Super Moist Chocolate Cake

This particular cake is also known as Devil's Food - I'm guessing because it is so wickedly delicious!!!

 

Super Moist Chocolate Cake

#ratingval# from #reviews# reviews

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Recipe Type: Cake

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: 24

Ingredients

• 2 cups Sugar


• 1 teaspoon instant coffee


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 3/4 cup Cocoa


• 2 cups Gluten Free Plain Flour


• 1 teaspoon Gluten Free Baking Powder


• 1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda


• 250ml Hot Water


• 250ml Milk


• 250ml Oil


• 2 Free Range Eggs


• 5ml Vanilla Extract

Instructions

1. Place sugar, salt and coffee in a mixing bowl. Add sifted cocoa, flour, baking powder and bicarb. Add water, milk and oil. Mix on slow to wet the ingredients, then increase speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes.


2. Add eggs and vanilla, mix on medium for a further 2 minutes


3. Place into cupcake cups and bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.


4. Cool on a rack. Enjoy!

Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe

2.1.7

 

Left Over Cake

What to do with left over cake?  There are a million and one different things that you can do, but this one would have to be one of my family’s favourites.  I often have trimmings left over from my sculpted cakes, and after events like the Annual Nana Glen Market Day, I usually have a heap of left over cupcakes (over catering is in my blood!)  Sometimes I freeze them for the girls’ school snack or afternoon tea, other times I make cake balls, but now that the weather is cooling down, cake pudding is well and truly back on the menu!  It is super easy, super yummy, and microwaves up a treat for breakfast if I  really feel like spoiling the kids!

First of all, preheat your oven to 180oC, then grease a deep baking dish.  Next break up all your left over cake into chunks.  If it is plain cake, I like to throw in chocolate chips or jam dollops to really make it delicious!

Now all you need to do is make a quick baked custard mix.  I do this by whisking together 4-5 eggs, 3 tablespoons of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch of salt.  Once they are mixed in really well and the sugar is almost dissolved, add 900ml milk.  Mix it in thoroughly then pour it over the cake.

Finally, take a larger baking dish and put a tea towel or cloth in the bottom, place the dish with the cake inside, then pour boiling water into the larger dish until it comes halfway up the sides of the smaller dish to make a water bath.  Place them in the oven and bake for 45 minutes to one hour, or until the custard has set.

 

All that’s left to do now is serve it up and tuck in!  It is especially yummy with whipped cream or ice cream!  The bits on top that are poking out of the custard go all crispy and crunchy while the rest of it is a beautiful pudding consistency.

 

Super quick, super easy, and super yum!

PS Sorry the photos aren’t very good, but it was late on a school night and I was rushing!

What is your favourite way to use up left over cake?

Recipe–Grape Pate de Fruit

Last year we planted a vine to run along our front verandah.  The idea was that it would shade the kitchen windows in summer with its foliage, and let the winter sun through to warm us up when the leaves dropped.  As we like to have multi tasking plants where possible, we decided to put in an edible grape.  We opted for a green one so that we wouldn’t have to worry about the wooden decking getting stained from falling fruit.

This summer we have enjoyed our first crop.  The vine has grown like crazy and does a fantastic  job of keeping the direct sun out of the front of the house, not to mention that the greenery right outside the large windows looks lovely from inside the house, and softens the look of the building from the street too.   The vine was so heavy with fruit that we had to cut off many of the immature bunches which the chooks were more than happy to gobble up!  Unfortunately, although they tasted beautiful, the texture was a bit spongey.  Having never grown grapes before, we weren’t sure if it was something we had done wrong or not, but put it down to the crazy weather we have had this summer.  Our days have been fluctuating back and forth between 42^oC with 80% humidity, to 20^oC only 2 days later!  It’s put some of the chickens off the lay and is definately taking its toll on the kids’ tempers too!

 

As a result, we had a couple of kilos of fruit that tasted great but weren’t any good to eat, so what to do?  Once again, Google to the rescue!  I found a few references to Canelle et Vanille, one of my favourite food blogs.  I figured they would definately know what they were doing, so I converted their recipe for Strawberry Pate de Fruit to Grape Pate de Fruit.

It was a weekend, so I had my two trusty helpers home to lend a hand, so we pureed the fruit, boiled it up with the sugar and pectin then let it sit.  Luckily it didn’t take any where near as long to set as I thought it would (but much longer than Madeleine wanted!).  It turned out of the silicon pan beautifully and we coated it with just normal white sugar.  Next time though I think I’ll use caster sugar as it is just that little bit finer.  They tasted beautiful, you could really taste the grape in them and the texture was lovely, not at all rubbery.  You can find a printer friendly version of the recipe here.  The girls and I can’t wait to make them again and were thinking raspberries will definately be worth trying.  Have you made these before?  What flavours do you think would work well?

