 minutes.
• Once baked let it cool on a wire wrack and place on a 12 inch cake board, ready to be filled and glazed.

The Filling:

150g dark chocolate (chopped)

25g unsalted butter

250ml double cream

Pinch of salt 

300g Raspberries

• Place the butter and chocolate in a bowl.
• Heat the cream until hot and pour into the chocolate, stirring it together until it melts and is well combined.
• Once cooled, fill the top of one layer with this and top evenly with fresh raspberries, placing the other layer on top.

The Truffle Glaze:

250g dark chocolate

15g unsalted butter

200ml double cream

Cocoa powder to dust

• Follow the same steps as with the filling.
• Spoon the glaze over the whole cake and let it set - but not completely.
• Dust the whole cake with cocoa powder so that it looks like soil.
• Decorate with the meringue mushrooms, by sticking them into the cake and also around: make it look like its going off and growing mushroom mould! You can even break pieces off of the cake so that they look like rocks.

The Meringue Mushrooms:

5 egg whites

1 tsp lemon juice

Pinch of salt

230g caster sugar

30g cocoa powder

100g chocolate

• Add lemon juice and salt to the get whites and whip until soft peaks are formed. Beat in the sugar slowly, a few tablespoons at a time, continuing until they get all stiff. Half the egg white mix, spooning the other half into another bowl. Fold in two-thirds of the cocoa powder in one half and the remaining in the other.
• Fill a piping bag with the beaten egg whites and using a round top, pipe mushroom stems - making sure they are long and wide enough to be stable.
• Pipe the same number of domes - these will be the tops of the shroomies!
• Bake them for about an hour and leave them in the oven so that they dry - another hour or so for this I'd say.
• To attach the tops to the stems, melt the chocolate and use this to stick the two together. The stems may need a bitta slicing so that they're flat and can stand upright.

And voila, the mushroom meringues are done! They're actually super tasty, so try not to eat them all before you decorate, particularly if you love real mushrooms and sweet stuff like me! I then added some edible flowers (and maybe some non edible leaves) to give it that extra gardeny feel. 

Pretty nifty eh? 

Dainty Cook x

Peanutella Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies made with crunchy peanut butter and somewhat subtle dollops of Nutella, which ultimately ballet on your tongue. 
They're THAT good.

I cannot tell you how much I adore peanut butter. I used to not like it once upon a time. In fact, I despised the very thing. Then came a time where anything found in a jar and could be consumed by a spoon was a huge hit as I started university. Spoonfuls of peanut butter whilst studying for my first year exams had become a ritual. That and having a packet of chocolate fingers to dip in a jar full. This is how we students do les examens!

Anyway, it's a known fact that peanut butter goes a bit too well with chocolate. I mean, forget yer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, s'all about pb and Nutella!

And when I realised I could put the two together in my absolute fave biscuit - the cookie - I felt like a kitchen goddess. *Halo appears*

Here's how they were put together:

Ingredients:
225g unsalted butter (softish)
200g caster sugar (you can play around if you want it less sweet)
200g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
240g crunchy peanut butter
40g nutella
340g plain flour
2 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
85g dark chocolate chips (or chopped)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 170C, Gas 3. Fan assisted ovens lower the temp by 10-20C and prepare baking trays with greaseproof/baking paper.
• Using an electric mixer with the paddle or a handheld electric whisk, mix the butter and sugars together until they transform into a wonderful light and fluffy mixture.
• One at a time, crack in the eggs and mix well. Be sure to scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl!
• Turn the mixer down to a slow speed and beat in the vanilla and peanut butter.
• Gradually add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and mix well until a smooth dough is formed. Then add the Nutella - this is actually optional and I only add a little to give it a subtle taste.
• Sprinkle in the chocolate chips - I aways find this the best bit, I don't know why!
• Scoop out equal amounts of the cookie dough on each tray using a tablespoon spoon or scooper. Make sure they're spread apart as they expand while baking.

• Bake for roughly 10 minutes, or until they're golden brown around the edges and quite flat. They will be super soft in the middle but that's what you want. They tend to harden later anyway.
• Cool  the cookies slightly on the trays before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely. The cookies should be nicely soft and chewy and a teeny crunchy on the outside. Mmmmm.

Seriously these literally melt in your mouth when you eat them fresh. I was so pleased with these, I genuinely wanted to marry myself. Yup. I mean being able to bake super soft mouth melting cookies!?! You need magical hands. Oh and maybe this recipe….

So have a go and let me know how it turns out! :)

Dainty cook x

Crème-to-the-Brûlée

Vanilla crème brûlée, with strawberry, white chocolate spoons and a smooth salted caramel disc - topped with crunchy honeycomb pieces. 

Mouth watering yet?


I can't deny that this is one of my ultimate fave desserts. The baked creamy goodness that instantly melts on your tongue, exposing its vanilla flavour as it begins to tango with your tastebuds. Oh but the best part, the fun part, cracking the burnt crunchy sugar with your spoon as you begin to dig in. The smooth and the crisp become an unbeatable fusion of textures.

