Fun | The Mindfulness Kitchen

Chocolate Malteaser Fridge-Cake

By Emma Hawkins | April 11, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

I’ve got to the point now where I’m cooking more than twice a week, so I have a fast growing store of recipes I’m waiting to post. This one, for example, I made way back at the start of March when I was craving a slice of this Malteaser fridge-cake bliss. It won’t do much for anyone on the nutritional front, but it’s a definite mood-booster. I feel everyone has that one thing that they make which is a hit from the first time they make it. For me this is one of those – it’s impossible to get wrong, tastes incredible, and is perfect for sharing, what’s not to like?

As it takes barely any time to make, and doesn’t need to be cooked, I often whip this up late at night when I’ve realised I’m meant to be taking some food to something the next day. I can whop everything together, bung it in the fridge and then it’s ready to be cut it into slices in the morning!

Recipe

Makes 12 squares

Time: 15 minutes, plus chilling

Ingredients

150g Butter, plus extra for greasing
300g Milk chocolate
80g Golden syrup
330g Digestive biscuits
350g Malteasers

Method

Put the butter, chocolate and syrup into a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Leave to melt, stirring occasionally to combine.
Whilst waiting for the mixture to melt put the biscuits into a bowl and crush with the back of a rolling pin. You want it to be mostly crushed but if there’s a few lumps here and there that’s fine.
Put the malteasers onto a chopping board and chop them roughly. Add them to the digestives.
Pour the melted chocolate onto the biscuits and malteasers and mix until all combined.
Line a small square tin with butter and cling film. Then pour the mixture into the tin and level out with the back of a spoon.
Put the mix into the fridge to set for at least an hour, or better overnight.
Once set chop the malteaser fridge cake into squares and then serve!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

Easter Simnel Bread

By Emma Hawkins | March 28, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

Simnel cake is to Easter what Christmas cake is to Christmas. Love it or hate it, it’s the embodiment of Easter in a bake. However, I have to admit I’ve never been much of a fan of fruit cake, and so I’ve decided to morph the flavours of simnel into a bread. It has all the classic almonds, spices and fruit found in a simnel cake, but it’s also light, soft and beautifully flavoured with a womph of rum. Easter in my family is a very social occasion and we tend to get the whole family together and have a nice meal. This bread is perfect for an event like this as the twirled fingers which make up the loaf can be torn off tear-and-share style, making it perfect for social occasions!

It may seem weird that there’s balls of marzipan on top of the loaf, but here’s a little simnel fact to get you in the Easter spirit. Traditionally simnel cake is topped with 11 balls of caramelised marzipan to represent the 12 disciples, minus Judas. I’ve honoured this tradition here, topping the loaf with marzipan to make it truly simnel and to give it a bit of a wow factor.

Recipe

Makes 1 loaf (serves about 13)

Time: 2 hours

Ingredients

200g Raisins
Zest 1 Lemon
Zest 1 Orange
2 tbsp Rum
1 tbsp Orange juice
520g Strong white bread flour
12g Salt
30g Caster sugar
2 tsp Mixed spice
3 tsp Ground cinnamon
10g Fast-action dried yeast
40g Butter
50ml Milk
2 Large eggs, beaten
200g Marzipan

To Decorate:

