We Should Cocoa - The June Challenge

First off, I'd like to say a big thank you to Laura at How to Cook Good Food who did a fantastic job hosting last month's We Should Cocoa. If you haven't already seen her fabulous almond round-up do take a look.

I'm very pleased to say we have another guest host this month. This time the challenge is being hosted on the other side of the world, in New Zealand no less. I have the very great pleasure in welcoming Lucy, The KitchenMaid to the select band of chocolate addicts WSC hosts. If you haven't come across Lucy's blog before, you are in for a treat. Please have a look at this post to find out what ingredient she has lined up for us all.

Please note, entries should be made via the linky on Lucy's post NOT via e-mail this month.

Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream

When Kavey announced that her Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream challenge this month was for chocolate, how could I not enter? Making ice-cream without an ice-cream maker is not my favourite activity, but after the success I'd had with my chilli chocolate ice-cream a few months ago, I was willing to give it another go. Decision made, I turned immediately to Ben Vear's Make your own organic ice-cream to see what other chocolate delights he had waiting in store for me to try. Ah ha, a recipe for chocolate brownie ice-cream.

First thing to do was make some brownies then. I used this recipe for almond toffee brownies using 85% dark chocolate (G&B) and instead of using 3 eggs yolks, I used 1 duck egg yolk and 1 whole duck egg. Oh, a handful of chopped walnuts were also thrown in. I slightly overcooked the brownies, so they went crunchy rather than toffee like, but were certainly not cakey. This suited me fine as I thought the crunchy texture would go well with the smooth ice-cream.

This is how I made the ice-cream:

• Placed a medium pan over a low heat and poured in 200ml double cream and 200ml milk.
• Added 75g caster sugar and 80g 85% dark chocolate (G&B).
• Whisked 1 duck egg in a bowl with 75g caster sugar until thick and pale.
• Poured the hot milk into the egg mixture and whisked until all incorporated.
• Returned the mixture to the pan and stirred over a low heat for about 15 minutes until the mixture had turned to custard, ie thickened enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
• Poured into a plastic container and placed in the freezer for an hour.
• Removed from the freezer and blended thoroughly with a stick blender to prevent ice crystals forming.
• Returned to the freezer.
• Repeated this process twice more.
• Stirred in 1 large brownie cut into small pieces (about 100g).
• Left to freeze completely.

As I expected, the result was delicious and the crunch of the brownie made an interesting contrast to the creamy smoothness of the ice-cream. The permutations for this are endless, you could use any number of different brownie recipes to give varying flavours and textures as well as flavouring the actual ice-cream with chilli, orange, cinnamon or whatever else grabs your fancy. Next time - yes I really think there might be a next time - I'd like to try a fudgy type of brownie to see how the it compares.

The day I served this up, it was really hot, so the ice-cream had virtually melted before I could take a photograph - that's my excuse for rubbish photographs this time! I served this with some of Dom's white chocolate sauce, although it really didn't need it.

If ice-cream is your thing, I suggest you have a look at the Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream round-ups on Kavey's blog Kavey Eats - you'll see some fabulous creations.

White Chocolate Sauce - Random Recipes #16

Well how exciting. For the very first time, Dom is allowing us to have a choice for this month's Random Recipes - a limited choice perhaps, but nevertheless a choice. It's a chance for those sadly neglected first and last recipes in a book to have their day and hopefully shine. So I collected all of my chocolate books together (and they are slowly growing) and asked CT to do his usual and select a random number between 1 and 10. Dah dah - for the second time For Chocolate Lovers by our local celebrity chefs the Tanner Brothers took centre stage. The first recipe in the book was for banana and chocolate souffle pancakes, the last for white chocolate sauce. Oh a difficult choice here, which to go for? Actually, it wasn't in the least bit difficult because neither CT nor myself are particularly fond of bananas. White chocolate sauce it was then.

This hardly rates as a recipe at all. A simple process of melting chocolate with milk and stirring. I used a slightly less fussy method to the one in the book to reduce on washing up, but didn't do anything fancy. I used Green&Blacks white chocolate because it is particularly vanillary. It would be fun to experiment with other flavours though - chilli, citrus zest, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper to name but a few.

