Pana chocolate review: Dairy free, soya free, gluten free (CHOCOLATE!)

Pana chocolate is an Australian brand making raw, organic chocolate that's (wait for it) dairy free, soya free, gluten free, and refined sugar free. With flavour combinations such as Goji berry & coconut, Hemp and nib and Sour Cherry and Vanilla it's not only perfect ingredient wise for a CMPA mama such as myself but really lovely. 

I'm not going to pretend that any chocolate is entirely good for you, but these bars of intense and unusual flavour combinations really do hit the free from spot without too much guilt. 

My favourites were Sour Cherry and Vanilla, Mint and Raw Cacao. M wasn't so keen because they are incredibly dark (which meant I didn't have to share, although I did offer) but he can have chocolate any time he likes - it's been a fair old while since I indulged in something quite so intensely chocolatey. 

The only sticking point are that these are £3.20 for each 45g bar (amusingly, portion size is suggested as 2 squares or 15g - whilst it is wonderfully rich, it's not so much so that you can't eat the whole of the Sour Cherry and Vanilla whilst watching the Bake Off final for instance). One for the Christmas list rather than an 8pm emergency dash to the cupboard. That said I'm seriously considering placing another order and asking M to hide them and just get one for me when I'm entirely desperate and sleep deprived. But I have no self control where chocolate is concerned - you might be one of those people still eating your Easter eggs. 

These were not sent for review, nor is this post sponsored - I was just over the moon at finding soya free, dairy free chocolate so bought and ate more than I should have! 

Double chocolate muffins (free from nothing)

I mentioned in the last post, just how easy muffins are to make - I whipped up 4 batches on Sunday, 2 batches of mini ones for Harry, Blueberry ones for me. So of course I had to make the one person not on a restricted diet a batch of his own. M was presented with a batch of Double chocolate muffins. Now known as the Free from nothing muffins, they have sugar, butter, eggs, chocolate, and hot chocolate powder. He was a happy bunny. As were his colleagues I hear.

The basic recipe is very similar to the one I posted yesterday, but as I mentioned - free from nothing!

Double Chocolate muffins
Makes 12 small muffins or 6 big ones

¼ cup caster sugar

¼ cup butter

1 egg
¼ cup stewed, unsweetened apples - if you have

1 cup plain flour - remove 3 tablespoons of flour and replace with
3 tablespoons hot chocolate powder

¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

¼ cup stewed, unsweetened apples - if you have
1/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170 C

Put cake cakes in a 12 hole fairy cake tin

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add in the egg and stewed apples with a spoonful of the flour so it doesn't curdle
Add in the rest of the dry ingredients and beat together
Stir in the chocolate chips
Bake in the oven for 17-19 minutes - the top needs to bounce back when you press it

These make a great addition to packed lunches or picnics - and M's colleagues demolished the lot!

As it's rare I do anything chocolatey any more, I'm taking the opportunity and entering these into this month's We Should Cocoa over at Tin and Thyme

Dairy free, egg free Chocolate fudge birthday cake with marshmallow frosting

 Seven months ago if you'd asked me for a dairy free, egg free chocolate cake I'd have looked at you like you were asking for the moon on a stick. And here's todays post - dairy free, egg free chocolate cake. Oh the learning curve we're on. It's a good one too - densely chocolatey, with a fudgey consistency that's not too ooey gooey (technical term), topped with sweet, creamy marshmallow frosting and hundreds and thousands of hundreds and thousands. What more could any husband want.

However, I do feel that this post should come with a caveat. With a letter from my Mum. It's not proper baking. Not the way I do it. Please meet - the boxed cake mix...


Oh Betty Crocker, you don't know how much I wanted this not to work. But it did. And beautifully. And you know what - as much as a year ago, I'd have (silently) judged a blog post purely about cake mix - I get it now. I've always believed in inclusivity - for years my Guides had soya milk in their cakes, bakes and scrambled eggs because we had a girl with lactose intolerance. Similarly we are a completely nut free unit as I have three with nut allergies. I've never made anyone's additional needs the crux of who they are - just ensured they're included in everything by making appropriate adjustments that ensure they don't stand out. And for us these cake mixes do just that.

So, here's my 'recipe' for Chocolate fudge birthday cake with marshmallow frosting 
(serves 16)


1 box Betty Crocker Devil's food cake mix
1 can/ 300ml(ish) Cherry coke

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees
Grease and line 2, 8 inch sandwich tins

Empty the cake mix into a big mixing bowl, and pour in the coke. Using electric beaters or a hand whisk, mix until smooth (three minutes using my electric beaters)
Split the batter between the tins and bake in the preheated oven for 28 minutes

Remove from oven, allow to cool in the tins and then turn out onto a wire rack. These are really light cakes so do be careful or the layers will tear.

