Category Archives: cake

chocolate and passion fruit baked alaska

cake, egg, food, ice cream
dark chocolate baked alaska

Photo copyright Waitrose

What a show-stopper this recipe is. How I came to get the recipe is still utterly bewildering to me.

Would you like to go to the Waitrose Cookery School and have Heston Blumenthal cook for you? Um, let me think about that fo- yes please. So I rock up, where they are filming an Easter show for Waitrose TV. I’ve been to the Cookery School a couple of times before, but not in these circumstances. The whole thing is hosted by Sue Perkins, who I’ve always wanted to best friends with. It has the recipe to be a completely amazing afternoon.

It begins very strangely. I pretty much walk in off the street and take a quick visit to the gents (I promise, not too much detail here but the context is important). I’m there not a minute, doing my thing, when someone takes up the urinal next to me. I’m not sure if you know the rules of public toilets but you don’t budge your neck an inch. But I do. And I can’t help but notice relieving himself next to me is Brian Turner.

What do you do in that situation? I’ve admired Brian Turner for years, for me he reaches back to Ready Steady Cook days and he’s never really gone away. Whenever he’s on TV I know whatever he makes is going to be brill. But do I say hi mid-flow?

I elect not to, hoping to get a chance to introduce myself in a more normal surroundings. Making my way back into the school itself a Waitrose rep introduces herself and says I’m going to be on the top table with all the chefs. Urp.

So the scene is set: Heston Blumenthal, Brian Turner, Dhruv Baker are cooking the food alongside Cookery School stalwarts Gordon and Eleni, while Sue Perkins presents. At one point during the afternoon, Sue Perkins is sat next to me, shovelling lamb on to my plate that has been roasted by Heston Blumenthal who is opposite explaining his mustard gravy, with Brian Turner sat on the table positively barking that we Brits must return to our roasting greatness. As I sat there with a glass of ridiculously good Lebanese red wine, I was momentarily lost in a moment of surreal stupor: how the hell did I get here, eating this, with these people? I felt stupendously unworthy.

heston blumenthal, brian turner, sue perkins waitrose easter lunch

My left ear’s moment of glory as noted vegetarian Sue Perkins shovels lamb on to my plate.

Needless to say, the afternoon was complete magic. Sue cemented herself as the witty professional, Brian was exactly the person he is on TV, and Heston cooked lamb for me.

The whole video featuring Heston’s roast lamb, Dhruv’s accompaniments and this recipe, plus more besides, can be seen on the Waitrose TV website.

However in tribute to that afternoon I cooked the dessert served up by Eleni: a stunning baked alaska that looks like far more effort than you actually put in. With a few choice ready-made ingredients propping it up it’s a great one for a dinner party.

Dark chocolate and passion fruit baked alaska (serves 8):

750g dark chocolate ice cream

8 slices Madeira loaf

For the passion fruit coulis:

Pulp from 8 passion fruit (about 250ml)

150g caster sugar

8 cloves

1 vanilla pod, halved lengthways

For the Italian Meringue:

4 egg whites

300g caster sugar

  1. Using an ice cream scoop, form 8 large balls of the ice cream. Place on a plate or tray and return to the freezer, so that they are as frozen as possible. Meanwhile, take the slices of madeira cake and using a 6cm round pastry cutter, cut into 8 discs, and set aside.
  2. Make the passion fruit coulis, place all the ingredients with 4 tbsp water in a small pan and bring to the boil. Continue to boil for about 4-5 minutes until the mixture has reduced to a nice thick, syrupy consistency. Allow to cool then refrigerate until needed.
  3. To make the Italian meringue, place the caster sugar in a saucepan and add a little water until a wet sand texture is achieved. Then heat the mixture and bring to the boil and continue to heat until the temperature reaches 118°C. Using a an electric mixer start to whisk your egg whites on a medium speed. Once the sugar reaches 121°C, remove from the heat and gradually add the syrup to your whisking egg whites and increase to maximum speed. This will take approximately 5 minutes to whip up into a smooth, glossy meringue. Place this mixture into a piping bag with a star shaped nozzle, about 6mm or simply cut the piping bag at an angle and set aside.
  4. To assemble, place the ice cream balls onto the sponge discs and pipe around the Italian meringue and smooth over with a palette knife so that none of the ice cream is exposed. Take the piping bag and pipe peaks around the Alaska starting from the bottom and working your way up to the top. Once all the surface space has been covered return to the freezer and leave there until ready to serve.
  5. When you are ready to serve, preheat the oven to 220°C, gas mark 7. Then place the Alaskas in the oven for about 5-7 minutes or until the meringue turns a nice golden colour. Spoon the passionfruit coulis onto the plate and place the baked Alaska on top. Serve immediately.
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black forest layer cake

cake, cherries, chocolate, food

black forest layer cake

If there’s a dessert I’m guaranteed to go giddy for, it’s Black Forest Gateau. The combination of cherry, chocolate and cream is just perfect. And so if I see an opportunity to reinvent it, I’m there.

I wanted to reuse one of my favourite recipes of this year was Russian honey cake. It’s such an enjoyable technique I knew it had legs. And this black forest version proves it: the ‘cake’ is quite biscuity, but if you can stand to leave it in the fridge for a couple of nights, you will have a dense, squidgy and super moreish cake. So good.

Black forest cake (makes a cake about 20cm x 10cm):

For the dough:

3 large eggs

A big pinch of vanilla salt

220g caster sugar

70g butter

70g black cherry jam (I like Tiptree)

2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

350g flour

200g cocoa

For the cream:

700ml double cream

300ml mascarpone

180g caster sugar

To finish:

The rest of the jar of black cherry jam

Dark chocolate (I found Co-op did a marvellous one with cranberries in that was perfect)

  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper, then give that a little extra grease. Melt together the butter and jam until fluid and then turn off the heat.
  2. Whisk together the eggs, salt and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually whisk in the cherry jam butter a trickle at a time, and then sift in the bicarb, cocoa and flour. Stir until combined to a dough – this will be quite firm, more like a biscuit dough than a cake batter. Using wet hands press this mixture in to your baking tray, as thin as you can. Bake for around 8 – 10 mins, until the it is golden on top and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Peel off the paper and leave to cool.
  3. While it cools make the cream. Whip the cream and sugar until soft but still a touch runny, then incorporate the mascarpone and keep beating until it just holds its shape.
  4. When cool, slice the cake into long thirds. Then proceed to cut in half horizontally, by placing your hand on top and slicing across with your sharpest bread knife. You want a thickness of about 5mm.
  5. Slather one side of the cake slices with jam, and the other with cream. Sandwich together to make a giddy tower. Be generous with the cream as it is going to get absorbed by the sponge. Smooth some more cream over the top and sides of the cake and leave to set in the fridge for about 12 hours.
  6. Before serving grate over some dark chocolate.

russian honey cake

cake, cream, eating out, food, honey

russian honey cake

“Russian tea room”. I’m not sure about you but that phrase conjures no images whatsoever in my mind. When Helen mentioned that she’d scored us a table at Knightsbridge’s Mari Vanna, I had no idea what to expect.

Skirting around Hyde Park I missed it a couple of times. The decor confused me: from the outside I thought it was a florist, and on the inside your Nan’s house. There is a frightening amount of knick-knacks, gewgaws and tat littering every surface. Photos adorn the walls (which we were informed are all staff member family snaps), preserves are rammed into a cupboard, the day’s pastries line the counters.

Bamboozled by choice, we kinda throw a dart into the menu and went for a couple of random platters: the “men’s tea”; and the more classic Russian high tea, whatever that might be. It was a great time to be in there: packed with Olympic tourists, the variety of dialects buzzing back and forth afforded us a great deal of people-watching. After spending a few minutes supping beer and Georgian tea, chatting about the fictional “Mari Vanna” with our host, and admiring the dozen or so doorbells out front, our food arrives.

men's tea at mari vannaThe platter in front of me is various kinds of salamis, smoked cheese and black olives. The salamis were perfectly pleasant but nothing surprising, Helen found them too strong. The smoked cheese again was perfectly good but nothing to set the pulse racing. That said, I am sucker for almost anything served on a wooden board. The tuft of dill was welcome, and the fragrance was obvious in much of the food that came past our table.

russian high tea at mari vannaThe high tea however was much more interesting: your typical Savoy-style tower of silver dotted with pretty things. There were caviar-topped blinis, for which I was de-virginised of caviar, pirogis that put me in mind of soft and spiced meat samosas, slices of delicate white fish and beetroot alternating with cream cheese…

But the desserts are where it was at: the set milk pudding had Helen and I debating for quite a while how the texture was achieved (whipped egg white folded through milk and set in a bain marie, we guesstimated), although a rather average chocolate cake was ignored. However by a million miles the star of the show was a sweet and caramel-laced honey cake. Goodness how we cooed and ooed and aahed over it’s dozen layers of squidgy sponge and whisper-light cream. It is a staple of Russian houses come Christmas time, and it’s not hard to see why. It was nothing short of brilliant, and I resolved to have at it myself.

I managed to find a decent sounding recipe here, which I’ve bashed about a bit for my own purposes. And the resultant cake, while not the gossamer-fine thing of beauty from Mari Vanna, was still a homely and squidgy teatime treat. I’d aim to get that dough baked thinner next time, and try to really slice it as thin as I can for maximum moistness. I had a really pleasant time at Mari Vanna – particularly this cake – but watch those prices, as Jay Rayner observed.

Thanks to Helen for the invitation.

Russian honey cake (makes a cake about 20cm x 10cm):

For the dough:

3 large eggs

A big pinch of vanilla salt

220g caster sugar

70g butter

60g honey

2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

550g flour

For the cream:

700ml double cream

300ml creme fraiche

180g caster sugar

A generous tablespoon of honey

To finish:

A Crunchie bar (optional)

  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper, then give that a little extra grease. Melt together the butter and honey until fluid and then turn off the heat.
  2. Whisk together the eggs, salt and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually whisk in the honey butter a trickle at a time, and then sift in the bicarb and flour. Stir until combined to a dough – this will be quite firm, more like a biscuit dough than a cake batter. Using wet hands press this mixture in to your baking tray, as thin as you can. Bake for around 8 – 10 mins, until the it is golden on top and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Peel off the paper and leave to cool.
  3. While it cools make the cream. Whip the cream and sugar until soft but still a touch runny, then incorporate the creme fraiche and keep beating until it just holds its shape. When it’s ready loosely ripple through the honey.
  4. When cool, slice the cake into long thirds. Then proceed to cut in half horizontally, by placing your hand on top and slicing across with your sharpest bread knife. You want a thickness of about 5mm. Save the offcuts for later.
  5. Alternately sandwich cake and cream to make a giddy tower. Be generous with the cream as it is going to get absorbed by the sponge. Smooth some more cream over the top and sides of the cake and leave to set in the fridge for about 12 hours.
  6. Before serving, whizz up the cake offcuts with a Crunchie bar in a food processor and sprinkle over the top. If you have some spare cream, serving that on the side wouldn’t go amiss :-).

revani

cake, food, lemon, orange, polenta

revani

I spotted this little gem on the pages of an Ottolenghi article in Waitrose magazine and made it immediately: it’s a squidgy and sweet Turkish cake. Surfing around it seems to be a very popular and traditional dish and when you taste it it’s not hard to see why. It’s kind of like a drizzle cake in that you bake a sponge, then slice it up and pour over a syrup while it cools. And definitely follow Yotam’s advice: it improves immeasurably overnight as the cake soaks up more and more of the lush, sweet juice. Perfect with a cup of tea.

You are supposed to use marmalade in the batter but I used some leftover orange jelly.

You know the other clever bit? Cutting the cake into diamonds. No messing about with even slices, just merry little diamonds which are easy to eat and cute for the virtue of being different.

Revani (makes about a 20 piece cake if cut into diamonds):

5 eggs, separated

100g caster sugar

50g plain flour

100g semolina

Zest of 1 orange

50g butter, melted

50g marmalade / jelly

For the syrup:

250g caster sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

1 orange, halved (the one you zested above)

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 21cm springform tin and line with greaseproof paper. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale and then incorporate the flour, semolina, pinch of salt, zest, butter and marmalade. Continue beating until smooth.
  2. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and then gradually fold into the batter. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
  3. While the cake is in the oven make the syrup. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan with 300ml water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.
  4. While the cake is still warm and in the tin, slice it into diamond shapes about 3cm wide. Pour the syrup over the cake – it will look like too much but it will take it all! – and leave to cool and let the cake soak up the juice. You can eat it straight away but it’s so much better if left overnight.

diplomatico

cake, chocolate, coffee, cream, food, mascarpone

diplomatico

Lavazza are sponsoring Wimbledon this year and have released a rather snazzy themed espresso machine. They sent one along for me to try out, and it’s one of the neatest pod-style machines I’ve used. I’ve been necking espresso at a GP-bothering rate but not before I came up with some coffee recipes to celebrate. Here’s a fudgy-textured and sweet dessert recipe to get us started: the diplomatico, the distant relative of the tiramisu lacking any kind of PR. I’ve blended elements of both desserts to create a sort of diplomisu, if you will. This can be made a day or so in advance and for best results leave it out of the fridge for 20 minutes or so before eating; the textures soften and taking the chill off enhances the silky, creamy texture. If you like boozy coffee-alcohol puds, this is definitely one to try.

Sponge finger tip: I think this works best with really sodden sponge biscuits. You can obviously only submerge them for a few seconds before they turn to mush in your hands. To avoid this, give them a short dip until starting to soften and place them in the dish. Then gently drizzle with more marinating liquor to increase their drunkenness. Do this slowly to ensure the fingers have time to absorb the liquid.

Diplomatico:

500ml double cream, whipped to soft peaks

250g mascarpone cheese

120g dark chocolate, melted

50g icing sugar

150ml espresso, cooled

5 tablespoons marsala

About 30 sponge fingers

Grated chocolate, to serve

  1. Whip the cream to soft peaks, and reserve about a third of it.
  2. Stir the icing sugar and mascarpone together, then fold into 2/3 of the softly whipped cream. Gradually fold in the melted chocolate. Check for sweetness at this point as this will be where most of the sweet taste from the pudding will come from, and add more icing sugar as necessary.
  3. Stir the coffee, marsala and a tablespoon of icing sugar together. Dip the sponge fingers in the mix until soggy, and then make a layer of them in a rectangular cake tin (I use a silicone one to get the dessert out easier later).
  4. Add a layer of chocolate cream, then follow with more boozy biscuits. Keep layering, ending with sponge fingers. Add the remaining cream on top of this and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours.
  5. Before serving garnish with grated chocolate, then cut into thick slices.

To be in with a chance to win one the fantastic Lavazza Wimbledon prizes look out for promotional cups on take away Lavazza coffees, or enter online at http://promotion.wimbledon.lavazza.com/

Prizes include six pairs of tickets to Wimbledon, 90 Lavazza A Modo Mio Favola Plus Wimbledon Limited Edition coffee machines and 500 sets of four exclusive espresso cups created especially for the tournament.

cheesecake rescue pots

cake, cream cheese, food

new york cheesecake saved from disaster

I’ve made New York-style cheesecake a bunch of times; I love the dense creaminess and sheer indulgence of it all. A friend of mine said she has inexplicably never eaten it before so I invited her over to have some.

