Posts tagged as:

chocolate

Chocolate, Olive Oil and Sea Salt Toast

April 27, 2013

Chocolate, Olive Oil and Sea Salt Toast

This morning while I was emailing Arjun some shops to go to in Barcelona to bring back olive oil and chorizo, I got distracted by blogs filled with photos of padrón peppers and patatas bravas. But what really stuck in my head was something I hadn’t tried in Barcelona before: chocolate with salt and olive oil. A little more digging revealed a popular dessert at Tapas 24: Xcolat with olive oil and salt. That’s a project for another day, but today, I needed something quick to get a taste of all those flavours together, and the perfect solution lay in Ferran Adrià Family Meal Cookbook.

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Chocolate Chocolate Cake

April 5, 2013

Chocolate Chocolate Cake

Everybody must have a good chocolate cake recipe. Everybody. The kind that you scribble down in your notebook, the kind you memorise, the kind your friends keep asking you to make over and over again. And I think, that with this recipe, I’ve found one I love and can see myself going back to, time after time.

It’s not like I’ve not made good chocolate cakes before, but nothing made me save the recipe or go and scream from the rooftop about it (the internet being my rooftop). But this cake? I’ll categorise this one as a great cake. It has a fantastic, moist crumb. And the ganache, silky with full fat cream. At first it might seem a bit runny, but let it rest a bit and you’ll have a lovely spreadable consistency. If you want a thin shiny coat of ganache, simply make half of the ganache and pour it over the cake when it’s still a bit still runny. And if you’re planning on making a thick ganache icing – because that’s clearly the way to go – pour over a third of the icing to lock the crumb in so that icing the cake will be a breeze.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

April 5, 2011

Chocolate Chip Cookie

Chocolate chip cookies are the kind of snack you should always have around the house. It makes people happy. And more so, when you dot them with chocolate chips right before baking.

When I discovered the thrills of baking, chocolate chip cookies were amongst the first things I tried. And I tried a lot of them. Let’s just say that they were versatile in their functions ranging from being a frisbee substitute to bird food.

The chocolate chip recipe I used in the past is lovely and wonderfully crispy around the edges, but a tad greasy. While the NYTimes one’s just way too frou frou: I want a cookie, and I want it right now. I’m really not going to wait for my cookie dough to rest in the refrigerator for a day (or three!). Just to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything, I tried the recipe, and I think I’m okay with sticking to simpler recipes like this one. Although, I do enjoy the tip from NYT about sprinkling some sea salt on the cookie right before baking. It pleasantly cuts the sweetness.

This chocolate chip cookie recipe is the famous Nestle Toll House cookie recipe that came with a strong endorsement from a friend. And when I looked up the ingredients, it turned out to be very similar to the chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve been using; difference being that I used baking powder instead of baking soda and made tiny variations in measurements.

Chocolate chip cookie tips:

  • Refrigerate the cookie dough for 20 minutes if you don’t want a cookie that spreads out too much.
  • Chocolate chips are engineered to stay firm despite the oven heat. Use feves/callets of dark chocolate instead if the tiny choco chips for chocolate that oozes in your mouth.
  • Cookie structure: For a rustic, irregular look (like the kind in the photo), scoop the dough on the baking sheet with an ice cream scoop, or two spoons. For more uniform cookies, roll it into a ball and place it on the baking sheet. Flatten it a little with two fingers.
  • This recipe works beautifully even when halved.

Chococolate Chip Cookie

Yield: 4 dozen

Ingredients

  • 2 ¼ / 270g cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup / 200g butter (add a tsp of salt to the flour if using unsalted butter)
  • 3/4th cup / 150g caster sugar
  • 3/4th cup / 150g brown sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups / 350g chocolate chips

Method

  1. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.
  2. Beat butter, both the sugars and vanilla in large mixer bowl.
  3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
  4. Stir in flour mixture, followed by most of the chocolate chips.
  5. Drop the cookie dough on a baking sheet, leave an inch’s space between cookies. Dot with remaining chocolate chips
  6. Bake in preheated 175°C/350°F oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.
  7. Let stand for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

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Gianduja Roulade

March 25, 2011

Gianduja Roulade

That’s just fancy talk for rich hazelnut chocolate ganache rolled into a hazelnut sheet cake rich with chocolate and more hazelnuts.

As you’ve probably noticed, there is a lot of chocolate being eaten in the Purple Foodie household. And this time, with a bag of fresh hazelnuts at hand, I had to put together one of the world’s greatest food pairings: chocolate + hazelnut.

I made the hazelnut ganache from scratch – which means I toasted the hazelnuts, ground it to a paste, and then mixed it with dark chocolate and cream. If the cake didn’t bake in 8 minutes, I’m pretty sure I’d have licked the bowl of ganache clean.

If you’re not particularly inclined on making the ganache from scratch, you could make the ganache with Nutella. Will work just as well.

Gianduja Roulade Recipe

Adapted from: Pure Dessert (USA | UK | India)
Equipment: A 12×16 inch or 11×17 inch baking sheets with rimmed edges, or two 9×9 inch baking pans, or jelly roll pans.

