Lucky Four Leaf Clover Jello

When I saw this recipe for St Patrick’s Day Ice Cream Jello I knew I had to give it a try. I didn’t have any ice cream on hand so I decided to whip up a basic vanilla gelato and use that instead. Because gelato is thinner than ice cream – it uses milk instead of double cream – my jello didn’t have the wonderful layers that the Food Librarian’s did.

Jello is so versatile and easy to play around with - I can't believe I never tried incorporating it in any recipes before.

I didn’t have any St Patrick’s Day moulds, so I improvised  –  I used my heart ice cube/chocolate mould to make shamrock shapes! This is my final St Patrick’s Day recipe for this year – sniff sniff – but I hope you all have a great time this Saturday, I know I will!

Lucky Four-Leaf Clover Jello inspired by Food Librarian 

Ingredients

1 pack green jello

1tbsp gelatine

250ml vanilla ice cream or gelato

Recipe

1. Follow the recipe on the back of the packet to make your jello, but make sure you only add half of the water recommended.

2. Pour in the gelatine into the jello mix and heat in a saucepan over a medium heat until dissolved.

3. Add the vanilla ice cream or gelato to the saucepan and stir until melted.

4. Pour into moulds and refrigerate for at least 24 hours to allow it to set



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Jazzed Up Colcannon

I really wanted to give an Irish side dish a go for my St Patrick’s Day line-up and really liked the sound of Colcannon – it reminded me of a simpler Bubble & Squeak. Unfortunately, after I followed this recipe, the product I was left with didn’t bowl me over, so I decided to liven it up a bit.

I added a few very un-Irish herbs and gave it a crispy outside by frying and baking it. The result was something similar to a hash brown – which I love! This recipe is really versatile and you can add whichever herbs and seasoning you like. This recipe makes a lot of generously-sized portions – around six.

Jazzed Up Colcannon

Ingredients

450g potatoes

½ cabbage

1 onion

Salt and pepper

Seasonings as required

Recipe

1. Peel and dice the potatoes and chop the onion and cabbage.

2. Cover the bottom of the frying pan with potatoes and layer the onion and cabbage on top. Pour over enough water to cover everything then boil for 15 to 20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

3. Season with salt and pepper before mashing everything in the frying pan until you have a texture similar to mashed potatoes. (If the mixture is too thick, add some milk.)

4. A traditional colcannon is ready to serve now, but I thought it tasted really bland and added some seasonings – 1tsp each of onion powder, garlic powder, mustard powder, provincial herbs, parsley and 1tbsp of Worcester sauce. Feel free to add your own herbs and seasoning.

5. Divide the mixture into portions and fry in an oiled frying pan for 10 minutes each side. Place in the oven and bake for a final 20 minutes at around 200C/400F or until crispy and golden. 


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Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes are a great treat for St Patrick’s Day – or any other day for that matter! Usually frosted with gloriously thick and rich cream cheese frosting, my cupcakes are lacking somewhat in the white frothy head department. Want to know why?

I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to laugh, okay? Promise? I can’t make frosting. At all. Does this look like a beautiful, thick and creamy frosting to you?

No. 

I’ve tried using full-fat and light cream cheese, cheap margarine and expensive butter, full-fat cream and skimmed milk. I've tried chilling everything and having everything at room temperature, whisking by hand and with an electric whisk. I've tried so many recipes for the "perfect cream cheese frosting" that I've lost count. None of it works – none of it. It just doesn’t get thick! The more I whisk, the thinner it gets. For as long as I can remember, I've blamed it on the warm Canarian temperatures, but I don't think that excuse is going to stick any longer.

It’s not just cream cheese frosting I can’t make – I can’t do buttercream either! So I’ve decided – I’m not going to bother with frostings anymore. Drizzles, toppings, fillings, coatings and icings are all you are going to see decorating the cupcakes on Pink Recipe Box from now on.

Well, at least for a few weeks until I need to fulfil my nagging desire to make sweet, fluffy frosting like the pros and this whole disaster rises it's ugly head once again.

Anyway! This recipe makes 12 dense, incredibly chocolatey Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes.

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

½ cup Guinness

½ cup butter

45g cocoa

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1/4tbsp baking soda

Pinch salt

1 egg

75ml natural yoghurt

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven 170C/350f and line 2 cupcake moulds with cupcake liners. Simmer Guinness and butter together in a saucepan over a medium heat for about 5 minutes.

2. Add cocoa and stir. Leave to one side to cool.

3. Separately, whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

4. In another bowl, beat the egg and yoghurt together for about 1 minute.

5. Add the Guinness and butter mix to the egg and yoghurt mix and stir well.

Add the flour mix and beat until just combined.

6. Divide equally into the cupcake cases and bake for around 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. 


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Irish Soda Bread

Irish Soda Bread has to be one of the easiest breads to make. No yeast, no rising time and hardly any kneading time - this is the kind of bread anyone can make. It's the perfect recipe for when you're craving a slice of fresh-from-the-oven bread with soft, golden butter. You can satisfy your craving in only 45 minutes!

