1 Minute Microwave Hot Choc Fudge Peanut Sauce

Okay, look away now if you’re on a diet or avoiding sugar.

I’ve been making this sauce for a few years now (probably more times than I should have) especially when I have a little bit of cream that needs using up. Its either this chocolate fudge sauce or I use the cream in a pasta dish. Either way, I probably shouldn’t.

Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Sundae

This is a sauce based on Nigella’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Sundae Recipe but instead of worrying about cooking it over the stove top in a saucepan, I use a microwave suitable dish and cook it for 1 minute. Yes, that’s all folks. In one minute (60 seconds) you can have this delicious, rich, thick, chocolate-y, gooey, fudge-y sauce. You can pour it over ice cream, as I have done in this Banana Split OR, if you’re really naughty, you can put in the fridge to harden and its the perfect recipe for truffles. Take small pieces of mixture, roll into a ball and roll in cocoa, icing sugar, crushed nuts or coconut. You can also omit the peanut butter and add nutella with a sprinkling of chocolate hazelnuts. You could also allow to set slightly and ice a cake with it.

Whichever way you have this, enjoy, in moderation of course. (Do as I say, not as I do!)

1 Minute Microwave Hot Choc Fudge Peanut Sauce

• equal quantities of cream, chocolate and peanut butter
• 2 tbs of golden syrup (based on approx 100ml each of above ingredients – use more or less based on above quanitities)

1. Put all ingredients into a microwave safe jug and heat for 1 minute.
2. Stir until ingredients have combined.
3. Use as required.

Peanut Brittle

I love homemade sweets and they’re so easy to make (which can be a bad thing if you’ve got a sweet tooth like me). We used to make sweets with Mum when we were young. Things like marshmallow, toffees, fudge, coconut ice, honeycomb and peanut brittle. Mum and my sister now appreciate a pack of homemade sweets for a birthday treat more than anything else. I was feeling up to a batch of peanut brittle tonight. It really didn’t take much effort at all.

Peanut Brittle
(from “Day to Day Cookery” by I M Downes – my high school cooking textbook)

2 cups sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1 cup peanuts

Place sugar, water and cream of tartar in a saucepan. Stir over heat until sugar has dissolved. Boil without stirring until toffee is a pale amber colour. Remove from heat, add soda free from lumps and peanuts which have been roughly chopped. Stir lightly then pour at once onto a greased baking tray or tray lined with baking paper. Spread thinly with a large buttered knife. When set, break into irregular pieces. Store in an air tight jar (if it will last that long).