Choc-orange gluten free biscuits

I've eaten a lot of gluten free biscuits in my time and to understate it, most are disappointing. I'm not sure at what point it became acceptable to ditch gluten and flavour from recipes, but somewhere along the line, it apparently did.

Anyway, after a week of privation with ration book cooking, it was definitely time for something decadent. Something that would melt in the mouth and make me feel good and just a bit naughty. Something that photographed well and didn't look just a little like the dog's dinner. It had to involve chocolate and I particularly had a hankering for a good biscuit. Was I hoping for too much?

Let me just say first that I've never been that into biscuits, with a few exceptions. I used to love Oreos, Chocolate Wheatens and those thin, plain coffee biscuits that were so good for dunking. Otherwise, I can take or leave the average biscuit, or even the fancy ones for that matter. For some reason, I suddenly had to have a biscuit I could ravish. Not the bought type either, but the home cooked, rich, delicious kind. And they had to be gluten free.

To add to my list of exacting demands, I decided that nothing less than a gluten free biscuit that didn't taste like a gluten free biscuit would do. I didn't want to take that first bite, filled with anticipation, and find that I'd replicated the gritty, dry and overly sweet taste that so many store bought gluten free biscuits seem to have. Not after a week on ration food!

What I came up with is my new, all-time favourite gluten free chocolate biscuit. They are full of cocoa, moist but not soggy, sweet but not sickly (unless you try eating more than two in a go and then you may need an ambulance) and most importantly, they do not taste gluten free. At least I don't think so. To put it into perspective, Tim, who I agree will eat just about anything I cook, is addicted and has asked me to hide them. Hide properly too - not put them in one of my usual hiding places. The problem is that I'll still know where they are and I have zero self control.


But down to business. For all my hype, these don't take much to make. I found the dough was a bit sticky so it's preferable that you roll it on or between some non-stick parchment or a baking mat. I also used flour to dust the board, top of the dough and the rolling pin, but try not to use too much. You don't want to fundamentally change the dough by adding too much more flour. I also found it easier to halve the dough before rolling, but you might be more skilled than me.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups gluten free plain flour
3/4 cup good quality cocoa
150g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
fine zest of 1 orange
1 large egg
1 tbsp milk
2 tsp pure vanilla essence
pinch of salt

For the filling:
150g dark chocolate (plus extra)
3/4 cup sour cream
finely grated zest of one orange

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until it becomes pale and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla, milk, zest and salt. Mix together well. Sift the flour and cocoa into the mix and beat slowly until it just combines, and then beat faster until all the ingredients have bound together. Turn out on to a floured board or parchment paper and knead gently with lightly floured hands until it just forms a firm ball.

Halve the dough and roll each piece to about 3-4 mm thick. Using a cookie cutter, cut out shapes. You'll get around three dozen individual biscuits. Place them on a tray lined with baking paper, leaving just a little space between each. They don't spread very much at all. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Melt 150g dark chocolate in a bowl. Remove from the heat and stir in sour cream and zest. Stir until you get a shiny, smooth mixture and then set it aside to cool a little. As it cools it should start to stiffen up. [If it still looks too runny when it cools down, add some more melted chocolate and stir well.]

Top half the biscuits with about a tablespoon of filling in the centre, and place the other biscuit on top, pressing down slightly. Store in an airtight container and hide if necessary!

Super energy slice

I don't have a lot to say about this one. Tim rides a bicycle. A lot. So do his mates. They are constantly hungry, especially before, during and after big rides. Where most of us would be worried about fat and sugar content, these guys insist on cramming in as much of both as physically possible without throwing up. Anyway, apparently my last effort wasn't nearly energy-dense enough. Specific feedback included that it needed chocolate. So here I go again.

This is the new and improved version, dubbed iSnack2.0 by Tim, who incidentally thinks it could have been sweeter. Sigh...

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut

1 cup spelt flour

1 cup fresh apple juice

1/2 cup craisins

1/2 cup muscovado sugar

1/2 cup rice puffs

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 cup sesame seeds

1 egg

100g melted butter

1 tbsp cinnamon

It's simple - mix everything together really well. Press into a greased or lined tin and bake at 180º until golden brown, but don't let it go hard. This should take about 20-30 minutes.

Melt 375g white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Add a half a cup of chopped craisins and stir. Spread over the cooled slice. Allow the chocolate to set and then cut into slabs.

Birthday cake

Yesterday was my birthday. It wasn't very exciting. Not that I was really expecting it to be, especially when it became clear that if we were going to have birthday cake, I'd have to make it myself.

To put this in perspective, I've been cooking ever since I was a kid and I can't actually remember many occasions when I haven't made my own birthday cake. There was the time when I was about eight that my cousin made something with lots of cream and blue icing. And another time mum made a M*A*S*H themed cake with a helicopter on top. But that's about it. I suppose the up-side of the arrangement is that I do whatever I feel like on the day.

Yesterday, I felt like chocolate and rum should be combined in some fashion. At the same time, I didn't want a really heavy, nut-meal based cake that wouldn't rise very much or would be too rich. I felt like your basic type cake. I haven't had one of those in many years.

