Chocolate Pudding (Egg and Wheat Free)

Recently I've been abstaining from all sweetie things, except for my 40 calorie hot chocolate sachets and my occasional four square line off a Lidl bar of chocolate, in an attempt to lose the half a stone that I gained over the Christmas period. So far, since last Sunday, I have lost about four and a half pounds, and I'm fairly pleased with myself! Also, I'm saving my allotted calorie expenditure for the week for my birthday, which is on Sunday coming.

So this week I thought I'd try out a new recipe, which is an egg-less chocolate pudding, akin to an American style pudding.

My association with the word "pudding" is that of a boiled cake, but this is what the Americans call a pudding. I don't know what our folk would call this: custard? A dessert? A chocolate pot? But regardless of its name, it's fairly tasty.

It is by no means low calorie, though: if you make this recipe for one person, it's about 310 calories (155 if shared between two people equally), so it's a naught treat; but a delicious naughty treat.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Eggs

☑ Gluten

CONTAINS
☒ Cocoa
☒ Dairy
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS
For 1 generous or 2 small helpings

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) chocolate of your choice, broken into small pieces
• 4 fluid ounces (120 millilitres) whole milk
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) sugar
• ½ tablespoon (8 millilitres) cornflour
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) butter
• 1 teaspoon (5 millitires) vanilla essence

METHOD

• In a small saucepan, blend the sugar and cornflour with a little bit of milk to make a smooth paste. Add the rest of the milk, stirring continuously.
• Put the mixture over a medium heat, mixing all the time with a whisk. Bring to the boil, and boil for about 2 minutes or until thickened.
• Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate, vanilla and butter until fully melted and combined. Pour into a cappuccino cup, or into two glasses.
• Cover with cling film, making sure the film directly touches the surface of the custard, and allow to cool to room temperature before chilling for at least 2 hours.
• To serve, remove the film and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon.

This is a very simple way to make custard or pudding without having to worry about scrambling eggs, or if you're trying to avoid eating eggs. It's nice and smooth and creamy, but if you prefer a smoother or firmer pudding, adjust the cornflour by half a teaspoon each way.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Caramel Ice-Cream (Egg- and Wheat Free)

Experiment: Syrup Sponge Pudding in the Microwave! (Wheat-, Egg-, and Dairy Free)

Happy Monday all! I think we all need an injection of happiness at the start of the week, and what better way to blast the Monday blues than with a quick microwave sponge pudding!

I during my first few years away from home I would buy the tinned syrup sponge puddings from the shop (back when I could eat wheat) and my brother and I would share one after dinner when it was just the two of us living together. But my delight in microwavable sponge puddings started when as a child my mother would quickly whip up microwave syrup puddings to feed six of us after dinner sometimes for a treat. She followed a recipe that she found in a massive "Microwave Cookbook", that was released in the early nineties when people believed that the microwave would revolutionise cooking.

This book, which I still have, is marvelous: it instructs how to use the microwave to basically cook anything, from whole chickens to baked custards to boiled sugar sweets. It's really fascinating, but little did the authors know that the domestic microwave one day would only be used for heating up leftovers and making pop-in-the-bag popcorn.

But over the last few years the microwave in a mug cake has been coming back into fashion, which is a 20 year old concept. The idea is you mix the ingredients directly in the mug then bung it in the microwave for anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes, depending on the recipe, and then eat what is usually a bland, chewy and overly sweet dry cake; I have never found a satisfying recipe.

 Recently I've been experimenting with the vegan cake recipe that I use, and using it to make sponge-in-a-mug cakes, but I've been putting things in the bottom of the mug before adding the cake mixture: golden syrup, chocolate sauce, and jam for example. I cook them in my 800W microwave oven for 2 minutes 30 seconds, let it stand after cooking for 1 minute, and they nice and moist and fluffy, not dry and over-zapped.

