chocolate coconut slice

This month’s theme for Sugar High Friday, hosted by Rachel from Vampituity, is “childhood delights” and requires participants to cook desserts from their youth.

Chocolate Coconut Slice features firmly in my mind and reminds me of two people: my highschool friend Gemma, who used to make it and bring it to school to share, and my mother who made it at home and taught me how to do it too.

It’s a perfect recipe to whip up if you have impromptu guests or a late-night craving for something sweet. I usually have all the ingredients in the pantry.

It’s also great to make with kids because there are quite a few non-heat related stages where they can safely assist you - the way I used to help out my mum.

Most of all, it’s really delicious and somehow has a salty-sweet edge from the chewy coconut. Best served cut into small squares, I defy you to eat only one.

Chocolate Coconut Slice

Kay's very own recipe. Makes approx. 12 squares.

Ingredients:
Slice1 cup plain flour
½ cup sugar
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 tablespoon cocoa
200g dark chocolate, melted
185g butter, melted
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg, beaten
Icing1 cup icing sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa
30g butter, melted
1½ tablespoons hot water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180’C. Lightly grease lamington tin (28cm x 18cm).

2. To make the slice, sift the flour, sugar and cocoa into bowl.

3. Stir through the coconut.

4. Add melted butter, melted chocolate, vanilla essence and egg and mix well.

5. Press mixture over base of tin. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool in tin.

6. To make icing, sift icing sugar and cocoa into a small bowl, add melted butter and water and mix until smooth and glossy.

7. When cool, ice while still in tin and allow icing to set. Cut into squares.

pink grapefruit syrup cupcakes

It's Sugar High Friday and I am feeling particularly sweet and ever-so high since I started my spiffy new job earlier this week.

In celebration, I think it's time to break out the cakes. Cupcakes that is!!!

And how convenient, since the Sugar High Friday theme this month is cupcakes!

Happily, I have now converted my dislike of grapefruit into a contented affection. Like many other food items (asparagus, oysters, olives, brussel sprouts), through sheer force of will, I have made myself like grapefruit, especially in a sweet context.

So in honour of my newfound citrus friend and my brilliant new job, I give you:

Pink Grapefruit Syrup Cupcakes
Based on recipe from Australian Gourmet Traveller. Makes 12.
Ingredients:
Cupcakes
140gm butter, softened
160gm caster sugar
Finely grated rind of ½ pink grapefruit
3 eggs
290gm self-raising flour, sieved
200ml milk
Syrup
200gm caster sugar
150ml pink grapefruit juice
Rind of ½ pink grapefruit, thinly removed with vegetable peeler
Method:
1. For syrup, using a small knife, remove as much pith as possible from rind and discard.
2. Tear rind into thin strips, blanch in boiling water, drain.
3. Combine with remaining ingredients in a saucepan, bring to the boil and cook over high heat until rind is translucent (1-2 minutes). Cool.
4. Preheat oven to 170’C.
5. To make cupcakes, beat butter, sugar and grapefruit rind in an electric mixer until pale and creamy.
6. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
7. Next add flour and milk and beat until smooth.
8. Divide among 12 muffin tips, greased and lined with cupcake holders.
9. Bake until golden and centre springs back when lightly pressed (25-30 minutes).
10. Cool for 10 minutes in moulds, then turn onto a wire rack placed over a tray.
11. Using a skewer, pierce a few holes in tops of cakes. Drizzle with syrup while still warm
12. Decorate with strips of rind and serve immediately.

I have made some other interesting cupcakes since I started this blog, so feel free to check these out too:
Glacé Apricot, Chocolate & Poppy Seed Cupcakes
Ricotta, Strawberry & Choc-Chip Muffins
Rosewater Cupcakes
Yoghurt & Orange Blossom Cupcakes

Or better still, check out the extensive cupcake SHF round-up by Fanny from Foodbeam.

Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes dessert cakes citrus grapefruit cupcakes dessert recipes cake recipes citrus recipes grapefruit recipes cupcake recipes

schwarzwälderkirschtorte

Otherwise known as Black Forest Cake.

Today is Sugar High Friday, a very popular event among food bloggers and one which I have never managed to join. Until now.

February’s theme, in line with St Valentine’s Day, is Sweet Seduction.

Our host, Jasmine, from Confessions of a Cardamom Addict writes
Your mission, should you accept, is to provide a sweet that entices and lures. There are a number of ways you can approach this:
• Something you’ve made to seduce someone
• Something you’re planning on making to seduce someone
• Something someone’s made to seduce you.
• Something you wish someone would make to seduce you

I have to admit that I’ve never cooked anything to seduce someone. My cooking skills really took off sometime after Jonas and I had started living together.

By the same token, I’ve never had anything cooked to seduce me either. So no luck there.

But I certainly have a long list of things I wish Jonas would cook to seduce me. And there’s one in particular that I always point to and tell him “if you ever feel like making me something really nice, this is it.”

