Raspberry Nutella Pancakes

Happy World Nutella Day everyone! Who knew we needed a day to celebrate Nutella?  I mean, it should be celebrated, it's bloody delicious.  There's hardly a day goes by where I don't help myself to a heaping spoonful straight from the jar.  As yummy as it is scraped out of the tub and shoved directly into my mouth, Nutella is one of my very favourite ingredients to bake with.  Warm and sticky, swirled into a banana bread or brownies, there really is little in the world that can make me happier. That was until I made these raspberry Nutella pancakes.

I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone with this one, not only is it World Nutella Day today, but Pancake Day is fast approaching. Is it even Pancake Day if there's not a jar of Nutella on the table?

What is your favourite pancake filling? Are you a Nutella fiend or do you prefer a sprinkle of sugar and squeeze of lemon? As long as I have a jar of Nutella and a tin of Golden Syrup, I'm a happy camper.

If you fancy a bit more Nutella in your baking repertoire check out these recipes: Nutella Swirl Cookies / Nutella Melting Middle Cookies / Nutella Stuffed French Toast / Nutella and Raspberry Fondants 

Raspberry Nutella Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 150ml whole milk
• 4tbsp Nutella
• 2tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large, free range egg
• 3tbsp caster sugar
• 100g plain flour
• 2tbsp cocoa powder
• 1tsp baking powder
• 100g raspberries, roughly chopped
• 1 jar of Nutella to serve
• 1 jar of good quality raspberry jam to serve
• 100g raspberries to serve

Cooking Directions:

1. In a small saucepan heat the milk and Nutella, constantly stirring until the Nutella has melted into the milk. Allow to cool slightly then mix in the melted butter, egg and sugar.
2. Slowly add the flour, cocoa and baking powder to the dry ingredients, mixing all the time to make a smooth batter. Stir in the raspberries.
3. Heat a large frying pan and generously wipe with butter, turn the heat down to medium low. Spoon 2 heaping tablespoons of the batter per pancake into the hot pan. Cook until bubbles start to appear on the surface of the pancake, flip over and cook for another minute before transferring to a plate. Keep the finished pancakes in a warm oven while you make the rest.
4. To serve stack the pancakes and spread alternate layers with 1tbsp of Nutella and 1tbsp of raspberry jam. Decorate with fresh raspberries and serve.

SHARE:

Nutella Swirl Cookies

A few weeks ago I was browsing the cookbook section of my local bookstore, something I do pretty damn often if I'm honest.  Normally I'll browse, fall in love with a book before dragging myself away, remembering I have a library of cookbooks at home sat begging to be used.  This time I caved, I'm a little embarrased to admit that the book that broke me was the baking book of world famous vlogger Tanya Burr, Tanya Bakes.  I felt like a thirteen year old girl handing it over to the casheer but I have to admit, some of those recipes are pretty amazing, and the one that really got my heart rate going was for these Salted Nutella Cookies. 

Let me start off by saying that these cookies are insane! Not only are they swirled with the godly nectar that is Nutella, but they're bloody giant.  I'm not kidding, these bad boys are two handers. In my eyes, that is never a bad thing.

The thing I love most about these cookies, more than the lashings of Nutella, is the fact the dough doesn't need to be chilled before baking.  That means you can have freshly baked cookies in he timne it takes to boil your kettle.  OK, I may be over exagerating there but you get the jyst, they're fast!

If you're a cookie addict like me check out a few of my favorites: Levain Bakery Copycat Cookies, Nutella Melting Middle Cookies, Kick Ass Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Oreo Cookie Bombs,  Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Salted Nutella Cookies

Ingredients

• 200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 300g soft brown sugar
• 1 large, free range egg
• 325g self raising flour
• 200g Nutella
• 1tbsp flaked sea salt

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 180°c and line 3 baking trays with baking parchment.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the egg, mixing till combined. Add the flour and salt and mix into a crumbly dough.
4. Marble the Nutella through the dough using a metal spoon and roll the mixture into 10 large balls and flatten slightly with your hands. Place the balls of dough on the baking trays leaving space for the cookies to spread. Sprinkle each cookeswith a little extra sea salt and bake for 13 minutes until set around the edges.
5. Allow to cool on the tray for 10 minutes before transfering to a wire rack to finish cooling. Or eat them warm with icecream if you know what's good for you.

SHARE:

Nutella Melting Middle Cookies

These cookies should be illegal.  In my house especially!  I mean, just look at these saucy little devils.

I know, right?!  Why are you still here? Get your Nutella loving butts into the kitchen and get these bad boys baked.  You know I'm right, I'm always right about Nutella bro!

These cookies require a little bit of planning, but I promise you it's all worth it.  It's pretty much just freezing little balls of Nutella and wrapping chocolate chip cookie dough around it before it melts. What with me always shoving stuff in the middle of cookies, it's becoming a problem.  

You might want to skip the little sprinkle of salt but you shouldn't.  It gives these cookies just the right amount of lift, it sounds weird but I promise you, it's not.

Nutella Melting Middle Cookies
Makes 12

Ingredients:
125g unsalted butter, softened
100g light brown sugar
1 large, free range egg
1tsp vanilla extract
150g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
1tsp bicarb
2tbsp corn flour
150g dark chocolate chunks plus extra to decorate
Sea salt
Large jar of Nutella


Method:
First of all, line a large baking sheet with grease proof paper and scoop out 12 table spoons of Nutella onto the sheet.  Freeze the blobs until solid, around an hour.

Once the Nutella is frozen, leave in the freezer while you prepare the cookie dough.