Two things to bear in mind, though:

1. The cake will rise a little out of the mug as the steam escapes from underneath, but once you take it out of the microwave it will sink back down again.
2. The cake will look a little underdone when you take it out of the microwave, but as you let it stand outside after cooking it will finish cooking in its own heat. This is what keeps it moist.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Dairy
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Cocoa
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS

For one mug cake

• 1 or 2 tablespoons (15 to 30 millilitres) golden syrup, chocolate sauce, or jam
• 1½ ounces (40 grammes; 1/3 cup) spelt flour, or gluten free flour blend
• 1½ ounces (40 grammes; 3 tablespoons) white sugar
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 fluid ounce (30 millilitres; 2 tablespoons) sunflower oil. Alternatively, you can melt 1½ ounces of butter for extra flavour
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres; 4 tablepsoons) warm water
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence

METHOD

• Pour you desired topping in the bottom of the mug, and set aside.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients with a fork until well combined. Add in the oil, water, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Don't overmix: if you still see the off clump of flour it's fine.
• Pour the cake mixture into the mug carefully, being sure not to displace the syrup.
• Cook in the microwave for 2 minutes 30 seconds on 800W (or use this handy website to check for your time and wattage); once cooked, allow to stand for 1 minute.
• Remove from oven and eat while warm.

If you want to save on washing up, you could also just mix all the cake ingredients in the mug, cook it, then put the syrup on top.

Malted Chocolate Fairy Cakes (Wheat Free)

Happy Friday all!

Since yesterday's revelation (and the weighing scales' telling me that Christmas gave me a few extra pounds to carry around) I've decided to retrain myself into eating a little better and in a more balanced fashion. Of course, that doesn't mean I'll give up baking, but it does mean that for a little while I want to rid myself of anything tempting.

Following on from my detox, I want to start eating a little better. I have designed for myself three meal menus that I will cycle through 4 times each, which gives me a solid 12 day start to forming new eating habits. I hope to reduce my calorie intake by 300-500 calories a day, and up my exercise by 30 minutes a day. I don't want to shock my body with some ludicrous fad diet, but make small sustainable changes over a long period of time so that before long eating in a balanced way, and curbing my sweetie consumption,will become second nature.

But before that, here is today's creation: malted chocolate fairy cakes, with malted glacé icing!

The camera on my phone loves washing everything out, so I've had to exercise my leet Photoshop skillz recently. I may have to look into using a different camera, or improving my lighting. Either one.

I've always loved the taste of malt: as a child, I loved drinking mugs of Ovaltine before bedtime, and eating malted milk biscuits, which were shortbread style biscuits that had been moulded before baking to show a rural scene with grazing cows. For those who don't know, Ovaltine is a malted hot chocolate drink that is traditionally drunk to aid sleep, and it comes in both chocolate and plain varieties. I drank that plain one for the years that I had a chocolate allergy, and to be fair I preferred the plain one. When I moved to Limerick city from the countryside of West Clare, a friend of mine introduced me to a chain of restaurants called "Eddie Rockets", which are modeled on the American style burger joint diner. They sold malted milkshakes, and their strawberry malt was to die for. Nowadays, I opt for the espresso or peanut butter malt, and on days when I'm feeling particularly carefree, Oreo biscuit malt.

These were a little bit of an experiment: I decided to see if my usual sponge cake recipe works with only butter instead of a mix of butter and oil. They did, but they were much more dense and firm than my usual fluffy cakes. Doing it this way would actually be much more suitable for layer cakes, because the firm texture of the cakes makes them easier to slice and hold their shape.

For this recipe, which yielded six cakes, I used my usual sponge cake recipe using 2 medium eggs, 2 ounces of melted butter, 3 ounces of white and brown sugar combined, 3 ounces of white spelt flour, half an ounce of cornflour, 2 tablespoons of Ovaltine, 2 tablespoons of water and a pinch of salt.

I then made a simple glacé icing for them by melting 1 ounce of butter and 1 ounce of barley malt extract together in a microwave safe bowl in 20 second blasts on "Defrost", then working in 2 ounces of icing sugar until it was nice and runny. While it was still warm, I poured it onto the cooled cakes and let it comfortably glaze the cakes.

These were nice and tasty: a delicious rich malty taste, and a lovely sticky glaze. Although when I took them to my brother's house the tin wasn't big enough, and the cakes stuck to the lid; oops!