I used a white spelt flour to achieve the basic style cake, although you could just use a normal self raising wheat flour and forgo the baking powder. I liked it and since people asked for seconds, I think it was a winner.

Ingredients

2 cups white spelt flour

200g dark chocolate

125g butter

3 eggs

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup sour cream

1/4 cup cocoa

1/4 - 1/2 cup milk

2 tbsp rum

1 tbsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180º C.

In a bowl over a saucepan of hot water, melt the chocolate and butter together, stirring as it melts.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture looks pale and thickens slightly. Fold in the chocolate and butter mixture until well combined. Add add the sour cream and rum and combine well. Sift in the dry ingredients and add 1/4 cup milk. Fold in gently or use the slow setting on the electric mixer. The mixture should not be overly runny, but if you feel that it's too stiff, add some more milk.

Line a spring form baking tin and spoon the mixture in. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. At 45 minutes, test whether it's cooked by stabbing it with a skewer. Push it in right the way to the bottom of the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done.

I iced this with a plain white icing spiked with melted white chocolate and topped off with little pink hearts. I enjoyed it, including for breakfast today.

Oh, and I've carefully cut myself out of this photo and left the much more photogenic Layla in as the face of the evening.

Chocolate tart

The memories of my weekend of excesses has not died away just yet. I've been caught looking wistfully through my window at work, thinking of three pleasant days spent going to markets, eating, and chilling out with friends we hardly ever see. Chocolate plays a big part in these memories.

The chocolate tart I made really takes the cake. (Does that even make sense???) I got the recipe for the filling from  'The Naked Chef' by Jamie Oliver. He calls it Simple Chocolate Tart. It is simple. Simple but effective if you're after that slightly stunned silence as people take the first bite and don't know quite what alternate universe they've fallen into where creamy chocolate rules the world and nobody worries about desserts being fattening. The awed expressions of your guests alone should make this one worthwhile. Not to mention the satisfaction of melting mouthful after mouthful until you feel like you shouldn't eat any more but can't help yourself because it's just so damned good...

Ingredients

1 tart shell, baked blind (or just go buy one)

315 ml double cream

2 level teaspoons caster sugar

smallest pinch of salt

115g butter, softened

455g best quality cooking chocolate

110ml milk

cocoa powder for dusting

Place the double cream, sugar and pinch of salt in a pan and bring to the boil. As soon as it has boiled, remove from the heat and add the butter and chocolate. Stir until it has completely melted. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, stirring in the cold milk until smooth and shiny. Sometimes this mixture looks like it has split. Allow to cool down a bit more and whisk in a little extra cold milk until smooth. Scrape all the mixture into the cooked and cooled pastry shell with a spatula. Shake the tart to even it out and allow to cool for around 1-2 hours until it is at room temperature. Dust with cocoa powder. The filling should be smooth and cut like butter. 

And it did... 

Now I made the pastry shell but not using Jamie's recipe. The filling is what makes this amazing. Definitely a sometimes food, and totally worth it. 

Sometimes Food

This really has been a 'sometimes food' weekend. As I sit here blogging and ebaying, I've polished off a lunch of leftovers, including half a chocolate twister bread roll, a sliver of chocolate tart and some cold arancini with dip. YUM! 

To put this into context, I spent a lot of yesterday cooking. Tim and I both had the day off to await the arrival of our good friends Darren and Jayne from the UK. Oh, and let's not forget little Lucy who Ladybug just doesn't quite get. We think she thinks Lucy isn't exactly a person like mum and dad are, but more like some weird kind of hairless dog complete with her own cool toys that she doesn't like to share. All at once the new kong isn't cutting it. But I digress...

Besides the usual pre-houseguest cleaning and shopping, I made a whole lot of food for the weekend. Last night we also had the lovely Penny and Nathan over. The following was served: antipasto plate of char grilled artichokes, baked ricotta, baba ganouch and arancini, followed by a pot roast and baked veg. If that wasn't enough food, we had chocolate tart and vanilla ice cream to finish up.. Even the blokes were struggling so I consider it a job well done. 

This was after I'd made chocolate twister bread from Jamie Oliver's 'Return of the Naked Chef' recipe book, for afternoon tea. Another 'sometimes food' that has gone down extremely well. The premise is to take a basic bread dough recipe, roll it out, spread it with butter and then sprinkle chopped up chocolate and nuts. It's then rolled into one big sausage-like roll, and carefully chopped into rounds. These are baked to perfection. The result is heaven. 

I won't go through the basic bread recipe because it's quite long. It's a great recipe all on it's own, and I used spelt as usual too. Here are the ingredients for the chocolate part.

200g soft butter (although I used slightly less)

200g hazelnuts (although I only had 150g almond meal available)

310 g dark chocolate

I put the chocolate and almond meal in the food processor and whazzed it up pretty well. It was just out of sheer laziness but it worked. 

