Edible Christmas gifts | Arabella Cooks

chocolat bark 2

This is an absolutely knock out edible chocolate gift. I’ve given a few away already this Christmas and everyone says it’s delicious. The recipe came from Olive Magazine; it looks and tastes impressive but it’s a doddle to make and the recipe is very flexible – you can adapt it to suit any tastes or dietary requirements (I include a non nut version below for allergy sufferers..). Utterly yum!

Ingredients:

100g unsalted cashew nuts
25g unsalted butter
a generous pinch of ground allspice
a large pinch of sea salt flakes (actually you’ll need a few large pinches as you go along)
1 tablespoon of maple syrup
200g milk chocolate (I use Green and Blacks; don’t use Cadburys it doesn’t work in baking)
200g dark chocolate (with high cocoa content; again I use G+B
30g white chocolate (I use G+B again but any good supermarket cooking brand will do, just don’t use Nestle)

Method:

Put the cashews and unsalted butter along with the allspice, salt and maple syrup into a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat.
Cook until all the cashews are golden then tip out onto baking parchment, scatter over some more sea salt flakes and cool. (You’ll need to stir them from time to time, or do that cheffy pan flip thing to move them about. I like the pan flip thing).
Melt the milk and dark chocolate separately in bain maries (ie glass bowls over pans of barely simmering water).
Let the chocolates cool a little. Pour them out separately but making one large rectangle altogether, into a small baking tray lined with parchment.
Mix them together carefully with a fork to make a nice swirly pattern. Leave to cool for a bit.
Roughly chop the hardened cashews and scatter over the chocolate. Add some more salt (this may seem like a lot but you need to be able to taste it and it’s not too much of a sodium overload if you use sea salt flakes). Chill until set.
Melt the white chocolate (in a bain marie) and drizzle over the top in very thin squiggly lines using a metal spoon. (Be careful with white chocolate; it has such a low/non existent cocoa content that if you let it get too hot it seizes really easily; keep it cool and keep an eye on it).
Chill again until set then cut into shards. I put it into clear cellophane bags, tie with ribbon and label with a luggage tag to make it look fancy. [Store in the fridge as it softens very quickly].
To make this suitable for nut allergy sufferers: substitute chopped up Crunchie bar or Green and Blacks butterscotch flavour chocolate for the cashews (I made some like this and used a combination of both, which was delicious).

tomato chilli jam trio

Mr Arabella Cooks and I travelled round New Zealand eight years ago. We knew we’d be experiencing phenomenal wines there but hadn’t expected to be so blown away by the food. The portions were enormous but it was all so delicious I put on a stone and a half in three weeks. In Wellington we stayed with some old friends of Mr AC who made this amazing tomato chilli jam for us (along with some gorgeous barbequed salmon – match made in heaven) and I still salivate when thinking about it to this day. It’s tangy, sweet, punchy and a little bit tingly (though really not too much) and I recently got in touch with Melissa and Dave to ask for the recipe as I wanted to make a batch to give as Christmas gifts this year. It’s an adapted Peter Gordon recipe; it’s the perfect Christmas or hostess gift but do keep a few jars back for yourself as it’s unbelievably good with cheese (I love it with soft goats cheese), ham, salmon (it’s the perfect accompaniment to salmon en croute), toasted sandwiches, in bolognaise, on pizzas – as Melissa herself says “it gives everything some zhush!”. Peter Gordon suggests glazing fish or chicken with it before grilling, smearing onto lamb or pork legs before roasting or spreading to a slice of toast and topping with a fried egg. Its uses are endless. Try it. You’ll love it!

Recipe (makes roughly 10 – 15 small Killner Jars worth)

2.5 kg ripe tomatoes
6 red chillis, 5 of them de-seeded; for a mild but punchy jam leave in the seeds of ONE of the chills; if you want it hotter, leave in more of the seeds; for a milder jam, leave out all the seeds.
10 cloves of garlic, peeled
three thumbs of ginger, peeled
100ml fish sauce
1kg golden caster sugar (or plain white if you don’t have golden)
500ml red wine vinegar

Method:

Blend half the tomatoes, all the chillis, garlic and ginger with the fish sauce in a blender (don’t de-seed the tomatoes, they contain the pectin which thickens and sets the jam).
Put the puree into two large pots and add the vinegar and sugar to both (divide equally).
Bring to the boil, stirring constantly, then add the remaining tomatoes (chopped finely) and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Skim off any scum that forms and stir every 5 minutes. Scrape the bottom and sides of the pan every now and again to ensure an even cook and release the solids that collect at the bottom.
When the jam is done (if you put a dollop onto a warmed side plate and push the edge of the dollop with a spoon it should stay where it is and not slide back to where it was), spoon the mixture into sterilised Kilner jars (to sterilise just run through the dishwasher and take out just before you need to use them so they are still warm), top with a small circle of baking parchment, then once the jam has cooled, close the lid and store in the fridge until needed. I used an old school Dynamo to make the label for the jars which looks lovely (a Dynamo label maker doesn’t cost much and you can get Kilner jars fairly cheaply on Amazon). This makes a super gift along with the spiced maple cashew bark in the photo below. Yum!

tomato chilli jam single edible gifts

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Category Archives: Edible Christmas gifts

Spiced Maple Cashew Bark

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Tomato Chilli Jam