5 Delicious Ways To Use Leftover Selection Box Chocolates

Posted on 29/12/2025 by Boris Clair

Q4 has been immensely profitable for this Bounty lover.

Not only are my household’s selection tubs filled with leftover coconut treats that nobody else wants to touch, but I’ve also snapped up box after box of reduced Bounty-only chocolate trays in my local supermarket (the joys of being one of about three target customers, I suppose).

Still, don’t mistake me for a universal chocolate lover. I despise anything strawberry or orange goop-filled; I will not, and dentally cannot, touch a toffee. There is no place on my rarefied palette for a waxy, solid-chocolate sweet either.

Which begs the question: what to do with all these unwanted sweets?

Here are some of our favourite suggestions:

I do not play about my rocky road recipe, but I also know it’s an adaptable dish:n add honeycomb, fudge, or chopped-up selection box chocolates to your heart’s content.

I also think this could be a fab way to get the most out of any leftover dried fruit (I love cranberries in mine).

In my experience, the best brownies have no melted chocolate in their batter: that makes them a little less fudgy than cocoa-based crumbs.

But I am no monster: I love chocolate chips in them. And, as Jamie Oliver suggests, there’s no reason not to replace those with selection box choccies.

Legendary baking site Jane’s Patisserie recommended turning leftover sweets into deliciously doughy cookie bars (mmm).

Of course, you can make regular cookies with them too: just make sure to use inverted sugars, like Golden Syrup, to achieve bakery-level softness.

I’ve long held that chocolate fudge, which can be made in minutes on the hob or even in the microwave, is a festive hack to both delicious sweets and last-minute, thoughtful-looking gifts.

Fuss Free Flavours points out that this “no mess” recipe can help to use up up to 30 leftover chocolates too, though it’s not ideal for those with gooey centres or those containing whole nuts.

Cheesecake has the perfect effort-to-reward ratio, in my opinion: just mix some mushed-up biscuits with butter, whip some cream cheese and cream with sugar, and whack them in the fridge.

Waitrose points out that you can “use up any leftover chocolate” with their little pots, while I’m half tempted to chop some into my favourite Nutella version.

Mary Berry’s 2 Rules For Foolproof Bakes

Posted on 19/10/2025 by Boris Clair

You might already know that Mary Berry’s favourite cake is a Victoria sponge (made using the all-in-one method, please – she doesn’t see the point of creaming the ingredients separately).

But her culinary wisdom doesn’t end there. Far from it. She whacks some butter in with her stewed apples, a process I’ve since nicked, and puts Thai curry paste in her tomato soup (I stole that, too).

And recently, speaking at a Q&A in The Castle Hotel, Windsor, while promoting her new book Mary 90: My Very Best Recipes, the former Great British Bake-Off judge explained her two rules for perfect bakes.

These are:

1) Weigh your ingredients carefully

“The main thing about baking is to… weigh the ingredients,” the baking legend said.

You should ideally do this “with digital scales”, she noted, as those are more accurate.

It sounds obvious, but baking is, after all, a series of chemical reactions.

In order for your bakes to rise, become fluffy, form a crispy edge, or whatever else you want to achieve, you’ll need to be as precise as possible with their measurements.

That’s why even some American bakers recommend metric digital scales, despite living in a country that’s historically used cups to measure ingredients.

2) Use the right-sized tin

Hands up: I’m guilty of baking a 20-inch cake in a 15-inch tin, and then complaining that the results weren’t up to par.

According to Mary, that was a foregone conclusion.

She stressed we should “put it in the right size tin” no matter what we’re baking.

“The number of times that people [have] said, ‘Oh, I can’t make such and such,’ and it’s in the tin that, in fact, is too big…and they’ll swear that it’s the right size,” she said.

This mistake can cause bakes to overflow (if the tin’s too small) or overcook (if it’s too big and spreads the batter too thin).

The baking pro urged us to “get the tape measure” out next time we want to get cooking.

Noted, Mary…

Mary Berry’s No-Bake Banoffee Pie Recipe Is So Simple That I’ll Never Make It Another Way

Posted on 27/02/2025 by Boris Clair

Sometimes, you get hit with a very specific craving. For a while there, I had a hankering for sour cream and chive pretzels. No idea why — it’s not like they’re something that I have often.

Now, though, now I am craving the delectable, moreish joys of a banoffee pie. Sweet, soft, and with a lovely silky finish to it… I actually can’t think of anything I want more in this moment.

Thankfully, I don’t need to wait too long to tuck into this coveted dessert as the cake queen herself Mary Berry has a banoffee pie recipe that is so simple that it doesn’t even require baking.

