Molly's Chocolate Cake

Jeanne from Cookisister posted the loveliest poem on her blog the other day. Please go there and read it quickly. Are you back? Isn't it lovely? We all know that feeling of suddently catching sight of yourself in an unexpected moment. Unfortunately the last time it happened to me was not that great. I saw a picture of myself taken at Christmas, and I was absolutely shocked about the amount of weight I've put on. I blame the fact that we don't have a full-lenghth mirror in our new house. Of course I noticed my jeans not fitting quite as well as they should, but I haven't actually realised how fat I look. Must be all those Christmas Cookies I made and sampled. And ate. So I did what any reasonable person in my situation would do - I made a chocolate cake and ate half of it before it was even properly cooled down.

But it was so worth it. It was after all the recipe from the lovely Molly Wizenberg from the lovely Orangette, whose book A Homemade Life was the January choice for the lovely book club I'm lucky enough to be part of. (I agree, enough with the "lovely"s, but that's what this cake does to you, I swear). What a great book. I enjoyed absolutely every letter of it. Every chapter, every story, every recipe. Orangette is one of the blogs I read from the first post for three days straight until the last when I found it. Her blog has so much character and warmth, and this book only added depth and more background. I loved reading about her childhood, her time in Paris, her memories of her dad, and getting to know the lovely Brandon a little better.

And oh, the recipes. How lovely are the recipes. My favourite thing about a new book these days  is deciding what to cook after reading it. Usually I make up my mind pretty early on. Not with A Homemade Life. Everything sounded so delicious, I changed my mind every few pages. Banana bread with chocolate and crystallized ginger. No, coeurs a la creme with raspberry puree. No, chocolate cupcakes. No, Hooser Pie. Anyway, halfway through the book I realised I'll just have to start from the beginning and work my way through to the end.

Then the book fell into the bath. I love reading in the bath late at night (multifunctioning, you see), and in an unguarded moment the book fell into the water. It was soaked. And, I'm sorry to say, this is not the first book it happened to. You'd think I'd learn my lesson, but no. Still reading in the bath. So I had to race through the last few (wet) pages before it dried out and became impossible to read. I left it open at the last recipe when I finished, just in case I couldn't open the book again without tearing the pages. And the recipe happened to be this one for chocolate cake.

Now, taking the risk of sounding cras, I just want to say that this cake is bloody awesome. Actually, cake is a term applied pretty loosely here. I'm not sure that any recipe calling for a huge amount of chocolate, ditto for the butter, eggs, lots of sugar, and a single tablespoon of flour could technically be called a cake. Not that I mind. "Chocolate" and "too rich" are not words I ever use in the same sentence. I couldn't wait for this cake to come out of the oven. The smell was pure chocolate - dark and rich and smokey. And the sight of all that gooey, wobbly chocolate was more than I could take. Like I mentioned before, it was halfway gone soon after coming out of the pan. This was actually intended for dinner that night with my family-in-law, and I can't tell you how relieved I was when there was only one other taker. So much more for me. In fact, I had to force myself to take a picture of at least the last slice so that I have something to show you, before eating it straight from the plate with my fingers. Sorry about that.

So, the diet starts tomorrow. I'm thinking I'll have to stop sampling recipes from this book at least until I've lost a few centimetres, because I'm absolutely sure they'll all turn out this lovely. Just like the blog and it's author.

Molly's Chocolate Cake
Serves 1, or around 8 if you're more restrained than I am

200g bittersweet chocolate, chopped
200g unsalted butter, cubed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granualted sugar
5 large eggs
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
Whipped cream, to serve (I never got round to this, but I'm sure it's delicious)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and butter a 20cm round cake tin. Line the botton of the pan with baking paper, and butter the paper too.

Slowly heat the chocolate and butter in a bowl over simmering water until melted, stirring until smooth. Add the sugar and stir well to incorporate. Set the batter aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one. Add the flour and stir well until incorporated. The mixture will be dark and sily (yes, indeed, it will)

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin, and bake for about 25 minutes. The top will be lightly cracked, but edges puffed, and the centre of the cake will look set, but wobble ever so slightly when you jiggle the pan.

