Mint and vanilla cheesecake makes for a fantastic flavour combination, but if you like mint chocolate, this dessert is for you. Chocolate Minty Cheesecake has a crunchy biscuit base, topped by a cream cheesecake with chocolate mint crunches in every mouthful. It is great for parties, and children love it. Best served freestanding as it cuts nicely into wedges. You’ll need a loose bottom or spring-form tin to do the presentation justice.
Ingredients for the base:
Ingredients for the topping:
Preparation Guidelines:
The base:
The topping:
To Serve:
Turn out of the tin and decorate with remaining mint wafers or sticks.
Note:   If you don’t have a loose bottomed or spring-form tin, use a flat-based glass dish; your dessert will look like a minty version of Eton Mess when you dish up, but it will still taste great.
Time:Â 30-40 mins to prepare, 3-4 hrs or overnight to set in fridge
Cocoa Treats:Â 8 servings
Continue readingÂ
Here’s the 2nd part of the Chocolate Eater Nest Torte recipe which covers instructions on making the moussey torte topping, and the pretty nest-style decoration for the top of the cake. There’s a lot of work involved overall, but it’s fun, and the result is truly worth it!
Ingredients:
For the torte topping
For the decoration
Preparation Guidelines:
For the torte topping:
For the decoration:
3. Roughly slice the milk chocolate into long, thin shards. Scatter them gently in a nest shape on top of the torte and fill the nest with the mini eggs.
Time: 2 hrs plus cooling and chilling time for the whole cake making process, including part 1
Cocoa Treats: 12 servings
Note: For more spring cake ideas, try this Easter cake with orange and marzipan.
Continue readingIn my opinion, Christopher Columbus’ most important discovery was chocolate. OK, he had to discover the Americas to find it, and that was great too, but chocolate was the best thing he ever did. Before then, it was the dark and secretive preserve of the Central Americans and one of their gods in particular, Quetzalcoatl, who is usually represented as a serpent-like figure with plumes. The ancient guardians of chocolate (or ‘xocolatl’, as it was known) revered it as a source of strength and wealth – and how right they were! It is both energy-giving and worth masses on the stock market! It has evolved into a vastly more sophisticated and varied product than Columbus could have dreamed, especially while he was drinking the bitter watery concoction that passed for drinking chocolate in those days! Columbus is known to have drunk chocolate, but it was his compatriot, Hernan Cortez who brought it back to Europe in the early 16th century. I bet they would have loved to have sampled my Mocha Slushy Punch.
Try this as a dessert idea after a filling dinner when you think there won’t be much room for heavy pudding – it goes down a treat! I use Baileys, but you could just as easily use whisky or rum for a delicious alternative. You could also create some great non-alcoholic versions or use a similar recipe for a cool iced mocha.
Ingredients
Preparation guidelines:
Note: Serve immediately in tall glasses with long spoons. Keep super-chilled if it’s going to be more than 5 mins before you serve, to preserve the slushy texture.
Time:Â Â 10 mins plus a couple of hours to chill the fresh coffee
Cocoa Treats:Â Â 4 generous servings
Continue reading