Easy Chocolate Recipes

Here's a different way to serve cooked apples-in a delicious form of chocolate pastry.

A Basket of Apples

Ingredients
1 cup (4oz) self raising (cake) flour
4oz butter
1/2 cup (4oz) castor (fine grained) sugar
1 large egg
2 level tbs cocoa powder

Filling
4 large cooking apples
1/3 cup (2oz) soft brown sugar
1 tbs rum, lemon or other flavouring
4 tbs cold water

Method
1. Peel, core and cut the apples into slices.

2. Put them in a pan with the water and rum or flavouring of choice and cook gently until they are soft but whole. Drain well and leave them to go completely cold.

3. Preheat the oven to 375 deg F (190 deg C). Grease two 7 inch square cake pans.

4. Put the butter and flour into a bowl and rub in until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Stir in the cocoa powder and castor sugar.

5. Beat the egg and stir into the mixture until it is well combined and holding together. Divide it equally into two pieces of dough.

6. Roll out each piece of dough so that they fit the 7 inch cake pans. Put each piece into a cake tin and bake for about 15 minutes until they are just half cooked.

7. Remove from the over and spread the cooked apples over one piece of dough without removing it from the pan. Carefully remove the other half cooked dough from the pan (pans with removeable bottoms are best for this) and place on top of the apple.

8. Bake for about another 15 minutes until the dough is fully cooked.

9. Leave it in the pan to cool then cut into slices.

10. Sieve icing (confectioners) sugar over the tops to serve.

This delicious cake combines the flavours of ginger and chocolate to great effect and the cake is light and airy because it is made with beaten egg whites.

Ingredients

Crystallised (Candied) Ginger
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4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup (6oz/175g) castor sugar
1 cup (4oz/100g) cake flour (self raising)

Filling
2oz (50g) butter
1 cup (4oz/100g) confectioners (icing) sugar
4 tbs of finely chopped preserved ginger
4 tbs grated semi sweet (plain) chocolate
1 tbs rum (optional) - if you want either a more gingery or chocolatey taste, you could use a ginger or chocolate liqueur instead of rum.

Frosting (Icing) (Optional)
3 oz (75g) semi sweet (plain) chocolate
1-1/2 cups (6oz/175g) confectioners (icing) sugar
2 tbs light (single) cream
1 tbs boiling water

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F (180 deg C). Grease and line the base with non-stick paper of an 8 inch cake pan. Sprinkle the pan with a little flour and castor sugar.

2. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks.

3. Carefully fold in the sugar and egg yolks making sure that they are evenly distributed throughout the egg whites.

4. Strain (sift) the flour into the mixture and fold in carefully as you go. Pour the mixture into the cake pan and bake for about 40 minutes. The cake is done when it is golden brown and the centre springs back when pressed.

5. When the cake is cooked, take it out of the pan and leave to cool on a rack. When cold, cut it in half horizontally.

Filling
6. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

7. Add the ginger, grated chocolate and the rum or other liqueur. Mix well. Even if you don't use the alcohol, the filling should be fine without adding other liquid.

8. Spread the filling on one half of the cake and then sandwich the two pieces together. If you don't want to make the frosting below, just sift a little icing (confectioners) sugar over the top of the cake.

Frosting (Icing)
9. Melt the chocolate (see techniques). When it is liquid, remove from heat and gradually stir in the sugar.

10. When the sugar and chocolate are well combined, slowly stir in the cream, then the hot water. While the mixture is still hot, spread it over the cake.

Country Choice Organic
Quick Oats
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Ingredients
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3 cups quick cooking oats
2 cups sugar
1/4 pound butter
1/2 cup milk
3 tbs cocoa
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
1. Put the sugar, butter, milk and cocoa in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil and continue to boil for about one minute.

2. Remove from the heat and mix in the vanilla extract and peanut butter. When these are well combined, add the oatmeal and mix together thoroughly.

3. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture on to waxed kitchen paper. Put them in the refrigerator for about and hour until firm.