Chocolate cake (like Awfully Chocolate)

The boy invited his friends home for a little party and as with our past tradition, we baked him a cake.  Chocolate cake is the natural choice.  Instead of the tried and tested recipe that I always used, I decided to search for something easier.

Found one that claims it's from the owner of Twelve Cupcakes and that the result is almost like Awfully Chocolate.  I adapted it and made a slight variation.  You can go into the link to see the original recipe.  Here's what I used:

Group 1
90g Cadbury Old Gold Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa)
1 cup freshly brewed coffee
(Melt chocolate with the heat from the fresh coffee)

Group 2
2 eggs
1/2 cup corn oil
1 cup buttermilk (add 1 tbsp lemon juice to 1 cup fresh milk and let stand for 10 minutes)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Group 3
300g sugar
215g self-raising flour
25g Hershey's cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
(Sift together)

Group 4
100ml whipping cream
20g butter
260g Cadbury Old Gold Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa)

Here're the steps:

1.   Preheat oven to 160 deg c
2.   Whisk eggs from Group 2 till fluffy then add in the ingredients from Group 1 + the rest of the ingredients from Group 2 and combine thoroughly
3.   Add ingredients from Group 3 to the mixture in Step 2 and mix thoroughly
4.   Line baking pans with parchment paper
5.   Pour batter from Step 3 into pan and bake for 30 - 40 minutes (or as long as required.  Cake is done if a skewer comes out clean when poked into the middle of the cake)
6.  Remove cake from oven and cool on rack
7.  While cake is baking, melt ingredients in Group 4 over a bain marie
8.  Remove from heat and continue stirring till all chocolate and butter is melted and the mixture is thick and shiny
9.  When cake and chocolate fudge are all cooled, assemble cake and frost to liking

I do like the taste.  It's not too sweet and is definitely rich and chocolatey.  It stayed soft even after sitting in my chiller for 4 hours.  This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Nutella Muffin

New bakes! Yohei declared break from his vegetables in his bento so I decided to bake him something for school. Tried out a recipe for Nutella Muffin from Tasty Kitchen.

I halved the recipe as I'm not sure how sweet it would be. Half the recipe yielded a batch of 7.






Ingredients

• 1-½ cup Flour
• ¾ cups Sugar
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• ⅓ cups Canola Oil
• 1 whole Egg
• ⅓ cups Milk
• 1 cup Nutella, Divided

How-to:
 
Pre-heat oven to 190 deg C.

Mix the dry ingredients. In a jug, mix the wet ingredients (except the Nutella). Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently fold together (don't over-do it or you will get tough muffins).

Scoop a small amount of batter into the muffin cup, then put in a small spoon of Nutella (to your taste, really. I didn't follow the exact amount recommended). Then top off with more batter.

Bake till done (about 18 - 20 minutes). Recipe called for drizzling melted Nutella over the top of the hot muffins but I simply put a small dollop on them.

Triple Chocolate Mousse

I've posted this before, long time back but heck, it's Christmas! What's Christmas without some sweet temptations?

I made this for my little get-together a week before Christmas and I think someone's going to blame me for his/her weight gain :P

This recipe was taken off Anna Olsen's "Sugar" programme and it went onto my "die-die-must-try-to-make" list immediately. Here's the ingredient list:

Dark Chocolate layer:
6oz (~ 170g. I'd give it a bit more) Dark Chocolate (I have used Cadbury Old Gold 70% cocoa and Carrefour housebrand 74% cocoa and both are good)
1/2 teaspoon gelatin powder
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 cup whipping cream

White Chocolate layer:
5oz (~ 141g) White Chocolate
1/4 teaspoon gelatin powder
1/4 milk
1/2 cup whipping cream

Milk Chocolate layer:
6oz (~ 170g) Milk Chocolate
1/4 teaspoon gelatin powder
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup whipping cream

How to:
The method for all layers are the same. You should only prepare each layer as and when you need it.

1. Stir the gelatin into the milk and let it sit for a while.
2. Melt chocolate in a bain marie (or over a pot of simmering water), stirring constantly.
3. Heat the milk till it just starts to bubble and whisk it into the melted chocolate.
4. Let the chocolate + milk mixture cool to room temperature.
5. Whisk the whipping cream into a soft peak.
6. Gently fold whipped cream into cooled chocolate mixture.
7. Pour into mould and even out. Chill till set before putting on next layer.

Chilling times:
Milk Chocolate: at least 4 hours
Dark & White Chocolate: at least 1 hour

My notes:

The quantity here for the white and milk chocolate is half of the quantity Anna Olsen's original recipe. I'm not much of a sweets person so I've decided to use less of the milk and white.

