triple-layer chocolate peanut butter cake

It took me a year to make this cake.

Not literally. I don't mean I started baking last August and have only just finished frosting the damn thing; I mean I first saw this cake a year ago, and have been lusting after it ever since. You want to know how few excuses there are in everyday life to whip out a triple-layer chocolate peanut butter cake? You need a crowd of about five thousand people for a start, several hours of free time, a non-student budget, and possibly a home gym (I'm just sayin').

I have none of these things, but after a year of chocolatey longing I'd kind of reached tipping point.

Just in case you're not there yet (and I know these photos aren't great, and I'm pretty bummed over it. Serves me right, holding photoshoots the-morning-after), let me make a few things clear.

This peanut butter frosting? I would sell my firstborn for it.

...I actually loathe children, so maybe that isn't the most persuasive argument.

I would trade my gold sparkly Kurt Geiger high heels for it. -No, I wouldn't. They're awesome. I've worn those shoes 13 hours straight (don't ask) without so much as a toe aching. That's your shoe recommendation for today, faithful readers.

I would eat the entire batch single handedly until I collapsed in a sugar-high stupor...?

That sounds more like it.

Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze
Sky High: Irresistable Triple-Layer Cakes (via Smitten Kitchen)
Makes an 8-inch triple-layer cake

I had something of a battle with the cake part of this, which I found to have an uncommonly liquid-y batter which ran out of all my loose-bottomed cake tins. Quite aside from having to scrape cake mixture off the bottom of my oven, this meant my layers were quite thin. I also had to cook it for longer than the recipe said; I think I probably made a measuring mistake, to be honest, since none of the commenters on Smitten Kitchen seem to have had this problem. But bear this in mind and use a tin without a loose bottom, perhaps? It's wonderfully dark and moist and most importantly, doesn't overpower the frosting, but I'd still consider using a different chocolate cake recipe in future.

See, the real star here is the peanut butter frosting. Don't let the cream cheese freak you out, it is GODLY. Put it on cupcakes. Put it on toast. Rub it all over your face.

Now, go forth!

For the cake:
280g (2 cups) plain flour
440g (2 1/2 cups) sugar - I think I was a little stingy with this
90g (3/4 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
240ml (1 cup) neutral vegetable oil
240ml (1 cup) sour cream
360ml (1 1/2 cups) water
2 tbsp distilled white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8-inch round cakepans. Line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment or waxed paper and butter the paper.

2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine them well. Add the oil and sour cream and whisk to blend. Gradually beat in the water. Blend in the vinegar and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs and beat until well blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and be sure the batter is well mixed. Divide among the 3 prepared cake pans.

3. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean.

4. When ready to frost the cake, put in the freezer for about an hour first so it's manouverable, or else your layers will break up - trust me! Place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or large serving plate. Spread 2/3 cup cup of the Peanut Butter Frosting evenly over the top. Repeat with the next layer. Place the last layer on top and frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting.

5. To decorate with the Chocolate–Peanut Butter Glaze, put the cake plate on a large baking sheet to catch any drips. Simply pour the glaze over the top of the cake, and using an offset spatula, spread it evenly over the top just to the edges so that it runs down the sides of the cake in long drips. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes to allow the glaze and frosting to set completely. Remove about 1 hour before serving.

For the Peanut Butter Frosting:
Makes about 5 cups

280g (10oz) cream cheese, at room temp
120g (1 stick) butter, at room temp
500-600g (4-5 cups) icing sugar, sifted - the original recipe uses 5c., I definitely used less but can't remember exactly how much. Add to taste.
160ml (2/3 cup) smooth peanut butter, preferably a commercial brand (because oil doesn’t separate out)

OR: skip the cream cheese and use 1 1/2 c. peanut butter

1. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add the icing sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Continue to beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Add the peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended.

For the Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze:
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

225g (8 oz) dark chocolate, coarsely chopped - I used half milk/dark as a rough equivalent to American 'semisweet'
3 tbsp smooth peanut butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
120ml (1/2 cup) single cream

1. In the top of d double boiler or in a bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter, and syrup. Cook, whisking often, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

2. Remove from the heat and whisk in the cream, beating until smooth. Use while still slightly warm.

quadruple chocolate cake

I was thinking the other day, and I realised that maybe you don't know that much about me.

