TWD - Lick The Pot Chocolate Pudding Pie

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Lick The Pot Chocolate Pudding Pie, so named because Dorie’s husband always licks the pot when she makes the chocolate pudding filling.

There’s nothing not to like here - a spiced biscuit crumb crust, chocolate pudding filling (containing 200g of chocolate!) and a marscapone cream topping.

It really is the kind of dessert you want to sink your teeth into with its smooth velvety filling and creamy topping.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

For Valentine’s Day this year, I made decorated sugar cookies for the first time in a couple of years.  I wanted to make my cookies gluten free to share them with others, so I used this recipe.

I love how gluten free recipes have really stepped up in recent years. Once, there was a compromise on flavour or texture, or the need to use loads of different flours. Now, provided that you have a good gluten free flour mix and xantham gum, both of which are now readily available in supermarkets, the sky is the limit, and you can’t tell the difference between the gluten free versions and their glutinous counterparts.

 I used royal icing to decorate the cookies. Because I was worried about running out of icing, I outlined the cookies first and them flooded them, so the outlining dried and didn’t blend with the flooding. They are still pretty though, I think, and were appreciated by those I shared them with.

If you are looking for a good gluten free sugar cookie recipe, I can recommend the one that i used, linked to above.

TWD - Carrot Muffins

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Carrot Muffins. These are not your average muffins in that there is quote a number of steps and ingredients that you probably don’t need to make muffins. That said, these muffins are delicious.

 I subbed date syrup for pomegranate molasses (because I had the former but not the latter), and for the dried fruit component, I used cranberries.

I recommend using your food processor if you have one to grate the carrots, because it saves an awful lot of time.

These muffins are attractive to look at and nice and moist to eat. They taste good, undoubtedly. However, they are a little fussier to make than your average muffins, so do bear that in mind if you decide to make them.

To see everyone’s bakes this week, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Bara Brith

For St David’s Day, the Welsh National Day, I made Nigella’s Bara Brith recipe. You can find it online here.

 You can mix up the flavours of the Bara Brith by using different dried fruits and different flavoured teas to soak the fruit in. While currants are a must, I went non-traditional with the rest of the fruit, using cranberries and dates. This was of necessity to use what I had rather than by design, but it turned out well.

You can butter the slices of Bara Brith as Nigella suggests, but I served it without, like any fruit cake.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

 Ok, I know this photo doesn’t exactly look appetising, but it’s a photo of what was a truly delicious meal.

The meal is Slow Cooker Beef Stew, made from this recipe on the BBC website.

Onions, garlic and celery are fried up with carrots, bay, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste and water.  

The stewing steak is browned and added with the vegetable mix to the slow cooker, then two beef stock cubes are crumbled on top, and everything is seasoned with salt and pepper. I also added frozen peas.

The slow cooker then does its work (8-10 hours on low or 4 hours on high). 

If you want to thicken the sauce, two tablespoons of cornflour made into a paste with water are added to the slow cooker and is left to cook for another half an hour.

Once cooked, the stew is served on mashed potato.

This stew has a deep, rich flavour and is very satisfying. And of course, the slow cooker makes it very low maintenance cooking.

If you like stew, then I recommend giving this recipe a go.