Chocolate and Almond Cake - A Random Recipe

I have been a bit rubbish with blogger challenges recently. I always start the month off full of enthusiasm, checking out the new challenges and thinking about what I could do but then the month happens and blazes past and before I know it I'm reading the round-up wondering where the month went.
Well not this month, at the very least I'm going to get my favourite one done which regular readers will probably figure out is Dom's Random Recipe challenge. I always enjoy the fear of choosing a recipe and wondering which one I will end up suffering through.

This month's challenge is a summer themed one. Yes, Summer, that season where the sun shines, everybody goes bright burnt red, gets food poisoning off undercooked barbecue and is currently Missing in Action. Yeah I'm sure it will turn up eventually.

We were instructed to choose from the summery chapters of our books of which a few came to mind straight away but then this month's summer editions of Olive and Good Food landed and I decided to use them instead. Olive's Italian themed magazine got the nod after a quick flip of a coin and then I landed on page 46-47 and I picked the first recipe I looked at which was a Chocolate and Almond cake from Positano which reportedly grows the best almonds in Italy.

A fairly simple recipe and completely flour less so suitable for that coeliac in your life. The end result is a slightly squidgy cake with the texture resembling a good brownie. This, combined with fresh cream and even fresher strawberries or raspberries to cut through the bitter chocolate, makes a lovely cake/pud to enjoy in the sun when/if it makes an appearance.

Chocolate and Almond Cake
Ingredients
200g good chocolate (70%)
200g butter
250g caster sugar
5 eggs, seperated
250g ground almonds
zest of one lemon

To serve
Icing sugar
Cream
Strawberries/raspberries

Method
Preheat the oven to 190C/170c(fan) and line and butter a 23in cake tin
melt the chocolate in a bowl, over a pan of simmering water. stir in the butter and mix until smooth.
Add the sugar, mix well and  then add the egg yolks.
Remove from the heat and stir in the almonds.
Whisk the eggs in a bowl until they form peaks, add the grated lemon zest then fold very gently into the chocolate mix.
Pour gently into the tin and bake in a preheated oven for 30-45 minutes until the cake pulls away from the sides.
Turn out the cake onto a wire rack and leave to cool.
Dust with icing sugar and serve how you like.

Enjoy

Salmon in a Bag

Awhile back I bought a whole salmon in order to fillet it up and have a good supply of fish for a reasonable price. The whole thing cost about 18 quid and I managed to get about 15 decent fillets off it. not bad at all.

I've been mainly eating them with a jacket potato and some salad for a quick and easy tea.
This time however,  I wanted to do something a little different but still keep the quick and easy element.

It's a simple recipe were (nearly) all ingredients are cooked in a makeshift paper bag and served as it comes.
The lemon thyme is well worth tracking down but a splash of lemon juice will also do the trick.

Ingredients
1 salmon fillet
3-4 sun dried tomatoes, sliced
2 spring onions, sliced
200g new potatoes
Few sprigs of Lemon Thyme
1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
Salt and black pepper

Ingredients
Get the potatoes on the boil with plenty of salted water, depending on the size they should take about 10-15 minutes.
Get a large piece of greaseproof paper and place the salmon fillet in the middle, arrange all the other ingredients around the salmon.
Once the potatoes are soft, drain and slice in half and place around the salmon.
Drizzle over some oil and season with salt and pepper.
Seal up the bag by twisting and folding to reasemble a cornish pasty. ensure the ends are well twisted to ensure the steam stays inside.
Place in a Preheated oven at 180C for about 10-15 minutes.


Serve with a green salad to up your healthiness rating even more


Enjoy

The Greedy Pig Supperclub

I spend the vast majority of my weekends in Leeds and have come to know the City quite well, mainly in relation to where is good to eat and drink.

The Greedy Pig is definitely one of these places. It is a simple little cafe run by Jo and Stu that serves bloody good food and even better breakfasts. We took a friend of mine there who has eaten enough breakfasts to give a cardiologist an heart attack and he walked away raving about it.

Over the past two weeks, Leeds has been hosting its annual food festival with the main festivities taking place this weekend in Millennium Square and Victoria Gardens, cue lots of good food, lots of beer and far too much sun for my fair complexion to take.

As part of this, The Greedy Pig, whilst opening their cafe and running a stall in Victoria Gardens they also hosted their very own supper club in Chapel Allerton, the multitasking heroes.

So off we went....

First off was salmon on a bed of new potatoes. this was delicious, perfectly cooked, full of flavour but very light and fresh which was just what was needed after the heavy food and beer of the day.

