Sweet Temptation

Running with the high calorie, caramel theme of the last post Stuart got himself a Venti Caramel Signature Hot Chocolate with Cream when we popped into Starbucks for a quick coffee over the weekend. Oh, so drool worthy! He even got the caramel syrup and the cream free, courtesy of the Starbucks Card (no, I'm not promoting anything but you should know by now what a sucker I am for anything free:) As it was also probably the end of the day the girl behind the counter asked Stuart if he wanted extra "drazzle" of caramel on his drink. I shouldn't laugh but it amused us to no end that evening. The girl really was quite sweet and she even piled on the cream.

Me? I got a tall filter coffee for £1. That's 'cos I'm stingy ........ :)

Lemon Tart - An Obsession

Taking a little breather from my holiday blogs, I just remembered a little obsession I had before I went home for Christmas - tarte au citron. It was one of those niggling food longings that I couldn't shake off.

There was the the lemon tart I got as part of a late night discount goodie bag when I was in Marylebone one evening. Despite the huge crack down the middle, it was a delicious tart with a full bodied tang. The other items in the box were a chocolate eclair and a slice of tiramisu. Neither as good as the tart.

There was also the tarte au citron from St Germain with its caramelised top and side of crème fraîche that I had previously blogged about here.

The offering from Paul's was probably the best looking of the lot. Neat with an alluringly yellow filling and such a pretty glaze but alas, not the best tasting. The lemon flavour was somewhat lacking and the pastry wasn't quite up to scratch.

I stopped by Patisserie Valerie one day and was met with a somewhat lackluster looking tarte au citron. I nearly walked away but I was in serious need of a lemon tart fix. It was gorgeous! Where it lacked in appearance it compensated in taste. The pastry crumbled just right with the barest hint of butter, the filling was sharp but not cringingly so. It was, without a doubt, the best of the lot.

My quest to find a good lemon tart had become a bit of a running joke with some of my colleagues. One day I found this sitting on my desk - fully packaged and minus the huge bite into it, of course. Oh, it was disgusting! Hard, sugary and full of that artificial lemon flavour. Sigh .. that was a cruel, cruel joke!

Banana and Chocolate Muffins

I should really be getting back to my holiday posts but I get lazier every day. As I plot the next holiday post, my baking tins have been given a good working out. The recent obsession has been bread pudding. It's one of the easiest things to make, brilliant for breakfast and the supermarket always has a constant supply of bread in the discounted section. The full bread pudding story will have to wait for another post I'm afraid, as last Sunday was all about banana and chocolate muffins.

I had some very ripe bananas that just had to be used and I wanted to make something with chocolate ( I ALWAYS want to make something with chocolate!) but couldn't find a recipe I fancied. So I modified a recipe I had used before - Gordon Ramsey's Toffee and Apple Muffins. Lo and behold! Right after I put in the first batch into the oven I realised I had missed out a vital ingredient - the milk. The batter did look a tad bit dry so I had added a touch more oil but darn it...... how could I have so silly? The muffins came out perfectly :) but if you do find your batter a little, add a touch of milk. Mine certainly didn't need it.

Banana and Chocolate Muffins
Makes 12

350g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
240g golden caster sugar
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
3 large eggs, beaten
130ml vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
150g dark chocolate chopped into small pieces

• Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line two large 6-hole muffin tray* with paper cases. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and stir in the sugar. Make a well in the dry ingredients.
• Add the mashed bananas, eggs, oil, vanilla extract and chocolate in the middle of the well, and fold the mixture together with a large metal spoon, using as few strokes as possible. Don’t worry if the mixture is lumpy, the trick behind the lightest muffins is not to overwork the batter.
• Fill the paper cases with the mixture bake for 25-30 minutes or until the muffins are well risen and golden.

*If a smaller 12-hole muffin tray is used, check the muffins after about 20 minutes.

Berrylicious

I finally got down to making my own chocolate truffles :) It went down a treat with Stuart and everyone at work, which was lovely - but more on that in the next post. I found photos of this quick dessert I put together ages ago but forgot to post.

I had bought a little punnet of blueberries - I'm always hopeful that batch will turn out to be the batch of lovely blueberries I've been waiting years to buy. Alas, it was as dry and tasteless as the rest. So the little punnet had been sitting in the fridge getting drier but no less tasteless.

A need for dessert one evening found me pulling the berries out of the fridge, along with some raspberry swirl frozen yogurt and some digestive biscuits that had been sharing tin space with some Ethiopian coffee. The biscuits had taken on a lovely coffee flavour (I didn't do it on purpose ... just a very happy coincidence:), which I topped with some raspberry swirl frozen yogurt. A few of the blueberries were studded on top of the yogurt and the rest I whizzed up with some icing sugar for a blueberry coulis.

The result was really quite good. The coffee flavoured biscuits were surprisingly good and went well with the fresher tastes of be The blueberries definitely tasted better with the frozen yogurt and biscuits. And all it took was a little sugar and a touch of lemon juice to ensure that the coulis was pretty darn delicious.

When a Girl is in Need of Chocolate ...

