sublime lava

There's no words to describe the best chocolate pudding made from the finest cacao in the world. There's more chocolaty than a sweetness candy for an explosion of lava, flooding in your senses, melting and dancing, brushing your taste buds like an eruption of God's waterfall, flowing graciously in the garden of Eden. Luscious. Dark. Sublime. Wonderful. Heavenly.

I don't know if those words would really describe these lovely gooey puddings.

What, or how will the world be without chocolate? I am not sure, really. Perhaps, we'll stick with jelly beans forever.

I have made molten chocolate pudding, using different recipes, ranged from Donna Hay's, Gordon Ramsay's, and Lynley Allan's, as gorgeous as they are, only quality chocolates make it decent. Valrhona Guanaja is one of the finest chocolates I use occasionally to indulge my senses. 

As expensive as what a finest thing is, it is well-spent if you use it for the best purpose. Molten chocolate pudding seems to be a great choice. I am using a recipe of Lynley Allan, published by the Foodtown Magazine.

Molten Chocolate Puddings

by Lynley Allan. The Foodtown Magazine. June-July 2007.

I adapt this recipe to suit my needs and method of baking.

200g dark chocolate, chopped (I use 250g Valrhona Guanaja 70%)

50g butter, chopped

4 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup flour, sifted

1 Tbs cocoa, sifted

dusting of cocoa and cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease 6-hole Texas muffin tins with butter and flour them, too. Melt chocolate with butter in a double boiler, set aside. Beat eggs and sugar until pale and thick. Beat in the cooled chocolate and butter mixture. Keep beating until smooth. Fold in sifted flour and cocoa, mix well. Spoon into the prepared muffin tins, and bake for 10 minutes. The pudding should be light to touch and will be soft in the centre. Remove them from the tins as carefully as possible, if you don't want to end up with messy results. Serve them warm, and watch the lovely lava flooding down. Amazingly dark and oh-so-sinful. Enjoy. Makes 6.

Chiffon Rainbow Cake

I have been mad with chiffon cakes lately. It comes from a passionate baker's curiosity within me, I suppose. It's the desire to challenge my skill to another different level. Nothing more to speak out, to be quite sure.

After a success with previous Chocolate Chiffon Cake, I tried out to make Rainbow Chiffon Cake, written by Fatmah Bahalwan, a famous baker and cook of Natural Cooking Club Indonesia in Jakarta. My first attempt was a disaster. The colours were there, but it did not rise high. I had troubles with pastes required in the recipe. I made a few trials and errors to substitute the use of pastes, but I failed. The cake was suffered from receiving too much liquid, the results from adding too much food colouring and essence.

This is my second attempt. I learned my mistakes and tried my best to avoid using too much liquid. I reduced the use of oil and coconut milk to each 60ml only. This way, when I add essence plus food colouring, the cake will be able to stand extra weight of liquid. The cake is still moist and proudly rising and protruding to the sky.

I am not yet satisfied with this. I am not too happy with the crust left on the tin when I removed the cake from it. There must be a way to make the crust staying and enveloped the moist cake.

Chiffon Rainbow Cake

by Fatmah Bahalwan, NCC

Egg Mixture

In this mixture, the recipe calls only to pour the egg yolks into a well of dry ingredients. I whisk the egg yolks and caster sugar, firsthand, and then mix it to the dry ingredients, oil and coconut milk.

50g caster sugar
20g milk powder
20g cornflour
140g standard flour
1 tsp baking powder
100ml oil (60ml; rice bran oil--ab)
100ml coconut milk (60ml--ab)
140g egg yolks

Egg Whites Mixture

What I do is to treat this mixture like you are making meringues. Whisk the egg whites and salt until foamy, and then gradually add in the sugar in three batches. Keep whisking until soft peaks.

300ml egg whites
150g caster sugar
1/2 tsp table salt
1 tsp cream of tartar (optional)

Rainbow Pastes

I only have pandan paste, and I have to substitute the other pastes my own. What I do is to use a drop of rose essence plus a drop of red food colouring to substitute the strawberry paste; and using cocoa powder mixed with hot water for the chocolate paste.

1/2 tsp pandan paste
1/2 tsp strawberry paste
1/2 tsp chocolate paste

Preheat the oven to 180C. Prepare a 20cm chiffon cake (less in diameter will be alright, I am told). Do not grease or line the tin.

Combine sugar, milk powder, cornflour, flour, and baking powder (I sifted these ingredients together, 3 times). Make a well in the centre. Pour the egg yolks (mine is already mixed with caster sugar) in the middle, mix well, while adding the oil and coconut milk. Work from the middle to the edge, combine well until you have a smooth egg mixture.

Meanwhile, whisk egg whites, caster sugar, salt and cream of tartar, if using, until soft peak. Mix this mixture into the egg mixture. Work lightly but thoroughly, to avoid any lumps (which will make holes in your cake).

Divide the mixture into 4 portions and put each portion into a bowl (I only use 3 bowls, and leave the plain mixture in the mixer bowl). Work each paste into each bowl, so you will have one bowl of pandan paste mixture, one bowl of strawberry paste mixture, and another bowl of chocolate paste mixture, while the rest of the mixture remains plain (I drop vanilla extract in it).

