Lost Bunnies
Are you adrift in a sea of leftover Easter chocolate?
Here are two quick and easy ways to use it up.
But first you must destroy your bunnies.
No, not bunny muffins, bunny tiffins!
200 g petit beurre cookies (or similar), smashed
300 g chocolate, chopped
100 g butter
1 tbsp honey or treacle
Line a cake pan with parchment paper.
To melt the chocolate, put a large pot of water on high heat and set a large bowl on top of it (stainless steel works best). Once the water is boiling, turn off the heat, then add the chocolate, butter, and honey to the bowl on top. This should melt with the residual heat (be patient), but if it is taking too long, briefly turn the heat back on.
Once you have a smooth chocolate mixture, take the bowl off the pot, wiping the water from the bottom of the bowl.
Stir the smashed cookies into the chocolate mixture.
Spread into the lined pan and cover with plastic wrap. Cool in fridge until set.
It's better to have a slightly larger pan than smaller pan, as these are quite rich. You can really use a pan of any shape, as long as you can spread the mixture out thinly. I used a 24 cm cake pan.
When cutting the bars, use a chef's knife or a serrated bread knife and heat it with hot water, either by running it under the tap or filling up a large measuring cup and dipping the knife.
These are brilliant frozen.
160 g sugar
115 g butter
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
zest of one orange
1 tsp salt
shot of booze
125 g flour
chocolate, roughly chopped (see note below)
a sprinkling of salt
Preheat oven to 180 C / 350 F / gas mark 4.
You will need a long tart pan with removable bottom, or 8 inch by 8 inch square pan.
Measure the sugar out into a medium sized bowl.
Now you'll need to brown the butter. In a small saucepan over medium heat melt the butter. After it melts, keeps swirling the pan as it turns golden, then brown. It will smell nutty. Pour directly into the bowl with sugar, scraping out any brown residue in the bottom of the pan. Whisk well and let cool for a few minutes.
Add the egg and whisk well.
Whisk in the orange zest, vanilla, salt, and booze.
Using a spatula, fold in the flour, then half of the chocolate.
Spread the batter into your pan, then scatter the remaining chocolate on top, as well as the sprinkling of salt.
Bake for about 25 minutes.
The amount of chocolate is variable. You can put chocolate in the batter and on top, or just in the batter, or just on top. A little less or more is no problem. I used approximately 250g of chocolate and put it in the batter and on top.
The batter may look split when you whisk together the browned butter and sugar, but this should even out with the addition of the egg.
The best booze would probably be something orange based like Grand Marnier or Cointreau. I didn't have either, so rum worked just as well.
These also taste brilliant right out of the freezer.
