Would you like less guilt with that chocolate?

Don't we all?

I never used to care for chocolate. Or anything sweet, really. Then I became pregnant, and all of a sudden I was nosing through the cupboard at night wanting a little something sweet after dinner. And when mid-morning hit, when I'd normally have a bagel or some toast, I was all about the Pop-Tarts and Tim Tams. Who had I become?

Someone who got excited at easter, for the first time since about 1992, that's who.

And even though I've been using my entire body's resources to feed a small and seemingly-constantly-hungry child, and have every right to eat extra calories without fear or favour, I still felt guilty when a block of chocolate was nothing but scraps of tin foil and torn packaging only two days after I bought it. Chocolate's not healthy, I thought. I should be eating a handful of nuts and an apple, and instead I'm eyeing off the M&Ms.

Then I was told about Table of Plenty's Mini Rice Cakes and the European chocolate that could be entering my mouth and leaving the guilt at the door. Wholegrain rice cakes and European chocolate sound like awkward dinner companions, but I'm happy to say it works. They sent me some to try, and 15 calories a cake meant I could eat a bag (and I totally did) and feel like I got a dose of healthy with that chocolate. A dose of gluten-free healthy. And a dose of gluten and lactose AND fructose free healthy with the dark chocolate variety. Win!

If chocolate's not for you, they also come in Triple Berry - a pure cocoa butter berry yoghurt coating. I wasn't quite as sold on those, but I think that's entirely because I don't like berry-flavoured things. I have a weird dream I once had featuring strawberry-flavoured YoGos to thank for that.

I really love the idea behind Table of Plenty - bringing "products with life, education, innovation and style that stand out from the ordinary" to supermarkets. These products use healthy ingredients, and are quick and easy. They even give back by supporting organisations for children and people with disabilities, and via the creator, Kate Weiss, work to bring education and tools for self-development to women and girls worldwide.
You can read more about Kate's story and how she founded Table of Plenty after her own child was diagnosed with a disability here.


Food with a heart! I love it.

They're $3.99 a pack at Coles, but I have three lots of all three flavours to give away... just leave a comment telling me what your favourite pregnancy snack was (and if you're a dude, then just go ahead and tell me what your favourite snack is!) and I'll get random.org to find three lucky recipients.

And if your favourite snack was a strawberry flavoured YoGo, then we can't be friends.... ;)


Giveaway closes Monday September 19 at 10am xx


Congratulations to Amanda Elizabeth, Becci Swan and Queensland Girl. Look out for your email!

Dark Mint Spanish Hot Chocolate

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It was a sunny mid-semester afternoon and I was meeting an American friend for coffee. I had randomly sat next to her in our local courthouse a few weeks earlier, both of us there to cover stories for our News Rounds class. I was nervous as hell, and always had visions of being stalked outside the courtroom for scribbling notes about the trial by the defendant's angry family. I saw a pretty, perky blonde with a notepad and cute shoes and sank down next to her gratefully, whispering "I think I'm here for the same thing you are!". She smiled and we bonded over our mutual love of Sweet Valley High books. She was bold and confident, on exchange from her beautiful big college in Pennsylvania. I was jealous.

A week later she popped up in my Forces of Change in International Politics class. We swapped numbers. Little did I know, it was the start of something seriously awesome.

So this day we decided to forgo coffee and headed straight to the new San Churro nearby for some hot chocolate instead. I had the dreaded less-than-$20-so-can't-get-cash-out-from-an-ATM student syndrome, and I was told at the counter I they had a $10 maximum spend when I went to order my Classic Spanish. The sad fact was, I had less than $10, too. I mumbled not to worry about it, and something else ridiculous, like I'd live off the fumes of my American friend's. She giggled. I died.

Anyway, we sat down and before I could pester her with millions of questions about my obsession with American food, she took a sip of her chocolate.

"Oh," she said.

"Oh my".

I was intrigued... I watched the viscous chocolate ooze back into its place in the mug every time she finished sipping. I barely heard anything she said. I needed this chocolate for my very own.

So I went home, and in true food-obsessed starving student fashion, I made my own.With a random Lindt Easter bunny I found in my refrigerator. And now you can too!

Ingredients:
1 cup milk per person
1 teaspoon cornflour per cup of milk
4 squares Lindt Mint Intense dark chocolate per cup of milk.

Directions:

1. Put milk and cornflour into a saucepan and whisk to combine. Heat over medium heat until chocolate just boils, stirring regularly.

2. Add the chocolate, broken into small pieces and whisk until blended. It will get deliciously thick and you will be the envy of all your friends.

*Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Lindt... it was mere randomness that I never ate Easter eggs and had one rolling around in my fridge that I originally made this with. It was so good that I've never used any other chocolate. This time it happened to be mint. You can choose whatever flavour you want. I have not received anything in return for this post.

