Pudding Emergency!

Required at short notice to provide a pudding for today's lunch, I fell back on a favourite which can be conjured up pretty quickly from mainly storecupboard ingredients.  This is, I suspect hardly the 'proper' way to make frangipane, but hell, it works for me.  If it's easy and it tastes good, I'm one very happy Distracted Housewife!  The shop-bought sweet pastry cases are a storecupboard staple (actually, they live in the bread bin) and I cannot see that there is any point in being snobbish about them; while I never buy shortcrust pastry in the supermarket because I find it easy to make, I always buy puff and filo because, you know, eek!  Sweet pastry also gives me the heebie-jeebies, I have never managed to get the desirable shortbread texture without everything disintegrating into infinitesimal crumbs like, well, shortbread...

Tinned pears (in juice, never syrup for my tastes) happen to be a fruit that I keep in the cupboard habitually as I love their grainy texture.  They are wonderful with whipped cream or ice-cream and a quick, hot, chocolate sauce as a very basic Poires Belle Helene (which, after holidaying in the Loire Valley as a youngster, remains for me the most respectable way to fill a crêpe).  Pears and chocolate is a classic combination for me; hence the chocolate included here (although you can happily leave it out if the idea doesn't fill you with the greedy excitement that it does me!).  I would have rather like to have a scoop of ice-cream with this pudding today, rich yellow in colour and flecked with vanilla seeds, but sadly no amount of praying to the freezer could force some into existence so we 'forced it down' without...

Pear and Almond Tart with Chocolate

1 ready-made sweet pasty case from the baking aisle at the supermarket
50g dark chocolate, grated or very finely chopped (I used the processor)
1 tin of pear halves in juice, drained
2 eggs, beaten
80g each butter, ground almonds and caster sugar

Heat the oven to 180ºc.  Put your unwrapped pastry case onto a baking sheet.  Scatter the chocolate over the bottom of the pastry case.  Thickly slice each pear half widthways, but keep it 'together', as it were, and arrange them on top of the chocolate.  Melt the butter and stir in the ground almonds and sugar. Mix in the eggs, forming a nubbly paste with the consistency of double cream.  Gently (although this is a counsel of perfection for me, being both clumsy and impatient) spoon and spread this over the pear-and-chocolate filled pastry case and pop it in the oven for 20-25 minutes.  Take it out and leave it to rest for a few minutes as this is SO much better warm than hot.  Any leftover slices (ha!) are perfect with a cup of tea later, but don't put them in the 'fridge, something awful seems to happen to them if you do!

Cath xx

Small Life, Big Happiness

I am a homebird. My house is my home and my escape; that is the way I like it, cosseted with family and friends.  When it is gloomy outside, damp and windy, when the light is grey and cold, I retreat ever more into what can be my little world of colour and comfort.  Not 'cocooning' in any sense, but most definitely 'nesting'...  Small pleasures are all the more appreciated at this time of year and, while I feel grateful for much in my life, sometimes the trivial things can be as life-affirming as the most important and significant people and events.

This afternoon, in front of a roaring fire, the children and I have been curled up on the sofa, snuggled under piles of blankets.  We watched The Sarah Jane Adventures, their very favourite program for a long time and, well-scripted as it is, I confess to loving it too, as well as the time I spend watching it with them in quiet contentment.  For a little afternoon snack, nothing could have been better, today, than a cup of tea (for me), a glass of milk apiece (for the children) and a chunk of tiffin.  Call it chocolate biscuit cake, call it fridge cake if you like, but it always has and always will be tiffin to me.  Not for me, however, the extravagant concoctions of amaretti or wafers, with cherries, nuts, ginger and marshmallows.  If you fancy something more along those lines, have a look at my recipe for Rocky Road.  Tiffin should be, to my mind at least, quite plain and unfancy; a no-frills treat if you will.

