chocolate

Chocolate hazelnut cupcake with coffee buttercream

20 Comments / cake, chocolate /

I think I could benefit from a cupcake decorating course 🙂

I made these the other day to have in the park on the walk home from school to celebrate the change in the weather we seem to have had in the last week or so.  Spring may actually have sprung.  Of course, though, because we had planned a picnic the English weather let us know that we were fools and the sun didn’t peek out of the clouds once.  It was a fairly cold picnic!  Oh well, the cupcakes were good.

I made these in muffin tins so that they are a fair-sized cupcake. You don’t see fairy cakes about much these days.  A fairy cake sized cake is sometimes exactly right to fill a hole.  So feel free to make these smaller.  If you are making them muffin sized they will make 12, so smaller might make 16- 20 I would say.

200g unsalted butter, softened
200g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
100g whole hazelnuts
100g plain (all-purpose) flour
25g good quality cocoa
2 tsp baking powder

For the frosting
100g butter, softened
200g icing sugar
3 tsp cool strong coffee, made from 3 tsp of instant coffee dissolved in  4 tsps of just boiled water
2 tbsp double cream

Method

Place the hazelnuts on a baking tray and place into a preheated oven at 200°c, gas mark 6 for about 4 minutes until they are lightly toasted.  Be careful, they soon burn. Pour them onto a clean tea towel and rub gently.  Most of the skins will come off, but leave some on as they add a good flavour.  Turn the oven down to 180°c, gas mark 4.

Put the hazelnuts into a food processor and whizz until they are large crumbs.  This adds a nice crunchiness to the cupcake.

Place the butter and sugar into a bowl and whisk until fluffy and pale.  Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well with each addition. Gently stir in the hazelnuts.

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder over and fold in gently.

Place dessertspoonfuls of the mixture into the muffin cases in a muffin tin. They should be about three-quarters full. If you are using fairy cases then use a teaspoon to fill them three-quarters full.

Place in a preheated oven at 180°c, gas mark 4 or the Baking Oven of the Aga for about 20 – 25 minutes for the muffin sized cakes or 10-15 minutes for the fairy cake size.  They should look firm and feel springy to a gentle touch.

Leave them to cool in the tin for a minute or two and then lift out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, beat the butter in a bowl until soft, add the icing sugar and stir in gently at first.  If you beat it straight in you will end up with a fine layer of icing sugar dust all over the kitchen.  When it is starting to clump together start to whisk it until it is fluffy. Add the coffee and beat again. Add the cream and beat until all is combined.  Pipe over the cupcakes more artistically then I can manage.

 

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Earl Grey Kisses

20 Comments / biscuits, chocolate /

Are you ready for a tale of woe?

This month’s We Should Cocoa Challenge was hosted by Choclette and she came up with the fantastic idea of creating something with chocolate and tea.  Now straight away the thought struck me that Earl Grey truffles would be a lovely thing.  Except I had no Earl Grey in the house.

The days of February passed in a dash and I suddenly found myself in the middle of half term, at home with two busy children and still no Earl Grey.  Several trips to the shops later and still no Earl Grey.  It was the final day of the challenge and I managed to remember to buy Earl Grey, but then a cough came on and I ran out of energy and time.

Anyway, Sunday morning arrived and I thought I would make the truffles for eating after dinner.  I made them but the ganache split. I was making dinner for ten so the truffle mixture stayed in the fridge.  Monday morning and the split ganache was saved with the addition  of a bit more cream, but then I was busy and when I took the ganache out of the fridge it had set solid and there was no way any truffles could be formed.  The split ganache had returned with a fury it seems.

So today I reheated the ganache and yes it is well and truly split.  No truffles will be made from this. But in that ganache is 100g of chocolate and 200ml of cream.  I was not about to waste it.  The little one is off from nursery with a cough of her own but wanted to make cookies.  So here they are, cookies made with the ganache and filled with the ganache.

I will try to make the truffles again as the mixture tasted lovely.  These cookies are tasty but the delicate Earl Grey taste is lost amongst the biscuityness of it all.  But the ganache has at least been saved.

For the ganache:

100g best quality dark chocolate, chopped finely
200ml double cream
4 heaped tsp Earl Grey loose tea

Method

Pour the cream into a small saucepan and add the tea leaves.  Heat until just under boiling point. Take the pan off the heat and leave to infuse for  15 minutes. Place the chopped chocolate into a shallow bowl.  Strain the cream through a sieve into a jug, reheat gently and pour over the chocolate.  Leave to melt for a minute or so and then stir gently until the mixture is smooth.  If you successfully manage this without it splitting and becoming granular then you should be able to place it in the fridge for an hour or so and then roll into truffles.

