(Not) Hot Cross Buns

Last year's buns with crosses and glaze - very pretty

A little late I know, but I did actually make these on time (i.e. before Good Friday) this year. I decided not to do the traditional crosses, making them into Not Cross Buns and therefore perfect for any time of the year, because these little beauties should definitely not be confined to the celebration of Easter!

I used the same recipe as last year, which can be found here: No Knead Mini Hot Cross Buns. The minor changes I made were to use all raisins rather than a mixture of raisins and cranberries, to use whole milk rather than semi skimmed (2%) and to use normal bread flour instead of extra strong. I got 17 50g balls of dough from the recipe.

This year's buns - not so pretty but equally delicious

It's perfect as far as I'm concerned - a little forethought for the soaking of the raisins to make them beautifully plump and juicy, no kneading of the sticky dough, minimal intervention on my part, and the loveliest soft, juicy buns at the end of the process. The only thing it requires is time really - I find sweet (enriched) yeasted doughs take much longer than you think to rise and I know this is where I've made mistakes in the past - not letting the dough rise enough has led to bullet like buns. The spices also retard the action of the yeast, so here patience is a virtue. I also like to arrange my buns to proove so that they batch together, maximising the softness.

Soft crumb with juicy raisins

I am the first to admit that these are not the most picture-perfect round, glazed hot cross buns but oh wow do they make up for that in taste and texture. J was chief taste tester for these and her first comment after finishing one (interspersed by comments such as 'Ooh, these are really good') was 'Have you brought any more for me....?' Make them, you won't regret it!

I'm entering these not cross buns into Calendar Cakes, where the theme this month is Easter Extravaganza. The host this month is Laura of Laura Loves Cakes, and the challenge is also hosted by Rachel of Dolly Bakes.   

Chocolate Sliders

I made sliders, based on Dan Lepard's recipe quite a long time ago now (in fact, just over a year... how time flies). They have been on my mind again recently. The lovely soft, moist texture was what appealed to me both then and now so I thought I'd make them again. This time however, I wanted to add my own twist - chocolate!

Soft and moist texture

Not for any particular reason, just because adding chocolate to things generally makes them better. I have been meaning to make a chocolate loaf (yeasted bread rather than cake) for many years now and thought that this recipe would lend itself well to the addition of chocolate. See below for my thoughts and musings after tasting them....

Before prooving

Chocolate Sliders
Ingredients
25g cornflour (cornstarch in the US)
275ml milk (I used semi-skimmed)
1tsp sugar (5g)
12g butter
50g cocoa powder
325g strong white bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried (instant) yeast

Makes 14

I followed Dan's instructions for these again with minor modifications:

- Slake the cornflour with a little of the milk to form a smooth paste (slaking is just the term used to refer to the process of mixing a small amount of the liquid with the cornflour - it prevents lumps forming when the mixture is heated) and then add the rest of the milk, mixing until smooth. You will find that the mixture does not have any lumps in it because the lumps are removed before the majority of the milk is added. Heat until boiling, stirring all the time - the mixture will remain quite runny for ages and then suddenly thicken up. Remove from the heat at this point, stir in the sugar and butter and allow to cool a little.

- Add the flour, cocoa powder, salt and yeast and mix well to form a dough. I had to add a little water here as my dough was too dry to come together. Leave for 10 minutes or so, and then knead briefly until smooth. I then kneaded my dough again after about 20 minutes and then left it to increase in size.

- Leave until significantly increased in size. I didn't time this as I was busy with various other things, but I think it was left for longer than Dan's specified 90 minutes.

- I wanted mini slider size rolls so weighed out 50g pieces of dough (yes, using a scale to make sure they were all the same) and shaped them into balls. I placed these relatively close together on a lined baking tray and left them to rise again. I place them close together to get a slight 'batching' effect, where the edges of the buns met rather than staying separate.

- Preheat the oven to Gas 6/200C in sufficient time before you think you'll need it (yes, that's vague - your oven might take 30 minutes to heat up, it might take 5. Mine probably takes about 10 but it was on anyway). 

- Dust lightly with flour and then bake for 20-25 minutes. I have no idea how I decided when they were done - they went into the oven dark brown and came out dark brown.... The time is based on Dan's recommendations but with a little added to allow for using a lower temperature.

