Category: chocolate

Categories
caster sugar chocolate cream food peanut butter

chocolate mousse peanut butter pie

peanut butter pie

Let’s read that title again. “Chocolate mousse peanut butter pie“. You already know if you want this recipe in your life or not.

This cake is pure indulgence and definitely one for the dessert lovers. Soft, light cream, dense chocolate mousse, crunchy peanuts, smooth peanut butter cream and a crisp Oreo base. There’s so much to enjoy!

If you’re celebrating Thanksgiving this would be a great one to serve, because what do you need after an enormous roast dinner but cake that’s about a billion calories per slice?

Don’t make the mistake I did and serve up whopping great 45° wedges, it’s far too rich and sickly! Serve a slim slice however and your guests will be cooing with delight. Make it for a special occasion and you’ll be very popular.

There’s a few stages involved and you need to put some time aside to do all the bits and pieces. Be prepared for bain maries, multiple mixing bowls and plenty of whisking so bring your whipping arm.

This recipe is based on one from an issue of the Jamie Oliver magazine.

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chocolate mousse peanut butter pie

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the base:

  • 250 g Oreo biscuits crushed
  • 75 g melted butter
  • 1 tablespoon flour

For the peanut butter cream:

  • 250 g peanut butter
  • 1 tablespoon icing sugar
  • 50 g melted butter
  • 50 g salted peanuts chopped

For the chocolate mousse:

  • 175 g chocolate milk or dark as you wish
  • 2 eggs separated
  • 50 g caster sugar
  • 3 g gelatine snipped into stamp-sized pieces
  • 200 ml double cream whipped to soft peaks

For the cream topping:

  • 300 ml double cream
  • 2 tablespoons icing sugar

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 180C. Combine the crushed biscuits with the butter and the flour and press into the base and sides of a 20cm cake dish. Freeze for 10 minutes, and then bake in the oven for 10 minutes to crisp off. Turn the oven off and return the dish to the fridge until needed.
  • For the peanut butter cream, beat the peanut butter, icing sugar and butter together until smooth. Pour over the crushed biscuits and pop back in the fridge.
  • For the chocolate mousse, soak the gelatine in cold water while you get on with everything else. Set a bowl over a pan of simmering water and melt the chocolate. When completely melted pop the bowl to one side to cool. Get another bowl on the saucepan but this time with the egg whites and sugar. Whisk constantly until doubled in size.
  • Mix the egg yolks into the chocolate, and then add the gelatine. Fold in the egg whites, followed by the cream. Spread this over the peanut butter goop and again return to the fridge.
  • For the cream topping, whip the cream and sugar together until stiff and top the cake with it. Shave or grate the remaining chocolate over the top. You could eat it straight away but it’s best to leave it for an hour in the fridge.

More pie recipes?

Try Sarah’s pumpkin crostata

Or my pumpkin pie

Or this evergreen key lime pie

Categories
chocolate food

leftover easter egg recipes

If you have little ones round the house you’re probably swimming in more chocolate than you know what to do with right now. Here’s a few leftover Easter egg recipes to help give you some inspiration to help clear out those last few chocolate treats.

Thanks to Sainsbury’s for providing an Easter basket of treats as an inspiration for this post. I’ll be giving away their cake baking recipe book so check back soon!

Ironically, this is a recipe for eggless pancakes. I like to add Horlicks into the mix for a malty taste that works really well with chocolate.

pancakes with leftover easter egg (makes 6 pancakes)

250g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
200ml water
About 200g leftover Easter egg, broken up

      1. Get a frying pan over a medium heat. Lightly grease with butter or oil. Mix the dry ingredients, then whisk in the wet ingredients.
      2. Pour enough batter into the pan to just cover the base, swilling around to thinly cover. After 90 seconds or so, peek under the pancake using a fish slice or spatula. Once it has browned on that side, flip it over then sprinkle over some shards of Easter egg.
      3. Once cooked on the other side, roll up and put to one side while you cook the next one.

I owe credit for this recipe to my good mate Chris, who surprised us one Easter with this great leftover Easter egg recipe.

leftover easter egg chocolate fondue

400g leftover Easter eggs
85g unsalted butter
300ml double cream
300ml milk
Pinch of salt

    1. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. When it comes together as a smooth liquid, take off the heat and serve immediately. Dip small fruits such as grapes or strawberries, breadsticks or marshmallows. If it starts to thicken up again, place over the heat for another minute.

You can mix this one up with whatever you’ve got leftover. The cardamom is completely optional but gives a really interesting perfume to that works so well with cocoa. Honeycombs works well too.

ice cream topping

100g leftover Easter egg chocolate
Tablespoon of salted peanuts
1 shortbread biscuit
Seeds of 1 green cardamom pod

    1. Bash all the ingredients together in a bowl or pestle and mortar until rubbly. Sprinkle over your favourite ice cream.
Categories
cherries chocolate cream food jam

black forest trifle

When making this, I had to search my blog in case I’d made something like this before. I have a severe weakness for ‘black forest’-flavoured things and I appear to have 4 separate choc-cherry desserts in my collection!

This one has been back and forth with In Search of Heston and me, we’ve noticed how obsessed Heston Blumenthal is with both Black Forest things. and trifle. There was one made for Waitrose but to be honest it sounded weird (lime?). This version is not likely one that Heston would make – not quite enough genius touches – but a tribute nonetheless. A Heston version would no doubt spherify intense cherry compote into cherry shapes and impale them with a stick of dark chocolate for the stem. This version is dead easy to do, kid-friendly (if you skip the Kirsch) and great fun to assemble.

I also hadn’t planned on sticking a biscuit in the top, but a friend had brought these smashing things from Border and they were tremendous. I could’ve skipped making this and just eaten the biscuits instead, they were that good.

Black forest trifle (serves 4):

1 chocolate swiss roll

1 jar black cherry jam

12 cherries

Kirsch (a couple of tablespoons I guess)

500g chocolate custard

1 meringue nest

Squirty cream

Dark chocolate (for grating)

  1. Put swiss roll slices at the bottom of your trifle bowl or individual serving dishes. Douse with Kirsch. Slather the swiss roll with jam.
  2. Halve nine of the cherries and stone them. Bury the cherries in the jam. Steep the remaining 4 cherries in a little Kirsch until time to serve.
  3. Top the jammy cherries with chocolate custard and refrigerate until serving. Top with crumbled meringue nest, squirty cream, a grating of chocolate and a final boozy whole cherry.
Categories
cake chocolate food

exploding chocolate cakes

There are few simpler pleasures in life than cooking with your children. Baking cakes with a toddler can be a source of tremendous fun. We knocked these absurd little fairy cakes out one rainy afternoon, and had to make more the next day as they went down so well.

The secret ingredient is Heston’s Chocolate Popping Candy – great fun!

Exploding chocolate cakes (makes 12):

225g butter

225g granulated sugar

4 eggs

225g plain flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

25g chocolate-covered popping candy

For the chocolate sauce:

50g cocoa

50g icing sugar

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar together and beat in an egg one at a time. Fold in the flour, baking powder and popping candy. Divide into 12 paper cases and bake for 10 – 12 mins until golden, risen and cooked through.
  2. While the cakes cool, make the sauce. Combine the cocoa and sugar and gradually add water a splash at a time to get an oozy paste. Slice the top off a cake, fill with sauce, replace the lid and drizzle a little more over to serve.
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