These great chewy chocolate-filled chocolate cookies have a surprise in the center of each one. Pour yourself a cold glass of milk and get stuck in!
This recipe comes from a cookbook I haven’t picked up in ages, Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days with the Naked Chef. Of course, Jamie called them Chocolate Biscuits with Soft Chocolate Centres. I’m sharing these for Belleau Kitchen’s Random Recipe Challenge merged this month with the Chocolate Log Blog’s We Should Cocoa challenge, cohosted this month by both Dom and Choclette.
The rules are the same as normal Random Recipe Challenges. Choose a cookbook at random, make the first recipe you open to, except this month, it is make the first chocolate recipe you open to. I like to make my life simple, so I used Eat Your Books to choose both. Click on the graphic for full details.
Ingredients
2/3 cup or 145g butter, softened at room temperature
3/4 cup or 145g sugar
1 whole egg
2 cups or 250g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Scant 1/3 cup or about 26g cocoa powder
3 1/2 oz or 100g chocolate bar (milk, white or dark) I used chocolate mint.
Method
Grease a large baking sheet or line it with baking parchment. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
Whisk your flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in another mixing bowl.
Beat the egg into the butter/sugar mixture.
Add in the cocoa powder and the flour to make a soft dough. Beat until completely combined.
Wrap it in cling film and put it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
When the dough is ready, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.
Roll the dough into small balls about 1 inch or 2 centimeters across and break your chocolate bar into small squares.
Press them out into circles on your prepared cookie sheet, making sure to leave a good space between them for rising while baking.
Top each circle with a piece of chocolate.
Add another dough ball on top and press out to cover the chocolate.
Bake for 10 minutes in your preheated oven. These cookies are delicious as is but would also be great for ice cream sandwiches!
Enjoy!
***This post has an affiliate link, which means I earn some small change if you click on the Amazon link and buy.**
Once again, I am taking part in the #RandomRecipe challenge! This month Belleau Kitchen has gotten together with two other fellow food bloggers, Karen and Kate to come up with our theme for this month’s challenge: Tea Time Treats. So rather than choosing a random recipe from ALL of my cookbooks, I was allowed to choose from the ones I thought would best exemplify tea time food, which for me means British food. (If I read the instructions correctly.) Top of my list were Elizabeth David, Delia Smith, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver and their many cookbooks in my collection. I was delighted when my random choice fell on Jamie’s Great Britain and then, coup of all coups, it opened to Scottish Shortbread. I was sort of hoping for a savory treat because, as many of you know, I am not a big sweet eater but these biscuits are deliciously simple (only four ingredients!) and not too sweet. I am, on the other hand, a lover of all things British, including my dear husband, so this challenge was right up my street, as they say on the small island.
Ingredients
1.6 cups or 7 oz (by weight) or 200g flour
Scant 1/4 cup or 50g sugar, plus extra for sprinkling over
Generous 1/2 cup or 125g unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon salt (This was my addition, because even sweet things need some salt.)
Method
Preheat the oven to 325°F or 170°C.
Mix the flour, sugar and salt together in a mixing bowl.
Cut your butter into pieces and, using a pastry blender, mix it into the dry ingredients.
Once it is almost all mixed in, use your thumb and fingers to make sure that all the lumps of butter are gone. Jamie says, “Don’t knead it, you just want to pat it down flat,” but I am here to tell you that this was so crumbly that you couldn’t knead it if you wanted to.
Push the crumbs together in the side of the bowl and scrape the resulting lump out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Press it into a flat circle using two hands, one on the outside and one pressing the dough down and out towards your other hand. Keep going around the circle until it is compact and flat all over. I couldn't take a photo with both hands in place, so just put the next two photos together and you'll get the idea.
Left hand holding the side in.
Right hand pressing it flat and pushing the side out.
If it breaks apart, just press it back together but remember, the less you work the dough the lighter and flakier the shortbread will be.
I also crimped the edges, as you can see, but the decorative edge really doesn't show up once baked so just do it if you feel like it.
Gently score lines on the shortbread with a sharp knife, then make some shallow decorative indentations with the tines of a fork.
Sprinkle over some sugar, then pop the baking sheet into the oven and cook for 20-30 minutes.
