Ottolenghi Champangne Truffles

I'm having fun at the moment working my way through a list of recipes for Christmas gifts, to give over the next few weeks.  Champagne truffles are a recipe I've been thinking about for a while - I'm really interested in making chocolates and truffles but prefer not to use fresh cream so that I feel a bit happier about giving them as gifts when I can't rely on them being kept in the fridge.  Most recipes I'd seen for champagne truffles used cream, and my own previous attempts had resulted in a very poor champagne flavour, usually drowned out by the bitter dark chocolate.  This recipe is by far the most successful - as long as I don't think about the amount of butter in them!  The mix of milk and dark chocolate means they're not too bitter, and the brandy heightens the alcohol flavour without it being overpowering.  The butter gives a very silky, melt-in-the-mouth texture; quite unusual but very popular. 

Ottolenghi Champagne Chocolates (makes about 40)

60g milk chocolate
200g dark chocolate
150g unsalted butter
80ml champagne
40ml brandy

Line a cake tin roughly 14cm square.  Break the chocolates into small pieces and melt gently either in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water.  Cut the butter into small pieces and set aside. 

Pour the champagne and brandy into a small saucepan and heat over a low heat until hot, but not boiling.  Pour over the chocolate and stir together gently.  Stir in the butter in a few additions, stirring together until the mixture is completely smooth.  Pour into the lined tray and place in the fridge for at least 3 hours, until set firm. 

When set, turn out and cut into roughly 2cm sqaures.  These can be coated in tempered dark chocolate and then rolled in cocoa powder, but I chose just to roll mine straight in cocoa powder, which worked well. 

(they were slightly impossible for me with my limited camera skills to photograph well, this is the best of a bad lot!)

Huckleberries

Earlier this year, a friend gave us some huckleberry plants for the garden.  Never having seen them before, we did a little research on the internet but essentially planted them and left to their own devices.  Much to our surprise, by October the bushes were covered in fruits; small shiny black berries, perhaps a little smaller than blueberries.  The friend told us that the berries should be left until after the first frost to be picked, and that once harvested, they were very bitter to taste and so best added to other fruit desserts, such as crumbles or pies. 

Last weekend they were clearly in need of picking, so I decided to scour the internet for a recipe in which to try some.  We've already used our own apples us in pies and crumbles for the freezer, so adding them to those was out.  I found lots of American recipes for using them up, but very few British, and I wasn't entirely sure if they are exactly the same thing in America.  However, a bit of digging suggested that they could be substituted for blueberries, so I settled on trying that.  I had no idea if it would work, and was even less sure when I braved tasting one fresh and it was so bitter it left my lips stinging, but ploughed ahead anyway. 

I used a recipe for Clafoutis Cake I'd saved from a Sainsbury's magazine last year, which originally contained blackcurrants but I have previously made with blueberries.  It's a gorgoeus dessert cake, moist yet light and stuffed full of juicy burst fruits.  Sadly, this one was disgusting - nobody in my family could tolerate the taste of the huckleberries and the only place for it was the bin.  I really would recommend you make the cake - and use any berries you like - but steer clear of huckleberries!

Clafoutis Cake (adapted from Sainsburys Magazine)

110g butter

100g caster sugar

150g self-raising flour

2 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp milk

225g berries (eg. blackcurrants/blueberries/raspberries...)

icing sugar, to dust

Preheat the oven to 180c, and butter a 20cm cake tin.  Cream together butter and sugar, gradually mix in the flour and eggs, followed by the milk.  Gently fold in the berries, pour the mixture into the tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown and springs back when lightly touched.  Leave to cool in the tin, then turn out and dredge with icing sugar.  Can be eaten warm or cool, but is best eaten on the day it's made. 

Chocolate and Vanilla Marbled Loaf

The main reason for making this cake was a need to use up some sour cream which had been languishing at the back of the fridge - I was determined it wouldn't go to waste and found I had just about the right amount for this recipe.  It also gave me a chance to attempt a recipe from a book I hadn't used before, and as I have a frighteningly fast-growing collection of recipe books, I'm really trying to make sure I actually make use of them all. 

My only concern about the cake was that it doesn't have any icing/topping.  My family, who are generally the lucky(!) recipients of my baking, have a tendency to question the absence of icing on cakes, so I wasn't too sure how that would go down.  I needn't have worried though; reviews were all positive so it must have been very nice cake indeed!  Oddly enough, despite my love of baking, I don't actually have much of an appetite for cakes and biscuits, so I mostly rely on family and friends to taste test.  I only had a small piece, but I did really enjoy the light texture of the cake and the intense flavour of the chocolate mixture.  I have baked marbled cakes before, but it was nice to find one which only makes a small loaf so that we're not left eating it for a week or so!

(recipe from Marks and Spencer 'I Love Sugar' recipe book)

55g dark chocolate

3 tbsp milk

70g unsalted butter

85g caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

3 tbsp sour cream

115g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 160c, and grease and line a 1lb/450g loaf tin.  Melt the chocolate with the milk over a pan of simmering water, then remove from the heat and leave to cool. 

Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in the egg and soured cream.  Sift in the flour and baking powder, and fold together lightly using a metal spoon.  Spoon half the mixture into a separate bowl, and stir in the chocolate mixture.  Add the vanilla extract to the plain (non-chocolate) mixture. 

Spoon the chocolate and vanilla mixtures alternately into the prepared tin, swirling together with a skewer for a marbled effect.  Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, until well-risen and firm to the touch.  Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. 

