Chocolate

Dec 16 2011

Yule Log (Bûche de Noël)

Serves: ~16
Approx cost: ~€5
Approx calories (per serving): ~290
Approx preparation and cooking time: ~40 minutes + time to wait for ganache to cool

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”]From England, to France – this time I’m posting another festive cake! With all the cake that’s running through my blog these days you’d be forgiven for thinking that I was enormously rotund. I may not be as svelte as I would like… but who is? Besides – Christmas comes but once a year! I can continue my diet in the new year – that’s what New Years’ resolutions are for 🙂 Before we launch into the recipe though, I got tagged in a rather fun little game called “Bloggers Unplugged”. I was hoping someone might do this because I do enjoy things like this, and luckily Sissi at WithAGlass.com picked me among her 5 people to nominate to do the game next! Ten questions, ten answers – what fun 🙂 Without further ado, let’s jump straight in:

1. What, or who, inspired you to start a blog?

Hmm – I’ve had a website in various forms for a long time but I’ve never actually tried any blogging platforms. I wanted a creative outlet to write about food, cooking and my floundering photographic skills a bit more, and I wanted something to fill my time with, and thus my blog was born.

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?

I watch a lot of cooking shows – most recently I’ve been watching a Swedish TV show, called Halv åtta hos mig – I can’t believe there’s an English wikipedia article about this show 😀 I don’t think it’s possible to attribute inspiration to a particular person. The most inspirational thing I think is seeing what “normal” people can cook. Sure, it’s fun watching Mr Celebrity Chef cooking up his Cornish gamehen in truffle sauce on national TV, but seeing the sort of things that ordinary people come up with, be it in their blogs or on TV… that’s what I find really interesting.

3. Your greasiest, batter-splattered food/drink book is?

Eep – I’d probably say my cellphone. I have a few cookery books but by and large they don’t make it into the kitchen. They’re usually by the bed, providing me with some night-time reading, When I’m in the kitchen I’m usually either peering around the corner to my computer monitor or looking at my cellphone screen :p

4. Tell us about the best thing you have eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

Oh oh, where to start? Can it only be one thing? Well, I think if I absolutely had to choose it would be Braised Elk on a bed of mashed potato, roasted root vegetables, watercress and brown sauce with sourdough bread in a restaurant at Skansen, Stockholm, Sweden – One of the best meals I’ve had in a long time at a restaurant and only about €11 per person if I remember correctly.

5. Another food blogger’s table you’d like to eat at?

Kristy, from Eat, Play Love – I have a suspicion that their meal times are a whole load of fun – especially when Miss A. upturns her plate 😉 Plus I’d probably be able to try Nicaraguan food, or something, thanks to their culinary world tour!

6. What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

A pan like this – made by the French company De Buyer they’re 90% Copper, with a thin Stainless Steel layer, making up the remaining 10% on the inside to protect the copper from the food inside. I’ve recently started building up a collection. I now have one small “sauce” saucepan and a frying pan from them. Still quite a bit away from my full set 😉

7. Who taught you how to cook?

Well – I guess my mother. I mean, I didn’t really have in-depth teaching lessons from her, but I expressed an interest in cooking one day (I think the first thing I made was macaroni cheese for the family!) and she guided me through it, helping me follow the recipe. Aside from that? Well, I guess I just kind of picked it up.

8. I’m coming to you for dinner, what is your signature dish?

Starter: Diced beetroot, mixed with mint, diced feta cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, shaped into a round or quenelle, with freshly baked bread.

Main Course: Seared pork tenderloin, gratin dauphinois, grilled aubergine, kiwi sauce.

Dessert: Cheesecake (the uncooked variety)

9. What is your guilty food pleasure?

Haha – chocolate I think, or hummus. I can go through a bowl of hummus in mere minutes! Ah, I just thought of something, and this is really trashy. Pickled cucumbers, wrapped in a slice of wafer-thin ham, then re-wrapped in a slice of hamburger cheese. I do not know why I love this so much, but it’s amazing!

