Chocolate Cake with Coffee Cream and Chocolate Curls

It was a Sunday afternoon and I just finished doing some stuff around the garden... And then I felt the baking bug bite.... And so I had to bake something!

Recalling that a colleague found a recipe from the newspaper a couple of weeks ago, I fished out the clipping from my bag and thought it might be nice to make this - it was called an Esk Valley Chocolate Cake, from 50 Fabulous Chocolate Cakes edited by Rita Erlich - except I did have a minor tweak on the whipped cream by adding coffee liquer...

Anyway, this was made from

1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup cocoa (scant half a cup)
1/2 cup boiling water
3 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp bicarb
1 tsp cream of tartar
Whipped cream to fill (about 150ml singe cream whipped with about 2 tbsp of Kahlua, if you like)

Icing
1/2 cup pure icing sugar
1/2 tbsp cocoa
1 big tsp butter blended with 1 dessertspoon boiling water

Chocolate curls to decorate (details below)

Method
Pre-heat oven to 180c. Grese and line a 20cm cake tin
Melt buttere, cocoa and mix with boiling water. Let cool

Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy (around 5-7 minutes on high, the color will be pale and if you life the beaters it will leave a ribbon-like trail)' then add the flour sifted with bicarb and cream of tartar. Add cooled cocoa mixture and pour into well greased tin. Bake for about 30-40mnutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

To make icing, sift the icing sugar and 1/2 tbsp cocoa. Blend with butter and water. I whisked this over a very low heat until the sugar has melted and hasa pouring consistency.

When the cake has cooled completely, split in half horizontally and fill with whipped cream.







Top with other half, smother with the icing and top with chocolate curls.

To make chocolate curls - melt some chocolate (i used a combination or dark and milk chocolate, about 70g) and spread out evenly into a 2mm thick sheet (this is what the instructions said, i'm not sure if i made it correctly, hehe). Allow to cool until set but not to hard, then draw a spatula at an angle of about 40degrees (again, this is what the instructions said!) along the chocolate. Chocolate that is too cold will splinter, too warm it will not form proper curls. It does take a fair bit of practice - as you can see some of my 'alleged curls' look like shavings!





I also made some chocolate leaves by 'painting' the back of bay leaves with the melted chocolate.

Finished product!







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Chocolate & Orange Mousse with Pomegranate Seeds

We were invited for dinner at a friend's house and i offered to bring dessert. The guy who invited us is a certified chocolate lover, so while i have an abundance of lemons, i couldn't bring myself to make anything else other than a dessert that's chocolate based.

And because they have already experienced my chocolate guinness cake, chocolate mousse cake, and chocolate fondant (yes, with the molten center!), i had to find another recipe. I needed something that i can prepare in advance since I had a lot of things to cook for this weekend!

That's when the idea of making a mousse came about- relatively quick and tasty, and should be chilled so i can make it way ahead of time.

I googled several recipes as i usually do,and then after grasping the concept i took a stab at my own recipe.

I winged it most of the time but if i remember right the mousse ended up being composed of

100 grams of Lindt touch of sea salt
75grams nestle plaistowe dark chocolate
A tablepoon of butter
150ml pouring cream
Juice of half an orange
Zest of 1 orange
Dollop of honey
2 eggs, separated
2 tsps + 1 tbsp caster sugar
Pomegranate seeds, green leaves for garnish (i used chocolate mint and sugar leave)

Melt chocolates, honey and butter ov a bain marie. Mix in orange juice and zest unti well incorporated. Set aside. Whip egg yolks with 2 tsps of sugar until pale, and fold into chocolatea while it is still slightly warm to somewhat coo the egg (not an issue if the eggs are fresh, but i just want to minimize risks!) Whip cream until soft peaks form and fold into chocolate mixture. Whip egg whites with the remaining sugar until soft peaks form. Fold into chocolate mixture until well incorporated. Spoon into individual cups and chil in the fridge until it has set, at least an hour.

Garnish with something that would help cut the richness of the dark chocolate. In this case i used pomegranate seeds, both for taste and visual impact, and mint, for a refreshing after taste. This made 4 cups filled just halfway.






Best served with port!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Cole's Celebration Mousse Torte

Last Friday we went out for a team lunch as usual, and stopped by Coles and found their Autumn magazine. After flipping through the pages I found a recipe for a Celebration Mousse Torte. It looked relatively easy, but looked indeed very pretty.