After prooving

Texture wise, these were perfect - just how I remember the sliders from last year. So soft and moist - almost cake like (in a bread-y sort of way). Taste-wise I have to confess to being slightly underwhelmed. I had remembered enjoying the sliders so much last year and thought that these would be just as good. Although I said at the beginning that adding chocolate to most things makes them better, the substitution of such a large proportion of the flour for cocoa powder actually ended up making a slightly bitter roll. Not inedibly bitter, but it took me by surprise. I think that adding chopped chocolate to the basic dough would have been a better way to add chocolate flavour to the sliders. Either that, or to add more sugar to the dough to counteract the bitterness.

However, nothing ventured, nothing gained and although the bitterness of the bread took me by surprise the first time I ate them, they have very much grown on me and I'm glad I tried the experiment. I have been eating them for breakfast (what?! bread is definitely a breakfast item, even if it is chocolate bread...) and although they aren't the best spread simply with butter I think they'd be divine with Nutella (for those who can). I can definitely recommend them with choccy Philly or spread with butter and a square of 70% chocolate (I used Lindt because a 10g square is just the right size for these rolls). I think the chocolate is quite a French thing - I am given to understand that a few squares of chocolate in a pain-de-mie (sweetish soft white bread) roll is a common snack for children in France (though I could be mistaken - they probably eat Mars Bars like the rest of the world!)

Choccy Philly - really not silly...

I am submitting these to We Should Cocoa this month, where the theme is 'Bread'. Founded by Choclette of Choc Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot, the host this month is Nazima of Franglais Kitchen.

I am also submitting them to Breakfast Club, founded by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours and hosted this month by Choclette of Choc Log Blog.

Chocolate Gingerbread Bundt Cake

Well turned out

Well, it turns out that the naff, wet weather we've been having recently has fooled my brain into wanting warming wintery cakes (that and chocolate, but the chocolate's pretty much a given around here...). What does this mean for me? Well, soft and spicy is often the way to go. These ginger and treacle scones have been keeping me going in the ginger stakes, but I really wanted something more cake-y than scones too. (And there might be an update to the scone recipe appearing soon - I remade them with a few tweaks that I want to record).

See the little bits of ginger trying to hide?

Enter this recipe from the ever reliable (and oh-so-easy-to-search) BBC Good Food website. It looks the part and the promise of rich deep flavour from the combination of spices, dark chocolate and stout was a winner. Except I don't generally have 100ml Guiness or stout just hanging around waiting to be used in a cake recipe. No fear, milk will make an adequate substitute, giving a different but equally satisfactory result.

The tin specified by the recipe is a 2 litre bundt tin. I poured water into mine and it held exactly 2 litres. Good result you would think! But actually, I didn't want to run the risk of the cake overflowing the edges of the tin and giving me cause to scrape remains from the base of the oven so I scaled the recipe back to 2/3 of that specified. I've given my quantities below. From past experience of this type of gingerbread, the batter goes in rather runny and even though I can never imagine it becoming coherent cake, it magically does, and usually rises well too. Hence the caution with the tin. I think (with hindsight) that the tin would have contained the full amount of batter, but as expected, the cake did rise quite well too, so I wasn't upset with having chosen to scale back the recipe.

Soft and moist and utterly luscious

Chocolate Gingerbread Bundt Cake
Ingredients (scaled to 2/3 of original recipe)
100g unsalted butter
66g golden syrup
50g treacle
115g dark muscovado sugar
90g dark chocolate (should have been 115g but 90g is what I had!)
2 balls stem ginger, chopped
65ml milk (I used semi skimmed)
1/2 tsp bicarb (scant)
135g plain flour
scant tsp baking powder
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
2 eggs

In step two you add the bicarbonate of soda with the instruction that it will foam and froth up. I added my bicarb and for a couple of moments wondered if it was somehow past its best (yet still being well within its best before date) but then lo and behold, the foaming started. It wasn't uncontrollable, but it was a really weird mixture! Just don't be alarmed! I have to say that the technique of mixing the liquid into the dry works far, far better than adding the flour to the liquid ingredients. I have tried the dry into wet method before (as specified by Nigella for her gingerbread recipe) and inevitably end up with lumps of dry flour in the mixture, even if I sift the flour. From now on wet gradually into dry is the way forward.

Spot the pieces of ginger - yum!