YUM!!

Decadent Chocolate Mud Cake

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that all home cooks should be armed with a good mud cake recipe.  Even me, someone who isn't much of a fan of cake. To me, they're too cake-y (heh), oftentimes dry and lacking in flavour. I also didn't find mud cakes all that palatable - too dense, usually served cold (a travesty!) and weirdly textured. 

My husband said to me one day recently "so... you should probably do a chocolate mud cake for your blog", wink wink nudge nudge, so to appease him, I did. But it had to be something I wanted, so it had to be made with very little flour. I wanted sort of a cross between a pudding and a cake - no ghastly dry tasteless bits. A flourless chocolate cake with flour, if you will.

I also needed an excuse to wear my super-cute Smitten apron I had won through a promotion Liss from Frills in the Hills was running on Pinterest. If you've never been to Pinterest, stop what you're doing immediately and go look. It's porn for anyone with eyes and a house. 

Welcome to the Veggie Mama kitchen.

 Cutified x 1000 thanks to Smitten apron.

Sure I grease my tins with whole blocks of butter... don't you? ;)

Inspected and approved.

Even by the humans.

Ingredients
200g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
250g best-quality cooking chocolate
1/4 cup self-raising flour

Ganache:
150g cooking chocolate
3-4 tbs cream

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar.

2. Add eggs, one at a time.

3. Melt chocolate and add to the mix with the self-raising flour.

4. Bake at 180C oven for 45-50 minutes.

5. When cool, ice with ganache.

Ganache:

1. Melt chocolate with cream. Add more cream if chocolate is too thick.

We're fond of putting this in the microwave... then serving it with ice cream. Yep.


*Disclaimer - I am in no way affiliated with Smitten. I simply loved their products and was lucky enough to win one. They are awesome and you should check them out. They make candles too! 

Finish Quantum and the Chocolate Challenge

I'm a teensy bit competitive. Not the sweaty, athletic type, but if there's a challenge going on, I don't like to lose. You're looking at a crossword competition champion and inaugural ice-block-eating winner. Oh! and once I had to suck jelly through a straw with my hands behind my back. I won that too.

And if you don't like to lose, don't play me in Trivial Pursuit...

If you want to see my dreams die before your very eyes, play me in Scrabble (yes, I completely suck even though I'm a professional writer... go figure), Monopoly, checkers, chess (I have a deep-seated love-hate relationship with it) or poker. That being said, I'm a mean Boggler and Battleship-er.

When someone throws down a challenge, I more than likely accept. I want to triumph, dammit! I was encouraged by the good people at Finish to bake an uber-ooey-gooey caramel chocolate brownie and to wash the pan with their new Finish Quantum tablets in my dishwasher. I was skeptical. I mean, tons of the caramel from the eggs had melted through the brownie and was now stuck fast on the bottom of the pan. I couldn't even scrape it off. 

Well we couldn't have it going to waste now, could we?

Yet, the next morning both Veggie Dad and I were genuinely surprised to see a very clean pan indeed. 

Impressive...

Sure there was a little left over, but it brushed right off, and did I mention the baked-on caramel?

This killed me.

The fun part is that we got to eat these brownies. You can too! And if you make a ridiculous mess like I did, then email finishsamples@handlingmatters.com.au for your very own free sample of Finish Quantum. #winning!

Delicious easter egg brownies are constructed thusly:

Ingredients:

125g unsalted butter

200g dark chocolate, chopped

3/4 cup caster sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup plain flour, sifted

2 x 110g packets caramel easter eggs

cocoa powder, to serve

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan forced. Coat the baking dish in non-stick spray.

2. Place the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water on low heat. Don't let the bowl touch the water.

3. Cook, stirring for 2-3 minutes until smooth and combined. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar thoroughly until you have a silky consistency. Set aside for 5 minutes.

4. Stir in beaten eggs and flour. Pour a mixture into a prepared dish. Spread top evenly with a spatula. Press chocolate eggs into brownie mixture.

*Disclaimer: I was given this challenge and all the necessary items as a gift from Finish. I wasn't obliged to write anything at all. However, did I mention the baked-on caramel?!

Vintage Lane - Chocolate Mocha Cake from Gold Crest Recipes

Normal and Formal - for every occasion!

Vintage Lane is going to be a regular feature on Veggie Mama - to bring you up to speed, go here, or click the "Vintage Lane" tab.
Cute, right?

This book is part of a collection given to me by my sister, and it was once owned by her husband's grandma. She wrapped them up all pretty in a box and gave them to me for Christmas. Good sister!