I mean, you know the basic stuff. You know I'm newly-nineteen, and English, and a student. You know sugar is my major energy source. You know that presentation is not always my strongest point, and I get too excited at the prospect of using a kitchen blowtorch.

Maybe you don't know that in real life, I can be pretty quiet (-I said 'can'. As in, it's not unheard of, if you'll excuse the terrible pun that somehow wandered into that sentence). I like musicals, and playing guitar, and Harry Potter. My favourite piece of punctuation is the semi-colon. I have a small and hairy dog that I miss a painful amount when I'm away at uni. I also have some small and hairy friends - and I have friends other than Sophie, too (sorry, sorry, couldn't resist).

I have friends that I love so much, that sometimes I think that despite all the shit and misery and, I don't know, burnt toast (I hate burning toast. It's cause I love toasting things so much. When I burn something I feel like I've failed at my missive) in the world, everything will end up okay, because how I feel about them cancels out the bad stuff. Probably I don't deserve them - sometimes I look at them and wonder why on earth they're putting up with me - but they make it worth surviving, I think. I think this is probably how people in love feel, except in this case aimed at a wider group of very cool kids, rather than one specific person.

Whenever the world scares me, I remember that they are in it.

...Look at me, getting all serious. You know, toast aside. The toast was metaphorical, anyway.

Forget toast, and let's talk about chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is a pretty good expression of love, by all accounts.

This was a gift, so although I've made this recipe in the past I can't talk about this particular cake too extensively. Butttt I did get to nibble the cut-offs, and as ever, this is the ultimate in squidgy, fudgy cake; drizzled, as the best cakes are, with a ribbon of dark and smoky chocolate syrup, until it is so moist that attempts to cut it result in happy collapse and streaks of chocolate on everything you touch for the next half hour. Not that I'm speaking from experience, or anything.

I can only hope that the rest of the cake was as good at the cut-offs I tried, and almost as good as the friend it was for.

Quadruple Chocolate Cake
Slightly adapted from Feast by Nigella Lawson

I know I've complained about Nigella 'in person', but I have no such grudge against her recipes; this is very simple, very moist and squidgy, and right up there with toasters and semi-colons in my scale of approval.

200g (1 2/3 c.) plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
50g (1/2 c.) cocoa powder
240g (1 1/3c.) sugar - Nigella uses this weight of caster sugar but I went for 1c. (120g) of light brown and 1/3 (50g) of dark muscavado.
175g (1 1/2 sticks) butter
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
80ml (1/3 c.) sour cream
125ml (1/2 c.) boiling water
175g (1 c.) chocolate chips (I used chunks of milk chocolate)

For the syrup:
1 tsp cocoa
125ml (1/2 c.) water
80g (1/2 c.) caster sugar

25g (1 oz) chocolate, cut into splinters of varying thickness, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line a loaf tin (9 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 3" deep - that's 21 x 11cm and 7.5cm deep).

1. Put the flour, bicarb, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream into a food processor, and blitz until it’s a smooth, satiny brown batter. Process again while pouring the boiling water slowly into the mixture. Turn off the processor, and stir in the chocolate chips. (If you’re not using a food process, cream the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs, followed by the dry ingredients, then the sour cream and vanilla, then beat in the water.)

2. Pour the fairly runny batter into the loaf tin, and bake for an hour. When ready, the loaf will be risen and split down the middle, and a skewer should come out fairly clean.

3. Just before the cake comes out of the oven, put the syrup ingredients of cocoa, water and sugar into a small saucepan, and boil for five minutes. What you want is a reduced liquid, a syrup.

4. When you’ve taken the cake out of the oven, pierce all over with a skewer, and pour the syrup as evenly as possible over the cake. Let the cake become completely cold, then slip it out of its tin, removing the paper, and place it on your serving plate. Get your chocolate, and slice thin slivers off the block with a heavy knife, until you’ve got enough to cover the top of the cake. If required, spoon a little extra syrup so that the chocolate will stick to the surface.

peanut butter blondies

I try to be a good person.

I try to blog recipes that I've at least adapted from the original source, rather than blindly followed. I try to be original, rather than reproducing pretty much everything ever posted on Smitten Kitchen. I try to eat healthily (um, relatively. Fresh fruit cancels out sugar, right? I mean, that's science, yeah?) (if not, then what is the point of science?).

All my efforts seem to fail in the face of peanut butter/chocolate recipes.

I mean, how do you improve on something like this? Sure, you could just stir a load of chocolate and peanut butter together in a bowl and just hand it to me (oh wait, that's basically what this recipe does), but let's keep some semblance of class going on here.

Only a semblance. I wasn't going to tell you, but I had to edit a dog hair out of one of these pictures in photoshop.

(The friends who helped me eat these on Friday are now going 'hccaaaakk' and clutching their thoats.)

(Only one dog hair! It's kind of like Russian Roulette. Most of you are in the clear!)

For the record? These were worth it. When I first tried them I thought they were a little too much - my sweetness tolerance has taken a dive recently - but after being chilled overnight the flavours had melded together into sweet, fudgy squares... not to mention they cut really neatly and looked full-on adorable. I'm such a sucker.

Peanut Butter Blondies

Adapted from Butterwood Desserts, West Falls, New York via Gourmet, October 2007

Found here on Smitten Kitchen.

Further adaptation & metric conversion by Happy Love Strawberry.

These are described as 'brownies', but apparently I think my bar classification system far outstrips the professionals. Brownies mean a chocolate base, okay? Whew, you people are lucky I'm around.

I can't help feeling that these NEED to be made with soft light brown sugar. I don't know why I didn't. Even at the time, as I was stirring in ingredients, I thought, 'I should really use soft light brown sugar for this', and then I totally did not do so. Feel free to do so! But bear in mind I haven't tested them this way yet. Let me know if you do.

For blondies:
230g (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
300g (1 3/4 c.) sugar - I'm promoting the untested brown sugar version, here.
240ml (1 c.) crunchy peanut butter
2 large eggs + 1 large yolk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
280g (2 c.) plain (all-purpose) flour
250g (9oz) milk chocolate, cut into small chunks (or chips)
1/2 tsp salt

For ganache:
250g (9oz) milk chocolate, cut into chunks (or chips)
120ml (1/2 c.) double cream (a litle milk worked for my -admittedly half quantity- version)
1 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Butter a 13x9" baking pan, then line bottom of pan with parchment paper and butter parchment.

1. Beat together butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until mixture is light and fluffy, then add peanut butter and beat until incorporated. Beat in whole eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla. Reduce mixer sped to low, then mix in flour until just combined. Mix in chocolate chunks/chips then spread batter in baking pan, smoothing top. (It will be thick, almost like cookie batter.)

2. Bake until blondies are deep golden, puffed on top and a wooden pick inserted in center come out with some crumbs adhering, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool completely in pan on a rack, like I ever cool anything completely.

3. Make ganache: Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring cream to a boil in a small saucepan, then pour over chocolate and let mixture stand for one minute. Gently whisk in butter until it is incorporated, chocolate is melted, and a smooth mixture forms. Spread ganache on cooled blondies and let stand until set, about 15 minutes.

Capital Letter Cheesecake Bars

Sometimes I suspect that I'm subliminally trying to sabotage my own baking efforts so I'll be forced to make something again. Take these for example. Yes, every square is a little mouthful of Purest Heaven... but I screwed up, of all things, the chocolate drizzle over the top. How can anyone screw up a chocolate drizzle? All you have to do is, uh, drizzle chocolate. But no; mine seized up in the microwave until I had to add so much milk and butter to sort it out that it turned into a sauce/glaze. And it bothers me. It really does. I keep looking at the pictures and imagining them with drizzle; it's the tragedy of my heart.

And I just know I won't be satisfied until I make them again. With chocolate drizzle. And then I'll have to eat them, and you know, my life is so traumatic?


There are possibly a couple of things that could persuade me to forgive these bars. Firstly: they're called 'chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake bars', and if you think that's a mouthful, wait til you take a real one.

Secondly: OH MY DAYS THEY'RE THE BEST THINGS EVER.


I mean, hello, CHEESECAKE (I think we all know how I feel about cheesecake, and to avoid scaring off anyone who doesn't know, I won't go into further detail). COOKIE DOUGH. I think everyone feels the same way about cookie dough. CHOCOLATE CHIPS. Self explanatory. CAPITAL LETTERS.

--Okay, fine, I just like to over-emphasize. Otherwise you might've missed all the chocolate chip/cookie dough/cheesecake components in these chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake bars, or something.

To summarise: you absolutely can't go wrong with something like this.