Hummingbird Bakery Cupcakes

I make cupcakes fairly often, but nearly always following the recipes from the Magnolia Bakery in New York.  Their recipes for both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes produce a beautifully dense sponge which is very popular in this house, but they are quite time consuming to make, and even more so when, like me, you don't have an electric mixer.  Cupcakes were requested last week, but finding myself very short of time owing to job-hunting and interviews, and with only one egg in the fridge, I had to have a rethink.  I remembered a recipe for vanilla cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook I'd copied down from the internet a while back.  The Hummingbird Bakery claims to be the destination in London for American-style cupcakes, so I was intrigued to find out how they would compare with the Magnolia Bakery recipe. 

The recipe is quite unusual, in that very little butter is used but it includes quite a lot of milk, making for a very liquid batter.  It was very quick to put together and the only problem I had was that the recipe claims to make 12 - I managed 10 but could have filled the cases higher in which case I think it would have been more like 8.   After baking for 20 minutes they were cooked through, the only notable difference from another recipe being that the rise was very flat.  Upon tasting, the sponge is incredibly light, much more so than the Magnolia Bakery recipe, and quite crumbly.  When topped with buttercream and dolly mixtures, it was felt that although a good texture, the sponge was almost too light, and so overwhelmed by the buttercream.  Perhaps they would be better topped with glace icing, but this would rather defeat the object of an  'American cupcake'!  An interesting recipe, and certainly one to consider, but for now at least, the Magnolia Bakery cupcakes remain firm favourites. 

Hummingbird Bakery Cupcakes

120g plain flour

140g caster sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

40g unsalted butter

120ml whole milk

1 egg

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170c.  Mix the flour, sugar, butter, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.  Gradually pour in half the milk and beat until just incorporated.  In another bowl, whisk together the egg, vanilla extract and remaining milk, then pour this mixture into the flour mix and continue beating until just incorporated.  Do not overmix, but beat until just smooth.  Spoon into paper cases and bake for 20-25 mins until golden brown. 

When cool, top with buttercream and decorate however you wish. 

Baking for Macmillan (2)

I promised some recipes for the cakes I baked for the Macmillan Coffee Morning, and although it's taken a while I have finally got around to writing some up!  For the Victoria Sponge, I followed Nigella Lawson's recipe from 'How to be a Domestic Goddess', divided between two 8 inch sandwich tins.  I opted to fill it with a vanilla buttercream and homemade strawberry jam, and simply dusted the top with icing sugar.  The cherry cake was this recipe from bbcgoodfood.com.  It was the first time I'd tried it, and not being cherry season in the UK I had to use tinned cherries rather than fresh.  Nevertheless, it was very well received and the piece I managed to try was very tasty, but I think a better flavour would be achieved using fresh fruit, so will definitely try that next time.  It's worth noting though that as many people have commented on the recipe, the cake did take quite a bit longer to cook than suggested - I think I left mine in the oven for around 40 minutes, but testing it with a skewer was a bit hit and miss!  Ginger cake was made to a recipe from Rachel Allen, a gorgeously sticky loaf thanks to the syrup, and the fact that I use chopped stem ginger in syrup rather than crystallised ginger in the cake mixture.  It doesn't really need icing as well, but it's a nice finishing touch when making the cake for an event. 

Another first was a spiced apple cake, borne initially out of the need to use up some of the cooking apples from our garden.  There's only so much room in the freezer to fill up with copious pies and crumbles, so a cake seemed a good solution.  The recipe came from a little book of recipes from Olive magazine, '101 Seasonal Treats'.  It's a really good little book; I've cooked a few recipes from it now and all have been a success.

Squidgy Spiced Apple Cake

125g butter
225g dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
225g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
300g cooking apples, peeled, cored and diced
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp demerara sugar

Heat the oven to 160c/gas mark 3, grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin.  Cream together the butter and muscovado sugar (make sure before you do this that your sugar hasn't set to rock hard chunks as mine had - ten minutes of beating later I still had lumps of sugar so I just gave up and hoped for the best!), then mix in the eggs.  Sift over the flour, baking powder and spices, folding in gently.  Add the chunks of diced apple.  Pour the mixture into the tin, bake for 60 minutes or until risen and browned.  While it's cooking, combine the honey and demerara sugar.  When the cake comes out of the oven, spread the honey and sugar mix over the top and sides while still warm. 

The cake was a bit rustic looking and didn't cut into particularly neat slices, but I think that just added to the charm.  It certainly smelled good, and I'm reliably informed that it was the first to disappear at school, with several requests for the recipe. 

Cakes for Macmillan

I love any excuse to bake, and coupled with raising money for a great cause, the Macmillan Coffee morning seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up! This is an annual event, held on September 25th, where the charity Macmillan Cancer Support suggest that people arrange to host a coffee morning, invite some friends and ask for donations in return for coffee and cake.  I liked the idea in theory, but having recently moved back home after graduating from university and with a lot of friends still away, I wasn't sure how many people would realistically come or donate.  With a little persuasion, we solved the problem by deciding I could bake instead for the school my mum works at - 50+ people very enthusiastic about cake would hopefully mean more money for Macmillan, and lots of cakes to be made. 

I spent most of Thursday happily baking, having planned what I would make for about 3 days beforehand.   In the end, I decided 8 cakes would suffice, and in an attempt to account for all tastes chose to make lemon, coffee, cherry, apple, chocolate, ginger, banana and a Victoria sponge (recipe details to follow shortly...).  They were all duly packed up and transported to school in something of a mass-operation on Friday morning, where they appeared to be much appreciated.  Only 4 slices returned at the end of the day, despite concerns I had made far too much, and almost £35 raised.  Great fun for all involved, and well worth the effort to raise money for such a good cause.

(Apologies for the terrible photograph, it was rather dark by the time I had finished decorating/slicing everything, and the light's not good in my kitchen at the best of times!)