Marshmallow frosting

200g marshmallows - check the packet to make sure they're dairy free. Ours were from Sainsburys
3-4 tablespoons of rasperry jam - seived so there's no pips (or use a seedless one)
4 tablespoons of almond milk

Tip all three ingredients in a pan, and pop over a low heat. Stir constantly as the marshmallows melt until you have a smooth mixture.
Remove from heat and allow to cool, stirring occaisionlly.
When cold, spoon about a third in between the cake layers, and pour the rest over the top of the cake - this isn't a frosting you want to be epically tidy - part of the gloriousness is that it's quite casual.
Top with hundreds and thousands of hundreds and thousands.

Enjoy your dairy free, egg free birthday cake.

Up on Friday - an Apple and sweet mixed spice 'Wacky cake' - also dairy free and egg free

Chocolate ice cream - dairy free, egg free, vegan

Things with us are going OK - we're on top of the allergies (for now *touch wood*) and naturally, putting Harry first means that aside from the odd longing filled thought of Galaxy bars, cheese, and a decent cup of tea - being dairy free is fine. But I miss treats, oh how I miss treats. Ice cream was mine and M's thing. We knew it was Friday as we'd sit down with a couple of scoops of whatever was on offer. And I loved it. Since going dairy free I've not really missed ice cream so much, but I do miss our ritual. And no, fruit salad is not the flipping same.

A month or so ago Lakeland invited me to their Taste of Summer event, and as part of it were demonstrating dairy free ice creams. Feeling wildly inspired, and with a mini ice cream maker as a gift I had a bash at some dairy free, chocolate ice cream. Super easy, incredibly tasty - and much, much cheaper than what's on offer at the supermarket

Dairy free chocolate ice cream - serves 4, or possibly 1 mama who hasn't had a decent pudding since November. Ahem. Not all at once though.

1 tin coconut milk
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
75ml maple syrup (you could use honey, but then it wouldn't be vegan)

Chill the base of your ice cream maker - I used the mini ice cream maker from Lakeland - which for this quanity works well.
Mix up the coconut milk, cocoa, vanilla and maple syrup then pour into the base of the ice cream maker
Pop the lid on and set it to churn - I left it for about 25 minutes, by which time the base was starting to defrost. The ice cream was lovely and smooth and a bit like a Macdonalds milkshake thickness wise. As it wasn't getting much thicker, I popped it into the freezer and left it for another half hour - after which - perfect ice cream.

This was amazing - a full on chocolate flavour, not too sweet, and the bounty bar-ness of the coconut milk was just there in the background, not too overpowering.

I've had to restrain myself from making it again, but I have itchy fingers and want to add peanut butter this time!

Dairy free baking - Chocolate & chilli olive oil cake

It's safe to say that between Slimming World and being dairy free I miss cake. I mentioned on Twitter last weekend that I fancied chocolate cake and lovely Jules of Butcher Baker suggested Nigella's chocolate olive oil cake. And what a good suggestion it was. Rich, yet light with a massive chocolate kick - you only needed a small slice (which is a godsend for the diet) to really feel like you'd had a good pudding. Sadly I had to foist a fair amount off on M's parents as otherwise in all likelihood I'd have been found face down in it at some point during the week.

Of course I made some changes to Nigella's recipe, because... well I'm a foodie.

Chocolate olive oil cake - serves 12

150ml olive oil - not extra virgin as the taste would be too strong
50grams cocoa powder
125ml recently boiled water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of chilli flakes, crushed with a pestle and mortar
100g plain flour
25g custard powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
200g caster sugar
3 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees and line the base of a 20cm cake tin - I used one with a loose bottom
In a jug mix up the water, vanilla and cocoa powder until you get a runny paste - pop to one side for now
 Beat the sugar, olive oil and eggs until foamy - I did this for about 5 minutes on a low speed (the baby was asleep and the higher speeds seem to register with him and wake him up)
Turn the speed right down, and beat in the cocoa paste, and then the flour, custard powder, bicarb, crushed chilli flakes and salt
Pour the cake batter into the tin, and bake for 35 minutes - until a skewer comes out clean
Leave to cool, and when popped out of the tin, serve as a pudding (I had it with raspberries - and I bet Oatly creamy oat would be fabulous), or with tea for a fancy threesies. 

MS Awareness day - dairy free brownies

Today is World MS Awareness Day.  

A very dear friend of mine has MS - as did my late Grandad. On their behalf, I'd love you to particpate in a mini bake-off for MS Awareness day. Bake your favourite brownie recipe, and comment below - tweet me @penjy using the hashtag #strongerthanMS and I'll retweet all I see. Today's post is written by that friend... welcome to the Pantry Hayley... I'll hand over to you now.

MS is a degenerative, neurological condition. There is no cure.  It can and does have a devastating effect on an individual and those closest to them, as we have discovered personally. 

 Fatigue, pain, cognitive difficulties, loss of mobility are some of the long list of symptoms that accompany MS, and the heartbreaking reality is, you never know when the next deterioration is coming. Life becomes a constant balancing act to manage relapses and to hold on to those times of remission.  

