Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito

As part of Christmas in July, Lance and I offered a mulled cider that we served as people arrived. A nice warm mug of spicy deliciousness welcoming them in from the cold. Stay tuned for that recipe! Then with dessert I served this chocolate peppermint coquito and my sister in law made egg-nog. Traditional Puerto Rican coquito is sort of a rummy coconut egg-nog. This chocolate version is barely adapted from Always Order Dessert's recipe for a chocolate coquito. I made mine minty as peppermint is such a "Christmas" flavour and it's impossible to find candy canes this time of year. They would make awesome swizzle sticks if you make this for your December Christmas. You could use Creme de Menthe instead of a peppermint extract but it would add extra sweetness and it would be the only reason for me buying a whole bottle of Creme de Menthe. The only other change is that I used unsweetened coconut cream instead of the sweetened version, I don't really drink super-sweet drinks.

The end result is a sort of more grown-up version of a peppermint Baileys. Perfect for sipping on the rocks and dunking your gingerbread into. I served them in cute little red shot glasses to add to the festivities (and take away from dishes).

This makes a little over a litre and lasts in the fridge for around 2 weeks.

Chocolate Peppermint Coquito

1 can coconut milk
100g dark chocolate (I used Lindt 85%)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can coconut cream
2 cups rum (I used Havana Club Anejo)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a small pot, add the coconut milk and roughly chopped dark chocolate and place over a low heat. Stir to melt the chocolate and form a ganache. When completely amalgamated, set aside to cool to room temperature.

When cool, place the coconut cream, sweetened condensed milk and rum in the blender, blend to combine. Add the chocolate ganache and vanilla extract. Blend well to combine. Add 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract, mix then taste to see if it needs extra.

Pour into glass bottles with lids (like leftover rum bottles), add a cinnamon stick and pop in the fridge until it's really cold. Serve dusted with cinnamon if you'd like.

Cake Club Baking - Lime and Black Pepper Chip Shortbread Cookies

At my brother’s work, they have a monthly ‘Cake Club’. A monthly morning tea where they take turn to bring in a few baked goods for everyone to share. Mike has been known to bring in some ‘weird’ treats – things that are delicious but have a bit of an unusual ingredient in them. He’s taken in the Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter and Bacon Choc Chip Cookies – things like that. Since that’s what he’s known for, now he goes out of his way to provide the weird treats. With this in mind, I tried to come up with something both delicious and weird. Something that they’d probably never had before – and the combination of which would blow their minds.

And so I present Lime and Black Pepper Chip Shortbread Cookies. A tangy, salty, sweet, crunchy cookie that’s so confused, but so delicious. With citrusy chocolate drizzled on for good measure It’s like a chocolate margarita biscuit. Now, this cookie is not everyone’s cup o’ tea. But it’s definitely mine.

I spent the weekend baking with him and today his work will get some Snickerdoodles, some of my pumpkin muffins with candied bacon and this Lime and Black Pepper Shortbread. These really are best the day you make them, because you want them crisp and crunchy, but you can store them in an airtight container for up to a week.

For the biscuits:

(makes approx 30 mini muffin tray sized) 1 large bag Red Rock Deli Lime and Black Pepper Chips
5 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup finely shredded coconut
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of one lime
A few grinds of black pepper

For the chocolate ganache drizzle:
50g dark chocolate, chopped
1 tsp tequila

2 tsp coconut cream
Zest 1 lime

Preheat oven to 170 degrees.

Pulse the chips in a food processor until it forms a fine crumb. Mix the chip crumbs with the flour, sugar, zest, pepper and coconut in a bowl, then mix in the melted butter. Press tablespoonsful into the base of a mini muffin tray. Compact with your fingers, or the back of a spoon.

Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. Leave to cool completely in the pans, then use a knife to run around the outside of each biscuit and carefully remove from the tray.

To make the drizzle, melt the chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave in 30 second bursts until melted. Stir through the coconut cream, tequila and lime zest. Pour into a ziplock bag, cut the tip off and drizzle the chocolate ganache over the top of the cookies.
 

 

Easter Treats - Chocolate Halva Spread

Sometimes you grow up eating something that you don’t realise isn’t common to the people you hang around with. One of those things for me is halva. We used to get halva mainly on full-family trips to the Nanna Shop or Kakulas as dad was it’s biggest fan in our family and he’d add it to our baskets. But it wasn’t until I was a bit older and telling someone about it and they had never heard of it that I realised it wasn’t a common food in Perth. If you’ve never had it, it’s a bit hard to describe. It’s a sweet that is made from processed sesame seeds and it’s texture is completely unique. It has a sort of ‘gritty’ texture that goes sort of chewy in your mouth like nougat as you eat it. When you cut it, it is almost sandpapery sounding. It’s only mildly sweet and has that lovely nutty flavour of sesame and this makes it perfect for cheese platters and the like. We would get two main flavours, just a plain one and chocolate. This was my favourite, as the chocolate is swirled through the halva in a marble pattern. It looked awesome, and tasted awesome.

I don’t eat halva that often now I don’t live at home, but occasionally I get nostalgic cravings for it. I saw a recipe for halva spread on the My Name is Yeh blog, I immediately got a craving. Then vowed to make this for an Easter present for my parents. This is a perfect spread for hot cross buns. I also love it spread on these chocolate hazelnut crackers from Alejandra’s Always Order Dessert. Traditionally, our family has Pasha on hot cross buns at Easter (an almond, lemon and vanilla cream cheese spread which is currently a secret family recipe), but this year I had to have two hot cross buns - one of each!

