Your Sugardaddy Needs You!

From top: raspberry brownie, tomato soup cake (aka raisin cake), pear and walnut cake, Guinness and ginger loaf, and lemon and poppyseed slice. Find these cakes and more at the Sugardaddy Bakes stall at the Tea Rooms, just off Brick Lane, every weekend until the end of June. 

Out/About

Some things I've seen and eaten in the last couple of weeks. 

Ron Mueck show at Hauser and Wirth

Slow-cooked miso marinated pork belly at Akasiro in Chinatown. Lovely, especially when paired with hot steamed rice.

Insanely detailed chocolate creations at Choccywoccydoodah in Fouberts Place. 

 

Be warned - enter with your sweet tooth in tow. My friend Sheree and I shared the peanut butter milkshake and chocolate sundae between us - a dastardly concoction of chocolate ice-cream, whipped cream, brownie, fudge, some kind of berry jam-like thing, as well as plenty of chocolate buttons and who knew what else. We had to admit defeat about three-quarters of the way through. The milkshake tasted like a cold, soft Snickers bar (if you like that sort of thing, which I do), and went down slightly easier, but we still left without finishing the whole thing.

St. Paul's looked lovely in the last light of day. 

Sugardaddy Cakes

Something tasty will be happening at the Tea Rooms this weekend. The Bake Club boys and I are teaming up to start a new cake stall, serving plenty of homemade goodies. If you're around Brick Lane this weekend, why not come over to say hello, and have some tea and biscuits? 

Good Friday Brownies

How do you transform Good Friday into Awesome Friday? With a picnic in the park, sustained by lots of homemade brownies, of course. These brownies combine those two Easter essentials, eggs and chocolate, and can be customised with other goodies such as nuts or cherries, or simply left plain.

Good Friday (or any other day) Brownies

Ingredients

250gm butter 

200gm dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces

200gm caster sugar

100gm cocoa powder

75gm plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 eggs

about 150gm nuts/cherries (optional)

Directions

- Preheat oven to 180C. 

- Place a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water, add butter and chocolate to the bowl and stir gently until melted. Take bowl off heat, add cherries/nuts, if using.

- In a separate bowl, combine cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and sugar. Add the dry mixture into the bowl of chocolate and butter. 

- Lightly whisk the eggs, then combine with the rest of the batter. Gently stir everything together until you get a smooth, silky consistency.

- Pour batter into a square baking tray and bake for about 25-30 mins.

Chocolate...Drops?

It's been a while since my last (and first) attempt at making macarons, and I've been raring to have another go since I received a new set of piping tips off eBay. So, I aged the egg whites, decided on a recipe (chocolate macarons with chocolate ginger cream cheese filling) and set off on my new mac-adventure! 

Since it was only my second attempt, I thought I'd stick with what I used before, and only tweak it a bit, instead making it all up on the spot like I sometimes do. So, I dutifully followed the same Serious Eats recipe I used the first time, swapping out 50 grams of icing sugar for 50 grams of dark chocolate. That's when things went downhill. 

The mixture smelt great, but looked somewhat solid...In fact, the circles I'd piped out reminder me of another kind of solid...

This little guy was saved from the op-shop, only be to subjected to this indignity. I bet he wished he was in the sticky maw of some chubby little kid right now. 

URGHHH! 

Still, it was getting late, I was getting grumpy, so I set them aside to 'cure' for a couple of hours, all the time crossing my fingers and hoping they would somehow magically smooth out and turn into perfect little discs. My kitchen was starting to resemble a midden.

After curing, into the oven they went (without their equine companion), for 8 minutes.

And look, no FEET! Where are the bloody feet? They look more like little acorn caps! Cracked, ploppy acorn caps. Whatever! I needed some sugar anyway, so I charged ahead with the filling. If anyone is interested, it's 100 grams of cream cheese, 3 tablespoons cocoa, 75 grams icing sugar and a couple of teaspoons of ground ginger, all mixed together.

Look at them! Little chocolate acorn caps. They didn't actually taste as disgusting as they looked though, so I guess it was worth it after all. The heavy batter actually made them taste like little round brownies, while the ginger adds a bit of spice to even out the sweetness. 

I wonder if I can get away with describing them as 'rustic' or 'shabby-chic' macarons?

Dark Chocolate, Walnut and Mascarpone Brownies

I've recently embarked on a shy, fairly chaste romance with mascarpone, replacing cream cheese with it, and plopping in on sliced mangoes. It's creamier, and richer than cream cheese, and doesn't leave you with that slight sour tang you sometimes get from cream cheese. It was all good, clean fun - until I spied Ms. Humble's recipe for chocolate mascarpone brownies (with that seductive layer of chocolate ganache), beckoning me over with a salacious wink. 

Chocolate AND mascarpone? I'm fairly certain that it's illegal, and just like all those other things that are bad for you, it's also irresistibly attractive. And I am not known for my willpower, so I crumbled and gave in to temptation. Just go ahead and stick a third chin on me already!

Of course, since I can never leave well enough alone, I had to go ahead and fiddle with the recipe. While I love chocolate, I tend to find most brownies almost too cloying sweet. So I replaced the semi-sweet chocolate in the original recipe with dark chocolate instead - the 85% cocoa content in it provides a slight bitterness that helps counterbalance all that sugar. The ganache also features a hidden surprise - dark chocolate infused with chilli, for a spicy little kick at the end. There was a bag of delicious Polish walnuts languishing in my cupboard, so a handful of those got thrown in as well, just to add a bite of crunch to it. I like my brownies nutty. 

Dark Chocolate, Walnut and Mascarpone Brownies 

adapted from Not So Humble Pie

Ingredients

225gm unsalted butter

100gm dark chocolate, finely chopped (or preferred chocolate)

250gm granulated sugar

120gm cocoa powder

125gm mascarpone cheese

3 eggs

100gm plain flour

2 tsps vanilla extract (optional, I omitted it)

pinch of salt

50gm walnuts, roughly chopped (optional)

Directions

- Preheat oven to 165 degrees Celsius, and prepare your pan with non-stick spray.

- Melt butter in a saucepan, over low heat, then add the chocolate and remove it from the heat. Let the chocolate melt a little, then stir till smooth. 

- Sift cocoa into the chocolate/butter mixture, add sugar and salt, then set it aside while you get on with the next step.

- Beat the mascarpone, eggs and vanilla extract (if using) in a mixing bowl, on medium speed until smooth. 

- Carefully pour the chocolate/butter mixture into the bowl, and mix until no streaks remain. 

- Fold the flour in the batter, and then add the walnuts if you're using them. Pour the batter into your pan, and spread it out evenly, then bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

- Allow the brownies to cool, then prepare the ganache.

Chilli Dark Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients 

170gm chilli infused dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used this from Sainsburys, but you can use other chocolate if you prefer)

85ml whipping cream

25gm unsalted butter

Directions

- Place the chocolate into a heat safe bowl. Using a small saucepan, bring the cream to a simmer over medium heat, then pour it over the chocolate. Allow the mixture to stand for a minute, then stir it until smooth.

- Add butter, a little at a time, and keep stirring until smooth. 

- Release the brownies from the pan, and place on a cutting board or serving plate. Pour the ganache over it, spreading it evenly with a spatula (I just used a knife since I wasn't so bothered about it looking smooth). Let the ganache set - this may take a few hours - then slice it up and serve!

There you go, a two inch square of heart attack! Serve it with some vanilla ice-cream if you're feeling super-decadent.