Apart from the chocolate drizzle. Apparently it's easier to go wrong with a chocolate drizzle than you'd expect.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars
Adapted from the version found on Bake Or Break
The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook.

Crust:
200gish (1 & 1/2 c.) choc chip cookie crumbs (I used choc chip Maryland cookies cause my flatmate was, get this, THROWING THEM OUT. They'd apparently 'gone soft'. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN SUCH BLASPHEMY. The original recipe uses plain graham crackers/digestives but also includes about 70g mini chocolate chips, which I omitted)
75g unsalted butter, melted

Sorry measurements are vague, by the way; I did half quantities and improvised a lot. If you have American measuring cups, you might want to dig them out for this one.

Preheat oven to 325°.

1. Butter a 9"-square baking pan. Line pan with parchment paper, leaving enough to extend over the sides. Butter the parchment paper.

2. Combine cookie crumbs and butter until crumbs are moistened. Stir in chocolate chips if using. Press crust mixture into bottom of pan and 1 inch up sides. Bake for 6 minutes. Set pan on wire rack to cool

Cookie Dough:
75g unsalted butter, at room temperature
40g light brown sugar
3 tbsp caster sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
100g (1 c.) semisweet chocolate chips

3. Using an electric mixer , mix butter, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract at medium speed until smooth. Decrease mixer speed to low and add flour. Mix just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.

Fun fact: I stirred this all by hand and broke my wooden spoon in half.

Not deliberately.

Filling:
280g cream cheese, at room temperature
45g (1/4 c.) caster sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4. Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar just until smooth. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating just until blended. Pour batter into baked crust. Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls over the top of the filling.

Bake about 30 minutes, or until set. Transfer to wire rack.

For chocolate topping, melt 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave. Add about 1/2 tablespoon of butter if necessary to make chocolate smooth. Drizzle over top of bars. Cool bars in pan completely, about an hour.

Using the edges of the parchment paper, remove bars from pan. Cut into bars and serve.

I'm In Love

I've told you before how I use food to show affection; in that case, I must love you people very very much. This is The Recipe you've waited all your lives for, The Recipe to end All Recipes; this is what you will want to eat for the rest of your life (probably considerably shortening it in the process; I can't be blamed if you die of vitamin deficiencies or whatever). This is the recipe I make repeatedly at the slightest excuse, and this is the recipe I made on Saturday for a potluck dinner with my friends before we all go our separate ways to university.

But you know, if you wanted to make it, you wouldn't need a momentous occasion like that. After the first time, you get good at making up occasions. You start inviting people round specially and pretending it's a big deal when really you see them every other day/they deliver your post. In my family, we started off making this recipe because it was Christmas, and finished up making it because it was Tuesday.

I've wanted to blog about this cheesecake more or less since Happy Love Strawberry was created (actually, it might have been the reason it was created; I forget) but as it's usually made for a big occasion there's never a chance for decent photos, and I really wanted to do this justice. And then, of course, I got my beautiful Nikon D40, and -- actually, it might have been the reason I got the Nikon D40, too. Hm.

Ohh, look at that texture. That's worth buying £300 worth of camera for.

I can only go on about this cheesecake before so long before you all want to beat my face in with a shovel (er, a surprisingly violent imagination just emerged there) so I will say only this: make this. Make this now. Make this if you want everyone who tastes it to fall in love with you. Make it to celebrate your birthday/Christmas/Easter/wedding/funeral/diabetes diagnosis -- okay, perhaps not that one.

The first person who comments and says 'I made this and I didn't like it...' gets their face beaten in with a shovel. I simply won't believe you.

White Chocolate & Raspberry Cheesecake
Recipe adapted from The People's Cookbook, as seen in Good Food magazine (July 07).
Serves 12

For the base:
85g (3oz) digestive biscuits, crushed (Americans; graham crackers. I usually use 100g of each for the base cause I like a little bit more)
85g (30z) ginger nut biscuits, crushed
85g (3oz) butter, melted

For the filling:
500g (1lb 2oz) white chocolate, broken into pieces
50g (2oz) butter
1/2 vanilla pod, split lengthways
500g (1lb 2oz) full fat soft cheese
50g caster sugar
175ml whipping cream
225g punnet fresh raspberries, plus extra to decorate

1. For the base, combine biscuits & butter, then press into the base of a 23cm (9.5") springform tin.

2. For the filling, put the chocolate, butter and vanilla pod in a heatproof bowl and microwave in 20-second bursts to melt it. Allow to cool slightly.

