chocolate

Magic Meringue Mushroom Making

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

I’m not fond of meringues. Somehow I never taste whatever they’re flavoured with—only egg white, a flavour I’ve always found unpleasant.

I do, however, enjoy making meringue mushrooms. This week I had the pleasure of making a large batch of meringue mushrooms without having to eat any of them.

Two of my husband’s PhD students are graduating, and they gave a celebratory seminar today. Naturally I had to make some mushroom-themed treats (to match their research subjects) for the occasion. Sixty mushroom shaped cookies, two dozen Amanita muscaria cupcakes and 50 meringue mushrooms later I dusted off my hands and stepped out of the kitchen.

The cookies and cupcakes are cute, but it’s those meringue mushrooms that excite me. 

meringue mushroom caps in the oven

I love piping the little stems and caps and dusting them with cocoa powder. I love how they look during their long slow cooking in the oven. I love the crisp-hollow sound they make when you pick them off the baking parchment.

But best of all is the process of gluing the caps to the stems with molten chocolate. Each mushroom seems to come to life—short plump ones, tall thin ones, some that bend or sit wonky on their stems. Each is different and has its own character. There’s something magical about it.

meringue mushrooms on cooling rack

I wish I had more excuses to make meringue mushrooms. I wish I liked eating them. But that’s alright—maybe I appreciate the magic of meringue mushroom making more because it is such a rare treat. (Alternatively, alliteration acts as an attraction?)

A Trifle Broken

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Last night’s baking was going well until it came time to remove the cake from the pan.

I made a chocolate cake—a wholegrain recipe I’ve made a dozen times. Usually I’d bake it up as cupcakes, but I decided to go all out and make a layer cake instead. I also decided to mix in some frozen raspberries, because there’s still a ton of summer’s bountiful fruit in the freezer.

The recipe calls for greasing and flouring the pans, which I did generously.

Unfortunately, I should have lined the pans with baking paper instead. The raspberries made the cake extra fragile, and both layers broke dramatically when I tried to take them out of the pans.

There went my vision of a beautiful chocolate and raspberry layer cake, filled with black currant jam and covered in a chocolate ganache.

But cake is cake, and it tastes great whether it’s whole or broken into jagged pieces.

Enter the trifle—a dish that was no doubt invented by a hapless baker whose cake had disintegrated upon being turned out of the pan, an hour before the arrival of twenty guests.

I didn’t have the eggs necessary to make the traditional custard for my trifle, so I went with whipped cream, layering cake with cream, the remaining frozen raspberries and the chocolate ganache (which was left over from oreo cookie making last week). 

As it turns out, I didn’t have enough cream to do the trifle justice, so even my trifle wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be.

But let’s face it: chocolate cake + whipped cream + raspberries + chocolate ganache = YUM! No matter what it looks like.

And thankfully, I don’t have twenty guests coming … I get to eat more of it that way. 

OOOOOh my! Chocolate cookies

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I dipped into Ottolenghi’s book, Sweet, again the other day. This time I made Chocolate O Cookies. 

All I can say is  OOOOOOh my!

These could possibly be the best chocolate cookies ever. They’re a lot of work, and the recipe only makes 20 cookies, but those 20 cookies are truly divine.

The cookies themselves are a rich chocolate shortbread—alone, they’re worth making. But the piece de resistance is the water ganache filling.

I’d never made a ganache like this before, and I have to say I was dubious at first—mixing chocolate and water is a no-no, right? To make matters worse, the ganache starts with a sugar syrup, which has always been a bit of an Achilles heel for me.

But somehow it worked, and the infusion of cinnamon, chilli and orange gives the ganache a complex richness that lifts it above any other ganache I’ve made.

I’ll definitely be making these again … and again … and again.

Incidentally, I had extra ganache, which I popped into the fridge and slathered on lemon cupcakes later in the week—an excellent bonus!

Here’s the ganache recipe:

1/2 cinnamon stick
shaved peel of 1/2 orange
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
90 ml boiling water
125 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), roughly chopped
scraped seeds of 1/2 vanilla pod (I used 1/2 tsp vanilla)
1/4 tsp salt
50 g caster sugar
50 g liquid glucose (I used honey)
50 g butter, cut into 2 cm cubes

Place cinnamon, orange peel and chilli flakes in a small bowl and cover with the boiling water. Set aside for 30 minutes. After the water has been infusing for about 20 minutes, prepare the sugar syrup.

Place the chocolate, vanilla seeds and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Place the sugar and glucose in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has melted. Increase the heat and boil until the caramel turns a light amber colour (this doesn’t work if you use honey—it will already be amber. I boiled to about the soft ball stage), about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the infused water and aromatics. Return the liquid to a boil and then strain over the chocolate and vanilla. Discard the aromatics. Leave for 2-3 minutes until the chocolate has melted. Stir until smooth.