For the cookies:

100g butter, softened
75g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
3 tbsps of the Earl Grey chocolate ganache
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
a splash of milk if necessary

Method

Cream together the butter and the sugar until fluffy.  Add the egg and beat until well combined.  Add the ganache and stir to mix.  Sieve over the flour and baking powder and stir until the mixture comes together into a stiff dough.  You may need a splash of milk to help it come together.

Roll teaspoonfuls into balls and flatten into discs and place onto greased baking trays (you will need two).  Bake in a preheated oven at 180°c, gas mark 4 or the Baking Oven of the Aga for 8-12 minutes until they look dry and feel firm.  Leave to cool on the tin for a couple of minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Sandwich two of the biscuits together using the Earl Grey chocolate ganache.

 

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Rocky Road Slice

13 Comments / biscuits, cake, chocolate /

It is Cake Sale Day at the little one’s nursery today to raise money for the nursery. So my contribution is this Rocky Road Slice and an awful admission, which I will tell you about at the end of this post.

I have completely made this recipe up this morning so I don’t know if it should really be called Rocky Road at all.  To be honest it’s not something I would choose to eat myself, it is overly sweet for my tastes, but I think the children will like it.

I have used what I have in my cupboards so feel free to use whatever you have in yours.  Replace the cranberries with sultanas or raisins if you like, use another biscuit rather than digestives – you get the idea.

50g dark chocolate
50g milk chocolate
25g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
25g mini marshmallows
50g dried cranberries
4 digestive biscuits (Graham Crackers), crumbled
25g Rice Crispies (puffed rice cereal)

30g milk chocolate for drizzling over the top (optional)

Method

Melt the dark and milk chocolate, butter and syrup together in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water.  Make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir well to combine  and add the rest of the ingredients, mixing well.

Line a 20cm square tin with clingfilm and pour the mixture in.  Level the top, pressing down well.  Melt the milk chocolate, if you are using it, and drizzle over the top. Place in the fridge to set.  Mine took about 1½ hours this morning.

Cut into squares.

Now for my awful admission.  My other contribution will be Double Chocolate Cookies made from a box mix – I know, shock horror.  Believe me, I am struggling with this myself.  I was given a box of it and I was in a quandary as to what I should do.  I have promised myself that I will try not to waste any food, so putting it in the bin was out of the question.  Then I worried that I may be becoming an awful food snob. I looked at the ingredients – flour, light brown sugar, sugar,(yes, sugar is listed twice), fat reduced cocoa powder, natural flavouring and raising agent.  I was reassured by this list, this is what I would normally put into cookies, so they can’t be too bad.  I just had to contribute the butter and egg yolk.

Anyway, I made them and they are OK, they don’t taste as good as if I had got out the flour, sugar and cocoa out of the cupboard.   There seems to be a lot more sugar in these than I would have put in and I think the cocoa is poor quality.  So, there you have it, my verdict is that these ready to bake kits might be OK if it gets someone baking that wouldn’t otherwise touch it with a barge pole.  But, you can definitely make tastier biscuits if you select the best ingredients and the right ratio of sugar.

All in all, I don’t know if it is an awful admission or if I have just become a terrible food snob, but a famous brand of cookie mix did not go in the bin and the cookies will be taken to  the cake sale.  I might just anonymise the plate though :).

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Stem Ginger Truffles

16 Comments / chocolate /

At Christmas Mr OC buys me a big box of chocolates – he knows how to keep me sweet.  He normally asks for mainly cherry chocolates – you see, he definitely knows how to keep me sweet.  This year the chocolate shop ignored his request. This was initially a bit disappointing as there was only one cherry chocolate in the box – horrors!  But as it turned out it was a good thing as I got to try every chocolate in their selection and a particular favourite was the chocolate coated crystalized ginger.

I knew I had to make some and soon.  I have a jar of stem ginger in syrup in the cupboard, so I decided to use this as the flavouring in my truffle recipe. I made them yesterday as a present for Mr OC.  They aren’t as beautiful as a shop bought truffle, but they are very tasty. One tip though – don’t leave them by a warm radiator before you give them to the lucky recipient, this only leads to disaster.  They are best kept in the fridge.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Makes about 20 truffles.

100g best quality dark chocolate
200ml double cream

60g stem ginger in syrup, chopped finely
25g caster sugar or cocoa powder to coat the truffle

Method

Break the chocolate into small pieces or whizz to rubble in a food processor and place into a bowl.  Pour the cream into a small pan and heat to just below boiling point.  Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and leave for a minute and then stir until smooth.  Place in the fridge for about two hours until the mixture is thick enough to roll into truffles.  Add the chopped ginger to the mixture and stir well.

