Chocolate Mud Cake

Yesterday afternoon I decided that Marc and I would need something nice for supper, for after the kids had gone to bed.  What better than a chocolate mud cake then?  One of my all time favourite web sites, Exclusively Food have a super easy recipe for Chocolate Mud Cake with Chocolate Ganache Icing on their web site, so I thought I would give it a try.  Everything I have ever attempted out of their extensive repertoire has worked perfectly, so I was pretty sure this cake of theirs would follow suit.

As always, the recipe was easy to follow with pictures throughout the instructions and some great comments by both the authors of the blog and their readers/testers.

The recipe calls for buttermilk, which I didn't have, so I substituted this with 1 tablespoon vinegar plus enough milk to make 1 cup.  But please keep in mind that you only need 1/2 cup of buttermilk for the recipe.  I did forget this, and had poured almost all of the cup of milk into my egg/oil/vanilla mix before realising my error!

Because the cake took so long to cook, and I needed to feed the three boys dinner, the cake was put aside for the night (probably a good thing) before getting ganached today!

And here is my end result.  I'm pretty impressed with it - even though I thought I had stuffed it up!  It has great texture and flavour and is not over chocolatey (yes, that is a word in my vocabulary!), but chocolatey enough to not need to go back for a second slice (although I'm sure you could twist my arm!!).  My two taste-testers were very happy with this one!

 

Chocolate Decadence

Here's something very naughty, but very yummy that you could give a try for Valentine's Day :)

INGREDIENTS
6 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
5 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Butter six ramekins or custard cups. Melt chocolate and butter slowly: You can do this in a double boiler, over, not in, simmering water, or in microwave, stirring to prevent scorching. Stir until completely smooth.

In a medium bowl, beat eggs with electric mixer until frothy, about 5 to 6 minutes. Stir vanilla and salt gently into beaten eggs. Fold half of egg mixture into chocolate mixture, mix well. Then fold remainder of egg mixture into chocolate mixture. Pour chocolate and egg mixture into prepared ramekins.

Line a roasting pan with a damp kitchen towel. Place ramekins on towel, inside roasting pan. Butter a piece of foil big enough to cover entire pan, and cover the ramekins, buttered side down. Place roasting pan on oven rack. Fill roasting pan with boiling water to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake 5 minutes, then remove foil and bake 10 minutes more. Remove ramekins from water carefully.

Let cool on wire rack for at least 3 hours. Cakes will firm up as they cool.

Serve in the ramekins and garnish with whipped cream, berries (frozen work really well if that's all you can get) and for that restaurant look, a shake of icing sugar for good measure, and serve.

Refrigerate unused portions - these left overs taste really good even a few days after!

Warm peach upside down cakes

Ingredients:
olive oil cooking spray
415 g can peach slices in natural juice, drained
2 tablespoons reduced fat spread, melted
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 cup self raising flour
150g light French Vanilla fruche
pure icing sugar to serve

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Lightly dpray base of four 1-cup capacity ramekins with oil. Line bases with baking paper. Arrange 2 to 3 peach slices over base of each ramekin. Finely chop remaining peaches.
2. Combine spread and sugar in a bowl. Whisk buttermilk, egg and vanilla together. Add to sugar mixture. Sift flour over batter and stir until well combined. Fold in chopped peaches.
3. Spoon batter over peach slices. Smooth surface. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
4. Use a knife to loosen cakes. Turn out onto serving plates. Dust with icing sugar. Serve warm with Fruche.

Serves 4

Variation: Try replacing canned peaches with fresh peaches when in season, or canned apricots or pears.

Lemon Meringue Pudding

I made this one for guests on Friday night and it was a big hit. It uses a sponge base instead of the traditional pastry base.

Ingredients - pudding
200 g bought sponge cake
430ml cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of finely grated lemon rind
80ml lemon juice
6 eggs
165 g caster sugar
280g jar of lemon butter

Ingredients - meringue topping
3 egg whites
165g caster sugar

Method
1. Preheat oven to moderately low. Lightly grease a round 2 litre ovenproof dish.
2. Cut sponge cake into 3 cm pieces. Place pieces randomly in prepared dish. Combine cream, extract, rind and juice in a small saucepan overlow heat, stirring until hot.
3. Whisk eggs and sugar in a large bowl until combined. Whisking constantly, pour hot cream mixture into egg mixture and then pour into dish over sponge cake. Bake, uncovered, in a moderately low oven for 45 minutes. Remove pudding from the oven and increase the oven temperature to moderate.
4. Cool pudding for 10 minutes, then, using rubber spatula, carefully spread lemon butter over the surface.
5. Make meringue topping. Spoon topping over pudding to completely cover surface. Bake, uncovered, in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes or until browned lightly.

Method - meringue topping
Beat egg whites in a small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form, add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating until sugar disovles between additions.

Serve hot with cream or ice cream. Serves 8.

cherry ripe self saucing pudding

You may notice that any recipes that I contribute are super easy. This one is another simple one - in fact, it comes from a kid's cookbook!

Ingredients:
60 grams butter, chopped
1.5 cups self raising flour
1 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 x 55 gram cherry ripe bars, chopped coarsley
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder, extra
2 cups boiling water
50grams butter, chopped, extra

Method:
1. Melt butter in a deep 12 cup microwave safe dish, uncovered, on HIGH in a microwave oven for about 1 minute, or until butter has melted. Remove dish from the microwave.
2. Add sifted flour, caster sugar and cocoa to dish with milk and extract; whisk until smooth. Stir in Cherry Ripe.
3. Combine brown sugar and sifted extra cocoa in medium jug; gradually stir in the boiling water. Add extra butter; stir until butter melts. Carefully pour syrup mixture evenly over pudding mixture.
4. Cook, uncovered, on HIGH in microwave oven for 15 minutes or until just cooked in the centre. Remove dish from microwave oven and let stand 5 minutes before serving.
5. Serve with fresh cherries and cream. Serves 8.