Happy New Year! Bye, 2018, hello 2019! Hopefully everyone will have a good year, or at the very least, one you can bear. I’m sharing my recipe of coffee jelly, which we had as part of the New Year celebration food. Really though, it’s such an easy dessert (just takes time, as jellies do) that there is no reason why you couldn’t have it more often than that!
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The cake I sent with Rhys for his birthday. Delicious and was devoured to rave reviews, despite its’ flaws.
So, I made a Filipino-style mocha cake for Rhys’ birthday, that he took to work. It was delicious; but because I kept getting interrupted (by external reasons, lots of phone calls, etc) it ended up a bit denser than normal. Apparently everyone got excited seeing the cake and thought it looked at tasted ‘absolutely amazing.’
However, both Rhys and I knew I could do better. So I made a devil’s food cake, (2 layers, 8 inches each) and decided that it should have a marshmallow meringue frosting, and dark chocolate drip ganache topping it, that he will take with him to work.
Better effort, with Rhys decorating it this time.
Rhys got keen on frosting the cake to be brought along, so he did the frosting on this one that I’ve taken a photo of up top. The chocolate ganache is pooled at the bottom ‘because yum.’ I love that man. ^_^
I had Vincent make a cake for practice a few days ago, to teach him the correct order in which one adds melted butter into a cake, versus accidentally cooking the egg added into a cake and it tastes awesome, but was very crumby (it’s also devil’s food cake). The leftover marshmallow meringue frosting is slathered on top like a fluffy sugar cloud. Kiddo’s learning a lot this school holidays; baking cakes, cooking dinner, assembling a whole workstation class computer from scratch with very minimal help (only putting on the liquid cooler and the thermal paste) – and it worked perfectly!
Son’s practice cake, now with frosting =9
But, as you can see, it makes a lot of frosting (that’s a 10 inch single layer cake) so it probably has enough for a 2 layer 9 inch cake.
I like using a little bit of cream of tartar to get the egg whites started on frothing before I put them in the double boiler, but other recipes don’t include it, so you may omit if you like.
Marshmallow Meringue Frosting
Use as a frosting, or as a layer on top of a cake and then cover with ganache, use on top of a mousse or top and sear with a kitchen blowtorch, or pipe, or blop on for a casual, fluffy but engaging frosting style! Makes enough to frost 2 layers of a 9 inch cake, with enough to spare.
-3/4c egg whites (or 6 egg whites)
2c Caster Sugar
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla flavour
1 tsp cream of tartar
Start by boiling water in a large saucepan, large enough to heat the bottom of your bowl. Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer.
Mix together the egg whites, cream of tartar and vanilla, until lightly frothy, in a bowl using a handheld electric mixer with whisk attachments. For ease and sanity I tend to use the same mixing bowl that my stand mixer uses. When slightly frothy, place bowl in the water.
Moving the speed of your mixer to high, mixing all the while, add the sugar, either by shaking it in gradually from your bowl or 1/8 cup at a time. Make sure it’s dissolved.
Imix for 7 minutes, on highest speed, moving your mixer’s whisks around to make the marshmallow white and silky.
Immediately move the bowl to your stand mixer, tapping out the leftover meringue from your whisks into the bowl. Beat on highest speed that your stand mixer can do for 10-12 minutes.
Use as desired, on your cake. Sear with a kitchen blowtorch on top of your pie, mousse, etc.
I loooove coffee walnut cake. Luckily for me our grocery chain Coles has them for less than 10 AUD and it is omg scrumptious.
But for my birthday, I wanted a bit more Ferrero Rocher-ey taste; more chocolatey, maybe a bit of Nutella… I still wanted the coffee buttercream though.
I made this cake for both my birthday and again for Easter, which is why the above cake has mini Cadbury Creme eggs nested in the middle.
Maybe someday I’ll remember to take a photo of a cake slice instead of going ‘om nom nom’ right away.
Maybe.
Until then, have a recipe!
