CHOCOLATE MARGARITA CAKE

When I first looked at the We Should Cocoa challenge for this month, organised by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot, which is for something with a cocktail theme, I knew straight away what I would like to make.

There is only one cocktail that I ever drink – a margarita.

We developed a taste for margaritas when we were on holiday in America a few years ago.  We spent three nights in Las Vegas (three nights is more than enough for anyone I think!) and although it was the first week in October it was baking hot.

One very sultry afternoon, the Strip was heaving with perspiring tourists and we were getting tired and suffering from sensory overload.  Las Vegas is that kind of place.  Too much gosh factor for my little country girl’s brain to take in.  So we dived into the nearest bar, which happened to be Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. 

We tasted our first margaritas and from that moment we were hooked.  We spent the rest of the holiday sampling margaritas at every opportunity.  Everybody does them and they’re all different.  A bit like a sherry trifle !! 

When we got home we did some intensive research to find the perfect margarita recipe and Jimmy Buffet’s turned out to be the one we liked the most.  We even managed to get a set of those rather naff cactus stem margarita glasses to serve them in !!  Believe me, when you get home from work, you’ve had a really bad day, it’s cold and raining, there’s nothing exciting for dinner and you desperately need a boost, there’s nothing beats a margarita to do just that.  My theory is it’s the limes !!  The high zing factor of the cocktail puts the sparkle back into a Tuesday evening and even makes sausage and mash look interesting !!

I didn’t have to look far for a recipe combining chocolate and margaritas.  In Nigella’s book “Kitchen” she has “flourless chocolate lime cake with margarita cream”.

 

This is another recipe for a flourless chocolate torte kind of cake.  It’s also gluten free if you use the right kind of baking powder (or cream of tartar and bicarb instead).  It was easy to make and for some reason Lulu got very excited.  Maybe she associates the smell of lime juice with a very pleasant evening and the possibility of a left-over sausage – who knows what goes on in a dog’s mind ??!!

I had trouble deciding whether the cake was cooked, as you can tell from the number of holes poked in the top.  In the end I took it out of the oven when the maximum baking time was up, even though my tester was still coming out of the cake with mixture stuck to it.  I reasoned that it was meant to be a moist cake and I didn’t want it to be too dry.

The cake is served with a margarita cream, made by whisking together double cream, icing sugar, tequila, triple sec and lime juice. 

The whole thing was divine.  The cake was beautifully moist with just the right amount of chocolate and a hint of lime.  The cream was light, fluffy and fragrant.  It made a fabulous dessert to serve to our guests.

The cake itself is now my joint favourite of its type.  I have made several flourless chocolate tortes and some are far too rich and intensely chocolatey for my taste.  This one is just right.  (My other favourite is the Linda Collister recipe which I wrote about here.)

The interesting thing is, I don’t cook that many of Nigella’s recipes but I often go back to them over and over again.  This is going to be one of those I think.  I followed it to the letter and you can see it here.

PEAR AND GOAT’S CHEESE MINI MUFFINS

Dom’s Random Recipe Challenge at Bellau Kitchen is a bit different this month – he’s joining forces with Kate of What Kate Baked and Karen of Lavender and Lovage, to hold a Teatime Random Recipe.

This is how I came to pass a happy time gathering some of my favourite baking books, choosing one at random and turning the page at random to reveal……….

…….a recipe for pear and blue cheese mini muffins.

The more observant of you will notice that this is not the same as the title of the post.  This is because I didn’t have any blue cheese in stock, but I did have some goat’s cheese.  So I decided to use that.

The book is an M&S cookbook called “1 mix, 100 muffins” by Susanna Tee.  It has been lurking on my bookshelf for some time but I have never made anything from it.  When I let it fall open the last thing I expected was a recipe for savoury muffins, let alone mini ones.  But I do possess a mini muffin tin so that was ok. And there’s nothing wrong with having something savoury with all those cakes, scones and buns served as a teatime treat, so that’s ok too.

I am also linking this recipe to this month’s AlphaBakes challenge, organised by Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline at Caroline Makes.  This month the letter of the alphabet is “P”.  Pear begins with a P so that’s ok too.

The mini muffins were an absolute delight.  The recipe makes 48 mini muffins – all the recipes in the book will make 48 minis or 12 standard muffins.  I didn’t need 48 so I made 24 minis and 6 regular muffins.  They were scrummy.

The book is true to it’s title – pretty much all the recipes are the same basic formula with little variations.  Further exploration revealed that I could have made prawn and parsley, parmesan and pine nut, smoked salmon and dill, brie and redcurrant…..and lots of other flavours of gorgeous little mini muffins.

Next time we have visitors, or a party, I shall be baking these delicious little morsels again………they would be perfect served as nibbles at apéro time I think.

A note at the beginning of the book says that all the muffins therein are perfect for freezing. Thaw for 2-3 hours and reheat on a baking tray at 180C/ 160fan/ gas mk 4, for 10-15 minutes. Now that’s a very handy tip, I think.

Pear and goat’s cheese mini muffins.

Ingredients.

280g plain flour

1 tblsp baking powder

a large pinch of salt

black pepper

2 medium eggs

250 ml milk

6 tblsp sunflower oil

a 400g can pear halves

100g goat’s cheese

40g walnut pieces

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/ 180°fan/ gas mk 6.  Grease two 24-hole mini muffin tins (or one 12-hole regular tin).

