Chocolate Espresso Mousse in Chocolate Cups

Chocolate cups!!! I can't describe how excited I am that these worked out so well!
Edible cups :D
I don't think I'd ever eat mousse or ice cream in normal cups again!

Chocolate cups can be made by tempering chocolate or using candy coatings. I've read a lot of articles where people use balloons to create a more round bottom chocolate bowl but I used silicone cupcake cups instead. I would advice you to use silicone cups because they are ridiculously easy to use. From what I've read you can make these using normal foil cupcake cups. I don't exactly know how because it seems a bit more complicated.

Now I've worked with a Dr. Oetker's scotbloc chcocolate before and it was a lot easier to use than ordinary chocolate especially to make chocolate decoration. The scotbloc melts faster but it cools down and becomes solid in room temperature which works perfectly for the decoration. To be quite honest I know that scotbloc is chocolate flavored cake covering but I don't know the real difference between this and a bar of normal chocolate. So if you do know.. please do tell me.

I melted the scotbloc in the microwave and painted on the chocolate onto the insides of the silicone cups using a normal pastry brush. Put it in the refrigerator for a few minutes and tada! Chocolate cups, how simple and fun!

A chocolate espresso mousse went in next topped off with a cherry pie filling. I wish I could say that I was super duper awesome and made the pie filling from scratch, but I didn't. Cherries are out of season in Oman right now and the Harley's Black Cherry Pie Filling is really tasty!

Chocolate Espresso Mousse and Cherries in Chocolate Cups

For the chocolate cups

•  200g Scotbloc Chocolate Flavored Cake Covering 

In an microwave safe bowl break Scotbloc into square and microwave for 90 seconds. Ensure that you stir the chocolate every 20-30 seconds
Dip a pastry brush into the chocolate and cover the insides on the silicon cup (as if you were painting with chocolate)*
Place cups in the refrigerator for a minimum of 10 minutes. 
Take the cups out and slowly run your nail between one edge of the chocolate and the cup. Once you have divided one edge if should be fairly easy to run your finger around the cup freeing it from the silicone. 


*While you are painting on the chocolate make sure that there are no bits dripping off the top of the cup. If it solidifies in this way, it make cause the cups to break while removing the silicone. 


For the Filling

• 130g milk semisweet chocolate
• 50 g butter
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp espresso powder
• 1 tin Hartley's Black Cherry Pie Filling

In a glass bowl set over simmering water, melt together the butter, chocolate, espresso and milk. Remove from heat and let cool for about 10 minutes and whisk in the egg yolk. 
With an electrical beater whip the cream to medium peaks and fold into the chocolate mixture.


To assemble


Spoon a bit of the cherry pie filling (without the whole cherries) into bottom of the cup.
Fill cup with about 2 tablespoons of the mousse and refrigerate. 
Once the mousse has set top with remaining cherry filling. 
Refrigerate til served. 

Baked Banana French Bread

Breakfast to go. That was what I wanted to make. Not that I am always running out without breakfast during my extremely un-stressful stay at home but mostly because my brother has been complaining about how lousy his daily breakfasts are. Day after day he’d grumble about how there isn’t anything other than a bowl of cereal that he can quickly gulp down at 630am. Every time we eat a good breakfast, he’d go on about how he wished he could eat like that every morning.

Now I love to cook, but I’m not waking up at 6am to make breakfast. I know I could go in the direction of muffins but I wanted to do something…… nice… different. I found these cute little heatproof boxes at Lakeland and I envisioned mini loaves of bread.

When I got home however, I came across Bakerella’s blog post on baked French bread and quickly changed my mind. The boxes were perfect for mini French bread squares! French bread to go! 

You can check the recipe out at bakerella's website. Feel free to change up the fruit and use different kinds of bread. I used a normal white sandwich bread cut into quarters so that they fit the mini boxes but I think a wholemeal bread would be nicer. If you are using sandwich bread I'd advice you to cut the crusts off. I had a bit of a problem with both batches I made as they got slightly burnt. A fresher bread might not have the same problem.

I had bananas so it was a bit iffy for me to make. I made one without bananas for myself but I did have a bite of the others and it was wayyy too banana-y for me. Next time I'm probably going to try strawberries. Thing is these boxes are so cute I feel like i sort of wasted them on mere french bread. What should I bake in them next?

