QUICK/SLOW CHOCOLATE AND CHERRY PUDDINGS

Life is really hectic and chaotic at the moment -  I was convinced I had no time at all to enter baking challenges this month.  There are so many I would like to have a go at, Teatime Treats, Alphabakes, We Should Cocoa, and Random Recipes – but I am just too busy.

Then fate intervened.

One day it suited my chaotic life to make something in the slow cooker so I plucked (randomly) one of my slow cooker cookbooks from the shelf, leafing through for ideas instead of looking at the index, but the first page to plop open was for chocolate and cherry puddings.

They looked yummy and I have never tried making anything other than casseroles in my slow cooker but it was not what I needed that day and I made a mental note of the idea for later.  Then, when my dad came round for his dinner on Sunday evening as usual, I remembered the recipe.

I thought it would be ideal, quick to make, I could put it in the slow cooker and forget about it while Nick and I get on with cooking the rest of the meal (roast beef and plain veg).  Not only that but I also had all the ingredients in stock – now there’s a first !!

My pudding moulds were smaller than specified but the four of them only just fitted into the slow cooker.  I used Stork baking liquid instead of butter and it worked really well.  I just put everything in a bowl and beat until it was all smooth – just about two minutes, if that.

They were lovely.  The recipe also includes instructions for a sauce made with double cream and white chocolate, which I’m sure would have been lovely too, but I confess I served mine with some warmed ready-made custard, for speed.  (To be honest, it’s because we really like custard.) 

And I was able to enter not one, but two baking challenges after all !!  The chocolate and cherry combination fits in with this month’s We Should Cocoa challenge, hosted by Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen, being the guest host this month for Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog.

And, with only an ever so slight bending of the rules, it also suits Dom’s Random Recipe Challenge this month, which is “starting at the very beginning”.  I didn’t exactly pick the book randomly from all of my cookbooks but it was the first one of the slow cooker ones that I grabbed………….

I shall definitely be doing these little puddings again.  The portion size is just right for one person and there’s no temptation to nibble away at very calorific leftovers – there were only four, one each and one for my dad to take away for later in the week.  Later in the year I might adapt the recipe to make treacle puddings, or apple……..the possibilities could be endless I think.  Another winning recipe for the busy cook.

Here’s what you need for my version of chocolate and cherry puddings.

50g self raising flour

50g caster sugar

50g Stork baking liquid (or butter, softened)

1 egg

1 tblsp cocoa powder

¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

1 425g tin pitted black cherries

Method

Draw round the bottom of a small (6floz) metal pudding mould on greaseproof or baking paper to make 4 circles.  (This seemed like a lot of faffing to me but it is worth it.)

Grease 4 pudding moulds and put a circle of paper in the bottom of each one.  Drain the tin of cherries and put 6 or 7 cherries on top of the paper.

Measure all the other ingredients into a medium bowl and beat together until smooth.  Spoon the mixture into the moulds and cover the tops loosely with foil.

Put them in the slow cooker and pour in boiling water to about half way up the moulds.  Put the lid on and cook on high for 1½-2 hours.  (Mine were done in 1½ hours.)

Lift the puddings out, loosen round the edges of each one with a knife then tip out onto a plate.

Serve with custard, ice-cream, cream or chocolate sauce.

Makes 4 puddings.

CHOCOLATE GUINNESS CAKE

When we visited our friends Ken and Walt in St-Aignan in early July I decided I would bake them a cake.  I gave it lots of thought and opted for a chocolate Guinness cake baked to Nigella Lawson’s recipe.

I first made this cake at least six years ago, for Nick to take to a charity cake stall at work.  It was incredibly popular.  After the first time where it sold for £1 a slice, people requested it, no, demanded it, and the price went up to £1.50 !!  So it’s a really good seller for charity.

It’s incredibly easy to make.  You basically whisk all the ingredients together in the saucepan in which you melt the butter with the Guinness.  It takes a long time to bake and many times I have been unsure if it was cooked or not and been tempted to give it a few more minutes.  But Nigella advises that it is meant to be a damp cake so I have stuck to her timings and it has always turned out fine.

In France I couldn't find soured cream but my food dictionary told me that crème fraîche was the same thing.

 

It often sinks in the middle and may crack on the top.  Neither really matters as the topping fills in any unevenness perfectly.

