Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker (40 page)

To serve, scatter the top of each ramekin with a teaspoon of demerara sugar and put them under a hot grill for 4–5 minutes until the sugar blisters and melts. Remove from the heat and allow the sugar to cool and harden for 5 minutes.

Serve and enjoy plunging your spoon through the crisp crackling layer of sugar into the custard for a simple and perfect dessert.

Sometimes only chocolate will do and you need a dessert rich with its decadent feel. This is just the one for that occasion, whether it’s chasing the blues away, showing someone you love them or simply indulging yourself because you can.

These little chocolate pots remind you just how good the combination of cherries and chocolate is. Best combined in the wonderful Black Forest gateau, the nation collectively overdosed on this dessert in the seventies and eighties and needs to be shown its great ways again. I never have kirsch in the house, so I’ve used a little spiced dark rum instead since I always keep some for medicinal purposes. You could use any tipple you like.

SERVES 4

150ml double cream

150ml full-fat or semi-skimmed milk

100g chocolate, broken into small pieces

2 tablespoons sugar

1 egg

2 egg yolks

50g dark cherries, frozen and thawed

35ml rum or alcohol of your choice

100ml whipped double cream, to serve

Even though I really like milk chocolate, this dessert should be slightly bitter and grown-up rather than soft and milky. I use half milk and half and dark chocolate, but all dark chocolate works well too.

Heat the double cream and the milk slowly in a pan over a low heat and warm it gradually so that it doesn’t blip or bubble. Add the chocolate pieces and stir until they are all melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and set aside for 5 minutes.

Beat the sugar, whole egg and the egg yolks together in a bowl until slightly thickened. Add a splash of the chocolate mixture into the eggs to temper them and then pour all the eggs into the chocolate cream and stir well.

Mix the cherries with the rum and divide them evenly into 4 ramekins, reserving 4 for the top of the pots when serving. Pour the chocolate custard over them, leaving a little room at the top.

Set the filled ramekins into the slow-cooker crock and carefully pour boiling water into it so it comes about halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Put the lid on the slow cooker and bake the chocolate pots for 3 hours on low.

Allow the ramekins to cool enough to handle, lift them out of the crock and chill the chocolate pots completely, leaving in the fridge overnight. They will set firmly and develop a lovely deep crust on top for added decadence.

Heap some whipped double cream onto the pots along with a cherry on the top. Serve immediately.

Red velvet cake with its mix of cocoa powder, buttermilk and cream cheese frosting has had a new lease of popularity thanks to the cupcake trend. I love the rich red colour and slightly tangy crumb and I can wolf the cream cheese frosting straight out of the bowl, barely even pausing to use a spoon. I’ve tweaked the basic recipe to turn it into two-layer chocolate pudding made in the slow cooker. Enjoy moist, light cake with rich chocolate sauce and a whipped cream cheese frosting on the side for a wonderful slow-cooker dessert.

This is very easy to make so don’t be discouraged by the seemingly long list of ingredients. I used unsweetened cocoa powder for this recipe. If yours is sweetened, I’d reduce the sugar in the cake by a third. Leave the sauce as it is.

SERVES 4–6

For the cake:

175g plain flour

100g sugar

75g cocoa powder

2 teaspoons red food colour powder or liquid

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

25g butter, melted

115ml plain yoghurt (see home-made Yoghurt
here
) or buttermilk

60ml water (if using yoghurt)

1 tablespoon cider or white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the sauce:

60g cocoa powder

150g brown sugar

300ml boiling water

For the frosting:

150g cream cheese

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

25g icing sugar

Line your slow cooker with reusable baking liner or greaseproof paper. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, food colouring and baking powder in a large bowl. Combine the melted butter with the yoghurt and water or buttermilk, vinegar and the vanilla extract and mix this into the dry ingredients. (You need yoghurt or buttermilk here to activate the baking powder.)

The batter will be quite stiff, but if you are struggling to mix it, add about 50ml more water or buttermilk, a little at a time, until it stirs easily. Stop mixing as soon as the batter is mixed and pour it into the lined slow cooker.

To make the gooey chocolate sauce, mix the cocoa powder and the brown sugar together and sprinkle it evenly over the batter. Pour the boiling water over it all. Do not stir and allow the water to sit on top of the cake batter.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on high for 2 hours. After 2 hours, check the pudding. The sauce will have sunk to the base of the crock and the batter will look like cake. Push a skewer 2–3cm into the pudding and if it is still sticky, cover the crock with a layer of kitchen roll and cook for another 30 minutes. Once the pudding is cooked, turn off the heat and allow it to sit in the crock, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

Make the cream cheese frosting by beating the cream cheese with the vanilla extract and icing sugar until it is light and fluffy. It should be slightly sharp and tangy so don’t keep adding sugar.

Serve the pudding directly from the crock, scooping a layer of both steamed pudding and chocolate sauce into deep bowls. The sauce will be like dark chocolate and the pudding will be a deep, rich red. Add a spoonful of the cream cheese frosting to the top of each bowl and enjoy.

Is there a better way to end a meal than bread-and-butter pudding? Well, what if I offered you chai-spiced bread-and-butter pudding without the serving dish to scrub out? You’d find it hard to say no, which is just as well because that’s what this recipe is for. It’s warm and comforting and when I’ve made it for people, their faces have lit up. In fact, they couldn’t even wait for the meal to finish and got stuck in then and there!

