Chocolate Berry Torte

To finish off the bbq on the weekend & to celebrate James birthday, of course I had to finish with a cake. Today I chose this wicked chocolate Torte from Green and Black’s Chocolate recipes. It was sensational, note the small amount of flour which resulted in a thin intense cake which was rich, smooth & a perfect blend of chocolate and berries, as well as the suggested whipped cream I also served it with a berry coulis but forgot to serve with the extra berries!

Chocolate Berry Torte

Torte
25g plain flour
5 teaspoons cocoa powder
75g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
25g unsalted butter
5 teaspoons double cream
4 egg whites
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons caster sugar
250g fresh blueberries or raspberries
125ml whipping cream, to serve

Icing
100g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
50g unsalted butter
3 tablespoons double cream
1 teaspoon icing sugar

Preheat oven to 140c. Butter and line a 18-20cm cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Sift together the flour & cocoa & set aside.

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over barley simmering water. Remove from the heat, add the butter & the cream, and stir well until the mixture is quite liquid.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, add the sugar & continue to whisk until thick & glossy. Beat together the egg yolks & then gently fold in the flour & cocoa mixture. Add the melted chocolate & mix well. Spoon a few dollops of egg white into the mixture, stir, then gently fold in the remainder of the egg whites.

Gently pour half the mixture into the prepared cake tin, dot half the berries evenly over it, then pour the rest of the mixture on top of the berries.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes and unmould on to a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter, cream & icing sugar. Immediately pour over the cake to coat it completely, smoothing the icing using a palette knife. Leave for 1 hour to harden.

Serve with whipped cream & remaining berries.

Apple & Blueberry Shortcake

Yesterday to use up even more of the Granny Smith’s I tried out this recipe from Bill Granger, Bills Food. I love his recipes, especially breakfast & sweets, I find them a bit different to a lot of stuff in my other books & no matter how strange they sound or nervous they make me that they wont work so far I haven’t failed to bake a winner. This was no exception, delicious straight from the oven with some fresh whipped cream, very fruity & the shortcake was lovely & light, don’t worry if when you’re rolling it, it sort of falls apart as it all melts into place when cooked.

Apple & Blueberry Shortcake

4 large Granny Smith Apples
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons sugar
125g unsalted butter
125g caster sugar
1 egg
185g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
155g (1 cup) blueberries
sugar, for sprinkling

To serve
Whipped cream

Peel the apples, remove the cores & cut each apple into about 16 slices. Put the apples, lemon zest, sugar & 2 tablespoons of water into a medium saucepan, then cover & stew over a low heat for about 10 minutes, until the apples are soft but not mushy. Allow to cool.

Cream the butter & caster sugar together in a bowl until fluffy & smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and stir until combined. Turn onto a lightly floured surface & knead until smooth, Divide into two 7 refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180c. Roll each half of cake dough into a round approximately 22cm across. Press one round into a 24cm non-stick springform cake tin. Spread the apples over the dough, leaving a small border around the edge. Sprinkle with the blueberries. Place the other round of dough on top & press the edges together. Brush with water & sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, then allow to cool in the tin for 20 minutes before removing. Serve with whipped cream.

Blueberry and Bran Muffins

Yesterday day I whipped up this batch of muffins for the weekend, I love muffins because they are so easy to throw together, no beating or electric appliances necessary so when you don’t have much time & energy they are still doable. These also sounded quite healthy felt quite justified in making them. They come from Bill Granger’s Sydney Food book. As you know I am in love with his breakfasts at the moment & aim to attempt most of them sooner rather than later.

Blueberry and Bran Muffins

30g butter
¾ cup honey
½ cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
3 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup bran cereal
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 apple, grated
2 bananas, mashed
250g blueberries
6 strawberries, halved

Preheat oven to 180c. Place butter and honey in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or until slightly caramelized.

Place milk, vegetable oil & eggs in a bowl & whisk.

Place flour, baking powder, bran & cinnamon in a bowl and mix to combine. Stir apple, bananas and blueberries through flour. Add milk mixture & stir until dry ingredients are just moistened. Then fold in butter mixture until just combined being careful not to overmix.