A friend who makes it regularly for her family told me that not only does it freeze very well, it also freezes well with the topping on.  She also makes only half the quantity of the topping as she finds it too sweet.  It is indeed very sweet so I split the difference and made two thirds – it was perfect.

One I made earlier, with full quantity of topping.

You can find the recipe on Nigella’s website here.  I also once successfully adapted the recipe to make it into cupcakes – they looked gorgeous and were yummy too.

The cupcakes I made using the same recipe.

If you haven’t tried it yet I would strongly recommend this stunning cake for a charity cake stall or a special occasion.  It’s not cheap to make but it cuts into about 16 slices and is always well received.  The flavour of the Guinness does not come through as such but it makes the cake not too sweet and makes it look fabulously dark.  The topping adds just the right amount of sweetness.  

You can see my updated post and the recipe I now use here:

https://bakinginfranglais.blogspot.com/2023/01/chocolate-guinness-cake.html

STRAWBERRY AND ORANGE PUD

I saw a recipe in a recent magazine, I forget which one, for a really nice looking pavlova-style dessert using strawberries and orange curd.

I love the combination of strawberries and orange but, I have to confess, I have never made a pavlova in my life.  In fact I have never made meringues other than the sort you put on top of a lemon meringue pie.

I did once come close to making a pavlova.  It was to be made for the party we had at home to celebrate my parents’ retirement in the early nineties.  In the end we ran out of time and we bought a frozen one from the supermarket.  However, it very nearly didn’t make it home as we fetched it on Nick’s motorcycle.  This was in the days when we only had one car but several motorcycles and if we nipped anywhere for anything we would invariably jump on a bike.  On this occasion we were two up on his lovely comfy old Yamaha.  I carried a rucksack on my back for the other bits and pieces we bought and Nick very carefully bungeed the box containing the pavlova onto the rack above the back wheel. 

Unfortunately, although he is world champion at bungeeing anything onto his bike, this time he was a little too cautious, fastening it very gently so as not to crush it, and as we exited the roundabout by the supermarket it came loose and fell off !!

Luckily I heard the slight bump as it hit the tarmac and we were able to recover it as it was narrowly missed by passing traffic.  We inspected it when we got it home and it was rather a sorry sight but we glued it back together with whipped cream and nobody noticed !!

At that time I had never heard of Eton mess !!

Anyway, I used the idea behind the recipe in the magazine to make a quick, easy and delicious pud.

For each person:

1 shop bought meringue nest

1 dessertspoon of orange curd

2 tablespoons of crème fraîche, or natural yoghurt, whipped cream or similar

a handful of strawberries, washed and hulled

a teaspoon of grated orange rind

Method

Break the meringue into chunks and put in a bowl with the crème fraîche, orange curd and most of the strawberries.  Mix together.  Spoon into a dessert bowl or glass, place the last few berries on top and sprinkle the orange rind over.

It doesn’t look as posh as the real pavlova in the recipe, orange curd, strawberries and whipped cream layered beautifully and the whole thing languishing on a pretty plate and a lace tablecloth.  But it’s super-quick and very yummy.

GLUTEN FREE CHERRY BAKEWELL CAKE

I decided to make a cake for my friend Elizabeth’s birthday and it needed to be gluten free.  I liked the look of the cake in this recipe on the Good Food website for cherry bakewell cake.  I loved the way the icing dribbled over the top of the cake in the picture !!

In the end I used a recipe from a book called “the gluten-free baker” by Hannah Miles, which I borrowed from the library.  I adapted the recipe for Victoria sponge cake, which contains lots of ground almonds anyway, by substituting the vanilla extract in the original recipe for almond extract.  I then used cherry jam in the filling instead of strawberry and decorated the top with pink icing and cherries.

I had never used gluten free flour before and because there were a lot of ground almonds in the recipe I beat the butter and sugar really well as this was going to lift them and make the cake light and not dense.  I also had to put a lot of effort into beating the cream.  Being in France I used crème entière, which seems to need a lot more whisking to become thick than the English double cream I am used to.

I was also very careful to avoid accidental contamination of ingredients, for example using an unopened bag of sugar and a new block of butter.  It only takes a little gluten to cause a problem, such as from lazily dipping the spoon used for taking ordinary flour into the sugar bag, or a few toast crumbs in the butter.  It just isn’t worth the risk.

Believe it or not, the colour of the icing is exactly what I wanted.  After all if a girl can’t have pink on her birthday it’s a poor do !!  The icing was quite runny and drizzled nicely over the edge of the cake.

