Saturday 28 February 2009

Daring bakers: Flourless Chocolate Cake

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge. February’s challenge is a Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Valentino, inspired by Malaysia’s “most flamboyant food ambassador”, Chef Wan. Recipe comes from Sweet Treats by Chef Wan
I started out this recipe and things were looking good. I was using Tesco Finest dark choclate and I will never use it again. It didn't taste so great plain, I just hoped it would bake up better with other things in the mix..

Here it is ready to go in the oven.. it had a slightly strange foamy texture.

It came out of the oven with alot of oil or something percolating around it but after resting a few minutes it turned out of its pan fine. But it was terrible this cake was crumbly with a terrible taste. I threw the rest away.. obviously I did something wrong or it was poisioned by tesco chocolate....
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Tuesday 24 February 2009

TWD: Caramel Crunch Bars

This Weeks recipe looked very good as ice cream bars, so I decided to go with that. I always thought that Heath bars were very english, yet here i am in England and the only thing I could find with toffee were very large thorntons chocolate covered toffee bits. you can see them there sorta not melted on top. Lets just say they made for very good jaw calisthenics!





Once they were made into ice cream bars it was very tasty, but just too much! the cookie/shortbread bit was super hard (I kinda felt like my dog trying to get at the marrow of a bone) Full marks for taste on this one, but maybe not so pratical as an ice cream bar.

Be sure to check out the TWD blog roll to see how everyone else got on!

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Saturday 21 February 2009

Practicing the Wedding cake Covering

As you might know I've got high hopes to make my own wedding cake. I was inspired by a Martha Stewart idea where instead of messing about with trying to get smooth buttercream or putting on horrible tasting fondant. In this recipe you make a sort of choclate wood grain siding. This is my second attempt at it and while making a plank is easy getting the wood grain clear is a bit trickier. This was made with white chocolate ganache and then dark chocolate. I unfortunately dropped some water on it (from the bottom of the double boiler) as I was putting on the layers so the top one you can see the shape of 3 drops dissolving the wood grain.
I've obviously still got some work to do to get it perfect. But even at this state (only my 2nd try) I'm sure I can make something very lovely and impressive!
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Friday 20 February 2009

A Valentines sleep in Omelette..


For Valentines Day last Saturday I wanted to make my fiance a nice breakfast in bed- but I also wasn't interested in having to do a whole lot of cooking that morning either. I was searching for something that uses alot of eggs (as our hens seem very happy at the moment) and came across one of Pioneer Woman's recipes that used 10 eggs!--Jackpot--

I love to read Ree's blog its like if I could of had my horsey dream life that I wanted from 7-14 I'd be there in heaven on the ranch.. (though some days I do think it might be fun.. except for the meat eating.) If you don't already read it do go check it out- or at least get into her love story "black heels to tractor wheels"-- its a page turner!

But back to food- I've used Ree's standard American (I grew up in the Midwest, so making her recipes reminds me of being a kid/family functions etc) recipes to pull off my first Thanksgiving here in England and it was a great success. So I choose the sleepin in omelet for valentines day.
It was fannnnnntastic I'll definitely be making it again, but with half the butter!




Friday 13 February 2009

The shite I do in cake class


Isin't it lovely?! I signed up for a cake class hoping it would help me out in doin the wedding cake. But instead we make this sort of tat..
Its so kitch I have no idea what I would do with it. We spend all this time to make 'edible' flowers that no one would actually want to eat, and that probably take more effort than just getting some fresh ones from the florist.. i don't get it but here is my first attempt at a floral spray..
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Barefood Bloggers: Not so real meatballs and spaghetti


Since I'm a vegetarian I can't really pull off eating meatballs, so I picked up some grassington farms ones and gave them a good fry up. The sauce was really tasty (despite me using white wine-- as I had no red in house). It was simple to put together and made a very tasty Friday night quick dinner. I suppose for me it was more a nostalgia meal as typically I have more roasted veggie type pasta these days.
Feel free to check out the recipe yourself at barefoot bloggers!









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Tuesday 10 February 2009

TWD: Floating Islands

This weeks recipe was not something I'd usually pick of the 4. I mean I have been dying to make the cover cake since getting the book. Strangely I'm going to NOT make it as I think a) i don't need any additional cake around as I try and slim down before our wedding and b) If I am making cake its going to be trial wedding cake. So since the fiance loves custard I thought this would be a great choice. The creme anglaise was no problem (mine was quite a bit yellower than the picture in the book, but very tasty)
However the islands were a huge disappointment. Basically they resembeled poached egg whites and were not appetizing. After putting them in the fridge to cool I googled a few other recipes for the islands and there were the key words. beat until stiff. Dori only mentions satiny glossyness. Thats when I stopped and well yeah it was more like floating rubber life rings than islands.
I thought about re making the islands but time as always was an issue so I hoped the caramel would help.
Here they are looking all rubbery

Now with some decorative carmel?!

Oh well its actually a good thing that the dessert doesn't make me want to eat more of it!

Be sure to check out the rest of the TWD group and see there (probably more successful) attempts at this dessert.


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