Divine Chocolate Fudge Cake
So my last post was for the vanilla polka dot middle layer of a 3 tiered birthday extravaganza, today it's the chocolate fudge cake layer - it looked like this:

The original recipe came from Martha Stewart and you can find it here but I have modified it a bit (to make it more user-friendly with the ingredients) and altered the method slightly. Now, I didn't take photos of the various stages of making the cake because...well...there's only one stage really!  Please note that the original recipe makes 2 x 23cm (9") layers whereas I made one big cake in a 28cm (11") spring form tin. One of the most brilliant things about this cake is that it is SO moist and fudgy that the left-overs from the birthday party have lasted in a tin for about 10 days here.  I know...who wants to eat 10 day old cake - but trust me, it is still perfectly wonderful as it is and if you nuke a slice for a few seconds you have the most outrageous chocolate fudge pudding type dessert.  And why would there be any left-overs in the first place?  Well, because this cake will EASILY feed 20 people.  I didn't realise that when I made it, my bad, but I'm not overly disappointed either!!

For the cake:
1 3/4 cups good quality cocoa (not drinking chocolate)
3 3/4 cups self raising flour (or all purpose flour and add 2 tsps baking powder)
3 3/4 cups caster or superfine sugar
2 tsps kosher salt (or 1 tsp table salt)
4 large eggs
1 3/4 cups warm water (it should feel neither cold nor hot on your skin)
2 cups whole milk
2 tsps lemon juice or white vinegar
1 cup vegetable oil (sunflower or canola are probably best)
2 tsps good vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 160 C / 325 F. Grease and line a 28cm (11") spring form tin. I like to use baking strips with sponge cakes, if you do too, soak them in water and pin around the outside of the cake tin.
2. Add the lemon juice or vinegar to the milk and leave it to stand - it will curdle and thicken slightly and behave like buttermilk in the recipe.
3. Sift the cocoa, flour, sugar, and salt together into a large mixing bowl.  
4. If you have a free standing mixer: place the eggs, water, soured milk, oil and vanilla in the bowl of the mixer and beat on low for a minute or so until everything is well combined.  If you're using a hand held mixer: place all the 'wet' ingredients in a large bowl and beat for a couple of minutes.
5. With the mixer still running, add the combined dry ingredients in 3 batches making sure the mixture is well combined before adding the next batch.  (The original recipe just places everything in one bowl then beats on medium - I found that I had little lumps of flour that would NOT be mixed in however hard I tried, they floated on the surface of the finished mixture and I had to scoop them out to avoid an unpleasant crust on the finished cake). 
6. Pour into your prepared tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 40 minutes. Carefully cover the top of the tin with a piece of foil and bake for a further 60 minutes or until the cake passes the clean skewer test. 
7. Place the cooked cake on a cooking rack, remove the foil and leave to cool 30 minutes before removing the outer ring of the tin.  Leave to cool completely.

For the icing:
200g / 8oz or 2 sticks of unsalted butter - soft but not melting
400g / 14oz icing or confectioners sugar - sifted
100g / 4oz good quality cocoa
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tblspn espresso coffee (this can be replaced with milk if you prefer)

1. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and beat slowly until everything is combined, then on medium for a couple of minutes until you have the consistency you require.
2. Spread on the top and sides of the cooled cake.  If you prefer: you could slice the cake in half and place the icing in the middle and on the top of the cake only for a more traditional tea-time look.

When you cut the cake it is dense, moist and intensely chocolatey - apologies for the horrible lighting in the photo below, somehow I made the cake look purple!  Enjoy this with a crowd of people...or on your own, in the bath, with a good book!

 

Chocolate Ganache Slice - a huge bang for just a few bucks! 
Well it seems like a very long time since my last post, I've been making cakes for friends, catering for parties of different sorts, and then of course there's the normal mayhem of everyday life! Thankfully I've been taking photos of all the baked creations along the way so now I just need to write them all up. So here's a slice I made for the grown ups at my son's first birthday party: in its most basic and elegant guise it uses just 4 ingredients and the reaction it gets is massively disproportionate to the effort required to make it. I can't really call it "baked" as no oven is required...unless you want to make the chocolate cookies in the base yourself. As with many of my recipes, this can be made gluten free very easily, just switch the standard crumb base for a GF one. The other thing I should mention is that this can be tweaked in a number of ways depending on your preference: you could add a liqueur such as Grand Marnier or Baileys or Tia Maria; you could add ground nuts to the base; you could add the zest of an orange to the ganache; you could make a simple caramel to drizzle over the slice; or even (and this is what I'm going to try next time) make almond or hazelnut praline and sprinkle it over for a bit of extra crunch. Whichever option you choose, it'll be yummy in a really big way and people will ask you for the recipe! Now, I have a particular fondness for Willie Harcourt-Cooze (his website can be found here) and I recently found a source for his 100% cacao out here in Oz. Of course I just needed an excuse to use it, so in the recipe below you'll see that there's a total weight for the chocolate but within that weight you can mix and match as you please. I used about 100g / 4oz of the grated cacao mixed with 200g / 8oz Green & Blacks organic milk chocolate. Decadent? Possibly. To die for? Definitely!