As is the case with most things, everyone is different and with the correct support; both social and medical, life can be made easier. 

Today is important for lots of reasons but crucially, we need to raise awareness so that a cure could be find, it might not happen in our life-time but for future generations, there has to be an end to MS in sight!

The UK based MS Society have been holding Cake Bakes all month and I have chosen one of my favourites  to make and share, and of course the only place to bake is in the Pantry (with ample supervision and guidance for someone who is culinary challenged to say the least)!.

I have chosen a dairy-free and soya-free recipe for two reasons. One is that lots of people with MS find that removing dairy, soya, wheat or gluten helps their symptoms. The other of course, is that despite Penny telling me otherwise, I’m a bit stubborn and wanted to make something she could eat too.  Not forgetting our connection with Brownies, of the yellow and brown kind.  

Please bombard us with photographs, we’d love to see you make our MS Awareness Day Brownies! Together we’re #strongerthanMS

S'more Brownies for MS Awareness

250g Self-raising flour
350g demerera sugar
65g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
200ml water
250ml vegetable oil
1tsp vanilla extract
200g mini marshmallows

Brownie pan - lined with baking parchment

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
In a mixing bowl - combine the dry ingredients
Add the water, vegetable oil and vanilla extract
Pour the mix into your baking pan - stir in the marshmallows

Bake for 35-40 minutes in the preheated - we wanted our Brownies to be slightly gooey still as they were destined for pudding. If you prefer your Brownies more on the cakey side of things then cook them for about 45 minutes (cover the top with tin foil if you feel like it's starting to catch)

Meal Planning Monday - what goes here?

So yep, Meal Planning Monday. I've not meal planned or blogged for a while and wanted to get back on track. 

I don't know if I've mentioned *ahem* but I had my wisdom teeth out last week - I'd been having pretty much monthly infections so my dentist decided that enough was enough and I was popped on the list to have them out. I deliberately didn't google beforehand but am now beginning to wish I had as OMG the pain.Today (Friday) has been my first day back with tea in my life and dear God I'm so British, I missed it more than I missed eating solids!

I'm back at work next week so need a meal plan to keep my head on track. 

Breakfasts: I'm all about the summer porridge at the moment. I've pulled the recipe from various places on line, so make mine with:

1/4 cup oats
1/3 cup skimmed milk
1/4 cup Total Greek 0%
1 tsp chia seeds
1 tsp maca powder
1 tsp honey/ maple syrup

I then add pretty much whatever fruit I've got in - bananas, blueberries... anything really. I tried peanut butter but couldn't get it to mix in well.  

Lunches: I'm not sure yet - my go-to preference of crudites and houmous or houmous type things is a bit too difficult to crunch at the moment. Maybe I'll make some flatbreads and have them with the leftover chicken instead... did I mention my River Cottage Bread course? Watch this space!

Dinners: 

Monday: Roast chicken, new potatoes and vegetables/ salad

Tuesday: Leftover roast chicken with baked potatoes and salad

Wednesday: Chicken and broad bean risotto

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: M's night... 

Saturday: We're at a working day for our campsite all day so I'm going to go off budget and suggest takeaway, maybe pizza

Sunday: We're going out for a belated anniversary dinner as this week it's been ruled out owing to the necessity I have for soft foods. 

Baking - I've just made vegan chocolate courgette brownies (with very un-vegan icing) as a belated birthday cake for M. Post should be up later this week. 

That's it for me, don't forget to pop on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone else is up to. 

S'more s'mores? Yes indeed

I was sure when writing this post that I would have talked about s'mores loads on the blog - but in actual fact, the only post where I've labelled them is the one from earlier this week - the no cook version for when a fire isn't practical. 

S'mores for those not in the know (where have you been?) are a wonderful invention - their name a contraction of 'some more' Guides and scouts across the years have made and loved these. Marshmallows, toasted over a fire are squashed between two Graham crackers and squares of chocolate in a wonderful combination of biscuit, chocolate and gooey marshmallow-ness (it's a word). The closest thing in the UK to Graham crackers are digestives. We usually buy basics milk chocolate digestives and skip the square of chocolate. 

They're a fantastic introduction to campfire cooking - they get Guides introduced to being around a fire safely and are a firm favourite of our unit. I can guarantee if we're cooking the girls will beg, plead and insist we finish up with s'mores. And who are we to argue! Brownies or Guides without an outdoor space could do these over a disposable barbecue, or even over tea lights. I use kebab sticks usually and if I'm worried about them burning, soak them beforehand.

A few months back we picked up some waffle ice cream cones in the pound shop. You know how you do - just in case they'll be useful. In fact I think they were intended as witches hats for our cauldron cakes. They were lying around in our den and one evening in a fit of inspiration we took them out to use with our patrol fires.