Let the cake cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn it out onto a serving plate. (you will need two plates to flip it over on).

Supposedly this cake is even better after frozen, and the lovely miss Molly suggests you freeze it for at least 24 hours, then defrost before serving. If you have the self-discipline to do this, you're a better man than I am. It's pretty bloody good straight away. And then about half and hour later. And then 2 hours later for dessert. And the last bit the next morning for breakfast. Try not to make it when there's other people in the house - they might just want a piece.

Merry Christmas!

To all my family, friends, and all the readers who read my blog and leave lovely comments, I hope you have a happy festive season, and may the new year be everything you hope for and more.

Ta-da!

Yes, it's all finished. Exactly two weeks after starting work on my 2010 Christmas Cookie List, it's done. I've made a few substitutions, some things went horribly wrong, and I had a few happy surprises. I'm not going to lie to you and say that I've enjoyed every minute of it - I most definitely did not. But it is very nice looking at the end product, and knowing (hoping, actually) that people will enjoy it.

You'll notice that I actually didn't do 12 cookies. I did 11 cookies, including the gingerbread house, and then some fabulous caramel corn for a bit of variation. The recipe I used is from Not Quite Nigella, and you can find the recipe here. I followed the recipe to the letter, except for one thing. If you're wondering why my popcorn looks as if it has melted chocolate stirred through, it's because it has melted chocolate stirred through. I decided at the last minute that this was the perfect occasion to get rid of some chocolate chips I had in the cupboard. They melted very quickly, though, and didn't stay the little chunks I envisioned originally. But I tell you, I started scoffing this down before it was even cooled down. It is by far the most delicious thing I've eaten in quite a while. Please make it your New Year's resolution to try this as soon as possible. At least it will be one resolution you're likely to keep.

You'll also notice that I only made 1 gingerbread house, for us, instead of 11 to give to all our friends and family. Let's blame the new house and Little Girl. Next year I'll start earlier and make more. Also, I heard one family member say last year that he hates gingerbread. Maybe I should reconsider if it is the best possible gift to make.

I love this gingerbread. It is very spicy, with added coffee and dark rum. I use ginger, mixed spice, black pepper and cardamom, my ultimate favourite spice. The Fabulous Man is a massive gingerbread fan, which is why I started making it in the first place, and even though I've never heard the magic words "This gingerbread is not as good as my wife's", it's the recipe I'm sticking to. The Royal Icing recipe is from Dorie Greenspan, and I'm sticking to it too. It's easy to make, stays nice and moist in the bowl, but dries rock hard on the cookies. I realise that it's not the best to use for the gingerbread, and next year I might use it only for the decoration, and try melted chocolate for the actual construction. Next year.

Speaking of decoration, I realise that this is probably the ugliest gingerbread house on the block. I'm not sure why I'm struggling so much this year with my icing. Then again, when the Little Girl saw the house all assembled, she kept on saying "Wow! Wow!", while trying to get herself a piece. And that is after all what this is all about.

A final few photos, then. Until next Christmas.

Under construction

Filled with Christmas cookies

Suspect icing skills

Gingerbread House
Double the recipe for a house, otherwise makes about 30 cookies, depending on the size of your cutter.

2 cups (300g) plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon mixed spice
4 cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed
90g butter
1/2 cup (80g) brown sugar
1/3 cup (125g) treacle
2 tablespoons good instant coffee, disolved in a little bit of boiling water
1 tablespoon dark rum

Sift flour, soda and ginger into a bowl. Place butter, sugar and golden syrup into a saucepan. Cook over low heat, until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Add the coffee and the rum, mix. Cool.


Pour the treacle into the flour mixture, and combine. Take the dough out of the bowl and knead until smooth. Cover with plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until 5mm thick. Cut out shapes and carefully place onto trays. Bake for 8 minutes.

