‘Raw’ Chocolate Coconut Cups

Adapted from http://bitofthegoodstuff.com/

This is my second foray into the world of raw chocolate, and so far I really love it. They are such a joy to make, stunning to look at and taste completely incredible. For me it feels just like it felt when I first started making macaroons – I’m not just cooking, I’m creating something really special that you can’t just buy in the supermarket. I know this might sound a bit over the top, or even a bit arrogant, but to be honest, it is so rare for me to feel a real sense of achievement or pride, that I just don’t really know what to do with it.

When I first posted about raw chocolate, I wrote about its magical, intense bitterness. I didn’t realise until I tweeted the recipe how much raw chocolate actually divides people. Seriously – I have never received nasty tweets before, and I certainly wasn’t expecting them from anyone as ‘fluffy’ as a chocolate blogger. I suppose it is a bit like marmite – either you love it or you hate it. If you are a fan of the super-sweet, milky, galaxy-like chocolates, this probably isn’t for you. But if you like your chocolate intense, dark and a bit bitter, it definitely is.

Makes 10-14

Ingredients

60g raw cacao butter, grated or finely chopped if the lumps are really massive, and divide it in half

50g raw cacao powder, divided in half

Approximately 3tbsp agave syrup (use more if you want them to be sweeter)

60g creamed coconut (the kind that comes in blocks in little cardboard packages)

12-14 mini cupcake cases – obviously the total yield from this will depend on what size case you use – I used little silicone ones from M&S (currently on sale) and it made 11 chocolates.

Diced dried apricot, 2 bits per chocolate (or ginger, pineapple, or goji berries, or something else)

Method

Arrange the mini cupcake cases in one layer on a tray or in a freezable container. You will be very grateful for this level of practicality further down the line. I didn’t bother with this stage initially, and regretted it.

Put the first 30g of cacao butter in a heatproof bowl and melt slowly and carefully using a bain-marie or microwave.

Once it has melted, mix in 25g of cacao powder – this is really incredible the first time you do it, and you see and smell proper chocolate forming in front of your eyes. Add sweetener to taste – I used about one and a half tablespoons of agave syrup. While agave is super sweet, even in such a small quantity of chocolate this doesn’t actually make it taste sweet, it just takes the edge off the bitterness inherent in the cacao. If you have a really sweet tooth, use a tiny bit more agave but not too much – part of the magic of these is the incredible bitterness of the chocolate together with the richness of the coconut and sweetness of the dried fruit.

Fill the cases with the melted chocolate mixture using a teaspoon. You should be able to work out from this how many cases your mix will stretch to, it could be anywhere between 10 and 14.

If you remembered to keep all your little cases on a tray or in a box, you will now be able to move them to the freezer (or fridge) without wobbling them and disturbing the mixture – part of the elegance of these chocolates is the incredibly straight lines. Freeze or refrigerate the first layer of the chocolates until completely set. This will take about 10 minutes in the freezer, at least 30 in the fridge.

While the first chocolate layer is setting, wash and dry all the bowls you were using if you need to use them again.

Prepare the coconut layer by grating or finely chopping the creamed coconut.  Melt it carefully using a microwave or bain-marie. When the first layer of chocolate is set, use a teaspoon to share the melted coconut cream over the top of each case.  Place back in the freezer for another 10 minutes to set.

Prepare the final chocolate layer by melting the remaining 30g of cacao butter and mixing it with the remaining 25g of cacao powder and agave syrup. When the coconut layer is set, share the chocolate equally between the cases, and dot with the dried apricot pieces.

Return to the fridge or freezer, and turn the chocolates out of the cases when they are completely set. Store them in a cool place, in the fridge in the summer.

‘Raw’ white chocolate raspberry hearts

Adapted from: http://www.healthysupplies.co.uk/raw-white-chocolates-snow-blossoms.html

I found this recipe on the website ‘healthy supplies’, which is where I buy all my freeze-dried fruit and various other exciting things. They call these chocolates ‘Snow blossoms’, which is beautiful if a little pretentious, but too similar to my fennel and pink pepper white chocolates, which really did look like blossom on a tree. These little things are definitely stunning – my rubbish phone photo doesn’t really do them justice.

