I love chocolate, and I love chocolate mousse. And I really love being able to make my own chocolate mousse. This recipe is good fun and easy to make. Hope you enjoy them!
Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt over hot water.
Add the butter and stir until smooth.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
Beat the egg yolks into the mixture, one at a time.
Separately, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
Whisk in the caster sugar.
Stir some of this egg mixture into the chocolate, then fold in the rest.
Spoon into small pots or cups and chill for at least 2 hours.
This is a really yummy treat, but remember that very young babies shouldn't eat it as the eggs are not cooked (sorry Trinity!)
I also tried a bit of a different mousse by putting a digestive biscuit in the bottom of one of the pots to make a type of cheesecake. It was very tasty!
Christmas isn't Christmas without mince pies... So what better recipe to bake than really easy mince pies that taste fantastic! I had my brother as my sous-chef for this, as I was busy with a chocolate mousse recipe, so here's what he did.
Ingredients
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 170C
2. Rub the butter and flour together in a bowl.
3. Add some water, and then squeeze into a ball.
4. Flour a clean surface and a rolling pin, and roll out the pastry until it is about 0.5cm thick. If the pastry is too stiff, add a little more water. I think you are not supposed to squish the pastry for too long or it won't taste so nice.
5. Use a cutter to cut a circle of pastry. This has to be bigger than the circle of your tin.
6. Gently place the pastry circles into the tin, and press into place. Something I saw them do on Bake Off last year is use a little piece of pastry to push it into the corners so you don't rip your pastry with your nails by accident.
7. Add a spoonful or two of the filling. Don't overfill or it will bubble out and burn (like last year when Mummy tried to make jam tarts and the jam exploded out of the tarts because she put too much in!)
8. Using some of the left-over pastry, cut out the lids. If you are making lids that cover the whole mince pie, you need to push a straw through each lid to make a small hole. We decided to mainly make star and heart shaped lids so it left a gap anyway to stop the filling exploding.
9. Gently place the lids on top of the pies. 10. Pop them in the oven for 15minutes at 170C. When they are cooked, let them cool for a few minutes in the tray before moving to a rack to finish cooling.
11. Sprinkle a little icing on the top through a sieve to make them look even more Christmassy!
I think my brother was a very good sous-chef, and these mince pies were very tasty. I hope you enjoy making (and eating) them too!
If you don't like mince pies, or you want a less festive treat for the rest of the year, you can replace the mince meat with jam to make jam tarts.
When we had some mysterious frozen eggs in our garden the other day (see Mummy's post to find out more)... well, I decided they were perfect for this.....!
This is an easy way to make great tasting muffins. Remember you can change some of the ingredients and experiment with new flavours, too! We made one batch of muffin mixture and then split it into two to make the different flavour muffins.
For the flavours:
175g blueberries
2-3 bananas (peeled and mashed)
Handful of raspberries
75g white chocolate chunks
Method Prepare the muffin mix by:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
2. Line a muffin tray with paper cases.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder and sugar together in a bowl.
4. In a second bowl, whisk the eggs, melted butter and milk together.
5. Then mix the contents of both bowls together. Do not mix it too much. That way it will stay light and fluffy. It does not matter if the mixture is lumpy. For the flavours - Blueberry & banana:
1. Take around half of the muffin mix.
2. Peel and mash the bananas using a fork.
3. Add the bananas to the muffin mix, folding the bananas in. Don't stir it too much.
4. Add the blueberries to the mix and fold in. Squish some between your finger and thumb as you put them in. This gives some pretty swirls in the muffins and gives a nice flavour. Don't squish all of them, though, or it won't cook properly.
5. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and put in the oven. They need about 20-25 minutes, until the tops are firm and golden. Then take them out of the oven, cool for a few minutes and then put them on a wire rack to cool completely.
Raspberry & white chocolate:
1. Whilst the other muffins are baking, take the other half of the uncooked muffin mix.
2. Fold in the chocolate chunks.
3. Fold in the raspberries.
4. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and put in the oven. They need about 20-25 minutes, until the tops are firm and golden. Then take them out of the oven, cool for a few minutes and then put them on a wire rack to cool completely.
These muffins really are delicious - why don't you try them yourself?
This recipe has been adapted from a recipe in "How to Cook" by DK books.
Last Friday, I found myself cooking in a REAL Chefs kitchen in the live final of a REAL cooking competition. We had to wake up really early to get there and my mum, dad and baby sister took me there. I was cooking a recipe I had invented myself. It was called Seasonal Summer Frittata and you can find the recipe here if you want to try to make it yourself.