This is how I did it:

• Broke up 100g bar of white chocolate (G&B) into a pan.
• Added 125ml milk.
• Placed on a low heat and left until the chocolate had melted.
• Stirred until smooth.
• Poured into a jug.

This was very sweet but quite tasty and was especially good over unsweetened strawberries. I also tried it over the chocolate ice-cream which will be featuring in my next post. As it's such a quick and easy sauce to make and works well either hot or cold, it would be good served hot to spruce up anything that would normally be served with custard or cold as a substitute for cream.

Nigella's Dense Chocolate Cake for Clandestine Cake Club

Less than two weeks after my first Clandestine Cake Club, I was getting ready for my second event. This one was themed A Fairy Tale and was set in a yurt in the middle of a big wood, Cardinham Woods to be precise, not too far from where we live.

One of my go to chocolate cakes, before I started my chocolate blogging adventures, was Nigella's dense chocolate loaf cake from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Somehow, this seemed like the right time to make it again. It's a very simple cake to make and is so delicious it doesn't really need any adornment. However, as this was a particularly special occasion, I decided to cover it with ganache.

Clever decorating not being a particular forte of mine, I was at a bit of a loss as to how to turn this into a fairy tale. Inspiration finally struck (actually it was CT's idea) - the Fairy Godmother's Wand.

This is how I made it:

• Melted 150g 85% chocolate (G&B) in a bowl over hot water and left to cool a little.
• Creamed 500g dark muscovado sugar together with 300g unsalted butter until light in colour and texture.
• Beat in 1 goose egg (about 3 large eggs) until all incorporated.
• Beat in the melted chocolate and 3 tsp rose water.
• Folded in 300g flour (half white, half wholemeal) and 1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda alternately with 350ml boiling water.
• Poured into a 23cm cake mould and baked at 190C for 25 minutes then for a further 20 minutes at 170C until well risen but still slightly gooey inside.
• Left to cool completely before tuning out.

• Melted 150g dark 70% chocolate (G&B) in a pan over a low heat with 150ml double cream.
• Added 15g unsalted butter and 1 tsp of rose water and stirred until smooth.
• Left to cool until just firm enough to stay on the cake without running down the sides.
• Spread over the top of the cake.
• Cut the tops off two chocolate fingers and placed together on the cake to form a wand - that was the idea anyway!
• Sprayed the top with gold shimmer.
• Added stars sparking out of the wand's tip and then dusted the cake with edible gold glitter.

This was as good as I remembered it. Dense and slightly sticky like good gingerbread, it was totally delicious with a smooth mouth feel and just got better as it got older. I bet Hansel and Gretel would have loved it.

As for the other cakes there that night, I was completely wowed and slunk my pitiful effort into a corner out of sight.

Organised by the indefatigable Ellie and hosted by the Woods Cafe, the evening was great fun. There were some familiar faces from my first CCC and many new ones. I was especially delighted to meet a We Should Cocoa regular, the Hungry Hinny, who made a most spectacular castle - a chocolate and raspberry Rapunzel one to boot! My picture wasn't that great, but you can see it on her blog. We ate far too much delicious cake and got to take a plateful home with us again - what a wonderful way to spend an evening.

Little Red Riding Hood

The Three Bears

Cinderella's Pumpkin

Shed in the Woods

What a Fairy Cake

Sadly, I'm not likely to be able to make any more CCCs for a while, but I live in hope I'll get to another one at some point!

As Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen this month, has a floral theme, I waved my magic wand and turned this plain old chocolate cake into a floral rose and chocolate delight. TTT is alternately hosted by Kate of What Kate Baked.

ABC of Me

Having commented on what a fun post Sheelagh of An Irish Village Pantry had done on receiving the Awesome Blog Content Award, she kindly passed it on to me! Now I have to think of 26 words that are meaningful to me - whatever am I going to put for X?

