Chocolate Peppermint Layer Fudge

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! It’s the season to be jolly, and part of that means there’ll be a ton of leftover chocolate hanging around. Perfect for making this easy peasy fudge recipe! This makes a very smooth, chewy fudge that is a rich treat! And bonus -it’s easy to make and absolutely delicious! Went down a treat in my household.

Side note, I’m notoriously terrible at fudge, and using marshmallows to bind it all together is a genius step. If you have left  it to the last minute to plan your Christmas dessert - I can suggest this as a quick, easy and quite impressive sweet treat!

If you don’t like minty chocolate (you’re a monster) you can always leave the extract out. Or substitute 150g of the dark chocolate for a terry’s chocolate orange and make orange flavour. The possibilities are endless with this amazing base recipe.

Lussekatter

So, I’m a little late to the party on these buns. These are traditional Swedish buns flavoured with saffron, and they are served on St Lucia’s day – December 13^th.

The name translates as Lucia’s cats – which doesn’t really seem to make a lot of sense. I read somewhere that they are meant to represent a cat’s face with the two raisins as eyes, but another source said that they represent curled cat’s tails.

Who knows. Anyway, they’re tasty and sweet and a little out of the ordinary Christmas fare for the UK, so I think they’d make a welcome addition to any table.

Marzipan In Blankets

Let's start a Christmas bake countdown!

If you have any Europeans in your life (especially of the German or Scandi persuasion) they will be all over this. It’s basically gingerbread wrapped around a big old chunk of marzipan.

As all good German Christmas cookie recipes go, this makes about a million little morsels and you won’t be disappointed. The spice mix is the one I return to again and again, you will recognise it from my spiced cupcake recipe. It's versatile, warming and deeply flavoured and one of my favourite ingredients in my pantry!

In Search of the Superior Babka - Cinnamon vs Chocolate

The two contenders, resting

Oooh I have a winter treat to share.

Chocolate babka

... and the cinnamon

One of my favourite “bits” in Seinfeld is where they get stuck in the bakery buying babka and lament that they don’t get the “superior” babka – aka chocolate (compared to cinnamon). I obviously had to test them both out. For science.

Did I need to make two full size babkas for two people? No. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

The superior babka really depends on your tastes. Chocolate is a really rich dessert-y treat, cinnamon is a slightly sweeter delight. Both are amazing fresh. Both are amazing toasted. If you wanted to toast a slice or two and dollop vanilla icecream on top I think that would be ridiculous.

… but sorry Seinfeld, cinnamon is the superior babka in my house.

Oatmeal Choc Chip Cookies

Oooh, autumn is here and these cookies are a lovely cold-weather treat. These are so chunky and fluffy and like something  you'd get in a decent hipster coffee shop. 

I made two versions, one with 200g flour and one with almost double, 350g. The ones with less flour were a lot more sticky and they flattened right out. I prefer them with a bit more risen, cakey texture.

I was keeping these nut-free but this recipe would be AMAZING with the addition of a little coconut. Or, coconut and dried cranberries and leave off the chocolate. Or walnuts and maple syrup. Yum yum yum. Lots of options.

makes about 2 dozen cookies

White Boule

I don’t know about you, but I have never had the patience to even read to the end of a recipe for a sourdough starter. Needless to say, I haven’t attempted to make my own.

Buuuut this recipe uses a mini starter which is easy to prep, doesn’t take weeks of feeding, and gives a chewy, tangy, delicious white loaf. Too delicious. Fresh from the oven, it’s perfect. A few days in, toasted and slathered with peanut butter – also perfect.

The weather is turning colder, and the smell of freshly baked bread always cheers me up. If you have a day where you're hanging around the house, I can think of no better recipe to make.

Kharcho

Roll up, roll up for my second favourite Georgian dish. It's an amazing and filling meaty soup. There is a chill in the air, the internet is full of pumpkin spice lovers and people who make fun of them, so I think we can say it’s coming into autumn. And this soup is a perfect autumnal soup.

I have mentioned my love of Georgian food earlier, and this is another gem from the Georgian cookbooks. It’s a strong, herby, beefy soup with rice. Mine turned out a little bit more like a stew than a soup but it’s still delicious. Could be fixed with less rice or more water, but I liked it just the way it was.

Georgian Walnut Chicken

Okay, strap yourself in for some former Soviet delicacies! I am just back from a holiday in Russia and I ate A LOT. And discovered Georgian food. And I’m in love. Russian food was lovely, but Georgian food was a complete surprise. It totally wasn't on my radar as a top cuisine, but I enjoyed everything I ate in the many Georgian restaurants we frequented. They have this beefy tomato rice soup called kharcho which is incredible (and coming up on the blog!), and these amazing dumplings called khinkali! Which I might not make because they looked like they would be difficult to put together.

But my favourite thing was this walnut chicken stew dish which is flavourful, warming, delicately spiced and super-duper delicious. So, as I always do, I got home and immediately googled some recipes and got the basics down. And I added a few spiced additions just to get it close to the one I had in St Petersburg.

This is super easy to make, with an incredible creamy sauce (always my favourite part of any meal). You can easily double the paste ingredients to allow you to make this again quickly. Because you will want to. Because it’s delicious.

Cheesy Stuffed Chillies

Ooh, I like all of these things. A bit of spice, a bit of cheese, some delicious smoky spices.

