Nigella's Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

At this moment, I have 5 pieces of the mixture sitting in the fridge, waiting to be baked. I'm gonna share this recipe but since i have not copied the exact steps from the recipe book, if yours doesn't work..., go and buy the book lah!

125g dark chocolate
150g flour
30g cocoa, sieved
1tsp bicarbonate soda
1/2tsp salt
125g soft butter
75g light brown sugar
50g white sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, cold
350g chocolate chips (very expensive investment!), semi sweet or dark

Steps

1. Heat the oven to 75 degrees C, melt dark chocolate in a bowl over simmering water.
2. Mix flour, cocoa, bicarbonate and salt together.
3. Cream butter with the sugars, add chocolate and mix thoroughly.
4. Beat in the egg and vanilla and then fold in the dry stuff. Finally stir in the choc chips. (at this point, mixing becomes very difficult!)
5. Scoop about 12 equal sized balls unto a baking sheet, 6 cm apart.
6. Cook for 30 mins, test with a skewer - it should come out semi-clean.
7. Remove from oven and let cool. It will harden a bit.

(Do not eat too much of this if you are the heaty type, it is very very very heaty!)

French Toast with a Mi-koo twist (and 2 variations)

Hahahahaha!
Only the initiated know this! Old Mi-koo tastes great when you make it into french toast. So here's my version of french toast, borrowed from Nigella.

1 medium sized Mi-koo (the one that is about 15-16 cm in length), sliced to about 2cm slices
4 eggs
1/2 cup fresh milk
1 tsp butter, plus a drop of flavourless vegetable oil
a pinch of salt (optional)
4 tsp vanilla extract (also optional)
50g caster sugar (also optional)

Steps

1. Beat eggs with the milk in a wide, shallow bowl/plate.
2. Soak the bread into the mixture, around 5 mins a side.
3. Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan, then fry the bread until golden and scorched on both sides.
4. Eat.

Variation 2
Add in the vanilla essence into the egg mixture before you soak the bread.

Variation 3
After the bread is golden, dip it into sugar to make it into the original 'Doughnut French Toast' of Nigella's.

(Finally, can use normal bread also)

Nigella's Pear and Ginger Muffins

Recently got my grubby hands on Nigella Lawson's truly bestselling book, Nigella Express. So i've been testing out some of the recipes especially the baked stuff. Verdict: really nice cookbook for people who are in a rush, AND the food is yummy, too.

Anyway, i found this muffin nice, even tho no one else did.

250g flour
2 tsp baking powder
150g caster sugar
75g light brown sugar, (optional: plus 1/2 tsp per muffin for sprinkling, which if you want can be substituted with demerera sugar for more crunch)
1 tsp ground ginger
142ml sour cream (about 1 pot)
125ml vegetable oil
15ml/1 Tbs honey
2 eggs
1 large pear (the dark green type, firm) to be up to the weight of 300gm, peeled, cored and diced to 5mm pieces

Steps

1. Heat the oven to 200 degrees C, and line a 12 muffin pan with papers.
2. Measure all the dry ingredients into a bowl (flour, baking powder, sugar, brown sugar and ginger)
3. Whisk the wet ingredients in a jug/food processor. (sour cream, eggs, oil and honey), then fold in the dry mixture.
4. Finally, add in the pear pieces and spoon into the muffin cases.
5. Sprinkle the sugar and bake for 20 mins or until the skewer comes out clean.
6. Eat warm.

(Nigella recommends that you bake this really early in the morning. You can mix the wet and dry stuff at night, keep them separate with the wet mix and pear in the fridge and then combine in the morning. Sounds like a great idea!)