Daring bakers: chocolate we love!

The compulsory introduction:

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

When I looked at the recipe, I was stunned. Only a couple of lines for the cake and only 3 ingredients! I thought it was a mistake…and I was right: I also needed to make ice cream myself. That was the tricky part…But the cake was very easy to make:

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time:  20 minutes

16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

 

# Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

# While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

# Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry). With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

# Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

# Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.

# Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C (mine was done already in 20 minutes). If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.

# Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold. Serve with ice cream. I baked it in a round tin and for serving, cut out rounds with the help of a glass, to make a nicer presentation. 

The cake was really yummy! It was like a big chunk of moist chocolate, an extremely pleasant thing for eat for a sweet-tooth like me. 

For ice cream, I tried to make this ginger ice cream just because I don’t have an ice cream maker. It turned out…edible, to say the least. The taste was nothing near to regular ice cream, it was too eggy. And the texture was all wrong, it was difficult to scoop it (because it was totally frozen). When I waited for it to soften into scoopable consistency, it just melted into a sauce. A disaster so to say. At least I had some nice vanilla ice cream supplies at the freezer for such a case…

Lenten buns

Today, when many nationalities are celebrating Pancake Day, we Estonians together with the Nordic countries do something else. We celebrate Shrove Tuesday (or “Vastlapäev”, as we call it). We do not eat pancakes on that day, nor do we held pancake races. Instead, we eat lenten buns and pea soup and go sledding. 

I have had lenten buns on every Shrove Tuesday since I can remember. I have never baked them myself though, because the Estonian bakeries usually are very skillful in making these. Unfortunately, nobody sells lenten buns in London. So this year I decided to bake my own. Pille’s blog gives you the recipe. I had a slightly altered version (e.g. I added marzipan in addition to the whipping cream), but as far as I know, Pille’s recipe is the most foolproof and the best to try if you haven’t ever made those buns.

I don’t have anything against the traditions of other countries, but personally, I think that having buns for Shrove Tuesday is more exciting than having pancakes. I urge you all to give them a try next year. You could start practicing already as of today

My first duck!

I have always thought of duck as a very delicate meat that I would never-ever be able to cook myself. Still, I decided to give it a go. I had looked up some recipes featuring duck breasts and had my mind set on one particular recipe which called for juniper seeds and leeks and other interesting stuff. So I had all the ingredients but the duck breast which I decided to buy on the day I wanted to cook it. Then, a disaster stroke: no duck breast at my local supermarket. Duck legs only…I had already promised duck for dinner, so I bought them anyway and went home, a bit gutted, but still hoping that I could serve a decent meal using duck legs. I found this recipe from BBC Good food and immediately decided to use it as it seemed so simple yet elegant. I altered it a bit because I didn’t have all the ingredients at hand and was stunned that the end result was that good! Here’s the way I did it:

Serves two:

2 duck legs

0.5 ts five spice powder

bunch of rosemary springs or a couple of tbsp dried rosemary

4 garlic cloves

 

# Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Rub the duck legs with salt and five-spice powder and put them in a roasting tin on a bed of rosemary and garlic cloves. Roast for 1 hr (check regularly, as mine were done already after 45 min).

# While the duck is in the oven, boil some vegetables you are going to use for the side dish (I chose baby potatoes). Also prepare the sauce. You’ll need:

300 ml red wine

2 tbsp black-currants jelly or red-currants jelly

1 tbsp cranberry jam

 

# Bring the wine, jelly and jam to a gentle simmer, stirring to dissolve the jelly, then continue to simmer for 5 mins. Taste and add some salt and pepper, if need be.

# When the duck has been cooking for an hr remove from the oven and spoon off almost all the fat, then pour the wine mixture around it and return to the oven for 10-15 mins to finish cooking and reduce the sauce (I also covered the duck with foil to prevent the skin from burning).

# For serving: place the duck leg to a pre-heated plate and add some warm vegetables. Sieve the sauce (so that you would get rid of the rosemary springs that can be unpleasant to eat) and pour it over the potatoes. Serve immediately. Goes well with red wine.