Tiffin

I prefer half-and-half milk and plain chocolate for the topping, but you may, obviously, do as you please

220g digestive biscuits
75g raisins
100g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tsp caster sugar
200g chocolate

Crush the biscuits finely and stir in the raisins.  Melt the butter, syrup, cocoa and sugar together and mix this into the biscuit crumbs.  Press into a 9" square tin.  Melt the chocolate and spread over the surface.  Chill until just firm, then mark into squares.  Chill until solid before breaking up the bars.  Put the kettle on and hold any errant, pleading children at arm's length until their bedrooms are tidy...

This doesn't keep well.  I mean, it can be stored in a box in the 'fridge just fine, but it doesn't generally hang around long enough to need that kind of treatment!

Cath xx

Choccy Roccy

Generally speaking, I have much more of a 'savoury' tooth than a 'sweet' one.  I will always reach for celery, olives, cheese or nuts without even considering chocolates; I eschew the biscuit tin for a handful of my best-beloved Bombay Mix.  That being said, Rocky Road' is one of the few sweet treats that I really can't resist... So easy to make, and great for the children to help with too, my version gets a nice little kick from the ginger and is just how I like it; more 'rock' than 'choc'.  OK, it's very far from being a health food, but it's a lovely treat.  Cut into slices to serve with cups of tea or as a quick, no-effort pud, chop it up roughly to scatter over ice-cream or just break off a chunk for an instant sugar-fix...

Rocky Road

200g milk chocolate
200g plain chocolate
knob of butter
8 'pink wafer' biscuits, roughly broken up
12 glacé cherries, halved
12 marshmallows, quartered
2 tbsp glacé ginger, finely chopped
100g pistachio nuts, shelled
*hundreds and thousands, to decorate*

Melt both types of chocolate together with the butter.  Stir in all the other ingredients and mix really well to coat everything in chocolate.  Pour and scrape into a lightly oiled baking tin (whether you use a small one, for 'deep', or a larger one for 'shallow' Rocky, is up to you.  Scatter over some hundreds-and-thousands 'for pretty', if you like, then pop the whole assembly into the 'fridge.  Chill it until set, then cut, or break, it up as you like.  Enjoy!

Cath xx

Chocolate Mousse 1 - Football 0

Just as I do with sponge cakes, I think of chocolate mousse in imperial terms.  Not in a neo-colonial way, no, but in as much as the imperial weights and measures just seem to work with certain recipes. For each serving, use one egg and one ounce of chocolate.  A little dash of a carefully chosen flavouring and that's all you need.  Good, simple food at its best!

As far as flavourings for chocolate mousse go, I have tried many, many variations over the years.  Brandy is always my classic fall-back.  Fruity liqueurs work well, as does good old fresh orange juice.  I love mint chocolate mousse, but really good peppermint extracts are few and far between.  I'd be interested to know if anyone has a source...?  Dark rum is nice in the winter (for me, rum is very much a winter flavour) and coffee is an elegant flavour as long as no-one is going to object to a coffee-chocolate mix.  Some people seem to feel inordinately strongly about that; maybe brought on by too many cheap chocolate-covered 'coffee creams' as a child..?

Classic Chocolate Mousse

4 eggs, separated
4oz plain chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp brandy (and see above)

Melt the chocolate in a big bowl.  Let it cool, then stir in the egg yolks, one by one.  This is the point at which to add any flavouring.  Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then carefully fold the whites into the cooled chocolate mixture.  Pour the mousse into serving pots and chill until set.  I don't usually garnish my chocolate mousse at all; today I used some strawberries from my friend Avril's garden; a few raspberries or a blob of whipped cream with a light dusting of cocoa are equally nice, when the urge for a little lily-gilding comes upon one.

The chocolate mousse was tonight's pudding, following a supper of Chicken, Leeks and Bacon with a Crumble Topping.  Very good it was too, unlike the football result!

Cath xx

A Trifle Boozy

My in-laws came yesterday for a (flying) visit. They were only here for one night and, with one thing and another, we've hardly seen them all year; so I thought I'd better push the boat out, dinner-wise. We started with a platter of various antipasti - olives, prosciutto and salami, that kind of thing - then moved on to a tomato risotto (done in the oven for ease and less time spent kitchen-bound for moi). As a pudding I put together this rather glorious and decadent trifle; I can't help feeling that a trifle is pretty much the ultimate in pudding indulgence and this one comes pretty close to the apotheosis, believe me. I used frozen raspberries, defrosted overnight in the fridge. When you're crushing them, it doesn't seem to matter and anyway, they're cheaper (especially given that our raspberry canes produced the grand total of nine raspberries this year). We had some Kahlua left from a bottle my BFF Steph brought to my birthday party last week, so that kind of suggested itself, really.

Boozy Raspberry Trifle

250ml cold coffee
60ml Kahlúa
2 tbsp sugar
500g Madeira cake
350g raspberries (and see above), crushed
250g tub mascarpone
400g can custard
142ml carton double cream
grated chocolate

Mix the Kahlúa and the sugar into the coffee. Beat the mascarpone and fold in the custard. Spoon a layer of the custard mix into the bottom of a suitably decorative bowl (preferably glass so you can see the layers, but don't lose sleep over it). Cut the cake into slices or cubes, dip quickly in the coffee mixture, then tessellate it to form a layer of booze-sodden cake Follow this with a layer of crushed raspberries and half the remaining custard. Continue, using up the rest of the cake and berries, leaving you with about one-third of the original custard mix. Stiffly whip the double cream and fold it into the custard. Dollop and spread this over the top of the trifle, then cover with a layer of grated chocolate. Chill for a few hours to let it settle before serving, in big squelchy spoonfuls. It looks very glam when you first bring it to table but, I assure you, that doesn't last long...

Sunday Girl

We woke up this morning to every child's (and my husband's) dream - a half-decent covering of snow on the ground. Christopher was barely able to contain his excitement during breakfast, then he was straight out into the garden to throw snowballs and (inexplicably) carry small buckets full of snow from one side of the garden to the other. James was intrigued by it all, though rather suspicious and apt to break down in tears if any snow got too close to him!

I really started cooking again today, having had the best part of two weeks off family meal-duty (what with all our various gallivanting around). A Sunday dinner was a good place to start, and really, what could we want more on a cold evening than a warming chicken stew with lemon-spiked dumplings and a chocolate pudding to follow?

I can't really bring myself to type out a 'recipe' for this stew; as you do with stews, I just threw it all together. I browned some free-range, corn-fed chicken legs, added leeks, carrots and potatoes, then cooked it slowly, for a couple of hours, with a splash of vermouth and some chicken stock. My recipe for dumplings is here, though today I added the zest of a lemon, used its juice to bind the dough and used fresh parsley instead of the dried herbs. Half an hour before we ate, I threw in some halved green beans and added the dumplings to the pan.

Now, this pudding I'm very proud of. Chocolate puddings can be a real problem, balancing richness with a need to stand up again and sweetness with wanting the children to get some sleep tonight. This pudding fulfils the brief well, as most of the really sweet and rich part comes from the accompanying Choco-Fudge Sauce. The ginger may seem unconventional and, it's true, the pudding doesn't taste much of ginger - but it does have an indefinable warmth that a pudding without the added spice lacks.

Choc-Choc Pudding with Choco-Fudge Sauce

I cook this in my pressure cooker but, if you don't have one, steam the pudding for an hour and a half.

100g butter
30g golden syrup
100g light muscovado sugar

Melt together in a pan, then remove from the heat and allow to cool to blood temperature.

150ml milk
1 egg
200g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp ground ginger
pinch bicarbonate of soda

Mix the dry ingredients together, then beat the milk and egg into the cooled butter mixture. Add the flour etc., to the pan and stir throughly until everything is well combined. Pour the mixture into a well-greased 1.2 litre pudding basin, cover with foil and tie tightly. In a pressure cooker, steam for 10 minutes, then cook for 25 minutes. Otherwise, steam over hot water for an hour and a half.

As I've mentioned above, the crowning glory of this pudding is my Choco-Fudge Sauce. I make this, rather lazily, by melting three Mars bars with 150ml double cream. It's extremely good for dressing up this rather plain chocolate pudding (and others), for pouring over ice-cream or for dipping fruit and marshmallows into as a 'chocolate fondue'. Not that children, in my experience, need much encouragement to eat fruit, but sometimes it's fun to get in a mess just for the sake of it. Anyway, you know by now that I'm a hands-on sort of girl, don't you?

A Little Kitchen Pottering

This morning I decided to make a chocolate blancmange for us to eat after dinner. Blancmange is a great 'storecupboard' pudding; as long as you have a pint of milk, you're sorted and, as anyone with small children usually has either too much or too little milk in the house at any one time it comes in handy as a way to use up the surplus. This was, as you may have guessed, the reason for my making one today. Too much milk, not enough fridge space!

Chocolate Blancmange

25g cocoa powder
40g cornflour
40g sugar
1 pint milk (yes - bad girl - I know I shouldn't mix metric and imperial but this is easier)

Mix the cocoa, cornflour and sugar together in a large bowl, then add enough of the cold milk to mix it to a smooth paste. Heat the rest of the milk to boiling point, then pour the hot milk over the chocolate mixture. Stir thoroughly, then return the mixture to the saucepan immediately. Sir continously as the mixture comes back to the boil, then let it boil for one minute (still stirring so that it doesn't stick). Pour it into a wetted mould and leave it to cool before chilling until completely set. Turn it out onto a plate and decorate it as gaudily as you like. I always like to see a glacé cherry, don't you?.

In a cooking sort of mood after the blancmange, I suggested to Christopher that we make some houmous for lunch. Dips are one of my (and the boys') absolute favourite things to eat and houmous is the dip I make most often, being whipped up quickly in the processor.

Houmous

I usually use canned chickpeas for this – organic for preference – and rinse them well to get rid of the foul-tasting liquid they come packed in.

420g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic, crushed, grated or very finely chopped
1 tbsp tahini paste, if you’ve got it
2 tsp ground cumin
juice of half a lemon

Place all the ingredients in the processor and whizz to a paste (I prefer a more interesting ‘grainy’ consistency to industrial smoothness). Taste to see if you need more lemon juice or cumin and add a pinch of salt if you like. Add a little water to thin the houmous to the consistency you like, then scrape itinto a bowl and serve with warm bread and crunchy vegetables, whatever takes your fancy. This makes enough for 2 or 3 people for lunch, but it keeps, covered in the fridge, for a day or so and makes an extremely good sandwich; on brown bread with spinach and grated carrot.

The fabulous plate in the picture is a new favourite - I bought it last week when I was away, on a rare trip to IKEA - credit where it's due!

This afternoon I took the boys to the cinema (a first for both of them!) to see a matinée showing of "Dr Seuss' Horton Hears A Who!". I was pleasantly surprised by how well they both behaved; Christopher pretty much perfectly, and James sat through most of it before wanting to go off exploring and find girls to flirt with. Only one, and already he's a charmer...there may be trouble ahead. The only slight downside of this lovely afternoon treat was that they were, weirdly, too tired to eat much dinner when we got home. I don't know why sitting in a dark room for two hours watching glorified TV should be so tiring, but apparently it is. Ho hum, what do I know..?

Rock On!

The boys and I had a lovely Easter break at my parents' house and experienced the difficult feelings of not wanting to leave, but, at the same time, really wanting to come back. I don't think I'll ever get used to that little tug-of-love between the places that I call home. The subject of last night's W.I. meeting was an added attraction; we had a visit from a lady who showed us how to make a range of filled chocolates at home. I will let you know what kind of results I get...

Today and the next couple of days are an odd sort of no-woman's-land for me. Last week was spent wawy with the children and on Monday, Hubby is taking the boys away to his parent's house in Yorkshire for a few days. It will be the first time I've ever really been away from them and again that tugging feeling comes into play; looking forward to having some real time to myself versus wondering how I will ever manage to fill my days without them all. Sleep comes to mind initially, and long hot baths in the middle of the day. I've already arranged a ladies-who-lunch date with a friend for Monday to start things off with a giggle.