For the base: 
150g / 6oz plain chocolate crunch biscuits or cookies
60g / 2 1/2 oz unsalted butter

1. Blitz the biscuits or cookies in the food processor, or place them in a roomy zip lock bag and beat them with a rolling pin until you have a fine crumb. 
2. Melt the butter then mix it with the crumbs until you have a damp sandy texture. Press the mixture into a loose bottomed slice tin: mine is 30x10cm (or 12x4 inches) but you could just as easily use a round one. Be sure to press the crumbs up the sides of the tin. To avoid big wads of crumb base at the edge, I use my 1 cup measure to press the crumbs down and against the sides at the same time, this seems to result in a good even thickness. 
3. Place the tin in the fridge while you make the ganache. 

For the ganache: 
300g / 12oz chocolate (milk, dark or a mixture) chopped roughly
300ml / 1 1/4 cups double or heavy cream

1. Gently heat the cream until bubble start to appear around the edge but do not allow it to boil. Remove it from the heat. 
2. Add the chocolate rubble to the cream and allow it to stand for a couple of minutes. Stir the mixture until all the chocolate is combined with the cream and you have a smooth glossy mixture. 
3. Remove the slice tin from the fridge, carefully pour in the ganache and return the whole lot to the fridge for at least 30 minutes. 

When you're ready to serve it, remove the tin: I stand mine on a couple of cans and gently ease the sides down but I have to confess that I don't attempt to remove the slice from the flat base. Now, this can be served straight from the fridge but I prefer to allow it to come back to room temperature. In any event, it's easier to slice if you use a hot sharp knife. I just dip mine in hot water, dry it and cut 2 or 3 pieces then go back to the hot water. You can serve 12 people quite easily with the above quantities, it's pretty rich so less is more! I served this with cream but that really is gilding the lily, it's perfect on its own.

Fabulous Cheesecake - Reduced Fat So You Can Eat More!!
Who doesn't love a good cheesecake?  With the crunchy base, silky smooth top, and a pleasing tang of lemon it's both elegant dessert and comfort food all at the same time.  Now I am not usually into the low fat version of anything baked - mostly because substituting some weird spread for butter just doesn't work...but your traditional cheesecake recipes are so loaded with cholesterol I find it hard to justify the enjoyment.  So, I've come up with the recipe below, probably based on Nigella's but I can't be sure: it's been through a few versions - some worked, some didn't!  I think I've managed to preserve all the yummy texture and flavour, but you make it and decide.  Also, this one was made for Mother's Day so it has a little dark chocolate swirled on the top, but you could just as easily use a raspberry coulis - or nothing at all!  Oh, and the heart shape was a bit of whimsy, if you don't have a tin like this just use a 20cm / 8" round one.  And this can easily be made gluten free: just use GF cookies for the base, the remainder of the recipe is the same.

For the Base:
175g / 7oz Hob Nobs or Anzac Biscuits (or some other crunchy cookie with oats in) 
75g / 3 oz unsalted butter melted

1. Either place the cookies in a grip seal bag and beat them to a fine rubble with a rolling pin, or place them in a food processor and pulse them a few times until you have the same texture.
2. Combine the melted butter with the cookie crumbs and press into the base of a 20cm or 8" springform tin.  I like to use the base of my 1 cup measure to press the crumbs down evenly.  You don't need to press them up the sides of the tin - just make sure you have a nice level platform.  Place the tin in the fridge while you make the next layer.

For the "Cheese" Layer:
500g / 1lb 2oz Light Philadelphia (or other) cream cheese, softened
150g / 6oz caster or superfine sugar
3 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tblspn vanilla extract, or the scraped seeds from 1 vanilla bean
Zest of 1 large lemon - use a microplane if you have one
2 tblspns lemon juice

1. Preheat your oven to 170 C / 350 F, fill the kettle with water and put it on to boil.
2. Now, you can do all of the mixing part by hand in a big bowl with a wooden spoon providing the cream cheese is at room temperature.  Just follow the instructions below to get the order of ingredients right.  If you have a free standing mixer: place the cream cheese in the bowl and using the paddle attachment beat for about 30 seconds just until it looks like thick whipped cream.  
3. Add the sugar, eggs, egg yolks and vanilla.  Beat on medium for about a minute until everything is well combined.  Lastly, add the lemon zest and juice and beat briefly.
4. The next step is REALLY important to get that soft silky texture: take your springform tin out of the fridge and place it on a double thickness of foil.  Bring the edges of the foil up as far as they will go - they need to be at least half way up the tin.  Stand the tin in a roasting pan and carefully pour the cheese mixture on to the crumb base.  I like to pour it over the back of a big spoon so that it doesn't disturb the crumb base...but I'm probably being over cautious!  
5. To avoid the risk of scalding yourself by carrying a big pan of boiling water: place the roasting pan in the oven, then immediately pour boiling water into it (around the springform tin) until the water level is halfway up the cake tin.  Close the oven door and bake for about 45 minutes (depending on your oven) or until the middle of the cake feels lightly set.

