We Love Cooking!:
white chocolate

Christmas has well and truly hit the Skehan household! We've only been in our brand new little cottage two months, but it's safe to say we've finally made our house a home. The Christmas decorations are up, the house is filled with Christmas spirit and the scent of warm baking is wafting from the kitchen. Just this week we carried our first Christmas tree up to the house from a little shop in the village; Christmas is here and I'm loving it! The festive season is a fantastic time for cooking, ingredients are celebrated and people are busy stocking up on all those essential Christmas storecupboard ingredients. I'm huge fan of Christmas baking and we're planning a big baking session with my little cousins who are coming over next week; a giant gingerbread house, homemade toffee, christmas tree biscuits and gingerbread muffins are all on the menu. If all this talk of Christmas baking has got you in the mood, then you have to try these absolutely delicious cranberry and white chocolate muffins. They make the best of leftover cranberries, but you could also use any other berry you wish. The sweetness of the white chocolate really balances out the sourness of the cranberries... utterly delicious!

Cranberry and White Chocolate Muffins
If you really want to get ahead of yourself you could make a big batch of these and freeze them to serve for a Christmas morning treat! If you're making them for kids, I'd suggest quickly whizzing the cranberries in a food processor to break up them up a little.

Makes 8-12 Muffins
100g of butter, melted
200ml of buttermilk
Zest of 1 orange
2 large free range eggs
150g of caster sugar
250g of self raising flour
250g of fresh cranberries
200g of white chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 175oC. Line a muffin tray with paper cases.
In a bowl, whisk together the butter, buttermilk, orange zest and set aside.
In a standalone mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in the butter mixture and whisk until combined.
Gently fold in the flour until just combined. Stir through the cranberries and white chocolate until combined. Be sure not to over mix the batter.
Spoon the mixture into the papercases and place in the oven to cook for 15-20 minutes until brown on top.
Remove from the oven and place on a wire wrack to cool.

Another recipe from that amazing dinnerparty I keep mentioning, this time it's the turn of the amazing cheesecake which Sadhbh's son Jamie prepared. Cheesecake is definitely a winner when it comes to making desserts ahead of time, and even if you don't have a son to make it for you, it's not to tricky to get great results! :)

White Chocolate Cheesecake
(Recipe from Bill Granger's "Bills Food")

Serves 8
100g plain digestive biscuits
50g butter, melted
400g of good quality white chocolate
284 ml carton of double cream
250g full-fat soft cheese (such as Moonshine Farm cream cheese)
250g tub of mascarpone cheese

For the sauce
275g blueberries, raspberries or strawberries, plus extra to serve
50g golden caster sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Whizz the biscuits in a processor until they look like breadcrumbs. Pour in the melted butter and whiz again briefly. Line the base of a 20cm springform tin with a disc of baking parchment. Tip the mixture in and press firmly to cover the base in an even layer – use the back of a spoon. Cover and keep in the fridge until you’re ready to make the topping.
Break the chocolate into small pieces into a heatproof bowl. Put it over a pan of simmering water, then remove the pan from the heat and set aside until the chocolate has melted. Stir once or twice. Remove the bowl from the pan and leave to cool slightly.
Gently beat the cream, cheese and mascarpone in a bowl until well-combined – don’t overbeat it or it will go too stiff. Stir in the melted chocolate until the mix is smooth. Spoon this mixture on to the biscuit base and put the cheesecake back in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight.
To make the sauce, tip half the blueberries into a blender or food processor, add the sugar and lemon juice and puree until smooth. Press through a sieve into a bowl and set aside until needed.
Remove the cheesecake from the tin and cut into slices. Transfer to serving plates, drizzle with the fruit sauce and top with the remaining fresh fruit.

It may not look like it now but when I was younger up until the age of 5 or 6 I was completely blonde! There was a brief few years in my teens where I tried to recreate this look, but this ended in tears and should most definitely not be revisited. Anyway as a blonde kid people always seemed to make the association between me and the milky bar kid who also had bright blonde hair. I blame these comparisons for my love of white chocolate from an early age. I know white chocolate gets quite a lot of stick because it's not as high quality as good dark chocolate but it is an ingredient that I love using in desserts, giving a great creamy sweet flavour.

White Chocolate Ginger Cheesecake Pots
Desserts that can be made ahead are lifesavers when it comes to entertaining and ones which only take a few minutes to put together are even better! These individual cheesecake pots are perfect to pull out of the fridge at the end of a meal and with an extra kick from the ginger your guests will be singing your praises!

Serves 6
200g of gingernut biscuits
100g of butter, melted
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
450g of cream cheese
200g of white chocolate
100ml of cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of icing sugar

Blitz the biscuits in a food processor until you have fine breadcrumbs. Pour in the melted butter and ginger and process until everything is mixed through.
Gently push the biscuit base into individual serving pots and set aside. Don't press down too hard as you want nice loose spoonfuls of biscuit with the cheesecake mix.
Slowly melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a small pot of simmering water.
Put the cream cheese in a large mixing bowl and add the white chocolate, cream, vanilla extract, and sugar.
Beat all the ingredients together until you get a nice light mixture.
Spoon the cream cheese mix into the serving pots, smooth the top and garnish with a sprinkling of thinly sliced white chocolate.
Place in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

This post is coming live from Sweden! I arrived last night after an extremely long day, but it was worth it. We landed in pretty heavy snow conditions which got so bad after we landed and they were forced to close the airport today, so I got in just in time! It's absolutely bloody freezing here, -7 degrees celsius, I can't feel my toes, plus you would quite easily be able to spot that I am not from here. The Swedes are all elegantly wrapped up in proper winter gear whereas I look like I've fallen into a bargain rail at TK Maxx and have ended up wearing the only oddest mismatching warm clothes I have, but I'm still cold!

I'm definitely in need of some White Hot Chocolate. I made this tasty drink for Maisy when we were baking last weekend and it's the perfect festive drink! Enjoy! :)

Yummy White Hot Chocolate!

This is a perfect little Christmas pick me up to keep you warm during all the baking and decorating you'll be doing in the next few days! If you want a really frothy mixture, pop the warm mix into an empty milk carton, pop on the lid and give it a good hard shake!

Serves 2
150g white chocolate
500ml milk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

In a saucepan, gently melt the chocolate in the milk, make sure to keep whisking until the chocolate is completely melted.
Bring the mix to a gentle simmer and whisk in the vanilla extract and the cinnamon until combined.
Serve in big mugs and slurp down straight away!