For the main course we went for Hogget, not a meat I often get chance to eat and it's a shame really because it is lovely. Hogget, if you are wondering, is a sheep aged between 1-2 years old. Lamb is below a year and Mutton is anything over 2 years. So the meat has had time to mature a bit but still lovely and tender.

This was lovely, soft juicy meat, with fennel, asparagus and a vegetable pilaf.

This would have been enough food but it came with a side of heritage tomatoes and new potatoes.

For the third and final course we opted for one of each of the available puddings, a gloriously gooey chocolate brownie, which I nearly ate the entirety of before I was reminded I was supposed to be sharing, and a face wrinkling slice of the Lemon and Raspberry bar. Both a superb end to the meal and available at the cafe if you ask nicely.

All this lovely food cost only £20 each and well and truly ruined the rest of the night as we had planned on cocktails afterwards but after nearly falling asleep in the pub we decided to call it.

Looking forward to the next one.

Strawberry and Cream Butterfly Cakes

Bit of a retro baking post this one with the Classic Butterfly cake and the beautiful British Strawberry.

I'm sure most of us at one time in our younger days have stood on a chair to reach the counter, covered in flour, whilst painstakingly cutting out the middle dome of cake from little fairy cakes in order to fill it with some random jam and tooth achingly sweet buttercream before placing the little halved dome back on to make 'wings'.

A classic bake for kids if ever there was one, or for grown up kids for that matter...

Being a little bored and in a cakey but lazy mood I did originally plan to make a few simple cakes to have with some strawberries, which are beautiful at the moment, but as ever I couldn't stop there. So with the addition of a little cream  and some icing sugar I relived a small moment of childhood and made these little strawberries and cream butterfly cakes.

Ingredients (makes 5, scale up as required)
1 egg
50g self raising flour
50g butter
50g caster sugar

5-6 strawberries, chopped into little pieces
50ml double cream
Icing sugar to dust

Method
In a bowl, beat the egg, sugar, flour and butter together until smooth and drops off a spoon easily.
Fill 5 cake cases to just below the brim and place in a preheated oven at 180C/160C(Fan) for 15- 20 minutes until nicely golden on top.

Leave to cool whilst preparing your strawberries and whipping the cream until thick.
Cut out a small cone shape out of the middle of the cake and set aside, fill the hole with strawberries and cream.
Half the little dome and place back on the top of the cake with the two flat sides facing each other.
dust with icing sugar and enjoy.

Enjoy

Triple Chocolate Cake of Death

Usually, when baking, the process takes you on a journey. Normally the path is of your own choosing, an idea is formed, ingredients are bought and culinary alchemy is created. However, occasionally the cake takes over and drags you along for the ride.

I was asked recently to make a cake for a colleagues birthday party with my sole brief being: Chocolate.

Now, my usual motto with chocolate cakes is go big or don't bother. So it had to be a triple layer.

I only had 24 hours notice to make this cake so the design had to be settled quickly. I planned to make a simple cake with lots of ganache and some arty curls to finish, but the curls wouldn't play ball so after several attempts I gave up and started throwing the chocolate shavings at the cake then proceeded to stick the remaining shards all over it and voila: the abstract look.

Sometimes you just need to go where the cake takes you.

I advise you use the best chocolate you can afford, it makes a world of difference to the final cake.

Abstract cake/Triple Chocolate Cake of Death
Ingredients
7 eggs (weigh in shell to find the weight for butter sugar and flour)
SR Flour - remove 50g
Caster sugar
Butter
50g cocoa powder

Ganache
300g 72% Dark Chocolate
425ml Double cream
3 tbsp golden caster sugar

Decoration
100g white chocolate
100g milk chocolate

Method
Add all ingredients to a bowl and using an electric hand whisk, whisk all ingredients together until a smooth batter is formed.
Divide the mixture equally between three 18cm lined cake tins.
Bake for about 40 minutes in a preheated oven at 160C (fan) until a skewer can be removed clean.
Leave to fully cool on a wire rack.

Ganache
Heat the cream and sugar until just below boiling. Stir in the chocolate until fully incorporated.Allow to cool slightly.

Decoration
Melt one of the types of chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Pour the chocolate onto a board covered with baking paper spread out thinly and allow to set. Repeat with the other type of chocolate. Drag a sharp knife across the top of the set chocolate to get shavings. one very thin and it starts to break apart add these shards to the cake in a random fashion.