Now, you can roll teaspoonfuls of the mixture into small balls like I did yesterday, or you can shape them roughly into ball shapes using two spoons.  I think I like the rough and ready look a little better.  Take a look at my Cherry Truffles and see what you think.

Then coat the truffle in caster sugar or cocoa or even chopped nuts, whatever takes your fancy.  Store in the fridge and enjoy regularly.

Choclette recently made some gorgeous looking Ginger Chocolates so pop over and take a look at her lovely recipe.

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Mocha Hazelnut Cake

32 Comments / cake, chocolate /

I have times when I crave a coffee cake.  I usually turn to the classic coffee and walnut in such times of need.  But I have also been coveting the notion of an Italian Hazelnut Cake.  I think it was Rachel’s blog where I first saw this, or it may have been Michele’s, or even Tracy’s.  That is the trouble when you read so many wonderful blogs, it can cause no end of trouble when you try to find a recipe that you loved.

Fortunately for me Rachel Allen does an Italian Hazelnut Cake in her book, Bake, and so with a bit of tweaking I had the perfect Coffee and Hazelnut Cake, and because it’s me I couldn’t resist adding some chocolate and turning it into a Mocha Hazelnut Cake.

I urge you to try this, it manages to be incredibly light and incredibly moist at the same time.  The coffee shines through but doesn’t diminish the wonderful hazelnut flavour and the chocolate adds a wonderful depth.  This recipe is definitely a keeper.

As I have added both coffee and hazelnuts to the original recipe, it can’t really be called an Italian Hazelnut Cake, but it can be called a Shropshire Mocha Hazelnut Cake.

200g hazelnuts, with their skins still on preferably
50g good quality chocolate
1 tsp baking powder
2tsp instant coffee powder, mixed with 2 tsp of hot water
100g softened butter
5 eggs, separated
175g caster sugar
pinch of salt

Method

Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin.
Place the hazelnuts, chocolate and baking powder in a food processor and whizz into fine crumbs.  Add the butter and whizz again until just mixed.

In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and the sugar together until the mixture has the texture of a mousse and the whisk leaves a trail when lifted out.

Add the coffee and the hazelnut mixture and beat until combined.

In a very clean bowl, whisk the egg whites and the pinch of salt together until stiff. Then add one-third of the egg whites to the other ingredients and stir well to combine and lighten the mixture.  Add the remaining egg whites in two batches, folding in carefully to retain as much air in the mixture as possible.

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 170°c, gas mark 3, or with the oven rack on the lowest set of runners in the Baking Oven of the Aga for about 1 hour or until the cake is firm on top and a skewer will come out clean when it is inserted into the cake.

Leave to cool for 15 minutes in the tin and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

 

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Chocolate marmalade biscuits

18 Comments / biscuits, chocolate /

You may know about the masses of marmalade I made, and the cake I made with it. Well, I wondered what it would be like in a biscuit.  It turns out that marmalade is very nice in a biscuit.  It adds a bitter depth that is really quite addictive.  I know, I know, I really shouldn’t eat three with one cup of tea (again!).

You could chop up the pieces of peel if you like, but I didn’t because I wanted to enjoy the chunkiness in the biscuit.  If you really wanted to spoil yourself you could add 50g (2oz) of chopped chocolate into the mix as well.

100g (4oz) softened butter
75g (3oz) light brown sugar
1 egg
3 tbsp marmalade
125g (5oz) spelt flour (or you could use wholemeal or plain)
50g (2oz) ground almonds
25g (1oz) cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder

Method

Beat the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat again until well combined. Stir in the marmalade. Add the flour, almonds, cocoa and baking powder and stir until it forms a stiff dough.

Place spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased or non stick baking sheet (you will probably need two).  Place in a preheated oven at 180°c, gas mark 4, or the Baking Oven of the Aga for 10-12 minutes until they are firm on the top. Leave to cool on the tin for a couple of minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

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Mini chocolate muffins

25 Comments / cake, chocolate /

We went swimming straight from school last night.  We went last week, and I was under prepared for just how hungry small children can get after an hour in the pool.  The result was that last week I was coerced into buying two chocolate muffins from the vending machine.  Apart from the cost of this, the bought muffins have an unfeasibly long shelf- life (what can they put in them?).  They are also so big, sweet and cloying that they only get half eaten and the rest ends up stamped into the carpet in my car.

So, yesterday I planned ahead and made these with the help of the youngest. They take ten minutes to make and ten minutes to cook and are light and fluffy. Being smaller, two can be eaten in succession without too many crumbs ending up on the floor. Happiness all round.

