Honey nougat & Orange brownie cake

That title certainly sounds like a mouthful! This is one of the best brownie cake recipes you will ever make and trust me, one mouthful won't be enough! Undoubtedly! Even if it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn! 

I was given the original recipe for it by my friend's Mum.  The version below is my tweaked one as the original does not call for the addition of orange.

Ingredients

185 g caster sugar

125 g unsalted butter

125 g margarine

300 g toblerone

125 g self raising flour

30 g plain flour

30 g dark cocoa

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Rind of 1 orange

3 tbsp orange juice

Method

1. Line a 20 cm x 30 cm shallow tin with baking paper.  Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius.

2. Place sugar, butter, a third of the toblerone and 125 ml of hot water in a bowl.  Place the bowl over a pan with boiling water until the contents have melted. Take it off the heat and cool. 

3. Sift together the dry ingredients and add them to the melted chocolate mixture.  

4. Stir in the two beaten eggs. Do not overbeat. 

5. Add the orange rind and orange juice.  Pour into the prepared tin and sprinkle over the remaining toblerone which has been chopped into pieces.  Bake for 40 - 50 minutes until done.  Do not overbake, once the top starts cracking, insert a skewer in the center and if it comes out clean, take your cake out of the oven and let it cool in the tin.

The margarine gives it a very moist, melt in the mouth texture. If you prefer a firmer texture, use 250 g butter instead. 

This is one dessert that will not disappoint - a guaranteed hit if you have friends around :)

White chocolate basil cream with sticky balsamic strawberries

I am very much a cake person and not so much a dessert person! When it comes to making them, I mean - when it comes to eating, I'll eat it all :)

I found this recipe on BBC Good Food and was very intrigued by it as I've never used white chocolate and basil together.  The only change I made was to use just two or three sprigs of basil as opposed to a whole bunch.  This allowed for a subtle flavour of basil to come through.  I think a whole bunch would have been very overpowering .

The tang of the balsamic counteracts the sweetness of the white chocolate.  This dessert is very easy to do and I really liked it.  It received mixed reactions from the people I served it to....as one of my friends said "once you get used to the strangeness of it, its very nice".   I'm taking that as a compliment!!! :)

Chocolate fudge cake

Last week, we threw my friend a baby shower and more often than not, whenever we meet up with our friends, I'm the one to provide the dessert! Since she loves chocolate, I found a recipe for a Chocolate Fudge Cake.

The original recipe calls for chocolate buttercream, but since this was a very light cake, I opted to use a ganache made with 175 ml double cream, 200g dark chocolate and 25 g butter. Heat the cream and butter together until the butter is fully melted and mixture just starts to bubble.  Take the pan off the heat and add in the broken pieces of dark chocolate and stir.  The heat from the cream will melt the chocolate and you get a lovely silky smooth ganache.

Now I'm not very good with frosting - but I am trying and although it is not a neat finish, I was pretty happy with how this one turned out! :)

Chocolate Beetroot Loaf

Its not your run of the mill combo, but if you can make carrot cake, why can't you make beetroot cake??? :). I found this recipe on Netmums and tweaked it ever so slightly. You can't really taste the beetroot, but it does give the cake a lovely moist texture.

This has a nice chocolate flavour but is not intensely sweet. If you prefer a sweeter version, I'd increase the caster sugar by an ounce.

I didn't have a skewer to hand so used my knife to test it so the top of my cake looks a bit worse for wear!!!! It had a beautiful intense colour when it came out the oven.



And perfect with a cup of tea or coffee :)



Just a word of warning - you should probably use gloves when handling the beetroot as otherwise you're going to have red everywhere!!!!

I hope you enjoy this delicious recipe. Go ahead, give it a go - you won't be disappointed!

Ingredients

8 oz self raising flour

2 eggs

1 oz cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

2 oz caster sugar

2 oz golden caster sugar

3 oz melted dark chocolate (70% cocoa)

3 oz butter, melted

4 oz raw beetroot , grated

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius/gas mark 4/ 350 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Grease & line a loaf tin

3. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl.

4. Stir in the sugar. Then stir in the raw beetroot and gradually add the melted chocolate, melted butter and eggs. The mixture does get quite stiff but just keep at it until it all comes together.

5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and bake for around an hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

6. Allow to cool in tin before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely.