Double Chocolate Muffins

I must have made these Double Chocolate Muffins over 200 times in the past few years! I've tweaked the recipe a little over time and played around with changing flavours, but this is a recipe that I absolutely love. I've made over 200 in the past for a friend's daughter's wedding, and I'm always asked for them by friends and family at any party I attend. I even keep my mechanic sweet by keeping him supplied with them !!

Recipe

10oz plain flour

5oz granulated sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

4 heaped (and I mean heaped) tbsp cocoa - not drinking chocolate

200g chopped dark chocolate (cheaper than chocolate chips and I prefer finding a few large chunks in my muffins!)

8 fl oz milk

2 eggs

4oz butter

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Melt the butter and combine first with the milk, then with the eggs (to cool the butter a little and prevent scrambling the eggs!). Then carefully mix the wet ingredients with the dry until the batter is only just about ready - never overmix muffin batter as you lose the wonderful texture that you never get with supermarket produced ones.

Fill 12-15 paper muffin cases about two thirds full. If the batter gets a little floury towards the end of the bowl, then add a little milk (a couple of tablespoons) and lightly incorporate it.

Bake at Gas mark 5 for about 20 minutes, checking from 18 minutes onwards to see if they're ready. The tops should be dark and glossy, the bottoms very soft and squidgy - the essence of a good muffin! When they're done, the whole kitchen smells of chocolate :-)

The other muffins in the photo above are Strawberry and White Chocolate. Replace the chopped dark chocolate with chopped white chocolate, and leave out the cocoa powder. Add a punnet of chopped strawberries and sprinkle with demerara sugar before baking as before. The sugar gives a lovely crunch to the cakes.

Happy eating :-)

Clare xx

Pie maker, pie maker

I bought an AWT Pie Maker in the sale at work (Sainsburys) yesterday, having wanted one for a long, long time. I couldn't justify the £40 that they are usually priced at, but at £23 - I used my Nectar points for it, so it was virtually free!!

Lucy and I have just spent a lovely day together, the last couple of hours using the pie maker. We made cheese, potato and onion pies - I didn't want to use meat whilst I was 'practising' in case I messed up and wasted the whole lot.

I shouldn't have worried - they're lovely !!

I used my usual 1lb plain flour/8oz baking marg and 10 tbsp water for the pastry, which was just the right amount for two lots of four pies. For the filling I used some Basics Mashed Potato Flakes, grated some cheese in and sauted a sliced onion and mixed together. I can honestly say they're as lovely as the cheese pie I used to enjoy at the pub where I used to work.

We also made a few batches of Strawberry and White Chocolate Muffins, and Double Chocolate Muffins as I sent some in to work today (but left plenty for hubby!!), and I tried another recipe from The Takeaway Secret. This time it was Chicken Chow Mein, and everyone said it was absolutely gorgeous! It's a bit of faff whenever I do chinese meals so I try to break it down into stages. First, chop/slice vegetables into one bowl, Lucy made the sauce and I made the marinade for the chicken. I left the noodles in a saucepan ready to just cover with boiling water when Dave was nearly home.

Then when we were ready to eat, brown off chicken, stirfry vegetables, add sauce, finish off noodles, then combine everything together and serve with rice and prawn crackers. It's very fiddly, but well worth it - it's a lot easier when Lucy helps, because at times I had three saucepans/frying pans on the go !!

We also used Lucy's sewing machine to turn some old towels and faceclothes into cleaning mitts. Just folding over and sewing up one long side and one short give me a mitt that's fantastic to slip on a hand, spray on some Flash and clean.

So busy, and this is my day off !!

Clare xx

Millies 'N' McDonalds

Having recently read that you can buy a voucher at Millie's cookies for £35, which entitles you to twelve boxes of twelve cookies (£35 for 144 cookies, I think not) I decided to make our own. The recipe below makes about 15-18 cookies for approximately £1.20.