Pour these mixture into the tin, and bake for 45 minutes, or until it becomes springy to the touch. Remove the cake from the oven and immediately turn the cake (in the tin) upside-down, using the tin's feet (if you have a chiffon cake with feet). Otherwise, use a strong bottle, like your aged Modena vinegar bottle, to hold the cake  by sliding the bottle into the tin hole in the middle. Leave it to cool.

When it is already cool, remove the cake from the tin by using a long thin knife, loosening from the sides and bottom of the tin. Serve as is, sliced.

KBB Going Muddy

What will mud cake be when it is combined with chocolate biscuit and chocolate ganache? Sensational, perhaps. Maybe luxury. Everything is dark and delicious. Luscious. Prestigious.

KBB this month is throwing in delicious muddy biscuit sandwiches into cookie jars. Mud Cake Cookie Sandwiches, to be quite exact. Here is the recipe.

Mud Cake Cookie Sandwiches

Source: The Australian Women's Weekly: cupcakes, cheesecake, cookies. ACP Magazine Ltd. 2008

Makes 24

250g butter, softened

330g firmly packed brown sugar

2 eggs

450g plain flour

75g self-raising flour

50g cocoa powder

2 Tbs cocoa powder, extra

Chocolate Mud Cake

150g butter, chopped

100g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely

220g caster sugar

125ml water

2 Tbs coffee liqueur

150g plain flour

2 Tbs cocoa powder

2 egg yolks

Combine butter, chocolate, sugar, the water and liqueur in small saucepan. Stir over low heat until smooth. Place mixture in medium bowl; cool 10 minutes. Whisk in sifted flour and cocoa, then egg yolks. Bake about 25 minutes. Cool cakes in pans. Using 6.5cm round cutter, cut 12 rounds from each cake.

Chocolate Ganache

80ml cream

200g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely

Bring cream to a boil in small saucepan; remove from heat. Add chocolate; stir until smooth. Refrigerate until spreadable.

1. Preheat oven to 170C/150C fan-forced. Grease two 20cm x 30cm lamington pans; line with a strip of baking paper, extending paper 2cm above edges of pans.
2. Make chocolate mud cake.
3. Make chocolate ganache.
4. Beat butter, sugar and eggs in small bowl with electric mixer until combined. Transfer mixture to large bowl; stir in sifted flours and cocoa, in two batches. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth; divide in half, roll each portion between sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick. Cover; refrigerate 30 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Grease oven trays; line with baking paper.
6. Using 6.5cm round cutter, cut 48 rounds from dough. Place about 3cm apart on oven trays. Bake about 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.
7. Spread ganache onto underside of cookies; sandwich a mud cake round between two cookies.
8. Using heart template, dust cookies with extra cocoa.

----------------------------------------
Review in Bahasa Indonesia

Untuk pembuatan mud cake ga masalah. Cuma kok kayaknya terlalu sedikit untuk 2 loyang ukuran 30cm? Jadinya tipis banget. Adonannya mirip2 brownies, jadi gampang rapuh dan retak ketika dipotong pake cutter. Mungkin pemanggangan perlu agak basah, diangkat supaya lebih gampang dan lebih nyoklat jadinya. Punyaku sih ga begitu kering, cuma atasnya dah mirip brownies. Mungkin juga pengaruh gula. 

Ngomong2 soal gula, aku kurangi jumlah gula untuk mud cake jadi 220g saja, untuk biskuitnya 150g saja. Itupun ketika jadi masih manis menurutku, tapi ini relatif ya. Kalo soal kukis coklat, aku lebih suka yang nyoklat, ga terlalu manis, tp lebih kental coklatnya. Kalo terlalu manis rasa coklatnya malah tertutup oleh rasa gula. Nah terus di mud cake aku ga pake coffee liqueur tapi pake kopi aja dua sendok, dimasak bareng.

Nah ketika menggunakan cutter, 8 potongan pertama, aku pake pastry cutter (ga punya cutter bulat polos) ukuran 6cm, yang paling mendekati, soalnya yg lain2 lebih kecil dan lebih besar dari ukuran tsb. Begitu aku potong, kok gede amat ya? Ga manis kelihatannya utk ukuran penyajian. Jadi aku cobain pake cutter jadi2an (dari pipa polos) ukuran 5cm, malah lebih sesuai kelihatannya. Jadi dari mud cake aku cuma potong 4 bulatan ukuran 6cm, dan yg selebihnya ukuran 5cm.

Soal rasa jangan ditanya. Utk ganache aku pake Whittaker's 72% dark chocolate. Diberi sedikit esens caramel di campuran krim dan coklat, wanginya lumayan wangi karamel. Karena aku ga bisa makan terlalu banyak, jadi aku gigit sedikit. Biskuitnya renyah banget (ini karena aku ga pake tangan ngadoninnya, mengangkat biskuit dari cetakan pun pake spatula), ditimpali dengan mud cake yg nyoklat dan ganache yang nyoklat banget, wiiiiiiihhh buat pencinta coklat jangan ketinggalan deeeeeeeh!! Kalo ga inget si calon bebih di perut nih pengen banget tuh coklat aku embat ampe ke akar2nya hihihihi...

