A RECIPE: Chocolate cocoa nib shortbread, revisited

Sometimes, old really is best. There’s that sense of comfort that comes with familiarity- in other words you know what you’re going to get. Recipe testing doesn’t always provide those kinds of assurances.

I don’t usually make a point of claiming favourites but lets just say that if I died from gorging on this chocolate shortbread then it would have been a happy way to go.  As afternoon treat recipes go this one is living with the Gods- well maybe they are sharing a seat with these. If the two of them ever happened to find themselves side by side next to my tea mug in the same afternoon…..oooh well now, that would be asking for trouble.

I’ve tried multiple ways of making them and finally I’ve come up with what I like to refer to as  the ethereal version. And now comes the part where I try to tell you why. Their deeply rich chocolate crumb is guaranteed to sabotage even the most abstemious eaters and hardcore dieters alike. I’m talking, cocoa powder, melted 70% chocolate, chunks of 70% chocolate and cocoa nibs encased in butter, a bit of flour and sugar to hold them together and oh, just a generous pinch of salt for good measure.  These are pure D-I-E-T  S-A-B-O-T-A-G-E and you’ll need to scrub your teeth after to hide the shame evidence. A ticket to chocolate heaven has never been free.

So, if they are so darn good then why did I have to go and change them? Lets just say that I have trouble following recipes- even my own. Plus I think there’s always room for improvement. This time I used a mixture of oat flour and plain flour which gives them just the right texture- they don’t go rock hard in the fridge but they also don’t go soft. I’ve cut down on the salt because I had too many people with uneducated palettes accuse me of loosing control with the salt spoon. They still taste bloody good- they’re just a bit more user friendly. The sugar  was cut down by a third- you won’t notice that there’s less sugar but what you will notice is what great use that expensive chocolate you bought was put to.

I should also mention that it was my gifted friend Dan and his fancy camera who very kindly took these beautiful photos. Dan claimed he was watching his food intake the day he came over- but it did not take persuasion to send him home with half a batch of these little treasures. The remaining half batch  managed to bypass bunking down in the biscuit tin and were polished off with impressive speed and award winning enthusiasm by yours truly and  her husband. Only now that they are gone are we safe from temptation.

Chocolate Cocoa Nib Shortbread

I got the idea for this recipe from another food blogger who made cookies similar to these at work one day. They were totally divine- but being my impatient-self I didn’t want to weigh out tons of ingredients, wait around while the dough chilled and then form into rounds and bake in batches so I made a few ingredient cuts, skipped the chilling and pressed the dough into a tin.

Cocoa nibs (roasted, unshelled chopped cocoa beans) can be bought in gourmet shops- if you go to the effort of seeking them out you will not be disappointed.

You can use all plain flour, but the oat flour gives the shortbread a softer texture- you will want to store them in the fridge.

Makes: 12-24…..

Diet Facts: This recipe is diet sabotage. Do no attempt if you are on a diet.

280g/10 oz bittersweet chocolate (preferably 70 %), chopped and divided

225g/2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, softened

100g/4 oz light brown soft sugar

150g/1 cup oat flour

150g/ 1 cup plain flour

50g/2 oz unsweetened good quality cocoa powder

50g/1/2 cup cocoa nibs (or chopped nuts)

1/2 tsp kosher salt (1/4 tsp if it’s fine salt)

1 20 x 30 cm baking tin

1/ Heat the oven to 350F/180C/Gas 4. Melt half of the chocolate (I microwave for 1 minute and then stir until it’s fully melted) Beat the butter (ideally in a kitchen aid with the paddle beater) until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until fully combined and creamy (about 1 minute with the mixer, 2 minutes by hand).

2/ Add the melted chocolate and mix until evenly combined. Sift over the 2 flours, cocoa and salt and mix until almost combined. Fold through the cocoa nibs and remaining chopped chocolate by hand. If the mixture is really wet, then add another tablespoonful or two of flour. If not, press mixture into tin evenly. If it’s sticking really badly to your hands then lightly wet them. Prick all over with a fork.

3/ Bake in the oven for 25 minutes- it will continue to cook as it cools. After 10 minutes, cut the squares with a knife but leave in the tin. Allow to cool then store in an airtight container in the fridge.

A RECIPE: Banana & chocolate muffins

I was going to give you a break from baking this week and provide you with a warming soup recipe for a change. Obviously this did not happen but there are some mitigating factors and I think you’ll find them quite reasonable. You see, for the past two weeks my boss has been out of town and on any normal occasion this would mean that I would be left with rather more work on my plate than is to be desired, especially in the run-up to the holidays. But what wasn’t known when she booked her two week beef eating, wine drinking, tango-dancing jaunt to Argentina was that the day after she came back there would be a rather famous British chef cooking for a week on the show.  Jamie Oliver- perhaps you’ve heard of him?

