If anybody wants to know, our love is getting low

 Last week, everyone at work was (semi) jokingly talking about how I haven't provided them with cake in a while, I fully blame this on the massive quantity of Christmas chocolate we still had in every corner of the office throughout January... working in education is possibly the most chocolate filled career ever. Teachers always have tonnes of the stuff! Towards the end of last week, we miraculously polished off the last of our supplies, so I agreed that we probably needed something to get us through so we weren't all experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a lack of Roses in our lives.

And so, not wanting to do things by halves, I went for possibly the most gooey, unhealthy option ever. Salted Caramel Brownies. They're quickly becoming my favourite thing in the world to make and they went down an absolute treat with everyone at work (which I'm not sure is the highest accolade really as we'll literally eat ANYTHING if its left on the table for more than five minutes!). The recipe is based on this one from The Boy Who Bakes and its surprisingly easy to do!

Salted Caramel Brownies

Ingredients:

180g plain flour

3tbsp cocoa powder

1/4tsp salt

300g dark chocolate

150g butter

150g caster sugar

220g soft brown sugar

4 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

for the filling:

1 tin of Caramel

1 or 2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 160C (fan) and grease your baking tin (I'd probably suggest using some baking paper to line it with but I didn't have any in the cupboard... the brownies still came out ok though!). 

Place the chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl over a pan of water and stir on a medium heat until all has melted.

Add the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract to a bowl, add the chocolate and mix together until smooth. Sieve in the flour and cocoa powder and beat the mixture until it is all combined. 

Pour half of the mixture into the tin, making sure it is evenly spread across the whole tin. 

Take the tin of caramel and add the salt to the tin, mixing thoroughly. 

Add a layer of caramel on top of the brownie mixture in the tin- make sure you don't get the caramel too near to the edge of the brownie- leave a gap of about 1-2 cm. 

Layer the remaining brownie mixture on top of the caramel, making sure none of the caramel is visible afterwards.

Bake the brownies in the oven for about 30 mins and then leave to cool before serving (unless you're as lazy/greedy as I am... in which case tuck in- they taste pretty damn good warm!).

Let me know if you try these!

Carry Me: Bombay Bicycle Club

And I'll never look back, just hold your head up

Last night I had two of my friends over for a night of burgers and brownies. Quite frankly, I'm not sure there's a better way to spend a Monday evening. Or any evening for that matter.

I got this recipe book for my birthday and I literally spend whole evenings gazing longingly (and dribbling a little) at the arghsoincrediblyyummy looking pictures and recipes, so I've been dying to get stuck in and actually make something from the book. I started in quite an odd place for a burger recipe book, going for one of the few veggie offerings instead of a real, meatilicious burger. I blame the halloumi for sucking me in, its just too tasty not to be eaten at every possible moment. 

Needless to say, the halloumi didn't let me down, the burgers tasted INCREDIBLE (even if they did look a bit like fancy baby food in a bun). And since the book was such a success with the first recipe I tried, I'm going to have to make burger night a regular occurrence. 

And just because I'm a nice, thoughtful person, I thought I'd share the recipe for anyone else who's as enthusiastic about burgers, halloumi and sweet potato as I am. 

Sweet Potato and Halloumi Burgers

450g sweet potato
175g broccoli
3 cloves of garlic
1 red onion (finely chopped)
2 red chillis
175g halloumi (plus extra to fry for the tops of the burgers)
2 tbsp flour
Salt and Pepper
1tbsp ground coriander (the recipe said fresh coriander but I decided I wasn't buying a whole bunch just for a tbsp... ground coriander worked just as well!)

Cook the sweet potato in a saucepan until tender (about 15 mins or so should do it). Once it is cooked, drain the water and then mash. 

Meanwhile, cut the broccoli into small chunks and cook in a saucepan for about 4-5 minutes. 

In a bowl, get together the garlic, onion, chilli, cheese and seasoning then add the sweet potato and broccoli to the mixture, mixing well until all of the ingredients are incorporated with each other. 

Shape the mixture into 4-6 equally sized patties, pour the flour onto a plate/worktop and coat the burgers in the flour. Then put the burgers into the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C and cook the burgers for about 15-20 minutes until cooked through. Flip the burgers half way through cooking. You could grill the burgers too, I just chose to use the oven because I was making potato wedges and can't use the grill at the same time! 

If you fancy adding a bit of extra excitement to your burgers, fry more red onion in a pan along with the remaining halloumi to add to the tops of the burgers. 

And now on to the second part of my B&B night, I was sucked into the creme egg brownie club after seeing so many people posting pictures of their own versions on twitter and instagram. I already had the brownie mix I got as a birthday present which I posted about here so it seemed like the perfect excuse. Plus, creme eggs were 8 for £1 in Home Bargains so I think it was meant to be.

I haven't got a recipe as such to post since my mixture came from the jar, but I've seen plenty of posts about them including this one on Cat's blog if you want to try them yourself. Which you definitely should do RIGHT NOW. I've ended up eating a few slices this evening and they somehow taste even better cold than they did warm last night. Amazing.

Falling- Haim