I got given a voucher for Amazon for Christmas and with some of it bought this book (ignore the review, that person obviously has no good taste!). It arrived yesterday and my mouth was watering just looking at those recipes!

Since we have a ball tonight I decided to try out one of the recipes and take them along.

They came out perfectly (though a little oddly shaped in some cases where they were too close together on the trays.. I only have small trays). Like the really nice ones you get from the supermarket, gooey and chewy in the centre but with a slight crunch round the edges.

Preheat oven to 160C

Melt 115g chocolate in a bain marie.

Beat together 113g Butter with 100g light brown sugar and 55g caster sugar.

Mix in the melted chocolate.

Add 1 egg and 1tsp vanilla extract and mix until blended.

Sift in 110g plain flour, 30g cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt. Mix until just incorporated.

Mix in 350g chocolate chips.

Scoop mounds of dough (approx 1oz each) and place them onto lined baking sheets about 3 inches apart.

Bake until they crack slightly on top and a toothpick inserted comes out with moist crumbs. About 18 minutes.

Cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes and then using a metal spatula transfer to a cooling rack, until they’ve cooled completely they will be very delicate, the edges won’t crisp until they are.

This makes about 12 cookies, I found them a bit large so you could make more smaller ones, this will probably reduce the cooking time by a few minutes.

Enjoy!

Having been asked to make a friend’s wedding cake I was desperate to do a trial run of at least one tier to be tasted and viewed and duly criticised so I knew what I needed to practice and perfect for the big day. I am concerned, this is the first formal cake I’ve done, and I’m somewhat paranoid about screwing it up and ruining the cake and therefore the wedding…

It’s the white chocolate sponge I used for the chequered cake back in the summer. Nice and moist and not too heavy, but dense enough to be able to support itself, and the tiers that will be above it.

The oven needs something doing to it.. baking stones have been recommended. The outside cooked far too quickly and the inside took forever.. resulting in a burnt crust that had to be trimmed, hence the wonky sides.

I was worried for a while that the slant (on the top) was too shallow, but looking at it finished I think it came out about right.

The shiny new icing smoother worked wonders *grins*

I need to get more random with the placing of the flowers.. it took til I was taking the photos for me to realise everything on the top was in lines.

I wasn’t too happy with the spirals, I need some practice with the piping, though I was getting better by the end. I was going to use royal icing for the final cake, however very thick water icing worked really well on this one, and will save faffing about with egg whites and the like making royal icing.

The sponge tasted good and will hold up well I think, had a very thin layer of butter icing between the layers and covering the cake, and then a small about of cherry preserve between the layers which worked nicely I think, enough to add a bit of flavour, but not overpowering.

All in all I’m fairly pleased with how it went. It picked up on things I need to practice and affirmed that I had picked the right recipe. It did what I wanted it to do.

Decided to experiment with making filled chocolates. Never one to do things the easy way my first trial involved alcohol and fruit!

Melted the chocolate and filled the molds, turned upside down over the bowl (of chocolate) and left to set. When nearly set scraped off the excess chocolate.

Boiled some Cherry Bounce with sugar to create a syrup, chopped up some bounced cherries. Filled the (now completely set) molds with some of each.

Covered with chocolate and left to set. Again once nearly set scraped off the excess.

Leave to set thoroughly and remove from mold.

Et voila!

Now, there are a few problems.. but for a first attempt I’m mostly happy with them.

- I over boiled the syrup so it set hard.. I was aiming for syrup or to set soft and gooey

- Because of this I had to pour it into the chocolates still hot and it melted some of the chocolate shell

- The bottoms are a mess! I need way more practice at that. When I scraped the excess off, most of what was supposed to stay there came with it!

btw – the name’s because the molds look suspiciously like nipples