Not So Macarons

I am so curious to know that someone can make macarons without almond powder. What's it like, I wonder? And so, I follow the recipe and bake them.

The recipe does not call to whip your egg whites until its peak, but just mix all the ingredients together until thicken. It is just like making royal icing for your Christmas fruit cake, unless this one is baked. Yeah, baked royal icing.

They do have feet once they are baked at a suggested oven temperature (though I have to adjust it to 130C for my oven), are as sweet as macarons are, but they tend much flatter in appearance, too crisp without any 'flesh' the original macarons will be. They do not have the moistness as the result of the combination of almond powder, sugars, and egg whites the original French macarons will have. Once you bite, you just find a sandwich of meringues rather than the softness and sweetness of macarons. I do think the use of almond powder is the real key to make a macaron as it is.

However, for some reason, they probably cost much cheaper in a country where almond powder is so poorly available. It is a clever idea, anyway, in one way.

I made two batches of these meringue macarons. One batch is plain and sandwiched with rosewater and rose petals cream Chantilly.

And the other batch is coffee meringue macarons, sandwiched with cappuccino chocolate. I found out that oval shape of macarons is quite pretty. I just spoon them with the tip of soup spoon.

Here is the recipe.

Macarons

by Yeni Ismayani

100g egg whites

400g icing sugar

2 Tbs cornflour

chocolate paste, optional

Whip all the ingredients until thicken. Divide the batter, if you use colouring or paste. Spoon into piping bag and pipe blobs on lightly greased baking trays (I stick with my good baking paper). Let rest for 10 minutes or until the blobs are flattened. Bake in a preheated oven to 170C for 10 minutes. Open the oven for 5 minutes, close again and turn the temperature down to 120C (I just use 130C from the start until all the batter is used) until cooked and dry. Remove from the oven, cool. Peel off of the trays and keep in an airtight-container. Use as required.

NCC Banana Week: Banana Ice Cream

Banana seems to be our year-round popular fruit in the household. My children just nibble them at any time of the day, mostly in between meals. When they are keen, they can whiz bananas with plain Greek yogurt and there they would tuck in their smoothies for the afternoon.

Pity we cannot grow bananas in our South Auckland home garden, otherwise it would nice to harvest our own homegrown bananas, wouldn't it? I bet they'll taste much nicer, especially when they are made into ice cream.

I am not really an ice cream eater. I am allergic to milk products, although I am okay with soft cheeses. I can eat sorbet which mostly is fruit based, for they are not made from milk products. I make ice cream purposely to treat my children and also it is a way for them to learn how to make ice cream from scratch. Therefore, I can control the amount of sugar and the freshness of ingredients possibly used. They also can take benefits from it. I really want them to be independent in the kitchen in the time they are grown up, so they can always carry the positive attitude towards good food throughout their lives. I will be horrified to see them if they would choose to go the a takeaways or drive through outlets to seek food rather than cook it themselves. I do the best I can to introduce and involve them in the kitchen as early as possible. Truly saying is, being in the kitchen is their favourite fun tasks so far in our home-schooling projects.

This is my entry for NCC Banana Week, a one-off event for Natural Cooking Club members. This ice cream is very easy to do with children. I make chocolate chip biscuits and butterscotch sauce as a companion to the ice cream, or to sandwich the ice cream whenever they like. But they stick on ice cream cone, which I cannot make myself. They just eat the biscuits for afternoon tea, and never touch the butterscotch sauce. My beloved husband does!

Banana Ice Cream
by Arfi Binsted

4 large, very ripe bananas, peeled
150-220g white sugar
juice of one lemon
400ml fresh cream
300ml heavy cream
200ml full-cream milk

Chopped bananas and put them in a blender or food processor with sugar and lemon juice. Whiz until smooth. Pour in the creams and milk. Whiz again until smooth. Pour on to a shallow freezer tin, cover and freeze for an hour, or until the ice has been formed around the edges. Put the mixture into the blender again, and whiz (or simply fork the iced edges to mingle with the softer one in the middle, mix well). Freeze for another hour, and then repeat. Freeze once more, whiz again and this time, pour it into the freezer container. Serving when required.

Biscuits
125g unsalted butter, softened
50g caster sugar
150-200g brown sugar
225g plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g dark chocolate chips
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease or line baking sheets. Beat butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Add in vanilla extract and egg, beat again until well mixed and smooth. Fold in sifted plain flour and baking powder. Mix well. Add in chocolate chips. Roll into marble sized balls, flatten it carefully. Bake for 12-15 minutes until cooked and golden brown. Makes 18-24.

Butterscotch Sauce
50g unsalted butter
300g brown sugar
125ml fresh cream
a pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients in a heavy pot. Stir until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Let it boil, then simmer until the sauce is thicken.

To assemble:
Prepare one sheet of biscuit, scoop the ice cream on top. Drizzle with butterscotch sauce and sprinkle with chocolate hails, and top with another sheet of biscuit. Just use your imagination, I suppose. Nothing can go wrong, really :) Enjoy!

Have a great day!