Chocolate Guinness Cake

On recommendation from Celia at the delightful foodie blog Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, I rather reluctantly make Stout Cake from Green & Black’s Unwrapped recipe book. I know, I know, stout and dark chocolate go well together, but I am not a fan of mixing my chocolate with alcohol.

So having looked at the ingredients I forged ahead and half way thru decided to rename this: the monster cake. This is not one for a small household; it’s one for a small army. The resulting cake rose to fill a 10″ cake tin! Huge … wasn’t I lucky it tasted nice!

There is not a huge amount of chocolate considering the size of the resulting cake  (100g cocoa, 150 dark chocolate) so the Guinness does play a very important role. It adds a ‘depth of flavour’ (as them on the MasterChef would say) giving a rich (a finger slice will do) indulgent cake, with a beautiful taste of chocolate (bittersweet rather than sugary). Just a few notes:

• Use the best cocoa available
• Chop the chocolate in chunks so you can come across them later in the cake
• Do not try and slice this cake horizontally to add layers of buttercream etc. It is a fragile beast. Best to ice the top and leave it at that.
• Any decently chocolatey icing will do here but it does need icing or a sprinkling of cocoa/icing sugar to hide the surface.
• Anyone who has tried to mix cocoa with cold liquid will know that it is not an easy task … so to mix 100g with Guinness is a step that put me off. But, Celia to the rescue … just add the sieved cocoa with the flour. Phew, messy cocoa mixing avoided ;-)

This photo is not the greatest … I should have taken a picture when the cake was bursting out of the tin … the monster.

• 225g/8oz unsalted butter, softened
• 350g/12 oz soft dark brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 225g/8oz plan flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 400ml Guinness – yes there will be a little left in the can for the cook :-0
• 100g/3 1/2 oz cocoa powder
• 150g/5oz dark chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat the oven 180C, butter & line a 9″ or 10″ deep springform tin.
2. Cream the butter & sugar.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
4. Sift the flour, baking powder, cocoa and bicarb into a separate bowl.
5. Add the flour and Guinness alternately to the egg mixture, stirring between each addition, until combined. The cake batter will be quite soft.
6. Stir in the chocolate.
7. Pour into the tin. Bake for 1-1 1/4 hours until skewer comes out clean. Cover with tinfoil toward the end to stop it from burning.
8. Leave to stand for 10 mins before turning out.
9. Cover with any icing you wish. I used Jamie Oliver’s recipe (below) recommended by Fig Jam and Lime Cordial (thank you!); worked well but I think to make this a ‘death by chocolate’ experience, a ganache topping is called for.

• 100g dark chocolate
• 100g butter
• 100 g icing sugar, sieved
• 3 tbsp milk

1. Add everything into a microwave bowl. Heat on medium in 30 sec bursts, stirring in between, until smooth. Spread over the cake, allow to set for say 30 mins. Enjoy!

Has Bean Coffee

Happy Birthday to us! Conveniently myself and Himself have our birthdays on the same date.

HoneyB was not confused at all by the concept of two of us sharing the same birthday esp since she has created a new ‘person’ called MommieDaddie. This name is used when she needs someone but has no preference which one of us it is. To mark the occasion I made Rachel Allen’s Chocolate Cake published in Bake.

Check out the finger print smudge at bottom right corner ... who do that?

Anyway, Himself found this great coffee making gadget, Aeropress, that does not cost the earth and is not noisy. Looks like a lot of effort to go to for coffee but it was straightforward and results were excellent.

I bought it from Has Bean Coffee and now I am hooked on the site. I suppose it is because of the crossover between tasting coffee (cupping) and chocolate. I love his enthusiasm, attention to detail and indeed his nod to good chocolate (check out his visit to Willie Harcourt Cooze’s factory).

Has Bean sells lots of superb sounding coffee beans too. I went for two types both with chocolate notes :-0

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.

Out with the old

Out with the old and in with the new … spatula!

My trusty white, well used spatula snapped last week while stirring a huge bowl of chocolate. It had been creaking fora while. Anyway, Himself decided to make today ‘Dundrum Day’ as he needed a new jeans. Off we went, the girls to Hamleys and Harvey Nics, Himself to H&M and Gap.

Little did I know that Himself also slipped into House of Fraser to replace my spatula. Ah yerra he is great :-) Check out my new heat resistant (260C) steel handle spatula.

We skipped into M&S to see their new ‘cake shop’ i.e. a few shelves laden with cakes and cupcakes. We chose Belgian Chocolate cupcakes which looked very tempting and won just slightly over Raspberry and White Chocolate cupcakes.