Add the butter, one piece at a time, stirring constantly until it is incorporated and smooth. Refrigerate 30 minutes to firm up.

Ugliest Cake Ever

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Yesterday was a bad baking day, for sure. In the afternoon, I tried to make meringue with aquafaba, which we’ve done before with great success. Not so on this attempt. After nearly 40 minutes of beating, my meringue mixture was still nowhere close to being stiff enough. I tipped it into the compost pile.

Later, I made chocolate cupcakes using a tried-and-true recipe. What could go wrong? First, I was out of cupcake papers. No problem—I greased and floured two cake tins instead. The layers looked gorgeous coming out of the oven.

But fifteen minutes later when I tipped them out of their pans, they stuck. By the time I got them out, one layer had the entire bottom ripped off, and the other was in a dozen chunks. 

I should have broken up the rest of the cake and made a trifle out of it—it would have been an excellent trifle! But the whole inspiration for making cake was to make frosting for it from a half-block of cream cheese that had been sitting in the fridge for ages unused.

So I glued the layers together with generous slatherings of tart apricot jam from last year’s bumper apricot harvest, then topped it with my cream cheese frosting, which wasn’t enough to cover a whole cake, of course, since I only had half a block of cream cheese (would have been plenty for cupcakes…).

The result was …

“A remarkable recovery,” in my daughter’s words.

And I suppose it was, considering the crumbled mess I started with. Still, this is a cake to eat quickly and with closed eyes.

It is delicious, though. Especially with all that apricot jam glue holding it together.

Crazy Cake #1–2020

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It’s birthday cake season again! This year, my daughter’s brief for me was a Kura Tawhiti bouldering theme, with ‘maybe a climber and some alpine plants’ done in chocolate and hazelnut flavours.

I think both of us had a vision of a grey boulder or boulders with climber, plants, etc. But as I started in on the cake, the vision changed.

I made one of my favourite devil’s food cake recipes (from Tartine) in a range of round layer sizes. I sliced each layer in half and filled it with my homemade Nutella, stacking the layers in a wonky boulder-like shape. 

Then I stood there and contemplated the decoration. My plan had been to make the standard quick icing I use for decorating, but the amazing rich chocolate cake with decadent Nutella filling really needed something better than quick icing. It needed ganache.

So that’s what it got—chocolate ganache covered with ground hazelnuts to get a more appropriate boulder colour. 

I added chunks of hazelnut praline for a more rocky appearance, and made some alpine plants and a climber from Mexican paste. A few small final touches with a simple sugar and milk icing, and the cake was finished.

It didn’t look anything like I thought it would when I started, but it tasted absolutely divine! No wonder—it contained over 400 grams of chocolate, two cups of hazelnuts, and a gloriously unhealthy quantity of butter and cream. In the end, no one was paying much attention to the look—we were too busy oohing and aahing over the taste.

Homemade Nutella, Take 2

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

A while back, I mentioned the Nutella I’d made, and noted it wasn’t quite right, so I’d have to try again.

Well, the most recent attempt, modified based on the shortcomings of the last batch, was a winner. I increased the hazelnuts and decreased the chocolate, so the nut flavour was more dominant, and I used a dark chocolate with a lower cocoa content, which prevented the spread from setting up like a rock when cool.

Here’s the recipe:

1 1/4 cups hazelnuts
175 g dark chocolate (50% cocoa solids)
2 Tbs vegetable oil
3 Tbs confectioner’s sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Spread hazelnuts on a tray and roast approximately 10 minutes at 180ºC until fragrant. Rub off the skins and allow to cool.

Chop the chocolate and melt over simmering water. Allow to cool.

Grind the nuts in a food processor until they form a paste. Blend in the oil, sugar, salt and vanilla. Add the chocolate and blend until smooth and well-mixed.

The mixture will be quite runny, but will set as it cools.

Of course, I’ll almost certainly tweak this recipe more. Just a touch less sugar and a touch less salt next time, perhaps. And I still haven’t achieved the silky smoothness of commercial Nutella—no matter how long I grind the hazelnuts, they still lend a gritty texture to the spread. It would be a whole lot of work, but I might try using a mortar and pestle on the nuts next time, to work on the texture issue …

You see, there’s always a good excuse to make more Nutella.

If at First You Don’t Succeed …

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

A few weeks ago, my dentist rang. not to tell me I was overdue for a checkup, but to ask if I wanted any hazelnuts (we have a long history of trading produce—I try not to arrive at an appointment without some gift from the garden). 