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Cocoa
☒ Eggs
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy
☒ Refined sugar products


THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Coffee and Walnut Gateau (Wheat Free)

My New Online Toy: Recipe Calorie Counter

Happy Thursday everyone!

I know I don't usually write a blog on Thursdays, but my enthusiasm for my new found gadget is so overwhelming that I had to share it with my readers and wider online community.

I found a website that calculates the overall calories and calories per serving of any recipe you give it; you simply list the ingredients and their measurements, and it does all the maths. Not only does it calculate the calories, it analyses all the nutritional information as well! Sometimes it may get confused by an ingredient, but when it does it highlights it in red, and asks you to choose from a list of ingredients that it thinks you mean.

This has been both rather entertaining, and rather horrifying, because now I'm fully aware of how many calories there are in any one of my baked treats. I ran a few recipes through it and was absolutely shocked by the results.

Here are a few examples:

Moulded Chocolate Truffles: about 85 per single truffle. PER SINGLE TRUFFLE.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecakes: 464 per mini cheesecake, and I could easily eat 2 in a sitting
Malted Chocolate Ice-Cream with Caramel Swirl: 2245 calories overall, but if you consider a recommended scoop size for ice-cream is generally 45g (using the metric hurts me a bit inside), that's 160 calories per scoop...
Orange Mocha Gateaux: 7960 calories overall, about 670 per slice (if you cut it into 12 slices)... I ate 2 slices at my brother's birthday party.

Conversely, things that I thought would be super calorific but turned out not so:

Ginger Ale: 122 calories per 9 ounce (250 millitre) glass, which is a good auld glassful, and most of that comes from the sugar, so by reducing the sugar you can reduce the calories.
Chicken and Ham Pie: 293 calories per quarter pie, which is plenty for one person
Wheat-Free Pizza Base, topped with Mozzarella and Tomato Sauce: 350 calories per quarter pizza, which is also plenty for one person
Coconut Lime Cheesecakes: 298 calories per cake, which is good 165 calories fewer than its peanut butter relative

It seems no coincidence to me that the savoury, meal style foods are lower in calories that the sweets, because I tend to use a lot of "clean" ingredients when cooking meals, ie. natural, whole ingredients, and I knew the sweets would be fairly dense, but I had no idea how dense! I had no idea that an entire layer cake could have nearly 8000 calories in it, that genuinely shocked me!

Now, don't get me wrong: I've never really had an issue with my weight. As much as I sometimes obsess over being fat, like many women do, I have never been overweight no matter how dangerously close I've got to stepping outside the optimum categories for healthy weight (the BMI 18 to 24 category, the Body Fat 20%-31% category), so I must be using the calories I eat somehow, whether through cycling or walking to work, or Taekwondo training 2 to 3 times a week for a hour.

This has been quite a revelation to me, and will very muvh change my attitude to eating! I feel like doing a calorie comparison chart for my kitchen, just to keep these things in mind. Maybe that's bordering on fanatical, or maybe it's sensible... not sure. Only time will tell.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: No-Churn, No-Cook, Practically No-Effort Chocolate Ice-Cream (That's as good as Ben & Jerry's)

Orange Mocha Gâteau (Wheat Free)

This week's unusual cake concoction is: orange mocha gateau! I know a gateau has a specific definition, but I think cake is not an appropriate word for such a confection.

Sunday the 18th was my brother's 30th birthday, and every year my brother asks for one of two same things: either cheesecake, or coffee cake. There's nothing better than a classic coffee cake when the time is right, but sometimes I do get a little tired of eating the same cake every year. This time, I thought I'd shake things up a little.

Recently I was a frequent sipper at a local café in Limerick city called "The Cellar Door", but it unfortunately closed down just before Christmas due to circumstances out of their hands. One thing they served, which I always enjoyed, was hot chocolate made with Terry's orange chocolate bars, blended with steamed milk. Orange and chocolate are a wonderful combination to me. The woman who co-owned the business tried mixing it with a shot of espresso, and a beautiful thing was created. Despite the fact that the hot chocolate with the added double shot of espresso is €4.80 ($5.60, or £3.70), I buy one every time and I nurse it.

