Chocolate and Peanut Butter Squares

Yesterday night was Livia's potluck, it was very fun and considering I had had a pretty bad day I was in no mood to make something complicated. Lucky for me, I stumbled on these delicious bars and decided to make them. They are fuss free and very easy to make and they do not involve any baking of some sort. It was great and it took me 10 minutes to do these including cleanup!! Yummy! They were pretty good, and I think they are a good snack/potluck snacks for whenever!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar (Cassonade) 
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 3 cups of oats ( I used quacker oats) 
• 3/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter
• For the icing use 2 tablespoons of milk and 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. In a pan, bring the butter to a boil, add the vanilla, oats and the brown sugar and mix for about 5 minutes. 
2. Remove from heat and add the chocolate chips and peanut butter and continue mixing until all the oats are covered with the chocolate/peanut butter mix. 
3. Press evenly in your square pan preferably. 
4. In a pan, bring the chocolate chips and the milk to a boil and mix thoroughly. Cover the oats mixture evenly and put in the fridge for the next 2-3 hours. 
5. Enjoy!

Brioche

On sunday, I decided to try making brioche... little did I know the dough had to rest for AGES!! It was all worth it in the end. I found the brioche better the next day, and we really enjoyed eating it at breakfast - plain or with nutella. I took the recipe from Cyril Lignac's C'est moi qui cuisine... Oui Chef! Tome 4. I really like his recipes because they are fairly simple. I found the brioche maybe a bit too egg-y so reducing the number of eggs could be a solution - up to you! Nonetheless it was very good!!

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 180g butter
• 3cl of milk
• 500g of flour
• 30g of sugar
• 20g of baking powder (use the same one you would use for bread)
• 10g of salt

1. In a mixer, mix the flour, eggs, milk, sugar, salt and baking powder for about 5mins at medium speed. 
2. Add the butter cut in pieces and mix further. 
3. Put the dough in the fridge to rest for the next 3 hours. 
4. Remove from the fridge and put the dough in a buttered baking pan. Let the dough rise in the pan for about 2 hours. 
5. Preheat oven at 180 degrees celsius. 
6. Bake for about 25-30 minutes (more if you are making a bigger brioche) Wait till your knife goes through the brioche and comes back neat. Then take out of the oven. 
7. Enjoy!

* You could make designs on your brioche.

* You can add various fruits for a fruity brioche.

Apricot and Cherry Crumble

Last night, I was feeling extremely bored so I decided to bake! I didn't know what I was going to bake, so I looked at Cyril Lignac's Les 100 meilleurs desserts - a very good book! In it was a recipe for a cherry crumble... I was in luck I had cherries in the fridge!!! I decided to make this crumble with a twist by adding apricots to the mix, it was very good! Mine was a bit too sweet, so I lowered the sugar in the recipe I am giving you! Charles and Anne-Claire both enjoyed it, and it was finished this morning at breakfast. Because it is a crumble, the pictures aren't great. How do you make a crumble look good? If you have any tips, let me know!

Ingredients:

• 500 g of cherries (remove the pits)
• A can of apricots (you can use fresh apricots, I just didn't have any!)
• 75g of butter
• 4 tbsp of honey
• 100g of sugar
• 100g of flour
• 60g of almond powder

1. Preheat oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
2. In your baking pan, set the cherries cut in half (without pits) at the bottom. They must cover the entire bottom of your pan. 
3. In a little pan, heat the honey until it melts and bubbles appear. Remove from the stove and put it over the cherries and mix. 
4. Cut the apricots in slices or cubes and put on top of the cherries. 
5. In a bowl mix the flour, sugar, butter and almond powder to get a crumble-ey consistency and put on top of the cherry/apricot mix. 
6. Put in the oven for about 30 minutes. 
7. Enjoy!!

* You can add rosemary leaves to your honey while it melts, so it gets a nice flavour. Do not forget to remove the leaves before putting the honey on the cherries. 

* Alternatively you can use lavender honey for a little extra taste. 

Pain au chocolat and Croissants

I made these a while back, I am sorry I didn't make the dough myself. They were a huge success at our Enfants du Mekong meeting (if you don't know this charity, you definitely should look into it!). They were easy and simple to make and I encourage anyone to make these!!

Ingredients:

• 2 sheets of frozen puff pastry
• 1 egg
• Chocolate bars

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. 
2. Cut your sheets in rectangles or triangles depending on whether you want to make croissants or pain au chocolat. 
3. Put a bar of chocolate in the middle and roll them to shape them into pastries. 
4. Put them on the parchment paper. 
5. In a bowl mix the egg and with a brush, cover each pastry to get that golden look. 
6. Put in the oven until golden/brown. 
7. Enjoy!

* You could substitute the chocolate bars for anything else!!! 

Best Chocolate Cake Ever

I love all things chocolate, as you may have noticed on this blog. This morning, still jetlagged, I decided to make this delicious cake. Anne-Claire banned me from the kitchen this week because I was baking too often - but since she was sleeping, I decided to sneak in and make it!! When she woke up, she borderline went ballistic, but this cake was SO worth it!!! Sorry if the pictures aren't amazing, we're having issues!