I don’t really think that eating an entirely raw diet is the most necessary or practical of choices – we evolved to eat cooked food a very very long time ago. BUT, on the subject of chocolate, and a lot of other dessert-y things, it is a very good idea.

I love chocolate, both eating it and messing about with it, but raw chocolate is something else entirely. It is intense, sometimes bitter, and known to cause the occasional ‘braingasm’. It also contains no dairy, rubbish e-numbers, strange preservatives, or refined sugar. When I am on my period, I have found that one little Booja Booja Raspberry Ecuadorian Truffle has the same effect as about 200g of Cadburys Dairy Milk.

These chocolates are not bitter at all as they contain only cacao butter, not cacao powder. I’m not usually a ‘heart-shaped’ kind of person, being far too cynical. But the heart shaped silicone chocolate moulds where the cheapest to buy on Amazon, and so the raw white chocolate raspberry heart was born. 

This mixture made exactly enough to fill my 15-heart chocolate mould

Ingredients:

50g Cacao Butter, grated. Cacao butter is magical stuff – after grating it I didn’t know whether or not to wash my hands or rub the buttery residue into them! You can buy it online or in health food shops.

50g finely ground unroasted cashews. Grind them using a food processor, coffee grinder or mortar and pestle.

2 tbsp agave syrup (use a little more or a little less, depending on how sweet you want them to be).

2 tsp Lucuma Powder. Lucuma is a Peruvian ‘superfood’, which tastes a little bit like cookie. You can buy it online or in health food shops.

1 tsp vanilla extract (I didn’t use this because I don’t like vanilla, it would make them taste much more like white chocolate though)

approx 10g freeze-dried raspberry powder, or with another freeze-dried fruit powder.

Method:

Make sure that your mould is completely dry. Use a teaspoon, or the tip of the handle of a teaspoon to put a tiny amount of the raspberry powder in each heart of the mould – I tried to keep the raspberry in one side, for aesthetic reasons. And then accidentally knocked it with my elbow so it went everywhere.

Melt the Cacao Butter in a heatproof bowl placed into a saucepan of simmering water - make sure the water does not touch the base of the bowl.

Once melted, remove the bowl from the heat – it can help if you put a tea towel between the bowl and your work-surface. Add the lucuma powder, agave syrup, vanilla extract if using and ground cashews nuts and stir well.

Now pour or spoon the white chocolate mix carefully into each of the hearts. Once you have finished tap the sides to help any trapped air bubbles rise to the surface. Set aside to cool on a flat surface or in the freezer – these chocolates will take longer to solidify than dark raw chocolates because of the high proportion of Cacao Butter.

Store them in an airtight container somewhere cool or in the fridge.

Peanut butter chocolate pretzels

For a while I was thinking about giving up sugar and white carbs. Seriously. But then I thought, peanut butter chocolate pretzels, and that was the end of that.

These are absolutely incredible, and so much fun to make too. Make them for anyone and they will love you forever. I made these babies as a gift for a colleague who earned massive respect for eating peanut butter out of a jar with a spoon.

I’m still waiting for my cheque from Skippy for the peanut butter cookbook, hopefully that will happen soon.

 Makes 25-30 large pretzels – more, obviously, if you use regular sized ones.

150g large pretzels (I used Penn State giant pretzels from Asda)

50g dark muscovado sugar

200g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter or vegan margarine – softened

200g peanut butter – crunchy or smooth depending on preference

400g dark chocolate, or 200g dark chocolate and 200g milk chocolate. I wouldn’t recommend using 100% milk chocolate though, it would be much too sickly.

This is the same mixture as used in the peanut butter cups recipe. You can't just use ‘neat’ peanut butter because it is much too sticky. The dark muscavado gives a fantastic caramel-y background note.

