Browsing Tag

chocolate

Breads, Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Cherry Chocolate Hot Cross Buns

Every year at Easter Time, I make some hot cross buns. It’s pretty traditional, and it’s a Good Friday tradition in the UK. Every year I get a little bored with the recipe as well. So this year, I decided to mix it up and instead of using raisins, cranberries, currants or (as I did last year) dried apricots, I decided to use chocolate covered dried cherries. They we’re a bit big so I did chopped them a little. If you don’t have chocolate covered cherries in particular, I suppose Raisinets would work as well. Or if you like the cherry-chocolate combo, then mini-chocolate chips and some dried cherries. Pleased with the result.
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29. March 2015
Cookies, Sweet Snacks

Coconut Easter Egg Nests

Easter is still a few weeks away, but I’ve decided to start making a few things early this year, in hopes of inspiring friends to do some baking this spring. It’s also the first day of Spring today, though the weather outside would not indicate that. Anyway, Easter and Spring … birds and nests and easter eggs. Cookies.
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20. March 2015
Drinks/Cocktails

Coconut + Spiced Rum Drinking Chocolate

Hot chocolate. One of those great winter traditions. And while I am sick of winter (it must be spring soon …. right?), this cocktail seemed the perfect thing for a cold-but-clear Friday. Note that if you omit the rum, it is actually a great “virgin” coconut hot chocolate for the kiddos as well.
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6. March 2015
Sweet Snacks

Chocolatey Fruit and Nut Energy Bars

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I could make “Energy/Protein Bars that don’t break the bank”. A box of 12 of the kind that he likes costs $25, which is $2.08 per bar. To be honest, I didn’t think that it was possible, and this experiment pretty much proved it: cost per bar ended up at $1.88, not including my time. Nuts, dried fruit, coconut butter, cocoa powder and nibs … all very pricey. I could probably bring the price down for 10 or 15 cents if I bought in huge volumes / bulk, but seeing this was an experiment, I went with normal sized purchases. Also, never having made energy bars before (and to be honest, I never really even thought about making them before now), I didn’t know how they would turn out, or if he would like them. If you like energy bars, these are pretty good. If you are “eh” on the topic of energy bars, you might not like them. I think that they are “good not great”.

Vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, no bake… all that.
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3. March 2015