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

Ehm – well, I guess the fact that I have a replica long-swords in my wardrobe might be surprising. It was a length of service awards from the company I work for. Much to my dismay, my wife was firmly against my plans of re-enacting epic battles over the sofa, Sparta-style. I’m not even allowed to use it to cut cheese with! 🙁

Now all the remains is for me to pick five people myself, so – if you haven’t already done it before, and you feel like playing along, I choo-choo-choose you:

Again, apologies if you’ve already done it and I’ve just forgotten about it! Thanks all 🙂

Onto today’s post however. To contrast against the heaviness of the Christmas Cake I thought a Yule Log would be nice as well. I’m not the most skilled person in the world at making these, and as far as French tradition goes, mine are probably a fair bit different, but I like mine a lot. They have all the things a good chocolate should have, and the whole giant thing is about a quarter of the price of the tiny, filthy things which my local bakery sells with frosting that tastes like margarine. Of course, you can get delicious chocolate logs in France, but this place isn’t one such purveyor alas. My baking tray is much too small for the mixture, meaning the cake was too thick and insead of being a neat roll, was more of a folded over flop, which cracked on the fold, but as you can see, that’s nothing that a liberal application of ganache won’t fix 😉 The taste was unaffected and it was positively delicious, so if you’ve never made one before, I’d strongly recommend this!

Ingredients

For the cake

140g Sugar
100g Self-Raising Flour
25g Cocoa Powder
5 Eggs

For the filling

250g Icing Sugar
100g Butter, softened
2 tbsps Cocoa Powder
~2 tbsps Milk
2-3 tbsps finely chopped Cherries, or Cherry Jam

For the icing

150g Cream
200g Milk Chocolate
Icing Sugar to dust on

Instructions

A few hours before, you need to make the ganache for the icing. It takes a long time to set, so allow at least 5 hours or so. Start by heating the cream in a pan. Bring it to just before boiling point and then add in the chocolate, broken into chunks. Remove from the heat and stir until all the chocolate has melted, returning to the heat briefly if you find that the temperature comes down too much to prevent efficient melting. Once you have a well blended, smooth ganache, transfer to a jug, cover and leave in a cool place for some hours, until it starts to take on a “spreadable” consistency. If you find it takes an inordinate amount of time, don’t worry – it will set eventually. I’ve made ganache before which didn’t set for 24 hours – you just need to be patient.
Next we’ll make the cake. Start by pre-heating your oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Next, crack open and separate the 5 eggs. Place the whites into a large bowl and set aside. Put the yolks into another bowl with the sugar and whisk, using a balloon whisk, or an electric whisk for a couple of minutes, until the mixture has increased in volume and turned a pale yellow colour. Fold the flour and cocoa powder into the yolks.
Clean the blades of the electric whisk and the whisk the egg whites until you can form soft peaks in them.
Combine the yolk mixture with the whites – folding in slowly, so as to conserve as much air in the mixture as possible. Once you’ve done this, grease a baking tray, and line it with baking paper. Ideally, the tin should be at roughly 32cms x 32cms – a little taller and narrower is fine. Pour the mixture into the baking paper and smooth out to fill the corners and edges. Place into the pre-heated oven and bake for about 12 minutes.
By the time the 12 minutes is up, the cake should feel firm on top. Remove from the oven and allow to cool while you prepare the filling. Place the icing sugar and cocoa powder in a large bowl and add in the softened butter. If the butter is not soft enough, place it on a small plate and give it a blast on full power in the microwave for a few seconds (like 4 or 5). Mix the sugar, cocoa and butter well, and then add in the milk, a little bit at a time, until you can blend to a paste.
Turn out the cool cake onto a flat, clean surface and carefully remove the baking paper from the bottomg. Spread the buttercream filling over the cake, going right up to the edges. Spread the jam or chopped cherries on top of the butter cream and then roll up loosely.
Spoon the cooled ganache over the top of the roll and spread out, not forgetting to cover the sides and ends. When done, run a fork up and down the “log” to make the ganache look a bit like bark. Sift icing sugar over the top (for the snow!) and try not to eat it all at once! Enjoy! 🙂

Dec 03 2011

The “More Please” Chocolate Cake

Serves: ~12
Approx cost: €9
Approx calories (per serving, if divided into 12): ~500
Approx preparation and cooking time: 2 hours

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”]Greetings everyone – I hope this day sees you well. It was four days since my last post and I did say that I’d be posting something special on Saturday. Well, saturday has arrived and I’m pleased to let you join in my celebrations. No – this time it’s nothing blog-related. This time it’s all “in real life”, for today I am indeed a year older! You might not be able to have a slice of my cake unless you live really close but I hope you can look at the pictures and imagine the awesome flavours! ~~At the time of publishing, this post won’t have all the photos in it – I’m going to update it later with pictures of cutting the cake… much more nom nom!~~ Photos have been uploaded now… enjoy 🙂

The cake itself? Many years ago, like many children my age, I was a huge fan of Roald Dahl books – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, Matilda and so forth. There used to be a whole load of delicious foods mentioned in these books (and sometimes not so delicious but interesting-sounding nevertheless) which really piqued my imagination. Imagine my glee when a recipe book was published featuring some of the recipes from my favourite books? This particular cake is from Matilda and is called Bruce Bogtrotter’s Chocolate Cake. The story goes that Bruce Bogtrotter (a bad seed, you can tell by the name!) steals something from a wicked teacher (also a bad seed I’m sure! :D) and his punishment is to eat an entire chocolate cake by himself. The cake in its non-fictional form is very rich so I can imagine that being forced to eat a whole cake would probably be quite an unpleasant experience, although a slice or two is definitely a pleasure!

I’m going to get back to enjoying “my” day, but I should mention that normally my wife makes me my birthday cake. Before anyone thinks she has not done her wifey-duty this year I must point out I forbade her from making this cake with the words “no, I want to blog about it”, so there you go 😉 If anyone is interested, you can buy the book “Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes” on Amazon. It’s not very much and it’s full of some cracking recipes to inspire (and disgust) kids and adults alike. If you happen to know an kids who are starting to get old enough to become active in the kitchen I think personally this would be a wonderful book to get them – even more so if they’re familiar with the stories behind them!

Have a great day everyone 🙂

Ingredients

For the cake

225g Plain Chocolate
175g Butter
175g Self-Raising Flour
125g Caster Sugar
6 eggs

For the ganache

225g Plain Chocolate
225g Double / Heavy Cream

Instructions

Start by pre-heating your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and then we’ll start making the cake. Crack open the eggs, separating the yolks into a small bowl and the whites into a large bowl. Ensure you get no bits of yolk in the white otherwise you will not be able to whisk them.
Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a large pan over a gentle heat, stirring regularly. When it is completely molten add in the butter and continue to stir until the butter has completed melted and mixed with the chocolate.
Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. Pour the yolks into the mixture and mix well, ensuring the yolks are well blended with the chocolate/butter mixture. After this, whisk the egg whites until you can form stiff peaks with them. You’ll find it easiest to do this using an electric whisk, though if you don’t have one a balloon whisk will work just as well.
Set the whites aside for a moment and then sift the Self-Raising flour into the chocolate/butter mixture. Mix well before adding in the sugar. You’ll need to ensure you beat the mixture as much as possible to ensure you get not clumps of flour inside, though don’t worry if it looks a little like this.
Transfer the chocolate mixture to the bowl with the whites and fold into the whisked egg whites. This will take a minute or two, but it’s worth it to take your time to properly combine everything, without beating out too much air from the whites. When you have done this, grease and flour a baking tin. I used a baking tin with a 20cm diameter, 4cm deep. You could equally go a bit bigger, though do ensure that it has sufficient depth. 4cm was really cutting it fine on my tin – luckily it didn’t rise too much. Pour the mixture into the tin and then place into your pre-heated oven. Cook for about 40 minutes. Choose a time between about 35-45, depending on how wide your cake ends up being (and thus thinner). It should still be slightly gooey in the centre when cooked (it will firm up more when cool) so err on the shorter.
Allow to cool in the tin when done until it is cool enough to handle. Then remove from the tin and trim the top and edges using a knife to ensure it it sufficiently smooth and flat all over. Once you’ve cut a layer from the top you may find turning the cake over and laying on a plate is very helpful.
Once the cake is cool we’ll make the ganache. Start by heating the cream in a pan and once hot, add in the chocolate, broken into pieces.
Stir the mixture until completely molten and blended. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 30 minutes or so.
Pour some of the ganache onto the cake and spread around to cover the top and the sides. Allow to set slightly before repeating the process. Continue like this until all the ganache has been spread on and around the cake and then enjoy! 🙂