Line a tray with greaseproof paper or foil.

Mix up the sugars, butter and peanut butter in a large bowl until combined into a soft dough-like consistency. Press small blobs of the peanut butter mixture into two of the holes in each pretzel.

Melt the chocolate carefully in a microwave or over a bain-marie, and dip the pretzel in the chocolate, so that both peanut butter-filled holes are covered. Lay the pretzels on the prepared tray to set. Although the pretzels do not need to be kept in the fridge, refrigerate them for a few hours at least to harden up the peanut butter filling. 

Mars Bar Rice Crispy Squares

For as long as I can remember, these have been one of my ultimate favourite treats. Chocolate rice crispy squares are pretty standard, learning-to-cook-in-primary-school fare, but these ones really are the best. I think it is probably the combination of familiarity, or nostalgia, with the fact that they just taste so fucking amazing that makes them so magical. You may in fact not want to know the recipe, as it takes some of the wonder away - to be honest, if you give me enough cuddles and cups of tea I will probably make you some.

The old-school-y-ness of this recipe can be seen by the fact that the quantities are in ounces. With thanks to my mum for giving me the recipe.

Ingredients

The quantities couldn’t be simpler – you need one ounce of rice crispies and salted butter per large Mars bar. For a standard sized rectangular cake tin, use 4 ounces of rice crispies, 4 ounces butter and 4 large Mars bars.

I tend to double this – using the large rectangular dishes that are roughly the same size as one full oven shelf (8 oz. rice crispies, 8 oz. butter, 8 Mars bars).

You will also need some dark chocolate to melt over the top – approx. 150-200g for the ‘4 bar’ size, and 300-400g for the ‘8 bar’ size.

Method

Chop the chocolate bars finely, and melt them slowly with the butter in a bain marie or large heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Be careful that no steam from the water goes into the buttery-chocolate. Once the chocolate and caramel has melted, you will need to take the bowl off the heat and give it a good stir/pound to break down the little lumps of nougat and create a smooth consistency – if you do this on the heat, the chocolate will be at risk of splitting.

When the chocolate mixture is smooth, quickly mix in the rice crispies and press into a flat, shallow cake tin/foil dish (as described above). It may look like not enough goo to make the squares chocolatey enough, but trust me it does.

Leave the rice crispies to set in the fridge, and cover them with a layer of melted dark chocolate when completely set – ie. the next day. Leave to set and cut into squares to serve.

Dark chocolate peanut butter cups

I think I could probably write an entire cookbook based on recipes using peanut butter – seeing how much I get through, maybe Skippy will sponsor one. My love for peanut butter cups, and probably peanut as ‘sweet’ comes from my first trip to New York as a conscious foodie aged 14 (all I remember from my trip at the age of 4 is getting soaked by my cousin Josh at a water fountain outside the Smithsonian). Reese’s Peanut Butter cups completely changed my world. Coming home from that trip my suitcase basically consisted of peanut butter cups, some variations on the theme including cookie and grape jelly, and a pair of Steve Madden platforms. Well I guess that’s what happens when a 14 year old is in the US without parental supervision. Speaking of foodie consciousness by the way, this trip was also the first time that I tried, and fell in love with, both sushi and aubergines (I had been afraid of them previously). It also put an end of my refusal to eat red meat. Much much love to all my American family for contributing to this enlightenment.

These peanut butter cups were another one of the chocolates made with T.O.M on our chocolate day a few weeks ago. The original recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess, which I think I count as my favourite book just because of the title. See evidence of me getting carried away with being a ‘domestic goddess’ here. T.O.M and I have made this before in its original state, the peanut butter square, but this time on our chocolate day we were feeling a little more ambitious.

When I told a colleague that I was planning on making peanut butter cups, her response was ‘you know that you can get them in the shops right’? Obviously it takes a little more time to paint the cupcake cases with melted chocolate, but it really is worth it. The dark chocolate gives them a bitterness that is a perfect foil for the sweetness of the peanut filling, and makes them feel a little more grown-up, and different from Reese’s. See my post on honeycomb-peanut chocolate bites (also Nigella) for some thoughts on why salty peanut goes so well with chocolate.