A - Arabic, the language of my father.
B - Bodmin Moor, where I grew up.
C - now I have a bit of a quandary here, is it Cornwall or Cake or Chocolate or CT?
D - Dartington - I was fortunate enough to attend school here for a few years and they were some of the best years of my life. It is still one of my favourite places and I visit as often as I can.
E - Egypt, the land of my father.
F - Friends in far flung places (ie out of Cornwall) who I miss and rarely get to see.
G - Gardens and Gardening and Growing our own food.
H - Hedges, just love love love Cornish hedges. So pretty, so much diversity and forever changing.
I - iPhone. From no mobile phone to a most amazing one. How did I get by without it?
J - July, the month I was born in.
K - Klout - give me more, especially for Chocolate & Cornwall please :)
L - Librarian - that is my day job!
M - Moors - much as I love the sea, I love the moors more. Whenever I've lived away from them, I started to pine.
N - Names, secret and otherwise.
O - Online, this is where I seem to spend much of my life these days and it's all down to this blog.
P - Primroses, my favourite flower ever.
Q - Quilt - I have a beautiful quilt made by my quilting aunt which I treasure greatly.
R - Reading, although I find precious little time for reading print these days.
S - Spring, my favourite season.
T - Trains, I catch them most days to and from work. The journey is beautiful and quite breathtaking in some places especially when the tides and weather are right.
U - Ukulele, I do sometimes wish CT would stop playing it!
V - Vegetarian, is what I am.
W - Walking, the best form of transport ever.
X - Xinmei, a blogger whose name immediately sprang to mind for her amazing bento boxes which sometimes feature on her blog Pudding Pie Lane.
Y - Yellow, one of my favourite colours and so reminiscent of spring and sunshine & hope.
Z - Zebra, not so much the zebra itself, but as a representation of our fascinating and diverse wildlife which we ought to do a much better job of preserving for future generations.

The idea is to nominate as many bloggers as I wish, but being a bit of a maverick, I'm going to let you choose. If you think you'd like to have a go at doing a post like this, let me know and I'll add your blog and link onto the bottom of this post.

Hooray for the following:

Green Gourmet Giraffe
Allotment 2 Kitchen
Farmersgirl Kitchen
A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate

Caramelised Banana, Coconut, Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cake

Undercover in the undergrowth

Did you know it is World Baking Day on Sunday 20th May? Sponsored by Stork, the idea is to have some fun baking a cake and then sharing it with others - whether that's in actuality or sharing a picture. Ideally, photograph your cake "somewhere interesting" in an unusual place or setting, then share the photographs via Twitter using the hashtag #caking or go direct to the World Baking Day website. Stuck for ideas? You will find plenty on my blog or again you could take a look at the World Baking Day site.

I was lucky to be given some encouragement by the organisers in the form of an an amazing box of goodies to use in the making of my cake. This not only included flour, baking powder, sugar, cocoa, Stork margarine and various cake decorations, but also a splendid silicone spatula which has a built in rest to keep the blade off the work surface and a very handy recipe journal.

So what to make was the big question? Well it didn't take me too long to figure out. Last week I couldn't resist buying up a load of bananas I saw going cheap. Then, serendipitously, the very same day I saw the most amazing banana, chocolate, peanut butter layer cake on Buttaz Blog. Although I wasn't quite ready to make anything as grand as that, it did form the inspiration for the flavours I wanted to use. I was going to make a banana cake with chocolate chips sandwiched together with peanut butter icing. At Christmas last year I'd made Dan Lepard's Butterscotch Banana Cake, in muffin format for the guys next door, using that most excellent of books Short & Sweet. Well caramelising the bananas was a revelation and transforms a simple banana cake into something else entirely. Inspired by this, I upped the quantities, omitted the spices and nuts, added coconut and then some chocolate, of course. The icing I based loosely on a recipe by Eric Lanlard in Cox Cookies & Cake.

This is what I did it:

• Poured 150g caster sugar and 50ml of water into a heavy bottomed pan and placed on a low heat until the sugar was melted.
• Brought the mixture to a boil, until it turned into a light brown caramel.
• Added 4 chopped bananas and turned down the heat to a simmer.
• Added 40g unsalted butter and let the mixture simmer for about 5 minutes until the bananas were mushy.
• Added 50g desiccated coconut & 2 tsp vanilla extract. Stirred and left to cool.