Cool biscuits on trays for 5 minutes, then onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Dorie Greenspan's Royal Icing

3 1/4 cups (or more) powdered sugar, sifted
2 large egg whites
1 teaspoon strained fresh lemon juice

Using electric mixer, beat 3 1/4 cups powdered sugar and egg whites until thick and shiny, adding more powdered sugar by tablespoonfuls if mixture is too thin to spread, about 3 minutes. Add lemon juice. Divide icing into portions, if desired, and add different food coloring to each. Cover until ready to use.

Almost there...

I didn't think it possible, but I'm a bit over cookies. The last 2 weeks have been filled with cookies morning, noon and night and all I really feel like at the moment is a chicken sandwich. You won't catch me baking a cookie for at least a week. Which is just as well, as Christmas is around the corner and I'm having 18 people over for lunch.

Please excuse my two-in-one post. I am a bit tired and don't really feel like fuffing about too much with photos and writing and the lot. Just a quick few notes and the recipes.

First up is the Lemon Wreaths. I really looked forward to making these, and I thought that after my fabulous Candy Cane Christmas Cookies these would be a breeze. Unfortunately not. I had a real struggle trying to master the art of wreath making, and in the end I don't think I succeeded. The ones that looked good eventually turned out to be the worst with the lemon glaze, because the opening in the middle was too small and clogged up with the icing. Then again, in the end they looked fine and tasted delicious, but if you make them, make sure to leave a large opening in the middle.

Next up are the Cranberry, Pistachio and White Chocolate Chip Cookies. Everything considered, if I have to choose only one Christmas cookie to make, this will be it. It's quick, easy, look nice and Christmassy with the red and green and white, and taste delicious. I made them last year, and initially thought that I didn't want to do any repeats, but I think you should always hang on to a winner. Also, you don't have the problem of palates to consider, because let's be honest, if you don't like a chocolate chip cookie you're just plain weird.

I hope everybody's Christmas baking is coming along nicely. The last two parts of my 2010 Christmas Cookie List will hopefully be up tomorrow, then it's on to bigger and better things. Have a nice weekend!

Lemon Glazed Christmas Wreaths
Adapted from AWW
Makes about 36 cookies

3 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (125g) butter
1/4 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 eggs, room temperature

Lemon Icing

3 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat oven to 180ºC.

Sift flour into medium bowl, rub in butter, or pulse it in your food processor.

Combine milk & sugar in small saucepan, stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved, add lemon zest; cool 5-10 mins.

Stir combined warm milk mixture and egg into flour mixture. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth.

Roll rounded teaspoons of dough into 12cm rope. Twist two ropes together, form into circles; press edges together. Place about 2cm apart on oven trays. Bake about 15 mins. Cool on wire racks. When the cookies are completely cooled drizzle the lemon icing on the cookies. (I dunked the cookies upside down into the glaze, then fished them out with the back of a spoon. Don't take the glaze off the heat while you do this, as it becomes thick very quickly.)

Lemon Icing

Sift powdered sugar into a heat proof bowl; stir in enough juice to make a firm paste. Stir over small saucepan of simmering water until pourable.

Cranberry, Pistachio and White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 36 cookies

1 cup (220g) firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
1/2 cup (75g) plain flour
1 cup (140g) coarsely chopped pistachios
185g butter, melted and cooled
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
200g white chocolate, broken into pieces
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Preheat your oven to 180ºC.

Combine sugars, flours and pistachios in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk butter, egg and egg yolk until combined. Stir into sugar mixture until it forms a soft dough. Stir in chocolate and cranberries.

Place tablespoons full onto prepared trys, allowing for room to spread. Bake for 12 minutes, until lightly brown. Cool on trays.

Candy Cane Christmas Cookies

Oh my goodness, people! I think I've just had my best moment ever. Up to now I thought my best moment was my Hot Cross Bunnies with Chocolate in the Tummies, but these Candy Cane Cookies kick those cute bunnies' sugary little behinds. I wish I was a better photographer, because honestly, the photos don't do them justice. They are not the weird orange colour you see, which is what happens if you try and take photos in the middle of the night. I promise, these cookies are beyond adorable.