Makes about 15 cups, more or less depending on how big you make them, obviously. T.O.M and I made a double batch, from which we made about 18 cups and a big rectangle of chocolate peanut butter squares.

Big thanks again to Steven for the tremendous photos

Ingredients

       50g muscovado sugar

       200g icing sugar

       50g unsalted butter or vegan margarine - softened

       200g peanut butter – crunchy or smooth depending on preference

       Make sure that you have about 400g of dark chocolate, although you probably wont need all of it.

       Cupcake cases

First make the chocolate cases. Melting chocolate can be very temperamental, so I tend not to melt more than 50-100g at a time. Either use the microwave or a bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water making sure that no steam or condensation makes its way into the chocolate, or it will seize. Using a teaspoon (or a clean paintbrush) coat the base of the cupcake case with melted chocolate, carefully working the chocolate up the sides to about a third of the way up. Set the cases aside to firm up.

In a large bowl, mix together the sugars, butter and peanut butter together. I know it seems like a scary list of ingredients, but trust me it works – the muscavado sugar gives a brilliant sandy texture. Use a food processor for this if you want, it is not the easiest thing to mix by hand.

When the chocolate cases are hardened, take a small handfuls of the peanut mixture, roll it into flat-ish circles using your hands, and press them into the cases. Make sure that the peanut doesn’t come up higher than the edge of the chocolate, otherwise there will be gaps and cracks in the finished cups.

When this is done, melt a little more chocolate to cover over the tops. Make sure that the chocolate is completely hardened before turning them out of the paper cases – but don’t put them in the fridge.

White Chocolate Mendiants with Fennel Leaf and Pink Peppercorns

These are I think the most beautiful things I have ever made, and would make an excellent gift for Christmas or Chanukah. Apart from my love of Hundertwasser (backgrounds here and on Twitter), my favourite form of visual art is Japanese landscapes paintings, especially Edo Period. I actually own an original Hiroshige print, probably my most prized possession. I can (and do) stare at it for hours feeling all happy and serene. These little chocolates look just like Japanese Cherry Blossom paintings, and as soon as I saw a photo of them I completely fell in love – the way you would if you saw your favourite kind of art reproduced in chocolate (unless you are a big fan of Damien Hirst, or potentially any of the YBAs actually).

Every so often, although not often enough, T.O.M and I get together and have a chocolate baking day. And we are getting pretty good at it. We always buy twice as much chocolate as we need, but nowadays we don’t seize any, we just eat all the leftovers. For the past few months I had been incubating in my brain some sort of thing involving pink peppercorns and white chocolate. I couldn’t quite work it out, but I knew that it had to be something spectacular. Conveniently I had given T.O.M a bag of pink peppercorns recently and so everything just fell into place. I found this recipe via Google, and as soon as I saw this one, I knew I had to make it. It is an El Bulli recipe, and I found it here.

Mendiants isn’t exactly the right kind of name for these, but I needed to find something better to call them other than ‘thingies’. (From Wikipedia) A Mendiant is a traditional French confection composed of a chocolate disk studded with nuts and dried fruits, representing the four monastic orders of Dominicans (raisins), Augustinians (hazelnut), Franciscans (fig) and Carmelites (almonds). Not really the most interesting thing I have ever written on here – but I’m sure it will come up in a pub quiz or on University Challenge or something. Answers on a postcard, or comment below, about what Saint, or saintly figure these could represent.

Ingredients

You will need some fennel fronds from the top of a fennel bulb. We had to go through an entire box of them in Sainsburys to find one which hadn’t been completely trimmed, and then ended up cheekily picking leaves off other ones and putting them in the same bag.

With the peppercorns, they need to be lose and not in a grinder – you only want the pink outer layer – the centre is black and not as pretty.