The Recipe:



Ingredients;

• 3 oz butter (softened)
• 3 0z granulated sugar
• 3 oz muscavado
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 egg
• 6 oz Self Raising flour
• A pinch of salt
• 4 oz of chocolate chips (you can use any chocolate you want. e.g. M&Ms, chopped up chocolate, toffee, fudge etc.)

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4.
2. Put all of the ingredients, except the chocolate, in a mixer and mix thoroughly.
3. Tip the mixture into a bowl and then mix in whatever chocolate you are using. Stir well. Make sure the chocolate is evenly distributed.
4. Take small amounts of the mixture and roll into approximately golf ball sized balls.
5. Place on a greased baking sheet and make sure that they are evenly spread out. These babies spread out a lot!!
6. Bake for exactly eleven minutes. No more, or no less.
7. Leave to cool on the tray for a couple of minutes then transfer to a wire tray.

Enjoy !!!

Clare xx

CFC

Not Kentucky Fried Chicken, but Clare's Fried Chicken. OK, well it was actually baked not fried but you get the picture. I tried one of the recipes out of my new book, the Takeaway Secret for Southern Fried Chicken a la KFC, and it was gorgeous!

To avoid the deep frying, I followed the recipe exactly, except instead of deep frying I oven baked for 20-25 minutes and the whole family enjoyed it. The chicken was exactly the right texture. Instead of the usual drumsticks and thighs I used a pack of chicken breasts from work reduced from £6 to £2. Alongside these I also made potato wedges using the recipe from the same book. Even more successful !!!

I have to admit to one failure though - the prawn toasts that I made for Mickey didn't go down well. Oh well, win some lose some !!

Clare xx

Hurry up !!!

I'm on tenterhooks, waiting for an Amazon delivery. I've ordered a new cookery book and three recipe/gardening books. The latter are about growing your own food and preserving it ina multitude of ways.

I hate waiting.

So I promised myself that I'd do as much cleaning as I could whilst I was waiting, so that once the books arrive I can just snuggle up in bed with a cup of coffee and enjoy them, guilt free. It's nearly half past twelve and they still aren't here!!!!!!

How much cleaning can a girl do????

I've also made a huge batch of bolognaise sauce, with lots of mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, red wine and oodles of herbs. Half is for tomorrow's lasagne, half for spag bol in the week.

Clare xx

Meal Plan

Ok- here goes a meal plan for the next few days. With me, it's either all or nothing. I stick to it beautifully or it all goes out the window! So fingers crossed......

Friday- Orange glazed chicken breasts with baby new potatoes

Saturday- Lasagne (will have to make on Friday because I'm working on Saturday, but I want them to have a decent meal)

Sunday - Spaghetti Bolognaise

Monday - Roast chicken dinner

Tuesday - Cumberland Sausage and Mash

Wednesday - Filled pasta tortellini and garlic bread (note to self - buy the garlic bread)

Thursday - beans on toast (full of protein!!!) because I'm working until 6.30pm

Friday - Crispy Chicken with potato wedges

Saturday - St James Beef (a rich beef casserole with lots of garlic and cranberry sauce)

Clare xx

Busy!!

Happy New Year !!

Christmas and New Year were both very busy for us - we had my Mum, Dad, sister and Aunty over on Christmas Day for a three course lunch, and spent a lot of the Christmas break visiting other family. Sadly I had to work a lot over Christmas (the tills keep busy at Sainsburys!) so I didn't see as much of Dave and the girls as I would have liked. I missed my babies!!

Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday (Happy 74th, Doris) so we had her over for tea. Home-made roast chicken and stuffing pie with mashed potatoes and buttered carrots, sherry trifle - her absolute favourite - and a chocolate birthday cake. It was lovely to spend happy time with her, as she has so many ongoing problems that it can be very strenous and emotional dealing with them.

I've decided to get a greenhouse this year -I desperately miss the one we used to have in our old home. I can still remember the smell of 'real' tomatoes in there, not the insipid bland ones that we buy now. Lucy is looking forward to it too......she wants to get some seeds started especially peas!

Here's to a decent year's weather!!

Clare xx