Follow the link above for the recipe but I took some snapshots (as usual!) when I made it, one early Sunday morning. It's just quite rewarding to see results :)

oreo biscuit base. i scraped the nice sweet white bits... don't ask where it went! 

melting milk chocolate + dark Lindt chocolate (85% cocoa in this case)

next in line - 1/2 cup cream, whisked into the melted chocolate after it was removed from heat;

and 4 eggs (separated); 

the yolks mixed into the chocolate mixture

the whites were whipped into stiff peaks with some sugar

...and folded into the chocolate mixture. 

it was poured on top of the oreo biscuit base.

then into the fridge to chill!

the ganache was bittersweet chocolate chips, smooth peanut butter, butter and water

melted over low heat

...and then dumped on top of the chocolate base.

I did this after just several hours of chilling.

had to smooth the top. not sure how to fully smooth it all into a level surface!

It's pretty good fun baking cakes from a photo and trying to make it look like the picture :) Just the previous Easter cake  (and yeah maybe Easter cake take 2)

Now I just need one good full day and maybe I can make Adriano Zumbo's macaron tower (I still have that magazine too!)

Layered Easter Egg Chocolate Cake - take 2

I wasn't too happy with the frosting on the layers on the previous cake, and I didn't have the heart to use all of the ganache and frosting in just one cake (it seemed a bit too sweet for my liking)

so I thought hey why not make another cake :)

Too easy hahaha.

Except of course I didn't have enough frosting and ganache to make the same number of layers, so I resorted to making my basic chocolate cake recipe, slicing it into two, and just sandwiching the remaining frosting between the 2 layers. There was sufficient ganache for a sexy topping, and some easter eggs left so I just followed the same approach to piling them on top. 

Now I can get over it, and move on to the next cake!!! :p

I originally made the cake for Sunday afternoon nibblies and bubblies with neighbors, so now I have another cake to take to office. I'm sure the office folks wouldn't mind having cake on a Monday. :)

Layered Easter Egg Chocolate Cake

I grabbed a copy of the Good Food magazine last week as the cover photo grabbed my attention. I especially noted the 'triple tested recipes' bit and thought maybe I ought to give that cake recipe a try....

I wasn't able to get the exact easter eggs for decor and I think my cake cutting needs a bit more practice!

the buttercream wasn't flush towards the sides too.

(no I'm not being a perfectionist....!) :p

to be honest I was just a bit impatient/too excited to finish this cake hehehe.

This one falls under the magazine's 'super easy' recipes!

225g self raising flour

275g brown sugar

250g unsalted butter, softened

75g dark chocolate, melted

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

50g cocoa

4 eggs 

ganache icing

1/3 cup cream

160g dark chocolate, chopped

buttercream filling

375g unsalted butter, softened

500g pure icing sugar

1/3 cup milk

easter eggs for decoration

(disclaimer : below is my quick-type version as lifted from the magazine so I may have omitted some words!)

Preheat oven to 180C or 160C fan. Grease and line 2 round cake pans.

Mix all cake ingredients together in a food processor and process until smooth. Pour onto prepared pans and bake for around 35minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in tin for about 5 mins then turn out to a wire rack to cool completely. (I used slightly less brown sugar in this instance, maybe 75g less)

To make the ganache, boil the cream then pour onto chocolate. Let stand for a couple of minutes then whisk until smooth. Set aside until cooled slightly and thickened.

To make the buttercream, use an electric mixer to beat the butter until as white as possible. Alternately beat in sugar and milk, starting and finishing with a little sugar. (I didn't use all 500g of sugar here, I just find it toooo sweet).

Using a bread knife split each cake into two layers. Sandwich together all four layers with buttercream. Top with ganache and decorate with Easter eggs. Serve.

**

Now this was my interpretation :

work hazard : blade licking

ganache in the making

buttercream frosting being beaten around

the big guns got good practice for this!

that really looked like buttercream to me!

layer 1

layer 2

fast forward to finishing all the layers!

top view

it smelled great... 

can't go wrong with chocolate!