Gianduja Ganache

Ingredients

  • 4 oz / 100g hazelnuts, toasted
  • 4 oz / 100g dark chocolate
  • 4 oz / 100g icing sugar
  • 8 oz / 200g light cream (I use 25% fat)

Method

  1. Toast the hazelnuts in at 175°C/350°F, until they are fragrant and light brown. Let them cool a little before transferring it to a mixer for grind to a paste starting with half the sugar, and then adding the rest of the sugar until it's a homogenous paste. Transfer this paste to a bowl and then add the chocolate. In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil and pour it over the chocolate-hazelnut mixture. Stir till all the chocolate has melted and then refrigerate until ready to do.

Hazelnut Cake

8 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 1.5 oz / 50g hazelnuts, toasted
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 6 oz/ 180g dark chocolate
  • 4 oz/ 100g butter
  • 4 eggs, seperated
  • 2/3rd cup / 130g caster sugar
  • cocoa powder, for dusting

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F.
  2. Pulse the nuts with the flour in a food processor until finely ground. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, melt the chocolate and butter over a pot of simmering water. Once melted, remove from heat and then stir in the egg yolks and half the sugar (1/3rd cup).
  4. In another bowl whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Then slowly add the remaining sugar, and beat until stiff peaks form.
  5. Fold in about a 1/4th of the whites into the egg mixture. Then scrape all of the egg mixture into the bowl, sprinkle with the flour and hazelnut mixture and fold it in.
  6. Spread the batter evenly into prepared pans. I preferred making mine into smaller roulades, so I divided the batter into two 9 inch square pans.
  7. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.Now, finally when the cake has cooled, invert it on a sheet of foil and then spread it with the gianduja paste. Start rolling it with the help of the foil. There will be cracks, but it gets less severe as it thickens to one cake.
  8. Refrigerate for a while before slicing, to have neat slices. Dust with cocoa powder to serve.

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Chocolate Brownie

March 2, 2011

Chocolate Brownies
Rich. Chocolate. Brownies.

I bet you’re smiling already.

I haven’t met a person who didn’t get happy at the very thought of brownies. You don’t need me to tell you that they’re made with dark chocolate, heaps of cocoa, and are supremely addictive. Just the fact that they’re brownies gives them a ticket to your bookmark folder.

These brownies are Nigel Slater’s rather modestly titled ‘My Very Good Chocolate Brownies’ from his book the Kitchen Diaries. I’ve had this book for a while, but didn’t bake from it until today. Every time I pulled it out, I’d get distracted by his conversational commentary, and the baking took a backseat. These also popularly known as 24-carat brownies, simply because there are no nuts or flavourings of any kind, just pure muddy brownies.

Chocolate Brownies

My verdict: I’d expected a shiny crust, but I didn’t get that, and they left me greasy-fingered, but not in a bad way. They taste even better after a day. But then, I think that all brownies do. Gooey, with a brittle crust, they are rather dark with all that cocoa powder.

I do love the brownies from Baked, but I think my brownie preference is changing. I can’t decide if I like the gooey kind or the cakey kind. Not the kind that’s cakey, dry, and rubbery with a million air pockets like the kind you get in most pastry shops in the city, just the kind that is cakey owing to being lighter in texture. Maybe you can help me by pointing me to your favourite brownie recipe?

Chocolate Brownies

Muddy Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Adapted from: Kitchen Diaries, Nigel Slater (USA | UK | India)
Yield: 16 big pieces.

Ingredients:

200g dark chocolate
60g flour
60g cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
250g butter
300g caster sugar
3 eggs + 1 egg yolk

Equipment:
9 inch/23cm square baking tin

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line the baking tray with parchment.
  2. In a small bowl, melt the chocolate over simmering water. Set aside.
  3. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together. Set aside.
  4. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the eggs.
  5. Stir in the melted chocolate until thoroughly incorporated, and then finally, fold in the flour, making sure that you don’t over mix the batter.
  6. Pour it into the pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes. Test with a skewer- it should come out sticky with brownie clumped up in places, and not look like smooth, raw batter. If still underdone, switch off the oven, and pop it back in for another five minutes. Anything more than that will ruin it, because brownies continue to cook in all that trapped heat even after they’re pulled out of the oven.
  7. Let it cool for at least an hour to get well defined pieces, or dive in with your spoon if patience isn’t one of your strongest points.

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Taking Snickers to the Next Level

Buttery shortbread. Caramelised cashews. Dulce de leche. 70% dark chocolate. Each, delicious on its own. But can you imagine what it’d be like when they all came together, layered one on top of another on top of another on top of another? You cannot. Even if you know the distinct taste of each of them, [...]

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Chocolate Chip Muffins

I had a sudden chocolate craving yesterday and that gave me the perfect reason to break into my new bag of dark chocolate. I needed something that was very chocolatey (naturally), that would be put together real fast and that was new to experiment with. Thumbing through my books, a lot of the cakes looked [...]

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Hazelnut Shortbread

Given the number of hazelnut recipes I have littered around this place, it’s amply clear that I have a weak spot for these nuts. Give me anything with hazelnuts, and you’re golden in my books. Have you stood around your oven when roasting hazelnuts? It smells like nothing else. Now imagine this smell captured in [...]

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Jerry and Elaine’s Chocolate Cinnamon Babka

Rejoice yeast-o-phobes! I have found the perfect recipe to convert you. I am one anxious person when I’ve to make bread. I’m never sure if a new recipe I try will work out. Will it rise? Will it get a nice brown crust? Will it smell too yeasty (answer to this: I used to think [...]

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