Category Archives: Children

Hugh’s ten minute cookies

I don’t know why I haven’t posted this recipe before. Its is the most made biscuit recipe in our house and the most loved. I prefer these biscuits with nuts added, too (macadamia, hazelnuts or almonds, lightly toasted, lend themselves particularly nicely, I think) but although my children go mad for nuts as a separate snack, they prefer these biscuits with just chocolate chunks added.

I do confess, here, to having packets of ready made chocolate chunks in the cupboard, because chopping chocolate is one of my least favourite things. But if you like really big chunks of chocolate, or are really precious about the sort of chocolate you use (as I am for presque everything else) then best to choppahoppa the chocolate yourself. However, I get a rather perverse pleasure from snipping open a packet of chocolate chunks and just chucking them in.

The added bonus these cookies have is that you don’t have to wait for the butter to soften to room temperature – you melt it – before you can start mixing, so these really are super quick to make. They’re still biscuits. Not broccoli, but at least you know they’ve not got hydrogenated fats in them or other crap.

I’ve adapted Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s original recipe by upping the chocolate needed (he originally asked for 100g, but I like a chunk or a chip in at least every second bite) and I add at least half wholemeal plain flour. I’ve made these with all wholemeal flour and you really can’t notice, it just lends a certain, lovely, nuttiness. But in order not to get too worthy, the best approach is probably half and half, which is what the recipe asks for here.

So this is what you need:

125g unsalted butter

100g granulated or caster sugar *

75g soft, light, brown sugar *

1 egg

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

150g of plain flour in total. I use 75g white and 75g wholemeal

(I have also made these with 50g white, 50g wholemeal and 50g ground oats and they were delicious)

half a teaspoons of baking powder

A pinch of sea salt

150g chocolate (I use half white, half plain)

[If so wish, 100g toasted macadamia/hazels/almonds]

Preheat the oven to 190C (I use fan on 175 I have to say)

Gently melt the butter. You really do want to be gentle and take it off just as soon as it’s melted. If gets too hot then let it cool slightly before using it. Otherwise the chocolate will melt before you even get the mixture into the oven.

Put the butter into a mixing bowl and to it, add the two types of sugar. Mix together. Now add the egg and teaspoons of vanilla essence. Now mix in the flour, baking powder and salt. When all well blended gently stir through the chocolate chips (and nuts if using).

Onto lined with baking paper biscuit trays, put a tablespoon of mixture per biscuit. I sometimes make these giant, and sometimes make them small. So see how you feel. Leave good space in between. I get about six onto my baking tray when I go large with these. I couldn’t possibly tell you how many these make exactly, since I vary the sizes and often a number of them get eaten before they’re completely cooled, but I’d say about 14-18. As a rough guide.

Bake for 7-9 minutes. If you like them crispy then bake for longer. I like mine chewy so take them out after seven and leave them to cool on the tray for a bit (or slide carefully – baking sheet and all – onto a cooling rack).

That’s it. Now all I need is a really nice cookie jar.

* I like to experiment with cutting down the amount of sugar in things. Sometimes you just can’t though because something magical goes on with certain proportions of sugar/butter/flour. But. I have made these with just 100g of sugar – 50g granulated/caster and 50g of soft brown – and they are delicious and, I think, plenty sweet enough. The consistency changes slightly though. Give it a go and see what you think.

note: you don’t have to bake these all at once. The mixture will keep for a good few days in the fridge and you can put spoonfuls onto a baking tray and have fresh cookies on the table in minutes. That way you can have freshly baked over more days.

I add a substantial amount of nuts to this mixture for when I make them for grown ups. Roasted, chopped, almonds and hazelnuts work best. I also put the mixture in the fridge as this gives me thicker, squidgier biscuits which I like.

I now have a nice cookie jar.

Best buys for a family summer

Great children’s ruck sack

Colouring in for grown ups (oh okay, and children)

1 Reply

A few weeks ago, my friend and one of my editors, Kate linked to a piece on the Guardian about colouring in. On that page you can find ways to download samples form an incredible book called The Secret Garden. Not the secret garden many of us think about, by Hodgson Burnett, but a completely new colouring in book by Johanna Basford, full of intricate pen and ink drawings that you…colour in.

For reasons that I never worked out, I was unable to download and print out the sample pages, which forced me to buy the book, and I’m glad I did. It’s beautiful. My girls and I sat all afternoon and coloured in (for nearly FOUR HOURS).