Ice cream cone s'mores

Waffle ice cream cones (check out the pound shop)
Marshmallows
Chocolate (unsurprisingly we used basics)
Tin foil

You could also add chopped up bananas if you wanted to

Stuff each cone with 2-3 marshmallows and squares of chocolate
Wrap in a double layer of tin foil
Cook in the embers of the fire for 5 minutes or so

Eat, messily. And imagine just how amazing they would be if you had vanilla ice cream. Now there's a pudding for camp! 

No pictures today, not because I forgot the camera or left my phone uncharged, but because they were GONE when I got out after doing some Baden Powell work with our older girls. Gone! Outrageous!

Fancy s'more tiffin?

No really, s'more tiffin.

I love S'mores - I could write an ode to them right now, but will save you from any shocking attempts at poetry and merely say that as far as I am concerned they win.

Sadly however I can't always summon up a fire at the opportune moment when s'mores are in demand. I know - it's very remiss of me. As such I put together a tiffin recipe for those moments when nothing else but the pairing of digestives, chocolate and smooshy marshmallow will do. 

At Easter M and I made Jules' Mini egg tiffin for his parents, and this recipe is based around those quantities. 

S'more tiffin

85g butter

2 tbsp golden syrup

100g milk chocolate, melted in a bain marie or the microwave

170g digestives, crushed - I use a sandwich bag, rolling pin and any lingering agression

230g marshmallows - Either get 50g of mini ones, or chop about 50g up small

Melt the butter and syrup in a saucepan and add the digestives and melted chocolate

Pour half of this into a 2lb loaf tin lined with cling film. Press down

Melt 200g or so of marshmallows (I use the same pan because I hate washing up) and pour/ spoon this on top of the first layer of digestives

Pour the other half of the digestive mixture on top

Sprinkle the top with the chopped up marshmallows and gently press them into the top layer - you really don't need too many

Pop in the fridge until it hardens up (overnight is usually plenty of time) 

Those are fairly loose measurements - if you can get 170g bags of marshmallows, buy those - it'll be fine. Don't worry about weighing out the ones to chop up small, just take a couple of handfuls. As always basics chocolate and digestives are perfect. If you have Guides with faith based dietary restrictions or who are veggies you'll probably want veggie marshmallows. I've bought them from eBay in the past, but our local sweetshop now has kosher and vegetarian varieties. 

In terms of doing this in unit cooking - I would make this in fairy cake tins with cake cases for the Guides or Brownies.  When I say I would make it - either group could happily manage this, especially if we used the microwave to melt the chocolate. The smaller size should mean that if we started straightaway they would be take home-able (it's a word) by the end of the meeting.

Chocolate chip and pretzel cookies

Salty and sweet is a thing. A real honest to goodness thing. I was out with my lovely sister and my genius nephew (true story) a couple of weeks back, we popped into M&S ostensibly for a cardigan and picked up an elderly lady (also true story) and some chocolate and caramel pretzel bites. We demolished them happily, as Noah napped and removed his socks in the back of the car. 

I went away that evening thinking about those sweets (what can I say? I need to get out more) and wondering if I could make those flavours work in a cookie. Pinterest threw up a few suggestions but as it tends towards American recipes I wasn't entirely sold on their ingredients. 

When Nigella Express came out I made her Totally chocolate, chocolate chip cookies a handful of times, whilst I love them, they are amazingly rich and sometimes the chocolate feels a bit headachey. Plus M can't eat dark chocolate as it makes him feel sick. So I needed to adapt the recipe and this is my adaptation of that

Chocolate chip and pretzel cookies

125g milk chocolate, melted (I used leftover Christmas and Easter chocolate)
150g flour
30g Cadbury's drinking chocolate (the one you make up with milk)
1 tsp bicarb
1/2 tsp salt
125g softened butter
50g white sugar
75g soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
200g chopped up chocolate - a mix of white and milk
150g pretzels (about 2 handfuls) lightly crushed - reserve about 24 whole ones

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line a cookie sheet with baking parchment
Beat the butter and sugar in your mixer (or with a hand beater)
Add the melted chocolate, egg and vanilla continuing to beat until well combined
Fold the flour, bicarb drinking chocolate and salt into the batter
Stir in the chopped chocolate and pretzels 

Using a tablespoon measure out big dollops (technical term) of cookie batter onto the sheet. Don't press them flat as the mixture spreads, so leave big gaps between the spoonfuls. I can fit about 8 cookies at once on a sheet. 
Top each ball of batter with a whole pretzel - just push it lightly into the cookie

Bake for 15 minutes - remove from the cookie sheet straightaway with a spatula and cool on a wire rack - this helps mine stay smooshy in the middle (which is how I prefer them). If you like your cookies crispy then cool them on the tray for 5-10 minutes first as they'll continue to cook using the residual heat from the tray. 

