Milk chocolate truffle torte

Now if you’re anything like me (lucky you!), you’ll be looking at this thinking “hmm, looks nice but it’s not the dessert I’ve been waiting all my life to eat”. Please reassess this view!

I don’t know how it does it, but this truffle torte manages to be more chocolaty than chocolate. Don’t be fooled by the slimness of the finished torte, it contains 3 bars of chocolate and almost half a litre of cream. Admit it, you’re a little more interested now than you were at the start....


Sometimes a dish can take ages to prepare yet not really look like it has when you serve it up; somehow all that effort isn’t reflected in the final plate. This is the exact opposite, for the cake takes only about 15 minutes to prepare for the oven yet tastes like you’ve been slaving over it for hours.

The texture is just what you’d find in the centre of a big, satisfying truffle; consequently it is rather rich...and if I advise small portions you know it must be a pretty full-on experience!


One warning – the batter is so runny it’s like chocolate milk. Don’t skimp on lining the tin with foil or you may see all your beautiful creamy chocolate pooling at the bottom of the oven! I prepared the inside of the tin by cutting foil like this:


It gave a nice snug fit to the inside of the tin:


Even though I also lined the outside of the tin it didn't prevent a small amount of leakage.

Ingredients:
450ml whipping cream
300g milk chocolate, broken into pieces
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
100g golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons plain flour

To serve: icing sugar, crème fraiche or cream

How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 140°C/fan oven 120°C/275°F/Gas mark 1.
- Line one 20cm round springform tin with foil, ensuring it’s as watertight as possible.
- Bring the cream to the boil in a saucepan.
- Remove from the heat and add the chocolate. Leave to cool, whisking occasionally to ensure the chocolate is melting.
- While that’s happening, place the eggs, egg yolks and sugar into the food processor and blitz until pale, fluffy and doubled in volume. This will take approximately 8 minutes.
- Add the chocolate mixture and vanilla to the fluffy egg and blitz again.
- Add the flour and blitz again.
- Pour into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 1 hour or until the cake feels set when pressed. If it’s shrinking from the side of the tin that’s another good indication that it’s ready.
- Leave to cool in the tin before covering and refrigerating overnight.
- Remove from the fridge shortly before serving and dust with icing sugar.
- Serve with either crème fraiche or cream.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Strawberry buttermilk cake

English strawberries are really coming into their own right now – it’s hard to imagine a tastier, better looking fruit.

I have often used strawberries on top of a pastry base but can’t recall baking with them so I was intrigued as to how they would taste in this recipe. The short answer is: delicious!


As the cake bakes for a long time at a medium heat the strawberries break down into a fruity, syrupy consistency that creates an almost ripple-like effect in the cake. The flavour also intensifies to such a degree that they were similar to very sweet rhubarb. I now understand why rhubarb and strawberries are seen as a classic combination. This slice was photographed the day the cake was made – you can see how some strawberries retained their shape, whereas others collapsed into syrupy goodness:


The next day, the cake firmed up and became almost scone-like:


The crumble topping adds a delicious light, crumbly, biscuity crust to the surface which is lovely to push your fork through.


You can serve this warm with custard but I went for room temperature with clotted cream. I mean – come on! Strawberries have to be served with cream...we’re in England for goodness sake!


Ingredients:
For the crumble topping:
40g plain flour
50g unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
95g soft brown sugar

For the cake:
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 eggs
225ml buttermilk
250g self raising flour
225g caster sugar
375g strawberries, washed and hulled, halve any large ones

How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line one 20cm loose bottomed square tin with baking paper.
- Start by making the crumble topping: rub the butter into the flour until you have the consistency of fine breadcrumbs.
- Stir in the sugar.
- I then put the crumble in the fridge until needed as this stops it becoming soft and retains the lovely crumb texture.
- Put the butter, eggs and buttermilk into the food processor and blitz until smooth and well combined.
- Add the flour and sugar and blitz again until well mixed.
- Transfer all the mixture into a large mixing bowl and gently stir in the strawberries.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and sprinkle the crumble over the top.
- Bake for approximately 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out cleanly. Mine took 55 minutes.
- Leave to cool in the tin before removing as the strawberries make the cake quite fragile when warm.
- Serve either warm with custard/ice cream or at room temperature with your choice of cream.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Sticky coconut sponge

Wherever I look lately in blog-land I see delicious coconut cakes! Coconut is very high on my list of all time favourite cake ingredients so when I saw this recipe in Leila Lindholm’s “A piece of cake”, I knew I had to make it.


When I started baking this my heart sunk as I noticed that the sponge recipe was the ‘whipped egg and very little butter method’. I have tried and failed consistently with such recipes in the past but decided to carry on, and I’m glad I did because this recipe produced a gorgeous sponge.