There is something incredibly therapeutic about colouring in and this peaceful camaraderie descended upon us, with only minimal bickering over who had the red. We chatted and chatted and laughed and laughed. The eldest and I coloured in with more precision than the youngest, but I have to admit I love the anarchy of younger children armed with a colouring pencil (you do really need pencils for this).

In my column for the Guardian (where I look at family problems) I’ve always advised going for a drive if you think your child needs to talk. There’s something about the lack of eye contact and the constraints a car presents, that can help chidren talk about what’s troubling them. To this I’d like to also add – colouring in with your child. Perhaps it’s the lack of eye contact again, perhaps colouring in focuses but also empties your mind so you can do a bit of stock taking. Who knows. It works. My two chatted away. Not that they had anything in particular to say, but it struck me that if they did, this was the ideal place to do it.

And then I remembered that the first sort of therapy I ever had, not long out of my teens, the therapy that changed my life and undid all the ‘knots’ in my brain, was art therapy.

Making your own ice cream cones

3 Replies

Writing about this most happy of subjects: ice cream, is an attempt to shake off a very bad case of what I guess are called Monday blues.

Although I feel ridiculous writing about ice cream in this weather. I’m in Suffolk and it’s grey and cold. I’m back in 4 ply cashmere, last night we lit a fire, I have loads of stuff to do that I’m optimistically lumped together in an ‘in tray’ formation (the most useful thing I ever ever read was “we all die with a full in tray so don’t try to clear it”) and I feel as creative as a piece of plain, economy photocopy paper.

So, ice cream cones. What, you may be thinking, is the figging point of making your own? Well, you may live somewhere where you can easily buy those nice sugar cones. I don’t. And last year my local supermarket, Waitrose, seemed to have a run on decent ice cream cones and for weeks and weeks all you could get were a) awful wafer cones or b) awful wafer cones in the shape of a teddy’s head. This is very serious when you are an ice cream maker’s daughter. You cannot serve good gelato in such a receptacle.

Also, I am slightly obsessed with what goes into stuff and if I can make things at home and control the ingredients, then I will. And there is always a deadline to be avoided..I’m involved in a very grown up, serious piece at the moment and when things get a bit de trop for me, I retreat into the whimsy of baking and making. Not least because I have an almost pathological need to achieve. Something. Anything. Even if it’s ‘just’ stepping back and looking at a pile of ice cream cones which I’ve just made, whilst upstairs, there are 1,000 words that remain quite, quite unwritten.

I had, somewhere in the back of the cupboard, an old pizzelle iron/maker. Pizzelle are small waffle biscuits with a fancy pattern on them. You can also roll them up into a mini cone shape. Pizzelle irons are not easy to find in the UK which is a shame. So, because I thought it would be really frustrating for you, me banging on about how to make your own ice cream cones using something you can’t buy here, I bought a waffle cone maker from Lakeland. I know, so kind of me. [Disclaimer: I get press discount at Lakeland and have done for nearly 16 years.]

So, first and briefly, the machine. It’s £29.99 which isn’t cheap and only you can gauge whether it’s really worth buying it. We eat a ridiculous amount of ice cream in this house so for us, yes it was. It isn’t anything fancy and I can’t tell you if it’s the BEST ice cream cone maker on the market because it’s not a big market.

I can tell you this though: ignore the instructions that come with it as they are crap. If you use the plastic cone shaper that they send you, you will end up crying as it makes for a giant-aperture cone. Just chuck it in the bin. You can roll them by hand, it just takes a bit of practice. Also ignore the recipe that comes with it makes an insane amount.

How to make plain ice cream cones, the definitive recipe after weeks of testing:

This makes about 20 cones.

75g very soft butter

125g caster sugar

300ml of water/milk. I use 250ml water, 50ml of milk. (I’ve also used unsweetened almond milk and it’s worked just fine.)

250g plain flour (for variations such as wheat free, see below)

1 egg

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

Cream the butter and sugar together. Then add the egg and vanilla extract. Mix together. Add the flour and salt and finally add the water/milk in a steady stream, mixing as you go. Beat well. You need to have a fairly thick but runny batter. If it’s too thick you’ll end up with cones that don’t cook, too thin and they’ll break easily once cooled. So don’t be afraid to experiment. It’s doubtful you’ll need less liquid that I stipulate however. I’m aware I’m sounding very bossy in this post.