I managed to leave my cake a full 4 days before cutting it (wrapped in clingfilm) and was rewarded with a deliciously moist, spicy cake full of flavour and a hint of chocolate, adding to the rich aromas and flavours of the cake. The cake wasn't overwhelmingly gingery or spicy but the spices all complemented each other well, being more than the sum of their parts, with the chocolate adding to this effect. The little chunks of stem ginger were really lovely too, and happily didn't all sink to the bottom as can sometimes be the case with gingerbreads. Can you tell I really, really love gingerbread? I'd thoroughly recommend this recipe, definitely a keeper.

Cardamom and Orange Banana Bread

And following on from the spectacular fail that was my attempt at Chelsea Buns, we'll move onto something altogether more successful.

I spotted this recipe a while back in the February 2012 issue of BBC Olive magazine in a feature on cooking with oranges and lemons, and really fancied making it as an alternative to the other banana bread recipes I've tried in the past. The recipe can be found here, and I made a few small changes to it. I somehow thought that I had run out of light muscovado sugar, with only about 80g left in the packet. I was sure I had some more, somewhere, but in the disorganisation of my kitchen I couldn't find it and so decided to substitute the remaining amount of sugar with equal quantities of dark muscovado and normal caster sugar (so that the treacly dark muscovado didn't take over the flavour of the cake). This worked fine, and added a treacly depth of flavour to the finished cake. I found the other packet of light muscovado sugar as soon as the cake was in the oven....

I didn't bother with the candied orange to sit atop the cake - I'm not all that bothered by decoration of that sort and worry that the decoration will sink into the cake. I wanted a success, not a failure! Besides, I love a loaf cake with a beautiful crack down the centre. Instead of using cardamom pods and crushing the seeds, I used a scant 1/4 tsp of ground cardamom, only had two ripe bananas rather than the specified three, and missed out the walnuts altogether. Hmm, perhaps these weren't only minor changes! Never mind, they didn't affect the outcome of the adventure, and the resulting cake was excellent.

I really liked the combination of flavours - the orange, cardamom and the dark sugar all blended together really successfully. The cake wasn't too moist or heavy, as can sometimes be the case with banana loaves (possibly because I didn't put as much banana in it!) but it was still lovely and moist and a great cake to take to work, being perfect for a break with tea. It rose well, and was quite tender - the slices were apt to break if handled too roughly, but since the cake didn't last long, this wasn't a problem! Might try adding a bit of chocolate next time. I think chocolate and cardamom are supposed to be a good flavour combo....

Sticky ginger cake and a product review

Disclaimer: I was approached and asked if I would like to review a product, which was sent to me free of charge. I did not receive any payment. The review is my view of the product, positive or negative, as I found it.

The product in question was a set of spatulas by the company Joseph Joseph. I haven't used any Joseph Joseph products before but have seen them in department stores, where they always seem to be well made, so I was keen to try them out. The selling point of this set is that they have elevated heads, making them very helpful for messy cooks like me, with a very small amount of space to work in. I find myself quickly getting untidy with no-where to put things down. The idea is that these won't make messy splats on your work surface.

The set comprises two flexible spatulas and a slightly stiffer spoon type spatula. They are well made and solid in design. I like the fact that the spatula head joins the handle half way down (where the colour changes) because it means that you don't get bits of cake mixture stuck in the head part, which can be a problem with some designs.

I've used them a couple of times now, and am very pleased. They're very non-stick too, and are heat resistant up to 340C, which was good, given that one of the uses I put them to was making caramel! More on that to come in another post...

Thank you to Jo and Find Me a Gift. I didn't find it particularly easy to find the kitchen based gifts on the website, so it might take a bit of hunting.

Onto the cake... I really wanted a slightly alternative take on the festive baking going on at the moment, and whilst browsing the Guardian website, came across this article by Nigel Slater. There are a number of non traditional Christmas treats in it. He says this cake is the alternative Christmas cake that he has around to offer to guests who aren't traditional fruit cake fans. That appealed to me, and having all the ingredients available I set to make it.

Had I thought a little harder I would have realised it was just a gingerbread recipe! I think I was taken in by the 'additions' to the recipe, thinking that it would be something different (after all, who adds things to gingerbread - it's such a runny batter that they will undoubtedgly sink). But as I made the batter I realised that this was a standard gingerbread, and that my raisins and chopped ginger were indeed going to sink! I decided that I didn't mind, after all, gingerbread is one of my favourite cakes, and so I was interested to see how this one turned out!

