Triple Chocolate Almond Brownies

January 23, 2017January 23, 2017 ~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 9 Comments

Super rich in flavour, dense yet chewy in the middle, those brownies offer the perfect cross between cookies and a cake.

Purposefully made to not be a sweet as traditional brownies whilst retaining all the wonderful flavours you would expect they offer a more intense experience. The chewy middle encapsulated with a crunchy exterior is complimented with the nuts for that pleasing crunch the mouth adores and all backed up with a small tingle from the coffee buzz… could you ask for more.

Ingredients:

150g dark chocolate; roughly chopped
150g caster sugar
115g butter; cubed
100g almonds; roughly chopped
55g plain flour
50g white chocolate; roughly chopped
30g drinking chocolate
2 eggs; beaten
1tbsp instant coffee
1tbsp filtered hot water
1/2tsp vanilla essence

Super rich in flavour, dense yet chewy in the middle, those brownies offer the perfect cross between cookies and a cake. Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare an 8-inch square tin by lining it with baking paper, unless you, like me, bake in a silicone tray in which case no lining is necessary.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, over a very low heat melt the butter and dark chocolate slowly. Once melted remove from the heat and add the sugar, stir constantly until it is all dissolved.

Put aside the mixture to cool down.

In a small cup mix together the hot water and instant coffee and again set aside to cool; once cold add the vanilla essence.

Beat the eggs with a fork or whisk in a small bowl or cup.

In yet another bowl sift the flour and drinking chocolate together.

Once your dark chocolate has cooled down to around room temperature pour into a mixing bowl and then add the whisked eggs, the coffee and vanilla mixture and stir the mix until combined.

Fold in your flour and drinking chocolate; finally gently fold in the chopped almonds and white chocolate chunks.

Spread the mixture out evenly in your pre-prepared baking tray and bake for 28-30 minutes or until just set in the middle… avoid over baking as over baked brownies will tend to be dry and hard, I like to check on them once my timer hits the 25-minute mark just to keep a close eye on them.

Remove from the oven and place the tray on a cooling rack to allow them to cool completely.

Cut into your desired serving portion size and enjoy!

Black Forest Muffins

December 30, 2016December 30, 2016 ~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 17 Comments

Super rich in flavour, light and fluffy these Black Forest Muffins tick all the right boxes plus they are easy to make and best of all, they can be on your table within the hour! Though they do taste better if you can resist until they are cooled completely 🙂

Super rich in flavour, light and fluffy these Black Forest Muffins tick all the right boxes plus they are easy to make and best of all they can be on your table within the hour! Almost everyone loves a classic Black Forest Gateaux but who has access to or even afford one every day? So as we fancied one but didn’t have access to one our creative juices started to flow and this is what we came up with - a black forest muffins!

Ingredients:

150g butter
150g caster sugar
125g flour
25g organic unsweetened raw cocoa
4 eggs; separated
1tsp vanilla essence
1tsp baking powder
75g cherries in juice; drained

For the syrup:

3tbsp cherry juice
2tbsp caster sugar
1tbs cherry liqueur

For the decoration (optional):

150ml whipping cream
10 cherries
Chocolate shavings

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Prepare 10 cups in a muffin tin tray by lining them with paper muffin cases or lightly greasing.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, on a low heat melt the butter and sugar, gently bring to the boil and cook for a minute or two stirring constantly till the sugar has completely dissolved. Remove from the heat, transfer into a large mixing bowl and set aside to cool.

In a clean and dry bowl whisk the egg whites until peaks form.

Once the butter and sugar mixture has cooled down, stir in the egg yolks followed by the vanilla essence, then sift over flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix well.

Then gently fold in the cherries and whisked egg whites.

Spoon the batter into the earlier prepared muffin cases and bake for around 15 minutes or until well risen and firm to the touch, use a wooden toothpick to check, it should come out clean when you stick it into the middle of the muffin.

Whilst your muffin are baking mix up the syrup by combining all the listed ingredients. If you are struggling with dissolving the sugar simply heat the cherry juice up a bit.

Once the muffins are baked remove from the oven and whilst still hot slowly drizzle a little bit of the syrup mix onto each muffin. It will give them a wonderful shiny finish 🙂

If you are opting for the fully loaded version of the muffin with whipped cream then whip the cream (I don’t add sugar but if you fancy more sweetness, you might want to add a tablespoon of icing sugar… or two) so it is ready for serving.

Once you are ready to eat, simply decorate your shiny muffins with the whipped cream and place a cherry on top; finish with some chocolate shavings sprinkled all over…

Perfection!

Super rich in flavour, light and fluffy these Black Forest Muffins tick all the right boxes plus they are easy to make and best of all they can be on your table within the hour! In the past we used to only bake these muffins for special occasions, especially if we opted for the whipped cream finish but lately we have decided that actually, every day is a special day, so why not treat ourselves for no particular reason at all!

What is your favourite special occasion dessert?

Coffee, Chocolate & Pecan Cookies

December 17, 2016December 17, 2016 ~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 15 Comments

Soft and chewy, those coffee, chocolate and pecans cookies offer a great treat; an irresistible flavour combination for any time that you need a pick me up.

Soft and chewy, those coffee, chocolate and pecans cookies offer a great treat; an irresistible flavour combination for any time that you need a pick me up. It’s cold out there, and very white… yes, we are kind of snowed in, which means no playing outside… as a result, we are spending more time in the kitchen, cooking and baking and generally creating some wonderful creations… and today I would love to share our new cookies with you 🙂

Ingredients:

175g flour
115g butter; soften
115g light muscovado sugar
85g caster sugar
50g dark chocolate; roughly chopped
50g pecans; roughly chopped
2tbsp instant coffee
1tbs hot water
1 large egg
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2tsp baking powder
1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4tsp grounded ginger
1/4tsp grounded cinnamon

For decoration (optional)

25g dark chocolate; melted
25g pecans; roughly chopped

Soft and chewy, those coffee, chocolate and pecans cookies offer a great treat; an irresistible flavour combination for any time that you need a pick me up.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare two large baking trays by lining them with baking parchment.