Alas, he never took the hint.

So with this event in mind, my own desire to taste it and Ashlee’s birthday on the horizon I whipped up my favoruite cake: Schwarzwälderkirschtorte.

I’ve loved Black Forest Cake ever since I was a child and there are numerous reasons why: cherries are one of my favourite fruits; I adore chocolate, who doesn’t?; whipped cream is divine; how can you not love a place called the Black Forest? It sounds so dark and mysterious! Fittingly it was the setting of many Grimm fairytales.

It’s believed that the Black Forest Cake originated in the 16th century in the form of biscuits drenched in Kirsch then topped with cream and poached cherries. Good start!

The Black Forest, or Schwarzwald, is located in the state of Baden-Württemberg which is famous for sour cherries and Kirsch. It is commonly believed that the cake did not originate in the Black Forest but could possibly be named after the origin of the main ingredients.

The earliest written record for Black Forest Cake was in Dresden in 1934 and by 1949 it was listed as lucky number 13 in a list of Germany’s most famous cakes. (My favourite number too – wow, this cake is spookily MINE).

So if you’re ever trying to woo me, just bake me a Black Forest Cake and I’ll be yours forever.

Black Forest Cake (Schwarzwälderkirschtorte)

Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook: 2006. Serves 10.
Ingredients:
300g dark chocolate (63% cocoa solids), chopped coarsely
1½ tablespoons Kirsch
155g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar
6 eggs
55g dried breadcrumbs (I used plain flour)
250g almond meal
300ml thickened cream
2 tablespoons icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
300g canned morello cherries, pitted
Method:
1. Combine 130g chocolate, kirsch and 2 tablespoons of water in a small bowl and heat in a bain-marie until chocolate has melted. Stir until smooth and set aside.
2. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer for 5 minutes or until pale and creamy.
3. Add eggs one at a time, allowing each to be fully incorporated before the next is added.
4. Add chocolate mixture, mix to combine then fold through breadcrumbs and almond meal.
5. Spoon into baking tin and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake withdraws clean.
6. Cool on wire rack then halve cake horizontally.
7. Combine thickened cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl and whisk until soft peaks form.
8. Place base of cake on a serving plate then smother with cream. Top with cherries then a little more cream then place top layer of cake over cream.
9. Melt remaining chocolate in a saucepan then pour over cake. Serve immediately.

Tschüss!

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Forest_gateau
http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Cakes/BlackForestCake.htm
http://www.foodreference.com/html/fblackforestcake.html

Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes dessert cake torte black forest cakeblack forest gateau black forest torte schwarzwälder kirschtorte schwarzwälerkirschtorte chocolate kirsch cherries morello cherries dessert recipes german recipes german food sugar high friday

chocolate raspberry truffles

There has been a lot of truffle activity on the gastronomic blogosphere with the recent truffle themed Sugar High Friday, so I decided to do my bit and whip up some of my own.

Dark chocolate and raspberries are one of my favourite pairings, their only real competition being dark chocolate and orange. But when raspberries came down from AUD$7.99 for 150g to AUD$3.99, I immediately pounced upon the opportunity and bought myself a punnet.

Jonas simply cannot believe the price of raspberries and blueberries in Australia. In Sweden they grow as weeds on the side of the road but here, in this warm country, berries are astronomically expensive and raspberries, currants and blackberries are probably among the most prized.

With a pretty punnet of dusty red raspberries, I set about making some truffles for petit fours and as a birthday gift for a friend.

Chocolate Raspberry Truffles

Recipe from Gourmet Traveller ‘December 2006’ issue. Makes 60.

Ingredients:
300g raspberries
200ml pouring cream
50ml Framboise
600g dark chocolate (57% cocoa solids)

Method:
1. Chop or shave chocolate into very fine pieces.
2. Combine cream, Framboise and 200g of raspberries in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium-high heat. Process in a food processor then pass through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan.
3. Clean food processor and add chocolate.
4. Bring raspberry mixture to the boil and, with food processor motor running, pour over chocolate. Process until smooth.
5. Pour half the chocolate mixture into a paper lined baking tray (20cm x 30cm). Scatter with remaining 100g of raspberries and top with remaining chocolate mixture. Smooth top and refrigerate for 6 hours or overnight until set.
6. Using a warm, sharp knife, cut truffles into cubes and dust with cocoa.
Note: They can keep in the fridge (in an airtight container) for up to 1 month.

Anna’s Variation: I used chocolate with 70% cocoa solid so it took on a rich bitterness. Jonas told me the recipe wasn’t as sweet as he prefers. If you prefer sweeter chocolate treats use lower level cocoa solids or dissolve in some super fine sugar when you melt the chocolate.

Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes truffles chocolate truffles raspberry raspberries chocolate chocolate recipes dessert candy sweets petit fours