Welcome to Choctober!

This year October has been replaced on my calender by Choctober! A whole month devoted to the heavenly goodness that is chocolate, I cannot think of anything better. Im setting myself the challenge to bake only chocolate related recipes this month, so get out those stretchy pants and dust off the treadmill because this is bound to be a calorie fest!

I recently acquired this free Nestle cookbook filled with amazingly delish recipes and no doubt this month will see some brought to life in my kitchen. Some ideas I'm tossing up so far are Chocolate Brownies (I'm on a constant search for the best brownie recipe), Chocolate Macarons, Chocolate Cheesecake or basically any recipe I can put 'Chocolate' in front of. If you have any suggestions or ideas I would love to hear them :)

So stay tuned this month for some mouth-watering, gut-wrenchingly good, joy-gasm inspiring chocolate recipes! If you don't want to miss a single chocolate soaked post this month follow me by email and you'll be notified when an update is made. Cheers x

P.S To mark the start of Choctober I have dyed my hair Chocolate Brown, now that's commitment!

Mars Bar 'Treasure' Slice

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve cooking with my mum. I remember having so much fun being able to create something delicious for everyone to eat (and of course getting to lick the bowl at the end)! I find it really sad that there are people out there that missed out on this experience as a child :(

There are so many child-friendly recipes out there that are quick, easy and delicious! The king of kids recipes has got to be Mars Bar Slice. Next to chocolate crackles and honey joys, it is the greatest cereal-based recipe around. I re-discovered my inner child whilst planning this recipe and decided it needed more FUN. So I added peanut MnM's and marshmallows, aka 'Treasure'! Upon reflection, the marshmallows were probably excessive, they started to melt when the melted mars bars were added and  just made the whole slice extra sticky and gooey.

No denying it, this slice is wicked rich, but for the effort-to-result ratio it's definitely a winner. Not really a last minute recipe though, unless you store mass amounts of mars bars and MnM's in your pantry, you'll have to head to the shop for ingredients.

Mars Bar 'Treasure' Slice

What you will need

12 fun size mars bars, chopped roughly
50g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
3 cups Rice Bubbles
1 cup Peanut MnM's
1 cup marshmallows, chopped roughly

What you will need to do

Line a slice tin with baking paper. Place Rice Bubbles, MnM's and marshmallows in a large mixing bowl and set aside. In a small saucepan over low heat melt mars bars, butter and golden syrup. Stir until everything is melted and mixture is smooth. Pour mixture into bowl with Rice Bubbles and stir until combined. Pour mixture into prepared tin and spread evenly. Press down with the back of a spoon to compress. Place into fridge for at least an hour to set.

Double Choc-Chip Cookies

Choc-chip cookies are the best. Double choc-chip cookies are even BETTER. These are the perfect cookie to accompany a cuppa after a long day. I had some left over choc-chips which I melted and dipped some of the cookies into, best idea ever!

I rate Mrs Fields cookies as the most delicious I've ever had, followed by Subway cookies (cooked soft of course). These cookies are more dry and aren't chewy like the previously mentioned cookies, but they are still delicious. They have a crumbly texture and aren't overly sweet, but I find that just makes the choc-chips stand out a lot more.

I have come across many different recipes for choc-chip cookies but when I was growing up my favourite recipe was from the Women's Weekly Biscuit Cookbook. This recipe is from the CadburyKitchen.com.au, adapted ever so slightly by yours truly. Ok I didn't actually adapt the ingredients however I changed the process from placing spoonfuls of mixture onto trays to rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters to cut them out. I like that you get a more uniform shape in the cookies this way.

 Double Choc-Chip Cookies

What you need

125g butter
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup white choc-chips
1/2 cup white choc-chips extra

What you need to do

Preheat oven to 160*C. Cream butter and sugars in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Sift in flour and cocoa. Add choc-chips and mix until combined.

Lightly flour your work bench and place dough on it. Lightly flour the dough and roll out to about 2cm thick. If the dough is sticky just add more flour. Using a cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as you can and place them on baking trays lined with baking paper. With the scraps of dough, mould together and roll out again to cut out more cookies. Repeat this process until there is no more dough left.

Bake cookies for approximately 12-16 minutes. Take out of oven and leave to cool on the tray. Melt the  extra choc-chips in the microwave until smooth. Dip cookies one at a time into the white chocolate to cover half the cookie. Place on a tray lined with baking paper and put into the fridge to set.

Beef and Mushroom Pies

This is just a quickie. I didn't really want to post savoury recipes on this blog, but I made these and they turned out divine, I just had to share. The recipe is from Taste.com.au so I won't bother repeating it on here.

I had a bit of drama making these in that I bought a brand new casserole dish to cook the filling in only to have it explode on the stove top before I even started... Probably shouldn't buy cheap cookware from Kmart anymore. In the end I did the stove top parts in a saucepan and transferred it to a baking dish for its time in the oven. 

The only adjustments I made was to make shortcrust pastry bottoms for the pies. I used frozen pastry as I am not too confident in making my own just yet (and lets face it I was feeling lazy). Also my filling turned out a bit runny so I used more butter and flour and thickened it up.

I made the filling a day in advance so that it would be cool when I filled the bases. I blind baked the bases first then added the mixture and puff pastry tops for the final bake. The mixture is nice and chunky but still very tender, I prefer this to the mince-like filling you get in cheap frozen pies.

I made several different sizes just to experiment but I personally loved the tiny party pies the best. I still have filling and pastry left over so I will probably make some more during the week, they are pretty quick to whip up once the filling has been made. I might even try some with mash potato on top!