 
I used unhulled tahini, as the flavour is a bit milder which suits this sweet spread.

Chocolate Halva Spread

Adapted from My Name is Yeh
1x 385g jar of unhulled tahini
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup honey
½ tsp fine sea salt
2/3 cup dark chocolate chips

Pop the chocolate chips in a bowl and microwave in 30 second intervals until melted. Set aside.

Pour the tahini, honey and sea salt into a bowl and mix with a hand mixer on low speed until well combined. Take 1/3 of the mixture and put in a new bowl. Add the melted chocolate and blend until combined.

Alternate spooning the ‘plain’ halva and the ‘chocolate’ halva into jars to make a layered pattern.

Spread on toast, these chocolate hazelnut crackers or hot cross buns!

 

Dinner Party Dessert - Choc Peanut Butter Tofu Mousse

This recipe is inspired by Connie from Urban Bakes’ Banana Choc Tofu Mousse. When I saw her recipe I immediately knew it was something I would try. Super easy, relatively healthy and potentially delicious. Just my kind of dessert! Lance isn’t the hugest fan of banana in anything except smoothies – and even then he likes them to have lots of chocolate to disguise the banana – which granted this does have - but I thought I would still omit them. When I made this, I was also having people over for dinner, and not knowing where a few of my guests stand on bananas (they tend to be a bit of a love/hate item in my experience) it just seemed like a safer bet. I decided to add peanut butter, because I’m obsessed with the choc/peanut butter combo and I sweetened it with dates to add a slightly caramelly flavour that dates naturally have. So, on the whole, this is a pretty healthy dessert (dark chocolate is totally good for you!).
 It is also great for dinner parties, because it can be prepared in advance and popped in the fridge to set. I was a little worried that this seemed more like 6 servings, but I divided it up between my 7 guests, but it turned out pretty perfectly. The mousse turned out quite dense and decadent, so a slightly smaller serving didn’t go noticed. I did forget to take photos of it served with the chopped up peanut praline, but it was the perfect accompaniment.
 My full menu was actually pretty brilliant in that the prep work was all done before my guests arrived and I wasn’t a slave to the kitchen, apart from bruleeing the top of the Ceviche, everything was done and just needed to be served.
Salmon Ceviche Brulee
Puerco Pibil with Cashew Crema and Roast Potatoes
Choc Peanut Butter Tofu Mousse
 

Choc Peanut Butter Tofu Mousse12 dates, soaked overnight in water (just cover)
1 package silken tofu (300g)
2 tbsp smooth natural peanut butter
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup (approx. 200g) dark chocolate chips
 ¾ cup raw peanuts
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp brown sugar
 In a glass bowl, melt the chocolate by microwaving in 30 second bursts until melted (mine took 3 lots of 30seconds). Set aside to cool slightly.
 Remove the dates from soaking water to a bowl, reserving the liquid. Using a hand beater, blend to a smooth paste. Add a few tablespoons of the soaking water, salt and the vanilla to the paste and blend to thin the mixture. Add the peanut butter and blend fully incorporated. Add the tofu and blend on high until completely smooth and combined.
 Using a spatula, fold the melted chocolate into the tofu mixture.
 Scoop into the serving containers, then chill for 30 minutes to ‘set’.
 To make the toffee peanuts, line a baking tray with baking paper. Melt the butter in a pan and add the sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Approx 2 minutes. Add the peanuts and toss around in the caramelly mixture and toast for a further 2 minutes. Pour the whole mixture on the baking tray and leave to harden and cool. Crack and break the toffee peanuts up to use as garnish

Happy Birthday Skamp's Kitchen - Ricotta, Hazelnut and Fig Cake

Skamp’s kitchen had it’s anniversary on the 4^th of February. Yay! I put the call out on my facebook page – how should I celebrate my blogiversary? The overwhelming response was cake. Especially if that cake was shared with my fans! So, there was nothing for it, but to make cake when I got home from work. One friend had the good idea of making a fig cake, given that I was posting a bunch of fig recipes lately, and it just happened that I had a few left.

 

I decided to make a gluten-free cake, so that when I took the leftovers to work, a few co-workers who can’t eat gluten could still have a piece. And seeing as we were just coming out of January when everyone was still being good with their new years’ resolutions to eat healthier, I also made it with no processed sugar and all healthy fats from ricotta and hazelnuts. The result was a delicious, healthy, moist and nutty cake that didn’t last too long in the work kitchen.

 

But because I was celebrating, when Lance and I ate ours, I added an extra drizzle of honey. And some melted chocolate. And ate it with chocolate ice cream. Delicious. A dusting of icing sugar would also be a nice touch.

 

Ricotta, Hazelnut and Fig Cake
(adapted from Taste.com.au)

250g ricotta cheese
4 eggs, separated
1 vanilla bean, cut and seeds scraped out
½ cup honey
250g hazelnut meal
1 tsp ground ginger
6 figs, sliced into rounds
Optional – chocolate or honey to drizzle

Preheat oven to 150C, grease and line a springform cake tin

Beat the ricotta, egg yolks, vanilla and honey until smooth. Add the hazelnut meal and ginger, mix until fully incorporated.

Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl until soft peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the hazelnut mixture. Pour the mixture into a cake tin, and spread with a spatula. Gently press fig rounds into the top.

Bake for 40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool 10 minutes before removing from the cake tin to a wire rack.

Serve drizzled with extra honey, or melted chocolate. Or both!