Beetroot Chocolate Fudge Cakes (from Cook Yourself Thin)

I've been wanting to try this one for a while. Though the original recipe makes one large cake I'm opting for the cupcake option.... hope it works... they're currently in the oven so I will keep you posted....

Ingredients:

The cakes

• 250g good-quality dark chocolate
• 3 medium free-range eggs
• 250g light muscovado sugar
• 1 vanilla pod, cut in half lengthways and seeds scraped out
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons clear honey
• 40g self-raising flour
• 40g plain flour
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 25g cocoa powder
• 50g ground almonds
• 250g raw beetroot, peeled and finely grated
• 100ml strong black coffee
• 30ml sunflower oil

Nutritional Information

Per serving:
305 calories

The topping

• 150g good-quality dark chocolate
• 3 tablespoons strong black coffee
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 3 tablespoons clear honey

Method:

1. Preheat a conventional oven to 160ºC, or a fan-assisted one to 140ºC. With the help of a brush and a tiny bit of sunflower oil, grease the surface of a round 20cm diameter by 8cm high loose-bottomed tin and set aside.
2. Melt the chocolate gently in a bowl over a pan of simmering water until all dissolved, then set aside to cool.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, the scraped-out vanilla seeds, the maple syrup and the honey for three minutes with an electric hand whisk until pale and quite fluffy.
4. Gently fold in the flours, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cocoa and ground almonds until fully incorporated.
5. Using some kitchen paper, dab the grated beetroot thoroughly to remove some of the excess moisture. Fold in the beetroot, cooled chocolate, coffee and oil with the help of a spatula until thoroughly mixed together.

I bought precooked beetroot, not realising  till I got home that the recipe said raw. It seemed to work fine though. Precooked beetroot clearly can't be grated but one of the great things about my Kenwood food processor is the mini bowl which you can attach inside the larger one for smaller jobs throughout the recipe. So I chopped the beetroot into a grated-like consistency through using the blade attachment on the small bowl.  

In the above picture, you can see the mixture in my Kenwood food processor, the ready chopped beetroot and the chocolate melting nicely in the bowl ready to be mixed in...


6. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and cook in the middle of the oven for 1 hour 30 minutes. After this time, cover the cake with foil and bake for another 30 minutes.

I used my smallest ladle to ladle the mixture into muffin cases. I then baked for an hour, tested and then baked for a little longer on a lower heat. You need to monitor the cooking as it really does vary from oven to oven and will take less time in individual cases too.

7. Test the cake by inserting a skewer (or knife) into the centre to see if it comes out clean (although this cake is so moist that even when the cake is fully cooked, the skewer comes out looking slightly messy). Leave to cool on a wire rack.
8. To make the fudge topping, melt the chocolate gently in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, then remove from the heat and add the coffee and the vanilla essence.
9. At this stage the chocolate will seize up slightly, but it will relax back once you add the honey and gently mix in.
10. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes before icing the cake. Cut the cake through the middle and ice it in the centre and on all sides.
11. Decorate the top with whatever you fancy, but I like using pink flowers, such as tulips or roses, which I plant into the cake with a bit of stem left on. 

  

Tips

1. Leave yourself plenty of time to make this cake because it is quite a lengthy recipe.
2. The cake is best eaten when it is still slightly warm. It is also really important to ice it at the last minute or the icing can lose its shine.
However, it would freeze beautifully providing you put it away before icing. Simply defrost when needed and ice at the last minute.

Nigella's Christmas Puddini Bonbons (looks like a lovely way to use up the remainder of the Christmas pud)

I am going to attempt to cook these tomorrow morning... will let you know how it goes....


Original Ingredients:

• 125g best-quality dark chocolate, finely chopped
• 350g leftover, or freshly cooked and cooled, Christmas pudding
• 60ml sherry
• 2 x 15ml tablespoons golden syrup

      For decoration...

• 100g white chocolate, finely chopped
• 6 red glacé cherries
• 6 green glacé cherries, or 6 short lengths angelica

OK so the only things I changed here were, regular chocolate instead of dark chocolate as it was what I had and regular sherry instead of the fancy one for the same reason. Here is my photo of ingredients:

 

Original Method:

1 Line a baking sheet (that will fit in the fridge) with clingfilm, baking parchment, foil or Bake-O-Glide, and set it to one side while you make the bonbons.

2 Melt the dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended above a pan of simmering water, or in the microwave according to the manufacturer's guidelines.

3 Crumble the cold Christmas pudding into a bowl, add the  sherry and golden syrup and stir briskly till all is incorporated.

4 Pour in the melted dark chocolate and stir again: this will make the mixture much more cohesive.

5 To make this step easier, put on a pair of those disposable vinyl gloves sold in hardware stores and supermarkets, pinch out small lumps of mixture and roll so that you have little rounds about the size of a chocolate truffle. You should get about 30 out of this mixture; fight the impatient urge to make these balls larger as you go.

6 Cover with clingfilm and slot into the fridge to firm up.

7 To decorate, melt the white chocolate either in a heatproof bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water, or in the microwave according to the manufacturer's guidelines, then let it cool for about 5 minutes, to make it easier to work with, while you chop the red cherries into small pieces (to evoke berries), and snip the green cherries (or angelica) into miniature lengths, to represent leaves.

8 Using a teaspoon, drip a little of the melted but slightly cooled white chocolate on each bonbon, then arrange the infuriatingly sticky pieces of cherry on top.

9 Place in boxes to give away -- if you use small boxes that will fit 6 bonbons each, you will get 5 adorable presents out of this -- or on a plate to hand round with coffee, instead of dessert, after a post-Christmas dinner.

Makes about 30

MAKE AHEAD TIP:
Make the bonbons up to 2 weeks before eating or giving. Pack in boxes and store in a very cool place. If made 2 weeks ahead, add a label to say "keep cool and eat within 1 or 2 days".

   Original Recipe link

My finished result:

To be honest, they are very pretty and therefore nice to give as a gift but I wasn't blown away by what they tasted like. Would love to know what you make of them....

Chocolate, Rum and Raisin Brownies (for the Perkins girlie night in)

Taken from this wonderful cookbook which Penny bought me last Christmas:

Here's the recipe:

Here's what they are supposed to look like:

 I'll report back in an hour or so to let you know how it goes along with any adaptation which I have made.....

Here are my ingredients ^^^


Only differences from the original recipe are that instead of bars of pure chocolate I have decided to use the remainder from the end of selection boxes of chocolates. All the ones which have been sitting in chocolate jar for quite some time but sadly without a home as everyone has left them behind. 

 (I love these jars - I have several of them found at charity shops at opposite end of the country - I've been told they're from a range which came out in the 1950s/60s which were supposed to take their inspiration from vegetables - in this case onions. I do indeed have a very big soft for coloured glass in any case, I'm drawn to it like a magpie to shiny things)

The only other difference is that I have used stork spread instead of butter as it is what I had in...

Fresh out the oven.....

Just sliced.....

 

On a plate with ice cream....

yum yum yum....enjoy!