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Salted caramel chocolate shots – perfect for entertaining party guests!

Sweet party Ideas just for you

Forget sweet and sour, I love combining sweet and salty flavours together especially when chocolate, toffee and salt is involved. I first made these cute party-styled shots at Missie’s Party-themed Pud Inn back in September – you can read the blog post here from fellow food blogger @PinkLittleBean. These are best served in individual portions and the presentation of these are bound to impress your friends!

Serve them with a grissini/bread stick and you’ll be reminded of those retro KP Nuts chocolate dip pots back from your school day’s tuck shop – and that’s always a good memory! I always couldn’t decide whether I was more in love with the biscuit sticks, or the creamy chocolate dip I dunked them in :)

Find the recipe below for you to make at home for that all-impressive Christmas party sweet snack – and make sure you do the sprinkles round the edge look, it’s worth the time, the end result is bound to make your friends smile!

Ingredients / makes 20-25 shots glasses

• 1 can of Carnation Caramel
• 1 tsp sea salt, plus extra to serve
• 300g luxury milk chocolate, broken into squares
• 75g hundred and thousand sugar strands
• 300ml double cream, at room temperature
• 50ml milk
• bread sticks to serve

1. Melt 300g milk chocolate in a glass bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Dip the rim of a shot glass into the melted chocolate (not too much just enough to wet the rim) and then dip into the coloured sugar strands. Repeat until about 20 shot glasses have colourful looking rims.
2. Mix the caramel with the salt. Mix really well. Divide between 20-25 small glasses and chill (I placed a generous teaspoon into each glass).
3. Stir the double cream and milk into the remaining melted chocolate until smooth – if the chocolate’s gone thick, turn the heat back up and make sure the chocolate is nice and smooth before mixing with the cream, then scrape into a jug.
4. Slowly pour on top of the caramel, around the edges first. Chill the pudding shots for at least 2 hrs.
5. To serve, scatter a little more sea salt on top of each glass, then give each guest/diner a grissini/bread stick to dip into their delicious salted caramel shots …a shot of sweet happiness that’s bound to make them swoon! Enjoy :)

{Photos by Cindy Cheung and Keri Rowsell}

Getting in the mood for a Sheffield Picnic

Decent food items at a picnic helps to make the event a memorable one

Picnic food – homemade quiche. Finger foods are the most comfortable to eat and serve.

I’ve always loved the thought of having and organising my own picnic. A small gathering amongst friends and family under the hazy sunshine. Having a picnic during the summer can be entertaining and a great social get together. A fantastic way to meet new people, eat some delicious food and play fun outdoor games. It would also be a great way for me to apologise to friends I’ve let down on dinner dates due to work commitments over the past month (sorry guys!) and to meet supportive followers and new foodies who have shown appreciation for what I do.

It doesn’t take more than a picnic basket, a few good food items, help from our city’s talented food producers, bakers and bakers; family members and friends to organise our very own tasty picnic! And we need to realise that it acts as a glue for community bonding.

I’ve never organised a picnic (so I’d probably need your help – hope that’s OK?) but surely they can’t be that difficult to organise?… These days I’m finding the most difficult thing is knowing when the sun will pop out to play. Now, I could go all out and prepare non-alcoholic fruity punch, bellini’s and cocktails. To me, the food plays a really important role to a successful picnic – the idea of tray loads of homemade finger sandwiches on Cat Lane Bakery granary, fruit scones served with Missie Cindz plum jam, PJ Taste Sheffield Eggs excites my taste buds. To enjoy for afters – Victoria Made’s light and wonderful fruity cupcakes, chocolatey Hash Brownies and light sorbets or Very Delicious Cheesecakes could all be sweet possibilities and finally, everything washed down with fresh pink lemonade or Sheffield’s Tea Box iced teas. Delicious.

So, what else would you like to see on our picnic food menu?

But in order to truly appreciate a good Sheffield picnic we need to find the perfect venue for our afternoon. This could be in a park (Endcliffe Park, Chelsea Park in Nether Edge or Hillsborough Park are all possibilities?), or near a reservoir, lake or creek or maybe we could venture out into the Peak District or Derbyshire? but it preferably needs to already have some people there just so a comfortable atmosphere bubbles in our surrounding area.

