Chocolate Fingers Celebration Cake with Red Berries

It is my friend's birthday today so true to traditions I baked her a birthday cake. I always wanted to make a similar cake but the chocolate cigarellos just way out of my budget range(for a small cake  it would cost 30-40 pounds at least). But, there is a cheaper alternative: Chocolate fingers! I modified my previous flourless brownie recipe (but added some flour to make it more sturdy) as I just couldn't have enough of it since yesterday.

Chocolate Fingers Celebration Cake with Red Berries

Ingredients for the cake
250 g dark chocolate broken into pieces (around 60%-70 cocoa solids)
250 g unsalted butter, diced
100 g golden caster sugar
4 medium eggs
100 g  ground almonds
50 g plain flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder, sifted
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

For the cream and decoration
250 g mascarpone
100 g dark chocolate broken into pieces
2-5 tbsp Amaretto liqueur
2.5 box of Cadbury Chocolate Fingers

300 g raspberries
150 g strawberries

red ribbon for decorating
2 coloured pearl headed pins

Preheat the oven to 170C and prepare two 19 cm sandwich tin.

Melt the chocolate (250 g) with the butter in a bowl set over a pan with a little simmering water in it. Remove from the heat, add the sugar and stir to combine, then leave to cool slightly. Add the eggs to the chocolate mixture, one by one, beating after each addition until the mixture is very glossy.

Gently fold in the ground almonds, flour, baking powder and cinnamon without overmixing.

Spread the chocolate mixture in the tins and bake for 25-35 minutes. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean with just a few moist crumbs on it.

In the meantime  you can prepare the filling. Melt the 100 g chocolate in a bowl set over a pan with a little simmering water in it. Remove from the heat then leave to cool slightly. Add the mascarpone and work it until fully incorporated then add Amaretto liqueur to taste (as this cake made for a birthday girl, I wasn't shy with the amount:))

When the cake is ready and completeley cooled, level with a cake leveller. Place one layer on the cake stand and spread some chocoalte filling and sandwich with the other sponge layer.

Cover the cake with the rest of the chocolate cream (leaving a thicker layer on the top rather than the sides) and start to press lightly the chocolate fingers to the sides. You should face the cake eye level otherwise after a few chocolate you tend to misplace the fingers and they won't stand straight.

I prepared the bow while baking the sponge. Just cut a piece of ribbon, tie it, then insert a headed pin from behind. Cut a bigger piece of ribbon, tie it around the cake and fix it with another headed pin(obviously please wash the pins before use, and just before cutting the cake remove the ribbon with the needles to avoid any accidents). When you happy with the position of the ribbon just insert the bow on top.

Place or arrange the washed fruits on top.............and you can start preparing for the birthday party.

and Happy Birthday Rimma!!!!!

Flourless Chocolate Brownies

The second recipe I tried from my new Annie Bell book was this brownie. I was quite curious how this would turn out, as I modified the recipe (I don't normally change recipe without trying out first the original, but there are exceptions) . First of all I used half the sugar the recipe originally suggested (200 g) - and was still sweet enough -, left out the additional 50 g of dark chocolate chips and added some berries. These days I go to the gym 5 times a week and I didn't want to ruin my hard earned -kgs. The result was a beautifully moist, melt in your mouth light brownies. As it doesn't contain any flour it is gluten free, but crumblier than the usual brownies.

Flourless Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients
250 g dark chocolate broken into pieces (around 60%-70 cocoa solids)
250 g unsalted butter, diced
100 g golden caster sugar
4 medium eggs
150 g  ground almonds
1 heaped tsp baking powder, sifted
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
handful of berries

Preheat the oven to 170C and prepare a 23 cm square tin (rectangle is fine as well).

Melt the chocolate with the butter in a bowl set over a pan with a little simmering water in it. Remove from the heat, add the sugar and stir to combine, then leave to cool slightly. Add the eggs to the chocolate mixture, one by one, beating after each addition until the mixture is very glossy.

Gently fold in the ground almonds, baking powder and cinnamon without overmixing.

Spread the chocolate mixture in the tin, sprinkle over the fruits and bake for 25-35 minutes. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean with just a few moist crumbs on it.

Leave to cool completely in the tin - it will be very crumbly to begin with, but will firm up a little by the following day. The brownies will keep well in an airtight container for several days (ha-ha not in our household).

