Happy Birthday baby, got you on my miii-iiind

It's been birthdays galore lately.  Alistairs, mine, Jan's, KB's, plus a handful of friends'.  Good time to trial a few new cakes.  Plenty of guinea pigs.  Mwa ha haaaa.  Anyway, I came across this recipe, for Rich Chocolate Cake, in my trusty Edmonds Cookery Book (46th ed.) and thought it sounded perfect for a chocolate-lover's birthday repast.  Moist, dense and, presumably, uber-chocolatey.  Unfortunately it wasn't all that chocolatey, or very rich.  It was very nice, and moist and all that, but when one makes a rich chocolate cake, one wants it to be bloody rich and chocolatey, doesn't one? 

However, I think I know what the problem may have been...  The original recipe said 150 g chocolate.  Bugger that - 200 g from now on.  And I used pretty cheap cooking chocolate.  Next time it'll be cadbury energy, or whittikers dark ghana, or something with some real chocolate kick.  So, lesson learned - don't skimp on the chocolate when making a chocolate cake.  You'd think I'd have figured that out by now, wouldn't you? 

Oh well, all's well that ends well - the cake was eaten and enjoyed, which is the main thing.  Great cake, but take note of where I went wrong.  :) 

175 g butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
6 eggs, separated
200 g dark chocolate, melted
140 g ground almonds

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius. 
2. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Beat in egg yolks. 
3. Melt chocolate slowly, by placing bowl over pot of simmering water.  Fold this and the almonds into the butter mixture. 
4. In another bowl beat egg whites until soft peaks form.  Fold into cake mixture. 
5. Pour into greased and lined 20cm springform tin.
6. Bake for 20 mins then reduce heat to 150 degrees for further 35 minutes, or until form. 
7. Allow cake to cool in tin before serving dusted with icing sugar and a dollop of yoghurt or whipped cream. 

Snickerdoodles

About a week or so ago I was in the mood for filling the biscuit tin so turned to the guru of domestic cooking, Nigella Lawson, for inspiration.  This recipe, from How to be a Domestic Goddess, was chosen largely because of the name.  It just sounds so ridiculous, so the resulting food must be fabulous, right?  Well, the biscuits that resulted were plentiful and damned tasty, though not without some tweaking for next time (see note below).  I altered the recipe slightly (adding chocolate chips), to meet the tastes of the intended eaters, and suspect other variations would work equally well, perhaps a handful of crushed up pistachios or almonds would be nice, or coconut.  Anyhoo, without further talking on my part, here it is, snickerdoodles, the most fun-sounding cookie I've come across in ages! 

250 g flour

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (I used mixed spice)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

125 g butter
100 g caster sugar (plus 2 extra tbsp)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
dash milk

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. Combine together flour, nutmeg, baking powder and salt.  Set aside momentarily.
3. In large bowl cream butter and 100 g sugar together until light and pale, then beat in egg and vanilla.
4. Stir in set-aside dry ingredients and chocolate chips until you have a smooth mixture.  I found mine was too dry and crumbled, so I added a dash of milk here, to help it bind together. 
5. Roll out walnut-sized balls, roll in mixture of sugar and cinnamon, and place on lined or greased baking tray.  Don't squash down - they're more like little biscuity cakes than the typical flat biscuit.  
6. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden-brown.  Makes about 32 (I think I got 40 out of this batch).  

NB: These tasted really good, like little cinnamon doughnuts, but were very crumbly in texture.  Nice for dunking but possibly a bit dry for the majority of peoples' taste in biscuits.  I'm going to make these again, but next time will see how they turn out if flattened a little, to make them crisp, rather than crumbly.  We'll see... 

Procrastibaking

There's just nothing like a bit of procrastibaking when studying for exams (or indeed when one ought to be doing almost anything that one would rather not be doing).  So you can imagine how pleased I was on Tuesday afternoon (with exam looming on Wednesday morning) to be able to convince myself that it really was imperative that I bake a cake for a friend's birthday.  Realistically I doubt she would've given a hoot had we turned up bearing cake or not, but the excuse worked for me. 

Last Sunday, when baking Alistair's pear and ginger birthday cake, our oven's element blew up, necessitating a trip down the street, to bake the cake in a friend's mum's oven (one of the innumerable handy things about small towns).  While I was there she gave me this recipe, for a very speedy chocolate cake/sponge (I guess it depends on how well you beat it).  Anyhoo, I gave it a shot on Tuesday, for Cath's birthday, and it turned out pretty well.  I'm not a massive chocolate cake fan and I liked it.  The others, who are chocolate cake fans, all appeared to like it to.  So here it is - super easy and pretty well foolproof.  I like the whole 'bung everything into a bowl' idea too - go the Waikato Ladies' Golf Association (from whose cookbook it came)! 

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

3 tbsp soft butter

1/2 cup milk

2 tbsp cocoa

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.  Line/grease 20cm round cake tin (or equivilant).
2. Beat all ingredients together for 3 minutes.
3. Pour into tin and bake for 20-30 minutes. 
4. Ice or dust with icing sugar.