Preheat the oven to 170C and line two baking sheets with grease proof paper.  Mix the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and creamy.  Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix till combined.  Add the flour, cocoa, bicarb and corn flour and stir together until just combined, stir through the chocolate chips. 

Scoop up a table spoon of dough and flatten it in your hand, place a frozen Nutella blob in the middle and pull the dough around the Nutella to seal it in a little ball.  Work quickly as the Nutella will start to melt in your hands. Add a few chocolate chips to the top of each ball followed by a sprinkle of salt.

Once you've finished making your cookies pop the trays in the fridge to chill for an hour, once chilled bake in the oven for 15 minutes.  Allow to cool for ten minutes before digging straight in.

If you can resist, the unbaked balls can be frozen and baked straight from the freezer.  Just add 2 minutes to the baking time.

SHARE:

Nutella & Raspberry Fondants for World Baking Day

Did you know that this Sunday May 20th is World Baking Day? I sure did, but I just couldn't rest without letting the rest of the world in on the excitement.  If you want to get in on the fun the rules are very simple, all you have to do is bake a cake, take it somewhere silly and snap a photo.  Upload your crazy cakey picture to Twitter and add the tag #caking or simply submit it here and away you go!

Want some inspiration? How about these uh-mazing Nutella and raspberry fondants, they really are something else!  Serve hot for a superb warm and gooey centre or cold the following day, these little cuties will knock your socks clean off!

Nutella & Raspberry Fondants

(Adapted from Eat Little Bird)

Ingredients:

100g plain flour

100g cocoa powder

200g caster sugar

185g unsalted butter, melted

4 large eggs

1 punnet fresh raspberries

1 jar Nutella

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C and liberally butter the cavities of a deep muffin tin.

Mix the sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy before folding through the flour and cocoa powder.  Add the melted butter and mix till combined.  

Pour a tablespoon of the batter into each muffin cavity, just enough to cover the base of the tin.  Place a heaped teaspoon of Nutella into each hole before covering with more batter.  Press three raspberries into the top of each fondant and bake for 10 minutes.  You want the sides of each cake to be cooked but the top and middle to be gooey and liquid.

Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before lifting out with a butter knife.  Enjoy warm with lashings of cream.

SHARE:

The word Nutella has lost its meaning....

Happy World Nutella Day! What a wonderful day celebrating a wonderful spread, happy times. Today is a day for getting saucy with Nutella, bake with it, spread it on your toast or simply (and this is my favorite) eat it straight from the jar, yum! Check out today's hosts Ms Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso for more Nutella based fun!

Today is yet another snow day for most of the country but to me, it's just my day off from uni so I thought I'd try and find something I've never tried before. After much scouring of the world wide web all i could really find was Nutella Muffins or Brownies, all of which I've made before, then inspiration struck in the most obvious of places, the Nutella website. Why on earth didn't I try that first?! For some reason the recipe I chose was listed under Summer, I think this is much more of a Winter treat. Heavy bread slathered in Nutella, perfect for those cold mornings!

Of course I didn't have and Nutella to hand, which is odd considering I usually have an arsenal of the stuff at my disposal, only Green and Blacks chocolate spread which just wouldn't do. Of to the shops I went and the walk was actually rather pleasant despite the weather, probably had something to do with the lovely Iron and Wine songs on my current ipod rotation.

So, my contribution to this, the most hallowed of days (in my opinion) is this Nutella Swirl Ring! Not only does it look pretty, but it tastes like a continental breakfast while holidaying in Eastern Europe. The smell transported me straight back to Prague.


I think I may well submit this to Yeastspotting, it's been a while.

SHARE:

101 apologies

I feel I owe Amazon.com a letter of apology. A few weeks ago, in a fit of boredom, I ordered a small selection of those 101 bla bla cookbooks from the BBC Good Food line from our favorite Internet superstore. A week later I was getting a little aggravated at the lack of packages dropping upon my doormat, but as I'm sure you all know, Amazon are shockingly slow when you opt for the free delivery they now offer, so I decided to give it a few more days. Another week later, nothing had arrived! As a friends hen night is coming up, I decided to beat all the other girls to the punch (the theme is purple and I could see me turning up in a dress everyone else had decided to buy) and purchase my dress a month early, feeling saucy I even forked out a bit extra for next day delivery. The next morning the postman arrived before the birds had even started tweeting, and on a Saturday of all days, so of course I slept through his gentle rapping upon my door. I awoke to a 'Sorry we missed you' note, a bill from BT and no cookbooks. This was the straw that broke the camels back, so to say, and I started on an angry email to Amazon demanding my money back. Hell hath no fury like a woman robbed of her cookbooks!

Monday finally rolled around and I took a detour to the post office on my way to work. When I eventually received my package, after arguing that Katie is short for Catherine and I wasn't trying to rob an innocent girls package I saw a small Amazon package was strapped to the huge bag. Uh oh. Indeed it was my cookbooks and it was the fault of the damned Royal Mail and not the poor people from Amazons fault. It seems my package was to large for the letter box and taken back to the sorting office without my knowledge. How very annoying!

But, I got my books so everything worked out. For me, anyway. To calm my annoyance at the bloody postal service I set about making a Cinnamon Nutella Cake from the book 101 Cakes and Bakes. This was probably the easiest cake I have ever made, I could probably even trust my Kris to prepare it without setting the kitchen alight. Throw everything in a bowl, mix and bake! Easier than a box, even! Not only is it quick and easy, it's also a delight to eat. A beautiful wintery cake, perfect with a cup of tea and a nice afternoon film.

The recipe is also available online at BBC Good Food

I omitted the nuts as Kris won't have anything to do with them, silly sod!

SHARE: