Category: chocolate

yoghurt tea loaf

I hate slugs. Not for slimy, yukky reasons, but because they wreak havoc on my nascent courgettes. I accepted all kinds of advice, one of which was scattering broken egg shells around the plants. So this cake was a good excuse to break some eggs.

This is from The Yeo Valley Great British Farmhouse Cookbook. It’s a new book from the yoghurty people. It’s full of recipes like slow-roasted pork and apples, smoky bacon meatballs, and chocolate chip cookies. All of them are well-explained homely fare.

And that it’s downside really. It’s all good honest food but all predictable stuff. Nothing here is going to change the way you cook, nor probably anything that will linger long in the memory. It’s a collection of safe, comfortable recipes that you probably already have a method for. Much more interesting is the collection of DIY dairy tips – how to make your own creme fraiche, that sort of thing. I would’ve preferred a book that leaned heavier on their dairy specialism to give it a unique character.

This cake was taken from theirs; substituting their raspberries for chocolate. The eggshells didn’t deter the slugs though. I had to repot them to high shelves.

Yoghurt tea loaf (makes a 1kg loaf):

250g plain flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

115g soft butter

225g caster sugar

2 large eggs

100g natural yoghurt

25g ground almonds

100g dark chocolate, chopped

100g granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Sift together the flour, butter and salt. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy then beat in the eggs one at a time. Alternately fold in the flour and yoghurt, followed by the almonds, then stir through the chocolate.

Spoon the batter into a greased or silicone loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes. Cover with foil and bake with another 25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. When cooked scatter some sugar over the top. After 5 minutes resting remove from the tin to cool. Serve in thick slices.

Tags sarah mayor

chocolate food mint

after dinner mints

When food ideas strike me, I can’t let them go. Such as my idea to make After-Eight style mints. The experiment was pretty good, but of all things to get wrong, I got the chocolate wrong. I used some of Willie’s 100% cacao and it was just too bitter for the mint. Find a piece where the chocolate was wafer-thin and it was great, so it was nearly there. Just stick to a 70%er.

After dinner mints (makes a giant slab the size of your baking tray):

200g dark chocolate

1 egg white

200g icing sugar

1 tablespoon peppermint essence

A few drops green food colouring

Melt half the chocolate in a bain marie. While it melts line a baking tray (roughly 15cm x 25cm) with greaseproof paper and pop in the freezer. Once the chocolate has melted pour in a thin layer across the paper and pop back in the freezer.

Make a fondant by mixing the egg white and sugar into a paste. Add the peppermint and taste to see if it needs a little more. Stir in some food colouring to give it a very faint hue. Pour this mixture over the chocolate.

Melt the remaining chocolate and pour that over the top of the mint. Allow to set in the freezer for at least an hour, after which time you can store in the fridge. Allow people to snap off a piece as they like. Goes great with strong coffee.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Before serving grate over some dark chocolate.

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

Whip the cream to soft peaks, and reserve about a third of it.

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.

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).

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.

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.