Hints and tips:

You can also replace the sugar with fruit sugar(Tate Lyle what I use sometimes) or agave to make your brownies totally sugar and flour free as well

"Mum to be" Battenberg Cake

I made a cake for my colleague who had her leaving presentation this week, to start her new Yummy Mummy life. We didn't know the sex yet so I made a cake topping with generic colours, try to avoid the blue or pink. I made a battenberg cake as that is Ali's favourite, which was the first for me: also for baking and tasting. It turned out quite good, and the team demolished the cake in a short space of time. I used the battenberg recipe from the BBCgoodfood website.

"Mum to be" Battenberg Cake

Ingredients for the almond sponge

175 g very soft butter

175 g golden caster sugar

140 g self-raising flour

50 g ground almond

1/2 tsp baking powder

3 medium eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

Ingredients for the pink sponge

1 X ingredients for almond sponge

pink/red food colouring 

For the cake decoration

200 g apricot jam

500 g marzipan (I used golden marzipan)

little icing sugar, for dusting

250 g brown icing (for the teddy bear)

some different coloured icing ( I used Renshaw Funky Flavoured Sugargough, as you can have 4X100g in a pack at all different colours)

edible writing pan

You have to prepare the decoration at least two days ahead as the icing needs time to harden. I  just used a video on youtube- to find a tutorial: just type in: fondant bear. Actually is like playing with play dough. It isn't difficult, as you can see the bear, duck and the train is recognisable and actually this is my very first try with icing sculpting.

So I prepared the toppings two days in advance and just left in the living room to harden. 

Heat the oven to 180C and prepare a round baking pan. To make the almond sponge, put the butter, sugar, flour, ground almonds, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and almond extract in a large bowl. Beat with an electric whisk until the mix comes together smoothly. Scrape into the tin, spreading evenly and bake for 25-30 minutes-when you spoke with a skewer, it should come out clean. Cool the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling while you make the second sponge.

For the pink sponge, prepare another round tin. Mix all the ingredients together as above but don't add the almond extract. Fold in some pink pink food colouring then scrape it all into the in and bake as before.

To assemble level the cakes(cut off the top if you have a little dome) and cut the sponges in half (all sponge layers should be the same height). Depending on the high of your sponge layers(sponge circles should be the same with and height) start cutting out sponge circles. For this cake I had 5 sponge circles. 

When you finished cutting one sponge layer lift out every second sponge circle, place it on top on the others and use it as the template. To make up the battenberg layers just use a pink, then a almond sponge till you made up the whole sponge layer. 

To assemble, heat the jam in a small pan until runny, then sieve. Brush the sponge layer with jam , than lay another layer on top but reversing the order of sponges.

When you finished with the cake, brush the surface with the remaining jam. Roll out the marzipan on a lightly dusted surface with icing sugar to just big enough to cover the cake. Carefully lift the marzipan and smooth over the cake. 
Place on top the decoration and serve:)

And this is the cake while cutting. I apologise as I don't have the best mobile to take a picture and in the office we don't really have proper knifes to slice a cake sharply.

Chocolate and Amaretto Madeleines

I received my Lakeland offer yesterday and I had to used at least half of the new kit:) The first on the list was the mini madeleines silicone form. I used the first recipe I come across on the BBC Good food website. The original recipe calls for hazelnut liqueur (sadly I didn't have any at home) but I replaced with Amaretto (almond liqueur).

Chocolate and Amaretto Madeleines

Ingredients (makes 12 normal size or 30 mini ones)
80 g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
20 g ground almonds
2 tbsp cocoa powder
75 g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
1 vanilla pod
2 tbsp Amaretto
90g unsalted butter, melted

Shift the flour, baking powder, ground almonds and cocoa with a pinch of salt. Butter the mini madeleines form.

Whisk the sugar and eggs with electric mixer until thick, pale and fluffy. Gently fold in the flour mix, vanilla seeds, Amaretto and butter. Cover the surface of the mix with cling film and chill for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 200C. Fill each cavity to 2/3 and bake it for 10 minutes or until risen and springy. Tap the form to loosen and tip out. Dust with cocoa and serve warm.

Lemon, Almond and Poppy Seed Cake

 In the meantime of waiting for my new delivery from Lakeland:) I made myself useful:) I baked something that my husband loves the most: poppy seeded ....well anything that contains poppy seed. I used Peggy Porschen's new book I bought last week and the result was delicious.

