Just as soon as the sunny weather arrives, it’s cruelly snatched away from us again. It’s a rainy day in May, and what better to lift the spirits on a damp afternoon than a spot of baking? This is another recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, which I’ve some good successes with so far. This one is for buttermilk pound loaf and, because the recipe said I could, I’ve added some dark chocolate chips.
I remember when American-style cookies were quite a small player in the UK biscuit market. I also remember the vast majority of them being quite crunchy, and a lot smaller than most you get today. More like the British biscuits. Or, they’d be mostly crunchy, with a lovely, surprising bit of chewiness in the middle. An unexpected bit of indulgence, like you’d eaten it too soon from the oven.
One of my earliest childhood foody memories is visiting my grandmother (who had spent time as a 1950s American housewife) and tucking into her walnut and chocolate chip cookies. They weren’t like anything else I’d tried at the time.
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This recipe for chocolate brownies comes from the Baked: New Frontiers in Baking recipe book by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. The Baked brownies are somewhat of an Internet Sensation and they are… well they’re pretty amazing. They’re chocolatey, rich, dark and fudgy. Not for the cake-y brownie enthusiast, and not for people who don’t like their chocolate really dark. Possibly not ideal for kids, although I witnessed one big brownie being happily devoured by a 5 year old. Oprah is a big fan, apparently, and who can blame her? I would definitely use this as a “go to” brownie recipe, depending on who I was making them for.
This seasonal recipe for chocolate and chestnut yule log is from Jamie Oliver. A chocolate yule log is really an essential for me at Christmas. Having tried recipes from Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith, I thought I’d give Jamie’s a go this year.
I like chocolate logs because of their chocolate-y goodness, but also because they evoke the ancient European yule tradition of bringing a log into the house in the depths of winter. That’s bound to make you feel all warm and cosy at this time of year.
Making your own yule log from scratch means making a swiss roll, which can be a bit scary if you haven’t attempted this before. Never fear though, it’s actually very easy.
Christmas just ain’t Christmas without a chocolate yule log. Two years ago, I made Nigella Lawson’s Bûche de Noël. That was a huge success, absolutely delicious, but last year I decided to try a different one and made a squidgy chocolate log with this recipe from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course. Again, this recipe is flourless, giving a light sponge.
Now, you may notice that Delia’s version is not smothered with lashings of chocolate ganache or buttercream, but the cream and chocolate mousse filling means that this log is still extremely indulgent, and well worth a try.
Autumn brings a glut of apples, and the search for recipes to use them up in. This recipe for nutty apple loaf comes from the Hummingbird Bakery recipe book. It’s a lovely tea loaf, slightly spiced, with some cheeky chocolate pieces thrown in. The recipe calls for mixed nuts; I used walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds.
Fancy a chocolate cake without flour? Whether you’re looking for a gluten-free cake, or just something a bit lighter than normal chocolate cake, this is definitely worth a try. The recipe is Nigella Lawson’s flourless chocolate and lime cake. You could use orange instead of lime, or omit the fruit altogether if you want a pure chocolate flavour. To make it flourless, the recipe uses ground almonds instead of flour.
I’ve never tried combining pomegranate with chocolate before, although I know raspberry goes very well with chocolate. Back in December, I stumbled on Pomegranate Double Chocolate Chip Cookies by Michelle at Taste as You Go (which looked lovely) and saw that they were inspired by Pomegranate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies by Two Peas and their Pod. Both looked delicious, and I knew I’d end up making at least one of them. So, here are my version, too late for Christmas, but never mind! They were really tasty, but the pomegranate seeds got slightly lost amongst the white chocolate chips, so I’d put a few more in each cookie next time!
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A little while ago, I joined the Daring Bakers, and January marked my first Daring Bakers challenge. It turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever made.
The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.
If you’ve never heard of some of the words in the paragraph above, you’re not alone. When I first read the instructions for this challenge I was intimidated to say the least. The biscuit joconde imprime is a fancy French sponge made from two separate parts that make a design that’s visible on the outside of the finished cake. the sponge, which forms only the outer layer of the cake, is filled with the ”entremet”. If this doesn’t make much sense, hopefully the pictures will enlighten! The challenge provided a recipe for the joconde imprime, but we had to make the entremet up ourselves. I decided on a chocolate hazelnut brownie base, with chocolate nutella cream, topped with chai tea flavoured Chantilly cream. I had no idea if this would work, but it did!
Continue reading “Joconde Imprime Entremet (Daring Bakers)”…
These dark chocolate hazelnut brownies have a hint of treacle in the background, and extra nuttiness from a little added nutella. I usually prefer my brownies without nuts, but these are lovely. They are definitely more fudgey than cakey, for those that care about that sort of thing, and the nuts give a nice crunch.
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