Category: Cakes

Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

This hazelnut chocolate cake is soft, rich in chocolate and will get you going for more.  This recipe contains mascarpone and hazelnuts.  I love the taste of the roasted hazelnuts in it.

This recipe is from Frank Camorra and was published in  Good Food. The cake is beautiful.  In terms of difficulty, it goes into the easy basket.

Ingredients
  • 150 g hazelnuts, toasted and skinned -see tip
  • 100 g ground almonds
  • 100 g dried breadcrumbs -see tip
  • 300 g good cooking chocolate
  • 165 g butter, softened
  • 150 g caster sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 150 g mascarpone cheese

Tip on toasted and skinned hazelnuts: Place the hazelnuts on a single level under the grill, shake from time to time. When toasted, place the hazelnut into a tea-towel, close the towel and rub the fabric and nuts.  The skins will peel off. 

Tip on making your own bread crumbs: toast a few pieces of bread until quite coloured but not burned. Use the rolling pin and roll over the tasted bread.  Toast again if necessary. You will not manage to get the whole slice into crumbs. Repeat the process until you have the quantity sought.  To make the crumbs finer, whiz in a little food processor. 

Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 160°C and line a 24 centimetre spring-form pan with baking paper.
  2. Whiz the hazelnuts in a food processor until they are finely and evenly ground, then add the ground almonds and breadcrumbs and pulse the processor a few times to mix. Remove from the processor and reserve in a bowl.
  3. Break up the chocolate into a heatproof bowl, place over a pot of simmering water (the bowl should not touch the water) and stir until melted.  With a whisk or in the food processor, whiz the butter and sugar until well mixed, then add the eggs.
  4. Add the vanilla, ground nuts, chocolate and mascarpone and mix together well.
  5. Pour into the spring-form pan and bake for about 40-45 minutes (the surface of the cake usually cracks in a ring).

Cool slightly before serving.  You can, once cold enough,  dust with icing sugar.

Serving suggestions:

Top with roasted strawberries and some sauce and/or add a dollop of creme fraiche or whipped cream.

 

C is for Cookies…Choc Chip Cookies

C is for Cookies….The best Choc Chip Cookies

“C is for Cookies, that’s good enough for me
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C”
I use these choc chip cookies for many occasions: lunch boxes, presents, travels, picnics, playdates, …

What I like with this recipe is that you can make them very small, bite size like or maxi over indulging size! This recipe describes medium (normal) size biscuits.

Ingredients

200 g of butter, melted
150 g of white sugar
200 g of brown sugar
2 eggs
450 g of flour
1 teaspoon of raising powder (1 sachet if using that version)
300 g of good cooking chocolate chopped with a knife (or use packets of chocolate chips from the shop)

Method
  1. Heat the oven up on 180°C
  2. Mix together the eggs, white sugar, brown sugar
  3. Add the butter and mix well
  4. Add together the flour, raising powder and chocolate chips.  Mix by hand.
  5. Cover 2 baking sheets with baking paper, with a spoon (or with your hands) place on the baking sheet little mounds the size of an apricot,push down very slightly.  Make sure the mounds are not to close to each other (at least leaving space of the size of one mound between two mounds) as they will spread during baking.
  6. Bake until the colour starts to change slightly golden brown. Do not overbake.
  7. Slide the baking paper with cookies on it on the cooling rack. Leave to cool for a few minutes before moving them.
  8. You should expect to need two bakes if using two baking trays at the same time.

 

 

Choc chip c

Star brioche

This star brioche can be made with chocolate (Nutella) but also as a savory brioche with vegemite and mozzarella.  There are endless combination of options for flavor such as adding nuts, using lemon curd, etc.  This recipe comes from a cooking class I attended.

