Chocolate Cake ©
Chocolate Cake
Turn On Oven to 200.C./400.F
Bake cake for 15 mins
Then turn down to 180.C.
For 20 mins
Method
1. Butter a non stick cake tin 26 cm in diameter, with removable/spring bottom and line the bottom with a circle of grease proof paper.
2. Melt chocolate, over double boiler/Bain Marie.( Place pyrex heat resistant bowl over saucepan of lightly simmering water. Water should not touch base of bowl. )
3. Cream together butter and Nescafe. This is important otherwise coffee doesn’t blend in.
4. Once chocolate has melted, remove from heat and add butter and coffee granules.
5. Separate eggs, place whites in large spotless bowl.
6. Add 50 g sugar to yolks and beat until white and fluffy.
7. Beat whites until stiff peaks, together with a pinch of salt. Add remaining sugar and beat until shiny.
8. Add melted chocolate mixture to yolks and fold in 2 tbs of beaten egg whites.
9. Add rest of beaten egg whites folding in lightly, by cutting across the mixture, turning the bowl with your left hand a half turn anti-clockwise and folding your mixture lightly over, with out pressing it down.
10. Pour mixture into lined cake tin, lightly smooth out on top and place in center of pre-heated oven. ( If during the cooking time you smell burning chocolate or the top looks as if it is over browning. Cut out a square of grease-proof paper and opening the oven very slightly, so as to rest paper on top of cake. This must be done very quickly as it is not recommended to open your oven door while your cake is cooking, it will drop! Towards the end of the cooking time you can risk it.
11. When cooking time is up, remove from oven. Run knife around edge of cake and release spring catch. Turn cake out onto cake cooling wrack. You will notice the cake has dropped from its initial hight. In this recipe, being a “Flour-less” cake, this is normal.
12.When the cake is cold turn onto Cake plate and decorate, with icing sugar using a sieve to shake the icing over the cake.
N.B. If serving as a dessert, serve with whipped cream or ice cream. If you want the cake to hold a little better you can add 1 tbs of flour to the mixture at the end.
This is a family favorite!
Pre-heat your oven and place shelf so that cake is baked in the center of your oven.
Prepare your spring clip non-stick cake tin, by buttering the bottom and sides of your cake tin with melted butter.
To be on the safe side, line with a circle of grease-proof paper. I always line the base when baking a cake,
that way there is no risk of your lovely cake sticking to the tin.
Choose a good quality chocolate with above 60% Cocoa.
Melt over simmering water ‘Bain Marie.’ Water should not touch the base of your bowl.
Measure out 3 level table spoons of nescafe.
Cream together your Nescafe granules with your softened butter.
This is an important procedure, otherwise the granules don’t amalgamate well with the rest of the cake
mixture.
Separate eggs, placing whites in spotless bowl and placing to one side. Remember any grease, egg yolk
or other ingredient splashed in from say the mixer, will not enable your whites to become stiff!
Cream together your yolks and sugar in second bowl, using a hand whisk or electric beaters for at least
3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
Once chocolate has melted remove from heat and mix in butter and coffee granules.
Beat egg whites together with a pinch of salt, until stiff peaks. Add remaining sugar and beat until shiny.
Add chocolate to egg yolks and mix together. You can see here how light in color the egg yolks have become
and full of air. This is why one wants to work quickly when making a cake, so as not to lose the air!
Fold in two tablespoons of beaten egg whites first and then the rest of the egg whites in two halves.
Fold as lightly as possible, never pressing down on your mixture, cutting across the middle, lifting and
folding over. Each time give your bowl a half turn anti-clockwise. You should fold until you can no longer
see any egg white. As soon as possible turn out in one into your prepared cake tin.
By turning your mixture out in one, this again helps not to lose the air in your cake.
Smooth out mixture very lightly and place in pre-heated oven.
Once the cooking time is up, test center of cake with skewer. If it comes out clean, cake is ready, if not leave
a little longer. I do this test while it is still in the oven, in case it needs a little longer.
Run knife around edge of cake in cake tin. The cake will fall and have cracks, but this is normal, because
it is a flour-less cake. Release spring and turn out onto cake wrack. Peel away paper and leave to cool.
When completely cold, turn out onto serving plate, even side upper most.
Dredge icing sugar over cake, using a sieve and tapping the edge lightly with your hand.
Final result!
Souffle Glace au Citron ©
Something refreshing and light to make, put in the deep freeze and knock Father Christmas’s Socks Off!!!!!
This is a great recipe because it can be made ahead and is a guaranteed success!
I dedicate this to my three munchkins…….
Easy to medium easy…….but so worth the try, once made you will never look back! It is AMAZING!
6-8 persons
Preparation time 1/2 hr.
Ingredients
2 med lemons
6 eggs
200 g caster sugar
400 ml double cream
2 lemons for decoration
50 ml whipped cream for piping
This is the most AMAZING recipe and is worth every second of time spent making it!!