Peach and butterscotch pie

This is a pie for my friend Simone. Simone and I love talking about food. Chatting with her from Malaysia, she'd always be on about 'What mom's cooking'; the never ending lists of tantalising, mouth watering savouries and deserts. She likes torturing me as I like bugging her. I spent a day with Simone and her family yesterday and had a lovely time as always. I finally learnt how to make quiche and sorta attempted to make a chocolate ganache cake.

This pie is extremely easy to make especially because I cheated and used the Betty Crocker pie crust box. I try not to cheat but this time I was short of time. Every time I make pies I remind myself how convenient a pie is... sweet or savoury.. the possibilities are endless. A few days later I quickly forget. This pie is completely based on me trying to put together something out of whatever was lying around at home. 

Butterscotch chips, check. Peaches, check. I even had corn syrup left over from my awful attempt at make pouring fondant. 

I bought a very large packet of Nestle Toll House butterscotch flavoured morsels sometime back and its been lying there in the cupboard for ages. I tried using them in cookies but it just was a bit too sweet so they have been there... waiting ... waiting for the perfect..... pie

I used this recipe for the butterscotch part of the pie. The only thing I replaced were the pecans and put chopped hazelnuts instead. I think the crunch is really important for this pie. If you don't use the nuts it'll be a big mushy pie and no one wants that. I should mention that I have to burst a few air pockets with a skewer during the baking process. The filling kept rising abnormally from different sides, so I poked them and it immediately went down. Half way through the baking process I took the pan out and put the slices of peaches on top. Over that went a quick mixture of butter (1/8 cup) , sugar (1/2 cups) and flour (1/4 cup).

Next time I'm going to try and make the pie crust :) What fillings do you suggest?

Apple and Rosemary Lamb Shanks

Lamb Shanks for main course.

To be honest I didn't have a recipe put down for these shanks. I was actually planning on making something else but the shanks at the butcher looked mighty fresh and yummy so here I was with 10 shanks and no particular recipe.

Now remember how I had those bottles of sparkling juice. I had three bottles remaining which I somehow had to drink or use up so I could fill them with the lemonade. I was browning the meat in the pan wondering how to make the sauce, when I decided to empty the bottles into the shanks. Sheer spur of the moment.

I cooked the shanks on the stove for about half and hour and then put them into the oven for about 2 hours till the meat was soft and falling off the bone. The veggies you can see in the picture are baby corn, beans, asparagus and enoki mushrooms wrapped with a strip of nori seaweed. The mash is a sweat potato and potato mash that I piped very unsuccessfully into a circle so that the shank would sit.

Apple and Rosemary Lamb Shanks

For the lamb

• 10 lamb shanks
• 900ml sparkling apple juice
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 10 cloves of garlic
• a bunch of rosemary sprigs
• rosemary and olive seasoning (i use the Ina Paarman one, you can use any other seasoning)
• a good lug of worchestire sauce
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Cut a slit on each lamb shank very close to the bone and stuff a glove of garlic and a sprig of rosemary inside. Sprinkle and season with desired seasoning. The seasoning I used has pepper and salt so I did not add more

Heat oil gradually in a large heavy bottom saucepan.

Add the chopped onions and sauté till translucent.

Place shanks in the pan and turn when required browning the meat evenly on all sides.

Add the worchestire sauce and chilli powder while browning.

Preheat oven at 180 degree C

Add the sparkling apple juice. Close pot and allow to simmer for half an hour.

Remove the shanks from the pot and place on a large roasting pan. Cover with foil and slow cook in oven for 2 hours.

Meanwhile allow the sauce to boil and reduce till it forms a thick consistency. You can sprinkle flour or use gravy granules to achieve this.

For the mash

• 1 large sweet potato
• 1 large potato
• dried basil
• salt and pepper to season

Peel and grate the sweet potato and potato.

In a large saucepan of boiling water, add salt and boil the grated potatoes.

Once boiled, drain and season to taste. Add the basil.

Using a sieve or a masher, purée the potato till smooth.

Spoon the mash into a piping bag and pipe a circle onto the plate. Place shank over the mash

For the veggies

For the veggies, all I did was just steam the veggies, butter and season them. I selected the veggies I mentioned earlier because I wanted thin long veggies that I could bunch up. You can use any veggies you have at home for this, keeping in mind that different vegetable table different periods of time to steam.