Continue readingEasy Chocolate Cake
This is an adapted version of Marta Stewart’s 1 bowl chocolate cake
It’s not as heavy as mudcake, with a good ‘chewy’ mouthfeel, and despite the sugar, isn’t sweet tasting. Combined with the icing, which isn’t that sweet either it makes for a rich cake that makes you feel like you’re eating something decadent enough to slice thinly and enjoy with tea or coffee after dinner, or with friends in the afternoon. The recipe makes 1 8-inch double layer cake. The version pictured above was my successful test; when I made this for Rhys’ birthday, I tinted the frosting blue; one of his favourite colours.
I’ve been doing a lot of running around on errands so I haven’t posted recently. My blood sugar dropped a lot so I found myself craving sweet things.
So I decided to take the plunge and made meringues for the first time.
Sounds silly I know, but I’ve had this thing about being afraid of screwing up the egg whites. I had a box of egg whites in my fridge that I bought and felt, if I never take the risk, I’ll never do it!
So I made this batch of brain food and boy, am I glad I did! (here’s a BBC Food’s recipe for meringue, it’s slightly different.)
One of the easiest Filipino desserts for me to make here in Australia is Leche Flan. The kids love this recipe, but as you can see in the image, the caramel isn’t very dark. That’s because of my family’s preference, so you may need to experiment with the caramel to get it as dark as you like.
I hope you enjoy making this! This is a busy mom version; traditional Leche Flan uses carefully separated egg yolks, careful hand beating with a whisk, and strains the mixture through cheesecloth several times, resulting in a silky creamy flan. I’m rather lazy and want my delicious treat with minimal effort; my answer to this is to tap the bubbles out and use either a blender or mixer.
This recipe is named after my father, who would make this chocolate on cold autumn and winter nights when we lived in Europe. It is best had while still hot, with bread to dip into it (like brioche, or pan de sal), or excellent with Churros if you know how to make those (‘coz I’m afraid I don’t… yet. As of this writing anyway.)
You may substitute the sugar and butter with the sugar substitute of your choice, and butter-flavoured margarine. I’ve been told by friends that the use of these does not in any way or form detract from the fullness of chocolatey flavour. I am unsure how this would taste if one uses a cow milk substitutes, as the cream of the milk is part of what gives this the rich flavour. Do feel free to experiment and let me know how it goes!
I should warn that this is very addictive stuff, and utterly wonderful comforting delight while reading a book
Ingredients
3/4 cup cocoa powder / Dutch cocoa powder (unsweetened)
3/4 cup (packed) brown sugar
2 1/2 cup evaporated milk OR full cream milk (must be full cream)
125g butter (or 1/2 cup butter) or half a 250g cake of butter
2 teaspoons instant coffee powder (I use Nescafe Blend 43 or 45; or Arabica… but feel free to omit, or substitute a preferred brand This helps enhance the flavour of chocolate and gives it a dark richness and depth.)
1) Cream the butter, sugar and cocoa powder together in a saucepan, the way you would if you were making cookies. If you are using coffee powder, you may add coffee at this point. If using granules I prefer to put it on the next step.
Chopped butter is easier to mix.
Use a food processor; it’s easier! I only found this out afterward.
Then you won’t have to do this.
1.b) You have the option of turning this to chocolate tablea, by taking the mixture, rolling it into 1 inch size balls and refrigerating till solid. If making this for tablea, it’s best to use a glass or ceramic bowl. Each 1 inch ball will correspond to roughly 1 mug size serving.
Roll into balls roughly 1-inch in size
Cool the balls in the fridge for about 30 min to an hour
Put into jars or a plastic container and keep in fridge
2) When it is well blended, add milk and simmer at medium heat, mixing constantly. When it reaches a boil, lower the heat, add coffee powder and keep stirring till chocolate is of the thickness you wish it to be.
2.b) If having made tablea, pour 1/2 cup milk or cream into a small saucepan and add tablea. Stir as the milk heats to melt the tablea. Prepare as above, diluting with milk until it reaches the thickness you want.
Add 1 ball to about 1/2 cup hot milk
Mix the tablea into the milk until fully dissolved
Drink your hot chocolate!
Serve at half-mug servings with toast for dipping, or add warm milk for drinking at each cup. Sinfully good. Makes roughly 4 mugs of undiluted chocolate. Chocolate may be reheated in microwave.
Notes:
**I added the coffee powder so the chocolate tastes extra dark when dipped, out of preference. Taste the chocolate before adding coffee powder so you can adjust for preference in flavour.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!