• Creamed 175g Stork margarine (I'd normally use butter, but as this was sent to me, I thought I'd try it out).
• Added 120g light brown sugar and creamed until pale and fluffy.
• Beat in a goose egg (4 medium hens eggs).
• Beat in the banana mixture.
• Stirred in 1 tbsp yogurt.
• Sieved in 200g self-raising flour, 60g rye flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp bicarb of soda and folded until just combined.
• Gently stirred in 50g of chopped dark 70% chocolate (G&B).
• Divided mixture between two 22 cm cake moulds and baked at 180C for 30 minutes.
• Left to cool for 15 minutes then turned out onto wire racks to cool completely.

• Creamed 50g unsalted butter.
• Added 150g smooth peanut butter & creamed some more.
• Sifted in 200g icing sugar and creamed until pale.
• Added 4 tbsp whipping cream and 1 tsp vanilla extract & beat until light and smooth.
• Sandwiched the two cakes together with half of the mixture and spread the other half on top.
• Decorated with various chocolate sprinkles.

Doorstep Delivery

I can only describe the result as being the Rolls Royce of Banana cakes. It had a good crumb structure and was really light - so light in fact, as CT stated, that you could have a really big slice and not feel full. The taste was fairly sublime too and neither of us are ordinarily big fans of banana cake. The peanut butter icing I could have happily polished off with a spoon before ever it got to the cake, but I held fast. The flavours balanced out really well with the sweet, salt and bitter each playing their part. The individual flavours of banana, peanut, coconut and chocolate could be tasted separately, but also formed a sublime whole. As Alexander Dumas would have put it: "All for one and one for all".

So get your pinnies on ready for Sunday and join in the fun.

Rhubarb & Rose Honey Cakes - Nonnettes

When I found that rhubarb had been picked for the One Ingredient blogging event in April, I so wanted to take part. But our rhubarb was ailing and I just can't bring myself to buy something that we used to produce in prodigious quantities on our old allotment plot. The other day, however, my mother, called in with stack of rhubarb from her garden - plants we had luckily given her from our old plot. Hooray, the one ingredient challenge might be over, but I could bake with rhubarb. Since I saw the rose and rhubarb combination over at Laura of How to Cook Good Food, I've been itching to try it. My only dilemma was in what form? Actually, the dilemma was easily solved;  my one remaining duck egg supplier was attending a wedding this week and I had run out of eggs. An egg free bake was needed. Bingo! Nonnettes it had to be - not exactly a hardship in my experience! Since first trying Nonnettes back in December, I have become enraptured with these very tasty honey cakes. What with Friands as well as the Madeleines I have yet to bake, the French are little cake bakers par excellence.

I was quite excited at coming up with a Nonnette nouvelle. The combination of rose and roasted rhubarb jam has probably never been used before. This in conjunction with some delicious Cornish honey, ought to be irresistible, I thought. As we still had quite a bit of cake in the house from my recent Clandestine Cake Club event, I used half the normal quantities to make six rather than twelve individual cakes.

This is what I did:

• Chopped up 4 sticks (about 300g) of washed & trimmed rhubarb into 1 cm lengths.
• Placed these in a greased Pyrex dish and sprinkled a teaspoon of rose water over the top.
• Spooned 50g cardamom sugar (caster sugar) over the rhubarb.
• Roasted at 200C for 30 minutes.
• Left to cool, then spooned into a jar.

• Melted 40g unsalted butter in a pan.
• Added 100g local Cornish runny honey and 50g light brown sugar.
• Turned off the heat and added 50g milk, 40g water and 10g of rhubarb liqueur (homemade) with a tsp of rose water.
• Stirred until smooth then left to cool.
• Ground the seeds from two cardamom pods in a pestle and mortar.
• Sifted 100g plain white flour, 50g rye flour, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda into a bowl.
• Added the cardamom and the grated zest from 1/2 a small orange.
• Stirred in 25g chopped white chocolate.
• Made a well in the centre and poured in the honey mixture.
• Stirred until all combined.
• Divided the mixture between 6 buttered muffin moulds and placed in the fridge for an hour.
• Placed a spoonful of rhubarb jam on the top of each one.
• Baked at 180C for 20 minutes.
• Left to cool

• Mixed 1 tbsp icing sugar with a little rhubarb liqueur (homemade) and a drop of rose water to form a slightly runny icing.
• Drizzled these over the cakes whilst they were still warm.