In a large bowl place the butter and both sugars and beat until light and fluffy.

Put the coffee granules into a small bowl or cup; add hot water and stir until dissolved, set aside to cool. Then add the vanilla extract and the egg and whisk until combined.

Slowly add the coffee mixture into your butter and sugar mix beating until creamed and fluffy again.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon and fold carefully into your mix.

Finally, fold in the pecans and chocolate chunks.

Measure approximately one heaped tablespoon of mixture per cookie and place onto your earlier prepared baking trays spacing them well apart to allow room to grow.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown and slightly crisp on the outside, they will still feel very soft to the touch but they are ready at this stage.

Leave to cool on the baking tray for a 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Soft and chewy, those coffee, chocolate and pecans cookies offer a great treat; an irresistible flavour combination for any time that you need a pick me up. If decorating, wait until the cookies have cooled down completely, drizzle with melted chocolate then immediately sprinkle with chopped nuts (the still warm chocolate will work like a glue as it cools and sets).

Store, after cooling down completely, in an airtight container.

Enjoy with a beverage of your choice!

Coconut Cream Puffs

April 12, 2016April 12, 2016 ~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 10 Comments

A super easy to make, sugar free treat for all coconut lovers who don’t want an overly sweet indulgent mouthful of scrumptious heaven. This is a reworking of the classic profiterole recipe with a more healthy bias for the modern health conscious person (who has a love for the wonders of coconut).

Ingredients:

1 tin coconut milk (not shaken)
~125ml water
50g butter
75g raw organic coconut oil
200g flour
4 large eggs
100g desiccated coconut
Icing sugar (optional)

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC.

Line 3 large baking trays with baking paper.

Open the unshaken tin of coconut milk and split out the thick creamy part from the watery part. Place the collected creamy part into a large bowl and the remaining watery part of the coconut milk pour into a measuring jug.

Add water to your measuring jug until you have a total of 250ml of the milk / water mixture.

Pick a medium sized heavy bottom cooking pot; add the milk / water mixture, butter and coconut oil. Cook on a medium heat and bring to a boil.

Once boiling reduce the heat to low, add the flour and stir vigorously (seriously vigorously) keep the pan over a low heat for about 1 minute whilst stirring or until the mixture forms a ball and comes off from the edges of the saucepan.

Remove from the heat and put aside to cool.

In the meantime prepare the filling by adding the desiccated coconut into the creamy part of the coconut milk and mix until well combined.

Once your puff mixture is nice and cool, beat in to the dough the eggs, one at the time.

You are aiming for fairly thick mixture…

Use a teaspoon to measure out your puffs… one full teaspoon of mixture equals one puff (you should ended up with around 24 puffs).

Spread them nicely on the lined baking sheets you prepared earlier and space them out evenly as they are going to grow.

In case your fretting because you only have one baking tray then rest assured so do I… I just bake mine one tray at a time in the middle of the oven. The dough will wait quite happily until it is time to create the puffs for tray number two and three.

Bake your puffs for 18-20 minutes at 200ºC.

Do not open the door to check on them as they are prone to simply collapse 🙁 you are looking for just turned golden in colour puffs.

Once baked, remove from the oven and move immediately onto a cooling rack.

Allow them to cool completely before filling.

To fill them simply cut them in half, thickly spread some coconut filling across the bottom half and pop the lid back on.

If desired, to make them look even more delectable sprinkle with icing sugar.

Enjoy!

I hope you will like them as much as we do.

*This recipe is an entry into the #Swearbyit challenge with Vita Coco. Find even more great coconut oil recipes and tips on using coconut oil at www.swearbyit.com

Pomegranate & Passion Fruit Muffins

January 28, 2016January 28, 2016 ~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 11 Comments

If you love fruits you will love these muffins; they are moist, zingy and very fruity, filled with crunchy seeds offering an unusual sensation in your mouth and a wonderful flavour combination on top, not to mention their totally divine smell… just being close to them you will instinctively know there are passion fruits somewhere around. Unfortunately for some of my readers this is not a sugar free recipe but I might just try to develop a sugar free version of them as they are truly something special.

To be honest I wasn’t planning on baking such fruit rich muffins but as I had some passion fruits close to their use by time and also I had just returned from a foodie shopping expedition carrying a small carry bag full of pomegranates (lately, this seems to be my “go to” fruit) and Mark was nagging me for some “normal” muffins, I decided to give these flavours a try. And oh boy, am I glad I did because I totally love the final effect. It’s so aromatic and unusual. I think the sensation of the crunchy seeds when biting into them makes them one of the kind.

Ingredients:

150g flour
120ml milk
100g caster sugar
30g butter; slightly melted
4 passion fruit
1 egg; lightly beaten
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2tsp baking powder
Giant handful of pomegranate seeds

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200C and line a 6 muffin baking tray with paper or silicone muffin casings.

In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and sugar.

In a second bowl mix the milk, butter, egg, vanilla essence and passion fruit pulp then gently hand whisk until combined.

Add the wet ingredients mixture to the dry ingredients mix and fold in until just combined. Do not under any circumstances over mix them or the muffins will come out tough.

Add the pomegranate seeds and mix in gentle till evenly distributed. Finally spoon the batter into your earlier prepared muffin cases.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 20-22 minutes. You want them well risen and lovely golden brown on top.

Remove from the oven and move onto a cooling rack.

Let them cool completely before serving (if you can withstand the super intense fruit aroma around the house that is).