See pages 222-3 and 226 of The Return of the Naked Chef if you want Jamie's instructions.

Double Choc-Cherry Friands

My mum's favourite sweet is friands. I can live with that. As a Mother's Day treat, I came up with this version. 

I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out. They're fragrant, sweet, moist and altogether delectable. They're filled with little surprises in the form of dark chocolate chips and succulent dark cherries. They look good and decadent. Actually, I'm surprised I had anything left to photograph. And on that note, one half of the team was missing, so I definitely DON'T rate my photo on this occasion. But you get the point. It's a friand. 

Ingredients

1/2 cup plain flour 

1/2 cup good quality cocoa

1 1/4 cups icing sugar

1 cup (100g) almond meal

100g dark chocolate, chopped

5 egg whites 

180g butter, melted

425g can pitted cherries, drained and halved

Extra melted butter for greasing tins

1 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 200ºC. Brush a dozen friand moulds with melted butter.

Sift the flour, icing sugar and cocoa into a large bowl. Stir in the almond meal and chocolate, followed by the cherries. In a different bowl, whisk the eggs until they're frothy. You can do this with a whisk or a fork. Then fold it through the dry ingredients. Next, stir in the vanilla and melted butter until just combined. Be a bit gentle.

Spoon the mix into the moulds. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the friands rise a bit and spring back to the touch. When you pull them out of the oven, let them cool for about five minutes before you try removing them from the moulds. You might need to very gently and gingerly run a knife around the edge of each mould. Serve however you like, warm or cold. 

Filled mocha cake

One night last week, something caught my eye on my bookshelf. It was a compilation of recipes clipped mostly from magazines and newspapers, held together in a cut-down manila folder and tied with a piece of string. I found it years ago in my mother's garage, apparently inherited from a late relative. 

I'd never used anything in it before, but could never bear to throw it away. I guess I see it as a sort of time capsule representing the efforts of some distant person, long gone, in their personal culinary journey. I can imagine them sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and scotch-finger biscuit, kids at school, cleaning done. Finally time for leafing through the latest woman's magazine, a real treat, and scissors nearby in case they found anything interesting or that was bound to come in handy.  Presumably, only the most worthy clippings made it into the folder. 

When I think about it, it's not so different from the scrap books of recipes that I keep. And there's the link. But that's where it stops. 

The recipes are fairly ordinary stuff, befitting their era.  There are recipes for salmon mornay quiche,  noodle and sausage casserole and Montana Mom's Dynamite Cheesecake, amongst other horrors that were no doubt considered very sophisticated throughout the 70's and early 80's. 

There are even some handy hints stashed amongst the recipes. For example, Mrs Gladys.S. of Merrylands writes "if you crochet face washers and hand towels around the outside, not only will they look pretty, but they will last twice as long." Or Mrs W of Kranton's pearl of wisdom:"save the plastic egg-shaped containers that pavlova mix comes in. They make excellent gift containers for birthdays or Christmas." Hmm.....

The compiler of this collection must have sent away for a few promotional pamphlets too, like one from the Bingo Custard Powder company or Bourneville Cocoa. It was something on the cocoa pamphlet that grabbed me - a recipe for spiced cheese cake that you're meant to either use a fancy ring tin for or a slab cake tin and cut into diamond shapes. (!)

I decided the filling sounded good, so I'd do something around that. I came up with a mocha-ish cake,  based on the Bourneville cake recipe. I used a sour cream mocha icing and praline coated  walnuts to top it off. I've always thought that coffee and walnuts go together really well. I know the extra sugar in the praline probably isn't necessary, but it's so very good, I recommend going that further step. As usual, I see no problem with swapping the spelt for regular flour. 

I really like this one for a change. It's been ages since I haven't used proper chocolate in the cake, so it's not as sweet as the last few cakes I've made.  The walnuts make up for it and the slightly burnt sugar taste works beautifully. The sugar isn't actually burnt, it just has that deep flavour to it. The cheese filling in the middle is an excellent contrast - light, very slightly tart, and spiced with cinnamon. Tim is certainly happy with the result. He has asked me outright to hide it, lest it disappears overnight. Not a bad endorsement.

Ingredients:

Cake:

125g butter, room temp

3/4 cup soft brown sugar

3 eggs

1 cup spelt, sifted with 2 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp cocoa

2 tbsp coffee powder

Filling:

250g soft cream cheese (I used Philly 60% less fat)

2 tbsp caster sugar

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp cinnamon

Walnuts:

1/2 cup walnut pieces

1/2 cup caster sugar

Cake: Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the egg, one at a time, mixing in between.  Then add the remaining ingredients and mix until smooth. 

Filling: Blend all the ingredients until smooth.

In a round spring-form cake tin, spoon in half the cake mix and spread over the bottom of the tin. Spread the cheese mixture on top. It doesn't have to be totally even, but be a bit gentle because it's probably best that it doesn't hit the bottom of the tin. The spread the remaining cake on top. Bake for about 1 hour at 180ºC. When it's done, let it cool completely on a wire wrack. 

