Dreamy Chocolate Mousse Cake - Baking For Sport Relief 2016

As any avid Bake-Off fans will be aware, this week sees the return of The Great Sport Relief Bake Off, in which a handful of celebrity bakers will be taking to the tent in aid of Sport Relief 2016. This year, the 'Queen of Print' Orla Kiely has designed the limited edition aprons which the winning Star Bakers will be presented with, and as budding bakers ourselves, we have managed to get our hands on some! With our new look complete, it's time to get down to some baking - so here is our latest obsession - Dreamy Chocolate Mousse Cake. As it is in aid of Sport Relief, we have gone for something a tiny bit healthier than your average chocolate cake. With no flour, a whopping eight eggs and mainly natural sweetener, it's no wonder this cake has such a light, moussey and dreamy texture. It is ideal as a light dessert, alongside a dollop of smooth crème fraîche.

If you want to get baking for Sport Relief yourself, get your own lovely limited edition Orla Kiely Apron from TK Maxx, Homesense, or www.sportrelief.com. They retail at £12.99, with at least £5.25 going to Sport Relief, who use public donations to help people living incredibly difficult lives both in the UK and across the world.

Keep reading for our recipe and get baking yourself!

You will need...

200g 70% minimum dark chocolate

200g butter

Pinch of sea salt

8 eggs

100g maple syrup

50g caster sugar

Cacao/cocoa powder for dusting

Crème fraîche, to serve

You will need to...

- Grease and line a 24cm loose bottomed cake tin and preheat the oven to 160C.

- Break up the chocolate and cube the butter. Place both in a large bowl with a generous pinch of sea salt, and melt gently over a pan of simmering water. Set aside to cool slightly.

- Meanwhile, separate the eggs and whisk the whites in a large clean bowl until thick and fluffy and will hold a peak. 

- In a smaller bowl, whisk together the egg yolks with the sugar and maple syrup until they are pale, thickened and fluffy (ribbon stage).

- Gently fold the yolky mixture through the chocolate, then fold through the egg whites as gently as you can!

-Pour the mixture into your tin, and set it inside a deep baking tray. Place this on the over shelf and pour an inch of boiling water into the tray around the cake.

- Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, checking after 20. The cake should be just set with a slight wobble in the middle.

- Leave to cool on a wire rack before removing the tin. Dust with cacao powder before serving alongside a dollop of good crème fraîche.

Bake yourself proud!

C & Z x

Great British Bake Off - Pecan Pie with Spiced Rum

As any avid baker will agree, Wednesday nights mean only one thing - The Great British Bake Off.  Now as I'm sure you are aware, tonight is the grand final of the 2015 series, and it therefore seems appropriate to have a GBBO themed blogpost to mark the occasion. If you cast your mind back to last series, you may remember finalist Richard Burr - the laidback builder-turned-baker who cooked up a storm with his trademark pencil behind his ear. Richard has gone on to prove that there is life beyond the tent, having published his debut cookbook BIY- Bake It Yourself (see what he did there?) last month. It is a cracking book, with a good mix of fairly simple but delicious recipes, as well as a few trickier showstopper bakes for the more ambitious baker - Hazelnut Chocolate Opera Cake anyone? If you follow us on Instagram, you will have seen a couple of the recipes I have tried out already, however it was this Pecan Pie with Spiced Rum which really caught my eye. Quick, simple and totally moreish - this proved a huge hit with the family, and is the ideal pudding to round off these colder autumnal evenings. It also keeps well, and seems to improve with age, which is always a bonus if it hasn't been demolished in one go!

Read on for my take on Richard's recipe…

To make the pastry you will need…

- 200g plain flour (plus a little more to dust)

- 100g cubed butter

- A pinch of salt

- 2 tbsp caster sugar

- A couple of tbsp cold water

To make the filling you will need… 

- 100g golden syrup

- 100g maple syrup

- 100g caster sugar

- 50g soft light brown sugar

- 75g butter

- 3 large eggs

- 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

- 2 tbsp spiced rum

- 100g chopped pecans

- 100g ground almonds

- 100g pecan halves

You will need to…

-  Make the shortcrust pastry - either by combining the ingredients together in a food processor with a little water to bind, or if by-hand, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the salt and sugar, then use a palette knife to stir in enough cold water to bind the mixture. Knead your ball of pastry gently for a minute or so to combine, then wrap in clingfilm and set in the fridge to cool and firm up for half an hour. 

- Preheat the oven to 200C and find yourself a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin.

- Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll it out on a floured work surface. It should be large and circular enough to fit the tin, and only couple of centimetres in thickness. Roll this up onto the rolling pin and then lay it out into your tin. Press the pastry into the edges of the tin, but leave a little excess overhang as the pastry will shrink in the oven. 

- Line your pastry with a disc of baking parchment and fill with baking beans - blind bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

- Take the tin out and remove the parchment and baking beans. Bake the pastry case for a further 8 or so minutes until golden brown. Take out of the oven and leave to cool. Trim off any excess pastry.

- To make the filling, melt the golden syrup, maple syrup, butter and sugars in a saucepan over a low heat. Allow to cool so as not to cook the eggs.

- Beat together the eggs, vanilla paste and rum, and stir into the cooled sugar mixture along with the chopped pecans and ground almonds. 

- Pour the pecan mixture into the tart case and carefully arrange the pecan halves on the surface in concentric circles - this can be a bit fiddly as the mixture underneath moves around a bit!