Jamie, was how it all began for me and I look back on my days assisting his food stylist fondly- except maybe that day where I spent twelve hours cleaning mushrooms. Or the time when I had to wash-up in a pigs trough in the winter in the pouring rain. But other than those two days, pure fondness. Working with a genius is never easy and so this past week my work load went from being undesirable to down-right stressful. Delays in getting information did not help but then neither did my decision in the same week to run a marathon, in eleven weeks time. Training for 26.2 miles of knee-pounding does have a habit of eating into one’s waking hours. Jamie marathons or even Jamie and marathons combined with daylight savings is why I never got around to photographing the parsnip soup that is warming my belly for the second night in a row.  And that is the long and the short of why there’s no soup recipe for you today- it’s now too bloody dark outside to take a decent photograph. And I didn’t want to try to sell you parsnip soup without showing you how beautiful it really is- so you’ll have to wait.

On that note- they say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I say that when life gives you bananas and you don’t get a chance to eat them because you spend too many hours at work, make banana bread (or muffins). And of course no banana recipe would be complete in my books without its best mate, dark chocolate firmly by its side. These muffins use the same method as the pumpkin one’s I made a few weeks ago and it is officially my new favourite muffin batter. It’s so moist that it’s hard to eat just one; although the fact that they’re mini doesn’t help either. Or perhaps it’s just all that running I’ve been doing…..

A RECIPE: Speckled coconut macaroons

It happens every time I try to follow a recipe. I’ve mixed together all of the ingredients listed on the page and scooped a delicate pinky in for a sampling. And then similtaneously, or so it would seem, something through the cracked-open cupboard door grasps a hold of my eye, lures me towards it and forces me add it to a what could have been a perfectly fine recipe. Sometimes I wish I’d just tried the recipe untampered with and sometimes I have to admit I find myself thinking it was a stroke of culinary fate. Fate or just pure genius. Speckled coconut macaroons came about on one of these occasions.

Everything got in my way when I was trying to work on this recipe for the blog. Work for one thing, really got in the way. And then because I haven’t had an oven the only way to test them was at work- which I’ve been banned from doing so I had to sneak test them without the original recipe to hand. Honestly, the trouble I get myself into trying to keep this blog going. Then it was too dark to photograph them, which meant that I couldn’t eat them (talk about tedious) and by the time I did photograph them they were a bit past their best. I did manage to get there in the end though- and I think you’ll find yourselves thanking me for my troubles. Your welcome.

A RECIPE: Choc-full fridge cake

Chocolate refrigerator cake is not usually something that I would offer to do the washing-up for. This has mystified me based on the following argument: 1/ I like biscuits 2/ I like Chocolate 3/ I like biscuits covered in chocolate 4/ I like the word cake. Prior to my ovens unpredicted breakdown I had not spared a thought that a chocolate refrigerator cake might make it into the recipe archives of my blog. However, unable to bake with an oven other than the microwaveable variety this past Saturday morning- meant that I would have to either a/ find another activity or b/ bake without an oven. Unable to think of how I could possibly bake without an oven I opted for a- find another activity.

After visiting a couple of my favourite blogs (thank you Monica and Little Britainer) this other activity turned out to be cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. How exciting Saturday mornings can be! This was something that desperately needed to be done and included a spattering of the following appropriately edited phrases: “oh! I didn’t know this was in here” and “Ooooh! this should not still be in here!”. By the end of the clear-out I was left face to face with a handful of the dreaded opened, half-used, mostly used and nearly empty packets of ingredients that I would on any normal day bung into a batch of cookies and be pleased with myself that nothing had been wasted.

A lack of oven forced me to activate my brain (which only happens on the rarest of occasions) to find the perfect solution to use up the opened contents of my cupboard. At first I discarded my idea for a fridge cake- how could I put something in my blog that isn’t totally fabulous? But of course I had gone to the effort of activating my brain so I thought about it a little longer and concluded that why I never thought fridge cake was fabulous was because of the addition of dried fruit. I like raisins and I like chocolate but the two combined are not in my mind a happy couple- even when I’m not thinking. I wanted my fridge cake to have the best quality chocolate and stuffed full of crunch. Don thought perhaps I was a touch too liberal with my crunchy additions but I wanted a nut in every bite and that’s what I got! In any case, you could do any combinations of fruit, nuts, biscuits- Jamie even uses crushed meringue nests. Who knew a cake of all things could be so flexible? Baking has never been so easy.