paid my dues

The girls came, and helped me a lot. They were nice, asking a lot of questions but still they were heroines, no complaints, no talking back, no drama just did their job. So...in return I promised them that I will pay my dues in cake.
And I did and actually they were very happy with it.
They were promise a chocolate ganache cake with blackberries and they were not complaining... I think everyone was green with envy but never mind, the girls did the job, they earned the cake.

The original recipe idea came from Lila Füge, a very much liked Hungarian celebrity blogger wannabe (ok, ok I take it back), whose style I don't really like but whose blog I still read sometimes ;).


Chocolate ganache cake with blackberries
180 g flour
1 pinch of salt
40g cocoa powder
20g corn starch
250 g sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp bicarb
175g natural yoghurt (or a bit less)
1,5 dl water
1,5 dl oil
2 eggs

for the ganache:
300 g dark chocolate
a pinch of cayenne pepper (you can omit)
300 ml thick double cream
3-4 tbs blackberry jam (or whatever you like)
fresh (or frozen but I don't want to know about it) blackberry to decorate

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Butter and line your cake tin(s). If you have two tins, then you are lucky. I was working with one so it took more time to get ready with the sponge cakes.

Sieve the dry ingredients into a big bowl and add the wet ingredients one by one. Stir with a spatula, you don't need a hand mixer or any voodoo kitchen gadget for this cake. Pour the cake mixture into the tin(s) and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. If you find it undone in the middle (you know cake test with a needle) but actually the top is turning dark brown, then put it back in the oven for an extra 5-10 minutes but cover with tinfoil to prevent burning.
While the cakes are being made in the oven, heat up the double cream on your stove, add some fresh vanilla (or extract) and/or some cayenne and pour the hot cream over the chocolate (you can use good quality dark chocolate drops/pastilles as well) and let it rest/melt for 2 minutes. Once molten, stir carefully, and put aside 200 ml from the ganache. Put the ganache in the fridge for an hour, and in the meantime your cake can cool enough to handle. If the cake is not in level, then trim the excess to get two nice thick disks. Put a layer of blackberry jam on the top of one of the cakes, spread carefully and pour that 200 ml, cooled ganache on the top. Spread the ganache but make sure that you leave 0,5 mm at the edges. Put the second sponge on the top, and press down carefully so that you even out the filling.
Pour rest of the ganache over the cake, and decorate to your preference. Put the blackberries on the top of the ganache to remind yourself that it is actually it is a chocolate AND blackberry cake!

let's talk about Eric

Here is Eric. He is not a "oh-just-like-my-neighbour" type of boy at all. He is a master pâtissier and he lives up to the expectations as such :)
Probably, he was the boy in the public school whose English was not understood by anyone, since he is French, and his arrogance made him the perfect target for school bullies. But Eric is not the type of guy who would allow himself to be bullied, he would say 'ow dare they' and would walk off to the nearest patisserie to get the sweetest, coolest, most fashionable cake for himself  and then a haircut.
So, let me introduce you Eric Lanlard, with his latest series on television. He is very bad with the cameras, not able to make any convenient small-talk with his guest, but still...I am watching him every day!
Reason being, that he is over-confident with his cakes and dessert (must be since he was trained at the Roux brothers), he is making fancy cake decorations that even the chockywockydoodah would be envious with and last but not least his English is funny. Oh, and he is showing some quick bakes, which I tested and proved to be really quick, really! :)
So, here it is a cupcake from Eric's kitchen, which a bite. Lovely light sponge, and creamy yummy frosting. You will see what I mean!

Mexican chocolate Cupcakes: 

175g flour (85g low-carb, 90g graham for me - sieved)
1 tsp bicarb
1tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 pinch of cayenne pepper powder
1 pinch of salt
225g caster sugar (175g I dared...not more)
4 tbs cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1 splash of white wine vinegar
5 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsb vanilla extract
250 ml water (I needed to add 100 ml milk too)

Combine the dry ingredients with the wet (the raw pastry must be runny, don't worry it is normal). Portion out to the papered cupcake tin, and bake in the 180°C pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes.