Ingredients

500 g of bakers flour (in the shops in France, I think it is T45 flour), this is important
290 g of eggs (i.e. weight without the shells), you may have to use part of an egg to get to that number (keep the rest for egg wash)
50 g of milk
95 g of white sugar
10 g in salt
12 g of instant yeast
290 g of unsalted butter at room temperature

Method
  1. Mix all ingredients except sugar and butter on low for 4 minutes. This is important, sugar and butter are added later to enable the flour to hydrate otherwise sugar and butter would coat the granules of flour.
  2. Then increase to medium speed for 2-3 minutes (the dough will develop) and slowly add in the sugar over the next 5 minutes.  The dough will then be intensely developed which correspond to the gluten strands having taken a developed structure.  You may know about the window stretch, which is often used for yeasted dough, you can do it here.  If you take a walnut size of dough and gently pull it into a square, it should stretch easily, not tear and you should see through.  By hand it will take a bit of time and you may want to use a dough cutter/scrapper.  In any case, be mindful not to keep adding flour as you will then change the recipe.
  3. Then add the soft (not melted!) butter a little at the time still while mixing until the dough cleans the side of the bowl.
  4. Cover with cell wrap but not too tight so the dough can grow in size and leave in the fridge for at least 20 minutes (overnight is fine).
  5. This is where you get the dough divided in the parts that will be put together to make the desired shape. In the case of the brioche star, I divided it in 4 balls the same weight (weight of total dough, divided by 4).
  6. Preshape: gently spread in a rectangle by pushing and pulling with your fingers each ball onto the counter, perform 2 envelop turns (fold left third towards the middle then right third to join, turn the dough 90° and repeat).  Then bring in the corners to the centre, turn around and using both hands move the ball on the counter until it takes a nice round shape. It will stick to the counter a bit, this is fine. Scoop the ball with both hands pulling towards you and place on a tray. repeat for each ball. Don’t overwork it. Cover with cell wrap.  Place the tray in the fridge 20 min minimum or so.
  7. Get you baking tray out, line with baking paper. With a rolling pin, roll the first ball into a circle a bit smaller than the width of your tray. Place on the tray. Cover with Nutella (you may want to mix it first to make sure it is quite easy to use). Repeat for the next balls.  The last ball does not get any Nutella topping. Placea glass at the centre of your brioche, this will be the centre of the star and will not be cut in the coming process.  Using a dough cutter or sharp large knive cut in quarter from the edge to the external part of the glass, subdivide each quarter further in 3.
  8. With 2 hands seize one wage in each hand and fold both towards you twice (left hand turns clockwise, right hand counter clockwise), tuck together the ends. Repeat until you have gone all around.
  9. Eggwash avoiding the chocolate areas (not to smear it everywhere).
  10. Allow for a final proofing, at least 20-30 minutes at room temperature (22-25°C), it may take longer is colder.
  11. Preheat oven at 180-200°C.  Bake for 15-30 minutes (depending on your oven) until golden brown.

Reine de Saba changed into a crocodile birthday cake

Hello,  you may wonder why a title saying Reine de Saba crocodile birthday cake. Well, this weekend was my 4 y.o daughter’s birthday party. She had asked for a chocolate cake, all good, easy I thought. Well, two days before the asked it to be in the shape of a crocodile. A bit more planning and thinking was suddenly required.  I am not an expert at cake in all shapes and colours, I grew up with traditional round birthday cakes,no fuss!

The thing with young children is that most of the time, the birthday cakes end up in the bin. If there is an icing, they go for that only. And at a 4 y.o. birthday party, parents come along and generally would not touch the cake to avoid loading up on sugar. So, my challenge was to bake a single cake and make it work and reduce wastes.  And it worked! Look at that happy face!

The other success is that because the recipe is not too sweet, it got eaten by all and there was not much left overs.

The challenged explained

I advise taking a large sheet of paper, a big pen and your baking tin (here a roasting pan) and start drawing options. In the end, I chose between a curly crocodile and a straight one (2/3 width for the body, 1/3 width for the tail).

reine de Saba crocodile

Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheba Cake)

This is the base recipe. I would double for an afternoon tea cake. For my crocodile, I multiplied the proportions by 4.

 Ingredients
  • 75 g of white or caster sugar
  • 50 g of plain flour
  • 1/3 sachet of raising powder or 1/3 teaspoon if using it from the box
  • 75 g of dark cooking chocolate (if you are using a 70% cocoa chocolate, decrease the chocolate quantity to 60 g, it would be too strong for children).
  • 60 g of butter
  • 2 egg yolks and  2 egg white beaten to snow.
Method
  1. Heat the oven to 180 °Celsius.
  2. Butter and flour a tin, or butter and line.
  3. Melt the butter and chocolate together.
  4. Mix in the sugar, then the egg yolks one at the time.
  5. Add the flour and raising powder together, being careful not to create any lumps.
  6. Fold in the egg whites (in snow) gently.
  7. Transfer to the baking tin and insert in the oven.
  8. Cook until dry in the center (20 to 30 min depending on ovens and thickness of the cake in the tin)

Decoration

Using the model cut the cake to shape. Place on a long dish or like me, just tape two pieces of cardboard together and cover (and tape underneath) with baking paper.

