White Chocolate Pina Colada Bars

Ingredients:
250g white chocolate
1/2 C of shredded coconut
1/2 C of dried pineapple
1/3 C of Malibu or coconut rum
Cherries for decoration

Soak dried pineapple in Malibu for at least an hour and then sieve out any remaining moisture.

Melt white chocolate and add coconut and soaked pineapple.

Mix together and add to molds or lined baking tray.  Decorate with cherries before chilling to set.  Once they are set, they can be stored out of the chiller.

Pina Colada Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients
250g very dark chocolate at least 70%
250g milk chocolate
1/2 C coconut milk
1/2 C dried pineapple
1/3 C glazed cherries
1/2 C shredded coconut
1/3 C Malibu or coconut rum
Icing Sugar for rolling, or cocoa, coconut

Soak dried pineapple and shredded coconut in Malibu for at least an hour.

Chop up cherries.
Melt both milk and dark chocolate together.  Add Coconut Milk, then soaked pineapple and coconut.  Mix and roll into balls.  Cover or dust balls in icing sugar or dusting of your choice.  Set in chiller.  Once set, store outside chiller in more icing sugar.

INGREDIENTS
500g white chocolate
Pack of digestive biscuits.  We used choc top ones.
Dried apple rings
Cinnamon
Museli with oats.

We tried it 2 ways.  We were able to make 8 brick bars and 6 pods.
Blend or crush digestive biscuits until they are crumbs.
Melt white chocolate and add chopped dried apple. To melt in the microwave, start with  1 minute burst then 30 second bursts, stirring in between until melted.  We only used a half pack of apple.  Sprinkle a pinch of cinnamon into white chocolate and mix.

For pod moulds: Sprinkle at the bottom some museli.  Then add melted and apple white chocolate mix till not quite to the top.  Top with crumbed digestive and pat down.  Chill until set.

For our bars, we just mixed everything in together and put it into the moulds.  They had to be kept in the chiller as they go softer than normal chocolate at room temperature.

Both versions were yummy, but to keep the brick molded choc firm as normal chocolate is, we had to keep it in the fridge.

This is an easy Tropical Chocolate recipe for bites or bars, that you can tweak for your own  tastes.  These are non bake and will set like chocolate.  It's your choice whether you want to make them bars or bites.

My Ingredients:
​2x 250g white chocolate blocks
1x 250g block of dark chocolate
Other Ingredients - you will not use the full pack amounts of these. Tweak the amounts to your taste.
Rockmelon fruit jerky
Mango fruit jerky
Mixed citrus peel
Passionfruit curd
Coconut Ice
Brandy Snaps or Baskets
Other options: Crystalized ginger, dried pineapples.
Dried bananas instead of Brandy snaps or baskets is also nice.

RECIPE
Chop up brandy snaps or baskets to little crunchy bits.  These will stay crunchy so don't make them too big. I chopped up 2 brandy baskets.
Melt dark chocolate.  I do it in the microwave for 1 minute 30 seconds, then stir, then another 20 seconds.  Add brandy bits to melted chocolate.   Line a tray with baking paper and pour and spread out the dark chocolate and brandy bits as a bottom layer.  Chill in fridge while doing the next step.

Chop up dried fruits.  Mine are the rockmelon and mango.  I chopped up most of the packets.
Melt white chocolate and mix in rockmelon and mango. Then pour and spread out over dark chocolate layer.
Dollop a few teaspoons of Passionfruit curd over white chocolate and swirl in.
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Quarter the coconut ice and sprinkle them on top.  Press them in slightly.
Sprinkle over citrus peel.  I don't like too much, just a bit of tanginess to contrast with the sweetness, but if you want more, add more.
I finally drizzle over a little bit more dark chocolate and swirl again, but it looks nice without doing this too.  
Chill in fridge until just set.  Bring out and slice into bars or bites.  Put back in chiller to set for a little while more, and then you can leave out and store in pretty Masu boxes or in cookie tins.

This chocolate dip is chocolatey and delicious.  It holds onto the fruit nicely and it wont set, so you don't have to keep reheating it.  It also uses coconut  cream instead of dairy cream.

HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE DIP RECIPE
150g Dark Chocolate
1Tb Butter
1/2 C Icing Sugar
2/3 C Coconut Cream

Melt 150g chocolate with 1Tb butter in 1 minute bursts in the microwave, stirring in between, until melted.  Add Coconut Cream and Icing sugar.  Mix and you're all ready to go.
Get your yummies together and choc dip away.

BY JONI - THE HOME BAKER
I have a Whittakers recipe book.  It is the prettiest cook book I own.  Their trademark gold foil that wraps their chocolate is on the first and last pages.

Inside this recipe book is a recipe for Dark Chocolate Fudge I wanted to try.  
You  can try it too!  Here is the link to it online: DARK CHOCOLATE FUDGE FROM WHITTAKERS

This is the first time I've used the microwave to make fudge.  I think if I made it again, I would do traditional stove top, as I am used to judging when a fudge is ready this way.  When I followed the recipe, I don't think I heated it enough, or maybe I didn't beat it enough, because after a  couple of hours in the fridge, it wasn't setting as hard as I like it.
So here is my tweaks:
Once all the ingredients are in, I added another 1/4 C cocoa and 3/4 C icing sugar and reheated it for 2 more minutes in the microwave.  Then I got out the wooden spoon and beat it till I had biceps like Rambo.

I still wasn't convinced it would set, but within a couple of hours in the fridge, it was ready.
This fudge is YUM!!
It makes a good amount too.  The family loves it.  It is solid, but easy to bite into.  It is creamy and chocolatey to eat.   It is nicer than any chocolate fudge I have bought from a shop.
This recipe with a little tweaking gets a tick from us.

BY GAZETTE REPORTER JONI - THE BAKER IN THE HOUSE
We have done a series of bakes, trying out different chocolate cake mixes you can buy from a supermarket.  I'm not convinced how much of time saver they are if you have all the ingredients of hand, but  I thought it would be a nice kitchen gift to give someone.  It is quite nice to have the dry ingredients all measured out ready to go.
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So here is my go to quick cocoa chocolate cake recipe that works quite well as a premade cake mix.
Grab your pretty jars and papers.  I made a chocolate cake mixes and a chocolate icing mix.
My jars held 2 cakes worth or one big cake.  I kept the cake mix layered as I thought it looked nice.

CHOCOLATE CAKE MIX - for a 20cm cake tin
2 cups flour
3/4 C cocoa
1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
3/4 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 C castor sugar
Mix or layer in a jar
Write this recipe on a paper to tie around the jar:

Soften 3/4 C butter
add to dry cake mix 
Add 1 tsp Vanilla 
2 eggs
1 1/4 C milk

Mix all together and bake at 180 degrees C for 30 minutes

Icing Mix is 1 cup of icing, 1/2 cup of cocoa ratio
My icing is not really measured out, but it starts with 2 Tb of melted butter and 2 tsp vanilla essence, add icing sugar and cocoa, then add a Tb of water at a time to get the consistency you want.  

You know as a kid when you hear the story of the Chocolate River in the Roald Dahl's, 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'.  Willy Wonka scoops up a mug of it, and hands it to Charlie, saying something like, 'it looks like you need this'.  This hot chocolate recipe is all that you had envisioned in your imagination.
When we get invited over to someone's house, this is what they ask us to bring.
The hot chocolate in the photo has a thicker consistency as a lot of chocolate got melted into it when we were capturing the photo.  The consistency is thicker than your normal powdered hot chocolate, and it is just devine.

Here is the recipe:
RECIPE - MAKES 4 TEACUPS
250 gram dark chocolate.  We use Whittakers 50% but if you like a less sweet drink go darker!
1 1/2 Cup of full cream milk
1/2 C of cream

Optional add ons:
Stir in white chocolate, or a creamy milk sante bar to add some sweetness.
Whipped cream on top
Chilli for some heat
Marshmellows on top

Melt dark chocolate in microwave.  I do 1 minute to start and then 30 second bursts, stirring in between until melted.
In the meanwhile I heat milk and cream together in a saucepan until it is hot but not boiling.
Add the melted chocolate into the hot milk and cream and stir until mixed in.   Add optionals if you want.

