I went to an inspiring raw chocolate demo by Chef Rene at Wise Cicada in Newmarket, Auckland. He showed us how to make lots of chocolate recipes and we tasted them all! The energy in the food was amazing. Here’s his recipe for super fudge, which keeps nicely in the fridge. Just one piece in the afternoon is a great pick-me-up - packed with super foods!

3.5 c date paste (dates soaked in enough water to blend into a paste)
1 c chia seeds
1 c sultanas...

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This recipe is from the Mindfood website... I tried it, I would make it differently if I did it again. Notably, it has a strong honey flavour, so I would use less honey or perhaps a really mild one (I used white rata) and perhaps increase the amount of rosewater.... I also made it without that rice paper, but used icing sugar/cornflour to combat the slight tackiness of the crust... it's incredibly sticky. Would be hard without a stand cake-mixer!
http://www.mindfood.com/at-recipe-craisi...
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At one of my jobs they like to decorate their offices with Christmas decorations. This is mainly because there’s a decorating competition at ACP Media and prizes to be won. Anyway, my contribution was these meringue wreaths from Alessandra Zecchini and Arantxa Zecchini Dowling’s book Party Food for Girls.

She says the recipe contains lots of sugar as the meringues are designed to be long-lasting Xmas decorations. They will keep for weeks. I haven’t done much icing in ...

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Mmm. Nice sweet-savoury snack to take down to Party Central tonight to see the All Blacks beat Les Bleus! (Postscript: NZ 37: France 17 woo ha!) See the full post on Heidi Swanson's site, www.101cookbooks.com. She just uses walnuts but I used walnuts, almonds, hazels and brazils.

1 cup / 5 oz / 140 g brown sugar or natural cane sugar
2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoon chopped rosemary leaves
1/4 cup / 1 oz / 30g sesame seeds
2 large egg whites
1 lb / ~4 cups shelled walnut halves
1/...

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This is a wickedly good treat for watching films at home or in the cinema, or watching the Reds beat the Crusaders in the Super 15 final. Boo!

5 cups freshly popped popcorn
1 cup whole almonds
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
50 g butter
2 tbs golden syrup or maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 100 C. Grease a baking sheet.
Mix popcorn and almonds in large bowl.
Over low heat, mix sugar, butter and syrup in medium sauce...

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Mama Chan taught me how to make these and I am pleased to have been able
to show a few friends the technique, and now I can share it with the world wide web!

Makes about 20.
1 c boiled kumara, peeled and mashed (purple flesh but you can use the orangey ones if you like)
1 ½ c glutinous rice flour (available at Asian grocers. This does not have gluten in it;
it’s called glutinous because of the sticky nature of the flour when it’s cooked)
½ c sugar (could be icing, ...

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I bought two fantastic chocolate moulds in Venice - rose shapes and leaf shapes. No baking involved, but I thought I'd include my first batch to show you how easy it is.
Just melt dark and white chocolate. Filled the moulds halfway then added a toasted hazelnut or pistachio, and topped with more chocolate. For the leaves I mixed in chopped pistachios and dried cranberries.
Lately I've also made some batches of Annabel Langbein's espresso hazelnut chocolate ripple  - pouring dark and white choc...
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