Put the waffle maker onto maximum. Don’t even bother with the lower temperatures: waste of time.

I use about two soup spoons of batter. Close the waffle iron down. It takes 3-4 minutes (more like 4 but check after 3) until done. They are done when they are golden in places and dry looking. You will need to experiment a bit with what works for you.

When done, lift out with a spatula. You now have approximately ten seconds to shape your cone or it will set hard. If you’ve cooked it right, you will be able to shape it into a cone just using your hands. I lay mine flat on a chopping board and roll. Not too tightly rolled, or you’ll end up with hardly any room to put the dollop of ice cream. Not too large or you’ll need 2,000 calories worth of gelato to fill it up. It does take practice. Hold it in shape with your hand for a minute, and pinch the end (otherwise ice cream will drip through when you put it in). The cone be hot but you sort of get used to it. Or I did. That’s it, set to properly cool on a wire rack. It does take a bit of time to make them but I find it quite meditative.

They store in the infamous ‘airtight container’. They keep for a week or two, probably longer but they never last that long here.

Variations:

Chocolate cones:

As above but replace 30g of flour with cocoa powder and up the sugar to 135g. I found these took only 3 mins.

Wholemeal cones:

Yes really! These are really tasty actually. Same as above but do half plain flour and half wholemeal. And healthier too.

Wheat/gluten free

Substitute the normal flour for rice flour. You can also make them chocolate wheat free versions by using 135g sugar instead of 125g, then adding 30g cocoa powder and using only 220g of rice flour.

Gluten/dairy free

Substitute the normal flour for rice flour, the butter for coconut oil (slightly less: 70g) and the milk for almond milk. These taste totally delicious, and make a very crisps cone; they need slightly longer cooking (3-3 and a half minutes) because of the coconut oil. And, I think because the mixture is thicker, they spread out less and make smaller cones. I really like these.

Remember, generally: the more liquid you add, the thinner you can get the cones. This is great if you want a very fine cone but it will break more easily.

Home made cones are a bit more fragile than shop bought ones, so handle them carefully.

Strawberry ice cream

4 Replies

Ice cream is very important to me. Its icy, creamy tentacles spread wide and deep through my family history. My father was an ice cream maker for a while, from when he turned seventy (seventy!) until about seven years ago. But we sold, and made, ice cream long before that.

For years now, I’ve made my own ice cream. And if you’re interested in some recipes I have one for the best chocolate ice cream in the world; mint choc chip ice cream; a rich vanilla ice cream; a lighter vanilla ice cream that uses whole (not just yolks) egg and soon I’ll put one up for possibly my favourite: almond praline. You can read about ice cream makers here and I now also make my own cones (see that cone in the picture? I made that). I know! Madness, but there you go.

The recipe for strawberry ice cream below, makes enough for about four people, possibly two helpings each. It’s hard to say as these days I double the recipe (super easy to do and you should double it too if you’re making it for a gathering as OBVIOUSLY you don’t have to eat it all at once) and that makes LOADS. And as here in England the weather has just exploded and the grass looks greener and all the flowers are bursting into vibrant life and the trees are popping their buds, it seems only right to celebrate with some gelato.

2 large egg yolks, freeze the whites for madeleines

75g granulated sugar

80ml milk, I always use semi skimmed, but don’t go lower than that, so full fat or semi skimmed

250g fresh strawberries, hulled. If you need to wash them first dry them carefully as water is the enemy of ice cream (you’ll get a ‘colder’ ice cream with water crystals if you’re not careful)

120ml double cream

As I’ve said before. You need milk and cream to make ice cream so don’t be tempted to leave one out.

Beat the egg yolks together with the sugar until pale-ish. Add the milk and place the lot in a saucepan and stir well over a low to medium heat until it thickens. Do not allow to boil but be patient as this bit can take 5-10 mins and you will need the heat to be more than a candle’s worth to get it going. You’re not going for thick like a custard, but it needs to thicken. It will thicken even more as it cools. But don’t boil it as it may split.

Now put the strawberries and the custard mixture into a blender and blitz until really smooth and there are no bits left. Whisk the cream in a separate bowl until thick, slowly fold the cream into the custard mixture or vice versa, whatever works for you. Chill until cold. The colder it is the less work the ice cream maker will have to do. When cold put into ice cream maker.

