Chocolate Biscuits

I have already been a great cookie/biscuit eater. Nowadays I have greater self control - much needed self control with extra pounds that insist on staying with me, like a best friend. However, that does not stop me from recognizing a good recipe when I see one. And I try to treat my friends with them. If I cannot have them I might as well see other people having pleasure. In this spirit I chose this recipe for my good friends Namrita and Prashant who work in the Singapore office but were in the London office for 5 weeks. Elson, who joined their team about 6 months ago, was also in London so he also got a nice treat.

I only made a change to the list of ingredients below. Instead of using plain flour I used 100g brown rice flour and 50g chestnut flour. The biscuits turned out quite lovely and I will be making this recipe again in the near future.

Ingredients:

100g dark chocolate , chopped coarsely

80g butter, chopped

1 cup ( 220g) caster sugar

1 egg beaten slightly

1 cup (150g) plain flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

¼ cup(40g) icing sugar

1. Melt chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over low heat. I tend to wait until it is all quite melted, I then remove it from the heat and the heated saucepan gives enough heat to finish off with the melting process.Transfer mixture to a bow.
2. Get the caster sugar, plain flour, cocoa and flour, and sieve them into the chocolate mixture. Add the egg, and mix it all well until you reach a firm consistency.
3. Transfer mixture to the fridge for 15 minutes.
4. Meanwhile heat the oven – 180oC/160oC oven assisted. Grease and cover baking tray with parchment paperl.
5. Make little chocolate balls and roll them in the icing sugar. Place the icing sugar covered balls on the baking tray, leaving at least 5 min between each one. Bake for approximately 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let them cool on tray.

Macadamia nut chocolate cake

This morning I felt like baking a chocolate cake. I wanted something not very fussy but quite yummy. Flicking through this book I bought recently, James Martin Desserts, I came across this recipe entitled Macadamia nut chocolate cake. There was a picture of this pretty little cake, encrusted with little pieces of chopped macadamia nuts. I decided to make it as I had all the ingredients at home. It was not even an extensive list. The only tricky item could have been the macadamia nuts, but in the end I also had that in my nuts basket.

I don’t often bake with macadamia nuts so it was a nice excuse. I love nibbling on those nuts at work, when I have a terrible hunger pang. I used the food processor for the chopping. And used the pulse button. Since I once processed peanuts for too long and they became this horrible oily mass I have decided to mind my nuts whilst getting them chopped.

The result was a lovely moist cake with a lovely discreet crunch to it. And all the deliciously sinful chocolate sauce. According to the author it is best to have it still warm. If cold it looses a bit of the texture. In case there is some to be had the following day or at a later time, just warm it up in the microwave first. If you don't feel like warming it up it is ok as well. The texture reminded me of a muffin. A nice, chocolatey one.

I have to admit that I did not notice much about the macadamia nuts. It was definitely not like hazelnuts which just fill my lungs, heart, and mind. I could only feel a gentle hint of it on the crust. Altogether it was a rather lovely cake. Not pretentious but looking very classy and as if one has spent ages on it

.

Macadamia nut chocolate cake

serves 8

75g toasted macademia nuts
190g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g sugar
4 eggs
45g unsweetened cocoa, sifted
70g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

For the chocolate sauce:

25g bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp unsalted butter
4 tbsp double cream
15g sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 180oC/350oF/Gas mark 4. Butter 8 moulds ( 5cm wide each). Place on a baking tray. Reserve.

Finely grind half the macademia nuts and coarsely chop the remainin half.

Cream the butter and sugar together and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the cocoa, flour and baking powder and stir until fully incorporated. Gently fold the ground nuts into the batter.

Fill the moulds two-thirds full with the batter and sprinkle with the chopped macadamia nuts.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

To make the sauce, gently heat the chocolate and butter in a saucepan until melted, stir in the cream and sugar and continue to heat gently, stirring, until combined.

To serve, pour a pool of chocolate sauce onto each plate. Place a cake in the centre of each plate on top of the sauce. Spoon a scoop of ice cream on the side if you fancy an extra treat. The author suggested coconut.

Chocolate & Chestnut mousse

HHDH Mousse Event:

I have been looking for a mousse recipe for this event for a while now. I wanted to find one that was truly special. After visiting Helene’s blog – Tartellete, over and over again, I keep seeing these wonderful posts she makes. She pushed the bar way up there.

I knew that I need something that was not common. The other week I made a recipe I had been thinking about using for the event: chocolate with chilli mousse. That turned out to be a bit of a saga: first I wanted to find an egg substitute for the recipe and read a bit about it. In the end I decided to give vinegar a try as replacement because I had read somewhere that it would do the job. Well, what it didn’t specify, and me being so eager didn’t use my head, was that it was probably good but not for stuff like mousse. When I tried the mousse I could tell straight away that there was something wrong with it. The texture didn’t look right, and the taste...well, it was as if the ingredients had not really gelled together. I was terribly disappointed. I ended up making the recipe again, this time to the letter. I then decided to serve it to my guests without telling them about the chilli ingredient first. I wanted to see if they would notice it. The chilli was noticeable without being overpowering. My guests liked it – they even said that had they known about the chilli they wouldn’t have tried it, but they were glad they hadn’t been told in advance. That was a very successful try in the end.