However, it was possibly a little too runny as it continued to dribble down the sides of the cake, forming a pink puddle on the cake plate.  This was lucky in a way as we had a 50-minute drive to Elizabeth’s house and with the cake firmly glued to the plate with icing all I had to worry about was the top half sliding off the bottom half as we made our way along the twisty lanes !!

I carried the cake wedged into a box on my lap and it arrived in one piece.  I could have taken it off the plate, cleaned the icing from the plate and putting the cake back but Elizabeth liked the look of the puddle of pink icing so we served it just as it was.  A girl can never have too much pink !!

Ingredients

For the cake

185g softened butter

185g caster sugar

4 eggs

200g ground almonds

125g gluten free self raising flour

150ml crème fraîche

½ tsp almond essence

For the filling and icing

3 tblsp cherry jam

250ml double cream or crème entière

4 fresh cherries

2-3 tblsp icing sugar

2 drops liquid pink colouring

pink sugar crystals

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°fan/gas mk 4.  Grease and base line 2 x 20cm sponge tins.

Put the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat or whisk until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time and beat well with each addition.

Add the other cake ingredients and fold in gently until evenly combined.

Divide between the two tins and bake for 25-30 minutes until the cakes are firm and golden and pass the skewer test.  Remove from the oven, turn out and cool on a wire rack.

Whip the cream until firm and spreadable.  Spread the jam on one of the sponges and spread the whipped cream on top.  Put the other cake on top.

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add 2 drops of pink colour, or enough to achieve the right depth of pink.  Add water, a teaspoon at a time, and mix together until a runny icing is formed.

Spoon the icing onto the top of the cake, somewhere in the middle and, using a small spatula or back of a spoon, push the icing towards the edge so that it dribbles down over the sides.  Sprinkle some sugar crystals on top and decorate with the fresh cherries.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.  Keep refrigerated because of the fresh cream.

CHOCOLATE AND BLACKCURRANT CAKE

Quite a few moons ago, I spotted a recipe in one of the blogs I read regularly for “chocolate pudding cake with raspberries”. 

I apologise sincerely to the writer of the blog but try as I might, wracking my poor old brain, I cannot recall whose blog it was.  Suffice it to say, I was so taken by the recipe at the time that I recklessly bought the book that it came from, ordering it from Amazon - “Eat, drink, live” by Fran Warde.This is, I suppose, no more daft than buying a CD on the strength of one track heard on the radio.  As it turns out, it is a beautiful book, full of promising recipes to tempt me into the kitchen.

So, when I read that this month’s We Should Cocoa challenge, organised by Choclette of Chocolate Log blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot blog, was for something combining chocolates with blackcurrants, this recipe sprang to mind.

That very same day, a miserable and rainy Sunday, Nick, Lulu and I decided to brave the chilly drizzle and go to Clumber Park for a walk and an ice-cream.  We visited the walled kitchen garden, which was an absolute delight and I would recommend to anybody and everybody.  At the entrance there were punnets of blackcurrants on sale, freshly picked that morning.

I love blackcurrants.  The sight of them takes me back to my childhood, picking them from the bushes in my grandmother’s garden and watching her make them into jam on her green enamel stove with the big knobbly taps.

The original cake recipe uses lots of dark chocolate and a spoonful of instant coffee.  I checked my storecupboard and I didn’t have enough plain chocolate but did have a bar of Espresso dark chocolate which would make up the quantity.  So I decided to use that and omit the addition of the instant coffee.

There is an awful lot of chocolate in this cake !!  It makes a chocolate torte style of cake, definitely a dessert cake and not the afternoon tea variety.  The blackcurrants looked lovely on top of the mixture before it went in the oven and I’m pleased to say looked just as beautiful when the cake was done, like little jewels studded on the top.  They didn’t sink and weren’t crozzled either.

The recipe suggests dusting the cake with icing sugar, which I dutifully did, then regretted immediately, as the jewel-like effect of the lovely little currants then disappeared.

It was not a cake for the faint-hearted.  It had an intensely chocolate-overload kind of flavour which contrasted really well with the tartness of the blackcurrants.   The hint of coffee in the background was just right.  It would make a stunning centrepiece for a dinner party, served in very slim slices with a little cream or ice-cream. 