That’s it. It’s ready to eat when it’s out of the ice cream maker but obviously it will be very soft, so if you like it to be harder then put it in a container, in the freezer, until such time as you intend to eat it.

Isla bikes

6 Replies

Six years ago, I wrote about children learning to cycle. Whilst researching the piece, I spoke to someone from the CTC.

He told me about a new company that was starting up, run by someone called Isla. I rang her and we had a chat and I mentioned the company in my piece. It was so nice to actually speak to someone who ran her own company and not a PR representative of a huge cycle manufacturing chain.

My eldest was then about three and I was looking for a bike for her, so decided to buy a balance bike. I’d seen loads of the wooden versions around London but they really annoyed me for some reason and, at the time, Isla’s Rothan was much cheaper than the other metal versions around (I think she vastly underpriced her bikes in the early months).

The reason Isla bikes are so good, but also what makes them not the cheapest you can buy, is that they are made with components that are specially made for children’s bikes, not scaled down versions of adult bikes. Hence brakes are easy to apply: they’re not stiff, but have a lovely, easy, action. I think this is really important for little folk with their tiny hands. IBs also hold their value incredibly well. Look on eBay and you’ll see what I mean. And they look great. Our bike man said that my daughter’s Isla bikes were the best quality children’s bikes he’d ever seen. You can read more about what makes them so good here.

You can of course buy cheaper children’s bikes and if that’s what you want to do, go right ahead. I learned to ride on a bike far too small for me, up and down the corridor at my aunt’s house in Italy. The moment I got my own bike (I was TWELVE), I was able to ride it straight away.

Both of my girls have always had Isla bikes (it helps with the value for money thing if you can pass them down the sibling chain), from the Rothan, through the Cnoc and the Beinn. Because my children have unfeasibly long legs, I always ring up for advice before purchasing and you should too if your children have very long or short arms, of if you’re not sure of sizing. And although my eldest learned to ride on the balance bike, Rothan, she still decided she needed stabilisers on her pedal bike when she graduated to one.

Today Isla bikes launches in the US. So all of my readers in the US can also buy one.

*Disclaimer. I bought all of our bikes at full price for years, but the last two years Isla has, exceptionally, given me a discount on my children’s bikes (I think I’ve bought two with a discount) as she credits me with helping her launch her business. Of course she would have done it all by herself.

The Tripp Trapp (high) chair. The best chair for babies and children ever in the history of the world.

11 Replies

By the time my eldest was two, I had heard enough about the bloody Tripp Trapp chair. At the time, I co-ran a parenting board (it no longer exists but was fabulous) and all I heard was how AMAZING the Tripp Trapp was. On and on and on the owners would bleat. “Best chair ever,” “amazing, little Johnny can join us at the table, he’s always at the right height for eating and drawing and everything.”

SHUT UP!!! I wanted to cry. I am so contrary that the more people tell me to buy something the less I want to buy it. There are a few, choice, individuals by whom I am insanely influenced. But not many.

My daughter had two Ikea high chairs and perfectly good they were too. One was the Antilop, hugely popular and a best seller. The other was the Blames, but in oak (no longer available). The Antilop lived at my parents’ house, the Blames was at ours. They were fine.

Fine.

But when my daughter got to be two years old, she was too big for the highchairs and wanted to be more independent (actually this happened way before then but I ignored it because goddamit these were the highchairs I had committed to, what did it matter that she couldn’t get in and out of them by herself?). She could of course climb on an adult chair, and she did, but it was big for her and she was never at the right level for eating or drawing or counting her money.

It was at this point that I gave in and bought a Tripp Trapp, quietly and without telling many people because I was so ashamed. And of course, I realised what all the fuss was about. They are fabulous chairs and had I not been so pig headed or “with a head not even the pigs would eat” as we say in Italian (but we say it in Italian) then I would have had two more years wear out of it. As it is, my eldest is now nine and uses her Tripp Trapp every day, several times a day and has done for the past seven years.

The youngest was in hers from a very young age, about four/five months, when she could sit up unaided, with the babyset attachment. Tripp Trapp now does a newborn set so you can actually put then in it from birth, not that they can eat at the table from birth though, but they can join the family at the table.

So, what’s so goddamn great about this chair?

Well it grows with the child. As they get older you take off the babyset (if indeed you ever used it, obviously I didn’t first time round), you move the seat and footrest up and down according to need.

