Recipe adapted from David Lebovitz’ Ready for Dessert, ‘Roberts Absolute Best Brownies’.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
225g bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup call purpose flour
4-5 tablespoons peanut butter (to taste, really)

Method

Preheat oven to 175C. Line the inside of a 9 inch square pan with baking paper or foil, allowing excess to extend beyond the edges of the pan. Lightly grease the foil/baking paper with butter or non stick cooking spray.

In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter, then add the chocolate. Heat until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla until combined. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Add the flour and stir energetically for one full minute (and it really means one full minute) until the batter looses it’s graininess, becomes smooth and glossy and pulls away a bit from the sides of the saucepan. Stir through the peanut butter.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the center feels almost set – about 30 minutes.

These brownies will keep well for up to 4 days, and can be frozen for 1 month.

(As you can see, I baked these in my mini loaf pan as well which meant I had to reduce the baking time).

These are rich, chocolate’y, peanutbutter’y brownies that won’t last very long. Really, really good with a smothering of cream straight out of the oven. Nom.

Jarod asked what I was going to do with them. “Bake something!” I said. And that was the end of the conversation.

Later that afternoon, I started looking for something to bake involving mandarins. But not mandarin bits because I can’t deal with the texture of them. So I present the only thing I could find: Mandarin Syrup Mini Loaf Thingies!

Recipe adapted from The Circle.

Ingredients
The cakey bit

200g caster sugar
200g almond meal
1½ teaspoons baking powder
200ml vegetable oil
4 eggs
the zest of 3 large mandarins this counts as mandarin bits, so I left this out

The syrupy bit

The juice of 3 mandarins I actually used all 10 of my mandarins…
The juice of 1/2 a lemon I didn’t have any lemons, so left this out
100g sugar
1 cinnamon stick

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 160ºC. Grease a 20cm cake tin and set aside.

Mix together the dry ingredients: sugar, almond meal and baking powder. Then add the oil, eggs and mandarin zest and beat well with a wooden spoon.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40-50 minutes.

While the cake is baking, make your syrup.

Bring all the ingredients gently to the boil in a pan, stirring until the sugar has dissolved and simmer for three minutes

Allow the syrup to cool.

Take the cake out of the oven, and let cool for 5 or so minutes before turning out onto a plate. Pierce holes in the cake with a skewer while still warm, then pour your (hopefully now cooled) syrup all over.

Cut a slice and eat your noms.

Syrup soaked cake tastes best a day after it is made and will keep in the fridge covered in foil for 3-4 days.

Clearly I didn’t cook this in a cake tin – I used my shiny new mini loaf pan, which of course brought the cooking time down.

I couldn’t win Jarod over on the taste of mandarins, but he has had two mini loaves so far (the first was a ‘taste test’ and the second one was eaten ‘purely for it’s nutritional value’).

I find this cake really, really sweet – maybe something to do with my ten mandarins instead of the recommended three. I also wish I had some cream in the house to eat with them.

Will I buy mandarins again? Probably not. But it was worth it to try something new.

Winter is my favourite time of year and it can only be made better with a Jarod and Liz Special Dinner Pie.

These pies were the first attempt we made (almost a year ago now), but now we just make one massive pie in a loaf pan. Nom.

Here’s the recipe. Keep in mind it’s mostly us just guessing and chucking things in, so it might not be the easiest of things to follow.

Jarod and Liz Special Dinner Pie

Ingredients
- 1 carrot
- 1 or 2 tomatoes
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 onion
- some tomato sauce
- 2ish mushrooms
- 2 oxo cubes dissolved in 1 cup of boiling water (or some kind of similar stock thing)
- 200g mince
- 3-4 small potatoes
- some cheese
- butter & milk (for the potatoes)
- 1 sheet shortcrust pastry
- 1 sheet puff pastry
- 1 egg, scrambled

Method

Preheat oven to 180C.

Peel and chop potatoes and put onto boil.

Slice and dice carrot, tomatoes, garlic, onion, mushrooms. You can do one of two things: put them all in a blender with the tomato sauce and make a thick sauce, or just throw it all in once the mince is brown to make it a chunkier pie.