Method
1. Prepare a Souffle bowl, diameter 16 cm X 7cm deep. This will contain 1.2 ml. This is important if you want to have the nice effect of the Souffle rising above the bowl. (Otherwise you can just pour it into a large bowl, in which case no paper collar is needed either.)
2. Tie a collar made from greaseproof paper, double thickness and tie it REALLY tightly around the bowl, to come up about 7 cm above the rim. Add a second band of string and use cello-tape to ensure you have a perfect tight cylindrical cone, rising above the Souffle dish. If a little Souffle mixture, does escape, you can always “Carve” it into shape, when it is frozen, like I did, because I did not pay enough attention to this part!!!! An extra pair of hands is really useful for the tying !
3. MAKE ROOM IN FREEZER, trim top of collar if necessary, as I did.
4. Put saucepan of water onto boil, having chosen your glass bowl, which will later sit on the top, with out touching the simmering water.
5. Grate the lemon peel on the ‘fine grater’ and squeeze the lemon juice.
6. Place the egg yolks in the bowl you have chosen to put over the simmering water.
7.Place whites in another very clean bowl, see note.
8. Beat whites until stiff peaks.
9..Place cream in large bowl. Beat until beaters leave their imprint.
10.Place sugar in bowl with egg yolks and rest on top of sauce pan with “Simmering” water.
11.Beat vigorously, with electric beater for at least 3 mins, by which time it should have doubled in volume and become white, fluffy and creamy. You should not beat so long, that it starts to stick to the sides.
12. Remove bowl from heat and place in bowl with cold water, beat until mixture is cool. This you know by testing centre of mixture with your little finger, not by feeling the underside of the bowl!
13.Give cream a last quick beat and then “thoroughly” clean whisks and give the egg whites a final whip.
14.Add sieved lemon juice to egg yolks and lemon zest, mix well and add the meringue a little at a time, cut and fold over “LIGHTLY” with large spoon, add rest of meringue and then fold in cream, work quickly all the time so as not to lose volume.
15. Taste for lemon, add a little more if necessary, lemon sizes vary.
16. Pour into prepared Souffle bowl smooth off top, with spatula and place in freezer for at least four hours. After the 4 hours, you can remove the collar, reshape any imperfections with a sharp knife, clean bowl with warm sponge. Decorate with lemon butterflies.
17. If you are making it before hand, remove from freezer and place in fridge one hour before.
18. Decorate with lemon pieces and serve immediately.
N.B.
When beating egg whites, “Everything” must be whistling clean. Any grease, egg yolk or other, will not allow the whites to become stiffly beaten. If any egg yolk falls into the white, remove carefully……
COOKERY TERM : ZEST. This is the very outer part of a fruit, with out the white pith. To obtain it you grate the fruit
once at the most twice on a very fine grater, larger sized gratings are not the same. It must produce a delicate hint of flavor
and never so thick that you can feel it on the tongue !
This is quite tricky, but be patient, so that you get it as tight as possible. Trim it down once you have filled
it with the souffle.
Get all your ingredients ready. Take care nothing falls in the egg white bowl. I usually put it right out the way!
Beat your cream, until the beaters leave a trail/mark, as in photograph.
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks.
Beat egg yolks and sugar over saucepan of simmering water for at least 3-5 minutes. It will double in volume
lighten in color and become fluffy. Beaters also will leave a trail, when lifted and drawn over mixture.
Move bowl off heat and place very carefully into a basin of cold water. Beat until cold. To test this place little
finger into the center of the mixture. It should feel cold. Testing the bowl from the out side, does not give the
correct result.
Add finely grated lemon zest and lemon juice.
Add stiffly beaten meringue, first a tbs then 1/2 and then the rest, working quickly and lightly. Mix until it
is just mixed in.
This spatula is the most efficient for folding, bought from my Cookery School all those years ago !
Fill souffle bowl and then trim down collar, so as to fit in freezer.
Using this special cutter, a Channel knife, score lemon at intervals all the way round.
Cut lemon slices into decorative shapes and the zest strips into rhombuses.
Decorate the top of your Souffle !
Just looks lovely!
The final result ! My most favorite recipe…….:)
John’s Egg Mayonnaise ©
Hard boiled eggs, coated in home made mayonnaise make a very good starter. It is a starter from the past, but like many things from older days it never ceases to be good. It is a family favourite and provided the perfect recipe for teaching my son how to make mayonnaise.
For some reason just the word “Mayonnaise,” sets people in a panic, but really it is very easy and only takes ten minutes to make. If it does curdle, it oh so magically un-curdles when you add it to a new egg yolk in a new bowl and then oh what joy you have made twice the amount! It keeps in the fridge, covered with cling film for a week to ten days and can be added to eggs, salads, cold meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, sandwiches, wraps….. the list is endless and if you want a change, add lime instead of lemon, together with the zest and it is heaven. Adding garlic also turns it into Aioli; parsley; tarragon; tomato and a few drops of Worcester sauce and it magically becomes ‘a thousand island dressing and I could go on and on……..
