Baking chocolate and nuts with Michelle Darmody

Wherever the chocolate comes from for these recipes, I have used the season’s star ingredient and paired it with a variety of different nuts.

Nuts and chocolate make for a very harmonious union.

The recipes include what Americans refer to as tree nuts. Peanuts being a legume rather than grown on trees, they are grown underground.

Peanuts may have differences but are equally as tasty when paired with chocolate.

Coating a bundt tin properly, so that you can easily remove your baked creation, is a finicky process but it is worth doing it well.

I use some melted butter and apply it very carefully with a pastry brush so that all of the nooks and crannies are completely greased.

Add about two tablespoons of plain flour to the bundt tin and shake it completely so that all of the butter is covered.

The butter and flour form a protective barrier around the cake, which helps with its final release.

Chocolate bundt cake with pistachio and sticky ganache

125g of soft butter

110 mls of liquid coconut oil, you may have to warm it to get it to this consistency

250g of light brown sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

210g of plain flour

1 tsp of baking powder

60g cocoa powder

150 mls of buttermilk

Ganache

90 mls of cream

90g of dark chocolate, broken into small even pieces

a handful of unsalted pistachios, shelled and roughly chopped

Pre heat your oven to 170 degrees and grease and flour a bundt tin very well. You can use a loaf tin to make this cake if you do not have a bundt tin to hand.

Beat the butter, coconut oil and sugar until light and fluffy.

Gently beat in the eggs one at a time. If the mixture begins to curdle stir in a tablespoon of the flour.

Sieve the flour, baking powder and coco together. Add half of it to the main mixture and combine. Stir in half of the buttermilk and then repeat until everything is completely combined.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for ten minutes then very gently turn it onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Before serving, heat the cream in a heavy-based saucepan, over a low heat.

Once the surface starts shivering, just before it boils, remove it from the heat and stir in the small pieces of chocolate until they have melted. Allow to cool for about ten minutes then pour the ganache over the bundt cake. Sprinkle with the chopped pistachio nuts.

Hazelnut squares

100g of soft butter

100g of milk chocolate, broken into small, even pieces

100g of dark chocolate, broken into small, even pieces

1 tbs of golden syrup

1½ tbs of honey

200g of hazelnuts, roughly chopped and a little extra for sprinkling

Line a 2lb, rectangular, loaf tin with parchment.

Place the butter, both types of chocolate, syrup and honey into a heavy-based saucepan.

Heat at a low temperature until all of the ingredients are combined. Stir in the hazelnuts.

Scoop the mixture into the tin and smooth it out.

Sprinkle the extra nuts on top. Place into the fridge until firm, then cut into 12 squares.