I should’ve spotted disaster was on the horizon: I couldn’t find my usual faithful recipe so guesstimated the ingredients in my head and then looked for another recipe which was probably a mistake. I dug up one from Marcus Wareing, had to scale down quantities, didn’t quite have everything… the omens were not good.

a new york cheesecake disasterLo and behold 15 minutes into baking I peered into the oven and it was leaking everywhere. After a little swearing I tried to figure out what to do: I scooped the remaining slop into ramekins, biscuit mingling with batter. I didn’t really have many other options. So I just left them to bake.

And they turned out fine! The flavour was all there, the difference was there wasn’t biscuity base at the bottom but chunks in the mix like croutons in soup. If anything Mrs Spud preferred it this way; biscuit bases being her least favourite thing of many cakes. There wasn’t quite as much of it as I wanted to but there was enough to enjoy for pudding.

I’ll describe it as if you were trying to avoid my mishap yet aim for my final result :-)

Cheesecake rescue pots (serves 4 after you’ve scraped what you can into ramekins):

30g melted butter

70g malted milk biscuits, crushed

250g cream cheese

100g caster sugar

3 tablespoons double cream

15g cornflour

2 eggs, beaten

  1. Heat the oven to 100°C. Mix the butter and biscuits together, compact a bit and put to one side.
  2. Mix all the other ingredients together until thoroughly combined. Stir through the biscuity mix until distributed.
  3. Spoon into ramekins and put into a high-sided baking tray. Pour in boiling water up to half-way on the ramekins and bake for 45 mins or until just set. Remove from the water and allow to cool to room temperature.

heston blumenthal’s exploding chocolate gateau

cake, chocolate, food, passion fruit, popping candy

heston blumenthal's exploding chocolate and passion fruit popping candy cake

AKA Heston’s chocolate and passion fruit popping candy cake.

At New year I treated myself to Heston’s popping candy cake, which costs an absolute fortune, even on half price sale, but the results were amazing: bitter, sweet, chocolatey and of course popping! I was contemplating recreating it when it pops up on How To Cook Like Heston.

With my sister popping over for dinner this was the perfect opportunity to try it out. It had the desired reaction: one mouthful in and my niece squeals with surprise as the popping candy kicks in. The next few minutes are spent with people making ‘o’ shapes with their mouths, allowing the candy to echo round the room. Great fun.

Heston’s version has some crazy paint-gun antics; I skipped that and just shaved some dark chocolate on top instead. There’s also some madness involving rings and baking trays but I strolled past all that using a springform tin instead.

It was really close to the supermarket version. Making it again I would skew the chocolate ratio and add more milk chocolate, it was a shade too bitter. Maybe using better quality passion fruit would help. I’d also modify the base slightly – when I’ve made popping candy cakes before I used hazelnuts and I think they work really well here.

Heston’s original recipe is here

Heston Blumenthal’s exploding chocolate cake (serves 10):

For the base

150g shortbread

30g unsalted butter, melted

2 tablespoons white caster sugar

25g popping candy

For the chocolate ganache

175g double cream

Pinch of salt

Pulp from 6 passion fruits

50g custard

110g dark chocolate, plus a little more for decoration

50g milk chocolate

  1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Place the shortbread biscuits on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 10 minutes until golden brown.
  2. Whizz the biscuits in a food processor with melted butter and sugar.
  3. Gently stir in the popping candy. Place the mixture inside a 21cm springform tin. Flatten using the back of a spoon then put in the freezer to set.
  4. Add the cream, salt and passion fruit to a small saucepan and place over a medium heat. When it comes to the boil remove from the heat and allow to stand for 5 minutes, then stir in the custard.
  5. Melt the dark and milk chocolate together. Strain the infused cream and add to the bowl of melted chocolate a third at a time, making sure to incorporate the cream thoroughly after each addition. Allow the ganache to cool to room temperature.
  6. Use a pastry brush to spread some of the ganache on top of the biscuit base and around the edges then place in the freezer for 5 minutes. This will ensure that the ganache will not seep through (great tip!). After 5 minutes, pour the remaining ganache into the ring and place the tart in the freezer for 4 hours.
  7. Place a slab of dark chocolate on a chopping board and drag a large knife across it to create shavings. Top the cake with these decorations and return to the freezer.
  8. Remove the cake from the freezer 1 hour before serving.

