Michèle's chocolate loaf

I'm afraid there's no picture for today's recipe, for the simple reason that I haven't made one myself on this occasion. You see, many of my Facebook friends shared pictures of their melted Easter eggs over the weekend, so I thought I'd share an idea of what you might do with those. I only got one small Easter egg this year, and it didn't melt. And, after all my complaints about my burgeoning butt, I was not about to dash out and buy tons more chocolate in order to produce this recipe, so you're going to have to take my word for it and use your imagination.

You can substitute the chocolate specifications below with whatever melted Easter eggs you have.

It takes quite a while to make, with all the chilling of each stage, but it's not labour intensive... and you can get on with other things while the chilling is going on.

If you have sharp eyes and a good memory, you might have figured out that this recipe came from the same friend who gave me the granola recipe I shared some time back.

Ingredients
175g plain chocolate
100g butter
225ml condensed milk
175g shortbread biscuits, crushed
175g white chocolate
50g glace cherries, quartered
50g raisins (or candied peel)

Method

• Line a 450g loaf tin with cling film, pushing it well into the corners.
• Melt half the plain chocolate and a quarter of the butter in a double boiler (or in a jug in the microwave - use about 50-80% power), and add about a quarter of the condensed milk. Mix well.
• Pour half of this into the tin and top with half the biscuits.
• Pour the rest of the melted chocolate over.
• Chill for 45-60 minutes until firmish.
• Melt half the white chocolate with a quarter of the butter. Add a quarter of the condensed milk and half the fruit. Mix well.
• Pour into the tin on top of the previous layer.
• Chill again as before. Repeat this process for another two layers.
• Chill overnight.
• Turn out, peel off the cling film and slice.