I followed the recipe as given here (it's number 4, you need to scroll down the page), and my 4tbsp raisins (rather than sultanas) weighed about 85g. I didn't bother with the icing, I sometimes prefer my gingerbread naked....

What was it like? Well, pretty good. I had some good positive feedback from colleagues who really enjoyed how moist it was, but in all honesty it wasn't gingery enough for me. I think my ground ginger must be duff or there isn't enough of it in the recipe, but I found this cake just a touch on the sweet side because it wasn't gingery enough. That said, it was still delicious and moist, with a lovely sticky top, and once I resigned myself to the sinking ginger and raisins, they provided quite a nice layer of gooey luscious fruit on the base of the cake. A good recipe, but not a perfect one!

Soft Slider Buns

Beautiful soft buns

Also known as.... the buns that nearly didn't get made!

It's been ages and ages since I last posted a savoury bread recipe that is new to me, but I've been having a love affair with soda bread and various other tried and true breads, and haven't felt the need to experiment too much. However, when Dan's recipe for slider buns was published in the Guardian a few weeks ago I just couldn't resist making them - such a lovely picture, and the promise of soft white rolls and the added intrigue of custard powder.

Before prooving

Yes, custard powder. You did indeed read that correctly! These buns are based on a roux method where the liquid (milk) for the recipe is mixed with a starch and thickened before then adding the remainder of the flour, yeast and salt and proceeding as normal for a bread recipe.

After prooving

The roux technique is not new to me - I think I first used it in the black pepper rye bread a couple of years ago, and inspired by this recipe my go-to recipe now involves boiling the water and pouring it over 1/4 of the flour in the recipe and then allowing to cool a little before proceeding. It's a technique that seems to work really well so I wasn't in the slightest bit doubtful about using it again here. I wasn't even concerned about using custard powder, after all, it's just cornflour and a bit of colour and flavouring, which would surely be drowned out by the addition of all the flour....

Lovely crumb

No, the real problem came when I realised that I had made custard. I love custard, big time! And realising that I had just made custard I had to try extremely hard to not just pour it into a bowl and eat it as it was, rather than continuing with the recipe. Fortunately self restraint prevailed and I added the flour.

A pile of floury, delicious rolls

As I followed the recipe exactly I won't reproduce it here (it's the easiest thing ever - make custard, mix ingredients in, leave, knead very briefly, leave for ages, shape, proove, bake) but will instead direct you to the Guardian page here. My only concern whilst making them was that my yeast still seemed to stay in the little rods it comes in rather than becoming invisible, even as late as the shaping stage. It didn't seem to matter in the end though, and there wasn't a yeasty taste or appearance or aroma. Just a quirk I guess. I chose to make them 50g size, and only made a half recipe, getting 12 buns. I also baked for a little longer at a lower temperature because I'm not a fan of a dark crust on white breads.

Gorgeous even, golden crumb

These were everything I had hoped they would be and more - soft and slightly sweet from the milk and a beautiful golden colour. The crumb was soft and tender, and almost tore in the way that enriched doughs do. I dusted them with flour rather than egg washing because I didn't want shiny tops to my buns, and because I had deliberately placed them close together during the prooving stage, some of them had started to join together batch-style, giving lovely soft edges too.

I didn't have any cute little burgers or falafel or anything to put in them, but I will make these again because they're delicious. Thoroughly enjoyed for breakfast and lunch. Thanks Dan, for another great recipe!

Top Teacakes - Short and Tweet

I love a good tea-cake; toasted, lavishly buttered and enjoyed with a good mug of hot chocolate on a chilly winter's morning, it's the perfect way to start the day. Well, we haven't got the chilly mornings yet (not that you'll catch me complaining about that - I hate the cold!) but that just means that I'll have to make these again when such mornings roll around.

This week's 'Short and Tweet' challenge set up by @EvidenceMatters was to make Dan's Top Teacakes, to be found on page 88 of Short and Sweet or here, from the Guardian Guide to Baking.