However, I was still looking for THE recipe, and I read books, magazines, marked pages…However, today I decided that I would have to pick one and stop with all the fuss. After all I might have ended up missing the event all together.

I ended up choosing a chocolate and chestnut mousse by Mary Cadogan, an amazing British food editor who is spending some time in France at the moment and keep posting these great recipes and a lovely diary.

The recipe asks for chestnut purée so I dashed to my local supermarket to get some. I had to prepare the recipe before changing my mind again. I also decided to buy some cooked chestnuts as well as I cannot find them al natural at this time of the year – it would be nice to have some sliced on top of the mousse. At in the end I was glad that I decided to do that as it looked quite pretty – click on the picture to enlarge it.

I was just not so impressed with the final result though. Don’t take me wrong, it was rather lovely, but in a way it just tasted like any other chocolate mousse. I kept trying to find the chestnut flavour in it and I honestly did not. I think that the role of the purée might have been to play with the texture – I did find creamy in a special way.

That’s what you need for the mousse:

Chocolate & Chestnut mousse

200g bar dark chocolate

200g sweetened chestnut purée

5 eggs, separated

4 tbsp brandy or Cognac

284 mil carton whipping cream

1. First of all take 25g of the dark chocolate and use a vegetable peeler to make chocolate curls. Set the curls aside until you need them.

2. Break up the remaining chocolate, then put it in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water until melted (you know the drill – don’t let the bowl touch the water). Remove from the hit then stir in the chestnut purée until smooth. Stir in the egg yolks and brandy. It might look as if it will not all blend together, but it will. Have faith.

3. Whisk the egg whites in a large, clean bowl until stiff, stir a quarter into the chocolate mix to soften it, and then fold in the remainder until well mixed. Divide the mixture between your bowls/cups... whatever you might want to use for your mousse. Put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

4. When it take them out of the fridge to serve up, quickly whip the cream and spoon it over the mousse. I then added slices of the cooked chestnut and to finish it off I sprinkled it all with the chocolate curls.

Ginger-scented chocolate mousse with mango and passion fruit

Ever since I first read this one article about Philippa Sibley, the famous Australian desert chef, I wanted to make all the recipes in it. Her main element is fruit in desserts and I am such a fan of fruit in sweet things. Plus she is so innovative. It is exciting to read her recipes and I believe that if you are passionate about cooking there is no way you won’t feel like heading to the kitchen. I had to have a great amount of self-control. I gave in to temptation straight after purchasing the magazine and prepared her cherry and pistachio clafoutis. What a great dish. Delicious to the taste and visually equally stunning with the pistachio-green-tone. The next one on my mental list was the ginger-scented chocolate mousse with mango and passion fruit. The sheer unusual combination of ingredients has to be seen first hand. There was an event on the web which I wanted to join and this was going to be my dish. Unfortunately I missed the deadline but here I come with the dessert anyway. If you ever get your hands on a magazine with an article about Philippa, do read it. I am sure you will also be captivated by her talents.

I just want to say that I was a bit too greedy and prepared really big portions of the dessert (look at the size of the glass!). I am convinced that it has to be served in smaller portions. Less is more!! I have learnt my lesson.

Serves 6

1 egg

2 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

175g chocolate – 64%, melted and kept warm

60g glacé ginger, finely chopped, syrup reserved

1 ½ cups thickened cream, whisked to soft peaks

Pulp of 6 passion fruit

1 large mango (about 460g) cut into 2 cm cubes

Chocolate curls to serve

Combine egg and egg yolks in an electric mixer and whisk at high speed for 5 minutes or until pale and fluffy. Combine sugar and 1/3 cup water in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat to dissolve sugar, then bring to the boil and cook until syrup reaches hard ball (121oC on a sugar thermometer). Reduce mixer to low speed and add syrup to egg mixture in a thin steady stream, then increase to high speed and whisk for 5-7 minutes or until completely cold. Fold in chocolate, and then fold in glacé ginger and cream.

Combine passion fruit pulp and 2 tsp syrup from glacé ginger in a small bowl. Divide the mango among serving glasses, spoon over passion fruit syrup, then spoon chocolate mousse over fruit and refrigerate for 1 hour or until set. To serve, scatter with chocolate curls and serve immediately.

According to Philipa’s notes in order to get the curls you can drag a round pastry cutter across chocolate to form the curls. If you don’t success – as me, top with coarsely grated or shaved chocolate.