Chocolate

There’s a story behind that photograph. It was taken by my friend Tiffany who was filming me for a class project she had. So that person there sifting in the stripes? That’s me. We spent an entire afternoon in my little kitchen as she made a film, interviewing me and taking some gorgeous, gorgeous shots of my food. Never have any of my creations looked so pretty. She’s one talented lady. She also geeked out with me about shallow depth of field and a plate of asparagus which I think pretty much makes us (nerdy) friends for life.

This cake got to be a bit of a star for the day, since I’d made it that morning. It’s a beauty of a cake – chocolatey with a lovely touch of Earl Grey and that oh-so necessary hint of salt to bring out the flavours.

It’s light and perfect any time of day but the most important thing for you to know is that it gets better after a couple of days. I always freak out a little that my baked goods are going to go stale overnight but this is not so! This cake, stored properly, becomes a little more dense – creamy even – after a day or too, and so chocolatey and wonderful. I ate half of the thing myself. And that is no exaggeration.

Earl Grey Chocolate Cake
from Real Simple via Shutterbean

Ingredients

  • 6 Earl Grey tea bags or 2 tablespoons loose Earl Grey tea
  • 1 cup water
  • 113g/ 4oz/ 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 113g/ 4oz bittersweet chocolate, melted in a double-broiler and cooled
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher/coarse salt
  • 1/4 cup plain yoghurt
  • 1/4 cup sour cream
  • powdered/ confectioners’ sugar, to dust

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 350F. Grease an 8-cup bundt tube pan with neutral oil.
  2. Brew the tea in hot water 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the tea bags or strain the leaves and set the brewed tea aside.
  3. Beat the butter, eggs, and granulated sugar until fluffy. Stir in the melted chocolate. Beat in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, yoghurt, sour cream, and brewed tea. Pour into bundt pan.
  4. Bake 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out with a few crumbs attached. Remove from oven and let stand 5 minutes.
  5. Turn out of pan and cool on a wire rack. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve. Keeps, stored in an airtight container at room temperature, for several days.

flourless chocolate cake

April 16, 2012

This is a rich, decadent and super simple dessert. I made it for my book club girls last week and it took all of 10 minutes to prep and 25 minutes to bake – you can’t get anymore low key than that. Perfect for a weeknight or when you’re really pushed for time.

I think everyone should experience being in a book club. We’re lucky that our book club consists of such a stellar group of women with a great dynamic. There’s always a good mix of book chat, cheese-feasting, wine drinking, and general lady-chat. I love it. I also love feeding people cake and one of us can’t eat the gluten so this worked out well. I’ll definitely be busting it out again.

Of note – there really aren’t that many different recipes out there for flourless chocolate cake since it just comprises chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, and cocoa powder (I’d love to hear your version if you have one). What makes this special is choosing really top-notch ingredients; with something so simple, the quality of the ingredients is important. I’ve listed those below – I really think you’ll taste the difference.

Flourless Chocolate Cake
adapted from Gourmet

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 190C/375°F and butter an 8-inch round baking pan. Line bottom with a round of wax paper and butter the paper.
  2. Chop chocolate into small pieces. In a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt chocolate with butter, stirring, until smooth. Remove bowl from heat and whisk sugar into chocolate mixture. Add the eggs and whisk well. Sift cocoa powder over chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 25 minutes, or until top has formed a thin crust. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes and invert onto a serving plate.
  3. Dust cake with powdered sugar and serve with vanilla ice cream and strawberries or raspberries. (After being cooled completely, the cake will keep in an airtight container, 1 week.)

Crispy, salted chocolate cookies with a thick smear of Nutella sandwiched between them. I don’t mind if I do.

Do you bake? Some of you must as I’m sure you come here to look at recipes but others of you might just like pretty pictures of food (one of the biggest reasons I enjoy looking at food blogs). If you like to bake then maybe you understand me when I say that baking soothes my soul. If I have something on my mind or feel stressed out, then baking some simple cookies or quick bread lets me breathe.

Something about the familiar motions of creaming butter and sugar with a wooden spoon and sieving flour comforts me. The predictability of combining certain ingredients in a particular way and knowing what the outcome will be helps my mind wander through whatever is bothering it. It’s really a wonderful thing.

These got the thumbs up from my co-workers who got treated to them though I will say that you shouldn’t be shy with the Nutella. I was fairly conservative and but you really want a good, thick smear.

Salted Chocolate Nutella Cookies
adapted from The Faux Martha and my post on Homemade Oreo Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp Nutella
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter at room-temperature
  • 1 large egg
  • Coarse salt

For the filling

  • Up to one 13oz jar of Nutella

Directions

  1. Set rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 375°F.
  2. In a bowl sieve and whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
  3. Cream together butter, Nutella, and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg.
  4. Slowly add in the flour mixture until evenly incorporated; the dough should come together in a mass.
  5. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Sprinkle a little sea salt on top of each one. Bake for 9-11 minutes; the cookies will spread significantly while baking. Set baking sheet on a rack to cool.
  6. Spread Nutella onto cooled cookies with a butter knife. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top, sandwiching the Nutella in the middle. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Sprinkle with more sea salt, if desired. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with Nutella. Chomp. Makes about 15 sandwich cookies (or about 30 plain cookies).