Today, while James was having an afternoon nap, Christopher came to sit on my lap, bringing with him a cookery book (catch 'em young). We looked through it together, talking about the sort of things that we each like to eat, before he decided that he would like to do some baking. Paucity of ingredients was an initial sticking point, but we cobbled together the necessary to make a batch of rock buns, which we began eating more or less straightaway, when James woke up. Anyway (a trifle defensively), they are only really wonderful on the day you bake them, then they stale and begin to resemble real rocks. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Rock Buns

200g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp ground mixed spice

1/4 tsp grated fresh nutmeg

100g butter

75g caster sugar

75g mixed dried fruit and peel

zest of 1 lemon and half its juice

1 egg, beaten

about 50ml milk

Mix the flour, baking powder and spices, then rub in the butter. Stir in the sugar fruit and lemon zest, then mix with the beaten egg, milk and lemon juice to make a fairly stiff and sticky dough. Drop lumpy spoonfuls onto lightly oiled baking sheets and cook for 15 minutes or so at 200°c until golden. Remove the cooked buns to a cooling rack, but they are at their best with the warmth of the oven still lingering.

For our supper this evening I cooked a good old family favourite; my Frank & Maisy Pasta Bake. As a variation, tonight I added a tin's-worth of drained and rinsed red kidney beans. These are one of the boys' latest fads; put them in anything (perhaps not trifle) and they wolf it down. Always good. They wrapped themselves around some Easter egg for pudding - at least 'afters' are easily dealt with at this time of year.

Don't Get in a Flap, Jack!

Flapjacks are one of those easy traybakes that are so useful to have around, for childrens' snacks, hungry moments with a cup of tea or eats when friends come round. They keep well in an airtight tin and I've never met anyone who doesn't like them. Plus, as oats are now regarded as a 'superfood', we can consider them health food (while quickly glossing over the butter and sugar content, hehehe).

The one thing I think you really do need to bake flapjacks successfully is a non-stick baking tin. You still have to grease it, but it does away with the hassle of lining a tin and the immense irritation of flapjacks which collapse when you try to slice them. I've had to turn more than one batch into Peach & Flapjack Trifle.

Flapjacks

250g butter
175g light muscovado sugar
2 tbsp black treacle
350g rolled oats

Melt the butter, sugar and treacle together in a large pan over a medium heat, stirring well to combine until smooth, dark and glossy. Mix in the oats, making sure that they are all fully coated. Tip into a small greased non-stick baking tin and level the surface, as best you can, with the back of a spoon. Bake fo 20 minutes at 150°c. Mark out squares or bars on the surface, then allow the flapjacks to cool completely in the tin, before slicing.

You can vary flapjack easily with sultanas or chopped glacé cherries stired in with the oats. A chocolate topping is also nice once in a while (pour over 150g melted chocolate when you remove the tin from the oven, then mark out squares once the chocolate is semi-set).

I also finally got around to defrosting the damsons and making some jam. Our neighbour's tree rains damsons onto our lawn every year, but I never have time to make the jam when the damsons are in season. This year I froze the fruit, then added a little lemon juice to make up for any pectin lost during freezing. I've also got a huge box of blackberries in the freezer for jam, so I'd better do that soon; I need the freezer space!

Muffin-mania

Tomorrow is Hubby's birthday and everyone deserves some kind of birthday cake or cakes, don't they? Christopher's vote went to chocolate muffins, which is great as he practically makes those by himself anyway. Simple muffins like these are, to my mind, a great first 'proper' recipe for children as they really can do most of the work themselves - no sharp knives, no sieving or creaming. The batter seems to work fine even if it's a bit lumpy, so even the most inept of stirrers can make a decent batch of muffins. Just as long as you can cope with the mess on the worktop, the floor and all over your beloved (hair, eyebrows, sleeves, you name it). A set of cup measures makes baking a lot easier for little ones, especially those who are still pre-school.

Christopher's Chocolate Muffins

Dry ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup vanilla sugar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Mix together in a large bowl.

