Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

Good Food Channel

3 Quick Cheese Snacks for the Good Food Channel

Today is officially the last day of National Vegetarian Week 2014. In case you’ve taken the challenge and are in search of some simple and tasty recipes to round off the weekend, I thought I’d highlight three recent quick cheese snacks, created for the Good Food Channel. Really though, who needs an excuse to indulge in a little melted cheese?! Of course, you can also use any of your favourite vegetarian alternative cheeses in these recipes…

Three Cheese Snacks
3 Quick Cheese Snacks created for the Good Food Channel

Firstly, a super-quick Mexican inspired snack – my Cheese Quesadillas with tinned black beans, tomatoes, spring onions and grated cheese. Use a chilli cheese if you fancy, and any beans – black, pinto or fava beans – drained and washed.

Cheese Quesadillas

Cheese Quesadillas {Recipe Here} for the Good Food Channel

Next, one of our favourites for a quick cheese snack, are my Three Cheese Toasties, with leek, garlic and thyme on sourdough. They take around ten minutes to make, and I simply used a griddle pan to make mine, weighed down a little with a heavy lid. If you have a panini machine or a toastie maker, you can use that instead. I usually like to use a combination of cheddar, mozzarella and Gruyère or Comte – but really, use any cheese that you like or have in the fridge to use up – or a vegetarian alternative.

Three Cheese Toasties

 Three Cheese Toasties {Recipe Here} for the Good Food Channel

Finally, if you have hungry kids, you can’t go wrong with these Cheese and Marmite Swirls. Simply keep a packet of ready rolled/ready to use puff pastry in the fridge or freezer, then unroll, spread with Marmite, sprinkle over the granted cheese and roll up. Once sliced, place them on a baking tray lined with paper, brush with a little beaten egg and bake for fifteen minutes. Serve when warm, but not too hot for little fingers!

Cheese and Marmite Swirls

Cheese and Marmite Swirls {Recipe Here} for the Good Food Channel

I hope that’s given you a little inspiration for the Bank Holiday weekend, or perhaps, for an after school snack or quick lunch.

How did you get on with the challenge to “go green” for National Vegetarian Week?

Recipes commissioned by the Good Food Channel – recipes, styling and photography by Ren Behan. 

Chocolate Rolo Cake

If you’re looking for an indulgent chocolate cake – rich, extravagant, impressive yet easy – you’ve found it. I was asked to create a chocolate Rolo Cake for the Good Food Channel and this is it. I’ve made it a few times since it’s original incarnation and it has definitely become something of a request cake! The cake feeds a large crowd, so it’s perfect for a fundraiser, or a coffee morning or perhaps a birthday celebration or a family gathering. Two layers of chocolate cake filled with caramel sauce, covered in a chocolate fudge frosting and topped with a cascade of Rolo caramels and even more caramel sauce. It’s certainly not for anyone observing a Lenten fast or diet! But I can promise you, it is good!

Easy Rolo Cake

Here’s the recipe

This recipe first appeared here on the Good Food Channel.

Easy-Rolo-Cake

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Chocolate Rolo Cake

Prep

Cook

Total

Yield 12

An indulgent chocolate cake - perfect for a special occasion! This recipe first appeared on the Good Food Channel's website.

Ingredients

  • For the chocolate sponge:
  • A little butter, for greasing
  • 225g/ one cup soft brown sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 250ml/ one cup vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 175g/ 1 & 3/4 cups self-raising flour
  • 75g/ 3/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 3 tbsp buttermilk
  • A can of dulce de leche or Carnation caramel
  • For the fudge icing:
  • 100g/ 2/3 cup good quality dark chocolate
  • 150g/ 2/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 450g/ 2 & 1/4 cup icing sugar
  • 3 tbsp whole milk
  • 2 x 126g packet of rolos, to decorate