Again, they are the result of a few problems, which seems to happen a lot around here lately. I had a recipe for candy cane cookies with a cookie press, but as I don't have a cookies press, and never got around to getting one, I had to come up with a Plan B. Another recipe I've seen had two little ropes of dough twisted together, bent into a candy cane shape, and flavoured with cinnamon sugar. Which sounds nice, but I wondered about making it look more like a proper candy cane. And then I thought how nice it will be if I use red and vanilla dough, but after twisting them together I'd roll them just enough to blend the colours, so that it looks like one piece of dough. Now isn't that the cleverest thing you've heard all day?

To be honest, I do realise there's nothing new under the sun, and I'm sure if I Google Candy Cane Cookies there will be around 6 million people who have been there, done that. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to pretend I'm the first person in the universe to come up with these gorgeous little things, and make myself a cup of tea to have with one of my cute cookies to celebrate.

And they taste good too. I've decided to make life easy for myself and use the same recipe as for the Chocolate Coffee Crumble Cookies. It's easy to make and doesn't use 500 different ingredients you've never heard of before. I know it is better to colour dough with food paste colouring, but I only had the liquid stuff, and it worked fine. I've also dressed up one of the cookies in white chocolate and little bits of crushed peppermint candy cane. I was only going to do the one to show you good people, but after eating it, I'm considering giving all of them the special treatment. Normally I don't really like peppermint, but here it is a nice contrast with the buttery cookie. Plus there's the white chocolate. Anything surely is better with white chocolate.

So it is with pride that I bring you Candy Cane Chrismas Cookies. Please humour me and pretend you've never seen anything like it before. Thank you very much.

Candy Cane Christmas Cookies
Makes about 5 dozen

175g (3/4 cup) butter, softened

1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
red food colouring
Beat butter in your mixer for 30 seconds. Beat in sugar, baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Beat in egg and vanilla. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer, and stir in the remaining flour by hand.

Divide the dough in two, and colour one half with red food colouring (I needed 5ml). Divide each dough portion in half. Cover and chill for an hour, or until easy to handle.

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Work with only about half a cup of dough of each colour at a time, and keep the rest in the fridge until needed. Pinch of a piece of dough the size of a small marble from each colour. I know this doesn't seem like much, but I promise you it's enough.

Roll each bit out until it is about 10cm long and about 5mm thick. If one piece is a lot longer than the other one, trim it a bit. This isn't an exact science. You'll get the swing of it after making a few.

Twist the two pieces together to form a rope. Try to make the coils as tight as possible without breaking the dough.

Lightly roll the rope until the colours just blend together, about the size of a pencil. You can twist it again a few times to increase the number of swirls.

Before baking

Put on a baking sheet, and bend into a candy cane shape. Bake for 6-8min, or until slightly brown around the edges.

After baking

                                                                         

Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 5min, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

 
If you want to decorate the cookies further, you can dip the bottom halves in melted white chocolate, and sprinkle with some crushed peppermint candy cane. Leave on some baking paper to set.

Fruit Mince Shortbread Stars

When I came across these in the December issue of Good Taste magazine, I knew I had to make them, but that I won't like them. Yes, that's right. My name is Adele and I hate Fruit Mince. OK, maybe hate is too strong a word, because if I have to choose between tofu (which I really hate) and fruit mince, I'll take the fruit mince every time. Let's say I strongly dislike fruit mince, and anything made with it: fruit mince pies, fruit cake, Christmas puddings, etc. etc. (Not like my Baby Brother, who always ate all us children's share of the fruit cake when we went to weddings).

This choice for the 2010 Christmas Cookie List is there for the members of our family with traditional tastes, in our case mostly the grandmothers and uncles and so forth. The ones who didn't grow up with chocolate and didn't know any better. You have to cater for everybody. I also think no Christmas Cookie List is complete without shortbread (I do actually like shortbread), and I really like the idea of this recipe. It's like a fruit mince pie and a shortbread cookie in one.

As you can see from the recipe, it's not exactly traditional fruit mince, and if you don't feel like this slightly tropical one, substitute your own. I can also suggest some orange zest mixed in with the dough. Not that the cookies turned out bad. In fact, even I liked them. The biscuit is very buttery and crumbly, like a proper shortbread should be. The small bit of filling is just enough to make this cookie interesting, and doesn't overpower with it's fruit minciness (I'm sure I've seen this word before). Next time I might try an alternative fruit mince filling, something like dried pears with chocolate and Frangelico. I also think they will taste great with just a bit of chocolate sandwiched in-between. Not sure what the traditionalists will make of that.