You can make them into double chocolate muffins like I have by adding chunkily chopped chocolate into the mix, or you can leave this out.  The big lumps of squidgy chocolate are very tasty though.

Dry ingredients
125g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Wet ingredients
1 egg
50g sugar
25g butter, melted
100ml milk

50g chocolate chopped

Method

The key to a good muffin is not to over mix and I have taken on board Delia Smith’s tip that the dry ingredients benefit from being sifted twice to maximise the air in the mix.

Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl.  In another large bowl mix together all of the wet ingredients. Sift the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients and add the chopped chocolate.  Mix very briefly, for no more than 15 seconds.  It will look as if you haven’t mixed it properly, don’t worry because it should look like this.

Spoon heaped teaspoonfuls into 12 fairy cake cases in a patty tin. Place in a preheated oven at 180°c, gas mark 4 or near the top of the Baking Oven of the Aga for 8-10 minutes until firm on top.  Place the cakes on a wire rack to cool.

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Croissants and pain au chocolat

26 Comments / breakfast, chocolate, The Ordinary Cook, yeast cookery /

I have wanted to make croissants for ages but it seemed like it might be too much mither. Well, last night I decided to take the bull by the horns and just give it a go. It was quite a bit of work, but actually not as much as I was expecting and the results are more than worth the effort.  You just need to do a bit of preparation the night before, leave the dough to rest in the fridge and then finish off in the morning.

In fact I was quite excited this morning about it all and I was really pleased when they turned out to taste just as good as I hoped. I made some croissants and some pain au chocolat – what a treat!

I used Rachel Allen’s recipe from her book Bake (ISBN 13 978 0 00 725970 0) which if I could have found a link online I would have just pointed you in that direction as I am dreading writing all this down, but here goes. (Bake is well worth seeking out, I have used it a lot since I bought it and Rachel Allen’s recipes always work).

I got some early morning help from my two girls this morning so they appear in some of the pictures.

Makes 18 croissants

275ml milk
25g sugar
1 sachet of easy bake fast acting yeast
450g Strong white bread flour
275g salted butter, softened (but not too soft)

For the egg wash:
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp milk

If you want to make pain au chocolat you will need a dessert spoonful of chopped chocolate for each pain au chocolat that you wish to make. I made 12 croissants and 6 pain au chocolat.

If you want them for breakfast then I suggest you start the night before with the following steps.

Heat the milk until warm. Rachel Allen suggests rubbing in 50g of the butter into the flour but I just put it into the warm milk so that it half melted.  Place the flour, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Add the milk and butter and bring the mixture into a soft dough.  I used my KitchenAid freestanding mixer with the dough hook attached and mixed it for 5 minutes.  If you haven’t got a freestanding mixer then this doughy is sticky and you will need lightly floured hands to knead it by hand for ten minutes until it is soft and elastic. Make it into a ball and place back in the bowl.  Cover with a large plastic bag or clean tea towel.  Rachel Allen suggests putting it in the fridge for two hours but I just left it in a cool place in the kitchen.

After two hours, place the remaining butter between two large sheets of clingfilm and, using a rolling pin, beat and roll it until it is about 8mm thick and measures roughly 10cm x 20cm.

Take the dough out of the bowl and place onto a lightly floured surface and roll it into a rectangle measuring 20 x 40 cm. Place the butter onto one half of the pastry.

Fold the other side of the pastry over onto the butter.

Roll the dough out until it again measures about 20 x 40cm.  Fold one third over, then fold that over and then fold again. Cover the dough with the large plastic bag and place in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Take the dough out of the fridge and place it with the open ends facing towards you. Roll out the pastry again to a similar size as before, then fold in three again.  Place the dough back into the bag and put in the fridge overnight.

In the morning it will look something like this, having begun to rise:

So the next morning, take the dough and roll out again into a rectangle and then fold over three times again.

Roll out the pastry until it is about ½ cm thick and measures about 35cm x 55cm.  This takes quite a bit of effort as the dough is cold.

Now I wanted to make some pain au chocolat and some croissants, so I sliced off one third of the dough and then cut this into six pieces.  On each piece I placed a spoonful of chopped good quality chocolate and then rolled up firmly like a swiss roll.

For the croissants I cut the remaining dough in half lengthways and then into thirds widthways and then each rectangle into a triangle. This resulted in 12 triangles.  Starting from the widest edge roll the pastry tightly, then tuck the tip underneath and shape into a crescent shape.

Place on a baking sheet (you will need two) leaving space for them to rise and brush gently with egg wash.