SERVES 4–6

6–8 slices of white bread

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cardamom pod, seeds lightly crushed

100g butter, softened

250ml milk

150ml condensed milk

3 eggs

50g brown sugar

75g dried fruit (optional)

Everyone has different preferences for the bread, but I like mine to be white and quite thick. It should be slightly stale to soak up the custard without becoming too soggy. Remove the crusts and cut the slices into triangles to fit the crock better. Line the crock with a sheet of reusable baking liner.

Beat the spices into the butter until they are all well combined and the butter is quite fluffy and dark. Butter each side of the bread well and then arrange it into the slow-cooker crock so that the tips sit up nicely.

Warm the milk and the condensed milk together in a pan over a medium heat, making sure it doesn’t boil. Beat the eggs in a bowl and pour a splash of the hot milk into them, stirring well. This tempers the eggs so they won’t curdle.

Pour the tempered eggs into the saucepan of milk and stir until it creates a custard that coats the back of a spoon. Carefully pour the custard over the buttered bread. The very tips of the bread should be poking out of the pool of custard. Sprinkle the sugar and dried fruit, if using, over the top of it all.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and bake the bread-and-butter pudding on high for 2 hours. The custard will become light and pillowy and the tips of the bread will crisp on top where they poke out. Serve generous portions and enjoy.

I could tell you here about the rich culinary tradition of the ‘clootie dumpling’ or puddings steamed in a cloth as I introduce this apple dumpling. But I never knew that as a kid. For me and my brother, this dish is simply the essence of Hallowe’en.

While the turnip lantern spluttered and sent out its unique odour, our mum would make a huge apple dumpling. Swaddled in a large cloth, it steamed in a massive pot while we turned our attention to indoor fireworks or the terror of holding sparklers out in the garden if the weather was good. We’d troop back in, rosy-cheeked with cold, and devour a plate of soft, sticky dumpling and see who found the charms and coins hidden inside. I still make it every Hallowe’en from the recipe my granny handed to my mother. I skip the sparklers though. They still petrify me.

SERVES 4–6

150g cold butter, cubed

280g plain flour

100g sugar, plus 3 tablespoons

2 teaspoons baking powder

125ml milk

175g apples, sliced

1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger

You will need a large muslin cloth for this recipe. I usually use one of the muslin squares you can buy in the baby section. Make sure it is scrupulously clean. I iron mine to sterilise it. Soak the cloth in cold water while you make the dumpling.

Rub the cubed butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the 100g of sugar and the baking powder and mix. Add half the milk to begin to turn it into a firm dough. Add a little at a time as you may not need it all.

Lift the cloth out of the water and wring it out. Spread the cloth out and flour it liberally. Then add a little bit more for luck. Roll the dough out to about 2–3cm thick, keeping it as rectangular in shape as possible. Set on the floured cloth.

Toss the sliced apples in the ground cinnamon, ginger and the remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar and then place in the middle of the dough. Gather the whole thing up so the apples are completely enclosed and it looks like a purse. Tuck the ends in and make sure the dough is sealed underneath with your fingers.

Wrap it up in the cloth, making sure there is room for the dumpling to expand considerably. Secure the ends with some string. Set a small dish or saucer in the base of the slow cooker. I use an enamel dish. Place the dumpling on top and carefully pour boiling water into the slow-cooker crock, making sure the dumpling doesn’t get wet. Put the lid on the slow cooker and steam for 6 hours on high.

Remove from the crock and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Unwrap and serve in slices. Custard is perfect with this, as is vanilla ice cream.

I am never quite sure which is a Bakewell tart and which is a Bakewell pudding, but this has all the fabulous cherry and almond flavour of either. This is so good I made it for my mum a while back and next thing I knew, she had cleaned all my windows and hoovered the whole house to say thanks.

Use frozen cherries as they have much more juice to make the pudding stickier and moist. The ground almonds make it incredibly light and moreish, so try not to skip them if you can.

SERVES 4–6

150g cherries, frozen and thawed

115g sugar, plus 3 tablespoons

110g butter, softened

2 eggs

½ teaspoon almond essence

75g self-raising flour

75g ground almonds

2 tablespoons milk

Start by buttering and flouring a 1.2-litre pudding basin, including the lid if it has one.

Heat the cherries and the 3 tablespoons of sugar in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves and the fruit starts to burst and the juice is released. Take off the heat before the fruit collapses and set aside.

Cream the butter and the remaining sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time until the mixture is loose and airy. Add the almond essence and combine.

Fold in the flour and ground almonds. Add in the milk and combine gently. The batter should be a light texture.

Put 100g of the cherries in the bottom of the basin and then pour the batter over the top of them. It won’t fill the basin, but don’t worry as this will give it space to expand as it cooks. Reserve the remaining cherries until later.

Cover the basin with the lid; set it into the slow-cooker crock. Pour boiling water into the crock to come halfway up the side of the basin. Put the lid on the slow cooker and steam on high for 4 hours. It will rise, becoming a light, fluffy sponge.

Turn the pudding out onto a plate, piling the reserved cherries on top, and allow the cherry juice to drizzle down the sides of the pudding before cutting into slices. Serve with plain yoghurt or custard.

Usually baked in the oven, I find sticky toffee pudding can be a little dense for my desire to eat second helpings. I steam mine in the slow cooker to make it much lighter. I also use prunes instead of dates since prunes are much easier to get and much cheaper. It is then drizzled with toffee sauce and this delicious dessert always leads to contented silence and clean plates at the table. Can’t say better than that!