I'm really glad that these were chosen for the challenge because I probably wouldn't have got round to making them otherwise. After all, I have been meaning to make them since November 2007, so I obviously needed an additional push! I think it was the scale of the recipe that put me off them - there is only me here to eat my baking efforts (although actually, my colleagues might quite like these!) so any bread recipe requiring 600g flour in addition to lots of other add ins and three eggs is going to take me a long time to get through. I decided to make 1/3 of the recipe (recipe uses three eggs, hence not halving it!) and also decided to make the teacakes much smaller. The recipe says nine, but I got six out of my 1/3 recipe, so mine are half of the recommended size. Having said that, these are still substantial buns, the original size must be massive!

I followed the recipe pretty closely (for me) - my kneading wasn't quite spaced as Dan instructed and I probably left the dough for about 1 1/2 hours in total for the first stage, and then nearly two hours at the second stage after shaping. My kitchen wasn't very warm, so I decided that after an hour I would encourage them a little by very briefly preheating my oven, turning it off and sticking them in there. This technique worked well, and I'll do it again.

For the ingredients, I used white chocolate, not beef dripping, raisins (roughly chopped) rather than currants, as I often find currants either seedy or stalky (whichever, they sometimes have nasty crunchy bits in them) and then used 1/4 tsp each ground ginger and mixed spice for the spices. Then, out of necessity rather than choice I used chopped dried cranberries instead of mixed peel. I discovered a while ago that whilst I hate chopped mixed peel, I really quite like candied peel that you can chop yourself. Sadly I haven't seen any in the supermarkets this year, and I'm upset that they seem to have stopped stocking it. If anyone has seen any, please let me know otherwise I'll have to investigate making my own!

I baked at 200C rather than 220C, (Gas 6 rather than Gas 7) because I always find these sweet, fruited breads colour too quickly when I bake at such a high temperature. That is also the case here, the buns are darker than I like, perhaps next time I'll try Gas 5. To compensate I baked for 20 minutes, turning the buns upside down after 15 minutes to brown the bases. It just means that they'll only need toasting on one side!

They're very tasty buns, but I do wish I hadn't darkened the crusts quite so much, I'm not a fan of dark crusts on sweet breads. The spice is very subtle, next time I might increase this a little more. The texture of these isn't the same as shop bought tea cakes, which are very light and fluffy. These are denser, but in a good way - after all, you need a good weight of bun to hold the melting butter and these are just right... There is plenty of fruit in the buns which is a good thing in my view, but again, I wish I had been able to get some mixed peel, there's just something delicious about the contrast of the slightly bitter mixed peel, the sweet bun and the rich melty butter.... mmm, melting butter!

Thanks to EM for picking these, and also to Jo for saying how lovely they were, without both of these prods to make them, I probably would still have left them.

Sticky Blueberry Jam Bread - Breakfast Club #15

Well, I've called this a bread, mostly because it's a yeasted dough, but it actually tastes far more like cake to me! Which is great, I get to eat cake for my breakfast if I make this bread mmmmm, cake!

I blame the whole thing (quite happily though!) on Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, who, months and months ago, posted a recipe and method for an absolutely amazing looking blackberry crown. She was fortunate enough to be given some delicious homemade blackberry jam by a kind friend and wanted a fitting way to use this gift. So her blackberry crown bread, inspired by the presentation of a recipe in Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf and using a recipe for a sweet dough by Richard Bertinet, was born. And I was in love! (Hop over to the recipe, look at the last picture of the cut bread and tell me you don't want to eat it - I won't believe you!)

Time passed, as it does and then when Helen at Fuss Free Flavours announced that this month's Breakfast Club theme was conserves, I realised that the time to make this bread had arrived. For the genius of this loaf is that you don't need to put the conserves on the loaf for they are already contained within the loaf, clever no?! Although additional butter and jam wouldn't go amiss when eating this for breakfast.This month the event is being hosted by Sonia's Kitchen.

I halved the recipe as given and am giving the amounts I used below:

Basic Sweet Dough
Ingredients
125g full-fat milk
1tsp instant yeast (although the original recipe specifies fresh)
250g strong white flour
30g unsalted butter, at room temperature
20g caster sugar
5g salt
1 large egg

Method
- Pour the milk into a pan and warm to body temperature.
- Mix the yeast into the flour, distributing evenly and then rub in the butter.
- Mix in the sugar and salt, then add the eggs and milk.
- Continue with your usual method of kneading (I favour Dan Lepard's method of using oil on the work surface and not kneading all that much) leaving the dough until it has doubled in size.