Recipe–Turkish Bread

Today I am going to share with you one of my favourite bread recipes ever!  It is from Greg and Lucy Malouf’s book Turquoise - A Chef’s Travels in Turkey.  I highly recommend this book.  It is admittedly one of the more expensive books in my collection, but you certainly get what you pay for, and more.  The recipes are all fantastic and quickly become family favourites.  There are also plenty of stunning photographs and beautiful little travel tidbits too.  I always like to hear the stories behind recipes and growing up travelling the world, I love to sit and day dream of far off exotic places (and meals!!)

One of the great things about this particular recipe is its versatility.  You can use it to make gorgeous sandwiches, slice it in thick “fingers” and dip it into balsamic vinegar and olive oil, serve it with olive oil and dukkah, make bruscetta, use it as a pizza base, or make Turkish pide pies.

So without further ado, here it is:

1 tablespoon yeast

pinch sugar

375ml warm water

480g bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

60ml olive oil

1 egg

25ml milk

nigella or sesame seeds

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in 125ml of the water and set aside for 10 minutes or until frothy.  Mix in 90g of the flour to form the “sponge” and set it aside somewhere warm for 30 minutes.

After letting it rest, add the remainder of the flour & water along with the salt and olive oil.  Mix it in your mixer with a dough hook on low for around 10 to 15 minutes.  Don’t panic – it is a really wet mix.  Now you need to let is sit somewhere warm for an hour to rise.

Once it has doubled in size, turn it out on to a very well floured bench and shape into 2 long logs.  Gently place them onto lined, greased or floured trays and sit for another half an hour.

Finally, combine the egg and milk and brush over the loaves then sprinkle them with the seeds.  Preheat your oven to its hottest setting (I do mine at 250^oC with the fan on) and cook them for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown and they should sound hollow when you tap them on the bottom.  Finally, allow a good 10 minutes or so of cooling time before you cut into them so the bread doesn’t collapse in on itself.

Enjoy!

Making Sausages

Okay, so this week’s write up is not cake related, but is still all about food.  Last Tuesday Matthew and I were invited to Evan and Shelley’s property out at Copmanhurst on the other side of Grafton.  The boys work together and we are all super passionate about food.  Like us, they are trying to get their own veggies growing and fruit trees in.  As they have 100 acres, they are also raising animals for meat which brings us to today’s post.  Evan kept the hind half of his first pig for making sausages.

So, once the kids were on the school bus, we piled into the car with a mountain of salt, a variety of spices, my Kenwood mixer (with mincer and sausage extruder attachments) and loads of enthusiasm.  As we turned into their property we were amazed at the recent storm damage which had carved massive holes into the road and parts of it had caved in.  Lucky we took the Pajero!







On arrival, we were welcomed in.  First we had to unload the Muscovy ducks and Naked Neck chickens we had brought for their flock.  Once inside though, the hospitality was really turned on.  Evan supplied us with glass after glass of thick, luscious coffee with an amazing dense crema on top.   We had been hearing all about his coffee machine for months, so it was quite a treat to finally get to sample it’s coffee!  It was certainly everything he said it would be!







After a little trepidation, and standing around looking at each other wondering how we were going to go about it all as none of us have ever made sausages before, we finally dove in.







The boys took charge of carving the meat off the bones and us girls chopped it into pieces small enough to put through the mincers.







Matthew was the first to cut himself – slicing his finger right through to the bone.  We picked on him a bit for doing anything to get out of the work, but figured he could sit and watch once we realised it wasn’t going to stop bleeding!  I was next as I nicked a chunk out of my knuckle.  Luckily with a really tightly applied bandaid, I was able to soldier on.  To Evan’s credit, the knives were incredibly sharp – I didn’t even feel it when I cut myself!

Once the meat had all been diced, we cleaned up and Shelley served up a gorgeous lunch of pickings.  We had grilled Chorizo and another spicy sausage, cheese, and fresh fruit, all washed down with an icy cold beer!   Just as Matthew and I looked at each other and thought if they keep looking after us this well, we’ll never leave, it was back to work.