Kent Cooks Live Final
In the family category, there were 3 finalists and I was the youngest because I am only 6 years old. We were able to cook with a bit of help from a family member but I hardly needed any help anyway. I met the Head Chef.
Meeting Head Chef
And there was a really nice judge who taught me another way of chopping vegetables safely.
Here I am chopping the vegetables
For pudding I made Baby blueberry pancakes with Super Simple Summer Berry Ice cream. It tastes delicious and is really easy peasy to make. Here is the recipe for it if you want to make it yourself.
Baby blueberry pancakes and ice-cream
We had to make two sets of both dishes - one for the judges to taste and one to go on display for all the judges and guests to see.
Seasonal Summer Frittata
Even though it was hard work getting everything cooked in time and we didn't even get to stop for a break, we had a tasty lunch afterwards and then the awards were given.
I loved it so much that I really want to make it to the final again next year so I'm going to start planning a new recipe soon.
Here I am celebrating at home with my certificate!
Baby Blueberry pancake with Super Simple Summer Berry Ice cream
This is the nicest ice cream I have ever tasted and it is so easy to make. In the summer we use berries that we have picked ourselves from our local pick-your-own farm. The pancakes are also nicer than normal thin and flat pancakes, because they are smaller and puff up more so they taste perfect with the ice-cream.
Ingredients For the baby blueberry pancakes:
Small handful Blueberries
100g Plain flour
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tbsp Sugar
100ml Milk
15g Butter
1 Egg
For the super simple summer berry ice-cream:
75g Strawberries, frozen for at least two hours before use (keep one or two for decoration)
50g Raspberries, frozen for at least two hours before use
50ml Double cream
1 tbsp Icing sugar
Method For the pancakes:
1. Mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar, milk, egg.
2. Add in some melted butter (approximately half).
3. Heat the remainder of the butter in a frying pan.
4. Pour in the mixture, which will be quite thick, to make some small pancakes. Do not spread the mixture round the pan.
5. Gently drop in 4 - 5 blueberries into each pancake.
6. Once the pancakes have firmed-up, gently turn them over to cook the other side.
7. Serve with your super simple summer berry ice-cream!
For the ice-cream:
1. Break up the frozen berries and blend them in a food processor with the sugar and cream. (Make sure your blender / food processor is suitablly strong for crushing ice-cubes because that is what the berries will feel like).
2. Do not over-process because as the fruit breaks down it will become a wetter mixture.
3. Serve with the pancakes adding a chopped strawberry on top for decoration.
I cooked this dish when I was in the live final of Kent Cooks in 2012. Hope you like this recipe as much as I do!
This is a simple recipe to make that I can make all by myself. It is seasonal (well in the summer it is) and you can even grow your own vegetables to go into it like carrots and courgettes.
It looks really colourful and tasty and it is really healthy because of all the vegetables in it and contains food from all five foods groups of the 'eat well plate'. Even my brother, who doesn't like peppers, eats this because it is so tasty!
This recipe makes enough for around 4 people.
Ingredients
4 - 5 eggs
1/3 green pepper
1/3 red pepper
1/3 yellow pepper
Half a courgette
1 carrot
splash of milk
1/4 cup of frozen peas
50g grated cheddar
4-5 sundried tomatoes, chopped (the ones in oil are nicest for this).
1 tsp mixed herbs
2 slices of bread, buttered
Olive oil
Lettuce to garnish
Method
1. Chop all peppers, courgette and carrot into small pieces.
2. Heat some oil in a frying pan (or griddle pan) and fry the vegetables until they have softened a little.
3. Leave to cool for a short while.
4. Then mix together with the beaten eggs, a splash of milk, the peas, cheddar, herbs and sundried tomatoes.
5. Heat oil in a frying pan over a medium heat on the hob.
6. Pour in the frittata mixture.
7. Lower the heat and cook until it starts to firm up.
8. Carefully turn-over the frittata.
9. Butter the bread.
10. Once the frittata is cooked through, serve with the buttered bread with a small garnish of lettuce.
I cooked this dish when I was in the live final of Kent Cooks in 2012. Hope you enjoy it!
Hi, I am the brilliant chef. I am six years old and I love to cook. I always have done for as long as I can remember.
Mum and Dad have set up this blog for me so I can remember all my favourite recipes.
This site will go live very soon, with more about me, my 'cheffing' and my recipes. Please come back soon!