Marry Berry’s banoffee pie recipe

As featured on her BBC One series Classic Mary Berry, this recipe requires:

around 10 digestive biscuits
butter
muscovado sugar
condensed milk
vanilla extract
double cream
bananas
dark chocolate or cocoa powder

Additionally, she advises, if you’d like to make a salted caramel version, you only need a teaspoon of sea salt. Yum.

The base can be made up to a day in advance and to make it, Mary advises doing the following: “Crush the biscuits to fine crumbs and melt the butter over a low heat.

“Pour both into a bowl and mix to combine. Spoon into the base of the tin and press down with the back of a spoon until level. Place in the fridge for 15 minutes

The banana and cream should be made on the day and left for around an hour to set in the fridge.

The toffee is the only really tricky part of the recipe, requiring precision and focus. For that, you heat butter and sugar together and stir over a low heat until combined. Then you add the condensed milk and bring to the boil, stirring for a few minutes.

However, if you over-boil it, it will become grainy and more like fudge, which is not the vibe.

If you’re also ready to treat yourself to this delicious pie, you can view the full recipe here.

Want To Bake But You’re Out Of Eggs? Only 1 Tablespoon Of This Simple Egg Substitute Packs Extra Fibre

Posted on 20/02/2025 by Boris Clair

There is something just so lovely about spending a Sunday baking up a storm in the kitchen. Radio on, pyjamas on, cup of coffee to keep you going and suddenly you realise – you don’t have any eggs in!

Momentum is falling. There’s no way you’re putting on proper clothes today. No way you’re heading to the shops. Yuck.

We’ve all been there, right?

Well, it turns out that there is an egg substitute that you can use and actually, you don’t need to go to a specialist shop for it. You probably don’t even need to go further than your kitchen cupboards.

A simple egg substitute that takes no time to prepare

This magic ingredient is in fact chia seeds!

Yes, the seeds you swear by for smoothies and protein muffins are actually perfect in place of eggs in case of emergencies or intolerances and preparing them is very simple, too.

The baking experts at Minimalist Baker recommend creating ‘chia eggs’ by mixing 1 Tbsp chia seeds + 2.5 Tbsp water and urge that these can be used in all kinds of baking!

Minimalist Baker also adds that this is actually possible with flaxseeds, too, and is a perfect hack for anybody looking to get into vegan baking.

Health benefits of chia seeds

According to Harvard Health, chia seeds come with a wealth of health benefits, including:

The health experts add: “Chia seeds contain a variety of nutrients including fibre, protein, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and various vitamins and minerals like calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus that are beneficial to your health.”

Happy baking!

This 1 Simple Trick Stops Cakes From Getting Stuck To The Pan, According To Chefs

Posted on 05/04/2024 by Boris Clair

Baking is always such a lovely idea in theory, isn’t it? The sun gently draping through the window as you lovingly, expertly blend precise ingredients together to make a delicious, moreish cake.

In reality, it often ends with a messy kitchen, a lot of excess batter lying around and baking pots and pans that have seen *much* better days that now need an intensive cleaning which just isn’t quite the baking dream, is it?

However, a chef on Reddit has come to the rescue with their super simple trick to keeping cakes and bakes from sticking to the bottom of pans.

How to stop cakes from sticking to the bottom of the pan

Reddit user /u/jellysnake asked: “Chefs of reddit, what’s your number one useful cooking tip?”

Their post got thousands of responses including one saying: “A master chef told me this in culinary school: “You can always stop cooking. Take it off the burner or out of the oven if you need to. Surprisingly helpful tip.”

Which is incredibly helpful for those of us that get overwhelmed in the kitchen and good advice for life, really.

However, it was a comment from /r/soccermomjane that caught my eye. They said: “pastry chef here, not my best tip but the only one I can think of this early on my day off…flouring pans for cakes is a step not to be skipped but when it comes to chocolate cakes, it looks awful so for dark cakes, I use cocoa powder instead.“

GENIUS.

Another commenter expanded on this saying: ”[flour is] a dry barrier that will discourage adhesion of the baked good, allowing it to rise as it bakes. Butter is fine if rising isn’t a concern, but fats are “sticky” and can actually hold flour-based things down. It’s the same reason you would flour a surface when you’re rolling out or kneading dough.”

This makes perfect sense.

However, if you are going to use cocoa powder, user /u/westorphales warned: “To piggy back on this, DO NOT use sweetened cocoa powder or semi-sweet, as the sugar will caramelize.”

Brb, planning my next big bake.

Try Gordon Ramsay’s 5-Step Recipe For Cranberry Mince Pies

Posted on 12/12/2020 by Boris Clair

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Baking Ingredient Swaps You Need To Know For Easter Weekend

Posted on 11/04/2020 by Boris Clair

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3 Creme Egg Recipes To Make At Home This Easter

Posted on 19/03/2020 by Boris Clair