3. In another bowl, mix the soft cheese, sugar and whipping cream til smooth.

4. Remove the vanilla pod from the chocolate mixture and stir the chocolate into the cream. Gently stir in raspberries with a spatula, then spoon on top of the base, smooth carefully, and leave in the fridge to set (8-24 hours).

5. Remove from tin and decorate with raspberries to serve.

I go to uni on Saturday, so blog posts may be sporadic for a while - I'm hoping to get in this month's Daring Baker challenge but time might be against me this week. Bear with me a bit and I'll be back with part two of the sugarcraft flower tutorial soon ^__^.

Also, I made a Flickr account! I'm not sure why. But it makes me feel cool.

Yeah, I ate this. Win.

Comfort Eating

I think anyone reading a food blog knows that food is comfort. And when things aren't so good, all I really want to do is mix up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and eat it, raw, off the spatula. (Probably not such a good idea when I have a little red bikini to fit into for next week).

But to be honest, I don't have the energy to be witty, or sarcastic, or even really remotely interesting today. I probably shouldn't be blogging (sorry anyone who finds themselves feeling inexplicably depressed after reading this) as a result, but I thought I'd explain rather than just let the blog languish; basically I have a lot of family problems going on at the moment that I don't especially fancy going into in great depth.

So instead, I'll offer you these.

These are based on an idea I had after seeing cookie dough brownies somewhere online (can't remember where; bad luck). I saved the recipe, but somewhere between first finding it and coming across it again a while ago, something very odd started happening to me. It started when I had a bite of a mars bar a while ago and found it... repulsive. It was too sweet.

I've never, to my knowledge, found anything 'too sweet' in my life. Am I getting old?

And then I made 'halfway cookies' at some point; chocolate chip cookie dough with a meringuey topping and so on... and it was just too much. I ate about twelve of them, admittedly, but only because I was trying to work out if I liked them or not (yeah, alright).

And so I made these... less excessive. Don't be disappointed in me: these are based on the cookie dough brownie idea, but obviously I used a plain (ie, not white chocolate or whatever) blondie base, and I changed the cookie recipe I used cause it was kind of spreadable, and I ended up with layers rather than blobs of dough.

The final result is gorgeous, especially fresh from the oven where the cookie-like top is thin and crispy and the blondies are slightly warm and still gooey beneath. But I can't help it. I like the blondie batter warm from the melted butter, and uncooked. When I'm maybe not feeling too hot, that, to me, is comfort.

Cookie Dough Blondies
Blondies from How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman, metricised by me.
Cookies adapted from Chocolate from Parragon books

For the blondies:
120g (1 stick) butter, melted
120g (1 cup) brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt
140g (1 cup) plain flour

Preheat oven to 180C. Prepare an 8x8" pan.

1. Mix melted butter with brown sugar & beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla. Add salt, stir in flour. Pour into prepared pan.

For the cookie layer:
175g (6oz) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
120g (1 stick) soft butter
90g (3oz) soft light brown sugar
5 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
125g milk (about 1 cup, semisweet) chocolate chips. Add more chips if you want but I wouldn't go above 175g (another 1/2 cup) cause my first test of this recipe used more, and it all sort of combusted.

2. For the cookies, place all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat until well combined.

3. Blob rounded teaspoons of cookie dough over the blondie batter, pressing down lightly. You'll probably have a little too much cookie dough, but I like to overdo things. Also I'm not averse to eating the leftover stuff, especially when I need cheering up.

4. Bake for about 30mins until golden brown. Allow to cool before cutting and removing from pan, but they are best fresh.

Why Choosing Between Desserts Is A Thing Of The Past

On Happy Love Strawberry, 'excess' is not a word that I know the meaning of.

Well, I mean, I know the meaning of it. I'm not stupid.


What I'm trying to say is: I love brownies. I love ice cream. I had six egg yolks rocking out in the fridge (you know, I swear they started reproducing at one point? I'm not pointing any fingers, I'm just saying; one day I had three sharing a mug, the next day, there were four in there. No one else uses egg whites in my house, so the logical conclusion is that they had a baby. Anyone know anything about the reproductive cycle of an egg yolk?). It made sense to me - and I don't mean in the weird, egg-yolk-multiplication way - to make both.