These are a great little side/snack. The original recipe called for jalapenos which I couldn’t find. So I got padron chillies which are a little smaller and just with a little spice kick. I think bigger chillies could be better because you can stuff more delicious couscous filling in them. You could even use sweet peppers if you have a spice-hater at home.

Versatile, easy, quick, yummy, veggie!

White Chocolate Chunk Cookies - New and Improved!

I told you guys I'd give it another bash! Here's a little middle of the week pick me up.

I have modified one of my all time favourite recipes - the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, as it has the perfect texture that I was looking for. I did a little tinkering with the recipe and I think I have struck gold! To me, this is about as close as I'm going to get to the correct flavour and texture. 

The only thing that needs improved is the white chocolate - ideally I'd have something thicker than 2 chocolate buttons but thinner than a chunk from a chocolate bar. I tried a few with 3 chocolate buttons and that is almost perfect! But then you're into a second bag of giant chocolate buttons. 

Experimentation is fun! And delicious.

Green Rice

So, I won’t eat cauliflower rice. I just won’t do it. I love rice too much to substitute it completely away.

When I was in Edinburgh recently, I hit up Dishoom (a favourite Indian of mine, with loads of chains in London) and had the most delightful broccoli, pistachio, mint and chilli salad. It was intense and perfect with a skewer of delicately spiced chicken (and a huge pile of garlic naan).

I will re-create that salad one day, but for the meantime I got to thinking how good a side of broccoli was with curry/spiced food. And how maybe I could bulk out rice with some nice greens to easily increase my vegetable consumption. The great thing about this is the versatility, you could easily bulk it up further by adding pistachios and some sliced chillies.

So I decided to throw in what I had on hand - some random spices, shredded broccoli and peas into some cooked rice and see what happened.

The majority of the ingredients

What happened was deliciousness. See below.

Aubergine Curry

This is SO GOOD.

I love a good curry. This one is filling and wholesome and really delicately spiced. And veggie! I do want to reduce my meat intake slightly and I think Indian-style foods and spices are the perfect way to eat veggies.

I've had it for dinner yesterday and for lunch today - it's that good!

And it's a perfect one for a meal prep as you can add some delicious toppings and keep the variation up. I went with some flaked almonds and later (after photos) I added some shredded roast chicken. You could also add some fresh coriander, some pomegranate seeds, some pickled diced chillies.. whatever you fancy.

I also served mine with my favourite new creation of green rice (rice with shredded broccoli and spices) for which a post is coming soon.

Turkey Meatballs, Italian Style

I'ts nearly the weekend! And I can't think of any better way to celebrate than with pasta.

Turkey mince makes cracking meatballs. I have waxed lyrical about it before with another recipe with Honey Sesame Sriracha Sauce.

Well, I was planning to make that again this weekend but then I made some killer Italian style bread and needed to dip it in a rich tomatoey sauce. So I changed tack and changed the flavour a little.

Dinner and bread

This was a triumph and I'll be doing it again. It's basically an extra saucey bolognese. The addition of the milk is something I've heard about and read about but I was always a little nervous to add it. But then I thought - milk is similar to cheese and I will happily heap Parmesan in there until I have to be physically stopped. So I put it in and it worked! It takes the bitterness out of the tomatoes and just leaves a lovely silky texture for the sauce.

Enjoy!

Za'atar Lamb Meatballs with Spiced Lentils

You can make this in a smaller number of pots and pans than I did, but I’m not sure if my big pot is oven-proof so I transferred it to one of my lovely oven dishes to cook. I was just thinking how I never use my various mismatching Le Creuset stuff so I’m glad I was able to get some use out of them!

One of my favourite flavours that I tried in Lebanon was za’atar – traditionally a mixture of thyme, sesame, and sumac. It is earthy and nutty and sometimes almost tart. And it absolutely sings when spread on fresh hot bread and rolled up into a wrap. My mouth is actually watering thinking of this wrap I had.

And of course it’s cracking with a bit of lamb.

Serves 4, you get 3 meatballs per person

White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

So, I have a feeling that this is going to be a bit of an experiment. 

I came upon the idea of these cookies while trying to recreate the famous cookies from Van Stapele Koekmakerij in Amsterdam. These cookies were worth the 20 minutes I queued for them - you can spot the shop a mile off due to the queue. It's set in a tiny little shop on a narrow street and they only serve one thing - fresh, soft, super chocolately cookies. And the unusual thing about them is the huge nugget of white chocolate right there in the middle.

I amended this recipe from some that I saw online, and I love the idea of using a little bit of espresso powder to bring out the chocolate flavour. And, if you like cakey cookies then these are perfect. I prefer mine with a bit more of a squish and I need to find a bigger piece of white chocolate to go in the centre, so I will continue to experiment for *my* perfect version of this cookie but these are a cracking biscuit all on their own.

Basil, Mozzarella and Garlic Loaf

Ooooh baby this is a good one.

You’ve got an easy peasy bread recipe, with unlimited filling options, AND it looks super pretty.

I went with nice Italian style flavourings, but this could be delicious with some onion, garlic and sage instead, or ramp up the cheese, and add some sundried tomatoes. Oh, OH or smear with pesto and cover in mozzarella and parmesan.

I will be whipping up variations on this for a long time. I love finding that perfect base recipe to riff off.

Winner!