Drain the pears and chop them into small pieces.  Chop or crumble the cheese.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.  Stir in the chopped pears and cheese.  Season with salt and pepper and mix together.

Lightly beat the eggs and mix with the milk and oil.  Add to the other ingredients and mix until just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin tins.  Scatter the walnut pieces over the top.

Bake for about 15 minutes until risen, golden and firm to the touch.  (If making regular muffins, bake for about 20 minutes.)  Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes.  Serve warm.

Makes 48 mini muffins or 12 regular ones.

BERRY BAKEWELL CAKE

I spotted a recipe in a magazine recently which was entitled “Bakewell cake”.  It was for an almond flavoured sponge with blackberries in.   It looked like a nice recipe and I happened to have some blackberries so I thought I would give it a try.



Early September is my favourite time of year.  It’s still almost summer but not quite almost autumn.  This year the weather is perfect – the days are deliciously warm and the light has that characteristically mellow golden tinge.  So much nicer than the vicious heat and harsh sun of July and August – not that we’ve had much of that this July and August.  Maybe that’s it.  We expect so little of September but it nearly always surprises us with its warmth, whereas July and August so often disappoint.

Lulu and I had been out blackberrying the very afternoon that I came across the recipe.  I collected about a pound of blackberries.  But I also had half a punnet of shop-bought ones in the fridge that needed using up.  So I decided to use those for the “Bakewell cake” and freeze my foraged blackberries to cheer us up with a crumble later in the year.

As the half punnet was not quite enough for the recipe, I added some chopped strawberries to make up the quantity.  Hence I decided to call the cake “Berry Bakewell Cake”, and it was scrummy.

It was dead easy to make.  A simple creamed sponge mixture with the fruit, demerara sugar and flaked almonds scattered on top.



After half an hour in the oven the cake was beginning to look browned so I put a piece of foil on top of it to prevent it the fruit from burning.  I enjoyed a slice in the garden, with the gentle sunshine and a nice cup of tea.



I would definitely make it again.  It had a sort of rustic sophistication – pretty enough to serve to special friends on a sunny afternoon, easy enough to make for a lunchbox treat.
The only slight change I would make to the recipe is to halve the amount of almond essence, to make the flavour balanced more towards the fruit and less towards the almonds.  More of a berry cake than a Bakewell, in fact.

Berry Bakewell Cake.
(recipe adapted from Morrisons supermarket magazine)

Ingredients
150g unsalted butter, softened

150g caster sugar

3 eggs, beaten

1 tsp almond essence (I would suggest trying ½ a tsp)

100g ground almonds

80g self-raising flour

100g blackberries

100g strawberries, halved

30g flaked almonds

2 tblsp demerara sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°fan/gas mk 4.  Line the base of a 20cm springform cake tin with baking paper and grease the sides (or spray with cake release spray).

In a large bowl, or food mixer, beat the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the beaten eggs, almond essence, flour and ground almonds and mix thoroughly.

Transfer the mixture to the prepared tin and level the surface.  Scatter the fruit on top.  Sprinkle the flaked almonds and demerara sugar on top of that and bake for 50-60 minutes, covering the top loosely with a piece of foil after 30 minutes.

Cool on a rack.  Serve with tea and sunshine in the garden.

Cuts into 8 generous slices.

PALMIERS

I first saw these little morsels of tastiness on TV when Lorraine Pascale made them in her first series, possibly even in her very first programme.  They looked both dead easy to make and very yummy in equal measures, so when we were chez nous in our little French house, expecting visitors, I was thinking about something quick to make for pre-dinner nibbles and decided to give them a go.

I made some tomato ones, using a jar of “delices de tomatoes”, which is a sort of sundried tomato paste.  I also sprinkled on some grated parmesan cheese for good measure.  They were made in a jiffy and went down very well with our guests.

 

Later in the week, with the help of my young baker friends, Isabella and Amélie (more about that later), I also made some Speculoos ones, using a jar of Speculoos spread.  The idea came from one of those little mini French recipe books that you find in petrol stations and supermarkets.  The actual recipe was for pinwheels but I made them into palmiers instead.  They were also a big hit, especially with the two girls !!

 

Definitely worth doing again and the variations of fillings are, I suspect, endless.

Here’s how I made the palmiers.

Ingredients

One pack of ready-rolled, ready-made puff pastry

A jar of sundried tomato paste, or Speculoos spread

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°fan/gas mk 6.  Line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Unfold the pastry and, if it’s a French pastry and therefore a circle,  trim into a square or oblong shape. 

Spread the pastry thinly with your choice of flavouring, right up to the edge.

With the shorter end nearest to you, roll each longer side of the pastry towards the middle, making a sort of double sausage shape – it helps to mark the centre of pastry sheet so you know where to stop rolling.  Brush the inside edges where the two rolls meet with a little beaten egg, milk or water so they stick together.

Cut your double sausage into thin slices using a sharp knife.  Place them well apart on the two baking sheets to allow room for spreading.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until the pastry is puffed up and golden.

Allow to cool on the sheets for a few minutes then transfer to a rack.  Allow to cool completely before serving.

Makes approx. 24 palmiers.

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.