At the same time. Together. In one glorious, hybrid, taste-explosion. Heeee.


My photos say this worked.

My stomach says something very similar, but in a more 'oh GOD, this is GLORIOUS, but STOP EATING, I'm GOING TO DIE' sort of way.

In reflection, I should have made this when I had someone to share it with.


I used The Only Brownie Recipe In The World That I Can Actually Make, which is a Nigel Slater recipe, and for the icecream, I used Donna Hay's recipe which I found on Spicy Icecream (deceptively, the icecream is not spicy). However, I've copied and pasted a bit to convert the measurements to metric, so I'll stick it all up here ^__^.

For the icecream:
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
From Modern Classics 2 by Donna Hay
Makes about 1 litre

240ml milk
480ml single cream
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
6 egg yolks
115g caster sugar

1. Place the milk, cream and vanilla (including the bean) in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally until the mixture is hot but not boiling. Remove from the heat and set aside to infuse for 15 minutes

2. Place the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk until thick and pale. Remove the vanilla bean from the milk mixture, and slowly pour over the egg yolk mixture. Whisk well to combine.

3. Return the mixture to the pan and stir over low heat until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Set aside to cool. A good way to do this is to fill your sink with a little cold water and a few ice cubes and place the saucepan in there.

4. Either place the custard in an ice-cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions OR place the mixture in tub, cover and freeze for 1 hour. Beat with an electric hand mixer, or, you know, a spoon, and return to the freezer. Repeat three times at hourly intervals until the ice cream is thick and smooth. In the meantime, make the brownies; they need to be cool and set by the time your ice cream has been freezing for about 3 1/2 hours or is just almost ready to be left to itself.


For the brownies:
Very Good Chocolate Brownies
Recipe by Nigel Slater. Makes 12 or 16 normal sized brownies, but we're not making normal sized brownies...

300g caster sugar
250g butter
250g chocolate
3 large eggs plus 1 extra egg yolk
60g flour
60g good quality cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

1. You will need a baking tin, about 23cm x 23cm. Set the oven at 180°C/Gas 4. Line the bottom of the baking tin with baking parchment. Put the sugar and butter into the bowl of a food mixer and beat for several minutes till white and fluffy.

2. Meanwhile, break the chocolate into pieces, set 50g of it aside and melt the rest in a bowl suspended over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water. As soon as the chocolate has melted remove it from the heat. Chop the remaining 50g into gravel-sized pieces.

3. Break the eggs into a small bowl and beat them lightly with a fork. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix in a pinch of salt. With the food mixer running slowly, introduce the beaten egg a little at a time, speeding up in between additions. Remove the bowl from the mixer to the work surface, then mix in the melted and the chopped chocolate with a large metal spoon. Lastly, fold in the flour and cocoa, gently and firmly, without knocking any of the air out.

4. Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin, smooth the top and bake for 30 minutes. The top will have risen slightly and the cake will appear slightly softer in the middle than around the edges.Pierce the centre of the cake with a fork - it should come out sticky, but not with raw mixture attached to it. It will solidify a little on cooling, too.

5. After the icecream has been in the freezer for about 3 and a half hours, and is smooth and starting to freeze, divide the tin of brownies in half (you won't need it all. Go crazy with the rest of the brownies. You can make a lot of friends that way. Alternatively, you could double the icecream quanitites and make two litres, but whatever). Rather than cut your brownies into twelve or sixteen or whatever, cut them into small, bite-sized pieces, and drop them on top of the icecream. Don't stir them in just yet, because if they're gooey they'll just marble in too much and you'll end up with muddy icecream. Cover the tub again and put in the freezer for ten minutes or so, THEN stir it in. You might need to add the brownie bites in two batches, but if you're doing it you may as well do it properly and use loads.

Then you just have to leave it to freeze up properly (I went to a party, and returned late this morning feeling rather ill. I then ate lots of brownie icecream, and felt more ill, but rather smug and cheerful at the same time).

'This icecream makes you feel smug and cheerful' is not really the height of good food writing, but I'm sure you get the idea. Over-indulgence for the win XD.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Firstly - I hope everyone had a great Christmas yesterday!!