With regards to the white chocolate, the Green and Blacks one is very good as it has tiny flecks of black vanilla running all the way through it. It is pretty pricey though – we used a third Green and Blacks and two thirds Sainsburys own brand, and it seemed to work very well.

You will need lots of greaseproof or baking paper, a chopping board or other flat thing, and a flat bottomed glass.

In order to make these beauties, first carefully clean and check the fennel fronds – be careful as they are really delicate. Carefully remove any squashed leaves, dirt and caterpillars. Once dry, pick off miniature tree-shaped fronds and arrange them on a sheet of greaseproof paper that has been wrapped around a chopping board or something. Leave quite a lot of space between them. This is a fiddly job, but the whole point of these is how they look, so do take the time to do it carefully. Its pretty therapeutic actually.

Once the fennel leaves are in place, arrange a few flakes of pink peppercorn over each one, trying if possible to get them in the ‘branches’.

Carefully melt the chocolate using a bain-marie or microwave of you are feeling confident, and using a spoon put a blob over each fennel leaf-peppercorn arrangement. Take care when doing this, and don’t do it from a height – you need to make sure that the arrangement doesn’t get distorted or crushed by the chocolate.

Once this is done, place a second sheet of paper over the chocolates, and use the glass to gently press each one into a flat circular disk, encasing the fennel-leaf and pepper flakes into the chocolate ‘like a fossil’. Leave to set, using the fridge only if you have to.

And there you have it. So easy and so beautiful. I’m thinking of other variations of this – potentially with tarragon. Or maybe in keeping with the colour theme, some flakes of pink Himalayan salt.

With much love and thanks to T.O.M, and to Steven for being completely lovely whilst being thrown out of his own kitchen, and taking these incredible photos.

this photo taken by Claudie

Honeycomb-peanut chocolate bites

This is based on a Nigella Lawson recipe – that I saw on one of her TV shows Nigella Kitchen, one I think that was mainly created for screening in the US, and so I am not sure when it appears in the Nigella chronology.  In my last Nigella-based blog I said some quite negative things about her unnecessarily sexualised presenting style. While I do find it a bit too ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ sometimes, I really do think that she is great.  She is a fantastic writer and the recipes are lovely, and maybe there is something we can learn from her confident, real-womanly sexuality. 

A while back I read an interview with Nigella where she said that during the TV series she made shortly after the death of her first husband (the wonderful writer John Diamond) she was incredibly depressed, and regretted making the show – I think it was the Forever Summer one. Whenever I watch repeats of that show, and infact any Nigella TV appearance, I find myself scrutinising her, looking for any signs of her depression.  And of course I can’t see anything. This got me thinking a lot about the masks that people wear in public, and the way that most people ‘expect’ them to be worn. My flatmate Hannah told me a brilliant line the other day, to use in response to people who comment about the lack of smiles in others – please give me permission to experience my emotions. Obviously this is really hippy and probably not something you could say to most people, but there is such truth in it. Maybe we all need to be more open to others, to show them that we understand the ups and downs in life. And then maybe this emotional freedom will help people to repress their feelings a little less.

And this brings me quite nicely to the theme of this post – the wonderful combination that is salt and sweet. In the way that the best comedies have a touch of sadness, or Shakespeare’s sweet sorrow, experiencing that edge, or those tears, seems to make everything else that little bit sweeter. The combination of the two in food is just magical – fans of Thai food or chocolate-covered pretzels will know this one already. I recently had an amazing chocolate truffle that had been decorated with a few crystals of sea salt. As well as looking beautiful, the taste was just amazing. In a recent TV series Heston Blumenthal said that salt actually makes chocolate taste sweeter.

600g dark chocolate – broken up

200g unsalted butter - cubed

4 large crunchie bars – smashed up, with some big chunks, and smaller bits of rubble

150g salted peanuts

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a large bowl balanced on top of a saucepan of simmering water. Be careful with this so that it doesn’t seize – let it melt slowly. Once it is melted and shiny, mix in the crunchie pieces and peanuts. Pour the whole thing into a square foil-lined dish (roasting tray, cake tin) and leave to set. If you are very clever (which sadly I wasn’t) when the chocolate is half-set you could take a knife and score bar shapes in it - making it easier to break up later. Once it is set, cut the chocolate into bite-sized pieces and enjoy!