To make the loaf

Jam of choice and matching fruit - I chose blueberry, but I think raspberry would work well, along with Celia's choice of blackberry, or even perhaps cherry.

Pinch off pieces of dough - from memory I think I used pieces 50g in size and used nine altogether. Form into balls and then flatten out, forming a little pocket. Add a small amount of jam and pinch the ball back into shape. As you finish shaping the balls, pop them into a greased small loaf tin (I used one that is smaller than a 1lb tin, but had some dough left, with which I made some little rolls) and layer them up with light muscovado sugar and fresh blueberries. Sorry, I didn't really measure the amounts of these, but a light sprinkle of sugar and as many fresh berries as you fancy. Check out Celia's post for how much she used.

Confession time that I forgot to note how long I cooked this loaf, but as Celia points out, it is high in sugars, both added and natural from the milk in the loaf, so a lower temperature than normal is needed. Celia suggests starting at 200C/Gas 6 for 10-15 minutes and then dropping the temperature to 175C/Gas 3-4 for a further 20-30 minutes, and I am sure I followed her advice. Keep a beady eye on this loaf because it would be a shame to allow it to burn.

Remember that the jam/blueberries will be scorching hot when the loaf comes out, burning in only the way hot sugar can - ouch! It was very sticky underneath too - mmmm, sticky! I had to take quite a few shots to get one where there was more bluberry in evidence....

Oh boy am I ever glad I made this loaf. It lived up to and exceeded my wildest bread-y dreams. So soft, so light, and ever so delicious. I really must make this again soon. I haven't eaten much brioche in my life (another thing to recify!) but to my mind this was soft and cakey like a brioche, but without nearly so many eggs or as much butter or sugar. It was, however, perfectly sweet and buttery for me, and I love the idea that I'm eating cake for my breakfast. I would urge you to give this a go - it's fabulous!

I am also submitting this to Jac's Bookmarked Recipes event, hosted at Tinned Tomatoes. This was bookmarked from Celia's blog, Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, and also from its original source, Dough by Richard Bertinet.

We should cocoa - chocolate rose rice pudding

Well, it's the end of the month, and this month Choclette set us the challenge of using rose with chocolate. I have seen lots of  lovely looking cakes popping up all over the place, but lots of people saying they weren't sure what to make. I have to admit that I am definitely in the 'don't know how to pair rose and chocolate' camp on this one! Definitely a challenge.

I was going to make a dark chocolate rose cake, and in fact I did indeed do this, but unfortunately it was such a disaster that I can't bring myself to even show you a photo of my failure. Shall we just say that me, yogurt and cakes don't always mix. Sometimes they turn out really well, and occasionally they are an utter disaster. So it was back to the drawing board on this challenge.

I decided that instead of doing a cake, I would do a quick mid-week dessert. This definitely still needs some work on it, but has the potential to be repeated, so I am going to enter it for the challenge.

I used to love rice pudding as a child, and especially when it was thick and gungy, baked for ages in the oven and coming out with a golden nutmeggy skin. Yum. However, not right for this challenge, and not achievable for dinner on a week night when you're home late from work in need of comfort food. I decided to take the quick route. Flaked rice is something I've often seen in the supermarkets but have never bought or cooked with, but since it promised to be ready after only 12 minutes cooking it seemed the perfect contender!

The amount I made was rather less than I expected. From memory, 2oz of rice swelled magically in the milk to give enough rice pudding for 4 people, so I used 1/2 oz, or 12g for my rice dessert. There really wasn't very much of it!

Chocolate rose rice pudding
Ingredients
12g flaked rice
150ml rice milk
1/2 tsp rosewater
1 tsp caster sugar
chocolate to taste

Method

Place rice, milk, sugar and rosewater in a small pan. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and continue to cook, stirring for around 12-15 minutes until the rice is thick and gelatinous and the milk has been absorbed. Stir in the chocolate to turn your pudding a lovely chocolate shade!

Eat!

Pretty simple, and pretty tasty. The pudding was quite soft when warm but quickly became very thick when it cooled, so I think I should have added more liquid. I have to say that I couldn't really taste the rose, but I could definitely smell it whilst this was cooking. Perhaps my taste buds don't work?!! This reminded me of the chocolate semolina pudding I used to have as a child, which always set solid, yum! It made a nice change from making something cake related too!