Keep an eye on it - you want a lovely light golden color. Mine turned out a little darker than I would have liked, but it was still delicious. Truly, shortbread is one of the great mysteries of baking. Without leavening of any kind, these delectable treats do turn out light and flakey somehow. It must be magic.
When it comes out of the oven, cool for just a minute or two and then, using a sharp thin knife, cut through where you scored the shortbread. After scoring and baking, you are supposed to be able to snap these apart but that has never worked for me and I end up with irregular shortbread and a small pile of crumbs.
Leave to cool completely and then separate the pieces. Store any leftover shortbread in an airtight container. If you have a lovely thistle teapot given to you by a dear Scottish friend, this would be the appropriate time to bring it out. Shortbread is best served with a nice hot cuppa.
Enjoy!
Update: A couple of days after I made the shortbread, I had guests for dinner. Taking the simple shortbread a step farther, I dressed it up and called it dessert: a wedge of shortbread, two scoops of store-bought vanilla praline ice cream, all drizzled with warm homemade salted caramel sauce.
To see what other tea time treats have been created for this challenge, please follow these links and scroll to the bottom on their websites:
Got sausage? Make meatballs easily!
I love meatballs in sauce but who has time to mix and roll the meat? I learned this method of how to make easy meatballs on an old Jamie Oliver show that I can't seem to find a clip of for you, so this is my quick take, with an updated video. If you've been reading along here, you know I'm in Dubai now, but I didn't have the heart to delete my old introduction. It's part of my journey.
Last summer when I was in Houston and feeling pretty smug about farmers’ markets and pastured meat and eggs, I made meatballs and spaghetti for my aged grandmother. Because she loves it. Here I am in Cairo and I have been the worst of the worst type of modern shopper. I came back from a visit to the States, to Providence, with almost 42 pounds of pork in my suitcases. Not only were they not sourced locally, clearly, I am also pretty sure that they were not from pastured pigs, seeing as how I bought them at a Super Walmart.
Philosophically speaking, there is no justifying such excess. Emotionally speaking, I am feeling deprived in Cairo. Of close friends, a school connection, normal day-to-day activities, driving my own car, imported (read: good) wine at the grocery store and pork. Among other things. Self pity: It’s how I justify hauling pork products across international borders.
And cooking them is how I make myself feel better when I am headed towards down. There is nothing quite like a bowl of pasta and meatballs in a rich tomato sauce to cheer a person up. Don’t you agree? Unless it is a simmering pot of rich tomato sauce bubbling on the stove and filling the whole house with spicy Italian aromas. This recipe fills the need on both counts.
(On the other hand, all of my vegetables, beef and chicken are locally sourced. And I do believe most of the fish is too. My Carrefour doesn’t really sell many imported things in the fresh departments so choices and prices are seasonal. Just two examples: I haven’t seen a single non-frozen corn on the cob since I moved here. And I am sorely missing rhubarb, which must not be grown here, even in the spring. I am guessing because we never have a freeze in winter. )
This method of meatballing (though not the sauce) comes straight from Jamie Oliver and, if you have access to fresh sausage in casing, is the fastest, easiest method of making meatballs that I have ever witnessed. You know how you see something on TV or in a magazine (or Pinterest!) and you say, “Now, why didn’t I think of that?!!” Exactly my reaction when I watched Jamie make these meatballs for the first time, back in 2008.
Ingredients
1 1/4 lbs or about 565g fresh sausage – I like spicy Italian sausage.
Olive oil
1 small onion
2-3 cloves garlic
1 can (14 oz or 400g) finely chopped or crushed tomatoes
1 small can (6 oz or 165g) tomato paste – the really thick stuff, not sauce
1 heaped tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon sugar
1 bay leaf
12 oz or 340g pasta of your choice
Parmesan for serving (optional)
Method
Pinch off little pieces of sausage from the casing and pop them in a non-stick skillet. (I tried to find a clip from the Jamie show with him doing it but to no avail. So you are stuck with me.) I pinched off small pieces and finished with 42 bite-sized meatballs. Yes. I counted them before they went in the sauce. (Forty in the pan plus the two I had already eaten.)
Fry them until browned nicely on all sides, shaking the pan occasionally to turn them.
Wasn't that quick? Meatballs in minutes. When your meatballs are cooked, you can drain them on some paper towels or do it my way: Tilt the skillet and push the meatballs up the slope so the grease can collect in one side of the skillet. This saves paper towels, possible clean up of one more dish and one step in the sauce process.