While it is baking in the oven prepare the frosting.
 150g sieved icing sugar
150g butter (on room temp)
100g melted dark chocolate
1 pinch of cayenne pepper powder

Combine the sugar and the butter with a spatula at first, then use your electric mixer to cream. Once light and fluffy add the cooled but still runny dark chocolate and the cayenne. Combine then put in the fridge for 20 mins, or at least till the sponge cools down.
Decorate to your liking!

cocoa swirls aka. kakaós csiga

Colleagues of mine started joking around on the social networking site regarding the concept of the kakaós csiga (husband calls them cocoa swirls). If you are Hungarian, then I am sure that you know what a kakaós csiga is and you don't think of something odd, or don't start frowning when I mention it. If you are a non-Hungarian, then you might find it funny that we named a nice chocolatey swirl after a sloppy animal. Anyway, the inspiration came, action followed and I made one of my best kakaós csiga of this year (easy, it's only January:))  (-let me please mention that the inspiration came from Maci )
The swirls were so successful at work and at home that 1. I could not take any photo of them since they were gone by the time I was about to do that 2. I am making the second portion today to satisfy family demand...

first he was approaching it

Ingredients:
for the dough:
500g plain flour
250 ml double cream
50 ml milk
4 tbs caster sugar
10-15g of fresh yeast (or 7g if dried)
2 egg yokes
75g melted butter
1 pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

for the filling:
40-50g butter (on room temperature)
150-200g brown sugar
3-4 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
1-2 tbs of hot chocolate powder (optional)

For the dough gently warm the milk and the cream with the sugar till it reaches room temperature (Use the defrosting function on the microwave). It should not be warmer otherwise, you will kill the yeast. If you use fresh yeast, then add to the milk/cream mixture and set it aside for 5 mins till the yeast starts working on room temperature.
Mix the flour and the salt, make a well in the middle. Add the yeast/milk/cream mixture and use your hands like claws to mix that in. Add the melted butter and the egg yokes and mix as long as your dough resembles to an elastic balls. Then kneed for 10-15 mins and let it rest for an hour in a warm place in your kitchen where there is no cold draught, since that would kill the yeast consequently the whole dough.
If you have a bread making machine then you can skip all of the above, and trust your machine to do the business for you.
After an hour rest, knock the air out of the dough and give it a good kneed again, but gentle now. Let it rest again for 10 more minutes.
Turn on the oven to 180 Celsius and roll out the dough into a rectangular shape, which is not thinner than 0,5 cm. Spread the butter evenly on the dough, and sprinkle with the brown sugar/ cocoa powder mixture (or hot choc. powder if you use).
Roll up the dough tightly, and using a 20-30 cm long thread cut the filled though into half, and then half again and half it as long as you reach 1,5-2 cm thick swirls. I don't like using a knife for cutting, as it squashes the "snail" and they would look rather like they have been run over by a car...
Place them on a baking sheet on their sides and if you want, you can sprinkle the top with some brown sugar and pour some hot milk/butter mixture (0,5 dl) on every swirl. Let it rest for an other half an hour before putting in the hot oven.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and pour the left-over milk/butter mixture (other 0,5dl), and bake till golden brown (an other 15 minutes). Eat it till piping hot! (no don't do that, I am joking...) Enjoy!

then he put his hands on it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then he ate it

Kitchen Recycling 2012/January

Since it is a new year (and btw Happy New Year to all my readers!) we have the choice of making some new years resolutions.Something like I will learn, I will give-up, I will do this, I won't do that, I will enroll and finish you name it and then we all forget about these within a week or so...or sometimes life gives you no choice but you have to change your habits without any consideration and stick to that for a while (or a lifetime:)). Either way it is, I think that for 2012 a lot of people will make the resolution of saving, or not wasting (money, food, time, attention etc.) so why not starting that in your kitchen?

This is not a new invention, as women, having practice in cooking, know the tricks of "recycling" of food for hundreds of years. For example, we have the Italian Panzanella, the Hungarian Hortobágyi Palacsinta, the Cesar Salad,Spanish croquettes, the lovely Bread and Butty Pud that all British housewives know the best, and we could continue the list with a loads of other dishes that is created by creative chefs, wives, students in order to save the leftover.

A couple of years ago the BBC went as far as creating an entire series around the topic and filmed the TV program, the Economy Gastronomy, which was a successful attempt to make viewers realize how much food (and consequently money) goes into waste and what you can do with your leftover Sunday Roast besides chucking that into the bin.

