Amelie's House

Here is the second post I promised about my lovely day out. I was literally swanning around London like some kind of baking diva! After Baketopia I stopped at Liberty's and then Anthropologie to purchased some gorgeous trinkets for when I style the photos for my book.

Then I whisked myself away to Paul A Youngs for a wonderful night sampling his amazing chocolates. (Apologies if I am sounding in any way smug with myself, but as I explained in my previous post, this is an extremely abnormal day for me and I was literally bursting with excitement!)

Paul was showcasing a new range of products that he had made using California prunes. Now I have to say, as I was proudly boasting in the school playground that morning, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm from my fellow mums at the prospect of an evening spent eating prunes. What is wrong with people? Prunes are one of the most delicious natural foods I can think off. Mr Lemon Drizzle explained it saying that his impression of prunes still retained from his school days, are slimy slug-like blobs floating in custard. The prunes we tasted that night were as far removed from those hideous puddings, as school curry is to a real authentic bhuna.

Paul is such an infectious, passionate person and his explanations of why California prunes are sooo special has made me determined to go and invent some recipes using them. They have a gorgeous caramely flavour and the texture is so soft that they are easily incorporated into cooking and baking.

Paul made these delicious prune and porter truffles. He demonstrated the chocolate making process and while he made it look easy I suspect it would be a tricky process to master. However you may be a keen chocolatier, so I would encourage you to give them ago.

If you click on the arrow under 'file' you should be able to download the recipe. (Check me out, embedding a pdf like I know what I'm doing!)

Paul also made these incredible California prune and pepper caramel brownies. He is famed for his brownies and these were the best I have ever tasted. I am definitely going to try them for myself and I would encourage you to as well. Let's have a bake along! Such fun! You can see from the picture that they just ooze gooey-sticky-chocolaty-caramely gorgeousness. In fact I may have to go and make some now!

Again click on the arrow to download the recipe file  and let me know if you make some.

xxx

ps All recipes copyright Paul A Young

pps This is not a sponsored post, but I did get to sample some delicious California prunes and chocolate