Nov 17 2011

Millionaire’s Shortbread

Serves: n/a
Approx cost: ~€7
Approx calories (per square, if cut into 40 pieces): ~240
Approx cooking, preparation, and cooling time: 6 hours

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”]Here’s a warning to start this post off with… rather more of a “Public Service Announcement”, one could say. If you are on a diet, do not make these under any circumstances! There, now that’s out of the way I can go on to talk about this tray of 9700 calorie awesomeness. Some of you may remember a long time ago I made Millionaire’s Flapjacks – What makes them “Millionaire’s” you ask? Well, the fact that they have a thick, delicious layer of caramel sauce and chocolate on top probably has something to do with it. But anyway – back to the flapjacks. So I made these, and they weren’t bad, though when eating them a couple of things became apparent.

Firstly – there wasn’t nearly enough caramel on them as there could have been, and secondly, let’s face it – I kind of failed at the chocolate. Chocolate should not be a paste when hot. I learned a valuable lesson that day that actually, water-baths aren’t actually as over-rated as I initially suspected. Sure, I still melt the chocolate sometimes directly in a pan, but you have to be careful – oh so careful – and quite frankly using a water bath is just easier.

I thought about doing a “redux” style post on the flapjacks but then decided against it. Why bother when there is another, albeit quite similar, perfectly decent ~~English~~Scottish treat which is just begging to be made. (I just looked it up – apparently it’s believed Millionaire’s Shortbread is Scottish in origin… who’d ‘a’ thunk it?!). As I mentioned above, the entire tray’s-worth is about 9700 calories. I cut it up into 40 pieces, which are about 2 large bites, or 4 “regular” bites, although you could easily go a bit smaller. This is sweet, tasty, and horrifically unhealthy, but it’s well worth making if you’re not familiar with it. Many cake shops and bakeries in England will often sell slabs of this stuff, though the shortbread is spongey and really doesn’t taste buttery, the caramel is tasteless, and the chocolate tastes artificial, so do yourself a favour – make this!

I know I stated recently that I’d be trying to go back to basics and keep everything at €5 or below, but I just had to share this, and to be fair, the things which really pushed the price over was the chocolate. If you buy store-brand chocolate, and try and trim costs on other things you can easily keep this below 5 euros I think. You’ll need a baking tray to make these, of course – I used one which is about 3cm deep, 31cm long by 23cm wide (yeah, I know – weird dimensions! (It’s quite an old tray)). The thing which takes the most time in this recipe is the creation of the dulce de leche.

If you’ve opened a can of condensed milk before, and seen it all white and goopy inside, there’s something hugely satisfying at opening a can after 4 hours of boiling and seeing it all thick and caramelised. That said – if time is a premium for you, you can buy dulce de leche ready made. It’s a big time saver, although I would suspect it will be an expensive way of buying it, compared to a couple of cans of good old condensed milk. As always, with chocolate heavy things, make sure you buy a chocolate which you can stand to eat. Using bad chocolate will seriously impact the quality of the end product.

