Chocolate Hazelnut (Ferrero Rocher!) Birthday Cake

Ooooh this is SUCH A GOOD ONE.

Roll up, roll up for the best chocolate cake you'll ever eat. I have a particular love for chocolate and hazelnut, praline, Nutella, whatever you want to call it, I'll eat it.

It was a friend's birthday recently, and we have very similar taste in cakes (except I LOVE mint chocolate and he HATES it). I knew that this kind of cake would be right up both our alleys and I knew I wanted to whip up something which combined the nutty deliciousness of hazelnut with the sweet smoothness of chocolate. 

Good news - it's easy. Mix dry ingredients. Repeat with wet ingredients. Put them together and bake. So simple for so much deliciousness!

Chinese-Style Turkey Dumplings (Potstickers)

THESE ARE SO EASY. What a revelation. These are so great, simple, a little time consuming, but perfect for a weekend dinner when you have a little more time.

So, I won’t lie. I am not as fast at rolling and filling these as the people at my local dumpling joint. I could watch them make dumplings at lightning speed for hours. But I got it done. I watched a few videos for the rolling technique, but you really just have to get your hands on the dough and see what you can do.

Gorgeous little dumpling

A few things I learned - roll from the centre out, in one direction only, rotating the dough about a quarter turn after each (one) roll. This gets the most uniformly round dough circle.

Ta-da!

The good thing is, I’m going to let you into a secret.. They don’t need to be perfectly round! You can still fold them into a dumpling shape if you end up with a square, an oval, a rectangle, or something in between!  I rolled about 25, and hand on heart, I probably rolled 3 proper circles (the ones I photographed!)

For better photos of how to fold the dumplings (and bonus dipping sauce recipe!), see this previous post (where I used pre-madewrappers). The homemade ones are SO MUCH easier to fold, though.

Baked Lemon And Poppy Seed Donuts

Alright, I'm totally in donut mode now.

There is something about baked donuts that sparks joy in people. Myself included. They always come up perfectly round and beautifully baked and it’s just pure deliciousness in the comforting shape of a donut. 

You do need a special tin (these are so essential to my life that I have two..) but I promise it is worth it! I don't love deep-frying food, and this is a perfect compromise to still allow donuts in your life if you're like me.

Basically the sky is the limit with these. I have done a few variations in the past (chocolate, strawberry, cinnamon), and it made sense to give it a go in lemon form!

The lovely glaze is easy to whip up, tart and sweet and makes a perfect addition to the spongy cakey goodness of the donut.

Makes approx. 16 donuts

Strawberry Glazed Baked Donuts!

I know which plate I want...

It’s that time of year again! Everything is pink and there are hearts everywhere. And then on Feb 15th the frugal ones can score some half off chocolates.

Stage 1 - baked

I don’t really “do” Valentine’s – this year me and the Swede are getting a Chinese takeout and calling it a day. But I do love any excuse to bake pretty things, so I decided to do a baked version of the strawberry (“Homer Simpson”) donuts that I made a few years ago.

Stage 2 - glazed once

Because I’m obsessed with baked donuts.

And you will be too. If you do presents for Valentine’s, ask your other half to buy you a donut pan. You won’t regret it.

Stage 3 - strawberry glaze and sprinkles

These are really simple to make, and feature a cheeky double glaze (plain/classic and strawberry/pink). Feel free to halve the glaze ingredients if you don’t want to double dip. But sugar = love, so I dipped twice.

Slow Cooker Coconut Beef Curry

This is my new absolute favourite.

I love slow cooker meals that take like 8 hours. The main benefit for me is that I can put one on in between night shifts and wake up to the smell of a delicious dinner that’s all cooked and ready to go. It’s the one time in my life I feel like an adult.

Beef is great for that. 6-8 hours on low and you have chunks of beef that are falling apart. They can literally be cut with a spoon. You need that in your life.

This curry is an insanely delicious meal. I felt LUCKY to wake up to this meal. I’m not going to say it made night shift worth it, but I wasn’t mad at it.

The other great thing is that the spice paste makes enough for 2 curries, so you can either halve it or make the full amount and store some in the fridge for a week or two so you can have yet another delicious meal.

Muttar Pilau and Baked Chicken Tikka

Happy Sunday! Brighten up the cold unforgiving week to come by planning to make this for dinner this week.

I forgot how much I love rice. I haven’t properly cooked rice in months (microwaveable rice is really useful for quick dinners but it sure doesn’t taste as good as freshly boiled rice.

I saw this recipe in the newspaper ages ago and it piqued my interest. We’re talking an Indian spiced fried rice. I love rice, I love peas, and I love spices. Sign me up. I didn’t want to cover it in sauces, so I went with a delicately spiced oven baked chicken. You could also have this as a veggie main on its own.

Now, the rice has a lot of steps, but it’s surprisingly quick to whip up, I made enough rice for 4 and enough chicken for two, and that maths means that I’m going to live off the leftovers of my rice now. Thinking ahead!

Spiced Beef Fatteh

Growing up, Nigella was everything I wanted to be. I found, and still find, her to be elegant and decadent.  She has had a bit of flack recently – I don’t think I will look at avocado on toast the same way again. But flicking through her older cookbooks recently reminds me of everything that I have always loved- her easy style, the effusively descriptive way she writes, the luxury she brings to everything, and the sheer joy she appears to get from preparing and eating food.

..I still want to be Nigella when I grow up.

This is a pure Nigella recipe – delicately spiced beef mince packed with veg, a garlic sesame creamy dip, and a smattering of toppings which work oh-so-perfectly, and a final dish that tastes as impressive as it looks. She knows how to put out a showstopper!

This meal would make an incredible sharing platter, the grand centrepiece of a Lebanese/Turkish style feast. It is also just as great as an individual main meal.  Or, instead of carving up the pitas, you could slice them in two and stuff them with the beef and toppings for an amazing lunch on the go.