This mix makes at least 24 cookies and they keep in an airtight tin for up to 5 days. You can freeze the original Nigella recipe - but I don't think you could with the pretzels as they would go soggy. 

Just a note for the Guiders out there - I know that our girls would go mad for these - try doing them with teaspoonfuls of mix instead of tablespoons and you'll get - 2-3 times as many! As they're such a quick bake (and in smaller measures would be even quicker, 9-10 mins) they're ideal for a chocolate badge evening, or to be bagged up for a bake sale, father's day or mother's day treats... well the list is endless so I'll leave the reason up to you.

November favourites

Last month's October favourites post seems to have been relatively popular so I thought I'd do another to let you know what I've been enjoying cooking with, using and making in the pantry this month.

November's been a funny month - busy on the Guiding front, cold - oh so cold - and somewhat stressful. But nonetheless there has been plenty of time for pottering, baking and whatnot.

Hot chocolate - the temperature drops and suddenly the extra calories are but something to be dismissed. I am quite fussy, it has to be either drinking chocolate that you make with milk or proper cocoa. And it has to be Green & Black's. All the way. As it's an evening only treat it's spiked with amaretto. I try to kid myself that as it's made with skimmed milk it's not too bad for me. Try to kid myself you'll note.

Eggs - well not eggs themselves, but omlettes. Again I don't know if it's the cold weather, but on a few occasions this month when I've been doing the dance of the bare cupboards, I've found myself reaching for 2 eggs, a knob of butter, splash of milk, salt, pepper, some elderly mushrooms and the heel of cheese that languishes at the back of the fridge

Couch to 5km - this month has seen my progress continue to build and the only thing holding me back is time. Leaving home at 7am and not getting home until after Brownies/ Guides or working away all week aren't particularly conducive to fitting in a run. This week I've taken my kit away to Poole with me, but am still a bit wobbly about running in the dark (and without headphones it seems).

Nigella's Kitchen - I got this book for Christmas last year and I've not really cooked from it, so I've deliberately pushed myself to pick a couple of recipes this month. I suspect my New year's resolution will be to cook a new recipe  from a cookbook each week.

Cake spice - or sweet, mixed spice. I'm actually out of this at the moment, but it's my go-to spice when I want to spice a cake or bake at this time of year. All at once it tastes of Christmas, winter and autumn depending on what it's paired with and it's earthy sweetness has something about it which says 'home' to me.

And finally, my nutmeg grater, passed on to me from Mark's mum. I think I'm right in saying it was actually her Mum's, and I love it. I use nutmeg a lot in cooking at this point in the year and the grater and the spice make me smile each time I use it.

So what about your favourites this month?

After a Comforter? Try chocolate and Pure imagination

When the weather takes a turn for the chilly, where do you find your Comfort? A hot bath? A family size bar of Dairy Milk? Cwtching under a blanket with a loved one? 

I've always been a fan of the cwtch (or cuddle) - especially if it occurs under a cosy blanket, with amaretto spiked hot chocolate following a hot bath. I'm just greedy, but you knew that already! A couple of weeks back, the Lush Spa on Kings Road invited me to the launch of their new treatment The Comforter? (their question mark) I was surprised initially, but as it contains a serious amount of chocolate felt that it fitted right in here on the blog.

The temperatures outside took a dip as we were greeted by the lovely team, offered cocktails and sweeties aplenty while we were introduced to the treatment. The Comforter? is a hot chocolate scrub based treatment - the scrub is a cocoa based and adzuki bean bar that is melted over gentle heat and then massaged into the skin. Once washed off with warm flannels, a rose massage bar is then applied. It's blissful, I was lucky enough to have a trial on my arm with the lovely Chiara, and then my raffle ticket was pulled out of the basket so I also had the backs of my legs done. As the treatment is warm it really is gorgeous in this chilly weather, and I can only imagine how relaxing the full thing would be. 

The chocolate scrub isn't a sickly scent - it's nothing like being rubbed down with a bar of Cadbury's finest, it's a far more perfumery take on cocoa, with a background note from tangerine oil and a slight bitterness from the tamarind. The rose massage bar is straight up rose and shea butter gorgeousness, and given the opportunity I would smother myself in it. The two products combined mean you leave rose scented and touchably soft (this M can attest to) 

It wouldn't do the chocolatey, rosey goodness justice if I were to ignore the music. You know how much music means to me - as reflected here on the blog on all too many occaisions - well this treatment is set to music, but not just any music, the music of childhood - Pure Imagination, Hushabye Mountain... the list goes on, evoking memories of my childhood and rainy Bank Holidays spent watching musicals. 

So as much as I love my amaretto spiked hot chocolate that I will be curling up with before bed tonight, I have to say if you have the time try the Lush take on rose creams and try The Comforter?

Interesting note: the tamarind from the hot chocolate scrub is the secret ingredient in Lifechanging soup. True story. 

All photo credits to Julie Falzon whose pictures were far, far better than my own.