cranberry muffins

cake, cranberry, food

cranberry muffins

A little gem from Nigella Christmas. I am firmly with her on this one: I don’t know how anybody manages much more than toast on Christmas morning. And while I didn’t make these on 25th December they were perfect for a couple of days later.

From Nigella Lawson’s Christmas Morning Muffins.

Cranberry muffins (makes about 12):

250g plain flour

2½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g caster sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

good grating of fresh nutmeg

Zest and juice of 1 orange

125ml milk

75ml vegetable oil

1 egg

175g dried cranberries

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Bung all the ingredients except the cranberries in a food mixer and blend until smooth, then fold in the fruit. Dollop into cake cases and bake for about 12 – 15 minutes until golden and risen.

black forest yule log

cake, food

black forest yule log

Nigella just made Christmas dinner completely awesome for me this year. Along with her failsafe recipe for turkey, this yule log saved me from one of the things I don’t much care for: Christmas pudding. I do however, love chocolate and one more tweak converted it into one a riff on one my favourite things in the whole world: black forest gateau. Yummy.

(There was one thing stopping this being Christmas perfection for me: decorative pine cones. Could I find pine cones in the woods of Maldon, Rayleigh and Hockley combined? Could I ‘eck as like.)

This recipe is adapted from one in Nigella Christmas.

Black forest yule log (serves about 10 – 12):

For the sponge:

6 eggs, separated

150g caster sugar

50g cocoa powder

3–5 teaspoons icing sugar to decorate

For the filling:

1 jar black cherry jam

For the icing:

175g dark chocolate, chopped

250g icing sugar

225g soft butter

2 tablespoons kirsch

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Whisk the egg whites until thick and then whisk in 50g sugar. In a separate bowl whisk the yolks and remaining sugar together until thick and creamy, then stir in the cocoa. Fold in the whites a third at a time.
  3. Grease a large rectangular baking tray, put a generous sheet of baking parchment on top then grease that too for good measure. Pour over the batter and bake for 20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Turn out the cooked sponge on to another piece of parchment and roll up gently to keep it’s shape for later.
  4. For the icing melt the chocolate gently in the microwave. Beat the icing sugar and butter together until smooth then stir in the cooled chocolate and kirsch.
  5. Unroll the sponge and spread over the jam, then roll back up again. Put on your serving dish or board at this point and then smooth over the icing. (You might want to trim off an end here to make a branch if you can be bothered). Use a fork or toothpick to make pretty woody lines in the icing, then store in a cool place until needed. Sieve over some icing sugar before serving.

delia’s christmas cake

cake, food

delia's christmas cake in a boxI can’t possibly put a picture up of the icing abomination I made. I’m just not good at it.

Waitrose very kindly sent me Delia’s Christmas Cake in a box. I gleefully unwrapped it, opened the box and took out the contents.

Erm, is that it? Some fruit, some flour, some sugar, some nuts, some spice… and that’s about it. £10 for a box of store-cupboard ingredients where you have to provide your own icing / marzipan etc… So I dutifully made it (goodness that batter’s dense) and served it up on Christmas day. It was fine but no more special than any other rich fruit cake you care to make at this time of year.

I’m really glad they sent it to me as at full price it’s a swizz. At the moment they’re clearing out Christmas stocks at £2.50 while stocks last, which seems a bit fairer to me.