Lemon, Almond and Poppy Seed Cake

For the sponge

200 g unsalted butter, softened

200 g caster sugar

4 medium eggs

200 g self-raising flour

100 g ground almond

30 g ground poppy seed (plus I put in 10g as a whole as well)

finely grated zest of 2 lemons

For the lemon syrup

100 ml -the juice of two lemons

100 g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 175C and prepare the bundt cake tin.

For the sponge:Place the butter, sugar and lemon zest in a mixing bowl and cream until pale and fluffy.

Beat the eggs lightly in another bowl and slowly add the butter mixture while whisking quickly. If the mixture starts to separate or curdle, stop adding the egg and beat in 2-3 tablespoons of the flour. This will rebind the batter. Once all the egg has been added and combined with the butter mixture, shift in the flour and add the ground almonds and poppy seeds. Stir until the batter is just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin, using a rubber spatula to help fill the tin. Before baking,  tap the filled cake tin on your work surface a few times to make sure the batter has reached all the cavities at the bottom of the tin.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven.The sponge is cooked when the sides are beginning to shrink away from the edges of the tin and the top is golden brown and springs back to the touch. 

While the sponge is baking, prepare a lemon syrup for soaking. Place the lemon juice and caster sugar into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer until all the sugar crystals have dissolved. Set aside to cool down slightly.

Once the sponge is baked, immediately brush the sponge with half the lemon syrup: this allows the syrup to be absorbed faster.

Allow to cool for about 30 minutes outside of the oven. Once just warm, turn the cake out of the tin and leave to cool completely on a wire cooling rack. Brush the other side of the sponge with the remaining syrup.

Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate Cake with Toasted Almonds

I made 2 cakes for my husband's birthday (English people still have the tradition, that you should bring in sweets if you have a birthday-we had the same tradition in Hungary up to age 10 when you left the lower grades of elementary school). Anyway I totally forgot about it, and I needed a quick and light chocolate cake, as few people wouldn't eat the fruits on his workplace. I didn't have time to mess about complicated and complex chocolate cake (I started to bake after 8pm) so I baked this extra quick and light cake(you can use a 23cm round tin as well, but if I bake for a crowd I prefer the square one as it is easier to slice nicely).

Chocolate Cake with Toasted Almonds

For the sponge

6 eggs

pinch of salt

6 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp flour

3 tbsp cocoa powder

100 ml vegetable oil/sunflower oil

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp baking powder

For the cream

150g dark chocolate

50g double cream

50g cream cheese

8 tbsp forest/apricot/raspberry jam 

For the cake cover

50g dark chocolate

40ml double cream

1 tsp liquid glucose

100g toasted almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a 19X25cm cake tin.

Separate the eggs then with a pinch of salt beat the egg whites until it form stiff peaks. While continuously mixing with an electrical mixer add the egg yolks, then the sugar and the oil(mixing between each addition). 

Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and the baking powder in two lots, carefully folding in the mixture.

 If you rush this step you can ruin your whole cake. Two typical mistakes: not folding thoroughly and you will have small lumps of flour in the ready sponge, or you mix it too vigorously and you break up the air bubbles in the mixture(that you created with the mixer) and it won't rise at all in the oven.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the inserted wooden skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool then take it out from the pan.

For the filling melt the copped chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, then add in the double cream and the cream cheese. 

Divide the cooled sponge to three parts with a cake leveller and start assembling the cake.

Brush 4 tbsp jam on top of the sponge then add half of the chocolate cream and sprinkle over a handful of toasted almonds. Repeat the process with the second level, than cover the cake with the top layer of sponge.

For cake cover, melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, then add the double cream and the liquid glucose. Pour over the cake and using a spatula knife cover the sides as well. Sprinkle over the rest of the toasted almonds. On the sides I paced the almonds on one by one to have an even surface(it only takes 2-3minutes).

Keep in the fridge until consuming, but remove 15 minutes before serving, so the chocolate can soften a bit.