Hungry and Frozen: sunshine is a friend of mine...

Hungry and Frozen: sunshine is a friend of mine...

cast your votes!

In Ancient Greece votes were cast by scratching the initials of the candidates onto mussel shells.  Nowadays things are done a trifle differently, but that doesn't mean there ain't no use for the mussel...  

I'm allergic to shellfish, so it's pretty rare that I blog about anything shellfishy 'cause, to be honest, I just don't cook it.  But last night KB prepared a mussel appetiser for his parents which, I have to be honest, for the first time made me wish I could eat those little molluscs.  It looked so tasty!  Grilled mussels, in half-shell, with a fresh and light topping.  He smashed together a 2cm knob of ginger root with a handful of coriander leaves and the zest of a lemon (use a morter and pestle, or just chop it all up real fine).  This was sprinkled onto the mussels which, having been steamed open and one half of shell discarded, were sitting diligently on an oven tray.  Some parmasan cheese lightly grated on top, a drizzle of oil (really light) and grill for a couple of minutes (don't overdo or they'll be rubbery).  

I think the thing I liked most about this dish (limited, seeing as I couldn't taste it) was the way it looked.  The bright colours of the lemon zest and the coriander, against the pearly white of the mussel shell, and the darker green of the outer shell.  If you're a shellfish fiend I suggest you head to your local supy and get in the kitchen, 'cause this was a winner. 

the apple's grandaddy

I love it when someone sees a recipe they like and ask me to try it.  It means I get to try something new, and there's going to be someone waiting and wanting to eat it.  Bang up combo, that is.  Yesterday I made, with significant help from KB, a birthday cake for his dad.  Pear and ginger cake.  Not a cake I would've gravitated to, had it not been suggested, but one that I'm very glad I've made.  It was so yum.  Not too sweet, nice and tender, not too crumbly but not doughy either.  And easy to make, with no overly weird ingredients.  The only thing we had to buy specially was a couple of pears.  Will definitely be making this baby again, next time am going to try it with apple and rhubarb.  The pear was great, so will be interesting to see how apple/rhubarb is. 

185 g butter, softened                                      FOR SYRUP:
3/4 cup castor sugar                                                          50 g butter
2 eggs                                                                                   1/2 cup brown sugar
2 large pears (we used packham)                                    1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups self-raising flour                                                     1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp ground ginger (heaped!)                                          1/2 cup water
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
juice of half a lemon

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Line 20 cm round cake tin with baking paper/grease sides.
2. Mix together butter and sugar until pale and creamy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Peel, core and slice pears. 
4. Sift in flour and ginger.  Add milk, vanilla, pear and mix well. 
5. Spoon into cake tin, bake for 1 hour, or until inserted skewer comes out clean. 
6. Cool in tin for about 10 minutes, then remove to and cool on cake rack. 
7. For syrup put all ingredients into saucepan, melt butter and bring to boil.  Boil briefly, remove from heat.  Serve warm drizzled over cake. 

a few squid is all it takes

I love calamari (also referred to as 'squid'), so it's unusual that I've never once cooked with it before.  I mean, I get well excited if I see it on a restaurant menu (not including fake calamari rings you see on pub menus, though they too have their time and place).  So you can imagine my excitement when, over the weekend, whilst reading a recipe for 'squid and saffron rice salad' Emma offered to show me how to cut up, prepare and use a whole squid.  I'd never even looked at the squid in the supermarket, frozen or otherwise, having always assumed that it must be terribly difficult to prepare.  Well, Em imformed me, it ain't necessarily so...

With making the aforementioned salad in mind we traipsed about the Taupo supermarket in search of our animal.  Unfortunately they were entirely out of whole squid.  So plan B - some frozen squid tubes, to make salt and pepper friend squid, as an appetiser.  Learning to cut up and prepare a whole squid will have to wait for next time.  

Once the squid had thawed out (doesn't take long, especcially on a warm day) Emma cut the tube along one side, so she could open it out flat.  She then scored it all over one side and cut into pieces (see awesome diagram).  When scoring the flesh it's best to use a slightly serrated butter knife, rather than a sharp kitchen knife, as they tend to make a wider cut, without just cutting right through (which you don't want).  Together we coated it in a mixture of flour and cornflour, seasoned with salt and pepper (a little paprika, lemon-pepper, garlic salt etc would make nice additions/substitutions here).   

Dave, reputed Squid Cook King, stepped in at this point, to take over my position as Emma's culinary partner, one I was happy to relinquish, leaving me watching as the coated strips of calamari were shallow-fried in a combination of hot butter and oil.  Don't cook for too long, or they'll become rubbery - they curl a wee bit when ready.  Serve hot, sprinkled with a little sea salt (Maldon was the preferred type on this occasion) and a good grind of pepper.

Nb: Be careful also not to oversalt them before serving - better to use the salt sparingly and place a dish of salt on the table, so people can add more to taste.