According to Good Taste this recipe makes about 3 dozen cookies, but I have no idea how they came to that conclusion. I only just got 2 dozen. If you want more, double the biscuit recipe. The filling is more than enough for 4 dozen.

Fruit Mince Shortbread Stars
Makes about 2 dozen, but it depends on who you talk to

125g butter, chopped
80g (1/2 cup) pure icing sugar
150g (1 cup) plain flour
2 tablespoons rice flour
2 tablespoons cornflour
2 tablespoons self-rasing flour
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
icing sugar, to dust

Filling
50g dried pineapple
50g soft dried apricots
50g glace ginger
25g red glace cherries
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Process the butter, icing sugar and combined flours in a food processor until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and process until just combined. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly until the dough comes together. Shape into a disc, cover and rest in the fridge for 10 minutes.

For the filling, process the pineapple, apricots, ginger and cherries in a food processor until finely chopped. Stir in the Grand Marnier.

Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper until 3mm thick. Use a 5.5cm star pastry cutter to cut stars from the dough. Arrange half of the stars on the baking sheets. Place about 1/2 teaspoon of filling in the centre of each star.

Brush the remaining stars with milk, and place milk-side down over the stars with the filling, pressing gently to seal. Brush the tops of the stars with remaining milk. Bake for 10min or until just golden. Transfer the stars to wire racks to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar.

Orange Polenta Cookies

I am really sorry to admit that these wonderful little cookies weren't part of my original 2010 Christmas Cookies List. I liked the idea of having a cookie with polenta, to add a bit of texture, and were originally fancying these caramel polenta cookies. Don't they sound lovely? Crunchy polenta cookies with little pockets of melted caramel. Double yum. Except they turned out a disaster. They were way too sweet, and way too gooey. I actually threw the rest of the uncooked dough away after my first two batches of cookies came out of the oven inedible, something I've never before had to do.

A quick search on Google didn't reveal any other caramel polenta cookies, so I had to abandon the whole idea. However, I still think it sounds great, and I will try them again in the near future, after the mad Christmas Cookie rush is over. Next time I might increase the amount of flour, and use less honey, like suggested in some of te comments. Recipes are after all made to be fiddled with.

While searcing for the elusive alternative caramel polenta cookie, I came across quite a few versions of orange polenta cookies. They are actually quite plain: a polenta and flour dough with some orange zest mixed in. More importantly, though, they are ridiculously quick and easy to make. Throw everything in your food processor, mix, rest, bake and ta-da! Which is a welcome change from most of the cookies I've attempted so far. The final recipe I settled on is the one from Jamie Oliver, and no, I am not in love with this man, which I'm sure seems like the case if you look at the amount of Jamie Oliver I've done over the last few weeks. There just seems to be a whole lot of nice ones from him around at the moment.

The orange aroma in my cookies were quite pronounced. I left my dough in the fridge overnight, and I'm not sure if that is what gave the orange chance to permeate everything. Just to be sure, though, I'm definitely doing it again next time I make these. They smell like heaven. (Normally I'd say heaven must surely be made of chocolate, but it just goes to show how good these cookies actually are).

Orange Polenta Cookies
Makes about 5 dozen
Recipe Jamie Oliver via Food and Wine

1 1/2 cups medium non-instant polenta or yellow cornmeal

1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces or 175g) chilled unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons finely grated orange zest
Pinch of salt
2 large eggs

In a food processor, combine the polenta with the butter, sugar, flour, orange zest and salt and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the eggs and pulse just until the dough comes together. Transfer the dough to a bowl and refrigerate until slightly firm, about 1 hour. (I left mine overnight)


Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop slightly rounded teaspoons of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets about 4cm apart. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes, or until golden around the edges and on the bottoms. Let the cookies cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.

The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for 1 week or frozen for 1 month. .