Missie Cindz Picnic Checklist
Here are just a few of the essential things we will need to make our picnic a success:

• homemade food and drink
• hampers or cool boxes
• plates, glasses and cutlery
• napkins
• wet-wipes for sticky mouths and fingers
• sun-screen and sun hats
• toys (e.g. bat and ball sets, hula hoops, football etc)
• chairs for people to sit in. They don’t have to be anything fancy just simple lawn or garden chairs
• blankets to lie out on the ground so that everyone will have a place to sit. Then we will be able to sit back and enjoy our picnic. Mats and cushions are also good (less awkward to carry than collapsible chairs)
• camera (strike a pose!)
• waterproofs (in case the weather decides not to co-operate – could be a good possibility!)
• bin bags for our rubbish
• music
• mobile phone (make sure we have all your guests’ numbers so that we can find each other and tweet about our delicious day for those who couldn’t join us)

Let’s make sure to have a good time and enjoy ourselves. After all, isn’t that what summer picnics are all about? I will have a think of a suitable date, time and location for our picnic in the next coming weeks. I’m looking forward to a game of rounders in the park (as long as I can be the bowler! :)

{Photos by Cindy Cheung and Meng He}

Deliciously low-fat banana and white chocolate chip muffins. Tastes as good as they look!

Currently, I’m still enjoying the time off away from the studio and instead have been baking away in the kitchen. Today I ran out of cupcake cases to make a batch of muffins to take down to Birmingham with me as homemade New Year gifts for friends – so what did I do? made good use with what I had already of course!

I’ve seen this technique done for all things cupcake-licious many times before so it’s definitely not a new idea, but a useful idea that’s been around for quite some time.

I think this is really handy and fuss-free idea from Martha Stewart and will be an especially handy trick for those times when we run out of liners/cases in the middle of a batch of muffins (and they keep the baked goods from sticking to the pan – that’s always a good thing!).

Delicious low-fat banana and white chocolate chip muffins. Scrumptiously filling, not too sweet and great with a cuppa.

Instruction for Muffin Wrappers

1. Cut 5-inch square pieces of parchment.

2. Spray a muffin tin with vegetable oil cooking spray, or grease up each muffin cup to hold parchment in place.

3. Place 1 piece of parchment into 1 cup of the tin. Use your fingers to make the crease around the bottom edge, pressing along folds to crease. Repeat with other cups and parchment pieces.

4. Pour the cake mixture into each of the parchment paper squares, filling them until they are about 3/4 full.

See Crisp Muffin Wrappers from Martha Stewart for more details if required.

I designed some festive paper goodie bags – perfect for home-baked goods, fudge or any kind of small-sized gifts. Continue for assembly instructions and to download your free printable bag design – I’ve removed the Missie Cindz logo on the design for you (of course I couldn’t receive full credit for your homemade noms!) – let me know how you get on.

What you will need

• Full-colour Printer
• White textured stock
• Double-sided tape
• Scalpel

Instructions

Download your free bag design. Print out onto white textured stock (not too thick). Using your scalpel, score gently along dotted lines then cut out along solid lines. Continue with the following instructions.

Step 1: Using a scalpel, score gently along the dotted lines, cut along the solid lines

Step 2: apply double-sided tape to the white flap in the right and attach to the other side (left had inside page).

Steps 3: fold back the scored line at the bottom. Open out the bottom, push out fold and fold down.

Step 4: repeat step 3 with the opposite side.

Step 5: fold down flap. Fold down flap of opposite side too and stick down underneath side of flap nearest to you with double-sided tape.

Making your own festive homemade gift bags with Missie Cindz.

Step 6: open up the bag and fill up ASAP with yummy sweet treats!

Please Note: The downloadable PDF in this blog post (and across my entire site) are free for personal use only. They are not for commercial use. If you wish to incorporate any of my designs in your own personal projects, please attribute it to me by linking to my site. As a courtesy, if you wish to link to anything on this article, please link to this page and not directly to a downloadable file. Many thanks, any questions, just email me.