Wet ingredients:

1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1 large egg

Beat together in a jug, then pour into the dry ingredients and stir to roughly combine. Don't worry about lumps. Put paper cases into a 12-hole muffin tray and divide the mixture as evenly as possible between them. Bake at 180°c for 15 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool. This last bit is the only 'grown-up' bit of the whole procedure, but Christopher's usually lost interest by this point...

After all, there a bowl to be licked, isn't there? Don't you wish you were a child again?

Busy, Busy, Busy!

We've had an incredibly busy week with one thing and another, and it shows no sign of letting up over the weekend or beyond. I'm taking the boys to see my parents next Friday, so I'm definitely hoping for a bit of a rest! It's times like these when I'm really glad to have a pretty extensive back catalogue of basic, no-fuss meals, because sometimes, as Nigella Lawson once wrote you really do "have to hit the kitchen running".

On Wednesday night, a friend who I hadn't seen since before I was married (over six years ago - eek!) came to supper. We only recently found out that we both live in the area (!). Hubby was at work, so we had dinner with Christopher and James; I cooked a big dish of my Vaguely Middle-Eastern Couscous, accompanied by pitta bread, yoghurt and a minted tomato and cucumber salad I followed this with a plate of Fabulous Chocolate Brownies. After the boys were safely tucked up, we settled down to a great evening of gossiping and poring over photographs. It's been so long since I had a girly night in with a friend!

I needed more brownies for Thursday, when thay were my contribution to a serious play-fest with the children at another friend's house, followed by lots of errand-running all over town on my part. For dinner I cobbled together a Potato and Bacon Layer, always popular and very straightforward, thank goodness.

Now that Christopher has reached the milestone of a - drum roll please - china plate at dinnertime, rather than his plastic ones, I wanted to cook him a favourite meal to celebrate, and to relax after the hectic last few days. He's always loved sausages (as, I think, do all children) and these Sweetcorn Pancakes go very nicely alongside some oven-cooked bangers. Liberally lubricated with ketchup (for Christopher), with fruit to follow, they made for a balanced meal that the boys could both eat without any assistance. After I get them off to bed tonight, I'm going to collapse with my knitting and enjoy some time off my feet before it all starts again tomorrow. Still, can't complain - I'd much rather be busy than bored, wouldn't you?

Bite this Chump!

Lamb for dinner tonight - some big, fat chump chops from the butcher in the next village. I much prefer chump chops to the ubiquitous cutlet chops - more meat, more crisp fat and, ultimately, more flavour. I roasted them, on a rack, over some big sprigs of rosemary and squashed cloves of garlic for 20 minutes at 200°c, then served them up with mashed potatoes, broccoli, cabbage and a rosemary and redcurrant sauce. This easy sauce dresses up a meal like tonight's no end, and makes the most of well-flavoured, good-quality lamb without overpowering it.

Rosemary & Redcurrant Sauce

100g redcurrant jelly
200ml lamb stock
large sprig fresh rosemary

Melt the redcurrant jelly in a small pan and pour in the lamb stock. Add the sprig of rosemary, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Cover the pan if the sauce reduces too much; it should be slightly syrupy, but still liquid. Leave the sauce to cool, then strain out the rosemary and reheat gently. Season to taste and transfer to a sauce boat.

To follow a simple Sunday dinner, what could be better than cake? Chocolate cake at that. I did the chocolate version of my usual Victoria sponge and filled it with a vanilla-laced buttercream. Don't worry, we didn't eat the whole thing - there's plenty left for tomorrow!

Chocolate Sponge

200g soft butter
200g vanilla sugar
4 large eggs
160g self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the beaten eggs, one at a time, interspresing them with spoonfuls of flour. Sift in the rest of the flour, the cocoa and baking powder, then beat well until you have smooth batter. Divide the mixture equally between two greased and base-lined 20cm sandwich tins, smooth the surface and bake at 180°c for 20 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool on a rack before removing the base paper.

