One giant After Eight mint

I got this recipe from last month's Delicious magazine, although I worked out immediately that it didn't work for me - far too little chocolate for the size of tin it recommends (and the filling).

After dinner mint chocolate: make it, smash it, eat it

Anyway this is what I did.

I had a long tin of about 8cm by 30cm, cos I wanted that sort of shape. I lined it in baking parchment (tip: scrunch up the paper first, then flatten it out so it lays flat more easily).

I melted some dark chocolate. I used about 150g for the bottom and 150g for the top (I'll put the whole recipe, as I used it, below) I used 70% but actually you could easily go higher - and definitely no lower. It's important to get the chocolate spread thinly. Thick sounds good but in reality this means you end up with chocolate that's hard to crack and you want it thin. Don't sweat it though because unless you're an idiot you still end up with a great end product.

Pour/spread the chocolate for the bottom (so, 150g) on the bottom of the tin - refrigerate. Chocolate takes almost no time at all to set. Mine took what seemed like 10 mins. It should be hard and crisp.

Make the fondant bit. I used one egg white and 220g icing sugar.

This is a suitable juncture to point out that this product contains raw egg whites so you know, don't eat if you're old/young/pregnant/prone to hysteria.

Mix the egg white and icing sugar together (sieve the icing sugar in) until you have a consistency that you like. Add a teaspoon of peppermint essence. Note that refrigerating it doesn't really thicken it up much so aim for what you want the finished filling to be like, not what you hope it will turn into. To this end you may wish to add the egg white bit by bit.

When ready, spread over the base layer of chocolate and refrigerate for an hour or two.

Now melt more chocolate and spread it gently over the top - don't drag it or you'll end up with a mess.

Refrigerate and when ready to eat bring it out and smash it up with a hammer and let people help themselves. The circles on mine (if you look closely) are from the meat tenderizer I used. I'm sure finer folk have a toffee hammer or some such.

Abandon all idea of cutting this into chic squares or slices - but only cos I tried and failed.

Scoff after your meal with a strong espresso.

In summary you need:

about 300g very dark chocolate
220g icing sugar
1 egg white
one teaspoon of peppermint extract (I used the Star Kay White one from Waitrose)

A greedy disposition.

Lovely little cakes for a celebration

The perfect, je pense, small celebration cake.

I first came up against the possibility of making a 'celebration cake' when my eldest was baptised at eleven months. I'd seen (and heard) of heroic cake making efforts by other mothers. It usually involved icing. And I'm no good at icing. Not that fancy pants icing that is all super smooth and then you  make little characters to stick on the top.

This isn't me being coy. I'm pretty fucking fantastic at cooking (look, I've long said: there is no immodesty in the truth), and baking in particular. But I know my limits, and mine don't reach to the royal icing aisle (I don't really even know what royal icing is, please don't try to tell me either, I'm not listening).

I knew that I could make some pretty good cakes but they weren't really up to 'celebration standard'. So I decided to make lots of little cakes instead, figuring that if a few got spoiled, it wouldn't really matter. I guess the same thought goes behind laying carpet tiles, the wretched things. So, for the baptism, I made some fairy cakes with fondant icing and iced my daughter's initial atop each one. And, for extra flourish, put a silver ball - those tiny things that break your teeth- on top. I say this, contained in a cuppla sentences, but the reality of it involved several packets of icing sugar, a neighbour's flat (thanks Sarah) and lots of beads of sweat on the forehead. Fairy cakes tend to cook to a peak - no good for a smooth finish. So each fairy cake had to be beheaded. This involved lots of eating of the remnants. Anyway, the important thing - of course! - is that they looked spectacular all piled up. People could eat one or two or FOUR (that was my brother in law).

They were an enormous, runaway, apron-lifting-in-triumph success.

Ever since then, for big gatherings, I've made lots of little cakes. As my eldest got older, and I acquired cake stands, I started buying things to go atop the cakes, like little roses. By the time my second was born, and baptised, I was on a roll. For that, I made the same cakes you see  here, but with a brown paper cases, which worked really well - not least you can't see the drips of icing, not that you get many with this glorious icing.

This is a Nigella recipe, hidden in the depths of one of her books, there is no picture to accompany it so you may have missed it. Now is its moment.

Chocolate cupcakes

Nigella says this makes 12. I say it makes 14 and it's better to make 14 as you don't want them too high up in their cases (see later). However, because most bun trays come in 12s, this means you have to make the last two separately. You decide if you can be bothered...


The little cakes

110g unsalted butter
155g dark muscovado sugar
1 large egg, preferably from your own chicken (arf arf)
half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
50g dark chocolate (70% cocoa), melted and cooled
100g plain flour
half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
125ml boiling water

The ganache

175g dark chocolate
75g milk chocolate
200ml double cream
half a teaspoon of vanilla extract

Note: in my experience of making these cakes, which is extensive...this makes far too much ganache.

But that's okay because you can chill the extra and use it to make Chocolate Ganache Hot Chocolate.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line your (deep) bun case with 12 muffin cases.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg and vanilla, Fold in the melted/cooled chocolate, alternate flour and bicarb with water. By that I mean, put the bicarb in the flour, then put a spoon of that into the cake mixture, stir, then add water, then more flour etc. Do not over beat them. I don't know why, I've never dared trying to overbeat them.

This is the ideal height for the cooed cake, so that you can slap on a good layer of chocolate ganache.

This is a fluid mixture, like a batter. Carefully spoon mixture into the cases. I've found that it's best to fill to about 2/3 full which is why you might find you could easily make 14. It's up to you. If you make 14, you fill them up less, and this leaves more room for the icing. However it's a faff to leave some mixture and then have to put in 2 extra. So up to you. The icing still works beautifully with a fuller cupcake.