{all images by Cindy Cheung}

Homemade festive cheese and onion scones

I enjoy baking first thing in the morning because I like to grab those morning bright stars! #Opportunities

I go mad for the scone, whether they’re sweet or savoury, served with a cuppa – these treats never disappoint me.

Have these savoury cheese and onion scones with a nice hot winter-type soup like creamy mushroom or French onion. They only need to bake for 12-15 minutes to come out soft and golden. Remember, you can also make these as edible festive treats for friends and family – they’re bound to bring sparkles to any Christmas party…

Ingredients

• 225g (8oz) self-raising flour
• Pinch salt
• 55g (2oz) butter
• 50g (1oz) grated Cheddar cheese
• 150ml milk plus a little extra for glazing
• ½ tbsp poppy seeds
• 1 medium 0nion, chopped
• ½tbsp sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 220ºC (425ºF, gas mark 5) and lightly grease a baking tray.
2. Mix together the flour and salt, then rub in the butter.
3. Finely slice the onion and gently fry them over a medium heat along with the sugar and salt until nice brown caramel colour and darkened at the edges. This should take about 5 mins. Now transfer it to a plate to cool.
4. Stir in the grated cheese, poppy seeds, milk and cooked onions to the flour mixture and form a soft dough.
5. Turn out on to a floured surface and lightly knead, the mixture might be a little wet, if so, sprinkle some flour onto the palm of your hands to prevent the mixture from sticking to your hands. Pat the dough out to form a round 2cm thick circle.
6. Using a 5cm ‘star’ or ‘Christmas tree’ shaped cutter stamp out the scones until all the mix is used.
7. Place scones on baking tray, brush with milk and bake for 12-15 mins. Best served slightly warm. NOM!!

Cindz Tip: These scrummy scones can also be served as part of a buffet or party food selection. When the scones have cooled, halve, spread with butter, then sandwich with cress, cheese slices and chutney – whatever tickles your taste buds really!

Click here to download my Cindz recipes: Festive Cheese and Onion Scones – they’re NOM!

Click here to download my Festive Cheese and Onion Scones recipe – they're NOM!

 

White Chocolate and Cranberry fudge. Step 1: heat the white choc with condensed milk until smooth.

Christmas nowadays seems to be all about the presents – giving and receiving but what do you get that special someone who has almost everything they could ever wish for? or whenmoney is tight, how can your gift still carry that ‘awwwwe’ factor??? Well, it’s become very fashionable to make home-made food gifts to give away at Christmas or take to parties – not only do they have a charming personality to them, they also carry the ‘awwwwwwe’ factor, making them unique and individual. To me, fudge makes a great gift – put in your friends’ favourite chocolate, dried fruits, marshmallows, spice things up with some chilli? (add anything you want) and give them a sweet treat this Christmas.

Step 2: add the cranberries and vanilla and mix well. Pour into the tin (or like me, ice cube trays) and refrigerate overnight.

Step 3: refridgerate overnight before cutting up into chunky sqaures - easy and delicious!

Homemade fudge is really simple to make and make really sweet gift ideas :)

Here’s a really simple white chocolate and cranberry fudge recipe I made this week, give it a try and let me know how you get on (tweet a pic please! :)

This recipe makes easily 30 pieces.

Using just four ingredients:

1. Line an 18cm square tin with parchment paper (baking paper is fine too). Place the condensed milk and chocolate pieces in a saucepan and stir over a low heat until smooth (takes about 10-15 minutes).
2. Remove from the heat, add the cranberries and vanilla and mix really well. Pour into the tin and refrigerate overnight before cutting into chunky square pieces.

This is no cook fudge, you’re just melting the ingredients and there you go! Simple and easy….tastes delicious too. By the way, I thought I’d be innovative and used my ice cube trays as the mould but the fudge cubes were a little tricky to pop out (maybe use some walnut oil to grease this up from sticking) – so you might just want to stick with the square tin but you can’t say I’m not being original).