28 Apr 2014

...baking Cadbury's creme egg brownies and cookie slabs

It could be this breast feeding lark is making me hungrier but mamahood is turning me into a bit of a baker... 

Creme Egg Brownies
For Easter, I baked these decadent creme egg brownies with a recipe found on Precious Little Worlds blog.

Recipe:
185g unsalted butter 
185g best dark chocolate 
85g plain flour 
40g cocoa powder 
3 large eggs
275g golden caster sugar
6 Cadbury’s Crème eggs cut in half

Preheat the oven to 160C and grease a 20 cm square baking tin.
Melt the butter and dark chocolate together either in the microwave or in a bowl over boiling water.
Break 3 large eggs into a large bowl and tip in 275g golden caster sugar. With an electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar until they look thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes. You will know it's ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume.
Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse, and then gently fold together.
Hold a sieve over the bowl of eggy chocolate mixture and sift the cocoa and flour mixture, shaking the sieve from side to side, to cover the top evenly. 
Gently fold in to the mixture.
Pour into the baking tin and cook for 15 minutes then take out of the over and gently press the cadburys crème egg halves into the mix, spacing them apart evenly. 
Put back in the oven for another 10 minutes.
Leave to cool before removing from tin and cutting into squares.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Slab
I love this Chocolate Chip Cookie Slab recipe because it is so simple to make and so addictive.


Recipe
220g (7 3/4oz) butter, softened
200 (7oz) brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g (10 ½oz) plain flour
200g(7oz) plain or milk chocolate chopped into chunks

Preheat the oven to 180 °C/ 350 °F /gas mark 4.
Lightly grease a 38x25 in (15 x 10 in) baking tin.
Beat the butter and sugar together using an electric mixer until light and fluffy, (no less than five minutes!). 
Beat in the vanilla extract. 
Stir in the flour and chocolate chunks.
Pat the dough into the prepared tray.
Put in the oven and bake for 28 minutes. You know its ready when the edges go slightly crispy.
Cool and then cut into slabs.

Another incentive to bake more is that the sound of the electric mixer stops Jesse crying...

Chilling while I'm mixing

24 Apr 2014

...reading Crazy, Undercover, Love

If like me you read Fifty Shades of Grey and were appalled by the bad writing (the amount of times she bit her lip or said 'On My', honestly I could have lumped her one) but like a bit of well-written romance... then I am delighted to say that my best friend's debut novel with HarperImpulse - Crazy, Undercover, Love - is released as an ebook today, 24th April 2014.



I can't tell you how proud and excited I am to see my friend get her first book cover. I've often wondered about how much say authors get regarding their covers and while I now know they don't necessarily get to choose and meet the model (mores the pity Nikki), they do sign off the final design.

Here's the blurby bit for you...
"The protagonist Charley Caswell-Wright takes on an assignment as PA to the gorgeous (of course) Alex Demetrio, CEO of Demetrio International, she's there under entirely false pretences; to get her life back on track. Having lost the job she worked so hard to earn, she’s determined not to give it up so easily, especially when she didn’t deserve to lose it in the first place. Mr Dreamy CEO is her only chance of clawing back her career – and her reputation. So she has to keep things strictly professional…"

Uh oh, forbidden fruit and all that, i smell trouble.

To buy Crazy, Undercover Love as an ebook:-
Amazon 
Google Play 
iTunes 
Kobo
Sainsbury's

Or to buy it as a paperback on pre-order, released on 26th June:- Amazon

Here's a bit more about the writer herself...
Nikki Moore lives in beautiful Dorset and writes short stories and sexy, pacy romances. A finalist in several writing competitions including Novelicious Undiscovered 2012, she graduated from the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers' Scheme after four years and and has contributed to their magazine Romance Matters. She has far too much fun attending the annual RNA conference and has previously chaired a panel and taken part in a workshop at the Festival of Romance.


Here are some of the lovely things that people are saying about Nikki's other stories...

The Love Letter and A Day in the Life... HarperImpulse short story collection Be My Valentine,  with Teresa F Morgan and Brigid Coady, attracting 4 and 5 star reviews.

'I loved all 5 stories and will look out for more books by each author.' 
CometBabesBooks, Amazon

'Whilst I enjoyed all of the stories, I particularly liked Nikki Moore's … her voice as an author really resonated with me and I can't wait to read more of her work.' 
Kate Beeden, Goodreads

Nikki's short story A Night to Remember in the Mills & Boon/Romantic Novelists Association anthology Truly, Madly, Deeply which has also attracted 4 and 5 star reviews.

'My favourite story was A Night To Remember. I think what drew me to this … was its resonance with real life. I'm not going to spoil the story but I could feel the emotions spilling out of the page - it was beautiful.' 
Beckie, www.beckiesbookmix.blogspot.co.uk

'A Night to Remember - Beautiful, devastatingly so.'
Cheryl M-M, Goodreads & http://mmcheryl.wordpress.com/

Check out Nikki's blog www.nikkimooreauthor.wordpress.com or hit her up on her social media links here www.facebook.com/NikkiMooreAuthor and here @NikkiMoore_Auth