Alice’s Classic Unsweetened-Chocolate Brownies

Bittersweet by Alice Medrich is a treasure. This morning (7:45am) we made Alice’s recipe for Classic Unsweetened-Chocolate Brownies. When Himself first bought me this book I never knew there was such a thing as 100% chocolate!!

Anyway, HoneyB was awake since 5:40am and was in need of some activity and I was in need of an enormous kick. I was tempted to make Willie Harcourt Cooze’s hot chocolate, but decided to use the 100% Venezuelan for brownies … they would be needed throughout the day. These are very chocolatey rather than sugary, something that store-bought brownies lack.

Bittersweet is not just a chocolate recipe book, but it gives the dos and don’ts, the whys and why nots, explains why one chocolate is used over another, expert tips on tempering, sourcing and cooking ‘celebration cakes’ down to a simple hot chocolate. Actually it was this book that gave me my real hot chocolate addiction. This book changed my way of thinking about chocolate …

Butler’s Pantry Chocolate Glaze

Yip this is just what you want on a warm summer’s day: a deeply rich gooey cake – NOT. But I’m quite enjoying it in the cool of the evening. The sponge is taken from here but cooked in a 9X9″ tin for 35-40 mins. The pièce de résistance of this cake is the shiny icing.

My mother in law saved this recipe for me from the RTE Guide ages ago and I’m only now getting around to it now. It’s taken from the Butler’s Pantry Recipes for All Seasons for Chocolate Fudge Cake.For their glaze, you will need:

3oz/90g light golden syrup (I used plain old golden syrup)

1oz/25g unsalted butter

2tbsp water

3oz dark chocolate chopped (70% best you can lay your hands on)

1. Heat the syrup, butter and water in a pot on medium heat and stir until it comes to the boil.

2. Remove and stir in the chocolate until smooth.

3. Spoon the warm glaze over the cooled cake and stand at room temp until set. I cut my cake into squares then drizzled the glaze so I could get the drip-down-the-side effect.

Happy Birthday HoneyB

Guess who is 2 today??

We had a terrific day and I think she enjoyed it. Lots of family around to help make the day special too. I braved the homemade birthday cake and it seemed to work out really well. It was a lemon madeira with Nigella’s blond icing taken from the Green and Black’s Unwrapped recipe book. The Swiper character was a hit with Ellen (we got a few plastic Dora characters  in Smyths but Swiper always brings a cheeky smile to HoneyBs face).

175g (60z) margarine
175g (60z) caster sugar
3 eggs (large)
2 tbsp milk
175g (60z) self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Grated rind  of 2 lemons

200g (7oz)white chocolate
50g (2oz) butter
220ml creme fraiche
100g icing sugar

1. Preheat oven 175C.
2. Grease and base line two 8″ round tins.
3. Sieve flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until smooth.
4. Bake for 25 mins
5. Let the cake cool in the tins for 5 mins then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
6. Now for the icing: Melt the butter and chocolate in bain-marie  or microwave (1 min on medium power, then stir, then another 20sec on medium should do it).
7. Leave to cool a little before beating in the creme fraiche.
8. Gradually beat in the icing sugar. Put it in the fridge to set a little before using it.
9. Sandwich the cake together with some icing, then use the remainder for the top and sides. Be warned, this icing does not really harden.
10. Go mad with the decoration (malteasers and jellies in this case!).

Round Mocha Cake

Rachel Allen’s Mocha Cake recipe works equally well in two 8″ round tins as it does in the loaf tin. I changed the baking time though: 20 mins at 190C and then 10 mins at 160C. What did catch me out was the icing … I did not have enough to cover the sides of the cake so next time I’ll increase the quantities by 1/3.

This is one of those memorable cakes … it was the first time that HoneyB used the electric mixer. Normally she complains about the ‘noisey’ machine but last night she held the handle with me. She was thrilled throwing in the coffee then pressing the button and watching the icing take shape. The next step was to cover the cake with mini marshmallows (or ‘mashmarow’ in HoneyB speak). That didn’t go so well … they ended up in her mouth instead! Maybe she thought she had moved to Quality Control????

Hot Chocolate Mix

Right-oh, I can make instant hot chocolate mix from these ingredients??? Well let’s test it out! This recipe comes mostly from Hot Chocolate: 50 Heavenly Cups of Comfort.
1 cup cocoa
1 cup sugar
1 cup dried powdered milk
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup your favourite chocolate in chunks/buttons

1. Sieve the milk and cocoa, add the sugar and chocolate, and whisk until completely combined. Et voila, homemade hot chocolate mix.
2. Store in an airtight container until needed.  I used a nice jam jar complete with lid.

To make a drink, just add 3 tsps into a mug, add boiling water and stir until the chocolate chunks have melted. How easy is that! How tastey is that!

Ginger Truffles

I’ve wanted to make ginger truffles for a while now, so I ditched the hoovering and made them instead. I did not use my favourite chocolate but the best value 70% I could find. This one, €0.79 from LIDL, has a decent list of ingredients (no vanillin, non cocoa butter or veg fats). It does not taste wonderful but still better than say Galaxy/Bournville.

