Chocolate Oat Biscuits

Chewy and full of chocolate, these are good biscuits.  I’ve made these lots of times but have only just managed to take pictures of them.  Details below.

• 150 g butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups oats
• 100 – 150 g milk chocolate (choc chips, or roughly chopped)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Cream butter and both sugars until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and egg and mix till well combined.  Mix in the flour and baking powder.  Add the oats and chocolate and mix through. Place tablespoon sized balls of dough on lined baking trays and bake for 12-15 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.  The recipe suggests you can get 24 biscuits out of the mixture and I managed 21.

mmmmmm chocolate.....

Cheesecake brownies

Mmmmmm.  They’re delicious and combine two favourite foods – chocolate and cheesecake.  The recipe is pretty simple and they don’t take too long to make.  And in any case, they are more than worth the effort.  Here are the details.

• 150 g butter
• 300g cooking chocolate (Milk or dark depending on your preference, I ‘ve made the brownies with both and in combination)
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 250g cream cheese

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Melt butter and chocolate in a small saucepan on a very low heat until they are fully combines.  You could use a double boiler if you’re worried about the chocolate seizing but it should be fine as long as the heat is low.  Set aside to cool. 

In a small bowl mix together the room temperature cream cheese and 1/3 cup of the caster sugar.  When they are fully combined, add one of the eggs and mix thoroughly. 

In another larger bowl whisk the two remaining eggs and then mix in the remaining 2/3 cup sugar.  To this mixture, add the chocolate mixture and combine well.  When the ingredients are smooth and glossy, add the flour 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Then fold in the sour cream until well combined. 

Line a brownie pan or 20cm square cake tin with baking paper and spoon the chocolate mixture in.  Make sure it’s spread into the corners.  Spoon the cream cheese mixture on top of this and use a knife or spoon to create marbling in the mixture.  Bake for 30-35 minutes and set aside to cool in the pan afterwards. I found this made 18-21 brownies depending on how you divide up the pan.

the finished product

Chocolate, pear and walnut pudding

I was in need of dessert the other night and decided that I had to make use of the rapidly ripening pears in my possession.  I went looking online for a cakey, pudding type recipe.  I wanted something similar in texture to a self saucing pudding but it didn’t have have the sauce.  I found this recipe which turned out perfectly. It’s a Nigella Lawson recipe but I didn’t note the site I copied it from – my bad.  So the recipe as follows:

• 4 pears
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 140 g butter
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 2 tspns vanilla essence
• walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.    The pears were peeled, sliced and placed in the bottom of ceramic casserole dish.  Sprinkle the walnut pieces over the pears. The original recipe suggested that all other ingredients could be chucked in a food processor and blended up that way.  I don’t have one so I mixed it up the old fashioned way (by hand).  To the butter I added the sugar, flour, cocoa and baking powder and mixed well.  When this was mixed I added the eggs and vanilla and mixed till it formed a smooth batter.  The batter was smoothed over the top of the pears and the dish placed in the oven for about 35 minutes.

just add eggs

The pudding turned out delicious.  It was especially good with ice cream but I kind of wished that I had bought some custard (I was not in the mood to make my own from scratch).  I will definitely make this dessert again.  It was delicious (did I mention that?) and it had just the right cooked through but still a little squishy pudding texture that went so well with ice cream.  If you really wanted chocolate sauce it wouldn’t be too hard to find a few tips to make this a self saucing pudding (or you could just get some chocolate fudge sauce).

the finished product (the other photos with ice cream were even blurrier)

Mmmmm Icecream…

Nope didn’t make this but I highly recommend it.  Scoop of mint choc chip and a scoop of milk and white chocolate mousse ice cream… muy muy delicious.

very nice! - please ignore the prominent brand placement