I’d also like to thank Karen from Back Road Journal who very kindly passed on the “Liebster” blog award to me in her recent post. I’d actually received this not so long ago, so I’ll link back to that post where I nominated 5 other bloggers here. Thank you so much Karen – I truly enjoy reading your blog. Your recent travels, as well as your posts about your house and surround area where you live have been genuinely pleasurable reading!

Have a great almost-weekend-thursday everyone and enjoy!

Millionaire’s Shortbread

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Ingredients

For the Shortbread

360g Plain Flour
250g Butter
120g Caster Sugar

For the Caramel Topping

2 x 400g Cans of Sweetened, Condensed Milk (or 1 x 800g Can if available, or 800g Dulce de Leche)
100g Butter
6 tbsps Double/Heavy Cream

For the Chocolate Topping

400g good quality Plain or Milk Chocolate (per your preference)
~100ml Cream
70g Butter

Instructions

If you’re using ready-made dulce de leche then you can skip this step, but if not, take your cans (or can) of sweetened, condensed milk and punch a few holes in the top using a cork-screw or sharp knife. Just 2 or 3 holes will suffice. Take an old saucepan (you’ll need an old one because some some of the milk will bubble out of the holes, mix with the water and the cans and make a mess all over the inside of the pan. It will wash off, but you’ll have to give it some muscle!) and place the tin(s) inside. Fill the pan with water until the water level is almost at the top of the cans and then place on the hob and bring to the boil. Keep boiling for 4 hours. You’ll need to replenish the water about once every 20-30 minutes as it will evaporate rapidly. Make sure you don’t let the water level drop too much. Sissi from WithAGlass.com mentions that she makes dulce de leche in the same way, but without piercing the tins, and keeping them completely covered in water. This sounds like a much cleaner method of doing it, although I’ve had too much experience with bursting cans of beans in my life (once is enough!) so I’m a little afraid to try this myself!
While the cans are boiling away, pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius and we’ll start making the shortbread. Mix the butter and sugar together to form a paste and then mix in the flour to form a slightly crumbly dough. Press the dough as neatly as possible into your baking tray. If the tray is not non-stick then you may want to consider greasing and flouring the tray very lightly. The dough is very rich in butter anyway, but all the same it’s better to be safe than sorry. Fork the surface of the dough lightly all over before placing into the pre-heated oven and cook for about 20 minutes, or until starting to turn golden brown on top. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin.
After four hours has elapsed, remove the cans of condensed milk from the heat and allow to cool for 20 minutes or so. We’ll now make the caramel sauce so in a clean pan melt the butter gently and mix in the cream. Open the cans, drain off any water which may remain on top of the dulce de leche by dripping through the holes, and then spoon out the mixture into the butter/cream mixture. Gently heat the mixture through, stirring all the time, until it starts to bubble and thicken. Pour the contents of the pan over the shortbread and smooth out to fill all corners and make it as smooth as possible. Set aside to allow the tray to cool down.
After the caramel has been cooling for about an hour we’ll move on to the final stage – the chocolate topping. Break up the chocolate into squares, and then heat the cream in a pan on the stove over medium heat until almost boiling, then remove from the heat. Add in the chocolate to the cream and stir until smooth and glossy, then add in the butter, stirring again until completely dissolved and blended. In case you’re wondering, the butter allows the chocolate to set with a glossy sheen than it normally would. Pour the contents over the top of the caramel and smooth out as neatly as possible to evenly cover the caramel topping.
Allow to cool for 15 minutes or so before placing into the refrigerator. Check the centre of the tray periodically (this section of the chocolate will set last). When the chocolate here is beginning to get firm, cut the tray of shortbread into appropriately sized pieces using a cold knife, wiping it between each cut. Return the tray to the refrigerator until completely set before removing each piece from the tray and storing in a decently sized container. The flavours will meld after 24 hours or so, which is when the shortbread is best! Enjoy with a nice cup of tea, and try not to think about the calories! 🙂

Oct 31 2011

Mini Black Forest Cakes, an Anniversary, and a Giveaway!

Serves: 4
Approx cost: €4.80 (~€1.20 per cake)
Approx calories (per cake): ~580
Approx preparation time: 50 mins

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”]Birthday wishes are in order (of sorts), for today it’s my one year “Blogiversary”. Five Euro Food is a year old today and what better way to celebrate a year in the blogosphere than with cake… and chocolate (and cream!)? The recipe is towards the bottom of this post but first I’d like to talk about some of my experiences during the past year. I’ve learned a great deal, and met a great many wonderful people and feel that now is a perfect time to detail a few of the highlights of my time blogging so far. There is still so much I want to try – things I want to perfect, make again, or just make for the first time so here’s to many more years! Cheers everyone 🙂

Firstly, I’ve had fun – a whole ton of fun. I start a great many things in life, but it’s not often that I still have the same momentum and enthusiasm for these things after a few months have passed, let alone a year. Averaging one blog post every three days, I’m not as regular as some people are, but I’m certainly no less enthusiastic, and the wonderful thing is, I still have the desire to create. Every time I flick open a book or watch a cooking show, I realise that there are so many things still to try. Many spices and herbs I have yet to use, meats and fishes I’ve never prepared, world cuisines which have never touched my palate – I want to try them all!

Secondly, I enjoy the communal aspect of blogging so much. The feedback, the tips, learning new ingredients and cooking methods – none of which I would have had were it not for getting to know my readers here so for this, I thank each and every one of you who visits my site. I feel like I know so many of you, despite not even necessarily knowing what you sound or look like.

Thirdly, when I started, the photography aspect was really secondary to the main goal, which back then was “write a recipe, post it”. Over time I realised that the most enjoyable thing I can imagine is when people actually try my recipe (and hopefully like it). It’s a very humbling thing when you post a recipe and someone reads it, and out of all the other things they might have seen that week, they decide to try the food from your own post. I realised that posting something with a bad photo isn’t really going to make anyone want to try anything so some improvements were needed. Hopefully you’ll agree that my photos have come a long way since 2010!

Coming back to my site in general, I feel that it lacks direction a little. I started it with the aim of creating “food for five euros (or less)”. Almost each post I make is indeed five euros or less, but I feel that generally that’s not such a hard thing to do. I’m a strong believer in ethically produced food – I try to buy organic/fair-trade/free-range where possible so I won’t give up this belief, but going forward from now I’m going to really try harder to drill down on this concept:

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More recipes using ingredients which are in season, including preserving such ingredients for year-round use.
More recipes which focus on creating cheap, home-made alternatives to things which people might otherwise buy.
Revisiting, and improving upon, some of the recipes which I’ve made in the past.

Now, however, it’s time for a little giveaway –

I happened across an artist some years ago while browsing Etsy. Naoko’s Stoop based in New York creates truly charming, idyllic paintings which I find just delightful. I have bought a couple of her prints before and actually have them hanging above my computer. To spread the love, there will be three items available in this giveaway and winners will have the chance to choose a print of their choice from Naoko’s “Red Knit Cap Girl Collection”. You can see a few examples of her lovely work above, or visit her Etsy store directly.

To be in with a chance of winning please complete the small quiz I have set up by clicking below.

Some information about the quiz:

There are 13 total questions with point values between 1 and 5.
Almost all of the answers are easily findable on this website and require a maximum of 3 or 4 clicks to locate. Two of the answers are a little more difficult – although not much!
The three people with the highest points scored will win, and in cases where multiple people place in winning positions a draw will be performed.

