Oct

Chestnut Chocolate Cake

I really like chestnuts and desserts with chestnut purée. Today I baked a chestnut chocolate cake I got from an old newspaper clipping (which paper is not discernible anymore).
You mix 200g chestnut purée, 300g flour, 200g sugar, 1 packet of vanilla sugar, 1/2 a packet of baking powder, 100g soft butter and 2 eggs.

Depending on the dryness of the purée you then have to add 1 – 1.5 dl milk and finally 200g chopped dark chocolate.

I poured the dough into a round cake tin (26 cm) and baked the cake at 180C for 35-40 minutes. Whilst waiting I licked the bowl very clean.

I don’t know yet whether the cake turned out fine. I will wait for my colleagues verdict tomorrow.

And now I’ll clean the kitchen…

Update: my boyfriend couldn’t wait…

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dessert/Snack/Sweet

chestnut purée/Chocolate

Sep

Coconut Chocolate Cake

Three colleagues from our firm had their leaving party today and I contributed a coconut chocolate cake to their buffet.
The recipe’s from a book by Sophie Dudemaine called Sophie’s Cakes.

You start off by whisking together 175g sugar and 2 eggs. Instead of the 1dl sunflower oil used in Sophie’s recipe I used 100g soft butter and whisked that in with the egg & sugar as well. Next I added 150g yoghurt.

Then 150g flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

I also added a tablespoon of cocoa powder, an ingredient not used in the recipe. Lastly, I added 50g grated coconut and 100g chopped dark chocolate.

It fitted perfectly in my log cake tin.

It baked in the oven at 180C for 45 minutes and turned out very nicely!

I decorated the cake with marshmallow fluff mixed with grated coconut and chocolate sprinkles.

Pity I cannot tell you what it tastes like as I had to leave the party early. I
am sure it tasted lipsmackingly scrumptous!

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dessert/Sweet

Chocolate/coconut/marshmallow fluff

Sep

Apricot & Marzipan Pralines

We have a big family do tomorrow and I made pralines today as a snack to accompany the afternoon teas and coffees.
The recipe is from a book called Pralines & Confectionary that came with various gadgets like chocolate dipping forks.

First I chopped up 50g dried apricots. I then kneaded the apricots and 100g marzipan until I had a homogenous mass.

After the marzipan/apricot “dough” had rested in the fridge for 15 minutes I rolled it out and cut it in squares. Next I melted some dark chocolate (68% cocoa) and dipped the squares in the chocolate until they were fully covered. I garnished the pralines with a slice of dried apricot and that was it.

The pralines are fairly easy and mess free to make. They look pretty and taste lovely. I’m sure they will fly off the table tomorrow.

12 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

Snack/Sweet

Chocolate/dried apricots/marzipan

Aug

Boozy Chocolaty Plums

I am sitting on a heap of plums because they were on sale and looked delicious!
I did not have time, however, for baking a cake or cupcakes but I remembered a recipe by my father’s aunt who used to bake them in tinfoil with Grand Marnier.
I used Irish Mist for my plums. First I split the plums in half, destoned them and put a sugar cube soaked in Irish Mist in the middle.

I added a piece of dark chocolate and half a walnut on top and wrapped the plums in tinfoil.

After 15 minutes in the oven at 160C the sugar and chocolate have melted and fused with the plum juice. Mouthwatering. For decorative purposes I sprayed some whipped cream from the can (eeew) on the plate. Pity I did not have any clotted cream!

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dessert/Sweet

Chocolate/Irish Mist/plums

Jul

Chocolate Battenberg

The result of today’s baking is a leaving present for someone at the office. She’ll be missed terribly!
She likes chocolate cake and marzipan so I decided to try a recipe from my newest acquisition, Peggy Porschen’s Boutique Baking, and make a Chocolate Battenberg.
I had to reduce the amounts by half because my Battenberg tin is 20cm long and Peggy’s recipe is for twice the size.
First I whisked 125g soft butter with 125g sugar and vanilla seeds of 1 vanilla pod.

Next I added 3 eggs and then split the mix in two equal parts.

To one half I added 70g flour, 1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder and 25g ground almonds. To the other 50g flour, 25g ground almonds, 1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder and 20g cocoa powder.

Then I poured the dough in the baking tin and baked it at 180C for about 20 minutes.

The slices turned out perfectly!

Once they cooled down I assembled them using apricot jam as ‘mortar’.

I wrapped the Battenberg in 200g rolled out marzipan that I covered in melted
chocolate.

Lastly I dripped some chocolate over the cake and sprinkled it with nonpareilles.

The Battenberg is now sitting in the fridge waiting to be finished off tomorrow.