The introduction tells us that there was "tremendous demand" for copies of Gold Crest's last recipe book, containing "inspiring and practical recipes to please every member of Queensland families".

I have to tell you, the cake I made did just that. Not much of a cake eater, I ate three cupcakes in a row, and I even received glowing reports from Veggie Dad.

The contents include recipes for cakes, puddings, pastry and biscuits, as well as "Special Meat Dishes" (goulash, salmon balls, casserole chops and more), fillings (not the dentist kind... though they might send you there), cookery hints, weights and measures and a list of equipment one should own when setting up their own kitchen.

The Faithful Rainbow Cake is presented in full colour, and we are told it has been reproduced by popular demand. Looks good to me!

Pretty in Pink

There's even an Oriental Cake (which only has cinnamon, cocoa and vanilla for flavouring, so I'm slightly confused... ), Rice Custard Pudding, Cornflake Tart, Cornish Pasties, Iced Vo-Vo Biscuits, and Monte Carlos, among others.

I can't tell when this cookbook was made, as a google search of just about every word combination I can think of comes up with nothing. It was obviously a time when offal was a regular feature in a cook's repertoire...

Om Nom Not:

Tasty: so subjective!

and now for the featured recipe... Chocolate Mocha Cake

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups Gold Crest self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons cocoa
5 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup cold milk
2 teaspoons coffee essence (I used two tablespoons espresso)

Mocha Frosting:
2 cups sifted icing sugar
pinch salt
2 tablespoons cocoa
3 tablespoons butter
2 1/2 tablespoons coffee
1/2 teaspoon Gold Crest vanilla essence

Directions for cake:

Sift the flour, salt, soda, cinnamon and cocoa together twice. Add coffee essence to milk. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually. Beat until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add sifted dry ingredients, alternately with liquid mixture, a little at a time. Beat very smooth. Bake in two greased and floured 7in sandwich tin in moderate oven 30 minutes.

Directions for frosting:

Sift the sugar, salt and cocoa together. Cream butter until soft. Add part of sugar mixture gradually, beating thoroughly. Add remaining sugar mixture alternately with warm coffee, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla.


This made a very light cake, with a rich, buttery frosting - really delicious. The batter was so fluffy, and was interesting to see - the addition of cocoa only made it a very light brown, like the cakes I used to make when I was a kid (I only had one recipe book and it was sooo old), compared to the deeper browns of mudcakes and boxed cake mixes.

Verdict?





NOM!



Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies

The ultimate brownie indulgence!

I always bake a little treat for Veggie Husband’s lunchbox every week, so this is the latest effort.
It is impossibly rich.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
60g cooking chocolate
Cream cheese filling… a little further down
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I omitted these)

Method
1. Heat your oven to 180C. You can grease the bottom and sides of a rectangular 13x9 inch pan or you can be lazy like me and line it with a huge sheet of baking paper!

2. Melt butter and chocolate. I did this in the microwave, in a glass bowl. cook in 20-second bursts and stir after every time. Cool 5 minutes If, like me, you use chocolate chips which aren’t designed to melt… it will take forever. I recommend cooking chocolate!

3. Make cream cheese filling, set aside.

4. Beat chocolate mixture, sugar, vanilla and eggs in large bowl. It looked a little anaemic here so I added a tablespoon of cocoa. Beat in flour and salt.

5. Spread 3/4 batter in pan. Spread filling over batter, and you can either drop random pieces of the reserved batter, or drizzle it like I did.

6. Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack.

7. Try to stop yourself from eating the whole thing in one go.

Cream Cheese Filling

1 packet cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg

Method
1. Beat until smooth. easy, huh?

Recipe from Betty Crocker.

M&M Cookies

Actually the best cookie I’ve made in a long time. Now I bake regularly, and have melted a great deal so am obviously the best judge of this…



This is a Betty Crocker recipe for chocolate chip cookies, which I halved and altered slightly. It happens.

mmm see? You can’t resist, can you.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar (I used 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup golden syrup mmm)
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 eggs
4 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 bag semisweet chocolate chips. (I used two regular bags of M&Ms. I’m like that)

Method
1. Heat oven to 180 C or 350 F. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs until light and fluffy. you can use a mixer, or just get a really huge bicep on one side, just like me. Especially if the butter’s still cold! Stir in flour, baking soda and salt. The dough will be pretty stiff, but that’s how it’s meant to be.
2. On an ungreased cookie sheet (I used baking paper), drop dough by tablespoonfuls or an icecream scoop about 2 inches apart. Flatten slightly.
3. Bake 11 to 13 minutes or until light brown. The centres may still be a bit soft, and that’s cool. Remove to a cooling rack after about two minutes.

Good for lunchboxes, nondiabetics, midnight snacks