I was invited to the Kings Road Spa launch of the Comforter, but have not received any payment for this post and all opinions are my own. 

M's Mars Bar cake

As regular readers (or Readers) will know, it was recently M's birthday - but between the stresses and strains of moving house(s), the whirling dervish that was the Olympics, repeated trips to Ikea, and the Simple Summer Essentials I've been working my way through, poor M's birthday cake has taken rather a back seat. For which I'm truly sorry.

We have planned a picnic for tomorrow, a trip to the Heath to hopefully enjoy the sunshine, some relaxation and each other's company. We do seem to be afflicted by the 'ships that pass in the night' curse as I'm either working away, or M's leaving early/ working late and I'm asleep. So tomorrow will not only be just a pleasant way to spend a sunny summer's day, but also for us some much needed and much cherished time together. And what other justification do I need to bake a cake?

I had a look through my *cough*far too many*cough* cookbooks and oddly was uninspired by the creative and complicated recipes that abounded within their pages. I realised I wanted something simple, (quick and easy as I was making it before leaving for work) that M would love.

M can't eat dark chocolate - one of the first things I made him was chocolate truffles; amazing dark chocolate, spiked with amaretto, which he kindly accepted and then 'shared' (gave to) his parents. Dark chocolate makes him feel terribly poorly, much as white chocolate does me. So that leaves one sort of cake - milk chocolate. As tempting as Nigella's Chocolate cake for the broken hearted was, I couldn't help but feel it was, infact tempting fate to make it for this sort of occaision. So I opted for a simple cake that I invented to make at Uni as frequently as funds and ovens would allow. It's based around a basic chocolate sponge (so uses the 4:4:2 ratio with a small amount of the flour substituted for cocoa powder) but with added chopped up chocolate bar pieces and a rather decadent (or so it seemed at the time) icing! It uses chopped up chocolate bars because I could buy them from the union shop and they were shockingly a lot lot cheaper than a similar weight of chocolate chips.

By the way, would you be at all shocked if I said I made this in the K-mix? Didn't think so! I used to do it by hand easily, but was just too lazy at 8am this morning.

M's belated birthday Mars Bar Cake

Cake

Half a pack of butter - leave out on the countertop to soften
4oz soft, dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used to use essence when I was at uni)
1 tablespoon cocoa powder made up to 4oz with self raising flour
1 Mars bar, chopped up

Icing

2 Mars bars, melted
1 Mars bar, fridge cold
1oz butter
2oz soft, dark brown sugar

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C, and grease a 7 inch cake tin. You can line it, but this cake doesn't seem to need it, alternatively dust the greased tin with cocoa powder as you would usually use flour. This prevents a white cast on the baked cake

Cream butter and sugar together until well mixed
Add both eggs and the vanilla and mix again
Sift in cocoa powder and flour mixture
Mix again until you have a thick batter - you're looking for dropping consistency
Chop a mars bar into small pieces (just bigger than chocolate chips) and gently stir into the cake batter
Bake in the prepeated oven for 25 - 30 minutes

Take your cake out and leave it to cool on a wire rack. Once it's cool, make the icing

Chop 2 of the mars bars into relatively small pieces, and melt with the butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.
Beat in the sugar until you get a smooth icing
Cover the cake with this and leave to cool
Once cooled top with slices of the final Mars bar

We'll be taking big slices of this on the picnic tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather!

Sweets for my sweet: Easy sweeties for Brownies

This is the third in my series of Activity Plans - this was put together with Brownies in mind. But, with a little adaptation would be suitable for Guides or even Rainbows, with the right ratios. 


For us, this is no cook as at Brownies we don't have access to a cooker. But it makes it even easier. 

<!--[endif]-->	For reference, Brownies are aged 7 - 10 Break the girls up into sixes/ small groups of 6-8
No-cook sweets
Equipment: Clean hands Petit four cases (like baby fairy cake cases) Toothpicks Clean tables/ placemats Plastic beakers