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease two 18cm sandwich tins and line the bases with greaseproof paper.
  2. Using an electric whisk or a stand mixer, beat the soft brown sugar and eggs and together for about four minutes until pale and creamy. Slowly add the vegetable oil and the vanilla bean paste and mix again.
  3. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and stir together well with a metal spoon. Add a pinch of salt and stir in the buttermilk, mix well.
  4. Divide the mixture equally into the prepared baking tins and bake for 30 minutes.
  5. Once cooked, take the sponges out of the oven. Leave to cool in the tins and then turn the sponges out onto a wire rack.
  6. For the fudge icing: Over a pan of gently simmering water in a heatproof bowl, melt the chocolate and set to one side.
  7. Whisk the butter until light and fluffy and gradually add the icing sugar. Add the melted chocolate and keep mixing until the mixture is smooth. Add the milk to loosen the icing slightly, if needed.
  8. Once the cakes have cooled, spread ¾ of the can of caramel sauce over the bottom layer of the cake, reserving the rest for the topping. Place the second cake on top and spread half of the fudge icing all over the cake. Smooth with a palette knife and then continue icing the cake until covered all over.
  9. Gently heat the remaining caramel sauce to make it easier to pour. Leave to cool slightly. Pile the Rolo’s onto the middle of the cake and drizzle over the caramel sauce with a spoon.

Easy Rolo Cake

Ren Behan is a freelance contributor to the Good Food Channel – Styling, photos and recipe author’s own. 

Let me know in the comments box below if you are brave enough to give this wonderful chocolate Rolo cake a go!

Easy Chicken Recipes – Good Food Channel

I’ve been a little busier than usual, creating some easy chicken recipes for the Good Food Channel . A particular highlight, I’d say, was cooking Buttermilk Fried Chicken on the hottest day of the year – a cold beer was necessary at the end of that shoot, I’ll tell you! It’s hard to pick a favourite recipe out of this batch – we loved the Easy Chicken Pie (it was slightly cooler that day!) and I think the Caribbean-inspired Jerk chicken has become a firm summer favourite, too.

Click through the links below the photos to go straight to the recipes.

Easy Chicken Pie

Easy Chicken Pie {Recipe Here} for the Good Food Channel

Lemon Chicken

Lemon Chicken {Recipe Here} for the Good Food Channel

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

Buttermilk Fried Chicken {Recipe Here} for the Good Food Channel

Chicken and Parmesan Pasta

Chicken Pasta with Parmesan and Basil {Recipe Here} for the Good Food Channel

Jerk Chicken

Jerk Chicken {Recipe Here} for the Good Food Channel

You can keep track of all my recipes for the Good Food Channel by checking out my profile here.

Earlier on this year, I was also interviewed by the lovely food journalist Katie Bryson and created a Rhubarb and Almond Cake to accompany the feature.

Ren Behan is a freelance contributor to UKTV Food/Good Food Channel – styling, photos and recipes author’s own.

Will any of these recipes take your fancy over the summer?

A Rhubarb and Almond Cake for the Good Food Channel

Just before going away to Italy, a large pile of rhubarb was left on my doorstep by my good friend Alex Bray fresh from her mum’s farm and on the same day, a neighbour came round with some from his garden. So, rhubarb is plentiful at the moment and in season, meaning that I was able to bake this this tray bake to be featured by the Good Food Channel blog. The recipe runs along side an interview, put together by the lovely Katie Bryson from Feeding Boys and a Firefighter, for a new section highlighting the Good Food Channel’s favourite blogs. I hope you get a chance to try the recipe. I sweetened it with Agave nectar, so it isn’t excessively sweet and if you have plenty of rhubarb, you could layer up more slices as you add the batter to the cake pan.

You can find my Rhubarb and Almond Cake recipe here

You can read more about my blog and some of my favourite foodie things here

Rhubarb

Rhubarb and Almond Cake

Rhubarb and Almond Cake

With thanks to the Good Food Channel and Katie Bryson for the feature. This was a paid recipe commission. 

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