It looks great, being of northern European design of which I’m so fond.

It comes in lots of different, plain wood finishes/colours.

It’s so easy to clean, unlike some hideous highchairs I’ve seen.

So it’s not as cheap as some highchairs, from £120 new, but you can pick them up on eBay (they hold their value). Personally, I think it’s worth every penny as even adults can use it, so it need never go out of use.

Because it’s height adjustable, children are always sitting in the correct position (well, they are if you adjust it right) with their feet supported.

I think the Tripp Trapp has a smaller footprint than other highchairs. I can’t swear to this, but because of the design it doesn’t seem to have as big a footprint as others with their giant foot span. It also slides very neatly under the table, unlike almost all other highchairs that have a front to them.

My children sometimes sit on the footplate, facing the seat part and use the seat part as a table. You can’t do that with other highchairs.

There is a video in circulation that purports to show a Tripp Trapp falling backwards (the child pushes his feet against the table). Perhaps this is possible, but neither of my children have ever managed this and neither have I, I just slide when I try it. But I thought I’d mention it in case any of the Tripp Trapp haters mention it.

But the biggie for me is something quite subtle. The Tripp Trapp doesn’t come with a tray, in fact a tray goes against everything the makers, Stokke, believe in which is that a baby/child should be at the table, en famille, being part of everything. Not separate.

Anyway. I paid full price for both of mine from Back in Action. What I mean by that is that I didn’t get any special journalist offers or back handers.

I can’t recommend them highly enough. Although it’s taken me seven years to get round to writing this up. If you are thinking of a getting a highchair, don’t be an idiot like me and give in, GIVE IN NOW and buy one.

Flatbreads, can also be used to make very fine chicken wraps

1 Reply

I LOVE these. I love them just as they are, sprinkled with some olive oil and salt. But you can also make them go really crispy and use them in dips. Or with Indian food (sorry I don’t know how authentic that is). But in our house, they are mostly used to make wraps.

Wraps are great things. You can buy them ready made in the supermarket but have you ever read the ingredient list? Horrifying. So we make our own. They are easy, so easy my nine year old makes them. Granted the rolling out and cooking them takes a bit of confidence and practice. But not much. Just remember not to muck about with the dough too much at the end because the more rested the dough is the stretchier you can make the wraps. If you’re finding it too hard to roll them out, give them a rest for five minutes and go back to them (careful if you’ve put the frying pan on to warm up!). This shouldn’t happen however, unless you’ve panicked and tormented the dough too much. That said, if you let it relax too much, it’ll be really stretchy and difficult to handle. Now I’m talking too much and you’ll think this is hard. It isn’t.

You need:

250g plain flour – not strong

a teaspoon of sea salt ground up in a pestle and mortar

150ml warm water

1 tablespoon of olive oil (not virgin)

Put the oil in the water and pour over the dry ingredients. Or just mix them all together as we frequently do, use a fork for the last bit. It will make a sticky dough. When it’s all together let it rest for ten minutes.

Then, turn out onto an oiled chopping board or surface. Knead gently for ten seconds. Leave for ten minutes under an upturned bowl. After ten minutes, knead gently for ten seconds again. Leave for ten minutes.

I think you know what’s coming up next? Knead for ten seconds, then leave it for 15 minutes or even a bit longer. When you’re ready to go put a large, heavy based frying pan (I use a cast iron skillet) on a hot heat. Cut a bit of the dough off, roll it into a ball and then roll it out onto a lightly oiled surface until it looks like, you know, a wrap shape sort of. If you make it too thin once it’s cooked it will go brittle and break, too thick and it will be a bit doughy but experiment with what works.

Put the wrap into the pan – no oil, nothing – and after about a minute, check underneath. You’re aiming for cooked brown spots as in the picture. Flip over and cook until the other side is like that too. Sometimes they puff up beautifully, other times not. Whilst you cook the others place them under a clean, damp tea towel. Very important or they’ll go cold and brittle.

Use as you wish. I make little bowls of shredded chicken, salad, julienned carrots (get ME) for my children to serve themselves and then roll it all up in the wrap to eat in front of The Simpsons.

This makes about eight wraps.

Variations: you can add half wholemeal and half white (always plain flour, not strong), you will need to add a touch more water. These are still really nice but I find they take a bit longer to cook. You can also just halve everything if you’re cooking for just a couple of you.

