The Two Fat Ladies' Chocolate Pye

This pie has a really unusual crust. It's made with one egg white, ground nuts, and sugar. There's no butter or flour. The filling is simplicity itself--chocolate and cream. This is a rich, indulgent dessert that is great for special occasions, or even just when you need a chocolate pick me up. The filling is not baked so this pie is quick to put together.

I love the Two Fat Ladies show and if you're not aware of it, Amazon has all of the episodes available to watch instantly. They also have all of The French Chef.

You can find the recipe for this amazing pie here.

Nigella's Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins

These are really tasty muffins and it takes just a few minutes to make the batter. They sort of taste like a brownie, but lighter and with less of a chocolate flavor. I thought that they were delicious and am surprised that the reviews aren't all 5 stars. See what you think!

You can find the recipe here.

Paula Deen's Tomato Pie

This is perfect if you have nice red, ripe tomatoes to use. Since it's another Paula recipe it's rich and you can only eat small slices if it. Even though I'm not a huge tomato lover, I still really enjoyed this pie. The tomatoes intensify in flavor and thankfully don't turn all runny. With the cheese on top it's almost like a pizza. Anyway, it's delicious and great for using those piles of summer tomatoes.

The recipe is here.

TWD -- Baking with Julia: Rhubarb Baby Cakes (the sage version)

Erin is the host this month for the Upside Down Rhubarb Baby Cakes. Instead of using rhubarb, I decided to use sage since it looked so pretty in the book; and it was also easier than making the caramel for the rhubarb. The cake was easy to make and had a nice light texture to it. I think it was a little plain on its own, but it would be good with fresh whipped cream or ice cream. I liked the sage flavor even though it was a bit odd to have herbs on a dessert. Please visit Erin's blog to see her lovely cake.

Black Treacle Recipes

I LOVE the Two Fat Ladies and have seen all of their shows dozens of times. They frequently mention that they love black treacle. So, being a copycat I had to buy some black treacle and try out a couple of their recipes. I made their Yorkshire Gingerbread and their Swedish Cabbage.

Black treacle tastes like molasses, but not exactly like it. It has a more complex flavor and to me, it has a bit of a licorice taste. I actually like it much better than molasses.

The Swedish Red cabbage was interesting and had so much flavor with the lemon, onions, treacle, and apples. It would be a really nice dish to serve during the holidays. It wasn't sweet, just flavorful. Here's the recipe

The Gingerbread was awesome--moist and spicy. It had quite a kick to it with all of the ginger, and even though I don't usually love ginger, I loved this gingerbread. The treacle adds a much nicer flavor than molasses would have. You can find the recipe here.

I made blinis!

I've always wanted to make blinis--those mini buckwheat pancakes that are usually served with caviar. But since I don't eat caviar, I wasn't sure what I'd do with the blinis. In an episode of the Two Fat Ladies they made blinis and mentioned that you can serve them with jam. That was all I needed to hear to make my own batch. These were so delicious and fun to make. Interestingly, they're made with yeast and rest overnight. This is the recipe I used and it worked perfectly.

Blinis are yummy!

Crunchy Seed Braid

Jill and I made King Arthur's Crunchy Seed Braid bread. It's an interesting recipe because it's half bread flour, half whole wheat flour and there are some oats. The dough was so heavy and dense that I didn't think it would ever rise. But, it actually rose beautifully and puffed up even more in the oven. It's a delicious bread with lots of seeds (I used sesame and poppy). We ate half the loaf and froze the other half. Even defrosted, it was still good. Please visit Jill's blog to see her lovely loaf and try out this recipe if you're in the mood for some yummy bread.