Depending on how you are serving the mousse, you can change the sequence of the layers as you wish but I find the dark/white/milk sequence tastes best (especially when you have your spoon right to the bottom and spoon out all 3 layers into your mouth at the same time... heavenly...). Just make sure that each layer is well set before you pour on the next layer (otherwise the layers may mix up together).

For ease of serving, I used individual cups but you can also make it in a big tray. Just make sure you line the tray with a plastic wrap first. To serve, put a large serving plate over the mousse, tip the whole thing over and peel off the plastic. Slice the mousse with a hot, dry knife and use a cake server to lift off.

Garnishing:
Anna Olsen used a Dacquoise Crunch (a meringue spread thin and slow-baked, then broken up into pieces). I didn't do this because of time constraint. I just might try it next week :)

Have fun!

Rich Chocolate Brownie Bars

I baked brownies this morning and cut them up into little bars. Here's what I used:

60g Unsalted butter
150g Dark chocolate (I used Cadbury Gold 70% cocoa)
150g sugar
75g Self-raising flour
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
5g salt
2 eggs
75g chopped walnuts / Hersheys chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180deg C and grease your baking pan (if required)
2. Melt butter and chocolate
3. Put together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt) and mix them up with your spoon
4. Whisk eggs with vanilla
5. Pour egg mixture into dry ingredients, add in the melted butter/chocolate. stir and mix.
6. Put in the optional ingredients and give it a light mix
7. Pour into baking dish and put in oven. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes (depending on the size of your pan). Check for doneness (tooth pick should come out clean from the middle of the pan)
8. Let cool completely on a wire rack and cut into bars

You can chill or freeze the uneaten bars and warm them up when required. Best served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream :)

Chocolate Lava

It so happended 2 of my nephews came over for dinner last night and king junior asked for Chocolate Lava for dessert. It's been a few months since I last made that so to make the boy happy, Chocolate Lava for dessert it shall be!




The chocolate came oozing out when I cut through with my spoon. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
A.
100g dark chocolate (I used Cadboury Old Gold 70% cocoa. You can use your favourite)
100g unsalted butter (cubed at room temperature)

Melt these 2 items together using a bain marie.

B.
2 eggs
50g sugar

Beat these together till it turns white.

C.
20g flour (I used self-raising but you can use plain too. It just won't rise as much)

Method:

Heat your oven to about 180 deg C. Butter your ramekins (no ramekins? use muffin cups but make sure you butter them well so the cake can come off easily when done)

Pour melted chocolate / butter (A) into the egg mixture (B). Stir to mix well. Then stir in flour (C). Stir till well-mixed.

Pour into ramekins and bake for 10 minutes, till the outside's done and the inside's still runny. If you are using muffin cups or even paper cups, reduce the bake time to about 8 minutes or even lesser. But don't worry about over baking. I like it runny in the middle (hence the lava) but if you over bake, you will just get a super moist chocolate cake :)

You can prepare the batter ahead and just pop into the oven and then serve immediately, with ice cream, fruits (sour cherries with vanilla ice cream + cream are a good bet) or just eat it on its own.

Left overs can be stored in the fridge (in their ramekins or cups), and popped into the oven to heat for a couple of minutes the next day and turned into super moist chocolate cake.

Enjoy!

Elaine's cake

Ayako and company wanted to spring a surprise on Elaine for her upcoming birthday. Since Elaine liked the Chocolate Fudge Cake that i made when they came to the house early last month, I was tasked to bake it again.

Just for the fun of it, I used bear-shaped cutters to cut out 2 pieces of the cake and held them up with toothpicks.

Moobe decorated the cake with melted white chocolate.

Chocolate Lava

When J & LL came over the weekend, I tried baking chocolate lava which turned out a tad too dry (yea, overbaked :P). Yohei requested for Chocolate Lava for dessert today and since WT was coming over to get some paperwork done, I baked a small batch. It turned out much better, having learned from the previous stint but I think I can still improve on the the temperature control. The chocolate is moist, as you can see from the picture but it doesn't flow out as I had hoped it would. Ah well, there will always be a next time. The recipe came from here.

I halved the recipe and it yielded 5 small ones (used small cups as I don't have any of those regular ramekins). For chocolate, I mixed 3oz of Carrefour's Noir chocolates (60%) with some Hershey's unsweetened chocolate since we all prefer it rich with the slightest hint of bitter.

It would have been much better if we had some vanilla ice cream handy but that would be too sinful, wouldn't it? :)

Enjoy!