Homemade Sausage Roll and Rum Chocolate Cake, Treat Night

I was really looking forwards to this Saturday night Treat Night as recently every treat night I've been out so have only cooked healthy food for a while.

I decided I wanted to make a sausage roll and try a recipe my friend had given me after I licked the plate clean when she'd make this chocolate cake for a friends birthday!

In the past I've made sausage rolls with a variety of fillings, adding apple, spices, even cheese, but I fancied a really simple sausage roll so just stuck to good quality sausage meat. Feel free to experiment with your own flavour choices though.

I was having these for dinner so made them large but you can make them bite sized for picnics or parties. Much better than the shop bought ones and very easy to make.

I used shop bought puff pastry as I almost always do. I don't think life is long enough to make your own regularly ;)


Take one sheet of puff pastry and cut off about a third. Split 2-3 good quality sausages and remove the meat from the skins. Shape it into one large sausage and lay on the pastry. I used Waitrose Free Range Lincolnshire Sausages.



Break an egg into a little bowl to use as an egg wash.


Paint the egg around each egg as it will act as 'glue' holding your sausage roll shut.




Flip over the pastry so the sausage is enclosed.





Use your finger and thumb to press the two edges together making a pretty crimped effect




Bake at 220C for about 25 mins depending on how thick the meat is.





The finished result. I served it with lots of salad and copious amounts of ketchup. Delicious!





This chocolate cake has a hint of the Caribbean and is fab. Moist, rich and dark - just as chocolate cake should be! The original chocolate cake recipe was in cups so I converted it into grams as I prefer the accuracy for baking. I also only baked quarter of the recipe as I didn't want any leftovers and there were only two of us. The original recipe had Jack Daniels in it, which I think gave a better flavour but I didn't have any in so I substituted it for dark rum.

I started by weighing 64g plain flour into a bowl


Adding 64g caster sugar


And 32g cocoa powder


I then took one egg and 28g of butter and added the dry ingredients



Add 4tbsp of strong coffee and 4 tbsp of your chosen spirit.



Add 1/4 chopped ripe banana




Beat well.




Place in a 4'' cake tin or muffin cases and top with a few chunks of chocolate




Bake at 180C for about 20 mins (it will take longer if you make the mixture 4 times larger and you will need a pan 9x13 inches)





I served it warm with ice cream. A real treat!

Pancakes Galore - Shrove Tuesday

I love pancakes. I mean I REALLY love pancakes. Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, whatever you call it I love it! I truly have no idea why we don't have pancakes more often throughout the year. Every year I say I will and every year I don't have anything other than the occasionally American style pancake for breakfast and a crepe if I go to France. This year I should eat more British style pancakes!

Pancake Day holds great memories for me. My dad hardly ever went in the kitchen as we were growing up. To be honest I don't think I thought he could actually cook, but the one thing he always did was cook the pancakes. If he was working or wasn't around for any reason we would postpone Pancake Day. My mum would make the batter to Delia's recipe and then when my dad came home he would cook the pancakes. He'd always cook them in lard (I assume as his mother had and as it has a higher cooking temperature) and would always toss them, making us laugh as he pretended to drop them or get them stuck to the ceiling.
Today I started the day with American style pancakes but a healthy version high in protein and low in sugar. I topped them with grated apple, a squeeze of lemon juice, berries and a spoonful of 0% Total Greek yoghurt. A fab start to the day and a perfect post workout treat.




The recipe can be found here
I then had a light lunch to leave room for a blow out evening of pancakes.

I started with a relatively healthy Bolognese Pancake Stack. I made this by layering up spelt pancakes with Bolognese.






I used the Delia recipe above but replaced the white flour with spelt whole meal flour. It was effectively a lasagne but with pancake rather than pasta layers. For the Bolognese I used half beef mince and half turkey mince as it's a leaner cut and bulked it with plenty of onion and mushrooms to increase the vegetables. I also omitted the béchamel sauce and topped with tomato sauce and a small sprinkling of Parmesan rather than loads of cheese.



The photo's aren't great but give you the idea







For pudding I didn't even attempt to be healthy and went all out.

For these pancakes I used Delia's standard recipe above with white flour as she does and I cooked them in lard as my dad would have done.

The first one I decided to try something inspired by a wonderful breakfast I had in a little cafe opposite the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam. I made this by pouring batter into the pan as normal and pressing rounds of apple into the batter before the first flip.






The apple cooks into the pancake and tastes great. I served it with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a drizzle of agave nectar.



For the second one I kept things simple. It can't be Pancake Day without at least one lemon and sugar pancake. I squeezed a generous amount of lemon on the cooked pancake and sprinkled liberally with granulated sugar. Simple and delicious!



Next up was a Nutella pancake. I make this by cooking the pancake on one side and then flipping. As the second side cooks I put a generous spoonful of Nutella in one corner of the pancake so it could start to melt and then folder the pancake into quarters squashing in the Nutella with the back of my spatula.









Finally, was the Big Bang, based on a banana split sundae I went all out on this pancake. Totally OTT and fabulous!
I cooked the pancake on one side and flipped it. While the other side cooked I added slices of mars bar and allowed them to start to melt from the heat of the pan and added slices of banana.






I then put it on the plate and added whipped cream, chocolate ganache and lots of salted caramel sauce. Wow!



After all of that I now feel rather obscenely full and am kind of understanding why I don't do this more often!