Easy
4 Persons
Preparation time 10 minutes
Basic Mayonnaise
Ingredients
1 egg yolk
1 tsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp Salt
Pepper. White if you don’t want it to show
1/2 Lemon Juice
1 tsp Vinegar
100 ml or more, Seed Oil ( Sunflower)
50 ml Olive Oil
4 hard boiled eggs
For decoration, fresh parsley, anchovies and sweet paprika. ( Drain anchovies on kitchen paper first.)
Method
1. Put your eggs into cold water and bring to the boil. As they come to the boil, turn over, using two teaspoons, so that the yolk cooks in the center of the white. Repeat while cooking. Cook for 5 minutes. Pour off hot water and plunge under cold running water for 1-2 minutes, so that the green sulphur ring does not show around the yolk. This is important, as the green ring does not look very appetising.
2. To make mayonnaise, place egg yolk in bowl, add salt, pepper, (white pepper if you don’t want it to show) Dijon mustard and whisk thoroughly.
3.Add the corn oil drop by drop at first, making sure each time all the oil is mixed in, before adding more. I like to do it by hand, so I can feel exactly what I am doing. Slowly it thickens. Once thick, add a little of the lemon juice, after which you can add the oil more quickly. Once it thickens up again, taste. If you want more quantity, add more corn oil and the olive oil, if you want to thin it out a little, add more lemon juice, or water, depending on how lemony it is already. Taste again for salt at the end.
N. B. If your Mayonnaise Curdles, it is because you have added the oil too quickly at the very beginning……Don’t worry. Take a clean bowl, place in it a fresh egg yolk and slowly add the curdled mayonnaise to it,( not the other way around,) thoroughly beating all the time. Some say having all your ingredients at room temperature also helps.
The amount of oil indicated for the recipe, is the amount of mayonnaise one needs, but if you want extra mayonnaise you can just go on adding oil. If one wants double the quantity though, one should double up the recipe, using two egg yolks.
Place egg yolk, dijon mustard and salt in clean bowl.
Add oil very slowly at first, beating all the time. Slowly you will feel it thickening.
Once it has thickened substantially, add lemon juice, after which you can add the oil more quickly and it is
no longer likely to curdle. Add a dash of vinegar too.
It is when it looks like this that you want to beat vigorously, as I have added the oil too quickly, in order to
show you and it could curdle. As it turns out it didn’t, with a quick beat all was well.
Here it is nice and thick and perfect if you were serving it together with a nice steamed fish. For the egg
mayonnaise though we want it to be of a ‘pouring consistency,’ so we can pour it over the eggs and it will
cover the eggs and settle in a nice round, around them. So taste first for lemon and add either more lemon
or a teaspoon or two, three or four of water. Taste again. You don’t want it too lemony, on the other hand
you don’t want it tasting too much of egg either. Season.
Peel the shell off your eggs, rinse under the tap and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cut in half with a serrated
knife. You will note the egg yolk is in the center of the white, no green sulphur ring and just hard boiled.
Final result. Eggs nicely covered, but the mayonnaise is liquid enough to settle in a nice round around the
eggs. Decorate with parsley and anchovies and finally sprinkle with sweet paprika.
Delicious!
My dear friend Alexandra’s amazing “Lime Mayonnaise.”
Ingredients
3 Whole Eggs
1 tsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp salt
Pepper ( white)
1 Lime Zest
1 Lime Juice
1 tsp Vinegar
1 small clove crushed garlic
300 ml Seed Oil, Corn oil.
100 ml Olive oil
Method
The same as above, except that I used an electric blender as this recipe makes a large quantity. I added the garlic and lime zest towards the end.
Perfect for keeping covered in the fridge and adding to any thing ….Salad, Potato Salad, Fish Meat, Eggs…… Mine kept happily for ten days in the fridge.
Gather together your ingredients, 3 eggs, mustard, salt pepper, lime, garlic, vinegar and corn oil plus a
little olive oil for taste.
Place whole eggs in bowl, add mustard and salt, mix with electric beaters and begin adding your oil. As you add the oil the mayonnaise will thicken. After you have added a third of the oil, add your lemon juice and a dash of vinegar and at the end your olive oil, crushed garlic and lime zest.
As you can see it makes a much larger quantity of mayonnaise and you can add the oil quicker, because you
are using the whole egg and therefore it is less likely to curdle.
Final result. This is wonderful over potato salad and you can see the lime zest in the mayonnaise.
Lime Mayonnaise on potato salad sprinkled with fresh chives…….delicious!
What's Cooking In Jane's Kitchen 