I had come across the concept of orange flavoured coffee before; when I was a little girl, my father had found these sachets of flavoured coffees: orange, raspberry, and mint. He used them to show me how to use a coffee filter machine, and to introduce me to coffee; at the time, I thought it was gross, but later in life I revisited the idea, and at first invented my Coffee Raspberry slices. I had never really got back around to something orange coffee flavoured, but I thought this would be the perfect opportunity, but with the added goodness of a dash of cocoa.

Now, unfortunately, this recipe is not free from very much, but substituting all the butter and milk chocolate products for margarine and dairy free chocolate alternatives will make it dairy free.

Also, this recipe makes a four layered cake. My one in the photos has three layers, but that was due to an error I made: I didn't run the knife flush against the side of one of the tins, meaning one cake came out with the sides cut at an angle. The only way I could fix it was by cutting it in half and using only the full side. Although unfortunate, it meant I had a lot of extra cake and some filling icing left over... yum!

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Cocoa
☒ Eggs
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

For two 8 inch (20 centimetre) round sandwich cakes:

• 4 medium eggs, room temperature
• 4 ounces caster sugar
• 2 ounces soft brown sugar
• 2 ounces weight of sunflower oil
• 2 ounces butter, or block margarine, or extra sunflower oil
• 2 fluid ounces espresso, or 2 fluid ounces of boiling water mixed with 3-4 teaspoons of instant coffee granules
• 6 ounces white spelt flour
• 2 ounces cornflour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon ground coffee
• Pinch of salt
• Grated zest of 1 large orange

For coffee cream filling

• 6 ounces white chocolate, or dairy-free white chocolate
• 3 ounces butter, or margarine
• 3 fluid ounces espresso, or strong coffee prepared as above
• 9 ounces icing sugar, sifted

For orange chocolate fudge icing:

• 9 ounces milk chocolate, or dark chocolate
• 3 ounces butter, or block margarine
• Juice of 2 large oranges
• 6 ounces caster sugar
  
  

METHOD

First, bake the cakes:

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate). Grease and flour two 8 or 9 inch (20 or 22 centimetre) round sandwich tins.
• Make the cake mixture according to this recipe, using the coffee in place of the water and adding the orange zest with the eggs at the beginning. Keep your orange to juice later. Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake in the centre of your oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cocktail stick or knife comes out clean when poked into the middle of the cakes. You made need to rearrange your oven shelves to get both in near the oven's centre.
• Once cooked, run a knife around the edge to loosen the cakes, then leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out and cooling on a wire rack.

While cake is cooling, prepare the icing and filling.

For the icing:

• For the chocolate icing, juice the zested orange and the second orange into a small measuring jug. Top the orange juice up with water to make 6 fluid ounces (180 millilitres) of liquid altogether.
• Pour the diluted orange juice and the sugar into a saucepan and heat together gently until the sugar has melted. Bring to the boil, then simmer for two minutes. Keep an eye on the clock!
• After two minutes, remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate and butter, or margarine, and stir until melted or almost melted.
• Return to the heat and cook for another minute, stirring continuously, until you have a smooth, shiny mixture. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature before chilling in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, or until thick and spreadable.

For the filling:

• Melt together the butter, or margarine, white chocolate, and coffee together gently. You can do this in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, or in the microwave in an appropriate bowl for 1 minute intervals on "Defrost", stirring after each interval.
• Once the chocolate mixture is smooth and combined, add in the icing sugar and beat until creamy and there is not a lump in sight. Allow to cool to room temperature before chilling in the fridge for at least 15 minutes, or until it is a soft and spreadable consistency, but still only holds soft peaks when dropped from a spoon.

