Hummingbird Bakery Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cake

Happy bank holiday weekend, guys! 

For me, baking cures in two ways.

One, the process itself is extremely therapeutic and two, you get to eat yummy cake after. Chocolate is the big daddy of cakes and in my opinion no one does them better than Hummingbird Bakery, so when I'm in need of a pick me up I always reach from my Cake Days bakery book. 

This time around I made the Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cake and luckily I found the recipe online to share with you guys! The only exception is that I topped mine with gold sprinkles instead of grated chocolate. This the recipe for the exact cake above and is a little more complex to make - 

Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cake

If your a total newbie baker then I'd suggest this one from BBC Recipes (be quick though because they're changing the recipe section soon!)

Easy Chocolate Cake 

Happy baking! 

Keeks Bakes - Zesty Flapjacks with Berries and Ice Cream

Happy Easter you lovely lot! 

I hope you've had the best 4 day weekend ever and have eaten so so much chocolate. I've had the best time chilling with my family and celebrating my dad's birthday. 

When it comes to any kind of social gathering with my family, it always revolves around food. Always. Luckily this time round I was excused from the kitchen, my only task was to sort out the bun and cheese (literally slicing cheese and buttering bun) so I put my feet up and enjoyed all the eating. 

A few weeks back though I did have a lil throw around in the kitchen and put together something that was so delicious it was crazy to me that I'd never made it for dessert before. Basically, it's warm flapjacks with berries and ice cream. So flipping good and so flipping simples. 

I got the base ingredients from BBC Good Food and then added in a few ingredients.

250g Porridge Oats

125g Butter

125g Brown Sugar

2-3 tbsps Golden Syrup

Zest of one lemon

Juice of half an orange

I warmed up the berries when the flapjacks were a couple minutes off being ready and then served them hot from the oven (well , like 5 minutes cooling time so that you don't burn fingers or mouths) and then added a dollop of clotted ice cream. Also the best part is that left overs make an awesome snack the next day! Win. 

Here is the recipe xo

Cinnamon-Nut Baklava

Cravings are weird things, they creep up on you when you least expect it and make you do crazy things like rush to Sainsbury's and buy three rolls of filo pastry. 

The word craving is normally associated with pregnancy, granted, but I assure you this cooking creation was spawned from nothing but the empty longing in my stomach from a baklava-shaped food baby. I am not pregnant just perpetually guided by my increasing sweet tooth. 

Considering this was my first foray into pastry, I was pleased with the way it turned out. I followed this recipe from Natasha's Kitchen, only tweaking it slightly when I realised that I didn't have enough filo sheets so instead of layering 10/5/5/5/5/10 as suggested, I did 8/4/4/3/4/8 (this'll make sense soon enough).

The finished product was a bit less sticky than proper baklava and tasted a bit like apple strudel even though I didn't put any apple in there - I did enjoy it though, as did all the others that tasted it so I'd call that a result. 

Aubergine Cheese Bites

Working from home part time is the best thing ever but also the worst if you're an eater like me. 

Snacks. Errywhere.

So it's gotten to the point where I force myself to actually make snacks instead of eat crisps, cakes and biscuits. I mean, it still happens but a lot lot less because I make things such as these badboys. 

Basically these are great if you fancy pizza but you want to be somewhat healthy but are still of the opinion that cauliflower pizza ISN'T pizza (it's not). 

All you need is...

An Aubergine/Eggplant

2 tomatoes

1 onion

Sea salt

A handful of grated cheddar cheese

Black pepper

A drizzle of olive oil

They are super simple to make - first preheat the oven to 200c and slice the aubergine up into circles that are about 1cm wide. Then place them on a kitchen towel and sprinkle on some salt and allow the slices to dehydrate for about 10 minutes. 

Whilst they are dehydrating get to work chopping up the tomatoes and onion. They should be well diced. And if it's not already, grate the cheese and pop it into a separate bowl.

Place the aubergine slices onto a roasting tray and bake for 15 minutes.  While that's baking, fry down the chopped tomatoes and onions, sprinkle with a little sea salt and black pepper and then set aside. 

Once the aubergine slices are ready take them out and top with the tomatoes and onions and then sprinkle on a generous amount of cheese. Whack the oven up to 230c and cook for around 5 minutes, by which time the cheese should be lovely and melted and bubbly. 

Serve straight outta the oven.

Yum.

Keeks' Jerk Roast Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

Having Jamaican parents means that jerk chicken is a basically a birth right, but being British-born means I have grown up knowing there are few things better than a roast on a Sunday. So I thought why not incorporate both to make the daddy of all roasts? 

What you need

1 whole organic chicken

1 lemon

Mixed dried herbs

Sea salt

Pepper

3 cloves of garlic 

Olive oil

Jerk seasoning (I love the Tropical Sun offering)

Firstly, preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Then take a chopping board, cut the lemon in half and squeeze into a small bowl, putting the other half to the side. Chop the garlic and add to the bowl. Add in the salt and pepper and then scoop in a tablespoon of the jerk seasoning - mix together with a spoon; it should be a paste consistency. Then drizzle in some of the olive oil and mix in the herbs.

You're now ready to jerk. Jerking is a super easy way to inject even more flavour into chicken. Most people think that 'jerk ' is just the spice you coat the meat in but jerk also refers to the piercing the meat and filling it with the seasoning to make it as flavoursome as possible. To jerk to the chicken, take a small sharp knife and pierce in a few random places, then stuff your seasoning into each hole, making sure the pieces of garlic are all used up. Drizzle a little more olive oil into the remainder of the seasoning in the bowl and then pour onto the chicken and rub in. Cover in foil, place in a roasting tray and cook for 1 hour 20 minutes. 

While the chicken is cooking slice two circles from the remainder of the lemon. Then when it's time, take the chicken out and pour out the juices into a saucepan, which you can set aside for gravy. Unwrap the foil, place the slices of lemon on top and squeeze the remaining part of the lemon over the chicken. Place back into the oven with the foil unwrapped and allow to brown for a further 20 minutes (turn the temp up slightly if necessary).

Let it rest and then serve.