Walnuts: heat the sugar in a pan, stirring until it becomes liquid. Take it off the heat immediately and working very quickly, mix in the walnuts and then pour or spoon the mixture onto a lined baking tray. Let it cool and harden and then chop into rough bits. Be really, really careful when working with molten sugar. It's the worst kind of burn. I got the tiniest drop in my finger and it hurt. A lot. 

Frosting:  I admit I didn't take down the icing ingredient quantities at the time, but here's what I did: I based it on a very basic butter cream icing recipe, but instead of any water or milk, I used sour cream. I threw probably about 2 cups of pure icing sugar in the mixer and mixed it dry to get rid of the lumps. (I was feeling lazy.) I then threw in about a tablespoon of butter and then about two tablespoons of lite sour cream. Add more icing sugar if it's too runny, or more sour cream if it's not. You'll figure it out. Once you get the consistency right, add a couple of tablespoons of cocoa and one of powdered instant coffee.

Ice the cake and sprinkle the walnuts on top liberally. 

Easiest chocolate brownies ever

The chocolate gingerbread turned out so well that it got me talking to colleagues about it. A promise was soon extracted from me to supply something along the same lines for Monday morning tea as well as a recipe for chocolate cheese cake. The recipe was duly copied and stuffed in my diary, and then I recalled promise number two and set to work.

Polly, a super talented and creative friend of ours, emailed me her recipe for chocolate brownies, assuring me it was delicious and no-fail. Well she was right. It did not fail. It turned out great. What failed was me. 

I must have had some kind of brain explosion during the making of these brownies. First I found I didn't have enough walnuts. Not fatal. I toasted some almonds to make up the difference. Then I was slightly short on chocolate. OK again since Polly and others had given me, sorry, us, a 1kg bag of Lindt as a wedding gift. I didn't want to open it just yet since I know it could lead to surreptitious depletion by Tim while I'm away this week, but I had to take the risk. Next, the batteries in my scales died. I removed batteries from something else and used them. I then managed to fling half the flour onto the floor because I  very un-cleverly added it to the mix while the whole thing was whizzing on high speed. Finally, I managed to get the gooey mixture all over me, several pieces of equipment, fresh fruit, the clock and the dog. [To explain about the dog, normally I leave her outside while cooking because she tends to get under-foot, hoping for a tidbit. On this occasion, I let her in to lick up the flour off the floor - I couldn't find the mop and Tim was out. Anyway, she was still hanging around when things went further awry. When Tim got home I bribed him with a brownie to bath her. Neither party were amused.]

The point is, despite my uncharacteristic clumsiness and lack of attention to detail (like chucking things in the mixer in my own order), this recipe worked really well. I didn't ice it as I found it suitably sweet, but if this isn't enough sugar for you, knock yourself out. Thanks Polly -  this one's a winner!

Ingredients:

200g dark chocolate

175g butter

2 eggs

230g soft brown sugar

125g plain flour (I used spelt - I was NOT going to be denied brownies!)

40g good quality cocoa

100g walnuts

100g extra chocolate if you want it especially rich

Melt the butter and chocolate in the pan and then leave to cool slightly. Beat the eggs and sugar until pale and thick. Fold in the cooled chocolate mixture. Mix in the sifted flour and cocoa and then fold through the nuts and optional extra chocolate. 

Pour the mixture into a pan or tin (I used a lamington tin) and bake for 20 - 30 minutes at 180º C. Test at 20 minutes. 

If you want to ice it, Polly's recommended icing mix consists of 200g dark chocolate, (melted and cooled), 125g sour cream and 30g icing sugar. Mix the whole lot together, spread on the brownies in the tin and refrigerate overnight.

Chocolate Gingerbread

My first week back after four weeks off work was salvaged only by the discovery of the last piece of chocolate gingerbread in the fridge. I ate it by myself on the back step while reflecting quietly on the previous month, shivering a little from the Autumn chill in the air and ignoring the searching gaze of Ladybug. Of course, this happened on Tuesday night and the week rapidly descended into a the daily grind that I hadn't missed at all in the preceding weeks.

Although I was greeted with very genuine exclamations of 'thank God you're back' on my return to work, I wasn't convinced that I was ready to get back to the salt mines. Sigh... I really could have gotten used to a life with no sleep deprivation, reading for fun and cooking with chocolate more than once a week. Or perhaps not. (I weighed myself this morning for the first time since before the wedding when I couldn't stop losing weight if I'd tried (which I did try after the final dress fitting) and thought 'oops!')

Anyhow, along the way I made the most delicious cake/brownie I have made in a very long time. It's adapted from the wonderful Nigella's Feast (p278) and I served it as dessert at Good Friday lunch. It's now a firm favourite. I've made gingerbread, ginger cake, chocolate brownies, biscuits and cakes, but have not put the two together in a baked good. For whatever reason, chocolate and ginger baked together really, really works. 

I adapted this to my own special needs by using spelt, brown sugar and upping the ginger content slightly and I can swear by this as an easy and delectable bake that should impress anyone with functioning taste buds.