To assemble:

• Cut the domes off both cakes (if they have domes), then slice each cake in half horizontally. Decide how you will assemble the layers, making sure the bottom layer of one cake, bottom side up, is on the top of the pile to make a flat top.
• Attach your bottom layer to its platter with a tiny smear of the filling. Spoon one third of the filling onto the bottom layer, spread out with a palette knife (or butter knife) until it's about half an inch (1 centimetre) from the edge.
• Pop the next layer on top, pressing it gently to secure it. Spoon another third of the filling on top and spread as before. Repeat with the last third of filling, and top off with a cake layer. Allow to sit in the fridge for about 10 minutes to firm a little.
• Spread about a third of the icing on top of the cake, making a swirling zig-zag pattern for decorative effect, then ice the sides with the remaining icing. 
• If you always spread on the icing only and never allow the knife to touch the cakes' crusts, then you ideally don't need a crumb coat. If you get the odd crumb in, it's not the end of the world, but if you want absolute perfection crumb coat the whole thing first, set in the fridge for about 10 minutes, then ice completely.
• Once the cake is completely iced, decorated how you like with sprinkles, coffee beans, or fine strips of orange zest (like I used), then chill the cake for about 30 minutes to firm up. It should be served and stored at room temperature, however, so let it sit on the counter (or hidden in a cupboard) for about 20 minutes before serving.

And there you have it! Something nice for your next big birthday bash.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Ginger Ale (No Brewing Required)

Something Savoury: Chicken and Ham Pie (Wheat Free)

Ladies and gentlemen, time for something a little different: chicken and ham pie!

I know I'm not in the habit of sharing my savouries and meals, because I eat fairly simply. I eat a lot of gentle cooked meat and rice with vegetables, spiced up a bit with marinades, but I rarely make baked savoury things like pies or pasties. However, after about 5 days of detoxing, all I wanted was something nice, rich and hearty to sink my teeth into.

This was literally made up off the top of my head, and was utterly delicious, and cooked in one pot (baked in a dish, but the filling was a one-pot wonder). If you want to make it more like a stew, you can half the cornflour and add about 4 fluid ounces (120 millilitres) of chicken stock, and steam some suet dumplings on top, or - for my American readers - eat it over a biscuit.

The amount written for the pastry makes a lid only. If you want an entire pastry shell, base and lid, times the quantities by three.

INGREDIMENTS

For filling:

• 2½ ounces (65 grammes) pancetta or smokey bacon, chopped into small pieces
• ½ large white onion, chopped finely
• ½ stalk of celery, chopped finely
• 1 large chicken breast (about 5 ounces/140 grammes), chopped into bite-size chunks
• 6 fluid ounces (180 millilitres) milk
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) cornflour
• Salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon, approx., chopped fresh parsely

For topping:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) fine cornmeal, or cornflour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 - 3 tablespoons hot water

METHOD

• Heat a frying pan without oil and dry fry the pancetta until it begins to sweat and render out its fat. 
• Add the onion and celery, along with a generous pinch of salt, and fry until the onion starts to soften. Reduce the heat and cover for about 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables have become soft and tender. 
• Add the chicken and stir fry until the chicken has been seared on the outside. Add the milk and bring to a gently simmer; simmer for about 10 minutes until the chicken is fully cooked. 
• Mix the cornflour with about 2 tbsps of water to make a slurry. Add to the chicken mixture and stir continuously until it comes to the boil and thickens slightly. 
• Taste for seasoning: I like to add a little extra salt, a good crack of black pepper, and a little sprinkle of cayenne pepper. 
• Pour the mixture into a small casserole dish and allow to cool while you prepare the pastry. Preheat the oven to 220*C (450*F, Gas Mk 7). 
• To make the pastry, mix the flour and cornmeal together with a pinch of salt. Mix in the oil and water and mix to make a soft dough; add more water if necessary. 
• Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic (about 3 to 5 minutes) then allow to stand and relax for about 10 minutes. 
• Flour the work surface and roll out the dough into the right size and shape for the top of the casserole dish. Place the pastry on top of the filling and slash twice in the middle. 
• Bake the hot pot until the pastry is golden brown and crisp. There may be a little sauce escaping from the sides, but that's fine. Remove from the oven and serve hot with salad greens or lightly steamed vegetables.

Chocolate Brownie Icing

Over the course of my bakery days, I had tried a lot of recipes for chocolate fudge icing, which can double function as glaze. As a child I had a book called "I Can Cook", which was a little paper back book with about 16 pages of easy recipes, one of which was a chocolate fudge icing. It was basically chocolate, butter, sugar and milk, but it required making a simple syrup with the milk and sugar, and it used an inordinate quantity of sugar and milk. It makes a lovely sticky sweet fudgy icing that sets beautifully thick for spreading, but I don't think it really works well as a brownie glaze.