Turns out his hazelnut gift was 10 kilos of nuts! So I’ve been using hazel nuts in everything lately. And, of course, my thoughts turned to homemade Nutella.

There are plenty of recipes online. I chose this one and had a go. The only change I made was to use dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate.

The result was quite good, but not nutty enough for my taste—the chocolate to nut ratio was too high, swamping the flavour of the nuts. It also set too hard—probably because I used dark chocolate instead of the milk chocolate called for in the recipe. 

Of course, that means I’ll just have to make it again … you know, to get it right. I have plenty of hazelnuts.

If at first you don’t succeed …

No-fuss Bliss Balls

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I like the idea of the now-ubiquitous protein balls/energy bites/bliss balls/whatever they’re called. I thought they’d be great for my athletic daughter, to keep her weight up.

But when I bought some, we found them more candy bar than energy boost—overly sweet and not particularly tasty, either.

So I was intrigued when I found the book, Energy Bites, by Christine Bailey in the cookbook section of my local library. 

My excitement quickly turned to disappointment as I flicked past recipe after recipe that included such hard-to-find ingredients as xylitol, yacon syrup, matcha, colostrum powder, and lucuma powder. Surely, one should be able to concoct a not-too-sweet high-energy treat from ingredients I already had in the cupboard.

I pulled out my food processor and started dropping things in and buzzing them until I had a mixture of the right consistency and flavour.

  • A cup of walnuts
  • A handful of coconut
  • Two spoonfuls of unsweetened cocoa
  • A handful of dates
  • A few spoonfuls of peanut butter
  • A pinch or two of cayenne pepper
  • Several gratings of coarse salt

The result was bitter with chocolate, rich with nuts, and just a little zingy with salt and cayenne. A definite improvement over the store bought ones, and easy to whip up with staples from my cupboard.

Happy Coincidences = Amazing Results

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I wanted to bake brownies the other day. I had my heart set on my usual brownie recipe, with chocolate chips and walnuts added.

But when I went for the cocoa, there was none. Oh no!

But there was a large bar of really nice dark chocolate … I used the chocolate instead.

Then, we were almost out of walnuts. Darn!

I rifled through the cupboards. Plenty of raisins, but that wasn’t what I wanted. Only a few dried cranberries, but that flavour would be nice. I remembered that dried gooseberries tasted a lot like dried cranberries, and we had plenty of those. As I reached for the gooseberries, I noticed a little jar on top of them.

Dried raspberries. When we dried them, I had no idea how I might use the crunchy little nuggets that resulted.

Now I knew exactly what they were for. I tipped the whole jar into the brownie mix, along with a generous quantity of chocolate chips.

The result is the most divine brownie I think I’ve ever made. The high-quality dark chocolate makes the bar decadently rich, and the dried raspberries provide sparkling, intense bursts of fruit flavour that lingers long after the last crumbs are eagerly licked off the plate.

And to think I would have settled for an ordinary walnut brownie …

Lucky thing I was out of cocoa and walnuts!

Neenish Tarts

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Neenish Tarts

The Darfield Bakery is a mandatory stop for us whenever we pass through Darfield.

Our most frequent purchase is neenish tarts—little lemon tarts with chocolate drizzled on top. I’ve had neenish tarts from other bakeries and none stacks up to Darfield’s.

Not all neenish tarts are lemon—my understanding is that the ‘traditional’ neenish tart (they originated across the ditch in Australia) has a gelatine-thickened cream filling and is topped with two colours of frosting. I’m not particularly fond of this overly-sweet, bland tart. Lemon neenish tart filling is made with lemon juice, icing (powdered) sugar, and sweetened condensed milk.

My neenish tarts probably shouldn’t even be called neenish tarts, because they bear no resemblance to the ‘original’ ones, and veer off course even from the Darfield Bakery’s tarts. Still, they’re inspired by neenish tarts, and are just as delicious as the ones at the Darfield Bakery.

Make your favourite pie pastry (enough for a one-crust pie). Roll out thinly (roll more thinly for little tarts than for pie, or you end up with a tart that’s all crust), and cut into 10 cm (4-in) rounds. Line the wells of a cupcake pan with the rounds. Bake the shells empty for about 15 minutes at 190ºC (375ºF), until the edges are nicely browned. Turn out of the pan and cool on a wire rack.

While the pastry shells are cooling, make lemon curd. Combine in a saucepan:

3 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
60 g (4 Tbs) butter
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup lemon juice

Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly, until thick. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 tsp vanilla.

Spoon warm lemon curd into each shell and allow to cool.

Melt about 50 g (2 oz) dark chocolate and drizzle over the tarts. Allow lemon curd and chocolate to cool completely before serving.