Vanilla Buttercream

75g soft butter
100g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
milk

Beat everything together, adding a splash of milk as needed to get a soft, 'dropping' consistency. Select the cake layer for the base and place it, upturned, on a serving plate. Spread over the buttercream over the surface of the upturned cake, top with the remaining cake layer and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Joining Up the Blogs

I've recently joined the UK Food Bloggers' Association, which was set up by Julia from A Slice of Cherry Pie. I've posted over at the UFBA blog tonight, and if you want to find out more about me, you can read my introductory post here.

Not long ago, Hubby asked me if I could make him some caramel shortbread. Could I? I love the stuff, so an excuse to make it was very welcome, especially safe in the knowledge that it wouldn't hang around for me to eat if he wolfed it down! I'd never made it before, having a bit of a fear of boiling a tin of condensed milk for hours on end. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would forget and let it boil dry. When I discovered that 'Nestlé' sell tins of 'Carnation' condensed milk already prepared into caramel 'Duche de Leche', I was thrilled. I used my regular shortbread recipe for the base, which features one of my favourite ingredients, fine semolina, but if you don't have any, just up the quantity of plain flour to 240g. I use unsalted butter for just about everything, but always make shortbread with salted butter. I just seems to taste better that way. As for the chocolate, use what you like. I prefer a half-and-half mixture of dark and milk chocolate - just break 150g of each into a bowl and stir together once they've melted.

Caramel Shortbread

200g plain flour
40g fine semolina
60g cornflour
100g icing sugar
200g soft butter, diced
397g condensed milk dulce de leche
300g chocolate

I make shortbread in my KitchenAid, just paddling everything together until it comes right. You can blast it in the processor, or take the long way round by stirring the dry ingredients together and then rubbing in the butter. Gently knead it into a softish dough.

Press the dough into a greased and base-lined 23cm square tin. Prick it all over with a fork and bake at 150°c. Cool it completely in the tin, then spread over the dulce de leche. Chill for about 30 minutes, then melt the chocolate in the microwave and pour this over the top. Spread it out carefully, then chill until just set. Remove from the tin and cut it into squares (or vice versa, depending on what sort of tin you have).

We had good old pasta and meatballs tonight - I got hold of some linguine (which I love) so I used that and Christopher had great fun getting himself into a mess with it all. We had garlic bread to go with it, and grated parmesan to scatter over.

I Love Breakfast!

Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. A good, communal family breakfast at a nicely laid table, even if it’s only once in a while, is a habit worth getting into. You can even set the table the evening before if you feel so inclined. I try, but admit I don't always achieve that level of organisation. Making time, though, to relax over a (reasonably) leisurely breakfast with good things to eat, is the best way to start the day I know. I don't feel that I can function at all if I haven't had a decent breakfast, so the boys and I always sit at the table and eat properly in the morning. My usual breakfast is a cup of tea, a glass of orange juice and a bowl of Dorset Cereals Really Nutty Muesli, while the boys mostly have Weetabix, Oatibix or Shreddies. Christopher has acquired a taste for my muesli of late, though! We follow our cereal with toast and some fruit, mainly bananas, but sometimes other seasonal fruits that have come in the organic box. I try to stretch to cooking breakfast; porridge or some eggs, for us all at least once or twice a week.

One of the things I do to keep our everyday breakfasts interesting is bake different breads. This is made very easy by having a bread machine. My most usual 'special bread' is a Spiced Fruit Loaf, which has a flavour akin to teacakes and hot cross buns, but I branched out this week, adapting my usual white loaf recipe to make some chocolate bread. We were not disappointed by it; the boys have enjoyed snacking on it, as well as eating it at breakfast time. I rather love it too, and it toasts particularly well, filling the kitchen with a gorgeous smell.

Chocolate Bread

¾ tsp easy-blend dried yeast
360g strong white flour
40g cocoa powder
2 tbsp sugar
25g butter
1 tsp salt
100ml milk
200ml warm water

Add the ingredients to the bread machine in the order required by your machine. I have a Panasonic™ Bread Bakery, so the yeast goes in first, but machines do vary. Check your instruction manual for details.