I then watched a great video (in German) about how to make American style chocolate cake, and in it she included a recipe for "Schokocreme", which is basically chocolate fudge icing. It is super, super, too rich, as it uses equal quantities of chocolate and butter. Here in Ireland, the commonest form of butter is salted, meaning the finished icing was quite salty as well. I then put my thinking cap on to see if I could find a middle ground between too much sugar and too much butter.

So, I tried a few variations on a theme, until I settled on this quite effective recipe:

• 4 parts chocolate (dark, milk, or white)
• 2 parts icing sugar
• 2 parts butter (or margarine)
• 1 part milk (or coffee works too)

To make, simply melt the butter, sugar, and milk together in a microwave safe bowl on 1 minute bursts on "Defrost", or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water; once melted, beat in the sugar. What's that I hear you say? Is that it? Yes. Yes it is.

For a tray of brownies, which is roughly a 10 inch (25 centimetre) square in my case, 4 ounces of chocolate, 2 ounces each of butter and sugar, and 1 fluid ounce of coffee works really well for me to pour on top of the brownies while they're still hot, and then the whole batch cools down together. This means that the frosting fuses nicely to the cake surface, preventing the set icing from peeling off in layers, which can sometime happen when hot icing is poured onto cold cake.

This makes a nice mixture that's both pourable as a glaze when hot (which I use for topping brownies, as pictured), and spreadable as an icing when cold. Also, you can use it as a whipped filling if you beat it when it is fully cold.

While its wet, you can sprinkle things into it and they set into it perfectly. This icing works really well also as a piped icing for fairy cakes, due to its decadent nature.

It has a slightly soft, impressionable texture when set, and is great for decorating tray bakes. This seems to work equally well with dark, milk or white chocolate, whereas other recipes I've tried in the past really don't work with white chocolate, given its high fat content.

January Afternoon Tea Party: Gingerbread Elephants and Chocolate Brownies (Wheat Free)

Last November I decided to throw a monthly tea party at my community centre, which has an open invitation; the rule is basically show up with something to eat and you can come in and share everything else everyone has made and partake in conversation, games, movies, or whatever we're doing.

January's theme was Bollywood, or some bizarre reason. I mentioned at the last party that I'd always wanted to have a Bollywood house party, and the others caught on to the idea and thought it'd be cool to it for out next tea party.

As such, I decided to go with some Indian themed biscuits: gingerbread elephants! I remember as a kid getting a gingerbread elephant (and I wax lyrical about the experience in this blog post) and I've always wanted to recreate it. So: another baking achievement unlocked! I also made a batch of the old faithful chocolate browies, some topped with sprinkles, some with chopped nuts.

 So, in this post I'll just describe the elephants a bit more. I used the same gingerbread recipe as in my Christmas gingerbread houses and stars, and again used instant royal icing that I coloured using gel food colours, and the eyes are M&Ms. I used greaseproof paper piping bags.

The gingerbread elephant I ate had a colourful rug on its back, which is a typical British colonial image of an Indian elephant, which would have a colourful rug on its back for people to sit on when using tamed elephants as transport.

I had three different colours on the go: turquoise, baby pink, and baby yellow (if baby yellow is indeed a thing). I used white only for outlining the rugs on the elephants' backs, their toenails, their eyelashes, and for attaching their eyes. I choses brown, blue, and green M&Ms deliberately, being three common human eye colours... not so sure about elephant eye colours.

I laid the icing bags on the table in a line: blue, pink, yellow. I picked up the first bag, filled the rug, then the second for the detailing. On the second elephant, I picked up the second bag, filled the rug, then used the third for the detailing. The next elephant, I used the third bag to fill the rug, then detailed with the first. I continued in this rotation until I ran out of elephants, meaning there was all 6 possible colour combinations.

I could have used the white for detailing too, but I wanted them to be as colourful as possible with three colours; I also thought about using some dragées for extra flair on the rugs, but they were too small for that kind of detailing. Overall, I think they were very pretty! They remind me of little pachyderm party rings.