Ingredients: 1 large packet fondant icing Peppermint flavouring/ essence Green food colouring (optional) Glace cherries Dark/ milk chocolate Dates Marzipan 250g sweetened condensed milk 250g icing sugar , sifted, plus extra for dusting 200g dessicated coconut Pink food colouring , optional This easily makes 2 of each sweet for 12 ish girls	We did this activity for Mothering Sunday and used cheap boxes that the girls decorated to put their sweets in. It would be ideal if you're trying to get ready for a fundraiser in meetings.
Peppermint cream Instructions: Split the block of fondant icing into 24 pieces (you can easily be more thrifty for a larger group – to be fair we could have easily halved the amount the girls get) Give each girl 2 pieces of fondant, and get the girls to knead their pieces so that they get soft – try to stop them before they get too sticky! Using their thumbs, make a dint in each piece of fondant Either get the girls to add a drop or two of peppermint essence (not too much or it smells of mouthwash) and knead it in. Or if you’ve got smaller girls you can do this. Now, we gave our girls the option of adding green food colouring, which most chose. Again this just needs a drop, which the girls knead in. Shape the sweets, roll them in icing sugar, and put them in petit four cases. Choco-cherries Give each girl two glace cherries and two toothpicks. Put enough plastic beakers or mugs (not disposable cups) in a roasting tray or washing up bowl that has recently boiled water in it. Add 3 – 4 squares of chocolate to each cup and get the girls to stir their chocolate until it melts. This is basically a super safe bain-marie Now with a cherry on each toothpick, stir the cherry around in the melted chocolate until it’s all covered. Once the girls have done both their cherries, put them in the petit-four cases. Marzipan dates Using a safe knife, supervise the girls splitting each date in half lengthwise Add a small slice of marzipan into the cut Put in petit-four cases Coconut Ice We did this with our sixers, as there’s a bit more work involved in this sweet. In a bowl, mix the condensed milk and sugar together until it starts to get really hard. Now add the dessicated coconut. Knead this in with your hands and make it into a big square Split the square into two, and (if you want) colour one half with the pink food colouring. Now cut each half into twelve pieces (again this quantity would easily double that) The girls can either stick the pink and white pieces together or keep them separate.	Check your joining notes for allergies – between the coconut ice and the marzipan you need to be careful with girls who have food allergies. All cutting must be supervised. With melting the chocolate, again close supervision is required With older girls I would print out the instructions for each sweet and get each Patrol to make up a batch of one type. They could easily microwave the chocolate, and you could add to this with chocolate truffles (another activity plan I promise) Usual kitchen safety rules/ washing up apply.
Pricing – to help you budget <!--[endif]--> I couldn’t find green food colouring on Sainsbury’s but the other colours were all 79p each.

Meal planning Monday: would anyone else like to do this for me?

Now, don't get me wrong, I love to cook. I write a food blog, that much is obvious. I am the woman who, 5 weeks in to a chronic migraine thought making 17 jars of marmalade was a good move. Today, this week, I just can't be bothered. Quite frankly my student diet of pasta/ marmite on toast for the whole week would be fine. If I weren't trying to be healthy. It seems even having a reason to be healthy isn't motivation enough to want to cook when you're flat out exhausted. It's obviously because I'm back at work and what's left of the gray matter is working again. But still, cooking? Eating? Meh! Not so much.

I think in part it comes down to that time of year as well, the fresh colours of daffodils, and crocuses aren't out yet, the days are getting interminably slowly longer, it's too cold, too grey, and I just feel bleurgh. Interestingly since leaving hospital I've been taking supplements and I'm hoping that they're going to start taking effect, but as anyone knows they need to be backed up by a nutritious diet. So, incredibly slowly and with much prevarication, here is this week's meal plan (deliberately styled to restock my freezer with easy midweek meals):

Monday: Spaghetti bolognaise, with cabbage instead of pasta for me

Tuesday: Chicken, leek, butternut squash and barley casserole

Wednesday: Butternut squash, chorizo and cannelini bean chilli

Thursday: Leftovers from one of the above

Friday: As M will be at his parents, probably steamed fish and greens

I'm seeing a friend who's a pescatarian at the weekend, so I'm not sure what I'm cooking. Or even if I'm cooking! I have promised M's parents a roast at mine (probably that pork shoulder again) on Sunday as they're helping to ready his house to go on the market.

Baking wise, I've got a salted caramel and chocolate brownie recipe to try out to take to a team meeting on Friday as a thank you for my colleagues who have picked up my classes while Mr migraine has left me indisposed. I also really fancy some dark chocolate so am going to make some triple chocolate cookies from a scribbled recipe I got at a Guiders weekend some years back. Far too good for Guides though! Although I suspect they would be an actual cure for any camp injury/ homesickness!

I'm also going to restart my starter. Mabel is sadly no longer with us, and in lieu of anyone having a starter that has a baby I could pinch, I shall start my own. Or something *vague*

Lunch wise, I really fancy a good soup but Riverford are sending me salady veg this week so it'll be homemade aubergine houmous and crudites.

Breakfast is still porridge, I am loving it and I think it's helping my calcium levels too as I have upped it from water to half and half water and milk. With a big dollop of unsweetened, stewed apples, a pinch of cinnamon and a sprinkle of dark brown soft sugar. I'm a happy bunny till lunchtime.

Well, I'd better do the online shop to get this lot started I suppose. D'you think M will do the ironing if I bribe him with a triple chocolate cookie?

Now, be sure to pop over to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone else is up to

Cake Pops: The Activity Plan

I mentioned back on Valentines Day that the cake pops would be an ideal activity for Guides or Brownies. I've since been asked if I can put it together as a proper recipe or activity plan so here is that. It would work equally well for a children's party (just ignore the repeated use of the word girls). 


Any leftover ingredients can be used to make more pops, or eaten! 