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dessert/Sweet

Battenberg/Chocolate/Peggy Porschen

May

Life is like a box of chocolates

My brother spent a long weekend in Dublin and I told him to get me a) as many packets of Galaxy Minstrels as he can carry and b) something I can use for my food blog. I even specified that b) meant an unusual or typically Irish ingredient.
He forgot about the Minstrels altogether and for my blog brought me this:

I suspect he bought it 5 minutes before the gates closed…
But as Forrest Gump said: Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. Well, I’ll get chocolates with baileys, that much the box tells me.
I tried each variety and they all taste very nice. The Baileys in all of them, however, makes them all taste almost the same. If you like Baileys that’s not a bad thing.
My favourite was the Baileys Coffee Cup.

The various Baileys Domes (white chocolate, dark chocolate and caramel) also taste lovely.

The squares taste just as nice, although I could not really tell the difference between the Signature Square and the dark chocolate square except that the Signature Square has ‘Baileys’ written on it.

The fudge square made a nice change in texture and was less ‘saucy’ and more chewy.

My least favourite was the wrapped dark chocolate heart mint. The caramel and mint interfere with each other rather than complement each other.

Altogether a nice present for someone who loves Baileys. For anybody else it is likely to be too much of the same.

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dessert/Raincheck/Wildcard/Sweet

Baileys/Chocolate/Dublin/pralines

Apr

Sweet Bunny

I bought a very seasonal 2-piece cake form in the shape of a rabbit. The recipe for the cake was on the box and sounded easy enough. Separate 1 egg and beat the egg white stiff adding 35g sugar while doing so.

To the egg yolk add 70g soft butter, 35g sugar, half a pack of vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt. Whisk all of these together until you get a soft dough.
Add 90g flour with half a teaspoon of baking powder mixed in and then fold in the egg white.

Before filling the form I had two butter the two parts seperately, assemble it and dust the inside with breadcrumbs. A very fiddly job, indeed!

The dough looked fairly dry to me and also I thought there was not enough of it to fill the form.

As I have never done this before, I did not know whether it was supposed to look like this. I was a bit worried that it would end up in a disaster. I put the whole thing in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes. When I took it out, what I could see looked fine, but that was just the bottom bit.

The instructions said I had to wrap it in a damp towel for 10 minutes. This is probably just to keep up the suspension. Nervewracking stuff.

Moment of truth…

Looked just fine to me, actually.

And tadaaaa

I decorated it with chocolate and other bits and pieces. It now needs to dry and I will finish the masterpiece tomorrow.

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dessert/Snack/Sweet

bunny rabbit/Cake/Chocolate

Mar

Oh my lovely Ovaltine

My macaron kit arrived!

But I have no time for making macarons today or this weekend.
I had time for an equally sweet but much less sophisticated treat: chocolate crunchies. We always received these as Christmas treats from a friend of my grandmother. They are heaps of cornflakes coated in melted chocolate.
I love all the new Ovaltine products that are available and chose Ovaltine cornflakes instead of the plain ones. The crunchies turned out tad sweeter as usual but seriously yummy!

Melt 100g chocolate and 125g couverture. Both either milk or dark chocolate whatever you prefer.

Mix with approximately 200-250g cornflakes.

Spoon the mix into paper cups (big or small) and leave to dry.

Scrumptuous!

12 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

Snack/Sweet

Chocolate/cornflakes/ovaltine

Mar

Oy vey!

Today’s recipe starts off with 200g butter and 250g cream cheese.

Thus, prepare yourselves for a week of cabbage soup diet recipes starting Monday (or the next day…).
I used to work as a babysitter for a Hasidic family when I was a teenager. I loved those kids and I also loved the sweet treats the mother plated up for me when I was looking after the kids on
a Shabbos.
I particularly loved her rugelach. I wasn’t enough of a cook back then to ask her for the recipe. But I found one on a kosher food website that comes really close to hers: Israeli chocolate rugelach.
When you have mixed the butter and cream, add 1/4 cup sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix it until you get a soft dough.

Put it in the fridge for at least an hour.
For the chocolate filling mix 1 tablespoon of cocoa and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Add 1/4 cup of dark grated chocolate.

Divide the dough into 4 equal parts and roll each into a circle on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin.

Spread melted butter on the dough and add 1/4 of the sugar cocoa mix on top. Cut into 12 slices.

Roll the slices up backwards, i.e. start with the wide end.

Put them on a tray, brush with egg wash and sprinkle them with sugar.

Bake them in the oven (preheated) at 200 degrees Celsius for 20-25 minutes.

They taste calorifically wonderful!

12 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

Dessert/Snack/Sweet

Chocolate/israeli/rugelach

Mar

Biscotti

I had two bags of macadamia nuts left from my Hawai’ian cookies recipe and today I ventured to get rid of one.
The recipe that helped me do that is from an Australian website called macnuts.com.au and is for chocolate macadamia biscotti.
First mix 250g flour with 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 175g sugar and half a teaspoon of baking powder.

Roast 150g roughly chopped macadamia nuts in a dry pan.