This recipe comes mostly from Dede Wilson’s Truffle book and gives impressive results, approx 40 truffles:

225g dark chocolate, finely chopped

229ml cream (should be 225ml but the Avonmore double cream comes in 229ml carton … )

2 tsp grated ginger

4 tbsp cocoa for coating + extra for dusting your hands

1. Heat the cream and ginger gently for around 5 mins slowly bringing it up to simmering. This gives the ginger time to infuse.

2. Strain the cream to get all the ginger bits out.

3. Stir in the chocolate until it has melted and the mixture is smooth.

4. Pour into a bowl and cool.

5. Once cold, cover and leave to settle at room temperature overnight (or 4 hours in the fridge). If you chill it, make sure you take it out 20 mins before forming the truffles so the mixture is pliable.

To make the truffles (a messy job, but someones gotta do it):

1. Take a tsp or melon baller (I used the latter) and scoup up some mixture. Repeat until all the mixture is in rough looking rounds.

2. Dust your hands with cocoa powder and roll each into a smooth ball. You might need to wash you hands every 10 truffles depending on their temperature.

3. Tip the cocoa powder into a bowl and roll each truffle in it.

4. Pop them into petit four cases if you like.

5. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for a week. Take out 30 mins before eating to allow them come to room temperature.

I coated these truffles as an experiment i.e. I knew the technique was not right but wanted to see the results anyway. I used 100g melted white and 100g melted dark chocolate. As I dipped each truffle and placed on parchment paper to set they looked fabulous. I even topped each one with finely chopped crystalised ginger. But as I expected, once cold white streaks appeared, the coating turned dull and all because the chocolate had not been ‘tempered’. Stay tuned for the Tempering post … it’ll happen when my digital thermometer arrives ;-)

Tips

1. Chop the chocolate as evenly and finely as possible. This way it melts easier and more evenly when added to the cream.

2. Don’t bother dipping these truffles unless you either:

a. temper the chocolate

Or

b. cover the dipped truffle with chopped nuts, cocoa powder, grated chocolate, crushed nibs or anything that will cover the streaked coating.

Scone au chocolate

In France, the traditional morning time snack with coffee is the croissant, in Ireland its scones. So, just like the french have a pain au chocolate, now I have scone au chocolate. Here is a lovely recipe mostly taken from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet …

2 cups flour

1/4 cup caster sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

100g of your favourite chocolate (I used Lindt 70%)

1 1/4 cups single cream

milk and sugar for brushing and dusting

1. Preheat oven to 220C and dust a baking tray with flour.
2. Sieve flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add in the sugar. Tip from Alice: whisking dry ingredients will ensure they are well combined.
3. Chop the chocolate leaving some big chunks and stir in.
4. Add the cream, bring the mixture to a soft dough with minimal kneading.
5. Turn out onto a floured worktop and pat into an 8″ round, 3/4 thick, cut into 10 wedges. Alternatively, use cookie cutter/glass dipped in flour to cut out round scones.
6. Brush the tops of the scones with milk, sprinkle with sugar.
7. Bake in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes until golden brown and then cool on a wire rack.

These scones can be served with jam, cream, chocolate spread but I always eat them unadulterated, just slightly warm with a cuppa.

Ha ha, from this photo they could be triangular raisin scones!

Greedy Goose

Since the book Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose arrived from Amazon it has been a favorite with HoneyB (21 months of age). It is a superb read with a cute rhyming storyline and colorful pages of animals eating dinner.

HoneyB seems to empathise with the sad white swan and chants ‘All gone’ along with us when the other animals eat all the chocolate mousse.

The only downside is that now when I say carrots, she says Yuck, just like the fussy duck!

Chocolate Coconut Bars

HoneyB has had a terrible week. It started pretty bad as she had nasty side effects from the pneumococcal vaccine (high temperature and swollen red leg). After 48 hrs the temperature had not subsided so a very miserable HoneyB was taken to doctor. Diagnosis: Another ear infection :-(

Sick little girls need treats so I made Chocolate Coconut Bars (fancy cornflake buns) from Rachel Allen Bake. The bars really helped considering she had no appetite for anything (apart from cold custard).

They were a cinch to make and don’t contain eggs so the uncooked mixture was safe for HoneyB to ‘test’. The only step I changed in the recipe was not to coat the cooled baked mixture with chocolate. Instead I drizzled 75g chocolate which made the bars easier to cut.

Because it was so hard to cut into neat bars (crumbs and bits everywhere),  next time I will cut the bars while still warm, then, once cold dip them in chocolate … like half coated cookies.

Rachel Allen’s Mocha Cake

My clever sis gave me the gift of cake this Christmas. It was in the form of Bake by Rachel Allen. Thanks sis.

There are some tempting recipes in there all photographed beautifully. Some work, some don’t, but I am early into the recipes so the jury is still out on whether it is a book to look at or a book to cook from.

My initial success came from the Mocha Cake which was divine even though the icing was not as plush as I’d have hoped. This was entirely my fault: I plastered it on rather like a builder; maybe it was my mood at the time. Himself, Honeyb and the pigeons loved it ;-)

The Cottage Pie however needed some tweaks to jazz it up. Himself described it as tasting like a burger topped with mash. I increased the amount of puree, relish and Worcester sauce to get a nice tasty pie filling. Next time I am going to add a tin of tomatoes to make the filling wetter.

Cheese Straws: good especially for Honeyb.

Chocolate Coconut Bars: good (a cross between a chocolate cornflake bun and a bounty).