chocolate

Dom, send the blog fairy out!

Posted by annauk1 on July 20, 2011
Posted in: Carine Goren, chocolate, Dom's Challenge. 19 Comments

Well, where do I start?
This is supposed to be my first entry into Belleau Kitchen’s monthly bloggers challenge….

But I don’t know if it counts…

July’s challenge is to select a random recipe from your favourite cookbook.

This is where the problem begins….
I chose my favourite cookbook – Carine Goren’s ‘Sweet Secrets’…..
(Or second favourite if you count ‘Feast’ by Nigella Lawson)

But then I CHOSE a recipe, not randomly, but completely intentionally.

Against the rules.

Dom, send the blog fairy out!!

Is there a Bloggers court? Send me there too….I think we need a jury…..

Will this quick and easy chocolate cake appease the blog fairy?

Or this? (made previously)

Dreamy, creamy vanilla cupcakes

Dreamy, creamy vanilla cupcakes

Or this? (Made previously)

Better than store-bought Cinnamon rolls

Better than store bought Cinnamon rolls

Next month I promise I’ll behave.

Quick n Easy Chocolate cake
Adapted from ‘Sweet Secrets’ by Corine Goren.

Cake:
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 cup chocolate drink mix (eg Nesquick)
3/4 cup sour cream
1 cup flour
1 tsp BP

Topping:
1/2 cup double cream
120g plain chocolate (I used a mix of milk and plain)

8 inch baking pan or 1 loaf pan.

Make the cake:
Preheat oven to 170deg. C.

This is where the difficult bit begins…..

Mix the cake ingredients in a mixer.

Erm, that’s it.

Pour into an oiled pan and cook for 40 minutes.

40??? Mine took 70…..
I really don’t know why…could be I used a wrong sized tin (Too square)….it took ages for the middle to cook….by which time the edges had turned, shall we say, a tad too crispy?

While the cake is cooking melt the cream and chocolate together (I did it in the microwave)
Pour the topping over the hot cake, yum…..

Cool slightly and serve.

Marks out of ten?    7.

Would I make it again?    Yes! Try again.

Would I do anything differently?   I think I’d bake it in a narrower, longer loaf tin, mine is quite short and square-ish, so it takes longer for the middle to cook….

Anna’s individual chocolate pudding-cakes

Posted by annauk1 on June 17, 2011
Posted in: chocolate, Family recipes. 19 Comments

Dear reader,
You may not know, but I have been busy working in the background on your behalf. When I say on your behalf, I guess that only applies if you’re a complete chocaholic like me!

Really, there’s no need to thank me.

It’s for the good of Mankind.

No, really….

I have been experimenting, trying to perfect a recipe for an individual chocolate pudding-cake, for those times when we want a chocolate cake,  but don’t necessarily need or want to make 4,6 or 8 portions (depending on whose recipe one is following.

It was Nigella’s chocohotopots  which started me off thinking….yes, I really, really enjoy them…but what do I do with the remaining pots of gorgeousness, short of eating them all myself? Sometimes my family are just soooo unhelpful! Though I guess I should be just a little pleased that they don’t have as sweet a tooth as me….

My search led me to google (where else?)  where I stumbled upon a microwave chocolate mug cake, ready in 3 minutes….great! I thought…..but

Oh. My. Word.

It was hideous.

Tasteless, rubbery…..yuk.

I did take a photo of it, but don’t know how, I’ve managed to lose it.

This, dear reader, is probably a blessing in disguise. Trust me.
If I find it, I’ll upload it here, so you can see just how vile it was.

I found it….

Aren’t you glad?

But one good thing I did get from the mug cake, was that I realised I wanted the perfect recipe to be measured in tablespoons, so that there would be no need for kitchen scales. After all, when we want  need an individual chocolate cake, we want it Quick, right?

So here’s the recipe, tried, trusted and indeed loved (By me at least)

Anna’s individual chocolate pudding-cake
Serves one very lucky individual.

3 level tablespoons plain flour
1 egg
5 level tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons of butter, melted
1 tablespoon of milk
2 level tablespoons of cocoa powder
a dash of vanilla essence
2 tablespoons of chocolate chips (milk, white or plain, your choice)

Mix everything up in a small bowl.
Place in an oven-proof ramekin.
Bake at 180 deg. C. for about 20 minutes. This will depend on if you want a molten middle, if you don’t simply leave in a few minutes longer.

Enjoy!

River Cottage Bounty Bar Cake

Posted by annauk1 on May 27, 2011
Posted in: Cake making, chocolate, River Cottage. 28 Comments

The delivery man came today.
And we all know what that means, right?

A parcel from Amazon.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

In today’s parcel was ‘River Cottage Handbook No. 8 – Cakes’ and Paula Deen’s ‘The Deen family cookbook’.
Don’t ya just love Amazon?!
(Yes, I know, I know, I pay for them, they don’t deliver them out of the goodness of their hearts, but still…..)

Flicking through the River Cottage book, the first recipes that caught me eye were the Bounty cake and a golden syrup cake, swoon……we’ll leave the golden syrup cake for another day – today it’s the turn of the

BOUNTY BAR CAKE


For the cake:
50g dessicated coconut
150 ml coconut milk, or ordinary milk
150g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
150g caster sugar
150g butter, softened
2 eggs

For the topping:
125g chocolate (I used half dark and half milk)
125g creme fraiche or yoghurt

1. The first thing you need to do, a couple of hours before you make the cake, is to soak the dessicated coconut in the milk and set aside. This is to re-hydrate the coconut. I used ordinary milk, but added 1tsp of coconut flavouring for a really coconutty flavour.

2. Mix together the flour, sugar and cocoa powder (I never bother sifting, a few seconds dry mixing in my KA is equivalent to sifting I reckon!)

