Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes

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These chocolate and cherry cupcakes came about after the realisation that it had been faaaar to long since I had baked something with chocolate. It was all the way back when I made a Babka for the first time.

It’s like an itch. If I don’t have something chocolatey on a regular basis, I start to get fidgety. So, off I trotted into the kitchen to see what I could make.

I used:

150g milk chocolate
100g butter
100g soft light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
150g self raising flour
125g frozen morello cherries

It is a basic fruit cupcake mix, with the added melted chocolate. Simple.

I melted the chocolate over a Bain Marie until it ran smooth and set aside to cool slightly. Whilst the chocolate cooled, I beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and creamy. This was followed by the egg, milk and vanilla extract. Once combined, I sifted in the baking powder and flour and folded it all through until the mixture was smooth again.

I grabbed my cherries and was ready to assemble.

After a quick stir through of cherries, I layered the cupcake cases with alternate blobs of cupcake mix and chocolate.

I cooked them for twenty minutes at 180* and immediately tucked in.

I know, I know – you’re meant to wait until they have cooled completely – but in my defence, I was desperate!

Mmmmmmm. Fruity, chocolatey, spongy and a quick bake. I was totally satisfied. What have you baked this week?

Honeyed Gammon and Garden Pea Risotto

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This weekend presented us with a well earned rest, and a chance to get fancy in the kitchen. Rob and I had a rummage in the cupboards to see what would inspire us and set about creating this:

It’s a gammon and pea risotto, but cooked in a paella pan. I’m not entirely sure what the technical differences are between paella and risotto, but as far as we were concerned, they we similar enough to swap in the pan for without too much worry (sorry in advance if I am breaking some cardinal culinary rule here!).

What do you think? Does it look OK? It was both of our first times attempting a risotto. Ever. So we are quite proud!

If you do think it looks worth trying (I hope you do!!) then you will need:

A healthy glug of Olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
2 tsp honey
2 gammon steaks, roughly chopped
2 red onions, finely chopped
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp mustard seed, ground
3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 medium glass of white wine
A handful of frozen garden peas
A handful of frozen green beans, sliced
200g risotto rice
800ml vegetable stock

Heat the olive oil, salt, pepper and honey in a large flat pan over a low heat. Add the chopped gammon and fry over a medium heat until its cooked through and the honey starts to caramelise over the meat.

Pop in your red onions, thyme and mustard seeds. Cook until the onion starts to sweat and then add the garlic. Straight afterwards, pour in the wine,peas and greens beans. Stir this over a high heat to burn off the alcohol.

As the liquid starts to reduce, pour over the risotto rice, closely followed by the stock and simmer for at least 25 minutes, stirring frequently. We actually added a splash more wine, and a little extra water as our risotto rice wasn’t completely cooked but I guess this will depend on your hob/ pan / rice type.

Et voila, our pan-European attempt at risotto.

This recipe would have easily served four. We had the second half Al Fresco the day after, and it tasted just as good. Any other combo ideas for risotto now that we have successfully attempted our first one?

Cheat’s Apricot Tart

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Do you ever have times where you see something, and just have to have it? Nothing else will do. It has to be exactly that thing that you crave or else the rest of your day will be an absolute flop?

This happens to me quite frequently and it’s normally centred around food. The other day was no different. I was quite happily minding my own business, having a good old nose around on Instagram, when I came across a pre-bake photo of A Cozy Kitchen‘s newest creation.

When she posted this unassuming dessert, just before it was finished and popped in the oven, I don’t think Adrianna really thought about the weird mad women (just me then?) out there that would immediately want (read: crave) this dessert and desperately need the recipe.

At the time of baking, the recipe wasn’t online. All I had to go on was that mouthwatering photo and short accompanying description (literally just “sage, apricots and hazelnuts) – This is my attempt:

1 punnet of Apricots, stoned and sliced
fresh sage, chopped
1 tbsp roasted chopped hazelnuts
5 tbsp Amaretto
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 roll of “ready to roll” puff pastry

I marinated the apricots, sage and hazelnuts in the remaining ingredients for about 2 hours before placing them on the rolled out puff pastry sheets, leaving about an inch gap around the side. Popped it in the oven for ten minutes and voila…

…a dessert that looked far more impressive that the effort it took to make! I served it with a hefty blob of vanilla ice cream!

Click here for A Cozy Kitchen’s real dessert. When the post went up, it was HUGELY different to mine- way more intricate and lovely. I will be trying this one soon for sure, but for now, my craving has been satisfied.

My Chocolate Soul

The snapshots and snippets of a chocolate filled soul

Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes

Honeyed Gammon and Garden Pea Risotto

Cheat’s Apricot Tart

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