So sitting by the fountains in Dundrum, we tucked into our buns … when I noticed HoneyB wanted to eat my bun instead of her own. Hey young lady, what’s going on?? Well, if anyone was watching us they would have been stunned. There was my little girl in tears with a chocolate bun in her hand. What’s up?? Turns out that tucking into the cupcake looked too messy  so we had to cut it up. Then all was well in the world of our 2 year old.

The verdict on the cupcake: looked good but tasted average. There was a dollop of fondant in the middle which was kinda like finding a little truffle in the bun – nice touch. The sponge itself was dry and crumbly. I think I’ll stick with the M&S muffins instead … their triple berry muffins are superb!

Mouthwatering Video Clip from Anders

While researching chocolatiers for my first assignment I came across this mouthwatering video clip from Andre’s Confiserie Suisse. It is truly amazing to see a real factory in operation.

Watch and salivate … then in the tune of 10 Green Bottles you could sing …
10 chocolate cakes lined up to be iced,
10 chocolate cakes lined up to be iced,
And if one chocolate cake should accidentally fall there’d be …

What a lovely song for this wet miserable Friday :-)

Hmmm, I want to get married again

Thanks to a link from Liz Biz I visited Caca Milis site today. What a georgeous selection of cakes! If I was getting married again I would definitely be going for the Volcano or maybe the Malteaser. I’m sure Himself would approve … of the cake that is, not another wedding!

In saying that, our wedding cake from O’Connors in Ennis was beautiful … traditional 3 tier, two fruit, one lemon maderia. The lemon maderia was so good that we order one nearly every Christmas now. We saved the top tier and cut it at HoneyB’s christening … it had only improved with age :-)

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????

Chocolate at the Cooks Academy

Sunday was a day of chocolate rather than rest because I was on the Cooks Academy Chocolate cookery course which Himself gave me as a Christmas pressie. I left HoneyB and Himself to play in the snow with moo-cow (reluctantly I must say, tears from the drama queens) and I headed off for 10am start. The course was full despite the heavy snow fall, such was the determination to spend a day with chocolate!

A well organised course started with great enthusiasm from class and tutors, one quarter of the time was hands-on, three quarters demo. Strange, but the demos felt hands on because we (12 in the class) gathered around the cook’s station to watch, question, comment. I left confident that I could cook the recipes demo’ed including puddings, truffles, chocolate chilli chicken (which we ate for lunch), meringues and tempering.

Yes yes yes, there was a tempering demo much to my delight because it is the one thing that scares me. I’m not sure why but for some reason, when it comes to chocolate, the methodical approach goes out the window. I am now determined to give it a go … what have I got to lose? chocolate … no!!

The course started with a demo, then it was time to get into pairs, roll up our sleeves and make a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. Oh mamma mia, I can make lemon cheesecake which my Mum absolutely loves, so I will definitely make this for her. It is very heavy (depending I suppose on the size of the portion!) so I think we’ll be off on her 5km walk afterwards!

After this we made Death by Chocolate Muffins … 100g each of white, milk and dark chocolate plus cocoa powder, now you know why they are called Death by Chocolate Muffins. Both were easy recipes which will be added to my tried and trusted recipe pile.

What I enjoyed most about the day was talking about chocolate, swapping ideas for desserts, getting tips, asking all those silly questions that go around my head:

- Are those microplane graters really that good? Yes they are excellent.

- Good places to shop for kitchen accessories: Sweeny O’Rourke on Pearse St, The Cake Box in Dun Laoghaire, TK-Max, Kitchen Compliments.

- Where to get chocolate for cooking that does not cost the earth? Pallas Foods, Larousse Foods, LIDL.

- Best bowl to use for a bain-marie? Use a glass heatproof bowl rather than stainless steel as the latter can get very hot and burn the chocolate.

- How about those silicone muffin tins? Na, steer clear of them unless they are of excellent quality.

- Ideas to coat truffles? Desicated coconut (no need to toast it beforehand), praline powder (made from carmelised almonds), cocoa, dipped.

- Cute way to dip truffles? Stick the truffle onto a cocktail stick, dip, place on a tray to drip dry, then serve on the stick … a very glam lollipop!

The course wound down at 3:20pm and I happily filled my backpack with the fruits of our labour, recipe booklet, bid a dieu to my great cooking partner, and headed home to share the treats with my family. HoneyB loved the muffins and I think Himself loved the roulade since he asked ‘Now, would you make that again??’

I would definitely recommend the Chocolate course for someone who wants a day of fun filled with chocolate.

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).