We set out two mixers up side by side on the stainless steel trolley.  I have a Kenwood Chef and Shelley has a Kitchenaid.  I was really looking forward to seeing the Kitchenaid in action as I have heard so many rave reviews about them – and lets face it, they come in so many pretty colours and are lovely to look at!  The first thing I noticed was that all of the Kitchenaid attachments (including the mincer) were plastic as opposed to the Kenwood’s alloy fittings.  The Kenwood also had 3 different sized mincing discs to the Kitchenaid’s two.  While they both did a great job of mincing, it was much more fiddly with the Kitchenaid as the feeder tray was just too small to be practical.  You pretty much had to feed the meat straight into the tube of the mincer.  With my Kenwood, you were able to pile up a heap of meat on the feeder tray which made life much easier when operating it on your own.







Once the meat had all been through the coarse grind, we added our seasonings to the first batch to make a coarse grained Fennel & Chilli salami.  We had put aside some diced fat which we then folded through at this stage also.







Next job was the casings.  Shelley had bought a big pack of natural pig casings from their local butcher which were already prepped.  All we had to do was soak them in water and lemon juice and change the water a few times to get rid of the excess salt from the brine they were preserved in.







Once they had been soaked sufficiently, we threaded them on to the extruders on the mixers.  I must say, Matthew was quite adept at this particular manoeuver!  Must have been all those years in the Navy! lol!  Yes, there were lots of giggles and snide remarks flying around the room as we stood back and watched!







When we turned them on and started stuffing the casings, we really saw the difference in the two mixers.  The Kenwood was pushing out the meat at a very steady rate (which can be adjusted with the speed dial), while maintaining the textural integrity of the meat.  The Kitchenaid however was emulsifying the meat at turning it into a smooth paste, so we abandoned use of the Kitchenaid and only used the Kenwood for stuffing the casings.

We were all amazed at how easy this part of the operation was.  We all thought that stuffing them would be the most difficult part, but it was really quite straight forward.  And, I have to say, I was quite impressed with my sausage twisting and bundling capabilities – must be in the blood (my grandfather was a butcher).







As these first sausages were a salami style and had to be air dried, we tied them off with natural fibre string between each sausage where they were twisted, and pierced any air bubbles that we could see.







The final stage is to hang them up to dry for 6 to 12 weeks.







The next batch we made were a spicy Italian sausage (to be eaten fresh) and our version of a Chorizo.  The Chorizo is supposed to have a high salt content for drying and preservation, and the addition of a bacterial culture to ferment the meat, however being our first attempt at sausages, we didn’t want to hang them all to dry in case they didn’t work out, so we reduced the amount of salt and omitted the culture all together.

By the end of the exercise, we had about 75 sausages for each family, and oh my, don’t they taste awesome!  I was amazed at how easy it all was, and really can’t see myself buying sausages from the shops again knowing how good they are when you make them yourself.  We were also discussing the idea of making up the spiced mince and then making it into hamburger patties if you couldn’t be bothered stuffing them.



Last but certainly not least, I brought home half of the bones and made THE most delicious bolognaise sauce ever!







All in all, a wonderful adventure!  I really hope we get invited back for their next pig!

Raspberry Mousse

This Raspberry Mousse is absolutely divine!  It is sweet, yet tart and the most gorgeous colour!  The Raspberries can be replaced with juice or puree of any fruit you like. I have also made it with both lemons and limes, both of which were just luscious!  Anyway, without further ado, here is this week’s recipe.







Ingredients:



Part 1:  Italian Meringue



¼ Cup Sugar

½ teaspoon Glucose

20ml water

1 Egg White





Part 2:  Raspberry Mousse



550g Raspberries (fresh or frozen)

1 ½ teaspoons Gelatine

10ml Raspberry Liqueur

200ml Cream





Procedure:



Part 1:  Italian Meringue



Combine sugar, glucose and water in a small pan.
Heat gently, stirring until sugar dissolves.
Bring to the boil and stop stirring.
Continue to boil until liquid reaches 16oC.
Remove from heat and allow bubbles to subside.
Meanwhile, beat the egg white to stiff peak.
Slowly add hot sugar syrup to egg white while beating on low.
Continue beating until the bowl has reached room temperature (approx 5 minutes)



Part 2:  Raspberry Mousse



Bloom gelatine in 1 teaspoon of water.
Heat raspberries until they liquefy.
Pass raspberries through a sieve to remove the seeds.
Return raspberries to pan with liqueur and heat to just below boiling.
Add gelatine and mix thoroughly.
Cool.

Fold raspberry mixture into Italian Meringue.
In a separate bowl, beat cream to soft peaks.
Fold raspberry mixture into cream.
Chill.