Kumara Cake

 

Sift together

• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1 cup flour
• 1.5 cups muscavado sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teasp salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Beat together

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup cooking oil 

Then fold in:

• 3 cups grated orange kumera

and the dry mix above.

Pour into a 20cm cake tin and bake for 1-1.5 hours at 180 degrees until a skewer comes out clean.

Ice when cool with chocolate icing - yummy with a block of chilli chocolate broken ontop as decoration.

 

Chocolate Mint Cheesecake

Intro
I first typed this recipe up back in December but have been wracking my brains for a story to go with it. Bottom line: there is no story. It is just a really lovely no-bake recipe that I have made several times in recent months alone.

Its also very nice with a thick blueberry 'sauce' on top instead of the mints. Simmer a couple of handfuls of blueberries with a splash of water and about 2 tablespoons of sugar. Once its thickish (use cornflour if need be) allow it to cool and then spread it over the filling.

Recipe
Base

• 90g plain sweet biscuits
• 1 tablespoon cocoa
• 45g butter

Filling

• 250g cream cheese
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teasp vanilla essence
• 1 teaspoon gelatine
• 2 teaspoons cold water
• 1 cup cream
• 6 chocolate after dinner mints
• 1 tablespoon water

Method
Crush the biscuits finely in a food processor or with a rolling pin and plastic bag. Add melted butter and cocoa to the crumbs then press into 18cm flan dish with a removable base. Place in the fridge to firm up.

Beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth with a electric cake mixer. Put the cold water in a teacup, sprinkle gelatine over the top and then place the cup in hot water until the gelatine dissolves. Add this to the cream cheese mixture and beat well. Whip the cream and fold it through the cream cheese mixture. Spoon it into the crust. Dissolve the mints in the extra water in the top of a double saucepan. Cool it a bit then spoon this over the cream cheese mixture and lightly swirl through. Refrigerate until set.

Chewy Choc Chip cookies

 

My mission in life is to find the perfect biscuit recipe - and I think I am almost there!

This recipe is for soft, chewy chocolate chip biscuits. Sometimes I want crisp biscuits - Astrid Biscuits and sometimes I want coconut - Martha Stewart's recipe is neither soft or crisp - but delicious!

Ingredients

• 375g butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 cups brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
• 3 eggs
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup finely chopped crystalised ginger
• 2 cups walnut pieces
• 2 cups roughly chopped Whittakers dark chocolate

Method

Cream the softened butter and sugars for 10 minutes with the whisk attachment in a cake mixer - set the timer and walk away - 10 full minutes.

Add the vanilla essence and then eggs one by one. Remove the whisk attachment and put in the mixing attachment.

Add the sifted flour, salt and baking soda and just mix it long enough to combine - 30 seconds maybe - stop the second the flour is almost incorporated. Then tip in the nuts and chocolate and ginger and mix just enough to almost combine - finish it with a wooden spoon.

Bake the first tray: place dessertspoon-sized balls on a baking tray lined with silicon liners or baking paper or just greased. Flatten a little. Cook for 15 minutes at 165 degrees.

Look at how they worked: sometimes they spread far and wide and other times they stay quite tidy. Make up the next trays - usually 12 per tray - and flatten or not depending on the way the dough behaved. I like mine quite flat and thin.

Leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes to firm up and then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Dough keeps well in the fridge for overnight - improves the flavour somewhat.

NB: you can off course leave out the ginger and walnuts and do 4 cups of chocolate instead AND you can half the recipe - I cook this size because my cake mixer is a large one and creams this volume of butter of better best.  

 

Chocolate brownies

 

Introduction

I never understood the attraction to chocolate brownies until I found this recipe - and now I get it. Very rich and soft with a nice crusty outside. It is heavily based on the recipe in the Modern Sordough cookbook by Michelle Eshkeri. 

