Daring Bakers - A Valentino Cake for February

Well, it is that time of the month again – time to reveal the Daring Bakers challenge for February. The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
They have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

A chocolate valentine cake sounded particularly exciting and also appropriate given that Valentines Day is in February. And as for ice cream, with having been in the smaller kitchen of our rented flat this summer, I haven’t used my ice cream maker as much as I think I will in future summers, so it was good to be able to use that as well.



The instructions for the chocolate cake were to use your favourite chocolate as this is essentially what the cake would end of tasting like. My favourite eating chocolate is actually dairy milk, but even though the instructions said you could use that, I think milk chocolate can be a bit too sweet in baking. So I ended up using Whittakers 72% chocolate. I also scaled the recipe back to 1/5th and made the cake in two small brioche moulds. With most of our kitchen gear packed up I haven’t got anything larger than a 6 inch round cake pan out and also, we didn’t need to be eating a whole cake!!

I really really love chocolate but I actually found the cake to be a bit strong for me. I wonder if it was because of the darkness of my chocolate. Maybe about 60% would have been not so strong. The cake is a flourless cake and is basically just melted chocolate butter, eggs and sugar. It is very much something you would have for pudding. That’s why the ice-cream went perfectly with it.

I didn’t make either of the ice-cream recipes offered in the challenge and instead used a David Lebowitz recipe for Philadelphia ice-cream. Philadelphia style ice-cream is really easy to make as you don’t have to make a custard before. In fact there are no eggs in at all – just cream, milk, sugar and flavouring – in this case, vanilla. I used half cream and half milk (low fat milk actually) and I was surprised by how creamy the ice-cream was for something that was relatively low in fat. I will definitely make this style again.

All in all this was a fun challenge to make, but for me it wasn’t overly challenging. See what the other Daring Bakers thought here.

Pretty Cookies

Just a short post today. I made these cookies for my girlfriend’s wee girl for her 4th birthday. I love the pretty feminine colours and I was so pleased with how they turned out.



Thursday night dinner is often something quick and easy and one of my stand by Thursday night dinners is a simple frittata/quiche. The basic method is the same – put all the add ins into the bottom of a ceramic dish which has been sprayed with olive oil spray (I use an oval emile henry ceramic dish) and then pour over 6 eggs which have been lightly beaten with salt and pepper. Sprinkle over some grated cheese and bake for about 20-25 minutes at 200c fanbake. Last night my add ins were chopped ham, cherry tomatoes, basil leaves and crumbled feta, but you could put in anything you like – leftover roast vegetables, asparagus, canned or smoked salmon, add some pesto to the eggs – the possibilities are endless!!!

A childhood favourite

When I was in Christchurch a couple of weeks ago Mum and I were talking about chocolate coconut clusters, which are biscuits (cookies) which used to appear in the iconic Edmonds cook book. I remember making them when I was young. The latest versions of the Edmonds cook book don’t have the recipe, so I posted on foodlovers to see if anyone could give me the recipe – which someone kindly did.

I made the clusters earlier in the week and they were just how I remembered them. They are quite large cookies (you could make them smaller but I think part of the appeal is their size) and are essentially two softish coconut and chocolate cookies joined together with chocolate butter cream. I added more cocoa and less milk. It must be childhood nostalgia which makes me like them, as they are not the kind of cookie I would usually go for – I prefer crisper more shortbready type cookies like shortbread, yo-yos and chocolate chip cookies made with condensed milk.

This recipe just makes a small batch, so you don’t get a lot of cookies due to joining them together. You wouldn’t need to join them together, but then you couldn’t call them clusters if they were single!

Chocolate Coconut Clusters (adapted from the old Edmonds cook book)

75g butter
75g sugar
1 egg
1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 c coconut
2 tbsp cocoa
1 tbsp milk

· Cream the sugar and butter and then beat in the egg.
· Stir in the dry ingredients and lastly the milk
· Roll into balls and flatten with a fork
· Bake at 180c for 15 minutes
Once cold joint together with chocolate butter cream icing

Raspberry Brownie

We had a work picnic in the weekend. We had to bring either a sweet thing or a salad. I, of course, opted for a sweet treat. Brownie is something that most people like and it normally always gets eaten, so I decided to make brownie. For a change I adapted a recipe for cherry brownie to make raspberry brownies. The result was a deliciously moist brownie with lovely dark raspberries scattered throughout.

The original recipe specified creaming the butter and sugar, then adding the melted chocolate and dry ingredients. I have used that method once before and found the brownie to be more cake like. So, I used my usual method of melting the butter and chocolate together, then beating the eggs and sugar together and combining the two. I think melting the butter helps to give that gooey texture which I love in brownies. I really loved my adaptation of this recipe and will make it again.