Serve with sauce poured over the shanks

Beetroot Gravadlax

Cooked or not I love Salmon. Who doesn't?

Ever since I learnt how to cook Salmon all I have been doing is making small pockets of salmon and veggies in parchment paper something I learnt from yet another Jamie Oliver book.

The only place I've ever eaten Gravadlax at is Ikea. I've never considered making it before until i came across the recipe for a Beetroot Gravadlax in Jamie Does .... Sweden.

Gravadlax means buried Salmon, because Swedish fishermen used to dig a grave and bury the salted salmon in sand allowing it to ferment for a few days. This process removed the moisture from the salmon allowing it be cured. What people do today is 'bury' the salmon in rock salt and keep it in the refrigerator. Instead of the sand that would normally push down on the fermenting salmon, you could use any weight; tins, bottles, brick etc...

Now normally gravadlax does not use any beetroot but this Jamie Oliver recipe is a bit of a spin on the generic gravadlax, creating a beautiful end product where the otherwise orange salmon has a thin ribbon of pink/red from the beetroot.

I was a bit sceptical to serve 'raw' fish but I'm glad everyone warmed up to it, tried it and really enjoyed. As Jamie Oliver says if you are making this its worth inviting some friends over and having a little party because it is no doubt a special dish; one that it really tasty and also very beautiful.

You can get the recipe I used here . I served the gravadlax with the dill and sour cream sauce mentioned in the recipe along with some bread. The sour cream cuts a bit of the saltiness in the fish so it goes really well together.

I would definitely urge you to give this a try!

Fig and Goats Cheese Salad

The first time I ate goats cheese was in Amsterdam and sure enough it tasted...... goat-y

There is something very different about goats cheese. The one I tried was tangy, creamy and delicious. From what I've read the variety when it comes to goats cheese is endless. For those who know me, I don't have to tell you how much I love my cheese.

Salad for dinner was a Fig and Goats Cheese Salad with a balsamic reduction. Initially I wanted to make a fig and goats cheese tart. I searched hi and low for fresh figs but they weren't in stock anywhere which meant I had to settle for the dried ones. The colour difference between the dry and fresh is big and so I decided to make a salad instead. Simmering the dried figs in water for a bit made it moist so it was easy to eat. The result was an interesting tangy yet sweet salad. Simple yet tasty. I don't really think this dish even needs a recipe but here goes...

Fig and Goats Cheese Salad

• 6 dried figs
• 100g grated goats cheese
• 2 tbsp milk
• 500g fresh baby spinach leaves
• balsamic glaze/reduction for drizzling

Cover dried figs with water in saucepan and allow to simmer for about 15 mins. remember not to boil... just allow to simmer on very low fire

Remove figs and place on kitchen towel to remove excess water.

Milk cheese with the milk to soften. If the cheese you are using is soft you can skip this step. Alternatively you can use goats cream

Slice figs in half and stuff with softened gosts cheese.

Place washed spinach leave on a plate, top with figs and drizzle with balsamic glaze.

I normally reduce the balsamic vinegar to make a reduction but this time I sort of cheated and bought a balsamic graze in a squeez-y bottle which made things easier. You can find out how to make a balsamic reduction here

M'hanncha

M'hanncha is a Moroccan pastry filled with almond paste which basically looks like a big Cumberland sausage. M'hanncha means the 'snake' and look like this;

I used a recipe for M'hanncha from Jamie's book; Jamie Does.... Morocco, to try and make the pastry sometime back and unfortunately it turned out pretty bad. The filo dried out super fast and I couldn't fold and turn it into a snake. The work top was a mess once I was done; butter and broken bits of filo stuck every where and once I pulled out the baked product, the filling and oozed out of the sides. Sure it was disappointing but the filling tasted amazing.

So when I was wondering what to make to put into the boxes for the dinner, I thought I'd make M'hanncha only this time make then into mini cigars. I suppose you could say the whole point of M'hanncha; the snake was lost. But then again whose to say I can't do it :P

I think the first time was such a disaster because I used a thin filo which I'm told is used for Baklava. Second time around I bought a different pastry. So my suggestion would be not to use the normal black package ones that you get at the supermarkets. The cigars turned out well. I wrapped them in foil and then in craft paper and stuck on the labels. The brother and sister-in-law helped with the boxes and this is what they looked like;