Getting Ahead

We've got friends coming for dinner tomorrow night, so today while both the boys were having a nap after lunch I did some advance preparations.

I've decided to cook my Baked Spiced Chicken, which always goes down well. Most of the work is done in advance so it can marinade in the fridge overnight, then I just need to tip it into a roasting tin and put it in the oven tomorrow. The side dishes I serve with it take hardly any time, so I don't spend most of the evening in the kitchen, missing out on the gossip.

Baked Spiced Chicken

4-6 chicken leg portions
150ml olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp cumin seed
2 tbsp coriander seed
large pinch coarse sea salt ( I use Maldon)

With a small sharp knife, cut two or three deep slashes in the thickest part of each chicken leg. Place the portions in a freezer bag and tip in the olive oil and lemon juice. Crush the cumin and coriander with the salt, using a pestle and mortar, then add this mixture to the bag. Knot or seal the top of the bag, excluding as much air as possible, then squish and massage the chicken through the bag to coat it completely in the marinade. Put the bag in the fridge for several hours or overnight. Bake at 200°c for 45 minutes until cooked through.

A cheesecake always goes down well for pudding and this is a really good one. It's a slightly fiddled-about with version of a chocolate cheesecake with cherry sauce that was in delicious. magazine a while back. I love their way of putting it together in a loaf tin, believe me, it looks really stylish when it's turned out. I make it with Milky Bar, which appeals to my kitsch side, but you can use posh white chocolate if you want.

White Chocolate Cheesecake

Wet the inside of a loaf tin and line it with clingfilm.

150g white chocolate
250g cream cheese
142ml tub double cream

Melt the chocolate, then stir until smooth and leave to cool a little. Whick the cream until it holds its shape. Beat the cream cheese and the melted chocolate together until smooth, then fold in the cream. Spoon it into the tin and level the top. Chill it for an hour to firm up.

230g plain chocolate digestives, crushed
1 tbsp cocoa powder
70g butter, melted

Mix the crushed biscuits and cocoa powder together, then stir in the melted butter. Spoon into the loaf tin on top of the chocolate mixture and press down lightly. Cover and chill overnight.

It's easier to turn out than some cheesecakes can be, too, so that's a real plus when it's likely that people might be watching you. All my worst disasters have happened when someone was 'hovering' nearby, watching me make a cock-up. If I have time tomorrow, I'll make some chocolate curls to go on top. There are some raspberries to go with it, too.

Coffee Morning

One of my friends brought her little boy round for lunch and to play with Christopher today. Mums means coffee, and coffee means CAKE. To that end, I made some brownies yesterday. I'm always tinkering with my recipe, and it's changed dozens of times over the years. I used to make them with walnuts in, then pecans or macadamia nuts, but have eschewed nuts recently, preferring the dense chocolatey slabs to be uninterrupted. I use a 9in 'Eyecatcher' brownie tin with a slide-out base, made by Silverwood™. In fact, nearly all my cake tins are Silverwood™ ones.

Fabulous Chocolate Brownies

350g dark chocolate (I use Cadburys' Bournville)

200g unsalted butter

125g dark muscovado sugar

125g light muscovado sugar

3 eggs

80g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave on Medium. Whisk eggs and sugar together until paler and thickened. Fold in the cooled chocolate mixture. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt, then gently stir to combine. Pour into a greased and floured 9in square tin and bake at 170°c for 25 minutes. Check that the top is firm - don't use a skewer to test it as the middle should still be sticky and squidgy. Cool in the tin, then cut into squares and serve, dusting with icing sugar if you like. I do.

We all had granary rolls with cheese for lunch then we played with the boys while trying to chat. I lent her "Toddler Taming: A Parent's Guide to the First Four Years" by Dr Christopher Green from my rather extensive home library. We'd chatted with our health visitor about the book when she came to give a talk at our playgroup yesterday. It's a great book; Karl and I have used it a lot to help us deal with Christopher. Dr Green has a refreshingly direct attitude and writes honestly without patronising the reader. We have found the sections on sleep and on sibling rivalry particularly useful, but it's a great all-round resource.