Cook for 30 mins, leave to cool.

You make the icing by shoving all the ingredients into a bowl atop a saucepan of simmering water, melt then whisk til thick (it's pretty thick anyway, so the whisking is almost unncessary). When the cupcakes are quite, quite cold, take one in a quivering hand and take a spoon, dip it into the icing and spread over the top as thick as you can get away with. Leave to cool, but don't put in the fridge.

Eat as soon as possible, and that's an order..

Here they are all lined up, ready to perform.

Zotter Chocolate - beware, crazily good

 Zotter Plum Brandy chocolate. Disgustingly good.

The other Friday I was in London. I'd had a really productive meeting discussing something Really Secret. I had something small and healthy for lunch and decided I really wanted chocolate.

Now for some time, the only chocolate I eat is 70% plus cocoa content. This cuts down what I can buy and how much of the stuff I can eat as it's really hard for me to eat too much of it. Plus, you know, high cocoa content chocolate is full of iron and antioxidants. Practically health food.

I went to the Food Hall in John Lewis, aka Waitrose in the basement and got into a bit of a tizz in amongst all the whicker baskets (everything, it seems is displayed in them).

"Where is the chocolate?" I asked. Now because the staff in Waitrose are trained to accompany you to the food stuff you've asked for, the man took me there, after asking "what sort of chocolate, bars?" to which I'd nodded cautiously (who wants to miss the other kind?)

He took me to this mini display of chocolate, none of which I recognised. The bars were small, 70g, but intriguing. I looked at the price tag of the 'hand scooped' chocolate bar: £3.25.

Ordinarily, I would never spend this much  on a bar of chocolate, but I was in London and I live in Suffolk, so I was sort-of on holiday and the sea-air went to my head. My choice was cut down (no "bacon bits" for instance) as only some of them were 70% cocoa. I selected Plum Brandy. I knew I was onto a good thing when the woman at the check-out said "God they're so good, I had Bacon Bits last week when we had a tasting session".

I fully expected to, you know, eat half and save half. But this is where I came unstuck. When I opened the bar there were no pieces. It was one big slab of chocolate. I have to say, I've dreamed of this. In films like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie bites into one huge slab of chocolate at one point. Plus one big slab is so bossy, it's like it's telling you  you can't cut it up, you have to eat the whole thing.

And it was really hot, so it would have melted, and I couldn't let £1.625p worth of chocolate just turn to mush in my bag.

Even if it hadn't have been hot, or the chocolate hadn't have been in one big slab, it was hopeless. This chocolate bar was just amazing, the inside was this wonderful goo and tasted of plum brandy. I also felt slightly drunk by the end of it which must have been my imagination. I'm so glad it's not sold in my local Waitrose but if you live in London you can probably find it in yours.

Be careful. Remember what happened with the MaltEaster bunny, although these are two VASTLY different animals.

Sunday Lunch Chocolate Mousse

Chocolate mousse, detail from.

Chocolate mousse was a big thing in the Barbieri household when I was a bambina. Mostly, I have to say, because my mum would serve it in those saucer champagne glasses - the sort that very few people use now (they let the bubbles out too fast, but how long does one hold a glass of champagne for??) but growing up, in the 1970's, you used to see them far more.

I fully intend to serve my chocolate mousse in those glasses just as soon as I can nick them from my folks' house. In the meantime I serve them in little white pots - Gu desserts used to come in them when Gu desserts first came out.

Having a six year old meant it was only a matter of time before I'd have to revive the tradition of chocolate mousse. We used to have it only occasionally when I was a child, but these days, we have it after Sunday lunch, every Sunday. Rituals are important to small children (and me). This is also a great dessert to make in advance and stick in the fridge, so it's one less thing to think about if you're entertaining.  It uses raw egg, which I guess I must point out you shouldn't eat if you're pregnant/old/young/allergic to eggs. Etc. Otherwise, this is the recipe and how you make it. And yes I will stop talking about food soon-ish.

This is a bastardisation of my mother's recipe and Nigella's. I've tried many others but this makes for a really nice, light, mousse that's very low in added sugar, has all the natural goodness of high cocoa content chocolate, has a good chocolate hit without alienated small children or making them fly around the room afterwards. 

You will need:

For four people (this makes quite a small amount, the idea is that you have a good hit of chocolate so you don't need to pig out on it). It's easy to double up on if you need more.

50g 70% cocoa chocolate (I use Waitrose Continental Plain Chocolate, 70%. I recommend you do too, it's excellent).

50g 37% cocoa chocolate (I use Green and Black's Cooking Milk Chocolate)

10g golden syrup

1 tablespoon of water

2 eggs, separated. It doesn't really matter if they're medium or large, whatever you have. Remember it's the white of the egg that changes with the size of the egg, not the yolk. So it figures that if you use large, or extra large eggs you'll have more white of egg, ergo more whisked egg whites, ergo more mousse...so it's quite a good way of making less go further or ending up with a slightly lighter mousse.

Put the chocolate, syrup and water in a bowl above a simmering pan of water. When melted, take off the heat and leave to cool for a few minutes. In the meantime whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl, until they're stiff and you can turn the bowl upside down.

Beat the yolks into the chocolate mixture, then gently fold in the whisked egg whites with a metal spoon. I find it works better with a metal spoon, but obviously don't sweat if you only have a big wooden one, just be a bit more gentle. You want to keep the air in the mixture.

Poor into suitable receptacles: small espresso cups, ramekins, small pot things and chill overnight or for a few hours. I'd personally not keep this for more than about 24 hours.