I imagine it would also be delicious with raspberries as an alternative to the blackcurrants – the same kind of sharpness but not such an extreme contrast in flavour.

Here’s my adaptation of the original recipe:

Ingredients

150g dark chocolate, 70% cocoa content

100g espresso flavoured dark chocolate

200g butter

5 eggs

100g caster sugar

75g plain flour

150g blackcurrants (I washed and topped and tailed mine)

icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C/150° fan/ gas mk 3.  Grease and line a 23 cm springform cake tin.

Break the chocolate into pieces and put it with the butter in a small saucepan.  Stir over a low heat until melted together and smooth.  Set aside.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl using an electric whisk, until light and fluffy, which may take about 5 minutes.

Gently fold in the flour and the chocolate mixture until well combined. 

Poor into the tin and sprinkle the currants on top.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until firm and coming away from the sides of the tin.  Cool in the tin for a few minutes then remove to a wire rack.

Serve dusted with icing sugar and a little whipped cream or ice-cream.

Serves 10-12 portions – a small slice is plenty !!

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

Quite a while ago, what seems like eons in fact, and on some other planet, I opted to take part in an ingredient swap organised by Ruth at Makey Cakey.

I was paired with Sarah, of the lovely blog, The Cupcake Architect.

I sent Sarah some mystery ingredients and at about the same time a little parcel of mystery ingredients plopped through my letterbox from her.

There was some organic cinnamon flavoured chocolate, a little packet of crystallised rose petals and a packet of mini love hearts.  Now what on earth should I make out of them ??

Cupcakes of course !!

Then things got busy at home and at work and my poor scrambled brain could not get to grips with mystery ingredients.  So I brought them on holiday with me to France - hoping for the time and lack of distractions I needed to bake something a bit special.

And that is where I am as I write this now, sitting outside on our little terrace which overlooks the rooftops of the village.  The church bells have chimed their last chime for the evening at ten o’clock and all is quiet.  The swifts and swallows have long since finished swirling overhead and the bat formation team has gone to bed too.  The only things which break the silence are the occasional hoot of an owl and the murmur of a distant harvester as the farmers work late in the fields.  The night air is pleasantly cool and we will no doubt still be sitting here for another hour, finishing our wine and enjoying the peace and quiet and the view of the roofs and chimney pots of our neighbours. 

This is what I mean about another planet.

To make the cupcakes I used Stork Baking Liquid, adapting my strawberry cupcakes recipe, but only put in a little cocoa powder so that the delicate flavour of the cinnamon milk chocolate in the icing would not be overpowered.  They were yummy – the rose crystals added a lovely crunch and unusual flavour to the topping.

I baked them in the afternoon when it was gloriously sunny but the light was fading by the time they were finished, so I took them down to the cellar where it was cooler, to cover them up and leave them until the morning to take their pictures.  But they looked so pretty on our brand new cellar shelves that I photographed them there and then.

Before long these shelves will be covered with cobwebs and all the stuff that we keep in the cellar……..

Here’s my recipe for chocolate cupcakes, decorated with cinnamon chocolate, crystallised rose petals and love hearts.  And a huge thank you to Sarah for sending me such lovely ingredients and inspiring me to bake something I wouldn’t usually bake.

Ingredients

For the cakes

115g Stork Baking Liquid (or margarine or butter, softened)

115g caster sugar

2 eggs

140g self raising flour

½tsp baking powder

30g cocoa powder

For the icing

100g cinnamon flavoured milk chocolate (or any milk chocolate)

100g unsalted butter

125g icing sugar

your own choice of decorations or sprinkles

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/165°fan/gas mk 4.  Put 10 cupcake cases into a muffin tin.

Put the Stork liquid, sugar and eggs into a large bowl.  Sift in the flour, baking powder and cocoa and beat until smooth and creamy.

Divide between the cupcake cases and bake for 25 minutes until firm to the touch.   Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, break the chocolate into squares and put into a heatproof bowl.  Place the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the bowl does not touch the water,  and leave until the chocolate is melted, stirring once or twice.  Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

(A good tip here is that it is important to make sure the inside of the bowl is dry and no water gets into the chocolate or it will spoil.)

Put the butter in another bowl and sift in the icing sugar.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Add the cooled chocolate and beat again until smooth.

Pipe or spread a swirl of the chocolate icing onto each cake, sprinkle with the rose crystals and dot a few love hearts here and there.  There are no rules about what you should do with the remaining love hearts if you don’t use the whole packet………..