Brown mince, then add your thick sauce or diced good things. Pour in the oxo/water mix. Stir everything then let simmer while you lay the shortcrust pastry into the bottom of your loaf pan. (For mini pies, you can use a muffin pan – it works brilliantly).

Drain the potatoes, then mash with the milk and butter (to taste).

Pour your mince mixture into the loaf pan and spread out until even. Then add your mashed potato – again, spread until even. Top with some grated/sliced cheese, then lay the puff pastry over the top. (We cut the puff pastry to size once it’s been placed on top – much easier). Cut the puff pastry to size, then tuck in the edges to make it all stick together. You can use water if it helps.

Poke some holes in the top so steam can escape, then brush with the egg so it’ll go all golden brown.

Place in the oven for 20 minutes. Let it rest for five minutes before cutting and serving.

Serves: 2 (if you haven’t eaten lunch), 3 (if you want a good sized meal) or 4 (if you take portion sizes seriously).

What’s your favourite winter recipe? You can join in (blog or no blog!) over at That’s Noice.

Nutella Banana Muffins

Ingredients

2 eggs
125g soft butter
100g sugar
2 large ripe bananas
100g Nutella
100ml milk
1 tsp baking soda
250g flour
2 tsp baking powder
150g (milk) chocolate (topping)

How to

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs.
Fold in mashed banana and the nutella until mixed through. In a separate bowl, combine the milk and baking soda. In another bowl combine flour and baking powder.

Alternately blend in part of the milk mixture, then part of the flour mixture, then part of the milk mixture… until everything is combined. (This way provides better control over the consistency of the batter).

Pour batter into greased or paper-lined muffin tins and bake at 180°C in the preheated oven: 20-25 minutes for normal sized muffins, and 10 minutes for mini muffins. Check if the muffins are done by poking in a wooden skewer – it should come out quite dry and almost clean. Remove from the oven and let cool.

If you like, add a thick layer of milk chocolate to top, or spread with Nutella when eating. These are beautiful eaten straight from the oven.

And here’s some photos from the making of… click for bigger.

In case you’re wondering, Jarod mounted his Nikon with fisheye lens onto on of our cupboard doors, and pointed it downwards. He had a remote control and he took photos at random intervals. Most of the time I didn’t know when he was going to take them. The exception being the few in which I’m smiling.

Yesterday in the stupid Sydney heat I was determined to make it, however I was given two restrictions by Jarod: the base had to be chocolatey, and I was not allowed to turn on the oven.

I consulted the internet, and pulled together various recipes to create a ‘no oven’ choc mint slice.

Chocolatey base:
115g butter
50g white sugar
75g cocoa
25g rice bubbles (slightly smooshed in a food processor/with something heavy)
[I also had '2 eggs' written down. I forgot to add them, but the base works fine anyway. Up to you if you want to add them in]

Melt the butter, sugar and cocoa in a double boiler. (Or a heat resistant bowl that fits snugly on top of one of your saucepans), stirring occasionally. When all melted into a chocolatey goo, remove from heat and stir through your smooshed rice bubbles. Press the mixture firmly into some kind container. I used a loaf pan. The mixture will be hot, so you may have to improvise and use something other than your hands.

Put the container with the base into the fridge (or freezer) to cool/set while you make the minty middle bit.

Minty middle bit:
1 1/4 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp warm/hot milk
15g softened butter
Peppermint essence to taste

Stir the icing sugar, milk and butter together until you get a thick sugary paste. The butter can take a little while to work through. Add peppermint essence to taste. I added around 1/4 tsp of the essence, and it was plenty minty. At this stage if you would like your mint to look green, you can also add some food colouring.
Mix the essence (and colouring if used) in thoroughly.

Check the base: if it is still warm, put both the minty mixture and the base back in the fridge. If you try and put the minty bit on while the base is still warm, you run the risk of your minty bit being melty. Once the base is cool, spread the minty mixture over the base and return to the fridge to set for 10 minutes.

