This is how Chocolate is meant to be!

Gooey warm chocolate pudding with a smidgen of vanilla ice-cream ozzing down slowly melting down the sides. What else do you need on cold and wet winter night?

Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding

1 cup (120g) self-raising flour
3 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 cup (125g) caster sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup (125ml) milk
60g butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanillia essence
1 cup (185g) soft brown sugar

Preheat oven to moderate 180 C. Brush a 2 litre heatpoof dish with meltedt the flour and I tablespoon cocoa into a large bowl and add the caster sugar. Make a well in the mixture.

In a jug, beat the egg and add the milk, melted butter and vanilla essence. Pour the liquid into ingredients and, using a wooden spoon, stir until well combined and lump free. Pour into the prepare dish.

Combine the brown sugar and the remaining cocoa and sprinkle evenly over the batter. Pour 1 1/2 cups boiling water gently and evenly over the ingredents in the dish. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the pudding s cooked, a sauce will have formed undernealth.



**I like to use coconut milk or creeam instead of using milk. I also LOVE to add some chopped nuts or chocolate pieces.

Daydreaming of France!

16 August 2008.

This afternoon I curled up on the sofa to spent the afternoon daydreaming of living in the france country side; through a wonderful Australian auther called Mary Moody. Mary is a fairy well-known Australia she has been a prolific gardening auther and a former presenter on ABC's show "Gardening Australia" She is a wonderful auther, as you read her books it is like she is right next to you telling you personally about the time spent in France, as well as heaps of juicy bits of her personal life, including one or two love affairs, and the issues relating to her loving, caring husband finding out about them!

She was writen some lovely bestsellers including Au Revoir (2001), Last Tango in Toulouse(2003) amd The long Hot Summer (2005). Today, I was looking at her book, "Lunch with Madame Murat" It is part travelogue, part history, part culinary adventure, and a wonderful visual journey through the riches of life and food in rural France.

After spending a few hours looking at the book, I decided to make Creme Brulee. The recipe can be found in this lovely book.

Creme Brulee

Serves 8

1 L Milk
1 Vanilla Pod
1 soup spoon Corn Flour
6 Egg Yolks
100g Sugar
Sprinkling of Brown Sugar

Add vanilla pod to the milk and bring to simmering point but do not boil.

In a bowl mix all the other ingredients, slowly adding the milk and stirring well.

Remove the vanilla pod and pour the mix back into pan.

Cook until it starts to thicken, stirring constanly. Pour into eight individual ramekins and leave to cool. Just before serving, spinkle brown sugar on the custard and heat with a blow-torch or under a grill until carmelised.

Lemon Ice-Cream. So so easy!

This is the most yummy and most easy ice-cream to make as well as very quick! However if you are looking for a low-fat ice-cream, I wouldn't ever consiter this one, using a low-fat cream just doesn't work, you really need double cream, or cream higher then 35% fat content. It tastes like REAL ice-cream, so creamy and you only need to serve little amounts. It is also nice made with Mandarin juice insteed of lemon juce, (Mandarin ice-cream only has a light taste of mandarin, where I find the lemon ice-cream very lemmonly and tangy) I must admit this is my favoute ice-cream recipe (and I don't need to flaff around with the ice-cream maker) Recipe is found in Nigella Lawson's How to Eat, in the Week-end Lunch section.

Lemon Ice-Cream
Recipe from Nigella Lawson, How to Eat.
3 juicy lemons, perferably unwaxed
420ml double cream
170g icing sugar

Grate the zest from 2 of the lemons. Sqeeze the juice of all three and pour into a small bowl with the zest and icing sugar, stir to combine and leave for 30 minutes, if you can, to let the flavour deepen.

Whip the cream with 3 tablespoons iced water until holds soft peaks, then whisk in the sweetened lemon juice. Tun into a shallow container, cover and freeze- no stiring, crystal-breaking-up, mixing or anything needed-until firm. Place in fridge around 40 minutes before serving to ripen/soften.

Photo to come.