Friday 30 March 2012

Chocolate & Pistachio Spread

Recently, I've been feeling like time has been slipping through my fingers. The more I plan to do with it, the less I seem to have. Meal planning has dissappeared. I have a backlog of emails so big I'm starting to worry that people will think I'm frankly being rude by not replying. April is coming at an alarming rate. April means people will start saying "Oh! You get married next month". I am scared of April. Purely because I have a to-do list the size of my arm. The majority of which I wanted to get done in March.

This was supposed to be my entry for We Should Cocoa. I made it before the deadline but missed posting it. Massively. You can see the previous month's round up here.

I'm making another batch of this tonight. Purely to be used as a sugar hit to keep me going through the weekend - it's hen party time.

Ingredients
100gr shelled pistachios
150gr good milk chocolate, either grated or pre-blitzed in the blender
1tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp clear, runny honey
1tbsp oil (Olive oil, flavourless, nut, whatever your hands hit first)

Method
1, Blanch the pistachios in boiling water, to remove the brownish skin they retain after shelling, for a couple of minutes before straining and rubbing in a clean tea towel. Give them a quick rinse, shake off any excess water and tip them into your blender.
2, Pulse the nuts, scraping down the sides and breaking up any clumps with a spatula until they are finely ground. You can blitz them as little or as much as you like, I actually prefer mine to have a little bit of texture.
3, Add in the milk chocolate and cocoa and pulse to combine.
4, With the blender running, pour in the honey and oil. The oil is there simply to act as a spreading agent - it keeps it soft in the fridge, otherwise you'll be cutting chunks onto your toast. (This happened in the test-run. I wasnt exactly devasted though - it was delicious!)
5, Blend until you have a thick paste. You might need to loosen it with a bit more oil or honey - simply tweak until you get a consistency that you like. I might add a tablespoon of liqueur to my next batch.

7 comments:

  1. Absolutely delicious! And have a fantastic time at your Hen Party- I'm sure this will be devoured within hours of the celebrations starting!

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    1. Thanks Kate, it was delicious - perfect on toast as that energy boost I needed before my hen do!

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  2. This sounds delicious. Hope you have a great Hen weekend and that you remember at least a part of it. I know what you mean about time but to-do lists are always too long so maybe we shouldn't worry so much about them.

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    1. Thank you Phil - I remember the majority of the day so thats a bonus in my opinion! I've chucked the to-do list also!

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  3. I hope you had a fabulous party, and try to relax over the next few weeks! This spread looks delicious I'm sure it was a great hit with your friends.

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    1. Thank you :) It was a fun afternoon/evening! Need to note the "try and relax" suggestion! Turning into a bit of a bridezilla!

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  4. Oh another brilliant idea, just love the idea of this. It sounds so much nicer than commercial chocolate spread - another one to add to my to do list. Sorry it didn't make it into WSC, but noticed you got in nice and early this month ;-)

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