I could also mention the great initiative of lovefoodhatewaste.com, which is trying to encourage us to get the most from every ingredient and giving us colourful ideas of serving up the leftover that would go into waste.

In the light of these said above I would like to give you some recipes this month that uses up some leftover from your fridge and helps you to clean out your cupboard, giving everyday food a bit of a twist but on a low budget.

The first recipe this month is a DIY chocolate rocky road, for which I got the inspiration from Nigella. She showed how to use up the remains of the Christmas Cake, turning it into posh (no offense but what else?) chocolate truffles and serving them like they have always meant to be posh chocolate truffles:)!
Since, I was not in the mood of faffing around with the truffles, I turned this recipe into (not a classical) Rocky Road, adding whatever I found in the kitchen.
If you want to have some fun in the kitchen, then be my guest and start making the little truffle balls. If you are lazy like myself, then follow me :)
The rules and the ingredients are really not strict here. I was trying to give you some idea where to start and the variation of the ingredients is up to your taste and (of course) purse.


DIY Chocolate Rocky Road:
Ingredients:
1/3 of a traditional fruit and nut Christmas Cake (or the third of a 23 cm sponge cake or cca. 200g biscuits)
200g of Dark chocolate (any type)
200ml double cream
cca. 50g butter (if I say a knob of butter would you know what I am talking about)
cca. 2-3 tbs hazelnut cream and the same amount of peanut butter
a handful of raisin, chopped walnut and coconut (or almond, pecan, Brazil nut etc)
a dash of vanilla extract
cca. 1 dl sweet champagne (port,sherry or any sweet wine or any liqueur from the bottom of the bottle)*

Melt the chocolate over water bath, add the butter and the cream and take off the heat when molten. Let it cool.
Crumb the cake (the drier, the better) into a big bowl and pour in some champagne and add some vanilla extract. Stir in the nuts, any dried fruit of your choice, the melted chocolate and add the hazelnut cream and the peanut butter.
Turn the mixture into a cake tin, let it rest in the fridge for 2-3 hours or overnight and serve it sliced.

*FYI: Nigella used Pedro Ximénez :) but if you are serving this to children use some fruit juice or squash

it was difficult to take a good shot of this

csokoládés karamellás "emeletes" torta (aka. Phil második! születésnapi tortája)

Igen, ez az emeletes torta a javából (legalább is mi így hívtuk gyerekkorunkban). Még sohasem csináltam ilyet, de már nagyon régóta szemeztem a recepttel és most eljött az ideje, hogy megcsináljam.  Meg volt hozzá minden hozzávaló itthon, sőt...volt még jó hangulat, napsütés, szombat stb. Így belevágtam és sütöttem sorba a lapokat, kentem a karamellt, olvasztottam a csokit, hogy aztán délután háromra kész is legyek a tortával.
Aki kérdezi, hogy miért, annak elárulom, hogy sajnos Phil első születésnapi tortája (másmint az idén, nem az első első...) nem lett valami jó. Pedig a recept címe az volt, hogy a világ legjobb csokoládés meggyes tortája, de nekem még sem lett az. Ami elromolhatott rajta, az el is romlott. A csokikrém kifolyt belőle, a zselatinban dobókocka nagyságú csomók voltak, szóval nem volt az igazi. Habár így is elfogyott (nem akarok ujjal mutogatni, hogy ki ette meg egyedül a saját szülinapi tortáját:)) de azért akartam csinálni neki valamí hűha, de szép és de finomat is. Így az áprilisi good food-ot előhalásztam, és hát íme ez lett ez eredmény:

nem spóroltam a csokival

Kérem kedves olvasóimat, hogy ne hüledezzenek! Nagyon egyszerű receptről van szó és igen gyorsan lehet vele haladni, így kész van a torta "rövid" idő alatt. 
Elméletileg 12 szeletet lehet kihozni belőle, háááát meglátjuk! A lap alján majd megírom azért az adagonkénti kalóriatartalmat, de kérem, hogy csak erős idegzetű olvasóim nézzék csak meg :)