The one thing I would do differently next time is bake the sponge a little longer before adding the topping. My sponge was not fully firm and sank a smidgen when I added the topping – you’ll also notice that some sponge rebelled and broke through the topping giving me a cake that looks like a monk’s hairdo (I think it’s called a tonsor but don’t quote me on that - I accept no responsibility for any non-cake facts included in my posts):


The syrupy topping sinks into the cake in a way similar to a steamed golden syrup pudding – I think these photos show it well:



Ingredients:
For the cake:
225g caster sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
50g unsalted butter
100ml milk
210g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

For the coconut topping:
25g unsalted butter, at room temperature
50ml golden syrup
75ml single cream
90g desiccated coconut
90g caster sugar

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line the base of a 20cm round springform tin with a disc of baking paper.
- Whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla until airy and fluffy.
- Melt the butter and whisk into the eggs along with the milk.
- Fold in the flour and baking powder. This is where I have often hit a problem with this method as the flour doesn’t seem to mix into the egg. So this time, I whisked the flour in very gently and only until just combined. I found it worked much better.
- Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25 minutes. My cake was still soft at this point and, next time I would bake for 30-35 minutes.
- While the cake is cooking, make the topping. You want the topping to be soft so start making it when the cake has about 10 minutes to go.
- Place all the topping ingredients into a saucepan and stir over a medium heat until melted and nicely combined.
- Bring to the boil and let boil for 5 minutes until the mixture has turned a caramel brown.
- Remove the cake from the oven and pour the topping over it – spread out so all the cake has some topping.
- Return to the oven and bake for a further 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Mine took 25 minutes.
- Leave to cool in the tin before turning out.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Iron Cupcake: London first challenge - chocolate

I’ve read Sandy’s blog for a long time following the exploits of Iron Cupcake in the USA and often lamented that we didn’t have one in the UK. After waiting for an Iron Cupcake: London to start up it finally dawned on me that maybe I should start it....so I did!

The concept of Iron Cupcake is simple: each month there's a theme, entrants bake cupcakes that address that theme, everyone gets together and eats lots of cupcakes, a winner is declared.

Iron Cupcake: London (ICL) held its first challenge on Monday 1st June 2009 with a theme of ‘chocolate’. You never know whether your obsession is shared by anyone else – for all I knew I might be sitting in a room on my own all evening – but no! London delivered!


ICL’s first challenge had a stunning TEN entries and I’m delighted to say lots of dedicated eaters too. The standard was thrillingly high and everybody tucked in to the delights on offer – it’s amazing how happy everyone is when the only food on offer is cake!

The stakes were high...money can’t buy you one of these...well, it can, because I bought them but you know what I mean:


The prize bag was overflowing....


...with these goodies:


Here is our worthy winner, Anna, receiving the good news. Her entry of chocolate cinnamon sponge with honeycomb buttercream received rave reviews from everyone:


So, sit back, loosen your waistband, have a hanky ready to mop up any drool and see what baked delights you missed out on........

Emma’s chocolate chipotle cupcakes with cream cheese frosting


Emma judged the spicing of these perfectly – the heat of the chipotle came through gradually and filled your mouth with a spicy warmth that never burned but definitely made itself known.

Heather’s double chocolate cupcakes


Heather's cupcakes were sinfully delicious. The chocolate was intense and moist with the flaked chocolate on top giving a lovely additional texture. One judge said they really “hit the spot”!

Ying’s chocolate orange cupcakes


The chocolate orange ganache topping was so beautiful that it converted two non-chocolate orange eating judges! The balance of textures was a delight – the smooth indulgent ganache had little crispy chocolate orange pieces in it. A very worthy runner-up on the night.

Kelly’s strawberry and white chocolate cupcakes


What I remember most about these was the intense strawberry aroma that announced itself when Kelly took the lid off the storage unit to plate up. The strawberry flavour was so well balanced with the white chocolate and the combination reminded me very much of the lovely strawberry cream in a Quality Street selection.

Randi’s white and dark chocolate cherry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting


Randi’s rich and dark cupcakes were a sinful treat. If you haven’t tried chocolate, cherry and cream cheese frosting together then you’re missing out because the flavours just explode and zing in your mouth!

Jo’s chocolate and vanilla cupcakes


Ah, chocolate and vanilla – a classic. Never disappoints does it? Jo’s idea of putting the frosting on as a big spiral was inspired. It looks terrific! Expect to see me stealing...ahem, I mean borrowing, this idea and using it on a cupcake soon

Alice’s cherry chocolate cupcakes with amaretto ganache


These were so rich and moist they were positively juicy! Imagine a black forest gateau but without the cream and you will conjure up a pretty good impression of how these tasted. The red sprinkles really ‘pop’ against the dark ganache.

Alice’s vanilla and blueberry cupcakes with sour cream icing


Alice is a girl after my own heart- this was her second entry (she also created the cherry chocolate cupcakes shown above). The sour cream icing was delicious – I’ve never had it before and I instinctively knew that one of the most important moments in my life was happening as I tasted it.

Anna’s chocolate cinnamon cupcakes with honeycomb butter icing


The winning cupcake on the night. The chocolate cinnamon cupcake would have been joyful on its own – Anna balanced the chocolate and spice perfectly. But she didn’t stop there, oh no! Add to that a crisp and flavoursome home made honeycomb crushed up into the butter icing with a shard on top and you have a masterpiece! Anna – your cupcakes rocked!

Katy’s fudge brownie cupcakes


All the benefit of a brownie but the bonus of frosting too! These were rich, dense, moist – everything you want from good brownie. The frosting was intensely chocolaty and – in case you’re wondering – yes, Katy did make those dinky little roses on top!

Special thanks to all the great people who helped me plan the event and run it on the night - one person can never be responsible for something like this and I couldn't have done it without you. Hope your generosity extends to helping me with the next one...speaking of which....

...the next challenge is scheduled for 6th July and the theme is ‘summer fruits’. Hope to see you all there.

I leave you with the victor – well done Anna:


All photos are the property of Dave Shipman and reproduced here with his kind permission.