Makes 10 cupcakes.

NECTARINE, PLUM AND BLUEBERRY TART

Taking part in some of the baking challenges organised by other bloggers each month is quite…….a challenge !!  I find myself cooking things I would otherwise never cook and using recipes that I wouldn’t normally give a second look.  Another delight is seeing what other people have cooked for the same challenge, which has given me loads of ideas that I would love to try.

In the round up of last month’s entries for Tea Time Treats challenge, hosted by Kate of What Kate Baked, there was an entry for easy summer fruit tartlets from a blog called Fabulicious Food.  The idea came from a recipe in the book “Nigella Express” and I thought to myself, “I think I might have that book”.

And sure enough, there it was, on the shelf, amongst all my other Nigella Lawson cookbooks, most of which are consulted fairly frequently, and I had completely forgotten about it.  In fact I don’t remember buying it at all and certainly have never cooked anything from it.  I feel slightly guilty about that.  How can anyone have such a good cookbook in their collection and have never used it or even noticed it was there ??

Anyway, I looked at the recipe the little tartlets originated from, called “nectarine and blueberry galette” and decided to have a go.  What a revelation !!  This has to be the quickest and easiest fruit tart I have ever made and it was lovely.  Not the most glamorous or the most elaborate, but dead easy to make and it turned out beautifully in a “rustic chic” kind of way.

I happened to have some nectarines, plums and blueberries in the house so I made it pretty much as described. 

Except that, anyone who buys ready-made and ready-rolled pastry in France will know that it comes in a circle.  The pastry you get in the UK comes in an oblong – or at least it does in my experience.  And in fact, in the January sales I treated myself to an oblong loose-bottomed tart tin which is the exact size to fit the ready-rolled pastry you get here, and it works a treat.  It was such a bargain that I nearly bought a second one to take to France but then I remembered that there was no point because the French pastry comes in circles.  (I could always make my own pastry to fit the oblong tart tin but……..when in France we are on holiday after all !!)

The point of all this is that I used a pack of ready-rolled pastry that we had brought back from France and put in the freezer, so it was a circle.  In any case, you don’t need a tin at all for this recipe, you just unroll the pastry onto a lined baking sheet.  I even used the baking paper that the pastry came rolled up in as the liner for the baking sheet.  How easy is that?

You mix some apricot jam with some double cream, spread it onto the pastry, arrange fairly thin slices of fruit on top, sprinkle some sugar over and bake.  I used two nectarines, three plums and a good handful of blueberries.

It was done in next to no time, the fastest tart I have ever made and it was yummy.  It looked great too.  The possibilities are endless I think, sliced apple and strawberry, apricots and flaked almonds……..lots of combinations spring to mind, including the little tartlets that gave me the inspiration in the first place.

I can’t believe I have never tried anything like this before !!

Ingredients

1 pack ready-rolled puff pastry (about 375g)

2-3 nectarines

2-3 plums

a good handful of blueberries

2 tblsp apricot jam

2 tblsp double cream

2 tsp demerara sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°fan/gas mk 7. 

Unroll the pastry onto a lined baking sheet.  Using the point of a sharp knife, score a circle (or oblong) about 2cm inside the edge of the pastry to form a border, being careful not to cut all the way through.

In a small bowl, mix the apricot jam and double cream together until evenly combined and spread it over the pastry within the scored circle, using the back of a spoon.

Remove the stone from the nectarines and slice each one thinly into about 16 wedges.  The plums should be sliced into 6-8 wedges so that they are about the same thickness.  Arrange the fruit in concentric circles on the pastry, inside the scored border, or in rows if your tart is oblong.

Scatter the blueberries over the fruit and sprinkle the sugar within the outer border.  This border will rise to form a crust.

Bake for 15 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and the jammy mixture is bubbling slightly.  Serve warm with cream, ice-cream, or whatever you fancy.

Cuts into 6 - 8 good slices.

Here’s a savoury version.  I used two tablespoons of confiture d’echalotes (caramelised onion marmalade or chutney in the UK) mixed with two of double cream for the base and piled on smoked salmon pieces, goats cheese, tomatoes, a lightly cooked sliced leek, slices of pepper and mushrooms.  I forgot to photograph it when it was cooked but it was yummy – you will have to use your imagination !!

This is one of those versatile recipes that is so useful I think.