These turned out even better than I could have wished. After the first bite, I was very much regretting making six rather than twelve. They were absolutely scrummy and as CT stated later, tasted French - I think this was a compliment. They had a lovely soft texture which I attribute to the presence of rye flour. The rose made its presence felt but was not in the least overpowering and contrasted well with the distinctive tartness of the rhubarb. The roasted rhubarb jam was a delight in itself and has adorned various slices of toast all this week.

When making these Nonnettes, I had not one, not two, not three, but four blog challenges in mind:

Simple and in Season - a monthly challenge to get us to cook uncomplicated food using seasonal ingredients by Ren of Fabulicious Food. This month it is being guest hosted by Urvashi of The Botanical Baker.

Alpha Bakes - Caroline Makes and Ros of The more than occasional baker take it in turns to pick a random letter from the alphabet which inspires the theme of the bake. This month Caroline picked H and my H is for Honey Cakes.

Tea Time Treats - the fabulously sugar overloaded monthly tea time party run alternately by Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked. The theme this month is floral. Rose is my flower of choice, because I love roses as mentioned in previous posts and one of the reasons why I chose Rose as one of the We Should Cocoa challenges.

Made with Love Mondays - Javelin Warrior's weekly challenge to get everyone making dishes from scratch from Javelin Warrior's Cookin w / Luv.

The Best of British Blogger Challenge - Cornwall

Those human whirlwinds, Fiona of London Unattached and Karen of Lavender and Lovage have come up with a new challenge in order to celebrate British Food. As local food is a topic close to my heart, I'm really chuffed to be hosting the very first challenge. The idea is that each month for six months, a county or region around the UK will be selected and bloggers will post their interpretation of a recipe or dish from that region.

As Cornwall is the first (and dare I say best) county in the UK, it is no surprise that Kernow kicks things off. I am somewhat partisan, I confess - Cornwall is my home after all.

So to the challenge. I am looking for you to showcase something that embodies Cornish food. This could be the good old Cornish pasty, or for those that love fish, Stargazey pie. For those with a sweeter tooth, there is of course saffron cake or how about a good Cornish cream tea? Not forgetting, of course, that the jam goes first with a hefty dollop of clotted cream on the top - unlike the heathen practices of other counties. Or you may prefer to use some great Cornish ingredients. Famed for its dairy, seafood, vegetables and soft fruit, Cornwall has a wealth of fresh and delicious produce to choose from. Our new potatoes are second to none, our cauliflowers famous and I had my first punnet of local juicy and flavoursome strawberries this weekend. Clotted cream everyone knows about, but we also have some amazing cheeses, including Cornish Blue, winner of the World Cheese Awards 2010, Yarg, a semi-hard cheese wrapped in stinging nettles, Cornish Camembert, Allet Dairy Goat's Cheese and the Cornish Crackler, an award winning cheddar.

I'm not sure how local chocolate is to Cornwall, but I shall endeavour to sneak it in anyway!

There are prizes to be had too. This challenge is being sponsored by New World Appliances, which is one of only a few British manufactures of kitchen appliances. Each month an entrant will be picked at random and will win a £50 Amazon voucher. At the end of 6 months all entries will be judged and the best will be awarded a £300 Amazon voucher, so get your aprons on and cook up a Cornish storm in your kitchens.

The full rules are posted on The Face of New World Appliances. But in essence this is what you need to do:

• Post your recipe on your blog with a link back to The Face of New World Appliances AND to this post.
• Add the Best of British badge to your post.
• Add "Best of British" to your post or as a tag.
• E-mail bestofbritishchallenge@gmail.com with your recipe title, a link to your post and a photograph by Midnight of 15th June.
• If you post on Twitter, you can use #BestofBritish and if you mention @fionamaclean or @Choclette8 or @newworldapps, we will try and retweet.
• The round-up of entries will be posted on or before the 20th June on The Face of New World Appliances and here on my blog too.