1 Egg, beaten
Apricot jam to glaze
100g Icing sugar
30g Flaked almonds

Method

Put the raisins, lemon zest, orange zest, rum, and orange juice into a bowl. Mix together and then cover with clingfilm or a tea towel and leave to soak for at least an hour, or even better overnight.
The next day start by putting the flour, salt, sugar, mixed spice and yeast into a bowl. Make sure the yeast and salt don’t come into direct contact as the salt will kill the yeast. Mix everything together with a wooden spoon.
Next add the butter, milk, eggs and 135ml of water and mix together to form a soft dough.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled or floured worktop and knead for about 10 minutes until the mixture is smooth and elastic.
Form the dough into a ball and then tip into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with clingfilm and leave at room temperature to rise for about an hour, until doubled in size.
When ready knock back the dough by kneading it for about 20 seconds on a lightly floured worktop. Then split the dough in half, wrap one of the halves in clingfilm and set it to one side.
Take the other half and re-form it into a ball. Roll it out into a circle with a diameter of about 30cm – using a plate or large, round object as a guide can help with this. The dough will spring back and resist being stretched so just persevere until it stays in the shape you need it. Transfer this sheet of dough to a lined baking tray.
Lightly dust your work top with icing sugar and roll out 50g of the marzipan to a circle with a diameter about 28cm, or generally a couple of cm less than your first bread circle. Place this marzipan disc on top of the disc of dough.
Sprinkle over the raisins which have been soaking in the rum and zests to make an even layer.
Roll out the second lump of dough into another circle with a diameter about 31cm wide. Brush the edge of the first circle with water and then lay the second dough circle on top of the first.
Tuck the dough underneath itself around the edge to seal the two discs and make it into a neat circle. Next take a pair of kitchen scissors and cut 12, 10cm deep incisions into the circle to make a sun shape. Then take each strip and twist it twice clockwise to get a flower effect. Cover loosely with clingfilm and leave to rise for about an hour.
Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Brush the loaf with the beaten egg to glaze and then put in the oven to bake for about 45 minutes until risen and golden brown. If it starts to burn cover it with tin foil to stop it browning too much.
Put the apricot jam into a pan and heat gently to loosen it up. When the loaf is brought out of the oven brush with the warmed apricot jam to glaze.
Roll the rest of the marzipan into 11 smooth balls, and then lightly brush with a blowtorch (or put under the grill) to caramelise. When the loaf is cool place balls in a circle on the top. Mix the icing sugar with 2 tbsp of water to make a just-pourable water icing. Drizzle this icing over the loaf, then sprinkle with flaked almonds and serve!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

Cinnamon Roll Apple Pie

By Emma Hawkins | March 4, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

My bakes never last very long in my house. Leave something on the kitchen table and it seems to disappear within a day or two, and this cinnamon roll apple pie is no exception! This style of pie crust is becoming a bit of a food trend, flooding every kind of social media. My sister knows I’m a big fan of cinnamon rolls and apple pie so I first saw the idea when my she tagged me in a post on it, and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to make my own!

Instead of making (or buying) a dough for the crust – as you would if you were making cinnamon rolls – I’m using a shop-bought shortcrust here for two reasons, 1) it’s more sturdy and therefore a better container for the apple filling, and 2) it’s a lot quicker and easier to work with, and will therefore help you get a tight roll which should make the pie more aesthetically appealing. This also means that it’s not too tricky or time consuming to make, so if you want to make something that looks cool but doesn’t require too much culinary nous this is a good one to try.

I was experimenting on this one a bit which is why it doesn’t look very neat, but I’ve now worked out how to make it look better. Originally I tried to roll the little rolls together into one sheet (as above) but this didn’t work as the individual rolls didn’t fuse together. Therefore I’d recommend doing what I ended up doing next – roll each little roll out to the thickness you want it to be (about 1/2 the thickness of a pound coin) and then line the tin with these flat discs, overlapping and pressing adjacent rolls together so they fuse when cooking and so there’s no gaps. That said though, even if it doesn’t look completely neat it’s guaranteed to taste good so don’t worry!

Recipe

Serves 8

Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

For the crust

2 tbsp Ground cinnamon
80g Light brown sugar
2 packs of ready rolled shortcrust pastry (I used Jus-Rol)
60g Butter
Flour for dusting
1 Egg, beaten

