CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

This recipe is adapted from a book from Nigella Lawson. It is the easiest thing to do for school cakes or parties.

You need:
- 165 g butter
- 165 gr dark chocolate
- 250 gr sugar
- 115 gr plain flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- a pinch of salt

Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave ( 50 second at high temperature; if it is not melted put it back another 20 seconds and so on). Separately mix the eggs, sugar an vanilla and add it all to the butter and chocolate (do this carefully if the chocolate is still hot). Combine the flour and salt and add it to the mixture. Put it all on a lined tin and bake on a 180 degrees preheated oven for 25 minutes.

CHEESE CAKE

To undo the damage of the pheasant, and under pressure from one of my sons, I ended up agreeing to do a recipe for cheesecake that we found in one of their children magazines. I have to recognize that it was yummy.

You need :
- 250 gr ginger biscuits
- 100 gr melted butter
- half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 400 gr Philadelphia cheese
- 200 ml cream
- 100 icing sugar plus 3 more tablespoons
- strawberries and raspberries
- water

You should use a loose bottom tin for this.
Crush the biscuits with a rolling pin until you get crumbs . Mix them with the melted butter and press them down on the base of the tin. Let them cool for at least 45 minutes.
Mix the cheese, cream, sugar and vanilla extract. Put it all on top of the biscuit crumbs and put it back in the fridge for at least 4 hours (preferably overnight).
Put a handful of strawberries and raspberries in a pan with two table spoons of icing sugar and 3 table spoons of water. Boil it all under very low hear for around 5 minutes. Then blend it in a food processor. When this is cool put some fruit on top of the cake and add the fruit puree on top.

The children helped with it all but crushing the biscuits was their preferred bit.

PHEASANT

The children were put off big time by the smell of the raw pheasants. They were not too impressed with the roast pheasant either and would swap this for chicken any day. Adding lots of redcurrant jelly convinced them to eat this, but it was definitely not a winner.

You need:
- two pheasants
-4 onions (cut in eights)
-4 apples (cut in quarters)
- 6 cloves of garlic (unpeeled) one lemon
- olive oil (you can use butter instead)
- salt
- thyme or rosemary

Salt the pheasants and cover them with the herbs and olive oil. Put them in a roasting tin. Add the onions, garlic and apples to the tin, add a bit of salt, and sprinkle them (and the pheasants) with the lemon juice. Roast in a 200 degrees preheated oven for 45 minutes. Before serving peel the garlic (which should be soft by now)  and mix it well with the juice so that you get a sort of thin gravy.   You may need redcurrant jelly too...

BAKED EGGS

One of my grandmothers used to prepare this dish every Sunday. It is simple but comforting. Anything with chorizo and peas is always a winner.

You need (per person)
- a teaspoon of olive oil
- a teaspoon of grated onion
- 10-15 gr of chorizo (cut into cubes)
- 10 gr of Spanish ham or bacon (cut into cubes)
- a handful of frozen peas
- three tablespoon of tomato sauce (see separate recipe)
- 1 egg
- salt and if you wish also pepper
All the quantities are purely indicative so add more or less to taste.

Heat the oil and grated onion in a pan over medium heat until the onion becomes golden. Then add the chorizo and ham/bacon and fry for 2 minutes. Add the peas and after 3-4- minutes add the tomato sauce. Let it bubble for 1 minute. Take it off the heat and put in on an individual oven proof dish or ramekin. Put the egg on top. Add salt ( and pepper) and bake in a 175 preheated oven for 12-14 minutes until just set.  

The children did not help much this time but they do like opening the eggs. If yours do too get them to open them on a separate cup or you may end up with lots of ruined chorizo/peas mixture.

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

These are very easy to make.
You need:

100 gr self raising flour

100 gr light brown sugar

85g butter 100g peanut butter 200 gr dark or milk chocolate (broken into little chunks) 1 egg half a teaspoon of vanilla extract Mix the sugar, butter, peanut butter, egg and vanilla extract. Then stir in the flour and chocolate chunks. Put spoonfuls or balls of the mixture on a lined baking tray (we used silicone lining from Lakeland). Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 12 minutes. Let them cool down a little before taking them off the baking tray.

SALMON EN CROUTE

This is nice for the children to make because it comes out really beautiful. You can do this with various vegetables, but we normally do it with leeks. I added a few spinach leaves as well but had to hide them from the children (they saw in a newspaper that spinach is full of mercury and that this is toxic, so they now feel scientifically entitled to refuse eating them).

You need:
- one packet of puff pastry  (already rolled)
- 350 gr salmon ( two rectangular steaks)
- a little bit of olive oil
- butter
-s alt and pepper
- 2 leeks
- a few spinach leaves
- 1 tablespoon creme fraiche.
- 1 egg ( beaten)

In a pan fry the leeks (medium to low heat) on a tablespoon of butter and a table spoon of olive oil for 15 minutes. Add the spinach leaves, and toss it all well. After 1 more minute add the cream, salt and pepper,  wait until it bubble and take it all off the heat.

Roll out the puff pastry. Add salt and pepper to the salmon. Put the salmon in the center of the puff pastry, add the leeks mixture on top. Cover it all with the pastry encasing the salmon well. Press the extremes of the pastry together with a  fork so that the crust does not open up. Paint the pastry with the egg wash. Put it on an oven tray with a little bit of olive oil so that it does not stick. Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for 25-30 minutes ( until golden).

CELEBRATION CAKE

We baked this recently for a family birthday and it was truly spectacular. We saw the  recipe in a Pascale Lorraine programme. She calls it 'I cannot believe you made that cake'.

You need:
- 200 gr butter
- 200 gr sugar
- 140 gr plain flour
- 4 eggs
- 60 gr cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- buttercream (you can make it by beating well 250 gr butter, 500 gr icing sugar and 100 gr cocoa, but we cheated a bit and bought it ready made at the supermarket)
- lots of chocolate cigarillos (you can buy them at www.chocolatetradingco.com). You need around 350 gr for the cake but my children (and I) ate a fair amount of them while arranging them on the cake.
- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, pomegranate seeds
- a bit of vegetable oil for greasing the cake tin

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line and grease the cake tin (with the vegetable oil).

With an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar. Add two eggs and half of the flour and mix it all well. Add the rest of the eggs, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and mix it. Put it all into the tin and bake it for 40-45 minutes (the recipe calls for 30-40 minutes but we needed more time)

When the cake is cool, cut it in half with a serrated knife. Put the upper layer at the bottom, cover it with buttercream, put  the bottom layer of the cake on top and cover it all (top and sides) with a generous amount of buttercream. Let the buttercream harden in the fridge for 30 minutes and cover it all again (top and sides) with even more buttercream.

Stick the cigarillos on the sides of the cake and put the red fruit on top.

The cake is rather deceptive because it looks light and elegant but it is actually rather heavy (tonnes of buttercream) If you can forget the amount of calories it is actually very delicious.