she makes: easy chocolate mousse

I made this mousse one day when I had to take something to a dinner party but had very few ingredients. I can't stress enough how easy this mousse is to make. It's fricken dangerous. The only downside is the amount of time it takes to set. So, if you're craving an instant chocolate fix you're going to be disappointed. You'll have to plan this binge in advance. The thing I love most about this recipe is how rich you can make it depending on the type of chocolate you use. I used quite a dark chocolate but you could just as easily use milk or even white.

The longer you leave it to set the better so I would recommend whipping it up in the morning (it really is so quick) then just let the fridge do all the work. Come dessert time you can be all "here's something I prepared earlier". I've always wanted to say that.


Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 medium eggs
• 60 g chocolate (at least 70% cocoa)
• 2 tsp sugar (or to taste)

Directions

1. Break the chocolate into pieces and put in a bowl over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water. When the chocolate begins to melt, turn the heat off. Separate the eggs
2. Whisk the egg whites into soft peaks, add the sugar, and whisk briefly.
3. Mix the egg yolks quickly into the melted chocolate and then whisk in a third of the egg white. Fold the rest very gently into the mixture until just combined (be careful not to overmix), and then put into bowls and refrigerate for at least four hours until set.

sunday pinster

Hope you've had a wonderful weekend. Here's a small collection of things I pinned this Sunday :)

1. This delicious looking mousse

2. This delicious pizza idea

3. This simple but stylish outfit

4. This incredibly brilliant art idea

5. This easy (and temporary) way of decorating bare walls

she bakes: birthday treats

This post is a bit of a double banger featuring two recipes. Aren't you lucky? Two for the price of one. Two birds with one stone. Two...recipes. that's all I've got. 

Anyway, it was my boyfriend's birthday recently and given it fell on a Tuesday there weren't many options on what to do. So naturally I decided to stay home and feed him treats. As you know, since I haven't shut up about it, I've been slightly obsessed with food since my trip to the USA. When I was in Chicago I tried my first ever deep dish pizza and I wish I hadn't. It was so amazing and nothing else has come close since. I literally haven't stopped talking about it in a year. So I decide the best resolution was just to attempt to make my own.

I used this recipe as a guide but I did change a few things to suit myself and based on what I could find in NZ, which I will note below. I also used my own dough recipe because it's tried and true and I'll list this below as well. 

I used a springform tin which worked perfectly and was just the right size. Some of the cheeses were not easy for me to find so I used mozzarella, Parmesan and colby. I also used tinned Italian tomatoes instead of chopped tomatoes with herbs added in. I used some chorizo which I mixed into the sauce (because I can). I fried off some onion and added the tinned tomatoes and the chorizo to the pan and let simmer for a few minutes. I felt that this brought some more of the flavour out and thickened it up a bit. Other than this the rest of the steps were as per the recipe. 

Pizza Dough Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast
• 1 Cup Warm Water
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Sugar
• 2 tsp Olive Oil
• 3 Cups Flour

Directions

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water(less than 100 degrees) in a large bowl.
2. Add salt, oil and 3 cups flour. Stir well.
3. Add flour until bowl is clean.
4. Knead for 2 minutes or more.
5. Cover with a damp cloth or oiled plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour.

Obviously I couldn't serve dinner without dessert (who would do such a thing?!). I made a lemon cake with cream cheese icing. I used this recipe which doesn't normally call for icing but I basically do what I want. Also, it was a birthday cake and it seemed cruel to serve it without icing. I made a cream cheese icing which, although I kind of made up myself, is basically the icing in this recipe. 

I added sliced almonds to the outside mostly for decoration but it ended up adding a really nice unexpected texture to the cake (which was totally on purpose) so I think I'll continue to do that in future. 

I hope you enjoyed the recipes and let me know if you try them out for yourself :)

she bakes: mini pretzel dogs

So as you know I visited the states last year. I had been before but this time I did a bit of adventuring (is that a word?) on my own. One of the things I became instantly obsessed with was pretzel dogs. I had some mini ones from Annie's and I never looked back. When I returned to New Zealand I decided I HAD to figure out how to make them myself. Thankfully there were plenty of recipes online. So basically I whipped up a batch and me and my flatmate may or may not have devoured a whole batch one Saturday night while drinking wine.

I used this recipe which was super easy to follow and they turned out amazingly. So delicious and perfect for a weekend snack....with wine.