Ingredients

Stage 1

• 125g active sourdough starter
• 200g flour (white or rye)
• 250g eggs (about 4 whole eggs plus an egg yolk)
• 100g caster sugar

Stage 2

• 200g butter
• 500g dark chocolate (2 large blocks of Whittakers dark)

Stage 3

• 77g caster sugar
• 265g brown sugar
• 70g cocoa
• 5g vanilla essence
• 3g baking soda

Method.

Mix the stage one ingredients together and leave in a warm place for an hour or 2.

Melt stage two ingredients together in a double boiler or the microwave, mix well and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees.

Add the stage 2 ingredients to stage 1 and then add the stage 3 ingredients and whisk until well combined. (I use a cash mixer).

Pour into a large swiss roll tin, lined with baking paper, and bake for 35 mins until no longer raw in the middle. When you bring it out of the oven dust with icing sugar.

Delicious eaten when warm but keeps well in a sealed container for a few days. 

Chocolate Trufffles

Intro

Divinely disgustingly rich and rummy - another one of Fran's recipes. 

Recipe

Soak together for 10 minutes:

• 2 tablespoons chopped raisins
• 2 tablespoons rum

Melt:

• 150g good chocolate (darkish but not bitter)

Mix in:

• 1 lightly beaten egg yolk
• 25g soft butter
• a half cup icing sugar
• the soaked raisins (from above)

Rest in the fridge for 30 minutes then roll into small balls. Set in fridge for a bit, then dip in chocolate and and roll in coconut:

• 150g melted chocolate
• 1 cup coconut.

Chocolate Angel Pie

Introduction

This is the best dessert recipe I have discovered in about 10 years is this chocolate - coffee - kahlua pie. Very rich, very adult and very decadent. It is not overly sweet if you use dark chocolate as the meringue is perfectly balanced. 

Ingredients

For the meringue crust:

• 4 large eggs, separated, use whites for crust and yolks for filling
• pinch salt
• 1/4 teasp of cream of tartar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the filling:

• 12 oz semi sweet chocolate, chopped
• 5 teaspoons good instant coffee eg Medaglio d'oro
• pinch of salt
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons kahlua

 For the topping

• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1/4 cup icing sugar
• 1 teasp vanilla extract
• 1 pint fresh hulled sliced strawberries, or raspberries
• 1/3 cup shave chocolate

Method

Meringue

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Grease a 9 inch spring form pan, line bottom and sides with baking paper.

Whip whites until foamy, add cream of tartar, beat until stiff, slowly add the sugar then the vanilla. Beat until mixture is very stiff.

Spread the meringue evenly over the base and sides of the prepared pan. Needs to be about 2 inchs up the sides to contain the filling.

Bake for 1.25 hours. Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Filling

Combine the chocolate, coffee, salt and water in a double boiler until just melted together stirring frequently. (You can do this carefully in a microwave).

Remove from the heat and beat in the egg yolks, 1 at a time. Let the mixture cool completely.

Whip the cream to soft peaks, add the kahlua, then fold into the chocolate mixture. Refrigerate until cold.

Assembly and Topping

Tip the chocolate mixture into  the meringue crust, smooth top and refrigerate at least 4 hours but up to 24 hours. (It is very portable at this point if you are taking it somewhere as it is still in the spring form tin).

When ready to serve, remove the pie from the tin and place on a serving plate, Whip the cream, sugar and vanilla together until fairly stiff then spread on top. Decorate with berries and shaved chocolate. and sugar

Ginger Fudge Slice

Intro
This recipe is really delicious just plain as is, but for a special occasion flash it up with melted dark chocolate:

• dip each square diagonally in melted chocolate,
• splatter chocolate on top,
• line tin with tin foil and spread a thin layer of chocolate on the bottom, then add biscuit mixture, when set add chocolate on top as well.

Recipe

• 4 ozs butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons condensed milk
• 1 packet wine biscuits (plain sweet)
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup crystalized ginger

Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and condensed milk. Cook gently, stirring all the time, until sugar is dissolved.