Good luck and thank you all! 🙂

[button link=”http://fiveeurofood.com/index.php/celebrating-one-year-in-blogging/” type=”icon” icon=”question”] Click here to enter the giveaway[/button]

[learn_more caption=”The Giveaway – Further Details”]

Entrants will be required to provide a contact name and email. Your email address will be used only to contact you in the event of notifying you if you’ve won and for no other reason.
In the event that there are more winning persons with the same score than there are prizes available, three winning persons names shall be drawn at random.
There will be three prizes. Each of identical value. You can choose any print from the Little Red Cap Girl selection on Naoko Stoop’s Etsy Store. The total value of the selection must not exceed $25.00 (or your local regional equivalent price, NOT including shipping.
Only one entry per person please!
The giveaway will run until 2200 CEST, Sunday 13th of November, with the winners being announced in a post on Monday the 14th November.
Entrants accept that their contact name will be published in a later post displaying the winners, if they are successful. If you prefer not to have your name published please provide an alias instead in the assigned text box when entering the quiz.

You can enter the giveaway up to and until 10pm CEST on Sunday 13th November and I’ll announce the winners on the 14th!

Now, however, as promised – today’s recipe! I decided to opt for a “celebratory cake” for the One Year post, and you don’t get more celebratory than a good Black Forest cake in my opinion. It’s got all the things I love – chocolate, cream, cherries – and these particular ones are a perfect size. I’m a big fan of individually made things. I think it can look a lot prettier than one big cake, for example, and you have the added benefits of automatic portion control. Make the mini cakes as big, high, round, flat as you like to ensure they fit perfectly within your dietary needs for the meal you’re serving them with. I hope you like them! 🙂

Ingredients

60g Butter + ~10g
60g Sugar
55g Plain Flour
2 tbsps Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 Egg
120g Dark Chocolate
200ml Whipping Cream + ~4 tbsps
200g Pitted, canned Morello Cherries – or regular cherries

Optional

4 tbsps Kirsch or other cherry liqueur

Instructions

Preheat your oven to ~170 degrees Celsius. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. If you find the butter is very hard, a few seconds on high in a microwave will soften it right down for you. Crack in the egg and beat in. Sift in the plain flour, baking powder and cocoa powder and fold into the mixture until you have a smooth mixture.
Arrange four paper muffin cases in a muffin tray and split the mixture between the paper cases. If you have two much mixture then by all means add an extra one or two paper cases. Place the tray into your preheated oven and cook for about 20 minutes. After this time, test one by sticking a metal skewer or fork into the centre. If it comes out clean then they are done. When they are ready, remove from the oven and place on a rack to cool.
While the cakes are cooking, melt the chocolate in a bowl or jug set in a pan of water which is heating on the stove. Stir regularly, and when it’s completely melted pour out almost all of it (saving about 1-2 tbsps left in the bowl) onto a large sheet of parchment/baking paper laid on top of a hard surface, like a baking tray. Spread out the chocolate to form a large square, about 2mm thick and try and make the chocolate as smooth as possible. Place the chocolate sheet carefully into the refrigerator.
Return the bowl to the hot water bath and add in the 4tbsps of cream and the 10g of Butter. Stir well until everything is melted together to form something like the picture below. If necessary, and if you have it, add in a little extra chocolate. Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool. Meanwhile, whip the cream until quite stiff and place into the refrigerator to cool down after the whisking.
When the cakes have cooled, remove them from their paper cases and cut off the edges to form a rough square. Split each cake in two through the middle with a knife. If you decided to use it, you can sprinkle half a tablespoon of kirsch or other cherry liqueur over each cake half (8 halves in total). Next, spread 4 halves with some of the cooled chocolate ganache. Drain the cherries from their syrup and cut them in halves. Place some whipped cream on top of the ganache and then arrange cherries. Place the other half of the cake on top, and add another layer of ganache on top of the cake.
Remove the chocolate sheet from the refrigerator and trim the edges. Cut into strips which are slightly taller than the cake as it stands now, and about the same width as each edge. “Paint” the rough side of the chocolate strips with more ganache and stick to the edges of the cake. When all four strips are in place on each cake, add in more cream on the top and add more cherries. Enjoy! 🙂

