Choc Mint-topped Chocolate Cake

My middle son asked for a chocolate birthday cake topped with cream and mint chocolate. I thought a simple cream topping needed a cake that was a bit more rich and moist than my other chocolate birthday cake.

I used a recipe from 'Apples for Jam' that I hadn't tried before called simply 'Chocolate cake with icing' but skipped the icing part.

Melt the butter in a pan, then add chopped up dark chocolate and cocoa powder and stir until all melted together. Remove from heat.

In a medium bowl beat the egg whites until creamy and stiff.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks until creamy, then beat in the sugar. Add the melted chocolate mixture a little at a time, mixing until smooth.

Carefully fold in beaten egg whites, mixing until completely incorporated.

Scrape out into buttered and floured 24 cm springform pan (I buttered and base-lined my tin, and mine was 22 cm) and cook at 180 C for 30 - 35 min.

Cool the cake completely in the pan before turning out. I'm not sure if mine puffed up as much as it should have - I'm never very good at folding in whipped egg whites - but it was nice anyway!

I topped it with beaten cream and roughly chopped mint Aero. Yum!

Ingredients:
180 g unsalted butter
50 g dark chocolate
30 g cocoa powder
3 eggs, separated
180 g caster sugar
125 g flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp milk

24 cm springform tin

Strawberry and Cream Cake

My choice of birthday cake this time, and as it's summer, I thought it would be nice to have some summer fruit.

I'd never made this cake before - it's from Tessa Kiros' book 'Falling Cloudberries' where it's called 'Sipi's Strawberry Cake' - and as strawberries are delicious at the moment, I thought it might be a good time of year to make it.

In one bowl put the flour, sugar and 1 tsp of baking powder. Mix in the melted butter, milk and then add the egg yolks and beat in well.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, adding the remaining 2 tsp of baking powder as they start to become frothy.

Fold the egg whites into the cake mixture.

Pour the mixture into a 22 cm springform pan, greased and floured.

I lined the base with baking paper, too.

Cook at 180 C for about 1 hour until top is golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Let it cool in pan for a while and then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

When cool, cut in half horizontally with a long bread knife. Put base of cake on a serving plate.

This is where you can start filling and decorating the cake. The recipe said to wash and hull the strawberries, leaving a few with leaves if you like for the top.

Dice half the strawberries and put in a bowl with a tsp of lemon juice and a tbsp of the icing sugar. The other half you can use to decorate the top of the cake.

Whip up the cream into soft peaks with the rest of the icing sugar. Mix the chopped strawberries into a third of the cream and spread over the bottom of the cake (I put a layer of cream then the strawberries), then add the top of the cake and spread over the rest of the cream. Decorate with the remaining strawberries. And blueberries as they are very pretty and delicious!

Add candles, have everyone sing 'Happy Birthday' loudly, and then don't get to blow any candles out yourself because your children are so keen on helping. It's what it's all about.


This was a really lovely cake - a lot of that had to do with the fruit being so perfect, but the sponge was substantial and tasty - not a flimsy Victoria Sponge-type thing.

I only added 300 ml of cream to my cake and I thought it was plenty - Tessa Kiros uses 750 ml.

Ingredients:
sponge:
220 g plain flour
180 g sugar
3 tsp baking powder
180 g butter, melted
185 g milk, warm
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract

to decorate:
800 g strawberries (I used about 600 g)
1 tsp lemon juice
4 tbsp icing sugar
750 ml thick/double cream (I used a 300 ml tub)

Best eaten immediately but leftovers will keep well in refrigerator overnight.

Chocolate and Vanilla Biscuits

I suddenly decided to make these thisevening in the middle of making dinner (I sometimes get inspired at strange times) and mixed up the dough, with the children's help, and then let them make their own dessert cookie.

I found the recipe in 'Apples for Jam', and although mine don't look quite like the biscuits in the book, they were pretty good anyway.

In a large bowl, squash together the soft butter and sugar and a pinch of salt, then add the egg and vanilla. Mix in the flour, reserving 20 g for later. Quickly knead to make a soft dough. (I had to add a little more flour as the dough was very sticky and un-kneadable.)

Divide the dough into halves and to one half sift and mix in cocoa powder, and to the other half mix in the reserved 20 g of flour.

Flatten out dough into discs, cover and refrigerate for 30 mins to firm up.

On a lightly floured surface, shape dough with hands or roll out with rolling pin and cut out shapes. I gave some to my children and they had fun making their own cookie each.

Cook at 180 C for 12 - 15 mins until crisp. (I think I could have cooked mine a bit longer than I did because they were more 'doughy' than crisp - probably because they were quite thick.)

The dough spread a bit, so it would work fine with simple cutter shapes like circles, but the detail would probably be lost if more complicated shapes were cut.

These were fun and easy to make, and we decided they taste a lot like chocolate cake!

Ingredients:
180 g butter, softened
150 g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
240 g plain flour
20 g cocoa powder

Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing

More birthday cakes - my newly 6-year-old had his birthday in the school holidays, so he missed out on taking cakes to share with his classmates.

I'm not a big fan of making (or eating) cupcakes, but I know it's a lot easier for a teacher to share small cakes around the class than to cut slices of a bigger birthday cake.

So this evening I made some cupcakes for him to take tomorrow. I made a simple cake batter from Tessa Kiros's 'Apples For Jam' (the Tiny Cakes recipe) and it produced lots of little cakes....

...lots and lots of little cakes.

I know that for most children the cake topping is the most interesting part, so I made a chocolate icing that tastes good and is really easy to make.

Melt butter and milk in a small pan. Sieve cocoa powder into a large bowl. Pour melted butter/milk mixture into the cocoa powder, add vanilla extract and stir together. Sift in icing sugar and mix well.

It starts to set as you are spreading it on the cakes, so stir in a few drops of milk as you go if it's getting too thick to work with.



There wasn't enough icing to cover all the cakes I made, but double the recipe would have done it easily.

Now I have plenty of chocolate icing and raspberry jelly sweet-topped cakes to send to class KF tomorrow (and I only needed 22!)

Chocolate Icing ingredients:
65 g butter
3 tbsp milk
25 g cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
225 g icing sugar

Falling Cloudberries

I've borrowed 'Falling Cloudberries' by Tessa Kiros from the library. It's a beautiful book, in the same style as 'Apples For Jam', with interesting recipes and colourful photos.

Some pages from the book...

Mini Milk Bread Rolls

I like to make my own bread sometimes, even though it's hard to compete (tastewise and costwise) with the bread you can buy around here - there are lots of very good Italian and Vietnamese bakeries.

These are really easy rolls to make, using the same dough as for the White Milk Loaf but the dough is made into 18 rolls instead of one big loaf, and cooked for 20-25 minutes. I also add a handful of unprocessed bran to the flour to make them more dense.

They're great to put in children's school lunchboxes instead of ordinary sandwiches, or plain as a snack, and they go really well with mini beefburgers inside (will be writing about these soon).

Brown Bread and Butter Ice Cream

The finished ice cream


Toasted breadcrumbs and sugar (I had to stop myself from scoffing all these!)

The custard and crumbs ready to put in the ice cream maker

This is an unusual ice cream from 'Apples For Jam' - using leftover bread for flavour and texture.

Breadcrumbs and brown sugar are toasted, then a custard is made with eggs, vanilla, cream and milk. Melted butter and the sugary breadcrumbs are stirred in and then it's churned in an ice cream maker.

It looks unusual - like it's wholemeal ice cream - and kind of tastes like someone has crushed up sugar cones and stirred them through. Various comments were 'it looks like soggy Weetbix', 'it tastes like muesli' and 'it's like cold porridge' - but the children did ask for seconds, so it can't be that bad!

I'm not sure if I'd make it again, but if I did I'd definitely use less sugar because I think it's too sweet. I'm glad I made this recipe though because it has helped me overcome my 'fear' of making custard (something I've always made by using custard powder) or custard based ice creams, because I now know it's not that hard!

Ingredients:
100 g brown bread crumbs
100 g brown sugar
60 g butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
125 ml milk
355 ml cream (I used a 300 ml carton and used a bit more milk instead)

Pizza Rossa

This is called 'La Pizza Rossa' in Apples For Jam, and the topping is a simple tomato sauce. I added a few toppings and sort of managed to keep the red theme - I added ham, cabanossi and a little cheese.

The base is exactly the same as the focaccia (see below), but instead of brushing with the oil/water/salt mixture after the second rise, a tomato topping is carefully spread over and the pizza is cooked in a hot oven for 20 mins or so until it has crisped up.

The edges were crispy and the middle was softer - if I had cooked it for longer the middle would probably have been more crispy, but I didn't want to burn the topping and I had hungry people waiting for their dinner!

Ingredients for topping:
4 tbsp olive oil
1 large garlic clove, peeled and squashed a bit
800 g tinned diced tomatoes
a few basil leaves, torn
1 tsp salt
plus I added a little sugar

Heat oil and garlic in a pan until you can smell the garlic, add the tomatoes, basil and salt and simmer rapidly for 15 mins or so until the sauce thickens.