Squashed Cupcake Truffles

Ever make or buy more cake than you can get through?? A few years ago I made about a quadruple batch of the chocolate cherry cupcakes.  I left about a third of them un-iced because I had this bright idea that as they had so much chocolate in them, they could be zapped in the microwave and turn into molten chocolate thingies (also because I ran out of glace cherries).  This sort of worked, but I was left with a whole load of cupcakes that were going a bit stale.  Anyway, I typed ‘stale cake recipe’ into google and found a fantastic idea for squashed cake truffles.  This is how I modified it for the chocolate cherry cupcakes.

Crumble up the cake into a big bowl, and add a handful of dried sour cherries, and a slug of some sort of chocolate-y cherry-y booze (I used cherry brandy).  Mix it all together and make small balls out of the goo – about the size of a walnut.  Dip the balls in melted chocolate (dark, or a mixture of dark and milk), and leave them to set on some foil or something else that wont stick.  Double-dipping in chocolate would be good too.  Now I don’t quite know what happens but inside that chocolate shell, magic happens and the whole thing tastes like something totally new, and really, really amazing.  Its actually worth making too much cake.

*For Passover* This would work really well with the prepackaged chocolate 'cake' that you can buy at Passover-time.

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

Also known as the ‘Plumptious Beauties’

So this post is a recipe from Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to be a domestic goddess.’  Her books are fantastic, incredibly well written with just the right mix of story, memory, interesting recipes and photos.  I do find that the portion-control is a little off though, as are some of the quantities and timings.  I can’t really make my mind up about Nigella.  My feminist self basically gets into a bit of a knot about the whole thing.  Do modern women want to be seen as domestic goddesses? What does a domestic goddess even mean in this day and age?  I have spent most of my life with various people telling me that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach – as if this is the main reason why I should be really pushing myself with my cooking. Nigella pouting suggestively at the camera while plunging half a cut lemon into an overly-phallic juicer doesn’t really help.  My new mantra will probably by WWCMD? (what would Caitlin Moran do).

I’m not sure what my feminist-self would say about the outfit I put on specifically to bake these cupcakes.  I got a bit carried away really.  It all started with a new cookbook – The Vintage Tea Party Book by Angel Adoree.  This is one of the best things I have spent money on in a long time.  It is an incredibly beautiful book, with great recipes and really cute little touches like invitation stencils, fascinator making, how to get your victory curls perfect and tie headscarf, 1950s style.  So for my day of baking I decided that a headscarf was probably a good idea (all for the sake of hygiene of course), as was a proper apron.  Then I had to put my pearl necklace on, and then the whole ensemble looked really half-done without the addition of red lipstick.  So there I was, dressed up and feeling a bit silly as a stepford wife, baking.  AND I LOVED IT.  Now what would Caitlin say to that??

And now for the recipe.  These were in fact the first cupcakes I ever made, in my house in Dawlish Road when I was in the second year of university in Birmingham.  I over-filled the cases and they mushroomed over the top, in a style known affectionately as ‘Hiroshima cupcakes.’  According to Niki Segnit’s Flavour Thesaurus (love love) cherry and chocolate is a ‘winning combination’ and she even refers to this recipe as an example of how well they work together! Due to the melted chocolate and jam these cupcakes are much denser than regular ones, but they are really yummy.  Nigella says that this makes 12 – she must be using gigantic cupcake cases or something, because I made about 28 cakes from 1 of these batches!  You could of course make them in a muffin tin – but they are quite rich and unless you are a major chocaholic, it might be a bit much.

For the cupcakes

125g unsalted butter

100g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

300g morello cherry jam (I usually use the Tiptree black cherry jam, but this time I used Sainsburys special selection red cherry jam, which was a little more sharp and gave a really nice flavour).