Green Icing

My icing was based on mascarpone, a bit of icing sugar (to your taste,  not too much) and some green food colorant. You will need either a stand mixer or some beaters or even a good whisks.  Once well mixes, spread evenly with a flat cake spatula.

Spine butter cream

The spine was butter cream. 125 g of soft butter, 1/2 cup of icing sugar and a mix of green food colorant with a point of red (to make it a different green than the body). Mix well again with your stand mixer, whisk or electrical beaters. Use a piping bag to make the spine.

making of crocodile cake

Eyes, claws and teeth

Roll some white fondant and cut to shape, they will stick by themselves on the mascarpone “icing”. For the middle of the egg, I had some mini smarties handy.  You could also use a couple sultanas.

The crocodile fairly shorter!

reduced crocodile cake

Galette des Rois

 

Galette des rois – Kings’ Galette

Early January (the 6th to be exact) is the celebration of the Epiphany.  In the Christian tradition, the epiphany represent the visit of the three kings to baby Jesus and the presentation of gifts.  In France, this is a very social occasion and celebrated by all with a spacial cake called “la Galette des Rois”.

The galette contains a small piece of ceramics, if you end up with it in your piece, you become the king or queen and get to wear a crown! Then you may choose a queen or king and even a buffoon.  To avoid cheating when distributing cake slices, the younger person (often a child) gets under the table and cites peoples at random as someone serves the cake.

IMG_2278

The cake is made of puff pastry and fragipane custard cream.  In France, you will find many at bakeries and in supermarkets that week, but in Australia, this is much harder to find.  Below is the recipe.

Ingredients

The filling cream consist of a small custard mixed with a small frangipane cream.

  • 2 sheets of puff pastries. Mine came as frozen squares, but the cake is more often of round shape
  • 1  ceramic piece (they come in all shapes) or a small coin (washed) or small shell (washed), this piece is called the “fève” in French.
  • frangipane cream: 125 g of almond meal, 100 g of softened butter, 80 g of caster sugar, 2 tablespoon of rum (optional)
  • Creme patissiere: 1 egg yolk, 1 tablespoon of cornflour, 1 tablespoon of caster sugar, 10 cl of milk, a few drops of good quality vanilla essence
  • 1 egg yolk dissolved with 2 tablespoons of water to seal the cake and glaze

Preparation – 20 min

Method

  1. Preheat oven at 180 ºC
  2. For the creme patissiere, mix the egg yolk, corn flour, vanilla, sugar  and milk together in a small saucepan. Heat up while mixing (with a whisk), as soon as the mix is about to boil remove from the heat and mix until thick and glossy. Add rum is desired. Cool down in a different recipient.
  3. For the frangipane cream, work the butter until soft and smooth with a spatulla.  If your butter is hard (was in the fridge), you may use the microwave on very low heat setting (max 30%) for 20 sec bursts until just soft.  Add sugar and almond meal and mix well. Then mix with the creme patissiere and place in the fridge until needed for use.
  4. On a baking tray, place a sheet of baking paper, place the first sheet of puff pastry on it. Using a pointy knife, score all around the edge first centimetre and brush with the egg yolk- water mix.
  5. Add the frangipane custard that was in the fridge making sure not to cover the scored area.  This is where you must put the ceramic piece.  Now try not to put it where the knife will go through where cutting. For example, if cutting in triangular pieces, not in the middle; if cutting in squares (works only for the square shape cake and if you need to share it among quite a few people), try to place in a middle of a square.
    IMG_2201
  6. Cover with the second sheet of puff pastry and seal by pinching the edges together.

IMG_2203           IMG_2251

  1. Using your sharp knife, draw a floral pattern on top or even simpler geometric intersecting lines. Brush with the egg yolk and water mix.  Put in the oven and bake until the top is well golden. Remove and transfer to a cooling rack, then on a serving dish.