In a kitchen whizz or food processor grind biscuits into fine crumbs, and the walnuts, and the crystallized ginger. Mix butter mixture into crumb mixture. Press into a tinfoil lined tin and refrigerate. Cut into small squares once set. Store in refrigerator.

Chocolate Fudge Slice

Intro
When I was at primary school my best friend was Denise; actually she is still is one of my very best friends now. You know the kind: you can ignore each other for months and months and months then when you do get together you just pick up where you left off.

It was the late sixties when 'good' mummies were home by after-school 3pm, cooked yummy nutritious meals every night and had full cake tins. My Mum's baking included sultana cake, chocolate cake, coconut cake, ginger crunch, peppermint slice, coconut macaroons and a cruncy biscuit made with Greg's instant pudding; it came in all sorts of different flavours and the biscuits were different every time. I remember three things that Denise's Mum, Verna, made: yo-yos, coconut ice slice and chocolate fudge. My kids love this now and its easy to make. Sometimes I jazz it up with a few raisins or walnuts but its perfectly nice as it is.

Recipe

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tblsp cocoa
• vanilla essence
• 1 pkt plain sweet biscuits (eg super wine)
• 6 ozs butter - melted

Break the biscuits into pieces - not too small is best. Place in a bowl with all the other ingredients and combine.

Press into a greased or tinfoil lined biscuit tin / tray. Ice with chocolate icing and store in fridge until set. Cut into small squares once set.

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Intro

1 part Anita, 1 part my Mum and 1 part Rosalie :) 

This recipe has lovely layering around it and the intro may well end up longer than the recipe! Back in the day, when I was a kid, my Mum and Dad used to have these lovely dinner parties. Graham Greig (work colleague of Mum's) and Anita (his wife) were regular guests. Anita made this gorgeous Chocolate Mousse cake once and, fortunately for us gave the recipe to Mum. Apparently, its an old Hudson and Hall recipe and I did track it down many years later but this modified 'made up' version is heaps easier to make. 

Mum used to make this Mousse Cake for high days and holidays using sponge cake and a packet mousse mix and lumps of cake rather than layers. So not the Hudson and Halls recipe as such, or method actually, which involved many fine layers of homemade cake and mousse and hours of faffing about. The original recipe is hideously expensive to make and we were not a wealthy household but we took the concept! 

Then one Christmas in the mid 80s I put my finger into a bowl of chocolate mousse that Rosalie Blake's son Jeremy had made from a recipe he got from their neighbour Sarah Hodge in Manakau. Stunning. Just 1 word for it. So, the recipe entered its final incarnation and I use Rosalie / Sarah's mousse recipe, Mum's method and Anita's concept. This is only made on very special occasions - birthdays really. But wait - there is a final twist to the tale ... years later, my widowed Mum and Anita's widowed husband Graham got married. and one of the first times I went for a special meal (Christmas or something) I took a Chocolate Mousse Cake ... and that's when I found out that the dessert was actually based on Anita's recipe. 

Recipe

Melt gently together in a double boiler (or a microwave if you are impatient) until a nicely combined smooth mixture - don't over melt or over stir.

• 300g good chocolate*
• 125g unsalted butter (salted works just fine)
• 25g cocoa powder (yes use a scale)
• 50g castor sugar

Separate

• 5 eggs - throw 1 yolk away (or feed it to the cat)

Add 4 lightly beaten yolks to the chocolate mixture and stir until just combined - then stop immediately (or mixture may curdle) Beat together until stiff (but not quite pavlova stiff):

• 5 egg whites
• a pinch of salt

Gently fold into the chocolate trying not to smash too much air out.

Whip cream until soft peaks form (don't over whip because it makes it harder to work with)

• 300 ml cream (whipping cream / double cream - don't know what else its called)

Gently fold this into the chocolate mixture as well, taking care not to smash the air out. 

