
What do you get when you cross a beautiful gift basket with a bit of cook's ingenuity and acumen? Well, I'll show you what you get. Hang on to your hats! You're in for a delicious ride!

I just have to show you what I recently received. This isn't a great photo of it because of the plastic wrapping, so I will show you the one from the gift site . . .

It is a lovely gift hamper from the people at Hampergifts, makers of gift baskets and luxury Christmas hampers. The one I received was their Wine and Cheese Feast, and it was chock full of lots of lovely goodies!

It was presented in a lovely wicker basket with wooden handles and everything was packed perfectly so as to make sure nothing got broken.

It contained a lovely assortment of biscuits, chocolates, chutney's, spiced nuts, crackers, a bottle of wine and two lovely cheeses.

With Graces Irish Shortbread Biscuits (shaped like shamrocks), Border's Black Forest Biscuits, a lovely box of Baronie Belgian chocolates, some Cairnsmhor Sea Salt Crackers, Cottage Delight Old English Chutney with Cider . . .

Edinburg Preserves Rosemary Biscuits for Cheese & Pate, Cottage Delight Spicy Mango & Ginger Chutney, Olives-et-al Chilli Harissa Almonds, some lovely chocolate caramels, again from Baronie . . .

EDinburg Preserves Quince Jelly and two lovely rounds of cheese from the Snowdonia Cheese Company, a Little Black Bomber Cheddar(with attitude) and a Little Red Devil (Red Leicester with Chilies and Crushed Pepper).

Also included was a bottle of Merlot from Kleine Zalze.

We were able to enjoy some of that cheese earlier this week as a traditional Ploughman's lunch picnic supper! I do so love a Ploughman's lunch/supper. They are so easy to throw together. All you need is some crusty bread, some nice pickle/chutney, a couple of good cheeses, some fruit (apple in this case), a bit of veg (cucumber and lettuce on this occasion) and some chunky bits of ham. You end up with a feast fit for a King or Queen!

Afterwards we feasted on some delicious Black Forest Cookies and Cream Sundaes! Oh boy were these really easy to put together and so fabulously scrumptious!

I quite simply crumbled several of those lovely chocolate biscuits that were in the hamper into the bottom of two dessert glasses . . .

dropped a scoop of really good vanilla ice cream on top of the cookies . . .

Drizzled over top some warmed cherry jam and a homemade chocolate sauce . . .

And topped them off with some squirty cream . . . and a couple of milk chocolate wands . . . the end result being something which was totally delicious, yet had taken me next to no time at all to put together.

*Black Forest Cookies and Cream Sundaes*Serves 2Printable Recipe
The quantities are given for two, but this is easily multiplied. I use the Scottish Black Forest cookies, but any fudgy chocolate cookie will work fine! This is simple and delicious and quick to make!
2 store-bought chocolate fudge cookies, coarsely crushed2 scoops of good vanilla bean ice cream2 TBS morello cherry jam, lightly warmedFor the chocolate sauce:60g dark chocolate, chopped (5 1/2 TBS)60ml of pouring cream (1/4 cup)whipped cream to topdark chocolate wands to garnish
First make your chocolate sauce. Heat the chocolate and cream in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Set aside to cool a bit. Crumble one cookie in the bottom of each of two dessert dishes.
Top each with a large scoop of ice cream. Drizzle one TBS of cherry jam over each and half of the chocolate sauce. Top with whipped cream. Stick in a couple of chocolate wands and serve immediately!