(At this point, your meatballs are finished and would be great as appetizers with a toothpick and dipping sauce. Or made into Swedish meatballs or added to an Italian Wedding Soup or whatever your heart desires. Or you carry on and make the tomato sauce I love.)
Add in the can of crushed tomatoes and one can of water.
Add in the can of tomato paste and one can of water. Stir really well until the tomato paste is completely dissolved into the sauce.
Now, add the sugar, oregano and bay leaf. Bring to the boil and then turn down to a simmer.
Add in the cooked meatballs and then simmer the sauce with a lid on, for at least 30 minutes but for as long as an hour or two, if you have the time. My motto for tomato sauce is the longer the better. Give it a stir and check the level periodically, adding some water, if necessary, to keep it at a thickness and consistency you like.
Be careful here so your meatballs don't end up back in the grease.
When you are ready to serve, cook your pasta according to package instructions. With a side vegetable, this should serve four people. Just don’t let your sauce cook down too much or the pasta could be dry.
Top the pasta with sauce and count your meatballs out fairly among the plates. We also add a generous fresh grating of Parmesan. (Not pictured.)
We were blessed in the last two locations to have our
daughters attend two of the best schools in Southeast Asia. Both ISKL – the International School of Kuala
Lumpur - and SAS – Singapore American School – are part of an intercollegiate
league called IASAS. This dish brings
back happy memories of hosting IASAS friends and players when we were living in
Singapore. It’s quick and so
delicious. I think the last time I
served it was for a softball/baseball exchange or perhaps even tournament and
we had a house full up to the rafters. Along with a bunch of girls from JIS in
Jakarta (one of them a former ISKL student whose mother also stayed with us),
we had one ISKL team member’s mother, father and sister staying with us too. So many people to feed and I was in my
element. But after working all day at
the SAS Booster Hut, selling food and spirit wear with my fellow
Booster Club moms, I couldn’t have a complicated meal waiting to be prepared at
home. This quick salmon tikka, adapted
from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food, was perfect.
For the salmon:
2 salmon fillets – about 90-100g or oz each
1 heaped tablespoon curry paste – almost any one
will do.
Olive oil
In these amounts, you can feed two. Multiply this as many times as is necessary
for your crowd.
Method
Preheat your oven to 110°C or 225°F.
Pop your naan into the oven to warm through. Or, if you have time earlier in the day, make them fresh yourself. It’s easy and homemade are so much tastier
than the store bought. Again, complete instructions are right here.
First, the raita. Halve your cucumber lengthways, and then halve it
again. Use a sharp knife to cut off the
watery seedy part. Chop the cucumber
diagonally into about 1/2 inch or 1cm pieces. Put them in a bowl with room to stir.
My helper and I share the inside seedy bits. One for him, one for me. Until they are gone.
Then he loses interest in helping and I get this face.
Finely chop your chili, cilantro and green onion. Add them to the cucumber bowl.
Halve your lime and squeeze the juice from one half into the
bowl.
Add a good sprinkle of salt and pepper and
the cumin. Mix well. Now add the yogurt. Give it a taste and if you would like the
raita spicier, add some cayenne pepper and add more salt, if necessary.
Slice each salmon fillet across lengthways into four equal
slices. Thinner is easier to accomplish
if the salmon is slightly frozen.
Jamie’s
original recipe calls for skin-on salmon.
I choose to take the skin off mine by slipping a sharp knife between the
skin and the flesh (skin side down on the cutting board) because 1. I find it very difficult to cut through the skin, especially when I am trying to cut thin slices and 2. I like to fry
it up crispy, sprinkle it with sea salt and eat it just like that. Delicious.
Spoon the heaped tablespoon of curry paste into a small dish
and loosen it with a little drizzle of olive oil.
Use a pastry brush to spread the paste all over each piece.
One side
The other side
Heat a large non-stick frying pan over a high heat. Once hot, put the salmon into the pan and
cook for about 1½ minutes on each side, until cooked through.
Serve on the warmed or fresh naan, topped with your cucumber raita
and a squeeze of juice from the other half of the lime. We folded ours up like tacos and ate them
with relish. Do lean over your plate
though, because these can get drippy.
