It’s raining, it’s pouring, Sadie has an urge to bake something… 🙂 Yes, in Cape Town its a stormy, wet weekend. The best thing to do in this weather is stay indoors and indulge in warm chocolatey treats, curled up around a fireplace. I’m not sure about you, but a fire always reminds me of S’mores and toasted marshmallows. What better way to combine it all than S’mores Brownies.
I know, I know…another cookie recipe??! It’s quite evident that my cookie jar has been overflowing this past two weeks with all the cookies I’ve been making, which includes a New York style choc chip cookie which I’ll share soon.
SablĂ© cookies are basically French shortbread cookies and sablĂ© in English means sand, which you’ll completely understand when you make these cookies as the texture of the dough is sand and soil-like. Sounds strange but I promise you these cookies are one of the best you’ll ever have and are chocolate dreams with a magical texture! Have patience with these cookies as well, especially because the texture is so different, you don’t want to over-mix them as they’ll be tough, just enjoy the process and trust me it’ll all be worth while. On that note, I’m going to dig into yet another and leave you with the recipe…
Ingredients:
Method:Â
Sift the flour, cocoa powder and bicarb into a bowl and add the sea salt, then stir together and set aside.
Using an electric mixer, put the butter in the mixing bowl and beat until fluffy and light. Add the sugars and vanilla and beat together for approximately 2 minutes until smooth.
Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix until you have a mixture that looks sandy then add the chocolate and mix to combine. The dough should then look like soil; it should not have formed into one large ball of dough. This is the key to getting the correct sable cookie texture. NB: if you mix for too long the biscuits will be tough.
Tip out the mixture onto a work surface and gently press together to form a uniform dough. Divide the dough into two halves and roll into two logs, 4cm thick.
Wrap the dough in cling-wrap and place them in the fridge, allowing to chill for 3 hours.
Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan oven) and line baking trays with baking paper or a silpat. Remove the dough from the fridge and using a thin, sharp knife, cut into rounds about 1cm thick. Place the cookies onto the baking trays and bake for 10–12 minutes until set around the outside but still soft in the center. If you dare, because they’ll be quite hot straight out the oven of course but I definitely recommend snatching one straight out the oven – it is a melt-in-your-mouth chocolate dream.
Leave the cookies to cool on the trays for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Once cool, leave as is or decorate according to your preference. The cookies will keep for up to one week stored in an airtight container.
Looking for an easy, somewhat different chocolate cookie? These chocolate crinkle cookies definitely the answer, especially because the ingredients would most probably already be in your pantry – that’s if you, like me, are always stocked up with chocolate 🙂
One of my absolute fave local baking blogs is The Kate Tin – Katelyn’s recipes are amazing, her pictures and food photography is basically next to none and I mean just scroll through any of her channels and you’ll be drowning in drool.
For a while now, I’ve been looking for a go-to baked chocolate cheesecake recipe and when I attempted hers, I was SOLD!
I’ve had this recipe in my drafts for such a long time, it’s finally time to shake off the dust and cobwebs and share this quick, easy and decadent recipe!
With winter snuggled in, this is the perfect quick and indulgent dessert to whip up for comfort, nostalgia and eye-rolls-of-delight…*cue the music* Chocolate Bread Pudding. I literally took a traditional bread pudding recipe and replaced the raisins with chopped up Lindt couverture. The selfish reason for this substitute is simply because I can’t stand raisins and hey any excuse for chocolate right?!
Doughnuts…warm, soft and smothered in chocolate…this is definitely one of life’s greatest pleasures.
The doughnut culture has also recently fast tracked in South Africa, with the major names like Dunkin Doughnuts and Krispy Kreme and quite a few independent stores popping up all over the country.
This is the first time I attempted to make doughnuts and I will definitely keep experimenting with New recipes and variations because this like cookies is dependent on what your preference is, i.e. soft or doughy, etc.
Ingredients
Recipe credit: Indian Delights
Method:
Decorations everywhere, extended shopping hours, chaotic malls and traffic and just the general vacation-urge, the festive season is most definitely on our doorstep!
Holiday season usually means you need a few activities to keep the kids busy and recipes on hand to quickly whip up something delicious for your guests and I’m happy to report that this recipe ticks both boxes 🙂 Continue reading
I know…once again it’s been quite a while…
With juggling work, kids, etc., etc. posting recipes has unfortunately fallen at the bottom of the never-ending to-do-list.
Inspiring me to continue however, is Voice of the Cape AKA VOCFM whom have kindly asked me to share recipes with their listeners each week.
Last week on the show, I shared my go-to chocolate chip cookie and oh does everyone need a go to chocolate chip cookie! I love this recipe because, if followed perfectly, you will have a buttery, chewy, chocolate chip cookie, with a chocolate chip in every bite 🙂 The great thing is, it takes just 10min to whip together! Continue reading
Happy 2017!!!
Most who I’ve spoken have said that 2016 was a brutal year. With all that is and has happened – the heartbreaking tragedy that is Aleppo, the disgust that is Trump, etc. We are living in quite an…interesting time… Anyway let me not get into politics, 2016 wasn’t all that bad for me, I was blessed with another daughter who is the sweetest, most chilled and content baby ever! Becoming a family of four has also been quite….interesting (chaotic, completely insane and absolutely beautiful all at the same time).
Happy Friday everyone! It’s been one of those crazy weeks, leaving me terribly excited for the weekend. The thought of just sitting down and staring at a blank wall for unexplainable amount of time has got me excited 🙂
One of my first posts was the Chocolate Brownie, which you can view here. As you can see it’s more of a cake/pudding type of chocolate brownie, served with chocolate sauce and preferably some generous scoops of ice-cream. Whenever I go to really good bakeries, I see these really divine chocolate brownie squares, my new-found addiction is the Lindt double chunk chocolate brownies which are sold at the Thursday Earth Fair Market in St Georges Mall…oh my they are heavenly! To combat my constant craving for these delicious blocks of love and goodness, I decided to attempt some sort of version myself.
To make things a tad bit more interesting for this classic brownie recipe, I added a generous handful of roughly chopped milky bar, taking the chocolatey-ness (yes that’s a word in my dictionary) to the next level.
I wish I could have taken some gorgeous pictures of them, but I promise you, before I knew it they were all swiped up….which is always a good thing!
Wishing you all a great weekend and even better Heritage/Braai Day on Tuesday!
Ingredients:
– 250g chocolate (I used Lindt milk chocolate)
– 60g flour
– 60g cocoa powder
– 1/2 tsp baking powder
– pinch of salt
– 300g caster sugar
– 250g softened butter
– 4 eggs – 3 whole eggs plain and 1 egg yolk
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a 23cm square baking tin with paper.
2. Melt 200g of the chocolate and set aside to cool slightly. Roughly chop the remaining chocolate.
3. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.
4. Beat the sugar and butter together until it is pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, together with a tablespoon of the dry ingredients. Beat in the melted chocolate, and then fold in the remaining dry ingredients and the chopped chocolate pieces. This is the opportunity to get creative and add nuts, more chocolate, etc.
Now isn’t that just fluffy!
5. Pour the mixture into the baking tin and bake for about 30-35 minutes.
6. Cake tester inserted in the middle of the cake should come out sticky but not with raw cake mixture attached to it. The cake will also continue to cook as it cools.
Working mom of two little girls with a deep love for baking and all things delicious. Join her as she shares, recipes, tips and all-things-foodie related reviews!
Sadie's Bubble of Yum 