Lots of love and appreciation guaranteed! This dish was a real hit, J event told me that it was “restaurant-quality”. Definitely a keeper, although I am now eager to try some other duck recipes as well. What’s your favorite duck recipe?

Swiss roll with egg whites

As I recently made custard, I had 4 leftover egg whites which I needed to use up. Fortunately I found a recipe from one of my little recipe book: a Swiss roll with egg whites. Something I had never heard of before.

• 4 egg whites
• 85 g sugar
• juice of a half a lemon
• 1 tbsp cornstarch or corn flour
• jam of your liking (I used apricot jam)
• 200 ml whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• mix of cinnamon and sugar and slices of roasted almonds or nuts to decorate

# Whip egg whites and sugar until soft peaks form. Add lemon juice and carefully fold in corn starch or corn flour.

# Spread the batter thinly to baking parchment (note that the batter will rise a bit) and bake at 175 C for 15 minutes.

# In the mean time, place another piece of baking parchment on table and sprinkle some mix of cinnamon and sugar and almonds or nuts over it.

# Place the baked sponge carefully over the paper covered with cinnamon-sugar-almonds-or-nuts mix and let cool until you whip the whipping cream into soft peaks with sugar.

# Spread jam over the sponge. Then do the same with whipping cream. Roll into a tight spiral and place into a fridge for a couple of hours (the roll will be perfectly set in 6 hours, but I ate it already after 3 hours and it was still delicious).

It is a very delicate and moist roll, every bite literally melts in your mouth and leaves you wanting some more. The texture was perfect – I couldn’t have asked for a better one. I think the cinnamon is an important thing to add – do use it, otherwise the end result might lack the necessary kick.

Unfortunately, the pictures are crap and tell little about the beauty of the roll, but I can assure you that it is a pretty dessert which will definitely wow your guests.

Bread leftovers – we’ve all been there. What to do with them?

I hate wasting food. That is why I try to buy only as much as I need (even if it means that I will have to buy 1.5 cm fresh ginger). Still, sometimes I need to be creative around the end of the week and look for recipes where I could use up  90 g pork mince, 1 lime, half an avocado and 3 tbsp tomato puree that I have in the fridge. Sometimes can be tricky… Every now and then I need to be creative with the leftover bread. The easiest way to get rid of a bunch of bread is the casserole which I am now going to introduce. It’s probably nothing new to you, but you never know. I tried a casserole with banana and custard, a recipe that I found from one of Sainsbury’s “Try Something new today” recipe cards. It suggested using Sainsbury’s custard powder, but I did my own custard instead. If you have time, I really suggest to you put the custard together yourself, the casserole tastes much better…

You’ll need:

• Leftover bread
• Leftover bananas
• Strawberry jam

# Spread bread slices with strawberry jam. Layer the bread in a small baking dish and position so that they are pointing upwards (see the picture).

# Slice bananas and place them on top of bread slices. Then prepare the custard. I used BBC’s recipe (you’ll end up with 570 ml custard and have some leftovers which you can use the next day):

• 570ml/1 pint milk
• 55ml/2fl oz single cream
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar or ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs, yolks only
• 3 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 level tsp cornflour

# Bring the milk, cream and vanilla sugar to simmering point slowly over a low heat.

#  Whisk the yolks, sugar and cornflour together in a bowl until well blended.

# Pour the hot milk and cream on to the eggs and sugar, whisking all the time with a balloon whisk.

#  Return to the pan, (add vanilla extract if using) and over a low heat gently stir with a wooden spatula until thickened.

# Pour the custard over the casserole and bake at 170 degrees C for around 20-25 minutes. Serve when warm.

# Pour the leftover custard in a bowl and cover the top with cling film to prevent skin forming. You can serve it with fruit salad, berries, chocolate cake or whatever dessert you wish.

All in all, I think it was tasty but it definitely need some crunch. So I suggest to add some raisins or other dried fruits, apple cubes or something else you can think of to improve its texture. And I wouldn’t suggest serving it as a dessert following a dinner because it is pretty messy to serve it (not very easy to cut nice slices from the soft custard). When you serve it together with morning coffee, the presentation doesn’t matter that much…right?