Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

Easy Entertaining

Chocolate, Hazelnut and Almond Brownie Cake

Yet more baking! This time a lovely chocolate brownie cake that you can make in a flash and easily serve to your guests at short notice minute. This brownie cake was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if I took a trusted brownie recipe and baked it in a round tin, rather than a square brownie tin. The result was a lovely moist, sophisticated cross between a chocolate cake, torte and brownie. I sprinkled some hazelnuts and slices almonds over the top before baking, rather than mixing them into the mixture.  They didn’t sink it, but rather stayed on top and become golden and toasted. A sprinkling of icing sugar gives the cake a little lift, too!

This cake is perfect served warm with a good splash of double cream. If you can keep your hands off, it keep well in a tin and is even better the next day. The bananas in the mix keep it nice and moist.

I was hoping to enter this cake into the We Should Cocoa event hosted by Laura in May (with the theme of chocolate and almonds) but I missed the deadline. I also wanted to link up to Alphabakes for the letter H for Hazelnuts, but again, missed the deadline! Sorry about that, ladies, I will try and do a better job of keeping up next month!

Anyway, enough excuses, I’ll leave you with the recipe and hope you enjoy the wonderfully long and celebratory weekend.

[gmc_recipe 4940]

With thanks to Mermaid Bakeware for sending me some excellent quality, non-stick loose base tins to play with! Look out for a bakeware giveaway coming soon.

What have you got planned for the Jubilee weekend?

Pantry Paella with Veg Box Runner Beans (Nigella)

This is my entry to the monthly blogging event over at Maison Cupcake called Forever Nigella, this month hosted by Kat at Housewife Confidential. The theme is ‘Sea Fish and Eat It,’ which promted me to have a scour through NIgella’s books to find a fishy recipe.

We are not huge ‘paella’ fans in our family, if I am making a rice dish I would be more likely to go for a risotto. However, as it happens, I did have a bag of mixed seafood in the freezer and all the ingredients to hand to make Nigella’s ‘Pantry Paella’ so I gave it a whirl.
It is actually easier to make than a risotto as you don’t have to stand around stirring it as much.
For the kids, I confess to taking a bit out shortly before throwing the seafood in and giving it to them sans seafood as they are not really into mussles, prawns and squid just yet – though they do love fish. I also added a touch of cream to the ‘little people’ version as I felt the flavour given by the saffron may have been a little too strong for them (I think I had put a bit too much in!) and threw in some lovely runner beans I found in my veg box.
The recipes can be found either in Nigella’s book ‘Kitchen’ or here at BBC Food.
I agree with Nigella that this is a great ‘store-cupboard standby’ recipe and it would be easy to make for a get-together or a family supper.