I had some extra dough left over from cutting out the elephants, which I did using a card cutout I had drawn in freehand of a simple elephant shape. I used a sharp knife to cut around the cutout into the dough, like I did with my Dinosaur Kimberleys (which contains a recipe for soft cakey gingerbread biscuits made with egg). I cut out some stars from the excess dough and decorated them randomly with icing and M&Ms. Those were pretty tasty: the combination of gingerbread, royal icing, and candy coated chocolate in one mouthful was actually very nice and balanced, if not INCREDIBLY sweet.

I really enjoyed making these, and they were a big hit! Everything was eaten, including the brownies (which will be my next blog), a bowl of Bombay mix, and the nibbles that the guests brought too. All in all, a success.

Chocolate Truffle Box: Dark Raspberry and Milk Orange

For my next trick, moulded chocolate shells filled with truffle and fruit jam! I made my Dad a box of these for his present, and he really appreciated them.

A few weeks ago, I was in Dealz (PoundLand) and I found a lovely sillicone mould with shapes of various tea time things, like cakes, teacups and teapots, and I thought this would be ideal to make some nice truffle filled moulded chocolates for Christmas. Over the next few weeks, I designed what would go into each chocolate.

Seeing as the mould had 15 holes, of 5 different designs, I thought I could do 5 different fillings, but in the end I thought of a better idea: to use the mould to make one whole batch of dark chocolate truffles, and one whole batch of milk chocolate truffles, then just make a box including one of each shape and colour, making a box of ten in total.

I filled the dark chocolate shells with raspberry jam and dark chocolate truffle, made with what I like to refer to as a faux-ganache, and then the milk chocolate shells where filled with orange marmalade and milk chocolate truffle. To make the chocolate shells, I needed 3 1/2 ounces (100g) chocolate per tray.

I melted the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simmering water until almost completely melted, then I removed to bowl from the heat and continued stirring until fully melted; this is the lazy man's way of tempering, and has served me well so far. I put one teaspoon of chocolate into each shape in the mould, then using the tip of the teaspoon, spread the chocolate up the sides; if it spills out a bit, that's okay.

Put a sheet of non-stick baking paper underneath a wire rack, then put the mould upside-down on the wire rack; the chocolate will dribble out of the mould, through the rack, onto the paper. This will coat the sides completely. When the dripping stops, turn the mould right-side up again; scrape the excess chocolate off the surface of the mould with a palette knife, or the back of a normal knife. Put this in the fridge to set for about 10 minutes before filling. On removing from the fridge, fill each hole leaving a eighth inch (3 millimetre) gap at the top.

To make the fillings, you will need:

RASPBERRY DARK CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) chocolate, broken into pieces
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) butter or margarine
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) raspberry jam
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) raspberry jam, sieved

Heat together the butter (or margarine) with the tablespoon of jam until melted and just starting to bubble. Remove from the heat, and stir in the chocolate until smooth. Leave to cool slightly before using, so as not to melt the shells. Use the sieved jam and the ganache to fill each shell.

ORANGE MILK CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) milk chocolate
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) butter or margarine
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) milk
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) orange marmalade, sieved.

Heat together the butter (or margarine) with sugar and milk until the sugar and butter have melted together and the mixture is just starting to bubble. Remove from the heat, allow to cool slightly, then stir in the chocolate until smooth. Leave to cool slightly before using, so as not to melt the shells. Use the sieved jam and the ganache to fill each shell.

I put a quarter teaspoon of jam (for dark) and marmalade (for milk) into each shell, then topped each one off with about a half teaspoon of ganache. Allow to stand for ten minutes. There should be some melted chocolate left over from making the shells, and the chocolate that dribbled onto the paper should be a little bit set by now, so take all the chocolate off the paper, add back into the heatproof bowl, and re-melt very gently over simmering water as before until almost melted.

Stir until completely melted, then spoon onto the tops of the filled chocolates, gently spreading it into the corners. Allow to set completely at room temperature for an hour, or pop into the freezer for 10 minutes. Gently turn each hole inside-out to get the chocolates out, and put into little paper cases.

These turned out really well for my first, and I hope that future attempts will only improve!