I think I may have cut the cross a bit too deep on my loaf and it ended up looking more like a baked potato. 

This loaf is wonderfully soft on the inside and gorgeously crunchy on the outside. 

This recipe is from the BBC Food website and makes enough for about four portions.

Ingredients

170g self-raising flour

170g wholemeal flour

1/2tsp salt

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

290ml buttermilk

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F and mix both the flours, salt and bicarbonate of soda together.

2. Make a well in the centre and pour in the buttermilk. Stir together quickly until you have a soft dough. (If your dough seems a little stiff, just add some more buttermilk).

3. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 2 minutes. Form the dough into a round shape and flatten it slightly before placing it on a lightly floured baking sheet.

4. Cut a cross on the top and bake for around 30 minutes or until it turns a golden-brown colour. Cool on a wire rack before slicing and serving.

St Patrick's Day Cake Truffles

These St Patrick's Day Cake Truffles are the perfect way to add a bit of extra colour to any Paddy's Day celebrations. Super-easy to make with just a few ingredients, these cake truffles offer maximum visual appeal with only the minimum effort!

The sponge for the St Patrick's Day Cake Truffles is actually steamed in the microwave and takes only 3.5 minutes to cook! I've never successfully made a microwave mug cake - mine always turn out really tough and chewy - but I've never had a problem with this microwave steamed sponge recipe. It's from a really old falling-to-pieces Be-Ro Flour recipe book!

This recipe makes around 20 St Patrick's Day Cake Truffles.

Ingredients

Sponge

50g butter

50g sugar

1 egg

125g self-raising flour

1tbsp milk

Cream cheese mix

30g butter

55g cream cheese

1/2tsp vanilla extract

1 cup icing sugar

Green food colouring

Coating

100g white chocolate

Green food colouring

Recipe

1. To make the sponge, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg and a little flour.

2. Fold in the remaining flour and mix in the milk. Pour the mixture into a greased microwavable dish and cook on full for 3.5 minutes.

3. After cooking, remove the dish from the microwave and leave to cool for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make the cream cheese frosting. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, cream cheese and vanilla until smooth - for about 1 minute on medium. Add the powdered sugar and mix for another minute. Scrape down the sides and beat for a final minute on high. Adding a few drops at a time and mixing in between, add enough green food colouring to give you the shade of green you're looking for

4. After the sponge has cooled, crumble it with your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs. 

5. A spoonful at a time, add all the cream cheese frosting to the crumbed sponge and mix together well. Form the mixture into about 20 small balls, place them on a baking tray and put them in the fridge for at least a few hours until hardened.

6. When hardened, separate the chocolate into two small bowls and melt in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Into one bowl, add a couple of drops of green food colouring until you have the desired shape of green. Dip half the cake balls into the white chocolate and half the cake balls into the green chocolate - hopefully you'll have a little of both chocolates left over. 

7. Put the cake balls back on the baking tray and leave to set again in the fridge for at least an hour. When set, remove from the fridge and drizzle with the other colour chocolate.

Link Parties: Something Swanky, Somewhat Simple, House of Hepworths, A Little Nosh, Blue Cricket Design, One Art Mamma, Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons, This Week's Cravings.

Sweet and Fruity Oatcakes

Let the St Patrick's Day baking commence! I'm kicking off my Paddy's Day baking with these delicious Sweet and Fruity Oatcakes. They're super-easy to make and only require a few basic ingredients, so there is no excuse not to add a bit of Irish charm to your day.

Traditional Irish oatcakes are savoury, but I thought I'd make things a bit more interesting and add sugar and raisins. It worked really well and made a great weekend breakfast treat. The oatcakes don't change much in appearance from before being baked - see the image above - and after being baked - see the image below. 

The main idea behind the baking process is to dry the mixture out so it holds together better. If you're looking for a golden brown, you're not going to get one. If you've got the luck of the Irish on your side you might get a slight golden tint, but don't hold out for much more or you'll be tucking into bitter and burnt oatcakes.

This recipe makes 4 really generous and filling portions perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack.

Ingredients

25g flour

Pinch of salt

Pinch of baking soda

110g oatmeal

25g butter

1/4 cup water

2tbsp brown sugar

2 handfulls raisins

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, sugar and raisins. 

2. Pour the water into the saucepan, add the butter and melt over a low heat. Add the butter mix into the dry ingredients and stir well.

3. Cover a surface in oatmeal and dollop the mixture on the surface. Cover the mixture with even more oatmeal and knead. 

4. Roll the mixture into a ball and flatten out with your hands. It should look something like the picture below.

5. Make slight indentations with a knife, sectioning the oatcake into quarters. Don't try and cut through it at this point - it won't work.

6. Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes or until dried out.