For the filling

6 Medium sized Bramley apples
140g Caster sugar
½ tsp Ground cinnamon
3 tbsp Flour

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C.
Mix the cinnamon and sugar in a bowl and set to one side. Lay out the pastry on your surface. Spread over the butter and then sprinkle over the cinnamon sugar mix so that it covers the whole sheet of pastry in an even layer.
Roll the pastry up from the short end, like a swiss roll, to make a tightly rolled log. Wrap the roll in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile begin to prep the filling. Peel, core and slice the apples and then wrap them in layers of kitchen roll and set to one side, (this will help to take some of the moisture out of the fruit so you don’t end up with soggy bottom pastry).
Put the sugar, cinnamon and flour for the filling into a bowl, mix and set aside for later.
Take the pastry out of the fridge and put it onto a chopping board. Take a sharp knife and slice the roll into discs about the thickness of a pound coin.
Lightly flour a surface. Then take one of the discs and use a rolling pin to flatten it into a thinner disc, about half the thickness it was before. Repeat with 2/3 of the discs.
Take these discs and line the tin with them, starting from the centre of the base and working up the sides of the tin until you have a little overhang. Press the discs together so that they fuse and there’s no gaps.
Put the apples into the bowl of sugar, cinnamon and flour. Mix everything together and then tip this into the pie case.
Cover your work surface with a sheet of clingfilm and arrange the rest of the pastry rolls on it in a round shape, making sure they’re close together. Cover these with another layer of clingfilm (this will make it easier to work with them) and then roll over them with a rolling pin to merge them into a single sheet. You want this sheet to be about 1 cm wider than the pie tin do that it comes into contact with the overhanging pastry.
Brush the edge of the pie with a little water. Then take off one of the layers of clingfilm and flip the pastry sheet onto the top of the pie. Then take the other sheet of clingfilm off the pastry sheet.
Take a knife and use it at a 45˚ angle to cut off the extra pastry around the edge. Then crimp the edge of the pie to seal everything by pinching the pastry between your thumb and first finger on one hand and your first finger on the other.
Brush the top of the pie with the beaten egg to glaze and then bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.
Leave to cool slightly before serving with cream, custard or ice cream!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

Billionaires Freakshake Cheesecake

By Emma Hawkins | February 25, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

The other day I was milling around on Pinterest, as you do, and I stumbled across something that’s becoming a bit of a new food trend – the freakshake. For those who don’t know it’s basically a milkshake in a funky jar, topped with tonnes of tasty treats such as brownies, waffles, popcorn, cream etc. I almost got diabetes just looking at it, and so naturally I decided to do a spin off of my own.

For some reason I’ve never made a cheesecake before, so I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to go for it. Hence the billionaires freakshake cheesecake was born- a stunning vanilla cheesecake topped with every indulgent treat out there, with a general theme of the flavours of billionaires shortbread thrown in. This is insanely good for a night in/movie night/house party, but as those don’t come around every day it’s understandable that this might look a bit over-the-top for the every day household. Therefore I’ve included a list of alternative ways of topping the basic cheesecake at the bottom of the post, as the simple vanilla base is a delicious canvas for any flavour of cheesecake.

This takes very little effort or skill to make, but it does need time to set, so I’d recommend making this the day before you need it and leaving it to chill overnight. That way you can be sure that it’ll be set for when you want to serve it, and you won’t end up with cheesecake flopping all over your kitchen worktop.

Recipe

Serves 12

Time: 45 minutes plus chilling

Ingredients

For the Base:

100g Butter
300g Digestive biscuits

For the Filling:

1 tbsp Vanilla bean paste
550g Soft cheese
75g Icing sugar
250ml Double crem

For the Topping:

100ml Double cream
100g Milk chocolate
1 Box mini millionaire shortbreads
1 Box of mini brownies
100g Raspberries
100g Strawberries
3 Crunchies
1 Bag of twirl bites
A handful of Caramel popcorn

Method

Begin by making the base. Put the butter into a pan and melt over a medium heat.
Then take the biscuits, put them into a large bowl and break them up into crumbs with the back of a rolling pin. Pour the butter into the bowl and then mix it all together until the biscuits begin to clump together.
Take a 21cm cake tin and line it with butter and cling film. Tip in the crushed biscuit mix and smooth it over with the back of a spoon to make a compact layer of even thickness. Put this into the fridge whilst you make the next layer.
Put the vanilla and cream cheese into a bowl and whisk together until the cream cheese begins to soften. Add the icing sugar and double cream and mix again until smooth and the mixture starts to thicken.
Pour the creamy mixture onto the biscuit base. Smooth it over with a spoon or palette knife to make an even layer and then put back into the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours (better overnight).
When the basic cheesecake is ready begin prepping the toppings. Put the cream into a bowl and whisk it until it forms soft peaks. Put this into a piping bag with a star shaped nozzle and leave in the fridge until needed.
Then put the chocolate into a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water and leave to melt. Then transfer it to another piping bag with a small round nozzle and get ready to start decorating!
Begin by stacking up the larger elements of your decoration, such as the millionaires shortbread and brownies, in the centre of the cheesecake. Then place the fruit, popcorn and chocolates in and around these to build up the stack. Cut some of the shortbread bites and chocolates into quarters and sprinkle them over the cheesecake to top it off. Finish the decorating by piping the cream into any gaps and then drizzle over the chocolate.
Serve and enjoy!

