Chocolate Rum Cake - A Random Recipe

Don't particularly want to write this post but rules are rules and blog I must.

This months Random Recipe challenge over at Belleau Kitchen was to randomly choose a book and then go to the very centre of the book and cook that recipe. I did plan to randomly pick the book but then I saw this little book sat on my shelf that I had not used yet so I opted for that one instead. The book was Mary Berry's 100 Sweet Treats and Puds and the middle recipe was - Chocolate Rum cake. so far good, so on I went with the baking.

Reading the recipe it seemed a little odd and overly complicated involving separating eggs, beating the yolks with the sugar and whisking the whites and folding them into the mix but still if it makes a good cake then so be it.

It didn't.

The end result was a very flat cake that barely rose and the small amount it did rise sank back once removed the oven, even with the cake fully cooked.

The topping quantities make way to much, I still had half a bowl left over after drowning the cake.

The cake itself was incredibly dry, claggy and with a chalky texture, I don't know if this was my fault by splitting the mixture between two tins instead of one tin, can't see how it would make much difference to the overall texture.

The flavour of the rum barely came through either.

Here is the recipe if you want to give it ago, you may have better luck.

Ingredients
200g plain chocolate
100g cubed butter
3 large eggs separated
100g dark muscavdo sugar
50ml dark rum
75g self raising flour
50g ground almonds

Filling and icing
225g plain chocolate
100g butter, cubed

Method
Melt the chocolate with the butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.
Allow to cool slightly
Beat the eggs yolks and sugar together until pale and creamy.
Add the chocolate and rum and mix well.
Fold in the flour and almonds.
Whisk the egg whites until they turn stiff but not dry and fold into the mixture.
Pour into the tin and level the surface
Bake for 45 minutes until a skewer is removed clean. (I used two tins and reduced the baking time to 20 minutes)
Allow to cool for a few minutes then turn out onto a wire rack.

Filling and topping
Melt the chocolate in the same way.
Add the cubed butter and stir until incorporated, use to fill and decorate the cake.

Spanish style chicken thingy

Tonight tea was the result of a rummage around to see what I could find combined with the inherent laziness a Sunday evening brings on.
I think its something to do with that irritating beeping thing looming ever closer at stupid o clock the next morning. Well with this dish you can forget all that and lose yourself dreaming of sunny Spanish weather and relaxing with a glass of vino while pretending that the lashing rain and howling winds of a British summer is mealy the crashing waves of the beach ahhhh....

With this dish you basically chuck everything in a dish and roast it, I've suggested serving it with spuds and salad but throw the spuds in the dish with everything else to save even more time and effort if you like, don't put the salad in though.


Ingredients
2 chicken legs or 4 thighs
1 red pepper
4 onions
4 cloves of garlic
100g ish chorizo
sprinkling of olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Method
Peel and cut the onions into wedges.
Slice the peppers into strips
Peel and bash the garlic
Chop the chorizo into £1 sized pieces.
Throw everything into a roasting dish and drizzle with  a bit of a oil.
Wrap with foil and roast for an hour at 180C.
Remove the foil and stir the veg and chorizo so they are covered in juices.
Turn the oven up to 200C for about half an hour until the chicken skin gets brown and crispy.

Serve with spuds and a salad
Enjoy

Roasted Beetroot and Sour Cream Soup

I don't cook a lot with beetroot, not sure why. Its cheap, a kilo cost me £1.50 and i love the earthy sweet flavour of the stuff. I did make this stew with beetroot once but the flavour was masked slightly by everything else in there.

I spied this recipe in Sir Hugh's River Cottage Veg Everyday, a superb book which I have mentioned before and will mention again until you buy it and agree with me, and decided to give it ago.

The recipe itself is very simple it's basically scrub, roast, peel and blend. There are not many other ingredients which allows the beetroot to sing and sing it does especially after its been roasted for an hour..

The recipe calls for horseradish cream but I cannot stand horseradish and to put it on beef is a food crime so it was going nowhere near this soup, instead I opted for a good dollop of sour cream to cut through the sweetness.


Roasted Beetroot and Sour Cream Soup

Ingredients
1kg beetroot
2-3 sprigs of thyme
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled and bashed
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp rapeseed/olive oil
750ml veg stock

Sour cream and thyme sprigs to serve

Method
scrub the beetroot and place whole in a roasting dish.
Add the garlic, thyme and oil and mix around so they are well covered.
add a wineglass of water to the dish and cover tightly with foil.
roast at 200C (fan) for an hour until a skewer can be inserted without force.
Leave to cool.
Top and tail the beetroot and rub/peel the skins off. Slice and dice with a knife.
Stick into a blender with the roasting dish juices, the garlic squeezed out of it's skin and the veg stock.
Bleeeeeeeeend
Transfer to a pan and heat to required temperature, don't boil it.
Add a dollop of sour cream and a few sprigs of thyme.
Serve.

Verdict
Well I took one spoonful, abandoned the spoon and drank it out of the bowl so make your own judgements.

Enjoy

Vinegar Loaf

Before you click off and go look at something else, give me a second to explain and trust me on this one.