3. Add the eggs, the milky coconut and the softened butter and beat until light and creamy.
I need to confess – at this step the cake batter almost didn’t get as far as the cake tin! It’s delicious…like a melted Bounty bar!

4. Pour into a buttered and lined 1 ltr loaf tin.

5. Cook at 180deg. C (160 deg. C- fan oven) for about 40 mins.

6. Leave to cool and top with the chocolate creme-fraiche topping, which is made by adding either yoghurt or creme fraiche to melted, cooled chocolate.

Changes/tips:
* I added a teaspoon of coconut flavouring to both the cake mix and to the frosting, I wanted it really, really coconutty!

*I added a little dessicated coconut also to the frosting, for texture and taste.

* My cake took 45 minutes at 160deg. C in my fan oven.

* I decorated with chopped up Bounty bar, instead of chocolate buttons as the book suggests.

* I used yoghurt this time for the topping. Next time I’ll try it with creme fraiche to see if there’s a big difference.

This was a beautiful cake, moist, chocolatey and delicious. I’ll definitely make it again!

Recipe adapted from River Cottage Handbook No.8 by Pam Corbin.

Bye for a bit…

Posted by annauk1 on April 20, 2011
Posted in: Cake making, chocolate. 8 Comments

There are times when blogs have to be put aside, when real life takes over..and this is one of those times.
My mother-in-law in Cyprus is seriously ill and as such we have decided to go and visit her for what could turn out to be the last time.
Hopefully we will be back with happy memories and not just sad ones,
so I leave you with a few photos of Leoni’s birthday cake which I made at the weekend..
chocolate cake, covered with chocolate buttercream and lovingly decorated with ferrero rocher chocolates, maltesers, gold glitter and ‘Artisan Du Chocolat’ gold ‘South Sea pearls’.

See you all soon!

December shows it’s frosty face

Posted by annauk1 on December 1, 2009
Posted in: chocolate, Greek. 10 Comments






December the first, frosty, cold…this is where the countdown starts….it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Today I bought de-icer for the car….
It’s been a good day, interesting and fun. Being surrounded by the Christmas tree and decorations makes it even more so. Magical, festive.
We had to pay a visit to the local mall as Elena’s school took part in a carol singing competition..
I was in my pj’s by 4pm…I’m not setting foot outside on such a cold night! So what better pastime than baking – chocolate cherry cupcakes this time and that was after I’d made a very basic bean dish that Loucas (and Elena) really enjoy ‘Fasolia yiahni’, basically cannellini beans in tomato sauce.
Now I can spend the rest of the evening in my pj’s, in front of the tv, with no-one else home, bliss!
Wherever you are – enjoy your evening..

Here goes….

Posted by annauk1 on November 27, 2009
Posted in: chocolate, Greek. 5 Comments


It’s been a loooong time. Hi everyone! Sometimes ‘real’ life has a habit of getting in the way of internet time, forums (fora?) friends and blogs. But now that the seas seem calm my kitchen time has increased, not only that, but my pleasure at creating has also returned.
Hubby loves baklava. He really adores it. He seems to have an aversion to icing (why is it that no ‘real’ Greek cakes/desserts have icing/frosting???) but when it comes to the over-the-top baklava sweetness, he can’t get enough? I have a theory that it’s because they remind him of his childhood growing up in Cyprus that no amount of icing would ever do.
And anyway, I enjoy making baklava for him. It’s the kind of dessert that looks like you’ve spent the whole day in the kitchen, when really it’s more of an assembly job – filo, butter or flavourless oil layered, even the nuts were bought ready chopped.
After half the filo has been layered, the nuts which have sugar and cinnamon added to them are added, followed by the rest of the filo. While it’s baking I make a syrup using 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water. The cold syrup is poured over the hot baklava.
Yum.

2 favourite recipes

Posted by annauk1 on March 25, 2009
Posted in: chocolate. 11 Comments

1. Old-fashioned chocolate cake from ‘Feast’ by Nigella Lawson.
I really, really love this cake, in fact I’ve lost count now of the many times I’ve made it. It really is a fail-safe chocolate cake, that is intensely chocolatey, but also because of the addition of the sour cream, it’s not sickly at all, but it is very, very moreish.
I like that both the cake and then the lovely chocolate frosting are made in the food processor, so minimal faffing about.

2. Breakfast bars from ‘Nigella Express’ by Nigella Lawson.
These really should be called ‘superfood bars’. I’m always constantly surprised, every time I make them, at the number of ‘superfoods’ going into these little beauties – oats, cranberries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut.
I love the fact that they contain no added fat, ok so they contain a whole tin of condensed milk, but no other added sugar. In my opinion, there are many less healthy things that one could have for breakfast.

Coco, the burlesque wonder cake

Posted by annauk1 on August 29, 2007
Posted in: Cake making, chocolate, Mannix, The Lovebite. 11 Comments


Today was one of those days when, from the minute I got up, I just really, really fancied a good chocolate cake. My most favourite chocolate cake in the whole world has got to be Nigella’s old-fashioned chocolate cake from ‘Feast’, and in that same vein I remembered Mannix’s ‘Coco, the burlesque wonder cake’. Coco contains soured cream in the cake and frosting as does Nigella’s cake. I need that touch of acidity provided, to cut through the sweet chocolate.
You can find the recipe for coco at Mannix’s Lovebite a fantastic site, full of recipes which just call to be made and loved.
Coco is fantastic – sweet, yielding, gorgeous! I loved the way that both cake and frosting are whizzed up in the processor (not together of course!)

Where’s the recipe from? Mannix’s ‘The Lovebite’ site
Marks out of 10? 9
Would I make it again? Oh, yes, yes, please!!