How to make your own jaffa cakes

14 Replies

Inside. Luscious. The perspective makes these look giant, they are in fact the same size as regular jaffa cakes. And that’s a three year old holding one.

I bake, not only because I love cakes ‘n’ stuff and I prefer home made, but I bake when I need to feel safe. I find baking immensely therapeutic. The fact that I’m quite skilled at it is helpful because when I’m, say, grappling with a difficult deadline, as if it were a salt water crocodile (and we know how slippy they can be) I have a need to achieve. I have an almost pathological need to achieve. Something. Anything.

And when that something happens to result in baking a good biscuit, just baked into a chewy crispness, with hidden little bullets of chocolate. Or a fluffy, jolly cake, heavy with a mascarpone frosting stained red with raspberries, so large that you have to dislocate your jaw to get a slice in…well where’s the fucking harm in that.

When the news makes me feel like the world is too big, baking reminds me that the gentle stirring (or sometimes, vigorous whisking) of a few fine ingredients, can come together to make something good.

This is how I found myself making jaffa cakes.

Jaffa cakes. I don’t even really like jaffa cakes. But they seemed tricky enough to take my mind off all the bad news.

This recipe is from Jamie magazine. They weren’t tricky at all, but they did result in something so excellent and delicious and authentic (similar enough to shop bought ones to not alienate fans, different enough from to entice the not so keen) I had to keep eating them to make sure.

You need:

1 egg
50g caster sugar
65g self raising (I never sift flour but I guess you should)
butter for greasing
250g marmalade
100g 70% cocoa chocolate, chopped
Finely grated zest of half an orange
2 teaspoons of vegetable oil
(the original recipe also asks for a tablespoon of water to use when melting the chocolate) but I didn’t use it and never use water in when melting chocolate).

You need a jam tart tin or shallow ‘bun’ tin with 12 holes. Grease this well, I also dusted it with flour (not from the 65g!)

Oven to 200C.

You do:

Okay so whisk the egg and sugar together, using an electric mixer if you have one (don’t sweat if you haven’t, you think sponge cakes were never made before the advent of the electric mixer?) if not by hand. Get those biceps and triceps working. Beat until the colour has lightened and the mixture has thickened. I’ll admit this is a a hell of a lot easier with an electric mixer.

Now stir in the flour by hand.

This is so easy isn’t it?

Now dollop about a tablespoon of the mixture into each hole, evenly. So if you get it wrong you’ll need to go round and nick a bit from the moulds that have too much.

Bake in the oven for 8-10 mins. Be careful: you want them lightly golden.

When done turn out and let cool. When cool slice in half horizontally. Are you seeing these jaffas taking shape?

Hopefully you’re the sort of person who reads recipes through before embarking on making something. And therefore you’ll know that whilst the cakes are cooling, put the marmalade in a pan, on the stove. I didn’t use the whole 250g but if you have any left over, once cool, you can put it back in the jar.

The sponge cakes fresh out of the oven.

So, heat the marmalade until it’s melted and stirrable and all one big thing and not little clumps of marmalade skulking round the pan, like nervous teenagers circling each other at a party, and then take off the heat and leave to cool. You can leave it for a good 20-30 mins, perhaps more and in fact it’s easier to use when it’s cooler. You could sieve out the peel in the marmalade but come on! Butch up and leave it in. I did and it was delicious.

Note the bit with a slice off? I ate it. Couldn’t wait.

Now. Take a teaspoon of the marmalade and dollop it in the centre of each sponge.

Melt the chocolate, with the orange zest and oil (oil not essential but gives a nice gloss), in a bowl over a pan of water. When melted, spoon over each marmalade covered sponge. What I did was put the cooling rack over a baking tray to catch any drips (ahem, I took it away for the photo below for better contrast), and then pick up each sponge and spoon the chocolate over, spreading it delicatedly with the back of the spoon – you don’t want to compromise the blobs of marmalade – then putting each back on the rack over the tray to catch any drips. And there were hardly any drips. I guess you could be more slap happy and just spoon the chocolate over each sponge whilst they’re sat on the rack and let the chocolate drip gaily.

Just one left to do.

But I think that’s more wasteful.

I ate at least six of these waiting for the chocolate to set. My youngest went potty for them. My eldest doesn’t like jaffa cakes and wasn’t convinced by these.

Make them and tell me what you think.

Pane Amore e Cha Cha Cha

This is a blog about things I consume