Set out tray(s) with 12 paper liners. Spoon batter into each cup. Top each muffin with half a strawberry. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes or until the tops are golden & a skewer comes out clean. Cool slightly, remove from tray & serve.

Summer Fruitcake with lemon mascarpone cream

As well as pasta, I have been quite fond of cakes these past few months & I think if I wasn’t working I would be hard pressed not to make one very single day, now that would be a very bad thing. Luckily I am still slaving away so usually only manage to sneak one in a week. This week I had some friends coming over for lunch & had this recipe from Delicious magazine that takes advantage of the abundance of summer fruit in our shops now so I was dying to try it out. As well as berries it also used peaches, the sweetness & slight tartness of each working beautifully together. Also the almonds gave this cake so much more, I was lucky any even got baked the mixture was so irresistible. I found I had to cook it about 10 minutes or so longer than required & the end result was still a lovely moist cake full of fruity goodness and don’t skip the lemon cream, its goes really well too.

Summer Fruitcake with lemon mascarpone cream

250g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar
6 eggs
½ cup (120g sour cream)
200g raw almonds
180g plain flour, sifted
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g raspberries
150g blueberries
2 small peaches, peeled & sliced
Icing sugar to dust

Lemon Mascarpone Cream

200g mascapone

150ml thickened cream

Juice & rind of 1 small lemon

Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a 24cm springform pan & line the base with baking paper.

For lemon mascarpone cream, beat ingredients in a bowl to combine. Cover & refrigerate until ready to serve.

Place butter & caster sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer & beat until light & fluffy. Whisk in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk in sour cream. Process almonds in a food processor until fine crumbs, then fold into the mixture with the flour & baking powder. Stir in the vanilla then pour in half the batter into the cake tin and sprinkle with half the fruit. Repeat layers of batter & fruit. Bake for 40-45 minutes (cover loosely with foil if it starts to brown), until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in center. Cool in pan for 15 minutes then place on a rack & dust with icing sugar. Serve with lemon mascarpone cream.

White Chocolate & Berry Muffins

When I saw these luscious sounding muffins on Exclusively Food, I knew I just had to make them soon. I used strawberries as they were readily available, next time would like to try with either raspberries or blueberries or combinations of all 3. They were absolutlely delicious straight out of the oven. However I must warn you I spooned the batter straight into a greased muffin tin instead of lining with patty cases & when I tried to tip them out there was a bit of a mess, ie breakage. Luckily not all of them fell apart & I quickly prised the rest out carefully with a knife, so I think I would go the cases next time. Absolutely drool worthy as promised.

White Chocolate & Berry Muffins

Fresh or frozen berries can be used. If using frozen berries, add them to the mixture while they are still frozen.

Makes 12 muffins.

320g (2 cups) self-raising flour
148g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
1 cup chopped white chocolate
2 teaspoons lemon juice
250ml (1 cup) milk
125ml (1/2 cup) mild vegetable oil
1 large egg
200g berries

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (fan forced). Line a muffin tray with 12 muffin cases.Mix self-raising flour, caster sugar and white chocolate together in large bowl.Whisk lemon juice, milk, oil and egg in a medium bowl until combined. Gently stir in berries.Gently stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stop stirring once the ingredients are combined (do not over mix). The batter should be quite wet.Spoon mixture into muffin cases. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. To check whether muffins are cooked, press lightly on the centre of a muffin; if it springs back, it's ready.

Serve muffins warm or at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar. Muffins can be reheated in the microwave. They are best eaten on the day they are baked.

Baked Chocolate tart

Today Rach was coming over for a bit of a catch up, she is a bit of a sucker for chocolate (just like me in my present state!) so I whipped up this tart of Jamie Oliver’s from ‘The Naked Chef. I had some left over pastry in the freezer from when I made the lemon lime tart so this cut down considerably on my prep time which was excellent, means I got to spend the whole morning in the garden! I’ve included the pastry recipe as per previous post. I served the tart with fresh strawberries & blueberries & let me say this, it was sensational, absolutely delicious. The fact that it was dark chocolate made it very intense without being too sweet, it tasted a little like a chocolate pudding but solid of course & of the sweetness of the berries was perfect along side. Also I have to say home made short crust pastry definitely kicks ass over the frozen kind. Make this tart & trust me you will not regret it.