Sep 04 2011

Prickly Pear Mini Cheesecakes with Ganache Topping

Serves: 2
Approx cost: €2
Approx calories (per Mini Cheesecake): ~340
Approx preparation time: 30 mins

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;”]G reetings everyone. I have an announcement to make. I’ve been cheated! Who is the heinous perpetrator, you may ask? The French language, I tell you! I was in the store last night (incidentally I finally bought some Okra… yay! Stay tuned to hear how that went!) and what should I see but a whole stack of exotic looking, and rather enticingly named fruits: “Figue de Barbarie”. Hell yeah, I thought… I freaking LOVE figs, and I’m all up for trying new varieties. I load a bag full of them, my little head brimming with the thought of stuffing them into my mouth, delicious fig juice running down my chin. Well, call me stupid – it would seem that these are nothing like “figs”. Indeed, in English they’re actually known as Prickly Pears, or Cactus Pears. Perfectly pleasant little fruits, but certainly not figs! … sigh, oh well. You live and learn! In any case, as I said, they’re not half bad. They have a lot of very hard little seeds inside, but you can just swallow those things down (or store them up in your cheek like a squirrel and machine-gun them out at a passing pet / sibling / child etc (if anyone asks, that wasn’t my idea!)). They’re not too sweet so they actually go really well in a dish like this, although you could equally make them into a savoury dish.

So there you go – don’t be tricked by these next time you’re out and about! In other news, 2 days from now I’ll be drawing the winner for my 100th post giveaway, so good luck in advance to all the people who’ve taken part! Enjoy these little no-bake, miniature cheesecakes. I often find that one big cheesecake is too much. You feel obliged to eat it and let’s face it, cheesecake isn’t the most healthy of dishes! This is all about portion control. It can be whipped up in about 20-30 minutes and really doesn’t cost that much to make. Plus, individual always looks more fancy than one giant one doesn’t it? I guess you don’t even need to put fake-fig on top either… you could equally put other fruit, berries, chocolate etc – the choice is yours! Hope you’re having a good Sunday!

Ingredients

~90g Cream Cheese
20g Butter
20g good quality Plain Chocolate
2 tbsps Cream
3-4 “Digestive” style biscuits (graham crackers in US)
1 Prickly Pear
1 zest from half a Lemon
2 tsps Honey

Instructions

Start off by smashing up the biscuits until they reach a fine crumb. Melt the butter and mix well into the biscuit crumb.
Next, mix the honey and lemon zest in with the cream cheese, whisking well to make the cheese more manageable.
Now we’ll move on to “building” the cheesecakes. I find a small cookie cutter is just perfect for building individual cakes and so forth. Lay it flat on the plate and place half of the cookie mixture at the bottom. Press it out firmly with a spoon to compact it down. Spoon out half the cream cheese mixture on top and spread it around carefully, pressing it down, to cover the base. Gently lift the cookie cutter away, applying a little down force on the cream cheese with the back of a spoon to stop the cheese also being lifted away.
To prepare the prickly pear, trim the top and bottom away from the fruit and then make a cut from top to bottom on the flesh on the outside. Put your thumbs in the cut and peel it back to expose the fruit inside. Chop the “pear” into thin slices and arrange on top of the individual cheesecakes, before refrigerating them for 30 minutes or so, prior to serving.
For the ganache, place the chocolate into a small pan and heat very gently. When almost melted, add in the butter and continue to heat very gently, stirring all the time. When the butter has melted, add in the cream and mix, continuing to heat. You should notice the consistency change to become thicker.
You can serve the ganache anyway you like – personally I decided to “pipe” it out. I don’t have a piping bag so I find if you take a strong food-safe bag, like a freezer bag, place the ganache into the corner and cut a tiny corner off you can “pipe” with it in a similar fashion. Serve over, or with the refrigerated cheesecakes and enjoy!