On Monday night I started my sewing classes!! Just at the local college, but it is really great as there were women of all abilities there – you take whatever project you want to make and the teacher gives everyone the help they need. My first project is a summer dressing gown for me. I have bought a really pretty pink floral fabric with a contrasting pale green print. I want it to look like one of the robes you get in Isabel Harris. I thought it was a good thing to make first (actually I did make aprons for my niece and nephew which worked out quite well), as there are no button holes or zips to put in.

Before I went to the class I quickly made some dinner for my husband – a bacon and pea pasta dish. Very quick and easy, I cooked some bacon, adding some frozen peas once it was browned. Added a little cream at the end, tossed through pasta and sprinkled with lots of parmesan. Very easy, but tasty!

Fudgey Raspberry Brownie

220g butter
200g dark chocolate
300g sugar
4 large eggs
60g flour
60g cocoa (I used dutched cocoa)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp vanilla
1 c frozen raspberries

· Melt chocolate and butter together and set aside to cool
· Beat sugar and eggs until thick and ribbony
· Beat chocolate mix into egg mix then gently stir in the dry ingredients and vanills
· Stir through raspberries
· Pour into lined 23cm square tin and bake at 170c for 35-45 minutes or until a thin knife inserted comes out a little sticky and there is no wobble left
Cool and then cut into squares

TWD - Caramel Crunch Bars

This week’s TWD recipe was chosen by Whitney of What’s Left on the Table and is caramel crunch bars. There is a photo of this recipe in the book and I have often looked at it, thinking how delicious these bars look.

When looking through other TWDers comments, I saw that a few people said that they thought the slice was too thin and next time they would make it in a smaller tin. I like my slices to be more thick than thin so I used a 23cm square tin. The base is a shortbread type base, studded with chocolate chunks – I used bittersweet, but Dorie said you could use milk if you prefer. I love milk chocolate but I often find it to be too sweet in baking.

The topping is melted chocolate with toffee bits sprinkled over the top. Now, I did have a prized packet of toffee bits (you cant get them in NZ) but they were so delicious, even though I used most of them to make cookies, I actually ate the rest straight from the bag! So I got some werthers original toffees and roughly cut them – I think putting them in the food processor would have been a good idea too.

Dorie suggested eating this slice with ice –cream – like making ice-cream sandwiches from them. I think that would work well if you made the slice in a larger pan and had thinner slices. I loved my thicker slices just as they were. In fact I loved this recipe and I can see it becoming a firm favourite!! See if the other TWDers liked it as much as I did here.

Old Bananas

After a weekend away in Christchurch, there were two very sad looking bananas in the bottom of the fruit bowl (as well as some well past their best kiwifruit which went straight in the bin). When this happens, I usually make them into muffins, or pop them into the freezer to use another day. But last night I decided to make some little banana cupcakes for the tradesman on site – Yes, not just the builders. We now have electricians, plumbers, gib fixers, block layers, painters and plasterers all on site!!

I based my cakes on a recipe I had clipped from the newspaper a few years ago (I cant even credit the original writer as I don’t know who it was it was that long ago), for a four spice banana cake. I substituted a few of the ingredients and scaled the recipe down a bit to make 16 cupcakes, so actually it is more my own recipe than the original. I topped the cakes with cream cheese icing.



The cake is a very moist and soft banana cake with lots of spice in it to make it more interesting. It makes quite a few cupcakes and you could even leave them un-iced for a slightly healthier lunch box treat. I rolled the edges in some yellow sprinkles which looked kind of cute, or you could pile the icing high into lovely swirls (I didn’t really think that the tradesmen would be into that!).

Four Spice Banana Cupcakes

125g butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
½ c natural yoghurt
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 c flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp each ground cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and allspice

· Cream butter and sugar and then add eggs, one at a time
· Combine mashed banana and yoghurt and fold in alternately with the dry ingredients to the butter mixture
· Spoon into cupcake cases and bake at 180c for 18-20 minutes or until a thin knife blade comes out clean
Once cooled ice with cream cheese icing

Bits and Pieces

My law firm is one of the leading firms in the franchise area in New Zealand and so for a networking event my business partner asked me to make these cookies saying that we are the No 1 franchise firm! The idea was good, but not that much fun when I over-filled my piping bag and had icing just everywhere, while I was trying to make dinner and get myself organised for book club at the same time! They looked kind of cute in the end.



I also wanted to share these two things – the first is a dishcloth knitted by my Grandma. My friend, Jenny, gave me some knitted dish cloths for Christmas – they are fabulous. Mum thought that would be something good for Grandma to knit, so I bought this lovely variegated cotton and grandma knitted this up in moss stitch. The cotton is lovely and soft and moss stitch is one of my favourite knitting stitches.



Secondly, my blog friend, Morven, sent me this lovely birthday present which was so very kind of her! I love the paper napkins – anything with cupcakes on it is a hit and I have a real thing about pretty napkins – I love them! The wooden tart tamper was made by Morven’s farther-in-law. It is beautifully crafted – the wood is so lovely and smooth. I cant wait to use it! Thanks Morven, you are a real sweetie!