You can store any unused hot chocolate in the fridge for a few day and reheat when you would like it.  In fact we like it better reheated as the ingredients are even more blended together.  Of course that is if there is any leftovers.

We love those chocolate gift boxes you get, with little bits of whiskey or baileys inside chocolate bottles or barrels. Making those alcohol choccies  yourself is quite tricky.   Making sure the chocolate out of the moulds, are joined just so, with no little holes for the alcohol to run out.  Putting the alcohol in via a syringe, then covering up that little hole, we are just not that patient or good at chocolate moulding.   What we can make is Chocolate Shot glasses, and Chocolates with alcoholic Jelly Shots inside.  
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Here's how we made our little chocolate party drinks package.

For 8 chocolate shot glasses and plenty of choccies, we used a kilo of chocolate.  We did a mix of dark and milk chocolate.  Though our tastes go towards the milk chocolate side of things in blocks, when it comes to baking and creating we like to go darker.  Darker chocolate melts less when holding the shot glasses and it is easier to handle for chocolate molds. Also darker chocolate still has a good chocolate taste when combined with other ingredients, whereas the milk chocolate flavor gets diluted a lot. 

The shot glasses moulds were bought from Steven in New Zealand.  They also make fabulous ice shot glasses.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave, first burst is 1 minute, then stirring in between do 30 second bursts until melted.
Then it is simply pouring it in, giving them a good tap all around to get rid of air bubbles and gaps, then chilling it until set

Once chilled solid, we unmould them and store them in a plastic container in the fridge, (so they stay cool for drinks).  You do not have to store them in the fridge, they would also be fine in the pantry.  We bring out a half dozen at a time for our drinks.

Most  spirits and shots would taste yummy with chocolate, wouldn't they? ...... Whiskey, Baileys, Kahlua, Malibu, Rum, Ouzo, Fruit Liqueurs ...... 
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So if you lack the finesse like us, to make beautifully matched moulded chocccies to pour alcohol straight into, here is a fool proof cheat.  Make jelly shots instead.  No leakage, and may even be a little bit yummier.  You can use any jelly shot recipe to put in the chocolates. A lot of jelly shot recipes add sugar, but we don't, as the chocolate adds enough sweetness for us.
Here is our favorite two recipes.

MAKE THE CHOCOLATES FIRST
First we paint 2 chocolate layers in the moulds we are using, chilling in between. Then do 1 final patch up, holding the mould up to the light and seeing if there is any missed or light spots in the chocolate.  Chill while you make the jelly shots. When you are ready, have a batch of your  unmoulded ready to go.

PINA COLADA JELLY SHOTS
1/4 Cup cold water
1 Tablespoon or 1 sachet of gelatin
1/2 Cup of boiling water
1/4 Cup of pineapple juice
2 Tablespoons of Coconut Cream
1/2 C of Malibu (coconut rum)

Soak the gelatin in the cold water for a couple of minutes then add the boiling water, stirring until the gelatin is dissolved.
Add the pineapple juice, coconut cream, and Malibu and whisk to combine.
Let it cool, before filling up the chocolate.... because chocolate melts.....
Fill to just under the chocolate edge. Put in chiller. Will take about an hour to set.
Once set brush over a top layer of chocolate to seal in the jelly. Keep in chiller in a container, (we used paper origami box), until you are ready to bring them out to eat.

WHISKEY AND COLA.... OR WHISKEY AND GINGER BEER JELLY SHOTS
1/4 Cup of Whiskey
1/2 Cup of Cola or Ginger Beer
1 Sachet of gelatin

Boil the Cola or Ginger Beer.  Remove from heat and add gelatin.  Leave the gelatin half a minute before stirring to combine.  Once cooled stir in the Whiskey, (otherwise the alcohol burns off if it is too hot).  Make sure it is cool enough, before pouring it into your chocolates.  Fill to just under the rim of chocolate.  
Chill till set, (about an hour).
Paint over the top of the jelly with chocolate, so that your jelly in fully encased in chocolate.  Keep in chiller until ready to eat.
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