Focaccia

A step-by-step guide to making focaccia!

(ingredients listed at the end)

I've made this on my blog before, but now I've included the method and some photos.

Whisk together yeast, honey, water, oil and 3 fistfuls of the flour in a bowl with a whisk or hand mixer. Leave for 20 mins, covered, in a warm place.

After 20 mins it has frothed up quite a bit.

Mix in flour and salt, then knead - or rather squish around with your hands in the bowl for 4-5 minutes - it's very sticky. (You can use dough hooks in a mixer if you prefer)

Cover and leave for about one and a half hours.
(It puffs up a lot - this photo was taken half way through the rising time. By the end of rising time it had stuck to the plate that was covering the bowl.)

Punch down the dough.

Spread as evenly as you can into an oiled baking dish (I used the one that came with my oven and I also lined it with baking paper to save on washing up). Still very sticky!

Leave to rise for 45 mins, until puffed up. Cover with towels or plastic wrap but in 'tent' fashion using jars or glasses around the tray to stop the dough sticking to its cover.

Meanwhile, heat oven to 220 C.

Make dimples with your finger, brush with a mixture of warm water, olive oil and salt.
You can top with herbs (such as rosemary) at this point if you like.

Cook for 20 - 30 mins until golden and hollow when tapped.

Lovely and crispy when still warm from the oven, but still very good the next day for sandwiches.

Ingredients:
435 ml warm water
20 g fresh yeast (or 10 g dried)
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil
600 g plain flour
1 tsp salt
To brush over the top:
1/2 cup hot water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil

Orange Juice and Olive Oil Cake

The uncrumbly side of the cake

Another recipe from 'Apples for Jam' - this cake uses olive oil instead of butter, and orange juice for flavouring, so I think it's pretty good for you (and I added cream for calcium!)

It's not the most straightforward cake to make, but as long as you have 2 large bowls and a hand-mixer, it's pretty easy.

First you whisk up the egg whites in a bowl until firm, then put them in the fridge until you need them, if it's a warm day.

In the other bowl, whip up the yolks and vanilla until foamy, whisk in the caster and brown sugars, then gradually whisk in the olive oil. Add the flour, baking powder, and orange juice and zest, then beat it all together until smooth. Gently fold in the egg whites and pour the cake mix into a 22 cm springform tin. Cook at 180 C for 35 mins until the top is crusty.

In the book, the cake is topped with pine nuts, but I topped mine with some semolina and demarara sugar which gave a good crusty topping. I think flaked almonds would work well too.

I had a bit of trouble getting the cake out of the pan and it crumbled on one side which was a bit annoying, so it's best to wait until it's cool and firm to get it out of its pan. I also had a problem with my #!@$ oven which decided to turn itself off while the cake was cooking (it has a dodgy timer which does its own thing sometimes). The cake turned out fine though. Phew! A light, orangey sponge cake with a crunchy topping that works really well as a dessert. Would go very well with fruit and ice cream too.

Ingredients:
2 eggs, separated
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
125 g caster sugar
25 g brown sugar
100 ml olive oil
200 g plain flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
125 ml orange juice, freshly squeezed, and zest of half orange

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake

I've made this recipe before, with strawberries (here) and today I used blueberries instead. Delicious! Blueberries definitely are the fruit to use rather than strawberries because they melt into the cake so well.

Focaccia

We were having pasta with Bolognese sauce tonight, so I decided to try making focaccia to go with it. I followed the recipe for focaccia from 'Apples for Jam' which uses normal plain flour instead of bread flour, and I wasn't quite sure how it would work out, but decided to go with it.

Making the focaccia was very similar to making normal bread, with slight variations. The yeast frothed up more to start with, and the dough was much stickier so had to be kneaded (or squished around) in the bowl. It puffed up a lot after being left to rise, and then had to be spread gently into a pan before being proved. Then after making dents in the surface, I brushed it with a salt/oil/hot water mix before cooking it.

It was really lovely bread, and went well with the Bolognese - especially when topped with some butter, garlic and herbs!

Easy to make, although a little more time-comsuming to make than a normal loaf. It had a crispness to it which I assume would be lost slightly if bread flour was used, and the amount of ingredients made a large slab (about 25 x 35 cm) - about twice as much as the 5 of us needed for our meal.

Ingredients:
435 ml warm water
20 g fresh yeast (or 10 g dried)
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil
600 g plain flour

White Milk Loaf

Another 'Apples for Jam' recipe - a soft white loaf. Having bought some fresh yeast I wanted to try it out in a plain loaf to see if it tastes better than the bread made with instant yeast.

