Ingredients

• 1 x 100g bar Divine white chocolate
• 125g unsalted butter, very soft
• 125g light muscovado sugar
• 1 large free range egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 150g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• a good pinch of salt
• 50g dried cherries or cranberries

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Directions
Break up or chop the chocolate into pieces about the size of your little finger nail. Set aside until needed. Put the soft butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl of a food mixer. Beat until thoroughly combined, scraping down the bowl once or twice. Stir in the chocolate pieces and the dried fruit.

Take a heaped teaspoon of the mixture and put it onto the prepared tray, using another teaspoon to push the mixture off the spoon and into a rough mound. Repeat with the rest of the mixture, spacing the mounds well apart to allow for spreading. Bake in the heated oven for about 15 minutes until a light golden brown. Remove the trays from the oven, leave to cool for a minute then carefully transfer the cookies to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container and eat within 4 days or freeze for up to a month.

Taken from Divine Heavenly Chocolate Recipes with a Heart by Linda Collister (Absolute Press)

We went to see Slumdog Millionaire last night. It’s the story of a boy growing up in a slum in Mumbai, India who wins 10,000,000 Rupees on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

There are so many different things that I loved about the movie. The soundtrack (including M.I.A.’s Paper Planes) was wonderfully apt, the story intersected with a number of the great issues of Indian society (Hindu-Muslim attacks, the rich-poor divide, police corruption), and the cinematography captured a vibrant, though poverty-stricken people.

Watching it really made me miss the third world.

“When our acts mirror our words, they give to our words a transforming power.” ~ Elizabeth O’Connor