Ingredients:

175 g unsalted butter

125g dark muscovado sugar (or brown sugar)

2 tbsp caster sugar

200g golden syrup

200g treacle or molasses (I used treacle)

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger (I used 4 tsp)

1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tbsp warm water

2 eggs

250ml milk

275g plain flour (I used spelt flour)

40g cocoa

175 g chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170ºC and line a roasting tin or dish of approximately 30cm x 20 cm x 5cm deep.

In a decent sized saucepan (and make sure it is b/c I started off with something way too small and had to switch), melt the butter along with the sugars, golden syrup, treacle or molasses, loves, cinnamon and round ginger. In a cup dissolve the bicarb or soda in the water. Take the saucepan off the heat and beat in the eggs, milk and bicarb and water mix. It will froth up a bit at this point, hence no small pan! 

Stir in the flour and cocoa and beat with a wooden spoon to mix. Fold in the chocolate chips, pour into the lined tin and bake for about 45mins until risen and firm. It will be slightly damp underneath the set top and that's the way you want it.

Put the whole thing on a wire rack and let it cool. 

For the icing:

250g icing sugar, sifted

30g unsalted butter

1 tbsp cocoa

60ml ginger ale

In a heavy based saucepan, heat the butter, cocoa and ginger ale. Once the butter's melted, whisk in the icing sugar. Lift the chocolate gingerbread out of the tin and unwrap the paper. Pour over the icing just to cover the top and cut into generous chunks. I served with a dollop of double cream but there's no need for extras.

This is really nice fresh and soft out of the oven, but will keep for several days in the fridge. When it's cold, it has a texture more like a heavier brownie. 

Chocolate mud cake (a food group of its own)

In one week and three days, I will be on leave for a whole month. Not that I hate my job, because I actually love it, but I am counting down the days, hours and minutes until my freedom touches down at Canberra airport on Friday night. My last day will be the longest - a day-trip to Melbourne with the boss. I can hardly contain my excitement.

Today was a particularly long and treacherous day in the office; one that required careful maneuvering to avoid prickly obstacles such as colleagues best avoided (arch nemesis getting out of the lift) and the extra work that seems to flow into our pod like maple syrup onto Tim's cornflakes. (Yes. He really does that). My stance on the matter is that I can't tidy everything up before I leave if I keep getting new stuff. So far, nobody has pressed the point. 

It was also a day that required chocolate. I was soooo good too. I turned down my favourite choc-hazelnut brownie from the deli down the street, I didn't cave when I saw a new batch of double chocolate chip gluten free cookies at the coffee shop across the road. I didn't even open the box of chocolates I have stashed for the honeymoon (don't bother looking Tim - you'll never find them) or dip into the Italian hot chocolate mix. 

Only now have I cracked and it's been in the pathetic form of four Nestle dark chocolate melts. I have officially resorted to cooking chocolate. I hang my head in shame. 

I hope to salvage some self respect by sharing why the really good, organic, $40 a kilo dark chocolate is gone. I put it in a killer chocolate mud cake for my sister's birthday. This is divine, although Tim didn't find it sweet enough, but then he does eat maple syrup on corn flakes. You can really taste the luscious, good quality chocolate and cocoa in this cake and I think it goes brilliantly with the olive oil flavour. In fact, in the past I've used virgin olive oil and I think it tastes fantastic. If you don't like the flavour, just use unsalted butter and if you don't want to use liqueur, use milk instead. 

Ingredients

375g olive oil spread (or butter), softened

1 1/3 cup brown sugar

2 cups spelt flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup cocoa powder

200g dark chocolate, melted

3/4 cup creme de cacao (or milk)

3 eggs

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer for about 10 minutes, or until light and creamy. Add eggs in one by one. Beat the whole thing until well combine. Fold through the flour, baking powder and cocoa. Combine well. Then fold through the chocolate and stir in the liqueur or milk. 

Spoon the mixture into a 22cm spring form tin lined with baking paper and bake in a 160º C oven for about 1 1/4 hours or until cooked - use the skewer test. Cool it in the tin. I decorated with little hand-rolled truffles, but you can just dust with cocoa or icing sugar or leave it plain. I wouldn't ice this one personally, but it might suit the super sweet-tooths to do so. 

Secrets of the Tim Tam

There's no question about it - Aussie's love their Tim Tams. Check out this cool gallery to see how they're made. What floored me is the massive quantities (we're talking tonnage here folks) of chocolate butter and other sweet stuff that get used every single day in the making! The whole conveyer thing is pretty cool too. 

http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5035712-5007150-1,00.html

A cookie a day...

One of my favourite cook books is Nigella Lawson's 'Feast'. It's a beautiful book, jam packed with recipes, stories and great photos. I have a few favourites in this book, and these cookies are now one of them. I made them on Sunday morning and by Sunday night they were gone, except for a few I'd put aside for colleagues. The Cookie Monster had struck! No guesses who that is in our house.  