We always have the whole extended family over, and since I get on far better with my extended family than my immediate one, a good time was pretty much had by all. I should mention that I got a couple of stunning vegetarian recipe books, so look out for those in the near future ^__^

My mum is famous for her Christmas dinner, so rather than encroach on her noble territory I was head of puddings this year. The temptation to list everything is enormous, but since I begin to feel queasy again if I think about food too much now I'm going to cut straight to... this:


Probably the aesthetic highlight of the meal, although I can't say I'm too into chocolate cake-y things (I prefer both pure chocolate and pure cake; I don't go in for adulterating a good thing XD). Nonetheless, it got rave reviews from everyone who had some, so I recommend it - you can still make it for New Year's Eve!


Since it's unlikely I'll eat anything but leftovers for the next week (or eat anything at all, the way I feel now - about twelve times bigger than usual, for the record), I can guarrantee you'll be seeing more of the Christmas desserts soon XD

Chocolate Christmas Pudding

Good Food Magazine, January 2008 edition

Prep: 40 mins + chilling. Serves 8 (rubbish, it serves twice that, especially at Christmas when everyone's full anyway)

For the sponge:

4 eggs

100g caster sugar
100g self-raising flour
50g cocoa
85g butter, melted
50ml espresso with 2 tbsp Tia Maria (none of my family like coffee so I left this out, but added a capful or so of dark rum)

For the mousse:
3 eggs, separated
50g caster sugar
175g dark chocolate
200ml double cream

For the ganache:
142ml pot double cream
100g dark chocolate
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp Tia Maria + 1tbsp espresso (I added rum again instead)

+ some dark & white chocolate to decorate

1. Oven to 200C. Line a 22 x 31cm swiss roll tin with baking paper (we used a tin double this size and I'd recommend it; it makes the sponge thinner but gives you a lot more to work with when it comes to fitting it to the bowl). Tip a tbsp of spare cocoa powder over the tin and turn it to coat it evenly, tapping out the excess.

2. For the sponge, beat the eggs and sugar until thick enough to hold a trail. Fold in flour and cocoa powder, then swirl in the butter and fold through. Tip into the tin, bake for 10mins until just firm, then cool under a clean tea towel. Or perhaps don't.

3. For the mousse, beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale. Melt the chocolate and loosely whip the cream until it just holds its shape. Quickly beat half the cream and all of the chocolate into the egg mix, then gently fold in te rest of the cream. Whisk the egg whites until softly peaked, then fold in.

4. Grease a 1.4 litre/ 2.5 pint basin or bowl with a little oil. Line with cling film, leaving some overhang. Then to build the pudding, cut a circle of sponge to fit the bottom of the basin (we used a large cookie cutter) and fit it in. Then cut about 7 x 10cm sloping rectangles (trapeziums? Man, I always sucked at maths) from the sponge and fit them tightly around the bowl. Sprinkle with the rum (or coffee/Tia Maria).

5. Fill the bowl halfway with mousse and use what's left of the sponge to top the mousse with a snug-fitting circle of cake. Spoon in the rest of the mousse then cover with the overhanging cling film. Chill for at least 4 hrs till firm (we left it overnight) then turn onto a plate.


6. For the topping, heat all the ingredients gently in a bowl over a pan of simmering water until the chocolate melts. Leave to cool, stirring occasionally, until thick and glossy (MAKE SURE IT'S THICK ENOUGH TO SPREAD PROPERLY! The worst thing would be to be too quick over it and have it run everywhere. For probably the first time in my life I actually had some patience, and left it until it was almost set). Spread over the turned out pudding in lovely swirls.

Good Food's helpfulness runs short on decorating, but you can make chocolate curls using a potato peeler against the long side of some white or dark chocolate. What looks best, however, is to make caraque (the long ones) - to do this, I melted a few squares of chocolate (white looks best, but I did a bit of both) in a bowl and then spread it over an acrylic chopping board and left it in the fridge until it had set. Then use a sharp knife and pull it over the set chocolate towards you slowly, and you should get long chocolate curls coming off. This is what the Parragon book 'Chocolate' tells me, anyway; I had trouble with it, which is why my caraque are pretty crap.

Meh.

...Aaah, come on, it looks like a giant truffle! It's like chocolate, but in GIANT form!


I can't be the only person who gets excited over this sort of thing.

The Cookie Dough Cupcake Bake Off

Rather than dedicate another full-size post to cupcakes... find my latest experiment here.