Assembly
Decide on which layer is going where, try and end up with a flat surface on top, trim the cakes with a bread knife if required. Spoon a few spoonfuls of ganache over the first layer then add the middle layer and repeat the process. Add the top layer and pour ganache over it. Use a palette knife plaster the cake until the ganache reaches its setting point and begins to cling to the cake and you get a smooth covering. Attach the shavings and shards at random intervals.

Enjoy

Chicken, Plums and Soy.

I am a bit of a fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. The River Cottage books are superb from the River Cottage Cookbook to the encyclopedic tomes of Fish and Meat to the ever excellent Veg Everyday. The recent offering from Sir Hugh is Three Good Things of which a small sample of the recipes was given out in a newspaper a while back. Fellow blogger Clare at Feast and Glory tried out a sample of the recipes from this in her quest to use all her cookbooks. You can read her post here.

The first dish in her post appealed straight away, a strange but weirdly nice sounding concoction of Chicken thighs, Plums and Soy Sauce. So having nothing better planned for my dinner, I had a wander to the local butcher and picked up 4 fat whole legs, (thigh and drumstick) for the bargain price of £2.40.

Another reason the recipe appealed is because I'm quite a lazy cook and if something can go into one pan then that's all good with me and all this requires is the occasional removal of the roasting tray from the oven to add a few more ingredients.

The end result is amazing. Crispy juicy chicken, a nice little battle between the salty soy and the sweet roasted plums alongside chilli heat with an undercurrent of garlic. The recipe states to serve with plain rice or noodles, I opted instead for buttery polenta which worked extremely well and offset the main flavours very nicely.

This I am definitely going to be making again.


Ingredients (for two)

4 bone-in, skin-on, free-range chicken thighs
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1–4 red, mild-to-medium-hot chillies, to taste
4 garlic cloves, sliced
A thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and coarsely grated
4 plums, halved and stoned
3 tbsp soy sauce
A small bunch of coriander, leaves only, chopped (optional)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

400ml water, salted
100g fine polenta
20g butter

Method
Place the thighs on a roasting tray, drizzle with the oil and season well.Place in a preheated oven at 200C for 30 minutes, turn occasionally.
Remove the tray from the oven and add the chilli, ginger and garlic, roast for a further 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and add the plums and drizzle the soy sauce over the plums.
Roast for a further 10-15 minutes until the plums are soft.
Remove from he oven and rest for 10 minutes.
Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan.
slowly pour the polenta into the water whilst whisking constantly. cook on a low heat until all the water is absorbed, whisk in the butter and some ground pepper.

Serve and Enjoy.

Spiced Rum 'Eccles' Cakes

To the good people of Eccles, I apologise for messing with the recipe for the very fine creation that is the Eccles cake but I have no cinnamon or orange juice/zest so needs must.

To the uninitiated an Eccles cake is a classic bake from the town of Eccles and have been made and sold since at least 1793. It is a simple product of currants and spices wrapped in a flaky pastry casing. I had quite fancied making them since I spied them being sold in the little Marble Brewery pub on Thomas Street in Manchester as part of their bar snack range.

Having a collection of nearly every spice apart from cinnamon and the lack of a orange in the house meant I had to play around and decided to substitute the spices and liquid with a couple of tablespoons of Spiced Rum to give a nice spicy alcoholic kick.

I also found, thanks to Her Royal Highness (Delia), a recipe for a quick flaky pastry which cuts out all the rolling and folding to make normal flaky pastry which you can find right here on her website.

I am entering these for Calender Cakes, a blogger challenge run by Rachel at Dollybakes and Laura at Laura Loves Cakes of which the theme for this month is The Great Village Show a celebration of all things Great British.

Spiced Rum 'Eccles' Cakes
Ingredients
one batch of quick flaky pastry or you could use 500g puff pastry if you want.
75g butter
150g dark brown soft sugar
150g currants
50g mixed peel
3tbsp Spiced Rum

Method
Gently melt the butter in a saucepan. once melted stir in the other ingredients until well combined and leave to cool.
Roll out the pastry until about the thickness of a pound coin.
Cut out circles with your largest cutter, at least 3 inches wide.
Add about half to a full teaspoon of mix to each circle, leaving a gap around the edge, don't over fill.
Wet the edges of the circle with a bit of water and fold up the edges and seal.
Gently roll into a ball with your hands.
Place on a flat surface, seam side down and gently, with a rolling pin, flatten to about 1/2cm-1cm thick.
Repeat with all remaining pastry circles.
Brush each cake with milk and sprinkle with caster sugar
Bake in a preheated oven at 220C (fan) until golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack then serve with a brew.

Enjoy