Ingredients:

• 200g of dark chocolate (I use Nestle's chocolate)
• 200g of melted butter
• 150g of sugar
• 80g of flour
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 pack of baking powder
• Icing sugar to put on top if desired

1. Preheat oven at 200 degrees. 
2. Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave, and mix them together. 
3. In a bowl, mix the eggs and the sugar first, and then add the baking powder and flour. Once this is properly mixed, add the chocolate + butter mix. 
4. Butter your pan and sprinkle some flour on top. Put your cake mix in the baking pan and put in the oven for 25 minutes. 
5. Enjoy!

* You can use any toppings you want on this cake. 

* If you want a melted centre, leave the cake in the oven for about 20 minutes or a bit less. 

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

When I was younger, and we lived in Paris, my dad used to make this cake fairly often. Sadly for my brother, he never got a chance to try it as when we moved to Singapore, dad stopped making this cake! Too bad for him! It is such a delicious cake, so moist and yummy! Yesterday I was feeling bored, so I called dad in London and hit him up for his recipe and gosh i wasn't disappointed! It was delicious! Brought back some wonderful memories of 4th, 5th birthdays! The cake sadly was not as pretty or as yummy as Dad's but with practice i'm sure Ill get there. Anyhow it was gone in a few hours!!

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 250g of sugar
• 250g of softened butter
• 250g of flour
• A pinch of salt
• A can of sliced pineapple

1. Preheat oven at 200 degrees Celsius.
2. In a bowl mix the sugar and the butter, until you reach a white-ish mix. 
3. Add the egg yolks and the flour and mix. 
4. In another bowl, whip the egg whites up with the salt.
5. Once this done, add the egg whites to the other mix. 
6. Butter your baking pan and sprinkle with sugar, then arrange the pineapple in some sort of pretty design!
7. Add the cake dough on top and put in the oven for about 30 minutes. 
8. Enjoy!!!

Lemon and Coconut Squares

I have the flu or a cold... I am not sure. But what I do know is that I am feeling awful and the only thing that managed to cheer me up early this morning was making these delicious Lemon and Coconut squares. Now, you may think it is totally unsanitary to bake whilst sick, but fear not I took my precautions and lysol-ed myself!! They were a huge hit! I too the recipe from here and adapted the proportions a little.

Ingredients for the Crust:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of unsweetened coconut
• A pinch of salt
• 1 stick of salted butter cut in small pieces
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla

1. Preheat your oven at 350 degrees F and coat your pan with butter or cooking spray. 
2. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt and add the butter pieces, vanilla and coconut. Mix until the mixture is crumbly (much like the apple crumble method)
3. Put in your pan, and press evenly into the bottom of the baking pan. 
4. Bake until it is lightly golden for about 20 minutes. 

Ingredients for the filling:

• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 tbsp of flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup of lemon juice
• sweetened shredded coconut for garnish.

1. Whisk the eggs together with the sugar, flour and salt. Add the lemon juice and continue mixing. 
2. Pour the mix over the crust and put in the oven again for about 15 minutes or until the filling is set ( I usually wait until the filling looks like it is making bubbles!)
3. Cool and garnish with the coconut.
4. Enjoy!

* You could always garnish with a nice coconut meringue instead of having shredded coconut!

French Crêpes

My days in London nearing to an end, I decided to treat the family to some delicious French Crêpes. We love crêpes, when we were kids, mom would make them for our birthday parties and sometimes even randomly, which always led to us being on sugar highs. French people even have a crêpe day - the Chandeleur. It is so much fun. Anyhow tonight wasn't a special occasion, it was fairly random, I was bored of all the stupidities that were showing on TV and thus decided to cook up a storm, or well crêpes. They were delicious and a huge success! I used Cyril Lignac's recipe and made a few changes. They turned out perfect, with the perfect cook circles.

Ingredients:

• 250g of flour
• 80g of caster sugar
• 50cl of milk
• 2 tablespoons of oil
• A pinch of salt
• 3 eggs
• Butter or oil for the pan
• 1 tablespoon of rum (it will make such a huge difference!)

1. In a bowl, whip up the eggs with a fork - just like when you do an omelette
2. In your mixer, put the flour and the salt and add half of the milk. 
3. Once this is mixed, add your eggs, sugar, rum and oil. 
4. You will obtain a liquid dough, if you find it is not liquid enough, add more milk. 
5. In a hot pan, put a bit of butter or oil to grease the pan. Then, pour a 1/4cup of the batter in the pan and cook on one side until the sides can be removed and flip the crêpe to cook the rest. 
6. Work through the entire batter and then put the crêpes on a plate. Either eat immediately or warm them up by putting them in the oven at 50 degrees until ready to be consumed. 
7. Enjoy!

* You can put choc chips in the batter if you want.

* Eat with sugar on top - DELICIOUS

* Some put nutella and banana pieces on top... extra yummy!