A little break from all my holiday eating .... the posting of which has been taking longer than expected. I would blame it partly on pure laziness and partly on how busy I've been over the last few weeks. Photos have been accumulating but I thought I would jump to the present and slowly work my way through the rest at some point. But for now....

... Chocolate is on the agenda. I have been craving chocolate for weeks and so far nothing has been able to make it go away. I've managed to feed this little craving with bits of dark chocolate and multiple cups of mocha but for today's chocolate attack, I just had to go down to the little bakery/coffee shop right below my office. I've been eying their chocolate brownie for weeks and they had recently added chocolate truffles to their display case right by the window.... always tempting me, taunting me to go in. Today I did ... chocolate truffles have, after all, been on my mind all this week but to my shock and horror one little truffle ball cost £1 each! A bit much for for a tiny cafe on this side of Holborn but the my need for chocolate had me give in. I got a single truffle and a brownie (£2.80) - the man who was serving assured me I would be back on Monday to get more. Hmmmm... confident.

Verdict? The first thought to cross my mind after I bit into the truffle was .... "soybeans?". Nothing came of the soybean thought but I would definitely say the man was a little too confident. It was a nice chocolate truffle but not great. Would I go back for more? Perhaps... it did after all put me in a much better mood after eating it. And I have decided to pull out my recipe for truffles that I made years ago - more on that at a later date :) £1 is a little too steep for a weeny bit of chocolate for my liking.

The chocolate brownie was shared with Stuart who never says no to dessert. His first comment after taking a bite was, "A bit chocolate-y, isn't it?" and indeed it was. It's a true chocolate lovers brownie. The lack of sweetness was made up in the punch of the chocolate and topped off by a thick-ish layer of cocoa powder. Little bits of nuts gave it a slight texture in the fudginess - "dry fudginess" as I have termed it because to me fudge is soft and somewhat creamy. Again this just didn't blow me away because I really wanted it to. Ahhh well, at least my craving has been satisfied ... for today, at least :)

Cheesy Sunday

Two cheesy meals today. It wasn't planned - I usually make sure I don't have too much dairy in one day (or my tummy gets a little upset) but what the heck, the soybeans can wait until tomorrow :)

I made grilled ham and cheese toasts for lunch with a side salad; should always have greens my mother said. I used up the smoked cheddar that I bought to make pizzas. A hint of smokiness came through on the toasts that I couldn't taste on the pizzas. Overshadowed by the other ingredients. For the toasts, I cut the crusty white loaf up quite thickly - really just greediness on my part but great sustenance on a cold wintry day. Stuart had his toasts with ketchup and mayonnaise but I really didn't think it was necessary.

We bought a huge ready-made lasagna when we went out today from M&S (yup, another one of their deals), which we had with more salad. I seriously did think we would have enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow but no such luck. It all went into our bellies tonight and it was seriously large lasagna but it was yummy. Oddly though I just found out today that lasagna is one of Stuart's favourite foods.. haha ... after all these years and I never picked up on it. I really should pay more attention :)

Dessert. Yes, we had dessert even after all that pasta. Little individual pots of raspberry sherry triffle. I haven't had triffle in years!

Layers of sherry soaked sponge, raspberry compote, vanilla bean custard, whipped cream and a sprinkling of sugared almond kernels. Definitely heavy on the dairy but it was pretty darn good. I remember when I was at university, some friends and I would buy large ready-made fruit triffles from M&S (they have the best ready-made meals!) and just dig in. Oh so good!

Cupcakes, Cupcakes

I paid another visit to the Hummingbird Cafe last weekend as we were in Notting Hill. I would have happily gorged myself on cake but Stuart insisted "something a bit more substantial first". We had a very late lunch at Luna Rossa, where the food wasn't too bad but the service was awful. No photos as I was too busy shovelling the food into my mouth.

Finally, cupcakes! Yes, I had pasta coming out of my ears but wasn't going to stop me from a little bit of cake heaven. Alas, we were too late for the beautiful Red Velvet so I went for the day's special - Cappuccino. Coffee flavoured buttercream frosting on yellow vanilla sponge. There were even little specks of chocolate folded through the frosting. Really quite yummy (not as yummy as the Red Velvet though....sigh) and I really like how light the cake itself is. Perhaps a tad too sweet but I needed the sugar to cleanse my palate after all the garlic I had consumed earlier.

Stuart decided to go for a chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream covered in chocolate rice. Chocolate on chocolate on chocolate. Maybe slightly over the top? Delicious nontheless!

Midnight Cravings

Wanting something sweet last night, we managed to rush to Tesco's down the road before it closed for the night. With £4 between us in loose change, we picked up a little chocolate chip cake and a tub of strawberry yogurt ice cream.

The cake went into the microwave for 30 seconds, which made the cake all warm and goey inside. Served with the strawberry yogurt ice cream on the side. Sweetly satisfying..

Glorious Pudding

Sticky toffee pudding - rich, sweet and deliciously satisfying. Served with a dollop of crème fraîche for a balance with its slightly tangy creaminess. Certainly not coming anywhere close to a good homemade version - Delia Smith's recipe (with a few home kitchen improvements, of course) is hard to compete with but it's pretty darn yummy when you're craving a sugar rush mid-week.