The other cake was the standard white chocolate and coconut cream filled red velvet cake for their special request:

Amaretto and Raspberry Magic

I forgot we about to host a dinner party for our friends. I checked for a recipe that I can make quickly and I send my husband to buy the ingredients for it. He returned with half of them....claiming he forgot it. Well he did buy raspberries instead of strawberries, so I had some fruit and the rest was down to my cupboard. I can't complain as I have a fairly well equipped one, therefore I created:

Amaretto and Raspberry Magic

Ingredients

400g raspberries

250ml double cream

50g creamed coconut, chilled

40g ground almond

15 amaretti biscuit

80g cream cheese

6 tbsp Amaretto liqueur

50g flaked almonds

In one bowl whip the double cream until it holds its shape. Grate in the chilled creamed coconut, then add the ground almond and the Amaretto liqueur and mix it together.

In a separate bowl mix together with an electric mixer 2/3 of the raspberries with the cream cheese.

All left to do is assemble it. Fill the Amaretto cream into a piping bag and start layering the glasses. 

My layers were starting from the bottom: 

Amaretto cream, 

raspberry purée, 

1.5crushed amaretti biscuit(in each glass), 

Amaretto cream, 

some fresh raspberries, 

flaked almonds, raspberry purée, 

Amaretto cream

finished off with 1amaretti biscuit each some flaked almonds and the rest of the raspberries.

Chill it for at least 30 minutes then serve:)

Individual Strawberry Cakes

I made this dessert as we expected some guests and I wanted to wow them....Also I had some frozen Joconde décor paste from my Chocolate and Orange Mousse cake. But if you want to make it from stratch I adjusted the measaurements to that.

Individual Strawberry Cakes

You will need: 5 dessert rings or 5 tinned vegetable tins(this is a cheap alternative to dessert or food rings) *more on this at the Tricks and Recommendations 

Joconde décor paste
50g unsalted butter, softened
50g icing sugar
50g egg whites
55g plain flour
Sugarflair red food colouring
1tbs melted butter

Joconde sponge
90g egg whites, at room temperature
13g granulated sugar
115g ground almonds
115g icing sugar, sifted
3 large eggs
40g plain flour
43g clarified butter, melted

Filling
300g strawberries
200ml double cream
250g mascarpone
1 tbs gelatine
1dl milk
150g white chocolate
5tbs Amaretto liqueur

• Preheat the oven to 220°C, 200°C Fan
• Line two 45cm x 30cm (half sheet) baking trays with baking parchment and brush with the melted butter.

• Make the joconde paste:
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then gradually add the egg whites, beating continuously.
• Fold in the sifted flour then add the food colouring.
• Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 5mm plain nozzle.
• Pipe the mixture onto the buttered parchment in a swirl pattern and place in the freezer to harden.
• Make the joconde sponge:
• Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks.
• Add the granulated sugar and continue whisking until stiff peaks are formed.
• Scrape the meringue mixture into a bowl and cover with cling film to prevent the meringue collapsing.
• Beat the almonds, icing sugar and eggs in the bowl for 5 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy.
• Turn the speed down to low and mix in the flour.
• Gently fold in the meringue mixture using a large spatula.
• Put the melted butter in a small bowl and mix in a cupful of the sponge batter. Pour this back into the mixing bowl and gently fold into the rest of batter.
• Remove the baking trays with the decor paste from the freezer.

• Divide the batter evenly between the two baking trays, spreading it smoothly over the decorations and into the corners ensuring it is level. An offset spatula is useful for this.
• Bake for 5-7 minutes, until the sponges are cooked and springy to the touch and have shrunk away from the edges of the pan.
• Turn out by covering the sponge with a sheet of parchment then flip the baking tray over onto the work surface. Peel off the paper to reveal the pattern, and lay it lightly on top of the sponge. Leave to cool.
• When cooled, cut 5 circle of sponges to line the base and lay it patterned-side down, in the bottom of the tin. Cut 5 additional circle to make the top of the cakes and set aside.

Cut the strawberries to half and stand them facing outward to the tins.

For the cream add the gelatine to the boiling milk and stir until it is dissolved. Set aside and leave it to cool slightly. In the meantime whip the double cream to stiff peaks then mix in the melted white chocolate, mascarpone and Amaretto liqueur. Mix the milk to the cream and wait until it starts to set(if you put to the forms too early the cream can leak in front of the strawberries...and that would ruin the cakes).

When the cream is almost set spoon between the strawberries and close each cake with a sponge, patterned-side up. Put the little cakes into the fridge for at least 1 hour, so the cream can fully set.

You can also use the Joconde sponge as the side of the little cakes. Here I cut them to size(first the sides and then the bottom-so it is hidden) and filled them with the same cream....