For the Topping:
8 tblspns low fat or fat free sour cream
2 squares of plain or bittersweet chocolate melted

1. If your sour cream is fairly firm, stir in a tablespoon or 2 of milk until it can be poured easily.  Take the cheesecake from the oven (still in its water bath) and pour over the sour cream.  Drop dots of melted chocolate from the end of a teaspoon around the edge of the cake.  Using a toothpick or fine skewer, swirl the dots of chocolate into the sour cream (see photo above).
2. Cook for a further 8-10 minutes until the sour cream is just set.  Take the cake out of the oven and leave it to set in the tin for about 15 mins.  Then, I like to run a thin off-set spatula carefully around the inside of the tin just to make sure it doesn't stick.  Unclip the springform and remove it, but leave the cake on the metal base plate.  Allow to cool completely then place in the fridge for at least an hour or two, but as long as 3 days is fine if you want to make this ahead. 
   TOP TIP:  place loosely scrunched up balls of foil (that are taller than the cheescake) around the cake before you cover the plate with cling wrap.  This will hold the cling wrap clear of the top of the cake...if it touches the cake it will ruin the beautiful smooth surface of the sour cream layer!
3. Remove from the fridge and allow the cake to come to room temperature before you serve it, the texture and flavour is much better than when it's fridge-cold.  Serve it just as it is, or with a few berries...scrumptious!

Festive Treats Part 3:  Ooey Gooey Chocolate Cupcakes!
Now I do realise that this time of year is mostly for children - and believe me, my kitchen is full of bunny ears, baskets and painted eggs - but there comes a point when you just have to wrestle some of the goodies back for yourself.  Most festivals are celebrated with either cake or chocolate, so I went all out with one of the chocolatey-est chocolate cakes I could put together.  And seeing as they're cupcakes, there's an in-built serving size (assuming you stop at one!) so my conscience is completely mostly nearly clear.  So, imagine a darkly dense chocolate cake, studded with choc chips, topped with smooth rich ganache, all topped off with a bit of seasonal whimsy made with whipped ganache.  I know they look like kiddy cakes...but you've heard of a wolf in sheep's clothing right?

For the Cupcakes:

1. Line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake cases.
2. This is a 2 egg mixture from the cake mix matrix which can be found here.  You need to make the chocolate version (swap 30g/1oz of dark cocoa for 30g/1oz flour), add 4 tblspns milk to the mixture, then stir in 50g/2oz dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips.
3. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and bake at 160 C / 320 F for 15-20 minutes depending on your oven.  In any event, they should pass the clean skewer test.
4. Allow to cool completely in the muffin tin.

For the Ganache:
250g / 10oz dark or semi-sweet chocolate.  You must use bar or slab chocolate not chips.
250ml / 1 cup double or heavy cream
25g / 1oz butter
1 tsp instant espresso powder (or 2 tsps instant regular coffee powder)

1. Break the chocolate up into squares or medium sized chunks and set aside in a heat proof bowl.  Heat the cream and butter together until simmering, whisk in the instant coffee powder, then pour over the chocolate pieces.  Allow to stand for 5 minutes then stir with a spatula until the mixture is smooth and velvety.  Allow to cool for 15-20 mins so that it thickens slightly.
2. Turn each cupcake upside down and dunk it in the ganache making sure the top of the cake is well coated.  Place (the right way up) on a cooling rack or serving plate.  Allow to set for about 30 mins.  Leave the rest of the ganache to cool while the cakes are setting.
3. Now, if you use a free standing mixer transfer the ganache to the mixing bowl and (using the whisk attachment) whisk for a couple of minutes until the ganache is lighter in colour and fluffier in texture.  A hand held mixer will do equally well, just make sure you whisk all the ganache and scrape down the sides of the bowl intermittently.
4. Place the whisked ganache in a piping bag and pipe a nest on the top of each cupcake.  I like to use a coupler and 2 different tips (a small open star and a plain one to create the twiggy effect) but a couple of swirls with an open star piping tip would do equally well.
5. Finally, place a sugared almond chick in the middle of each nest, (there are details on making the chicks here).
6. Wait until the kids are in bed.  Make a cup of tea.  Have a little piece of decadence all to yourself.