150g caster sugar (or a bit less, depending on how sweet the jam you are using is)

pinch of salt

2 large eggs, beaten (usually I just use a fork, but I think the next time I try this I will use a whisk, and try to properly aerate them, might make the cupcakes a bit lighter)

150g self-raising flour

for the topping

150g dark chocolate

100ml double cream (I never have any cream, and tend to just use a blob of butter, about 20g worth I reckon)

glace cherries – some shops stock natural coloured glace cherries, which are incredibly classy (or, as classy as a glace cherry can be) the lurid pink of the normal kind is pretty perfect for a cupcake though.

Preheat the oven to 180c, or about 160-170 if using a fan oven (recommend).

Put the butter in a saucepan or large microwave-safe bowl and melt.  When melted, take off the heat and stir in the broken up chocolate.  There will be enough residual heat to perfectly melt the chocolate without it seizing (chocolate melts at exactly body heat – isn’t that good to know??).  Once the chocolate is melted add the jam, sugar, salt and eggs.  Stir it all up and when its amalgamated add in the flour, and combine.

Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases to about 2 thirds full.  This is possibly the best tasting cake batter ever – so make sure you lick the bowl.  Now I know that I’m not 6 anymore, but that is definitely the best part of baking, possibly the only reason to bake in the first place.  Bake for about 25 minutes.  These cakes will be a little wobbly when they first come out of the oven, because of all the chocolate, but they will harden up as they cool.

When they are cool melt the chocolate with the cream or butter, and generously coat the top of each cake, and top with a cherry.

Olive oil, rosemary and dark chocolate spelt cake

After a summer hiatus, the blog is back with another guest blogger - my wonderful housemate Hannah.  I have hardly cooked at all this summer, as i spent most of it sulking, and have really been inspired by Hannah's experimentation and general cheer.  She was cooking up a storm while I was stomping around eating yogurt.  I know this recipe sounds a bit odd at first, but it really was delicious - as I'm sure everyone who tried them will agree.  It was complex and perplexing, both sweet and savoury in a mind and tongue-bending sort of way.  And due to the use of spelt, also a little smug, but in that really great way.

 

and now I introduce Hannah:

 

Our kitchen has two chefs. The professional and the wacky. As flatmates for the past year, our kitchen personalities have clearly rubbed off on each other. I for one will now only make coleslaw using a Julienne, I grind my own spices with a Pestle and Motar, and will only use sharp knives at whatever risk to my limbs. In turn Miri finds inspiration in my the-weirder-it-sounds-the-more-I-want-to-try-it attitude. To push me on this she bought me the perfect book entitled 'Good to the Grain' Baking with Whole-Grain flours. Flicking through the book from the back (as all left handers do) the first recipe that caught my attention was 'Olive oil Cake Muffins'. The combination of bitter sweet chocolate, rosemary, spelt flour and olive oil, was my idea of cake fantasy. 

If cake baking was a Sesame Street theme it would be brought to you by the letters W & D and the number 2. 

Because to make cake loaf - in one bowl you sift the dry ingredients in the other you mix the wet ingredients. Then fold the wet into the dry, gently mixed until combined, pour into the cake tin and bake it. 

So now here is that again with the ingredients (NB Measurements are in American cups)

Olive Oil Cake

Prep: Position a baking tray in middle rack of oven and preheat to 180 degrees celcius. 

Dry bowl:  sift together 3/4 cup Spelt Flour, 1 1/2 cups Plain flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon salt. 

Wet bowl: whisk three eggs, then add -1 cup olive oil, 3/4 cup milk, 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped and mix. 

Mixing: Fold wet into dry mixture

The best bit: Take a packet of really good chocolate like Lindt 75% and cut into small pieces and mix in to batter. 

Bake: Pour into cake tin or muffin tins and bake for 40 minutes. 

And there you have it - one wacky recipe. 

The results - well you must ask the professional.