I’ve had an opened tin of condensed milk in the fridge for about a month. Thanks to it being so sweet and thick – and that I covered it tightly with a silicone food cover – it was fine to use after all that time.
I wanted to use it up by making something quick, sweet and tasty – almond chocolate fudge! I found the perfect recipe online on the Sweetest Menu blog. I only had half a tin of milk remaining, so I simply halved the amounts.
It was so lovely – just a couple of squares is enough, though – it was very sweet. I think it would also make a delicious icing for the top of a layered sponge; perhaps a chocolate or mocha cake.
If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it
Instructions
Grease and line a 20cm/8" square baking tin with baking or parchment paper
In a large mixing bowl, add your chocolate and butter and then place on top of a saucepan filled with about 5cm/2" of water - ensuring the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water beneath
Pop onto a medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until completely melted
Gradually stir in your condensed milk, vanilla, salt and baking soda and gently stir until it all comes together
Remove from the heat, throw in your nuts and mix through
Moving quickly as it will begin to set, pour the chocolate mixture into your prepared pan and gently smooth over the top
Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until firm
The stretch of sunny, summery weather we’ve got used to has suddenly disappeared. I was glad to be busying myself in our oven-warm kitchen making a batch of almond cookies. Which brings me to think… how do you pronounce ‘almond’? I say, ‘arh-mond’… Justin says, ‘ol-mond’… which of us is correct?!
Anyway, back to more important matters. These cookies are easy to make, using three types of almond – I should have named them triple almond cookies – almond extract, ground almonds and flaked almonds. You just roll the cookie dough into balls, press the flaked almonds into the top and cook them for 15-20 minutes.
They’re really delicious – they’re soft and chewy in the middle and crispy around the edges. The recipe made 22 cookies for me – however, it will depend on how large or small you like your cookies. If that sounds like too many for you, the excess cookie dough can be frozen until next time; either in a single lump or ready-made into cookies. Simply defrost fully before popping them into the oven.
If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it
Instructions
Combine the melted butter and caster sugar and beat until light and fluffy
Add the beaten egg and almond extract and combine well
In a separate mixing bowl, sift together the flour and bicarbonate of soda
Fold the flour mixture into the butter mixture
Fold in the ground almonds
Chill the dough in the fridge for about an hour
Grease & line a baking sheet with baking parchment
Preheat the oven to 170°C, fan 150°C/ Gas mark 3
Scoop out about a dessert spoon of dough at a time, roll it between your palms to form a ball
Put the ball on the prepared baking sheet and stud the top with the flaked almonds (only put 4 or 5 balls on the sheet at a time, leaving lots of space between each ball, as the cookies spread quite a bit during cooking)
Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly golden on top and crisp at the edges
Allow to cool and firm up for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring them to a wire rack for a further 10 minutes
Repeat stages 9 through 12 until all the cookie dough has been used
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H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/
We’re off on holiday in a couple of months and I want to lose a few pounds prior to our departure. I’ve gained about 10 unwanted pounds since Fudge became ill and sadly died in December – my daily exercise has dropped to virtually nil. I’m not really one for dieting, but I thought I’d give the Ketogenic plan a go for a while.
I’ve done lots of research about what foods are good and bad and have been finding it pretty easy to stick to so far. Mind you, it’s only been a week! The thing I miss the most is a sugary dessert after dinner. I’ve been allowing myself a couple of chunks of plain dark chocolate each evening, but I’ve had enough. I’ve tweaked an earlier brownie recipe and come up with my own Keto chocolate and almond brownies.
The original recipe used peanut butter, but I fancied trying something different. As such, I made a batch of almond butter – easy… and absolutely delicious! If you fancy another kind of nut butter – other ‘Keto-friendly’ ones include hazelnuts, macadamias, sunflower seeds, tahini and walnuts.
The other main changes I made were swapping the high-carb wheat flour for coconut flour and the caster sugar for pure stevia powder. Lots of people talk about how bitter stevia is – they’re probably using too much of it; it’s 150 times sweeter than cane sugar. The stevia powder I bought came with its own little spoon for adding to tea or coffee – it measures 1⁄32 of a teaspoon! I used less than ½ a teaspoon in the whole batch.
30g/1oz almond butter (see ingredients & method below)
4 eggs
50g/1¾oz coconut flour
¼tsp pure stevia powder (about ½ a gram ONLY)
¼tsp salt
½tsp bicarbonate of soda
½tsp cream of tartar
For the nut butter
300g/10½oz whole plain almonds, skins on
pinch of salt
tiniest pinch of pure stevia powder (optional)
1tbsp coconut oil
Add ingredients to shopping list
If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it
For the almond butter
Put the almonds, salt and stevia powder into the bowl of a food processor. Process for 10-15 minutes (yes, that long!) until the mixture turns into an oily, smooth paste
Add the coconut oil and process for another 1-2 minutes
Decant the almond butter into a sterilised jar with sealed lid
For the brownies
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6
Grease a 30 x 20cm (12 x 8 inch) brownie tin and line it with parchment paper
Put the butter and chocolate into a heat-proof bowl on a saucepan of simmering water over low heat and warm until just melted
In a small mixing bowl, combine the coconut flour, stevia, salt, bicarb and cream of tartar
In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, then, using a rubber spatula, stir in the melted chocolate mixture
Fold in the coconut flour ingredient mixture
Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin and level out
Drizzle over the almond butter in 3-4 straight lines, then 'drag' through the almond butter with a skewer or toothpick to create a marbled effect
Bake for 20 minutes, until the cake is just firm to the touch
Allow to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes then lift out the block onto a board using the lining paper and cut it into 6-9 squares
Serve warm or cold; on its own or with thick, full-fat pouring cream
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H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/
As with many of you out there, there’s been severe lurgy in the H is for Home household this week. Well to be honest, we’ve contracted a succession of bugs stretching back 2 months at least – one after another, sometimes overlapping. And that’s after not having had a sniff of a cold for the previous 5 years. It’s certainly been quite a grim winter. When you’re feeling under the weather, any baking has to be quick and easy. These honey almond brittle biscuits seemed like the perfect answer today.
The preparation was literally a ten minute job – and they then less than ten minutes to bake. A small price to pay for some delicious home-baked biscuits.
And they were indeed delicious. The almonds and honey were a very good combination. There are lots of other potential ingredients to experiment with – peanuts, hazelnuts, pecans and coconut to name but a few. The biscuits were a lovely blend of soft gooey centres and crisp, crunchy edges. A little treat is always nice when your feeling sorry for yourself !