Chocolatey top:
150g dark chocolate
1/2 tsp melted butter

Melt the butter in a heatproof container. Add chocolate and make it melty too. Mix together with a knife until smooth. Leave mixture to reach room temperature. (Again, if you add this while hot your middle bit will go melty).
When cool/room temperature, spread over the top of your middle bit. Return to the fridge to let the chocolate set.

When it’s all set, it’ll look something like this:

Cut into bits and eat.

It is a very rich and sugary slice, we couldn’t eat much at once. The base (surprisingly) held together quite well sans eggs.

I think next time I’ll do it when it’s cooler and I’m allowed to use the oven, and make it ‘normally‘ by baking a biscuity base. Still, very edible. Just in small portions.

A couple of weekends ago we bought some bananas. Perhaps a few too many, because as they got to that nice brown-specked sweet stage, I couldn’t eat them all. I put them in the freezer until I could find a use for them that wasn’t the usual banana bread.

I checked my Edmonds cookery book, and the first suggestion under ‘Banana’ in the index was ‘Bacon Wrapped Bananas’. I wasn’t feeling that adventurous, so last night I settled for making a Banana Butterscotch Pudding.

Ingredients:

- 125 g Plain Flour
- 115 g caster sugar superfine
- 3 teaspoons Baking powder
- 1 Banana mashed
- 250 ml Milk
- 85 g salted Butter melted
- 1 Egg lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- vanilla ice cream to serve

Topping:

- 140 g soft brown sugar
- 1/4 cup Golden Syrup
- 250 ml boiling Water

How to:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C
- Sift the flour, sugar, and baking powder into a bowl.
- Add the banana, milk, butter, egg and vanilla extract and whisk together until well combined.
- Pour into a greased 2.5 L baking dish.
- To make the topping, place the brown sugar, golden syrup and water in a small pot and bring to a boil.
- Pour the boiling mixture carefully over the pudding.
- Bake for 30 – 40 minutes or until cooked through when tested with a skewer.
- Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Here’s how the kitchen was set up today – instead of writing down the recipe, Jarod decided should make use of our laptop…

This was while the pudding was in the oven and after I’d cleaned the bowls. You can see how much bench space we have – most of the time I end up using the stove top as well, but it gets a bit squishy if I’m using the stove top at the same time…

Here is the pudding just as it’s come out of the oven…

And in a bowl with ice cream…

The original recipe says it serves 4, but I would say you’d get 6 or more servings out of it. It is extremely sweet, so hard to eat a lot at once.

I had all the ingredients, but was missing the lollipop sticks. After much searching (and calling stores) we found some at Spotlight in Birkenhead Point. By we, I mean I called them to make sure they had some and Jarod made a detour in his normal bike riding route to pick some up. Because he is awesome. And probably thought watching me making these things might be entertaining. And entertaining it was.

First step was to make a cake. I used the recipe of the chocolate cupcakes I made earlier in the week, but only used a third of all the ingredients. I didn’t want to make 50 or more cakes on a stick – especially not for a test batch.

And of course, we ate a bit of the cake, just to make sure it was okay.

Once the cake was cool, I crumbled it into a bowl.

Now the recipe over at Bakerella is full of American terminology (or perhaps normal baking terminology that I’m ignorant to), like ‘frosting’ and ‘candy melts’ and ‘chocolate bark’. Turns out that frosting is just icing (thanks, Google!), so I made a batch of plain old chocolate icing, using the recipe on the back of the icing sugar pack (fancy):

1 cup icing sugar, sifted
2 tsp cocoa, sifted
1 tsp butter, softened
1 tbsp milk

Put icing sugar, cocoa, butter and milk into a heatproof bowl. Place a little hot water in the kitchen sink. Rest bowl of in sink and stir until it is soft and spreadable. (Oh, and don’t get any water in there).

I then combined the cake crumble and the icing, mixing it with my hands.

I then rolled littleish balls of the mixture in my hands, and put them on my baking sheet.