Take some cake** and break it into golf ball sized pieces. Get a spring form tin and put a thin layer of mousse on the bottom of the tin. Put bits of cake in and pour mousse in the gaps, then plonk more cake and more mousse in until the tin is full. If you use a large tin the cake will be shallower, if you use a smaller tin the cake will be very deep. Its best to use a larger tin because this is a very big dessert cake that feeds about 10 (or 4 teenage boys). 

Cover it with tin foil and refrigerate until firm. At least 6 hours - preferably overnight. When ready to decorate, lift tin foil off, slide a hot knife around the edge of the tin, loosen the spring form tin, take tin off, place a serving plate on top and tip cake and plate upside down. Remove the base of the tin by sliding a hot knife underneath it. Smooth the top if desired with a hot knife. Decorate with whatever you like. I often use piped whipped cream and halved, hulled strawberries or tinned mandarin segments. My kids love broken flaked chocolate or Belgian seashell chocolates or Ferrero Rochers (yes - the bambini are horribly spoilt but they love me so its all good). 

* Good chocolate means not compound chocolate and not that crappy Cadbury palm oil one but real chocolate. Whittakers is great. Milk is perfect or sometimes I use 50/50 milk and dark Ghana. Don't only use a dark one or it will be unpleasantly bitter. If the mousse tastes grainy or doesn't form a delightful creamy smooth texture it is usually crappy, cheap, nasty chocolate (and I've been caught out a few times). 

** I usually buy a plain trifle sponge or pair of round sponges from the supermarket but I sometimes make a chocolate sponge. It makes a firmer cake which is a bit more filling.

Chocolate Pudding

Intro

This recipe dates from about 1991. I had a friend called Fran Lewis who used to bring this dessert whenever her and Pete were invited for dinner. Eventually she gave me the recipe and its now my kids all time favourite dessert. Its a microwave pudding so you can be eating it just 15 minutes after walking into the kitchen. Connor is the King of cooking this and he started making it when he was about 10.

Recipe

• 60g butter (2ozs)

In the microwave melt butter on high power for 30 seconds. Use a wide bottomed dish or bowl that you will cook the pudding in. Pull it out and lightly stir in the following - don't over mix it or the pudding will be tough.

• half a cup sugar
• 1 egg
• half a cup milk
• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Scrape the batter off the sides of the bowl with a rubber scraper so it sits neatly on the bottom of the dish. Set aside.

In a small bowl mix together:

• half a cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa

Sprinkle evenly over the batter. Gently pour one and half cups of boiling water over the back of a spoon onto the batter. Cook for 6.5 minutes at 100% power. Stand for 2 minutes.

Chocolate Cake

Intro 

So this one has to be first up because having just baked one, William has eaten about 1/2 of it and its barely cool enough to hold in bare hands! We don't usually ice it because the kids aren't big on sweet stuff but the original recipe had icing so I've included it. 

I found this recipe back in 1985 when I was living in Tin Can Bay, Queensland. We were working 12 hour days, 7 days a week and cashing our pay cheques and doing grocery shopping was a nightmare. We were living in a fully furnished holiday flat with only the bare essentials of kitchen equipment and a daggy wee bench-top stove. This recipe fit the bill because I could whip up something yummy from the pantry really quickly with a wooden spoon and cooked in a meat dish. 

Recipe

Preparation

• Turn oven to fan bake 180 degrees.
• Prepare either 2 small cake tins or 1 big one (a roasting dish is fine) by greasing with butter or lining with baking paper (my favourite).

Method

Sieve together:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 and half cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Beat lightly together with a fork: 

• 2 eggs
• half  a cup milk

Boil together:

• 4oz (125g) butter
• 1 cup of water
• 3 and half tablespoons cocoa

Once the butter and water mix comes to the boil pour it into the flour mixture and stir it together, tip in the egg mixture when its about half mixed. Tip the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. 

Icing

Melt together:

• 2 oz butter (65g)
• 1/3 cup water (should be milk but I use water)

Add:

• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 500g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Beat until smooth adding more liquid or icing sugar as required. Ice cake while slightly warm.