- Bake for 35-45 minutes until the pie has risen a little in the middle and is golden brown and set. If the nuts are browning too quickly cover with a little tin foil. 

- Set on a wire rack and remove from tin once completely cool.

- I think this is best served at room temperature with a generous pouring of cream or crème fraîche.

Enjoy! C x

Blackberry and Raspberry Galette

With an abundance of blackberries growing in the hedgerows at this time of year, this rustic autumnal pud is a quick, easy and delicious way of using them up - get picking and you'll have yourself an (almost) free pudding! A galette is somewhere between a pie and a tart, though I'd argue better than either as it is freeform so doesn't require a tin or dish, and folding over the edges ensures maximum delicious crusty pastry. This one has a few raspberries thrown in as well but it works just as well with only blackberries, or some finely chopped apples instead.

To make a galette to serve four you will need…

100g plain flour

50g butter

1 dessert spoon icing sugar

A pinch of salt

3 tbsp cold water

300g fruit (blackberries, raspberries, chopped apple or a combo)

1 dessert spoon caster sugar 

1 dessert spoon cornflour

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg for egg wash

A little extra caster sugar to sprinkle on top

You will need to...

- Make shortcrust pastry by combining ingredients in a food processor (if lazy) or by hand by rubbing cubed butter into the mixture of flour, icing sugar and salt until fine breadcrumbs form. Add enough cold water and combine until the pastry just comes together, then wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for minimum 1 hour. 

- Preheat oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with greased baking parchment. 

- Place fruit in a bowl then gently stir in the cornflour, caster sugar and vanilla until combined - try not to squish the berries too much.

- Roll out your chilled pastry on a lightly floured surface to form a rough circle. Transfer onto the prepared baking tray.

- Spoon fruit into the middle of the pastry, then fold up the edges as pictured.

- Lightly beat the egg in a small bowl, then brush over the pastry and top with a sprinkle of caster sugar.

- Bake for about half an hour or until pastry is golden and crisp.

- Serve warm with a generous helping of single cream.

 Enjoy! C x

Lime and Mango Panna Cotta

Last night I cooked a dinner party for 20 people and this Lime and mango panna cotta was definitely the star of the show. It was the first time I had followed this Jane Lovett recipe,  I saw and tasted this panna cotta prepared by Jane at one of her cooking demonstrations last month. You can prepare this pudding up to 3 days in advance which is helpful when cooking for a large crowd! I used ramekins to serve the panna cotta however you can also use martini glasses or one big bowl for people to help themselves to. The subtle lime flavour contrasts well with the sweet mango pulp topping; you can either buy the mango pulp in a tin or make your own from fresh mangos which is what I did.

 

 

To serve 8 you will need...

 

One 400ml tin of coconut milk

400ml double cream

5 tbsps caster sugar

3 limes

4 leaves of gelatine

1 ripe mango or 400ml of tinned mango pulp

1 tbsp icing sugar

Raspberries or strawberries and mint leaves to decorate

 

 

 

You will need to...

 

-Put the gelatine leaves into a large flat dish for five minutes to soften.

- Put the coconut milk, cream and sugar into a large saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil stirring occasionally and simmer for a minute or two. Add the juice of 3 and zest of  1 lime and remove from the heat.

- Remove the gelatine from the water squeeze out any excess water and add to the cream mixture, (do not boil the gelatine or it wont set) pour into ramekins, glasses or a bowl. Cool cover and refrigerate until set- it is best to leave them over night.

- To make the mango puree peel and slice a mango into a food processor, add icing sugar to taste and process until smooth.

- Decorate with strawberries or raspberries or lime zest.  

 

 

 

 Enjoy Z x

Hazelnut Meringue Sandwich

Another spring/summer pudding for you - this time in the form of a Hazelnut Meringue Sandwich Cake. This is like a slightly more interesting and sophisticated Eton Mess, but thankfully just as simple to put together. The recipe is a slightly adapted version of the one in Rosie Lovell's book, Supper With Rosie, and is brilliantly easy and fresh with relatively few ingredients. Despite this it is still impressive to serve, and is a crowd-pleasing way to round off a spring supper - who doesn't like meringues and cream? I would also be interested to substitute the hazelnuts for pistachios and see how that worked, although uni work is preventing me from much kitchen experimentation at the moment so I haven't got round to that just yet…

You will need…

4 egg whites

125g hazelnuts

250g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

275ml double cream

1 punnet of raspberries 

1 tsp vanilla paste or 1 vanilla pod

You will need to…

- Preheat oven to 200C.

- Line the base of two 20cm cake tins with foil. Grease the sides of the tins and the foil well with vegetable oil.

- Toast the nuts in a dry pan over a low heat for a few minutes until darkened and fragrant, then blitz them in a food processor or coffee grinder until chunky.

- In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites until firm then gradually whisk in the sugar.

- Gently fold in the vanilla extract and ground nuts until well combined, then divide the mixture between the two prepared tins.

- Bake for 12 minutes in the oven, then turn the temperature down to 170C and cook for a further 30 minutes. Leave to cool completely in the tins.

- When ready to serve, whip the cream to soft peaks with the vanilla paste or the seeds of one scraped vanilla pod. 

- Fold in the raspberries, then spread the mixture over one of the meringues and place the second on top.

Enjoy! C x