Baked Chocolate Tart

1 x 25cm flan or tart shell, baked blind
140g butter, unsalted
150g good quality chocolate, (70% cocoa solids)
8 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
small pinch salt
4 eggs
200g caster sugar
3 tablespoons golden syrup
3 medium heaped tablespoons sour cream or crème fraiche

Place the butter, chocolate, cocoa powder and slat in a bowl over a pan of simmering water & allow to melt slowly, stirring occasionally until well mixed in. In a separate bowl beat the eggs & sugar together until light & well creamed, and then add the golden syrup & sour cream. Stir your choc mixture into this mixture, scraping all of the chocolate out with a spatula. Once you’ve mixed it well pour it into the pastry shell. Place into a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes at 150c. During cooking a beautiful crust will form.

Carefully remove the tart from the oven & allow to cool on a rack for at least 45 minutes, during which time the skin will crack & the filling will shrink slightly. Serve with fresh berries

Short Crust Sweet Pastry

To make 2 x 30cm/12 inch tart moulds
250g butter
200g icing sugar
a medium pinch of salt
500g flour
4 egg yolks
4 tablespoons cold milk/water

You can make this by hand or in a food processor. Cream together the butter, sugar & salt & then rub or pulse in the flour & egg yolks. When the mix has come together, looking like coarse breadcrumbs, add the cold water or milk. Pat & gently work together to form a ball of dough. Use minimum movement as the more you work it the more elastic it will get, causing the pastry to shrink & be chewy. Roll into a large, short & fat sausage shape, wrap in glad wrap & place in the fridge for at lest 1 hour.Carefully slice off thin slivers of pastry lengthways, around 5mm thick. Place the slivers in & around the bottom & sides of your tart mould, then push the pieces together & level out. Now it needs to rest again for at least 1 hour in the freezer this time.Bake the tart for about 15 minutes at 180c, completely cool & fill with any uncooked fillings.For baked fillings, bake blind first at 180c for only about 12 minutes. You can fill the shell with rice, baking beads, etc but if your pastry is straight out of the freezer you shouldn’t have problems with shrinkage, etc.

Blueberry butter cake and Goodbye Sharon

Saturday Sharon had a bit of a going away bbq & I of course thought it was a great opportunity to test out a new cake. I chose this luscious Blueberry butter cake from Bill Granger’s Bill’s Sydney Food. I love his cakes, so far they have all been perfect so whenever I can I knock out another one. As blueberries are a bit expensive at the moment I used frozen ones, they were being cooked so figured it wouldn’t hurt. These worked fine though I think because of the moisture content the cake need about an extra 15-20 minutes over the recommended 50 minutes, after 50 there was a pool of liquid on top which I poured off & the cake was still pretty much raw in the center. I have to say I was a bit worried at this stage but luckily the extra time cooked it & there was no damage, ie burnt top that I was panicking about! The cake went down perfectly with lots of very nice comments. It’s a pity I don’t have a photo of the cut cake as it looked fantastic, in the center the fruit had dropped to the bottom so it was sort of spread through the whole cake & the crumble topping just made it, all in all another winner from Bill.

Blueberry Butter Cake

For an old-fashioned Sydney experience you’d use mulberries from the tree that always stained your mother’s washing on a windy day – and get your fingers and lips red in the picking. The blueberry is more urbane.

Topping
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
¼ cup plain (all purpose) flour
75 g (2 ½ oz) unsalted butter, cold

Cake
2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
125g (4 oz) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
2 cups blueberries

To make the topping, place brown sugar and flour in a bowl, add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
To make the cake, preheat over to 180c (350F). Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl. Place butter and sugar in a bowl and cream together. Add the eggs, and mix. Add the dry ingredients, alternating with sour cream, mixing well after each addition.
Pour the cake batter into a greased 23cm (9 in) spring form cake tin. Sprinkle with blueberries and topping mixture.
Bake the cake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack, topping side up.
Serve warm or at room temperature with fresh cream. Serves 8.