Normally I don't try brand new recipes on book club. Normally I test them on unsuspecting victims like my family and other friends. Yesterday, however, was an exception.
Book club is one of my highlights each month. Twelve funny, clever women meet and eat cake and talk about books, and TV, and often politics and usually children and sometimes gastro. Gastro came up yesterday anyway.
Digression:
Right now, this exact second, my son is sneaking up on me. It is adorable.
He loves to do this.
And he would be aces at it if each door in this house didn't make a massive cracking noise when you opened them. This is because whoever has painted this house before decided that removing the previous layer of paint was prosaic and stupid. Therefore none of the doors fit the frames. "CRACK".
Ok, now I can hear him breathing around the corner.
This will finish with him springing out and shouting something unintelligible. I have to let it play out.
Ok. Done.
Back to food. And what food! As the title suggests, a somewhat special cooking experience. Firstly a word on appliances. These works of genius that I pump out (previous post excluded) are aided and abetted by nothing more than a wooden spoon, hand mixers and a steady action with a good knife. During my recent trip to NZ, I became more au fait with the kind of kitchen equipment that you can use when cooking. And I felt jealous.
I have returned to Australia with a yen for a food processor. A BIG one. And a mixer. I want both. I am not asking for Kitchen Aid, which is what I was using in NZ, anything sturdy and big and metallic and red will be fine.
During one of my recent manic cleaning fits, I found a food processor in a cupboard. Pushed way up the back. Possibly it was stashed there in 1985 and I was only now finding it. It came blinking into the light...
Given that everyone is wearing 80's fashion again I should be able to fob this thing off onto a 20 year old... Or I would if it wasn't such a disagreeable machine... I say "Mix!" and it says, (like a crotchety maiden Aunt), "What!? I can't hear a word you say. Where's my cup of tea? Is that what passes for music these days? What a blessed racket. I need a lie down". And on it goes. I mention all this because I used her twice yesterday. For The Cake and also for some pesto. For the most part the food processor did a fairly admirable job, given its septuagenarian status, but the barrel is too small and it produces a weird and unsettling smell when pushed to mach 3. Apparently my sister in law is interested in it and I feel happy to pass it on. And get my red one.
Chocolate Prune Cake - possibly the best thing I have made in the last 6 months.
150g dark choc chopped up.
225g unsalted butter (soft)
225g light brown sugar
4 medium eggs - separated
100ml dark rum (I used Bicardi, which is not dark rum, but the only other rum that was in the house was Bundaberg and I can't smell that stuff without having a flashback to being 21 and puking out a friends car window - so Bicardi it was)
200g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder sifted.
250g of pitted prunes roughly sliced. Show 'em who's boss.
1 Tblsp plain flour (if you want to make this a completely gluten free recipe then use cornflour or the like)
Chocolate raisins and icing sugar to decorate (which they indicate as "optional" in the recipe - I disagree strongly. Do it).
Preheat the oven to 170c fanforced and get yourself set up with a buttered 20cm springform pan with high sides. This cake rises a lot, so I mean it about the high sides.
Melt your chocolate in a bowl over hot water. If you have read this blog before then you know that I don't like doing this because that is how you burn your goddamned fingers. However, in recent times I got the right saucepan for the job and now I'm totes cool with it. Put it aside to get cool. Play it some jazz.
These next steps were achieved with the Black and Decker - cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Or in my case pulverised into a creamy mess. Add the egg yolks one at a time - put the egg whites aside - you'll need them for later - when you have to.... wait for it. Fold.
Add the rum and the chocolate. It was at this point that I had to transfer the whole thing to a bowl and continue on foot. The barrel was full up. Side note, next best thing about the food processor is that all its bits can go in the dishie.
Add the ground almonds and the baking powder. It will look like this, above. Beat the egg whites and then fold them in, in two goes. Gah! GAH! I hate folding! HATE IT!
No matter how many people try and give me advice about this, I always seem to do it wrong. Still not sure that I got it right.
Now prunes. Ah yes prunes. Good old prunes eh? In order to keep them all lovely and separated and not clumping together like rice that I probably cooked. You pop them into a bag and give them the tablespoon of flour to play with and then shake them a bit. They will have a lovely and chic coating of flour. The recipe said to put them in a bowl, but I did the bag thing instead - and I am very pleased with how it turned out.
The bag is clearly a winner.
Throw them in the mix when you have almost finished folding. Then bung it in the tin. Or nudge it gently out with a spatula and smooth the top.
The cake rises and looks all high, but it will sink and that's perfect. Don't be worried by sinkage. I left it on the metal bottom of the springform. No harm no foul and it meant that the cake remained beautifully intact. Christina (who was frightfully early for book club) dusted it artfully with icing sugar and popped the chocolate sultana's on top. See the first photo of the blog.
And how was it? Well, how to describe heaven? How to accurately capture perfection in cake format with mere words. To even attempt it seems like folly, but here goes:
Fucking unbelievable.
Light, rich and moist with a hint of rum. *shiver*.
I also made Portuguese custard tarts - these are really easy!! I make a custard and then pull out a sheet of puff pastry from the freezer and cut it in half. Lay the two bits on top of each other and roll it up by the short end and then cut into approx 12 bits. Roll these out into small rounds and press into a muffin tin.
Spoonful or so of custard in each one. Cook for 15 mins. Excellent.
 |
| Betchya can't wait to find out what this was.. perfect, that's what. |
Book club is one of my highlights each month. Twelve funny, clever women meet and eat cake and talk about books, and TV, and often politics and usually children and sometimes gastro. Gastro came up yesterday anyway.
 |
| Spot the child. |
Digression:
Right now, this exact second, my son is sneaking up on me. It is adorable.
He loves to do this.
And he would be aces at it if each door in this house didn't make a massive cracking noise when you opened them. This is because whoever has painted this house before decided that removing the previous layer of paint was prosaic and stupid. Therefore none of the doors fit the frames. "CRACK".
Ok, now I can hear him breathing around the corner.
This will finish with him springing out and shouting something unintelligible. I have to let it play out.
Ok. Done.
Back to food. And what food! As the title suggests, a somewhat special cooking experience. Firstly a word on appliances. These works of genius that I pump out (previous post excluded) are aided and abetted by nothing more than a wooden spoon, hand mixers and a steady action with a good knife. During my recent trip to NZ, I became more au fait with the kind of kitchen equipment that you can use when cooking. And I felt jealous.
I have returned to Australia with a yen for a food processor. A BIG one. And a mixer. I want both. I am not asking for Kitchen Aid, which is what I was using in NZ, anything sturdy and big and metallic and red will be fine.
During one of my recent manic cleaning fits, I found a food processor in a cupboard. Pushed way up the back. Possibly it was stashed there in 1985 and I was only now finding it. It came blinking into the light...
 |
| The Black and Decker Food Centre |
Given that everyone is wearing 80's fashion again I should be able to fob this thing off onto a 20 year old... Or I would if it wasn't such a disagreeable machine... I say "Mix!" and it says, (like a crotchety maiden Aunt), "What!? I can't hear a word you say. Where's my cup of tea? Is that what passes for music these days? What a blessed racket. I need a lie down". And on it goes. I mention all this because I used her twice yesterday. For The Cake and also for some pesto. For the most part the food processor did a fairly admirable job, given its septuagenarian status, but the barrel is too small and it produces a weird and unsettling smell when pushed to mach 3. Apparently my sister in law is interested in it and I feel happy to pass it on. And get my red one.
Chocolate Prune Cake - possibly the best thing I have made in the last 6 months.
150g dark choc chopped up.
225g unsalted butter (soft)
225g light brown sugar
4 medium eggs - separated
100ml dark rum (I used Bicardi, which is not dark rum, but the only other rum that was in the house was Bundaberg and I can't smell that stuff without having a flashback to being 21 and puking out a friends car window - so Bicardi it was)
200g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder sifted.
250g of pitted prunes roughly sliced. Show 'em who's boss.
1 Tblsp plain flour (if you want to make this a completely gluten free recipe then use cornflour or the like)
Chocolate raisins and icing sugar to decorate (which they indicate as "optional" in the recipe - I disagree strongly. Do it).
 |
| Hello sexy ingredients... |
 |
| Hello oversized butter cutting knife |
Preheat the oven to 170c fanforced and get yourself set up with a buttered 20cm springform pan with high sides. This cake rises a lot, so I mean it about the high sides.
Melt your chocolate in a bowl over hot water. If you have read this blog before then you know that I don't like doing this because that is how you burn your goddamned fingers. However, in recent times I got the right saucepan for the job and now I'm totes cool with it. Put it aside to get cool. Play it some jazz.
These next steps were achieved with the Black and Decker - cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Or in my case pulverised into a creamy mess. Add the egg yolks one at a time - put the egg whites aside - you'll need them for later - when you have to.... wait for it. Fold.
Add the rum and the chocolate. It was at this point that I had to transfer the whole thing to a bowl and continue on foot. The barrel was full up. Side note, next best thing about the food processor is that all its bits can go in the dishie.
 |
| Sans food processor. |
Add the ground almonds and the baking powder. It will look like this, above. Beat the egg whites and then fold them in, in two goes. Gah! GAH! I hate folding! HATE IT!
 | ||
| Gah! |
No matter how many people try and give me advice about this, I always seem to do it wrong. Still not sure that I got it right.
Now prunes. Ah yes prunes. Good old prunes eh? In order to keep them all lovely and separated and not clumping together like rice that I probably cooked. You pop them into a bag and give them the tablespoon of flour to play with and then shake them a bit. They will have a lovely and chic coating of flour. The recipe said to put them in a bowl, but I did the bag thing instead - and I am very pleased with how it turned out.
 |
| Unable to form any kind of relationship with the prune next to them! |
The bag is clearly a winner.
Throw them in the mix when you have almost finished folding. Then bung it in the tin. Or nudge it gently out with a spatula and smooth the top.
 |
| Slightly sinked.. |
The cake rises and looks all high, but it will sink and that's perfect. Don't be worried by sinkage. I left it on the metal bottom of the springform. No harm no foul and it meant that the cake remained beautifully intact. Christina (who was frightfully early for book club) dusted it artfully with icing sugar and popped the chocolate sultana's on top. See the first photo of the blog.
And how was it? Well, how to describe heaven? How to accurately capture perfection in cake format with mere words. To even attempt it seems like folly, but here goes:
Fucking unbelievable.
Light, rich and moist with a hint of rum. *shiver*.
I also made Portuguese custard tarts - these are really easy!! I make a custard and then pull out a sheet of puff pastry from the freezer and cut it in half. Lay the two bits on top of each other and roll it up by the short end and then cut into approx 12 bits. Roll these out into small rounds and press into a muffin tin.
Spoonful or so of custard in each one. Cook for 15 mins. Excellent.
 |
| Sweetie pie tarts. |
I deeply admire anyone who has a Black & Decker kitchen appliance - who knew they ever made such a thing? All my B&D's are in the garage...
ReplyDeleteMixers and food processors are so last century; a month ago I would have said save your pennies (and sell your car) and get a Thermomix. Now you can (just) keep the car and get a Thermochef http://www.yourhomedepot.com.au/products/new-wave/thermo-chef-natura-nw100-na/cookers . These things do everything except the shopping. Promo over. (can I have a slice of cake now?)
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ReplyDelete