For English recipe please click here: chocolate-and-caramel-layer-cake




hozzávalók a vaníliás és csokoládés piskótához: 
225 g vaj
225 g cukor
175 g liszt (2 csipet sütőport és ugyan ennyi szódabikarbónát keverjünk bele)
85 g darált mandula (nagyon finomra darálva, de szerintem lehet ez dió vagy mogyoró is)
3 egész tojás
150 ml natúr joghurt
1 tk. vanília kivonat
3,5 ek. cukrozatlan kakaópor

hozzávalók a karamellás, és karamellás csokis piskótához:
225 g vaj
175 g világos nádcukor
50g sötét muscovado cukor (nem kell messzire menni érte, ha nincs, akkor megteszi a melasz is, de abból kevesebb kell)
175 g liszt (sütőpor, szódabikarbóna 2-2 csipet)
85g darált mandula
3 tojás
150 ml natúr joghurt
1 tk vaníliakivonat
1 ek cukrozatlan kakaópor

krém: 
1 konzerv dulce de leche (vagyis karamel krém, amit nagyon egyszerűen elő lehet otthon is állítani sürített tejből. Itt van egy jó recept: chili-és-vaníliától)

bevonat:
300g étcsoki és tejcsoki keveréke (tetszóleges arányban)
300 ml tejszín

Tényleg pofon egyszerű elkészíteni ezt a tortát...Szóval sütőt bekapcsoljuk 180°C-ra és kikenünk és kipapírozunk egy 18 vagy 20cm-es tortaformát (vagy ha van kettőt) . Ha csak egy formánk van, akkor fontos a papírozás, mert akkor gyakorlatilag gyorsan tudjuk be-, és kipakolni a tortát a sütőből. Ha nincs papírunk, akkor sajnos meg kell várni míg kihül a lap, majd elmosni a formát és mindent előről kezdeni.
A piskótához megolvasztjuk a vajat, majd hozzákeverjük a cukrot, tojást, vaníliát, és joghurtot és kézi habverővel (nem kell mixert használni egyáltalán) jól elkeverjük. Beleszitáljuk a lisztet, mandulát és óvatosan beleforgatjuk. Majd a keverék fele mehet is az első formába. A másik feléhez hozzászitáljuk a kakaóport és ez is mehet a másik formába. 20-25 percig kell sütni,- tűpróbáig sütjük. Majd sütőrácson hűtjük.
A másik két lapot is ugyan így készítjük el, csak kevesebb kakó kell a második adagba. Így lesz igazából 4 színü tortánk (vanília, karamell, csokoládés karamell és csokoládés). Lehet esetleg kísérletezni kávéval vagy fahéjjal a barnás szín eléréséhez. Nekem ez így működött tökéletesen.
A bevonóhoz felolvasztjuk a csokoládét vízfürdő felett, majd belekeverjük a tejszínt és addig hűtjük, amíg nem lesz kenhető állagú.
Ezek után összeállítjük a tortát. Én úgy csináltam, hogy mindegyik tortalapot egyenesre szabtam és fordított sorrendben kezdtem visszarakni őket a tortaformába, ráadásul fejjel lefelé. Így biztos, hogy egyenes lesz a torta teteje is és allja is. Vagyis, csokis először, rá karemell réteg, majd csokis-karamellás lap, arra a világosabb karamellás, majd a vaníliás. Így kifordítás után szép sorrendben lesznek a lapok, világostól a sötét felé. Fő a precízitás!
Aki bátor, az a torta betöltése után rakhat egy kis nehezéket is rá, hogy még szebben illeszkedjenek a lapok egymásra. Ilyenkor figyelni kell arra, hogy nehogy túl sok töltelék kerüljön a lapok közé, és hogy a széleknél legalább 0,5-1 cm hely legyen, hogy a nyomás hatására, nehogy kipréselődjön a töltelékünk. Én a legtetejére egy vágódeszkát raktam és arra pakoltam szakácskönyveket, meg a Larousse Gastonomique-ot (ugye, ugye, hogy egyszer legalább hasznát vettem....) Kb. másfél, két órát volt a torta a súly alatt. Addig néha átkevertem a bevonót, nehogy megszilárduljon, majd a tortát kifordítottam a formából és mindenütt bevontam a csokoládéval.
Hűvös helyen állítólag 3 napot is eláll. Állítólag...

emeletes torta, nem-e?

 ui.: akit érdekel a kalória tartalma, az írjon egy e-mailt. Csak annyit erről, hogy egy borsodi falucska egynapi kalóriaigényét simán fedezné egy emberesebb szelet!

már hiányzik egy szelet. Nem én voltam!