I should point out that it’s not a good idea to wipe your hands on anything your cat may have slept on, rolled in, brushed past or otherwise been in contact with at this stage. If you do, the next ball you make will be very furry. And yes, I found that out the hard way.

Now, I thought those balls should be small enough at the time. Turns out I was pretty wrong about that, but more on that later.

Then, I stuck the lollipop sticks in. At this stage I forgot the little tip that said to dip the sticks in melted chocolate before putting into the cakey part, and just stuck them in. I’m not sure if dipping the sticks in melted chocolate would have helped, but I will certainly remember for next time.

They went into the freezer for 30 minutes to harden. Then I pulled them out for dipping.

Bakerella uses ‘candy melts’ which seem to come in delightful colours and I’ve never seen them before. In some other variations of the pops, she also mentions ‘chocolate bark’, which are apparently just chocolate melts. So, I decided on using the white chocolate melts I had in the cupboard.

I then lined them up on my styrofoam. The stuff I used is actually what the kMix came in – handy!

Jarod also decided that he wanted to try one before the chocolate had a chance to properly set.

Which is lucky, because shortly after he ate that one, gravity decided to do it’s thing:

And proved without a doubt that those balls needed to be way smaller.

So, in summary, things I probably should have done:

- Crumbled the cake better (perhaps used the food processor)
- Mixed the icing in more thoroughly (I did a totally half assed job)
- Not let the cat near the apron (even though it’s hers) or our tea towels (in general)
- Um, made the cake balls smaller?
- Thought ahead and made sure I had enough space in the freezer (I had to do a major reshuffle to fit them in!)
- Done the dipping slower to make it look a bit neater.

So, I’d say I’m not quite ready to make cupcake pops just yet, but hey, at least they tasted good.

Recipe from bakerella:

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup (I used maple ‘flavoured’ syrup, and it didn’t seem to make much of a difference).
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Sift together with a wire whisk.

3. In another bowl, stir buttermilk, egg, maple syrup and melted butter until just combined.

4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until combined.

5. Stir in chocolate chips. Reserve a few chips to sprinkle on the tops.

6. Bake for 8-9 minutes.

7. Serve warm, with maple syrup for dipping.

Makes 24 mini pancake muffins.

I made some muffins with choc chips, and some without. Overall I preferred the ones without choc chips, but dipped straight into the maple syrup.

They are so tasty – just like pancakes, but bite size.

The cupcakes have a slightly crisp shell, but then are all fluffy and delicious on the inside.

100g dark chocolate
1 cup (250ml) water
125g butter, softened
1 1/4 cups (255g) brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
1/2 cup (75g) plain flour
1/4 cup (30g) cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Set up your muffin pan/s how you like them.

2. Combine the chocolate and water in a small saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

3. Use an electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition, until just combined.

4. Add the flours and cocoa powder and stir until just combined. Add the melted chocolate mixture and stir to combine.

5. Spoon evenly among the lined muffin pans. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

6. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 12 – 14 big cupcakes.

Now I have 11 cupcakes that need to be eaten. Why must I bake things in such large quantities?

Ingredients
- 100g good-quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped (I used Belcolade chocolate that I picked up at our local grocer).
- 1 egg
- 19g caster sugar
- 1 tsp cocoa powder, sifted
- 100ml thickened cream, plus extra whipped cream to serve
- Grated chocolate, to serve

How to
Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl in the microwave for 20 seconds. Stir thoroughly then heat for another 20 seconds. Stir through until all chocolate is melted. Set aside to cool slightly.

Combine eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with electric beaters for 5 minutes, or until mixture is pale, thick and doubled in volume. Fold in cooled chocolate and cocoa powder until combined.

In a separate bowl, whip cream until thickened. Use a large metal spoon to carefully fold the cream into the chocolate mixture, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible. Spoon into 2 serving glasses and chill in fridge for at least 1 hour. Top with extra whipped cream and grated chocolate to serve.

—

This is the richest chocolate mousse we’ve ever eaten. So much so we didn’t even get through the whole thing – we’ve got spare in the fridge for tomorrow. Nom.