And it's no wonder it's sort of named after these textures - crème brûlée - 'burnt cream' in French, is the most delicious yet simple of desserts to make and here's how I made it:

Ingredients:

For the vanilla crème brûlée:
440ml double cream
100ml full fat milk
55g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod/3tsp good quality vanilla extract
5 egg yolks

White Chocolate spoons:
200g white chocolate chips

(Smooth) Salted Caramel Disc:
80g salted butter
75g soft light brown sugar
75g caster sugar
120ml cream
1/2tsp sea salt
Honeycomb pieces (bought)

Method:

• Combine the double cream, milk and vanilla extract (or a slit vanilla pod) into a saucepan and leave to the side.
• Separate the yolks from the whites and place in a mixing bowl, adding the caster sugar. The separating is probably the only tricky part to this - well I find it a pain to be honest! Then whisk the yolks and sugar together until pale and slightly fluffy.
• Bring the saucepan onto the heat until the sides begin to bubble a bit.
• Gradually with a hand whisk, stir in the hot cream mix into the egg. You'll see it will foam up once done, try get rid of all the foam with a large spoon.
• Pour into ramekins, jars or a big dish and place these in a ban marie filled with boiled water about 1.5-2cm high and pop it into the oven for 30-35 minutes.
• You want the crème brûlée to be slightly wobbly in the middle and not completely set. Place these in the fridge and scatter teaspoon of caster sugar on the top surface and then blowtorch until its burnt! Do this closer to the serving time and pop 'em back in the fridge.

And that's pretty much it! For the additional extras and decoration:
To make the chocolate spoon:

• Melt white chocolate in a bowl over simmering water (water bath) until runny and fill up the spoon moulds, placing them in the fridge.

The smooth salted caramel disc:

• Melt the butter and sugars in a saucepan for 3 minutes or until dissolved, swirling it from time to time.
• Add the cream and sea salt and swirl again - get those hips shaking! I mean, use a wooden spoon to stir the sugar mixture…
• Once amalgamated, taste to check if there's enough salt and then pour into a jug to set!

This makes quite a bit, so you can store it up to a week to use for other nommy desserts. Or you know just to eat with a spoon instead of yer good ol' Ben and Jerry's!

Make a circle onto a serving plate, (I used a cookie cutter) and top with honeycomb pieces. Okay so, I had recently bought some ready made ones from Lakeland and used these, but if you want the homemade recipe check out my Get Loose: Chocolate and Honeycomb Mousse recipe!

That's about it! I added chocolate dots around each component to finish off, as well as a strawberry in each jar, as this creamy concotion goes well with berries and maybe there were some growing in my garden…

Cute little desserts, don't you think?


Dainty Cook x

Get Loose: Chocolate and Honeycomb Mousse

A chocoholics paradise, this decadent mousse packed with rich honeycomb pieces will surely drive you and your taste buds wild!

Cooling, chocolate fixing, 'I want more' you will be gagging.

I love choccy mousse. I can't even tell you why. It's just so mmmmmmm *slowly sinks down on the sofa and licks lips* The smooth texture, the rich taste, the sweet fusion of the crunchy honeycomb. It's just overly seductive for the tongue. Can you get these in the supermarkets? No. 

Having to buy appetising products that are only 'suitable for vegetarians' is difficult. Chocolate mousse is a rare breed in this category, particularly one that screams a good consistency and explodes with flavour in your mouth as you eat it. The rest are just plain, limp and hardly chocolatey at all. 

So guys, have a try at this lucious little recipe. You won't regret it and it's a bitta fun!

Serves 6

Honeycomb Ingredients:

5 tbsps granulated sugar

2 tbsps golden syrup

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

Bit of sunflower oil to grease.

Method:

 

• On some greasproof paper/baking sheet spread oil all over to grease and set aside on top of a chopping board.
• Meanwhile, place the sugar and syrup in a saucepan and heat until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture turns a golden caramel colour.
• Lastly, to make it foam up, quickly whisk in the bicarbonate of soda and pour it onto the paper, leaving it too cool for at least 10 mins.

Mousse Ingredients:

200g plain dark chocolate (or milk chocolate if you prefer a less sweeter/rich taste)

200ml double cream

4 eggs, separated

Method:

• Heat the dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water and leave to cool slightly.
• Stir in the egg yolks.

• In another bowl, with a hand held whisk, lightly whip the cream achieving soft peaks and fold into the chocolate mixture. Don't worry if it melts in, it's supposed to do that.

• Whisk the egg whites in a large clean bowl, reaching stiff peaks. Fold this into the chocolate cream.
• THE BEST BIT: grab your honeycomb slab and smash it into small chunks with a back end of a wooden spoon! (At this point, think about someone who you really hate or annoys you. TRUST me, it's very therapeutic!)

• Fold the honeycomb into the mousse, leaving some for decoration (and some to nibble on in the meantime of course!) Fill 6 glasses or bowls with the mousse and leave it in the fridge for 10 mins or until set.

• Sprinkle the leftover honeycomb on top just before you serve it. If you leave it too long in the heat it does tend to melt.

And voila! You have yourselves a sweet tooth's dream dessert!

[For those who love mousse, but prefer something less sweet, try milk chocolate or do without the honeycomb - although I think it gives it more bite and makes it less boring!]

What do lot you think of this recipe? 

The Dainty Cook x