Recently I was given a cake from the OH Grandma who from what I can gather and from the evidence of this particular cake is an excellent baker of the traditional sense. The cake was a vinegar cake, sounds appetising doesn't it? However what the cake is in fact is a fruit loaf. The vinegar refers to the raising agent inside the cake which is an old war time standard when eggs were sparse and something was required to provide volume and make the cake rise. The vinegar reacts with the warm milk and soda causing the reaction needed to make the cake rise and trust me you cannot taste the vinegar at all.

I am entering this cake into this months AlphaBakes blogger challenge, hosted by Ros from The more than occasional baker (this months host) and Caroline from Caroline Makes, in which the main ingredient, technique or name of the bake must begin with that months chosen letter which this month is V.

Recipe courtesy of the OH's Grandma
Ingredients
1lb Plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice
3oz lard
3oz butter
8oz caster sugar
1 lb mixed dried fruit
2 tsp bicarb
1/2 pint warm milk
2 tbsp malt vinegar

Method
Mix the flour with the spice and salt and then rub in the fats.
stir in the sugar and dried fruit
In a separate bowl add the bicarb and pour over the milk and then add the vinegar, watch it fluff up.
Stir in the dry ingredients until well combined.

Add to a lined and greased loaf tin of your choice, I decided to use 4 little ones.

Bake in a preheated oven at 160C(Fan) for about 40 minutes and a skewer comes out clean.
Serve with a brew

Verdict
Soft, moist, sweet with little tiny kicks of spice, all in all a bloody good and easy to make cake with no vinegar taste before you ask.
 

Olympic Food Challenge

Official Olympic food and drink - McDonald's, Coca Cola, Heineken, Cadburys.

I'll pass thanks.

Instead for this, the Games of the XXX Olympiad, me and several bloggers lead by our fearless leader and creator of this challenge; Ewan Mitchell of Tonight's Menu, are going to eat our way around the world.

Each blogger has been allocated 19 countries and during the Games we have to research, cook and blog something from those 19 countries.

More information can be found at the official blog: http://olympicfoodchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/

Here is the list of countries that I have been allocated:

Albania
Bolivia
Brunei
Cape Verde
Cote D'Ivoire
Eritrea
Finland
Indonesia
Jamaica
 Kenya
Latvia
Liberia
Luxembourg
Mauritius
Namibia
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkey
Tuvalu
Uganda

As you can see it's quite an interesting mix, some are quite easy to find a dish from others are a bit more tricky.

I plan to bake a good portion of my countries for several reasons, 1. I like to bake. 2. It gives me some breathing room in case I fall behind with 19 dishes over 19 days which is likely to happen.

If you have any suggestions to what I could cook/bake from any of the countries then feel free to let me know. All suggestions are appreciated

Mr @joolscyprien has already been kind enough to provide a recipe for Jamaican curried ox cheeks

See you at the Olympics

Victoria Sponge with Blueberry Jam and Blackberries

I was a little bored last bank holiday weekend. I didn't have much to do or places to go therefore I did what I usually do when I'm bored, I bake. I made two types of biscuit, Dark Chocolate & Ginger and  Cinnamon & Date. I also made this cake.
At a recent Appetite Sheff event I won a set of preserves from Just Preserves and they have been sat in my cupboards since then, mainly because I don't eat much Jam and when I usually have toast it's smothered in beans and cheese, so I wanted to put it to good use and you don't get much better than a quality Victoria Sponge.

If you have never made one then be ashamed because its very easy. 4 ingredients (not including fillings) a little effort, half an hour ish baking and voila you got yourself a cake.

Ingredients (for two 22cm cake tins)
250g soft Butter
250g Caster Sugar
250g Flour
5 medium eggs

Filling
100g blackberries
100ml double cream
50g blueberry jam

Icing sugar to dust

Method
OK you have yourself a choice here, you can use the all in one method, in which you throw every ingredient into a bowl (not filling ingredients) and mix together either by hand or electric mixer until a smooth batter is made.

Or you can take your time and do it properly

Cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy, using elbow power or an electric mixer.
Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Sift in the flour and fold in gently using a wooden spoon until all combined.

Then pour into two lined cake tins and bake in a preheated oven for about 25 minutes until golden and a skewer, when inserted, comes out clean.

Leave to cool

Filling
Whip the cream until it can hold its shape and can stay in the bowl when turned upside down, spread over one side of the cake. dot with black berries.
Spread the jam over the other side then sandwich the two together and dust with icing sugar to finish.

Enjoy

Chocolate Guinness Cake

Alright I'll admit it, I'm not the biggest fan of Nigella, in fact she irritates me (awaits to be lynched). However this recipe may go a small amount of the way to remove some of that irritation. I was shown this recipe the other day and after very little persuasion (it is cake after all) I decided to give it ago this weekend, having nothing yet on the baking agenda.

This cake is a bit different to what you would normally expect and can be unnerving if you have never used this method before to make a gingerbread for instance. It involves a lot of melting and stirring and you end up with a very liquidy cake batter, however follow the measurements exactly and it will turn out fine.

Recipe available here: chocolate guinness cake at Nigella.com

Verdict
Soft, squidgy, chocolaty, deliciously moist. It's like the recipe description says: gingerbread without the spices and is one of the nicest chocolate cakes I've eaten, the Guinness aspect is very subtle also. If you can't be bothered with the topping this cake would be fine without it. She stills annoys me though but slightly less than before this cake, There may be hope yet.