A Chocolate Cake with a Lot of Extras

It's a colleague's birthday last Friday and since we were not in office, a cake for Monday was in order. This guy has an extremely tooth (or teeth) and having witnessed how he likes his sweet stuff, the best candidate would be a chocolate cake. With some sweet extras.

The cake base is a previous tested recipe (the chocolate and guinness cake), but this time I split the batter into two tins (one of which I eventually broke as I was trying to get the cake out of it). I baked it at 180C for around 35minutes, and let the cakes cool.

After the cakes have cooled, I took one cake, flipped it over and slathered the flat bottom (which is now the top) with homemade plum jam. This version still has a bit of a tart kick to it, which I thought would be good to offset some of the overall sweetness.

After that I placed the other cake, upside down, over the jam covered cake. This is to ensure I have the level bottom as the top part again.

I also made a chocolate ganache (one of the 'extras') by heating 150ml cream and pouring it over 75g bittersweet chocolate, whisking constantly to melt the chocolate. While it is cooling a bit, I brushed the excess crumbs off the cake, and then poured the ganache on top, letting some slide down the sides. Into the fridge it went for 5 minutes. This is my 'crumb coat'. I could have covered the rest of the sides but didn't... 

After 5 minutes in the fridge I took it out and poured some more (2nd layer, another extra!). I used some ready made Lindt chocolate as decoration (easy assembly - and the final 'extra') as I know the birthday boy could easily eat all these pieces.

 I hope he shares it with the rest of the gang!

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

This was a (valentines?) treat for some people in office - some of them do not eat egg (vegetarian/vegan) so I looked for a recipe for chocolate cupcake (being something that everyone will  surely like!)  that do not use egg . And there is a lot out there!

Anyway, here's another recipe for an eggless cupcake - this makes 12 really full cupcakes. Might even make 18 if the cupcake liners are only filled halfway with the batter so that after it is baked,  the frosting can sit at almost on the same level as the edge of the liner.

Eggless Chocolate Cupcakes
dry ingredients :
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup plain white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I used Cadbury cocoa powder)


wet ingredients :
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup vegetable oil (or just use 1/2 cup vegetable oil - i just like to use olive oil!)
1 cup water (or milk - but then it's no longer a vegan recipe)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon vinegar

Pre-heat oven to 180C and line muffin tray with cupcake liners. 
Whisk dry ingredients in a bowl, and wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
Combine wet+dry and mix until moist and well blended (be careful not to overmix!)

Bake for around 20-25 minutes.


You can serve this plain or make it a bit more decadent by piping on some frosting.


(non vegan) 
For the frosting I used 100g cream cheese, 50g sifted icing sugar and 50g melted butter beaten together using an electric beater and piped onto the cupcakes. I also added half an Arnott's chocolate biscuit (I had some lying around because I made a cheesecake and this was the biscuit base!) and little sprinkle of hundreds and thousands for a bit of fun and color.


I didn't get the chance to taste any of these but I was told they were quite appreciated. Not sure if it's the taste or the gesture. Either way works for me. :)

Chocolate Pasta

I made this some time ago, but have never made it to the blog. Thought I'd publish it here as it is quite an amazing treat.  Fresh pasta cooks very quickly, but like most things one needs a fair bit of practice to make the pasta-making process a less tedious one.  

fresh chocolate pasta

(serves 2 for an afternoon treat, maybe 4 for dessert, as this can be quite filling!)

100g type 00 flour
25g coco powder (preferably dutch cocoa)
20g icing sugar
pinch of salt
1 large egg
a good glug of extra virgin olive oil

Mix the ingredients by hand (use your fingers as a whisk!) and knead lightly until it becomes a smooth pliable dough. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for about an hour and a half.


After the dough has rested, bring out the heavy equipment and start rolling!

Cut and set aside before cooking it in boiling water. It should be done in a minute! You'll know when the pieces rise to the surface. 

for the sauce

2 (square) pieces of dark chocolate

2 tbsps butter

a touch of extra virgin olive oil

honey

2 pcs star anise

a tiny pinch of red chili flakes

melt butter in a saucepan over a low fire with a bit of olive oil. add star anise and chili flakes, let flavors infuse for a couple of minutes. melt chocolate pieces and honey. stir the dark glistening concoction until you can't help but toss the cooked chocolate pasta into sauce because you have this huge urge to eat it. 


serve immediately.

perfect with hot strong coffee