These are seriously good anyway and despite note being allowed to eat wheat, I had to risk it and try a bite. I'm really glad I did. They're packed with the sweet, yet slightly tart little cranberries, and the smoothness of the white chocolate that makes them feel slightly decadent. Yes, they're sweet, but not something you'd eat every day. Especially if you live with the human equivalent of a locust and there's not much left at the end of the day! 

I think these are a good special occasion cookie, if such a thing exists, and a great option for Christmas if you're over the whole gingerbread thing. (Stay tuned for gingerbread recipe).

Cranberry and white chocolate cookies

From Nigella Lawson's Feast, p 82

Ingredients

140g flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

75g rolled oats

125g soft unsalted butter

75g dark brown sugar

100g caster sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

75g dried cranberries

50g pecans, roughly chopped

140g white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/ 180ºC

Measure out the flour, baking powder, salt and rolled oats into a bowl. Put the butter and sugars into another bowl and beat together until creamy - this is obviously easier with an electric mixer of some kind, but you just need to put some muscle into it otherwise - then beat in the egg and vanilla.

Beat in the flour, baking powder, salt and oat mixture, and then fold in the cranberries, chopped pecans and chocolate chips or white chocolate, chopped into small dice. Set the bowl of biscuit dough in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.

Roll tablespoons of dough into a ball with your hands, and then place them on a lined or greased baking sheet and squish the dough balls down with a fork. You may need two baking sheets or be prepared to make these in two batches.

Cook for 15 minutes; when ready, the cookies will be tinged a pale gold, but be too soft to lift immediately off the tray, so leave the tray on a cool surface and let them harden for about 5 minutes. Remove with a spatula or whatever to cool fully on a wire rack.

An engaging evening

What a fabulous weekend it has been! Full of good food and excellent company. 

Where do I start? Perhaps with the visitors - my oldest friend, Fleur, and her extremely new fiance of one week who I've never met before, drove down from Sydney to meet and greet. Sensible, since they plan to get married soon and Fleur thinks I should be a bridesmaid. They'd travelled here partly on the promise of a nice dinner, so I thought I'd better do something special. I'd envisaged a night of candlelight, glittering glassware and polished silver, with me serving in a nice little dress to the sounds of sparkling conversation. Got most of it right. Candles burnt, glassware glittered, silver shone and conversation was mostly sparkling. Dress stayed in cupboard. 

After a visit to the beauty therapist who generously shared her floral arrangement with me after hearing that I was planning a celebratory dinner for at least one person I'd never met and was therefore slightly nervous about the whole thing, I was very nearly wiped out on the road by someone who wasn't paying attention. Not being one to dwell, I popped in to my mum's house to pick up a white damask table cloth (can anyone believe that I don't own a white table cloth myself???) and some antique silver parfait spoons. Linen and spoons in hand, I made my way to the supermarket for what I hoped would be fresh raspberries, but for the price of a single punnet of raspberries, I bought a punnet each of strawberries and blueberries. Then home, although temporarily stymied on the Cotter Road by either a triathlon in progress or road works. It was never clear which. With time ticking away, there was no time to wait, so over the island I went and did a u-turn, back through the suburbs and over the hill and finally, home. Where I got started on preparing dinner. It was 12.30pm and I wasn't sure when the happy couple were due. I needn't have worried. Shortly after I got a text - ETA 4pm.

Anyhow, I had carefully planned the menu and had even written down a game-plan for preparation.  Actually it pretty much went to plan and well before they arrived, I had prepped all the veg, made up vol au vant filling, marinated, mixed and chopped, cleaned the kitchen, washed the dog (Tim did that in truth but I had to assure the dog that we still loved her and this wasn't torture), polished the aforementioned silver parfait spoons and the candle stick, starched and ironed the damask (*%@#!), showered and even straightened my hair. Sigh.... 

Now to put the magnitude of this weekend into perspective - David (fiance) is the answer to everyone's prayers. He is nice. He is genuine. He is easy to look at. He has a job, a home, manners, appears to understand the concept of personal hygiene, can take a joke and be self effacing and funny, and perhaps most importantly, he is the antithesis of every boyfriend that Fleur has ever had at any time in the past that I am aware of. I mean it when I say 'thank God'. On top of all of this, David (or Dave to those of us who know him well) wants to marry Fleur. Soon. What a man! The upshot of this scenario is that dinner had to be good. 

When Fleur and Dave arrived, we all relaxed pretty quickly because he is so nice, well mannered, etc. We'd anticipated dressing up for dinner, but in the end, it was all too much trouble and thongs were the footwear of choice. It so didn't matter because the food and company were great and the occasion was pretty special. So as not to delay the champagne drinking, I served some baba ganoush, hummus and beetroot dip that I'd made during the week. This went down a treat. I'd never made beetroot dip before so I was pretty thrilled that it worked out. All I did was cook up some finely chopped beetroot in some olive oil with a little bit of garlic and thyme, and then whizzed it up in the processor with some Greek yogurt, lemon juice and salt. Easy.

