Anna Jones - The Modern Cook’s Year

MAKES ABOUT 20

400g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)

100g almonds, skin on

75g pumpkin seeds

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

the zest of 2 unwaxed oranges

a good pinch of flaky sea salt

75g raisins

Preheat your oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan/gas 6.

Break your chocolate into small pieces (this will help it melt evenly) and put into a small heatproof bowl that fits neatly over a saucepan. Put a couple of centimetres of boiling water in the pan, put your chocolate on top and leave to melt.

Roughly chop your almonds and put on a tray with the pumpkin and sesame seeds. Toast in the hot oven for about 4 minutes – you want the almonds to be just toasted but still a little white and buttery within – then remove from the oven and tip into a bowl.

Once the chocolate is melted, add the coconut oil and stir until this has melted and is incorporated, then add the vanilla, orange zest and salt and mix gently. If you don’t have moulds and are making the tiffin in a tray, pour it into a baking tray lined with baking paper, then scatter over the toasted nuts and seeds and the raisins. If using moulds, add the toasted nuts and seeds and raisins to the mixture and gently stir again. Pour into moulds and leave to set.

Once set, turn the tiffin bites out of the moulds. Store in a tin or Tupperware box, where they will keep for up to 2 weeks.

Brownie energy bites with maple pumpkin praline

I am something of a snacker. I marvel at people who stop at three meals a day. Since becoming a mum, I have had less time to cook than ever before, but it has been really important that I feed myself well. In the kitchen, this has put the spotlight on traybake dinners prepared during Dylan’s nap, meals that can be cooked with one hand, and ready-to-go bites of energy that perk me up when dinner seems a long way away.

Half truffle and half brownie, of all the things I have tried these have been the quickest to leave the jar. Covering these little bites in chocolate takes a little longer and can be skipped, but I welcome any opportunity to pretend I am in a chocolate factory. I use raw cacao powder here as I prefer its deep pure chocolate flavour (its health benefits are well reported too). If you’re using standard dates, soak them in boiling water for 10 minutes first.

MAKES ABOUT 30

200g pecans

100g cashew nuts

4 tablespoons raw cacao or cocoa powder

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

175g pitted Medjool dates

1 tablespoon coconut oil

FOR THE PUMPKIN AND MAPLE PRALINE

50g pumpkin seeds

a pinch of flaky sea salt

1 tablespoon maple syrup

FOR THE CHOCOLATE COATING

3 tablespoons coconut oil

2 tablespoons raw cacao or cocoa powder

1 teaspoon maple syrup

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the pecans and cashews until you have a rough powder. Add the cacao, vanilla, sea salt and cinnamon. Pulse to mix evenly. Add the dates and coconut oil and blitz, scraping down the sides of the bowl here and there. The mixture should ball up, appear glossy and come together in your fingers; if it’s still a little powdery, add a teaspoon of water and blitz again until it comes together, but is not too sticky and wet.

Scoop out the mixture in heaped teaspoon-sized bites and roughly roll into balls. Put on a tray lined with baking paper and chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. Make the praline by toasting the seeds in a frying pan until they start to pop, then add the salt and maple syrup and toss well. Allow to cook for 1 minute, then tip on to a plate. Once cool, roughly chop.

Make the chocolate coating. In a small saucepan, combine all the ingredients and whisk over a low heat until it thickens slightly, taking care it doesn’t catch on the bottom. Set aside to cool. Dip the bites into the coating, turning with two forks to cover. Put on a baking tray, top with a little praline and leave to set. Store in the fridge until you’re ready to eat them – they will keep for a week or so.

Chocolate and blood orange freezer cake

This is a no-cook cake, raw in fact if you are into that kind of thing; I use the freezer to set the cake instead of the oven. These cakes are sometimes called ice-box cakes, which I think sounds quite magical. It’s the kind of dessert I like to eat in January.

I use a raw cashew butter here, which I buy from the supermarket, though if I have time I make it at home, as the flavour is gentler than the toasted nut butters you can buy and it has notes of white chocolate. Any more subtly flavoured nut butter would work here.

SERVES 6–8

FOR THE CRUST

25g cashew nuts

coconut oil, for greasing

120g pitted Medjool dates

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon raw cacao or cocoa powder

a generous pinch of flaky sea salt

120g nut butter (I use a raw cashew butter, see note above)

125g whole buckwheat

FOR THE FILLING

70g cashew nuts

50g pitted Medjool dates

a good pinch of salt

450g ripe peeled bananas

the seeds from 1 vanilla pod or 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

70g coconut oil, melted

the zest and juice of 1 unwaxed blood orange

3 passion fruits, cut in half

TO FINISH

3 blood oranges

40g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

First, soak both the cashews for the filling and for the crust in separate bowls of cold water for 3–4 hours if you have time, if not then soak them in warm water for 30 minutes. Grease the bottom of a 22cm loose-bottomed tart tin with coconut oil and put to one side.

Next make the crust. In a food processor, blitz the 25g of soaked, drained cashews and the dates until they have broken down into tiny pieces and start to come together in a ball. Add the vanilla, cacao, salt and nut butter and blitz until combined. Then add the buckwheat and blitz until the buckwheat has broken down a bit and the crust dough comes together in your fingers when pinched. Put the crust mixture into the middle of the greased tin and use your fingers to push it out to the edges and up the sides of the tin, then put it into the freezer to set for at least 3 hours.

Next make the filling. Put the soaked, drained cashews into a jug blender with the dates, salt, bananas and vanilla and blitz until completely smooth. Pour in the melted coconut oil, then add the orange zest and blitz again. Pour two-thirds into the chilled crust.

Scrape the seeds from the passion fruits into a sieve resting over a bowl. Use the back of a spoon to push the juice through, add this to the remaining banana mixture in the blender and add the juice of the blood orange, then pour this layer over the banana one. Smooth everything over with a spatula and put the crust back in the freezer for 30 minutes to firm up, though it can happily sit there for much longer.

To finish, take the tart out of the freezer about an hour before you want to eat. Cut the peel off the blood oranges and slice the flesh into thin rounds. Break the chocolate into shards.

Once the cake is thawed enough that the filling is beginning to soften, arrange the blood oranges and chocolate on top prettily and pat yourself on the back. Any leftovers can be stored in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.

Grapefruit and honey curd