Just discovered

Green & Black's, 85%.

Best chocolate ever.

(Someone told me something recently about the ownership of Green & Black's? something not good?)

Genius, daringly simple Febbaking

This is what I was waiting for, the reason - without knowing it - that I joined the Daring Bakers. Not for the endless rolling and resting of pastry, not for fiddling, getting out and putting back in the fridge, not for beating curdly buttercream icing and making toffee to pralinate in the food processor, or in fact for icing of any kind. Especially not for piping bags.

Genius.

Three ingredients. Chocolate, butter, eggs.

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.
(Never mind the ice cream. I made pistachio and served it another time. But it turned out such an ugly colour that I haven't got a good photo yet! so you won't see it in this post.)

Cared I that it was Valentine's Day? I wouldn't have noticed except for a certain teenager I know feeling the aloneness of couples all over the world doing coupley things (as far as she knew.. or defying the contrivedness of such a Hallmark holiday.. or not even caring enough to defy).

Chocolate is the answer!

It was a good distraction for my teenage friend, anyway. And an excellent one for me.
And an even better dessert the next day.

Who needs flour, honestly. The TEXTURE.

Chocolate Valentino (Australian adaptation)
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
454 g chocolate, roughly chopped (I just used 450. Aka 16 ounces)
146 g unsalted butter (Imperialists! Just measure it. Or use 125 g like me, quarter of a block.)
5 large eggs, separated

1. 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.
2. While the choc-butter mixture is cooling, butter the pan and line with baking paper.
2a. Put on Ray LaMontagne, Bob Dylan, or whatever music you feel like. Dance around.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. 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).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together. (Hooray! same beater. Clever 'un who wrote this owns the key to my own chocolate heart. Hear me Daring Bakers, our usual recipes use far too many dishes. Don't you have something better to do than wash up?)
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. 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.
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. 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.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmould..

It needs a good chocolate, because with no added sugar, nuts, flour or that, this cake tastes exactly like the chocolate you use. But even better, because it's cake.

December away...

I am trying to track down this Donna Hay cake I saw the recipe for in that No Time to Cook book in a bookshop recently. It was like a giant raspberry friand (siiiiiiiigh) and I need to use up the egg whites in the fridge. It is not to be found! I'll have to wing it.

So on the topic of December away, it has been quite a month for fruit picking, just wait for my photos, but they shall be in the next post, because this one goes to those crazy 'bakers'. More like daring freezers, ha. Yes, darling readers. I complain, but do I stop following?

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.. search it if you like. It's an ice cream cake, AKA a litre of cream and a few blocks of chocolate, with layers amillion. Well, eight-ish.
The half piece is because it was really hard to cut without breaking, even left out of the freezer. Some components softened more quickly than others. So we just cut huge fat pieces and served them in halves.

Starting from the top, we have:
chocolate icing (does that need stating?)
milk chocolate semifreddo in which everything else is set, i.e. frozen mousse
baked creme brulee
more chocolate mousse
praline feuilleté (hazelnut praline crushed with crisp-baked crepe biscuits, chocolate and butter)
mousse again
dark chocolate ganache (hands up if this is your favourite part. me, pick me!)
and hazelnut dacquoise, of which I could have happily eaten a bit more.

Yum. I won't be making THAT again anytime soon!

This time of the month

...in a totally male-friendly way. The end of the month means one thing in baking blogs all over the world.Daring Bakers, thankyou for not even threatening my sanity with this month's chocolate eclairs!

I thought choux pastry was meant to be hard? The only part I struggled with was piping the dough/paste onto the trays, because either my piping skills or equipment (most likely both) are not quite up to it. Never mind, roundish globs became pretty profiteroles!

I freaked out when I saw instructions to boil the pastry cream, and to my delight discovered that cornflour stops the yolk curdling! Genius. I actually was surprised to see that the recipe called for a chocolate custard and that other bakers going for a chocolate non-overload had used a set custard rather than just whipped cream, which I had thought was the more traditional way to fill an eclair. Custard suits me perfectly.

What else is there to tell you... let me know if you want the recipe, it's quite easy.

Mum came in as they were in the oven and said they smelled right. She used to make them all the time and she said Grandma (of the trusted sponge kisses and luince jelly) used to just spoon the paste onto the tray and smooth it out in eclair shape with a knife. I'll do that next time, and there will be a next time, because these were not only easy but fun to make.

And after taking photos to show off how wonderful they looked, I'd forgotten that they would have a taste! and delicious they were.
P.S. Reading other Daring Bakers' commentaries, I thought lavender and chocolate sounded gorgeously good, especially as spring arrives here, so my cream is subtly lavender. Enjoy :)

Flaring Bakers go the hazelnut genoise

So, I am still going strong in the second month of claiming Daring Bakership.


The majority of this pack of strange people (I feel myself becoming addicted already) live far away in the US of A or far away elsewhere. So it seems they are likely to come up with slightly different challenges to what another Melbournian might think of.. a super-duper layered torte-ish gateau with creamy fillings, requiring hours of fridge time, for example, I think I would have been more inspired to make in summer. Teacakes call to me lately now that winter is settled in for the last coldest stretch...

That being said, I came home looking for the last piece of this creation about a day after completing it, and nowhere was it to be seen...!! So nobody had a major problem with it.
Nobody else in our house minded my lack of decoration skills either - well, maybe the noises coming from the kitchen during the decoration process! - so I am pleased.

Some books seem to say filberts and hazelnuts are related but slightly different, while other sources say they are the same thing. Whatevs.
Description:
Layers of Frangelico-brushed hazelnut meringue, held with praline buttercream and whipped cream, all swept over with a pear and vanilla glaze and finished with a second glaze of ganache (my favourite bit ;) and decorated (sigh) with more praline buttercream.

I left the skins on all my hazelnuts because going on my little experience of the sweetness of the DBs I -rightly, in all our opinions- predicted the cake would be sweet enough to take a tiny hint of bitterness. And maybe even some nutrition (fibre is in the skins, yes?). No laziness there at all.
mmmm.