Next, I made up a dozen vol au vants. I recall these as being de rigeur in the 1980s at any smart suburban dinner party. Being a child in the 1980s I didn't actually attend many smart dinner parties, and yet I have a strong conviction that this is what was done. I spied some in the supermarket the other week and thought it was time that the vol au vant made a comeback. But no white, cheesy sauce with tinned asparagus for me. I chopped up some smoked salmon and mixed it in with some very creamy, fresh ricotta, threw in a tablespoon of baby capers, and a pinch of black pepper. I garnished with a little more salmon, caper and some very finely chopped parsley. The filling mix is gorgeous and would translate into a nice sandwich filling. I actually had some on a savoury crepe today, having run out of bread.

For the main course, I took four large quail, butterflied them, and marinaded overnight in a mixture of lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, salt, pepper, sweet paprika and fresh thyme. These went on the BBQ until done and pretty crispy on the outside. (I also made up some organic, free-range chicken skewers just in case the quail wasn't enough on it's own. It wasn't). Having debated what to serve quail with with my boss last week, I went with his brilliant idea of an onion jam which took about 10 minutes to make and was served straight away. I added some fresh chilli. Not too hot but gave it a nice little kick. It's easy to do - take a large red onion, about 3 tablespoons of brown sugar and half each of a long red and long green pepper, sliced into rounds and with most of the seeds removed. Put these in a fry pan and cook in some olive oil until they're all soft and the mixture is thickening up into, well, into a jam. Delicious.

For veg, we had a mix of lightly pan fried asparagus, broccolini and green beans, splashed with lemon juice and some chopped bacon that I'd fried to almost a crisp. Also some baked potatoes and just to cover all bases, I took some baby Mediterranean salad leaves and dressed with balsamic and olive oil. 

To end, I served a two-tone chocolate mousse that will be the subject of another post. I will need to explain the challenge that was involved in the white part. For a while there, it was not looking good.

It sounds like a lot of different things, but the flavours all complemented each other and everything worked pretty well. If anyone has a fool-proof way of getting baked potatoes to come out crispy, please let me know. I tried the old par-boil (microwave) followed by a very hot oven and olive oil. Didn't work for me. Perhaps I need practice?

Well the weekend is just about over and it's off to another working week shortly. Congratulations Fleur and Dave and I can't wait until the wedding!

Good chocolate

Is there any other kind??? Arguably not. Anti-oxidants galore, all wrapped in mouth-watering, divinely sweet, chocolatey goodness. It was made that way for a reason, so let's vote to remove the luxury tax - it's a necessity, like water or sex.

Which is why, after a helluva long day like today, I needed some. 

These days I measure the productiveness of my weekend by how much really good cooking I've managed, and how well it looks in photographs. This weekend was excellent. Gorgeous weather, blue skies, birds singing, the smell of freshly mown grass and washing on the line. And a great chocolate cake. Bliss. 

I really had my doubts about this recipe because it looked almost too easy, but mostly because it called for melting the chocolate with a minute bit of 

milk. That just turned the whole thing into a fudgy sludge and had me cursing  the waste of 250g decent dark chocolate. (Although I would have rolled it into balls and sold it to Tim as 'truffles' or something of that ilk). 

Surprisingly, the whole thing mixed beautifully, was really simple, and came out perfectly. This cake is deceptively moist, and given that there's not an ounce of butter in it, that's an achievement. Must be the 6 eggs! It means there's no heavy or greasy residue which is a plus. Also, the hazelnut meal works to give it an interesting texture and extra flavour - better than flour. Hazelnuts are like walnuts - not a fan of them au natural, but combine them in any way with chocolate, and they're pretty special.

Time to be healthy...

Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

Wheat & Gluten Free, Jody Vassallo p 87

Ingredients:

250g (8oz) dark cooking chocolate chopped

2 tbsp milk

120g (4oz) hazelnut meal

1/2 cup (125g/4oz) caster sugar

6 eggs, separated

Preheat oven to 180º (350ºF/Gas 4). Line a 20cm (8in) spring form tin with baking paper.

Put the chocolate and milk into a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Do not let the base of the bowl touch the water. Stir over medium heat until the chocolate has melted. Set aside to cool slightly.

Put the chocolate mixture, hazelnut meal, sugar and egg yolks into a bowl and mix to combine. (I mixed everything except the chocolate mix first, and then combined it)

Whisk the eggs in a clean, dry bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and spoon into the prepared tin. 

Bake for 45 minutes or until firm. Allow to cool in the tin for 5 mins. Serve with fresh berries. Serves 8. (Or 1 x Tim)

New speed record set!

That's right folks, I set a new speed record when I took my chocolate souffles out of the oven! They fell faster than a euro dropped from the top of the Eiffel Tower. (Not that I've ever tried that. Just sticking to a French theme...)

They may have been a little flatter than I would have liked, but man they tasted goooooooodddd!!! Just ask Tim. I practically had to engage in hand to hand combat once he'd finished his and I still had some left.