You start by mixing the yeast with honey and warm milk, then leave for 10 minutes. Stir in bread flour, a beaten egg, butter (and a I added a handful of unprocessed bran which is not in the recipe but I think it adds a bit of body to white bread). Knead for a few mins, in the bowl if it's sticky, then cover and leave to rise for one and a half to two hours. Punch down the dough, put on a baking sheet or in a loaf tin, cover and leave for 45 - 60 mins. Brush with flour and cook for around 25 mins on 190 C until loaf is hollow-sounding when knocked on base.

This is a lovely soft loaf, and the fresh yeast is so much better than the instant! The bread tastes more 'bready' and has a fuller flavour, and doesn't have the slightly vinegary tang that the instant yeast seems to give.

Ingredients:
250 ml milk, warmed so it's comfortable to your fingers
15 g fresh yeast, crumbled or 7 g active dry yeast
1 tsp honey
450 g bread flour (and a handful of bran if you like)
1 egg, lightly beaten
40 g butter, melted

Chocolate Loaf

Another recipe from 'Apples for Jam' - chocolate loaf is a bread, not a cake. It's made in the same way as an ordinary loaf of bread, but has cocoa powder added.

I managed to buy some fresh yeast recently, and this is the first time I've cooked with it since school cookery lessons! I wanted to see how it compares with the instant yeast, which is what I have been using.

For this bread, the yeast is crumbled into a large bowl, caster sugar and hand-hot milk are added, and this is left for 10 mins or so, until the yeast has frothed a little. Flour and cocoa powder (I sieved mine because it was a bit lumpy) and melted butter are mixed in to make a dough. Knead until smooth, then cover and leave in a warm place for one and a half to two hours until risen. Knock back, form into a loaf shape on a tray, or put in a buttered loaf tin, cover and leave for 30 mins to 1 hour then cook at 180 C for 25 mins or so until hollow when base us knocked.

Ingredients:
15 g fresh yeast
40 g caster sugar
310 ml milk
400 g bread flour with a pinch of salt
40 g cocoa powder
40 g butter, melted

This made a beautiful-looking chocolate-coloured loaf, with a distinctive cocoa flavour. It's not at all sweet, and almost bitter. The book suggests you eat it at breakfast time with butter or jam, and to warn people that it's not a cake so they're not expecting sweetness. I'll have some in the morning for breakfast and see what everyone else makes of it, as I'm the only one who's tried it so far!

PS It's not particularly popular around here! It really needs to be eaten with butter and a tart-tasting jam such as marmalade, which to me makes it taste wonderful. I'll be freezing the rest and eating it myself I think.

Berry and Buttermilk Cake

This is another recipe from 'Apples For Jam'. In the book it's made with blueberries, but strawberries are suggested as an alternative. Blueberries were a bit expensive when I was at the shops yesterday, so I decided to use strawberries.

The cake is like a muffin mixture with the wet ingredients stirred gently into the dry and then spread into a baking pan. Fruit is scattered over and then a sprinkling of demarara sugar. I pressed the fruit pieces into the surface which I think was a good idea because they blended with the cake.

This is a good cake to eat with a cup of tea or coffee if you don't want anything that's too sweet or overbearing. The lemon zest and buttermilk give a mild tangy flavour to the base and the strawberries and demarara give sweetness on the top. Good for lunchboxes because it's not crumbly and only a little bit sticky.

Ingredients:
2.5 cups flour (I used wholemeal for the half cup) and 3 tsp baking powder
90 g sugar
ground nutmeg
2 eggs, whisked well
250 ml buttermilk
60 g butter, melted
1 tsp lemon zest
150 g fruit (blueberries or strawberries)
demarara sugar to sprinkle
(greased and lined 30 x 20 x 5 cm pan) cook at 200 deg C for about 25 mins

Buttermilk Ice Cream

I saw this recipe on the We Don't Have a Blog Blog, made by Coby. It's a Tessa Kiros recipe from 'Apples For Jam'. I've borrowed this book from the library before, and now I've ordered it from the Book Depository (early birthday present!)

You whisk together 250 ml single cream and 200 g caster sugar until the cream thickens a bit, then add 1 tsp vanilla extract and 500 ml buttermilk. Churn it up in an ice cream maker and put it in the freezer to harden.

It makes a tangy, fresh-tasting ice cream which is perfect with fruit. Everyone else had chocolate topping and hundreds-and-thousands with theirs though!