Leave to rise in a warm place for 30-40 minutes.  I put mine on top of two tea cloths on the warming plate of my Aga.

When they have risen, brush gently with egg wash again and then place in a preheated oven at 220°c, gas mark 7, or the roasting oven of the Aga for 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to 180°c, gas mark 4, or move them to the baking oven of the Aga for another 10 minutes until golden brown all over.  Place them on a wire rack to cool just a little.  They are best eaten warm, with lashings of butter and jam (or lemon curd, or marmalade) on the croissants.

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Chocolate almond cookies

16 Comments / biscuits, chocolate /

My four year old and I have just made these.  A very good friday afternoon treat.  They are chewy and distinctly almondy and definitely chocolatey.  I think next time I make them I might add a few drops of almond extract instead of the vanilla extract to really draw out the almond taste.

Makes about 10-12, depending on how generous you are with the spoonfuls.

125g butter
50g muscovado sugar
50g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g wholemeal spelt flour
80g ground almonds
20g cocoa
½ tsp baking powder

40g good quality chocolate, melted, to drizzle over the top

Method

Melt the butter in a small pan.  Place the sugars in a bowl.  Pour the melted butter over the sugars and mix well. Add the egg and the vanilla extract and mix again.  Tip in the flour, almonds, cocoa and baking powder and mix again.  It will be quite sloppy.  Place spoonfuls onto greased baking sheets.  These cookies spread a lot so leave plenty of space between them.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180°c, gas mark 4 for 8-10 minutes.  Leave on the tin for a few minutes to harden and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.  Drizzle with the melted chocolate.

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Chocolate Marmalade Cake

13 Comments / cake, chocolate, oranges /

This is my submission for this month’s We Should Cocoa Challenge.  This month it is Chele’s turn again to host the challenge and she came up with the idea of using leftovers or surplus stock.  This is a great idea post-Christmas, but unfortunately because we are so greedy in this household we had no leftovers to speak of. I have been racking my brain for a solution and of course, when I glanced again at the 10 jars (well 9 now, I did mention that we are greedy) of marmalade that are sitting on a tray on top of the hob waiting for me to decide where to keep them, inspiration struck.

One of my favourite cookbooks on my shelf is The Dairy Book of Family Cookery, not necessarily for the recipes, although I have cooked from it many a time, but because of the nostalgia it has for me.  It was written in 1983 and my mum bought it from the milkman.  It was a book I grew up with and used a lot when I was a teenager.  I remembered this morning that I cooked a Marmalade cake with a crunchy cornflake topping when I was about fourteen (only a few years ago!).  I thought I would give it a go again, but this time add chunks of chocolate into the mix.  I had come to the end of the packet of cornflakes so I used half cornflakes and half rice crispies (surely this counts as using up leftovers/surplus stock too).

Well, it hasn’t worked out perfectly but the end result does taste good.  I set to work following the instructions to beat together softened butter and syrup, but this turned out into a lumpy mess that no matter how much mixing I gave it did not get any better.  I think my problem may have been that it is cold today and my food cupboard is on the cold side and when I add the cold syrup to the butter it just made the butter hard again.  So this mix was disposed of into the scrap bowl for our chickens and a fresh batch started.  This time I dispensed with the syrup and used half muscovado sugar and half caster sugar.  It worked better than the syrup.  The cake sunk in the middle though, which may be due to the topping being too heavy  or it may be due to something else entirely. Also, because I was in a bit of a rush I thought I would be a Smart Alec and dispense with the all important lining the base of the cake tin with baking parchment.  Silly me, this bad move resulted in the cake breaking up when attempting to get it out the tin.  Oh well, you live and learn.  The cake looks like this, but tastes very much better than it looks.

I like the contrast between fluffy cake and crunchy topping very much.

175g (6oz) softened butter
50g (2oz) muscovado sugar
50g (2oz) caster sugar
2 eggs
5 tbsp marmalade
350g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
100g (4oz) good quality chocolate
100ml (4 fl oz) milk

For the topping:

50g (2oz) cornflakes (or rice crispies)
2 tbsp syrup
5 tbsp marmalade

Method

Beat the butter and the sugars together until fluffy and then add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add the marmalade and mix well.  Sift over the flour, baking powder and spices and fold into the mix, add the chocolate and the milk and mix well.

In a separate bowl, mix the ingredients for the topping together.

Spoon into a 20cm cake tine that has  been greased and lined.  Spoon the topping evenly over the levelled cake.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180°c, gas mark 4 or in the Baking Oven of the Aga for 45 minutes – 1 hour until a cake tester or skewer comes out clean.  Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes and then turn onto a wire tray to cool completely.

 

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