I've always wanted to try making a souffle and as the Festival of Tim drew to a close, I decided it was time to try. I'd heard they were difficult to master. It's true. They are. Well sort of. It's not hard to follow all the instructions and put the ingredients together and get it in the oven, but the second I took mine out of the oven, their chocolatey, air-filled walls of tasty goodness deflated, right before my eyes! This made it very hard to photograph.

Undefeated, I intend to keep trying. It's likely this weekend will result in a recipe from a French cook book for zucchini souffle. Actually the photos look divine and I have nothing against zucchini.

Chocolate Souffle

Donna Hay: Simple Essentials - Chocolate, page 80

Ingredients:

melted butter for brushing

caster sugar for dusting

150g (5 1/4 oz) dark chocolate, chopped

1/3 cup (80ml/2 1/2 fl oz) cream (single or pouring)

1/4 cup (30g/1 oz) cocoa powder, sifted

6 egg whites

1/2 cup (110g/3 3/4 oz) caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180º C (350ºF). Brush 4 x 1 cup (250ml/ 8 fl oz) capacity dishes with butter and dust with caster sugar. Place on a baking tray. Melt chocolate, cream and cocoa in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth.

Place egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk until soft peaks form. Gradually add extra sugar and whisk until thick and glossy. Fold a quarter of the egg white mixture through the chocolate mixture. Gently fold remaining egg whites through and spoon into prepared dishes.

Bake for 20 minutes or until souffles are pugged and set. Serve immediately. (I served with whipped cream)

Nigella and I

Nigella Lawson is one of those celebrity cooks that polarizes opinions  - people either love her or don't. I'm one of the lovers. I think what I like about Nigella is that she's a true girly-girl, gorgeous and unabashed, not a professional chef and has a love of food and cooking that not all celebrity cooks/chefs exude.  And yet, I never really got that in to her show. I'm not sure why that was - perhaps tricky scheduling or lack of advertising or whatever, but I certainly love her books. My favourite is 'Feast' and was given to me by my sister and brother a few Christmases ago with a book mark in the chapter entitled 'Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame' and strict instructions that I was to work my way through this chapter for their birthdays.

Well this past weekend was my sister's birthday and I could not disappoint. I looked to Nigella's chocolate indulgences for guidance and decided on the 'old-fashioned chocolate cake.' 

I think when it comes to baking, Nigella makes it simple whenever possible. Simple as in you can do it the long way of whisking butter and sugar and eggs, etc, or you can put the whole lot into a food processor and whizz it all up until it looks like cake batter. I've seen her do this on her show to great success. I did the first, but only because I don't yet have a food processor to call my own.  It was still pretty simple!

Everything went as it was described, but then I was a bit surprised when I pulled the two cakes out of the oven as they looked quite flat, and the cake in the picture seemed a lot bigger. Silly me for doubting her! There is enough chocolate icing to put in the middle and everywhere else and this added significant bulk to the end product. I also thinly sliced up some fresh, sweet strawberries and put them in the middle with the frosting. I did this because I had about three punnets in the fridge I needed to use, (still have two left) but also because the icing is so rich that I felt it needed some freshening or risk people being unable to go on once they hit the centre.  Also, they created a lovely scent. 

Don't do what I did with the icing and be impatient for the chocolate mixture to cool. If you do, you'll have the kind of sloppy mess I first created. I saved it with some extra icing sugar but probably just could have waited for it to cool down a bit more. I live and learn...

All in all, I rate this as a simple cake to make, it turned out like the one in the picture in the book, and it went down really well with everyone. The most frequent comment was 'it's really rich' but that didn't stop people from trying for seconds. I think serving with some fresh cream would also work.

The recipe is below, but I've summarized the instructions into a less flowery form as they go over a page otherwise. 

Old-fashioned chocolate cake

p 269, Feast by Nigella Lawson

For the cake:

200g plain flour

200g caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

40g best-quality cocoa

175g soft unsalted butter

2 large eggs

2 tsp real vanilla extract

150ml sour cream

For the Icing

75g unsalted butter

175g best quality dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

300g icing sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

125ml sour cream

1 tsp real vanilla extract

sugar flowers, optional

Take everything out of the fridge so all ingredients can come to room temp. Preheat oven to gas mark 4/180C and line and butter two 20cm sandwich tins with removable bases. 

Put all the cake ingredients into a food processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter. Or do what I did and take the long road by slowing mixing things in...

Divide the batter into the two tins. Cook for about 35 minutes, although start checking at 25 minutes. You may also want to switch the two tins around halfway through cooking time. 

Remove cake in their tins to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out of tins. Don't worry about any cracks as they'll be covered by the icing later.

For the icing: melt the butter and chocolate in a bowl in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Go slowly either way so to avoid burning or seizing. While this is happening, sieve the icing into another bowl. 

Add the golden syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla, and when combined, add the icing sugar. This can be done in a food processor. 

Sit one of the cakes on plate or stand of your choice, domed side down. Spoon about a third of the icing on to the centre of the cake and spread it until even. Sandwich the other cake on top and spread the rest of the icing on top and over the sides. 

Decorate with little flowers or however.