Alternatives:

For all of the following make the cheesecake as written in steps 1-5. Then take 300ml of double cream and whisk to soft peaks. Tip this onto the cheesecake and smooth out with a palette knife to make an even layer and then top with the following –

Berry Bonanza Cheesecake – Scatter over a handful each of blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and blackberries and garnish with fresh mint!

Banoffee Cheesecake – Slice two bananas into discs about the thickness of a pound coin. Drizzle a little lemon juice over the banana slices so they don’t brown over time. Arrange these slices on top of the cheesecake. Put a little salted caramel sauce into a piping bag with a small round nozzle and drizzle the cheesecake with it. Serve!

Lemon Meringue Cheesecake – Take a lemon and cut into into very thin discs. Put 100ml of water into a pan and add the lemon slices. Boil for 2 minutes and then drain the lemon and set them to one side. Put 100g of sugar and water into a pan and bring to the boil, whilst stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Then stop stirring and add the lemon slices. Leave to simmer, but not boil, for about 1 hour. Take out of the pan using tongs and leave to set on a lined baking tray. Take some small meringues and either arrange them around the edge of the cheesecake or crush and sprinkle them over the cheesecake, depending on the size of them. Decorated with your candid lemon and finish with a drizzle of lemon curd.

Amaretto Cheesecake – Crush some amaretto biscuits and sprinkle them over the cheesecake. Sprinkle over some toasted flaked almonds and finish with a dusting of icing sugar.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

Salted Caramel, Raspberry + Chocolate Brownie Pudding

By Emma Hawkins | February 1, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

When I was younger my favourite dessert was chocolate sponge with custard, and this is a bit of a deluxe adaption on that warming comfort food classic. As usual I’ve gone a bit over the top on the indulgence, but it’s totally worth it. Fudgy chocolate brownie, with a salted caramel sauce underneath, and topped with fruity bursts of raspberries is the ultimate comforting pudding.

For the keen beans out there you’ll also notice that the brownie mix is pretty similar, ney identical to that in my Mississippi mud pie recipe. The is because I’m a) short on time this week and b) it works so well in this that it made sense to rework it into this recipe. So if by chance you made and enjoyed my Mississippi mud pie you’ll probably like this to!

(Note: It’s pretty rich, so a smallish tray will feed more people than you think!)

Recipe

Serves 10

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

160g Butter
220g Dark chocolate
3 Medium eggs
210g Caster sugar
40g Plain flour
100g White chocolate, roughly chopped
6 tsp Salted caramel (Homemade or shop bought)
100g Raspberries
Cream to serve

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a glass, 30x20cm oven-proof dish with butter and set aside for later.
Now make the brownie mix. Put the butter and chocolate into a bowl over a pan of simmering water and leave to melt.
Take another bowl and whisk the eggs until pale and fluffy with an electric whisk. Add the sugar and continue to whisk until it leaves a trail when the whisk is taken out.
Fold the chocolate into the eggs, sieve in the flour and add the chopped white chocolate. Fold everything again until combined.
Take the caramel sauce and pour it over the base of your greased dish. Pour the brownie mix over the top and spread over evenly. Finally sprinkle over the raspberries and push them into the batter slightly.
Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the brownie is just cooked. Don’t leave it in the oven for too long, you want it to be gooey and soft in the middle.
Serve with fresh rapberries and cream!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x