	For reference, Guides are aged 10 – 14 Break the girls up into Patrols/ groups of 6-8
EASY CAKE POPS
Equipment: 2 mixing bowls Wooden (or mixing) spoons Lolly sticks/ Coffee stirrers Egg cartons/ Florists Oasis Greaseproof paper Facilities to wash hands Aprons or uniform they don’t mind getting mucky Microwave or Hob and saucepan or Plastic beakers, roasting tin and Kettle Allow an hour for this activity, plus cooling time
Ingredients: Sponge cake – about 200g per patrol Butter icing – about 60g per patrol Chocolate for coating (I use 100g bars of Sainsbury’s Basics chocolate, milk, white and dark) Decorations, sprinkles, etc	Sainsburys Basics do a Madeira cake for 79p, 265g Tesco economy range do mini fairy cakes and a chocolate cake that would work for a similar price. Neither of these is suitable for nut, dairy or wheat allergies. I’ve attached my sponge cake recipe and buttercream recipe at the end of this plan. The sponge cake will need to be cooked the day before and allowed to dry out slightly
Instructions: Put your cake in one of the mixing bowls, and use your hands to make it into crumbs. Just crumble it up. Put this bowl to one side. Now  take your butter icing and mix a dessert spoonful at a time into the cake crumbs. You want to be able to squish the crumbs into a ball and them stay there. If you’re not sure – check it after each spoonful. You might not need all your buttercream Lay out your sheet of greaseproof paper and put your egg carton/ florists oasis in the middle of it When you can make a ball of the cake mix do that with the whole bowlful, each ball will probably use 2 teaspoons of mixture. If this doesn’t seem to be working, add some more buttercream, or try making your hands damp under clean water. You don’t want them too big or the lolly sticks wont support them Now push a lolly stick into each cake pop. You don’t want it to go all the way through. If that happens though, don’t worry. Take the stick out, remake your cake pop (dampening your hands will make this easier) and try again. Melt your chocolate. The easiest way to do this is by breaking it into squares, putting those in a microwaveable bowl and putting it in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until it’s melted Take your cake pops and dip them in the chocolate so that they’re mainly covered, once done put them in an upside down egg carton so they stand up, or stick them in florists foam If you’re using sprinkles/popping candy to decorate you can dip them in that before leaving them to dry. If you’re going to drizzle with more chocolate(!) let them dry, then melt a different type of chocolate to what you used first and using a spoon, drizzle it over the top of your cake pops. Leave somewhere cool to set – it normally takes a couple of hours on a windowsill, or is quicker in the fridge. There you have it, cake pops,	Notes: Alternative ways to melt chocolate: Put a saucepan of water on the hob, rest a bowl over the saucepan (don’t let it touch the water) Break the chocolate into pieces and put these in the bowl Allow to melt This way is best for Brownies/ younger Guides Boil the kettle Stand mugs in a roasting tin Divide the chocolate between the mugs and get the girls to stand by a mug Get the girls to move away and pour boiling water into the roasting tin Get the girls to stir their chocolate in it’s mug until it melts You can stretch chocolate out further by using a spoonful of chocolate spread. Sainsburys do flavoured ones now – orange, coconut, peanut butter and popping candy
Recipes: Buttercream – it’s a good idea to make this first and then divide it between patrols. Perhaps a job for Patrol Leaders? 125g butter, softened 500-750g icing sugar 75ml milk 1 tsp vanilla extract (this recipe of mine is so old that says essence!) Put the butter in a mixing bowl, add about half the sugar and the milk and vanilla. Using an electric mixer beat until smooth and creamy (about 5 minutes) If you don't want the worktop and you to get dusty from the icing sugar then cover the bowl with a slightly damp teatowel Taste and add the remaining sugar until its of a spreadable consistency Colour if you want and substitute some of the icing sugar for cocoa or melted chocolate/ chocolate spread for chocolate buttercream. Sponge cake – if you’re making this it needs to be done a day in advance as it works slightly better if drier 225g self raising flour 2 tsps baking powder 225g butter 2 – 4 tblsps milk 4 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 225g caster sugar I beat the softened butter and sugar together until pale and creamy then add the eggs and flours, and finally the milk until I get a soft batter. I whisk using a hand blender on low and remember to scrape my bowl down on a regular basis. The cake gets baked for half an hour at 220° in two tins, or if like me you’ve lost one of your sandwich pans This recipe works with gluten free flour (Dove’s farm do one) and Pure (or similar) dairy free spreads, and soya milk. If using Pure and Soya milk I would double the vanilla.

Working on the basis of 4 Patrols of 5 girls, this works out at £12.15 for the unit (prices correct as of 15th Feb 2012 using Sainsburys online shopping tool) , which is 61pence per head. Which in my mind is pretty good value, as just going by my yield I made 12 from 1 batch of this, which would mean 2 pops each with 8 spare just in case!