Mary Berry's Florentines

I first made these luxurious biscuits a couple of weeks ago. I had a bit of spare time on a wet Sunday afternoon and fancied baking something new. I had never made florentines and had always imagined them to be fairly tricky: I was surprised to find that they are actually fairly quick and easy to make. What is also fantastic about them is that the ingredients are fairly standard stock cupboard items - so easy to whizz up without having to go to the shop!

My recipe comes from Mary Berry’s Ultimate Cake Book – except I add a few extra glace cherries, or add stem ginger instead of the glace cherries – which produces delicious florentines!

Randomly, florentines were then the Technical Challenge this week on Great British Bake Off. It was quite handy to hear Mary Berry describe exactly what she was looking for: the thin lattice edges and the crisp crack when you bite into the biscuit.

The trickiest bit of making these florentines is getting the chocolate layer right – cooling the melted chocolate to an appropriate thickness that it can be spread onto the biscuits without dripping through the lattice, and also so that it is thick enough to hold the forked pattern. To make them extra pretty, you can melt some white chocolate and pipe it over the other (non-chocolate-covered) side of the biscuits. Like this, they make lovely presents.

You can vary the nuts / fruit to suit your tastes – as suggested, stem ginger makes a delicious addition. For Christmas, I think that dried cranberries would be lovely.

Florentines

Ingredients 

1. 50g butter
2. 50g Demerara sugar
3. 50g golden syrup
4. 50g plain flour
5. 6 glace cherries  / 25g stem ginger – finely chopped
6. 50g mixed candied peel, finely chopped
7. 50g mixed nuts, finely chopped
8. 200g plain chocolate, broken into pieces

Method 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Line 3 baking trays with baking parchment.
3. Place the butter, sugar and golden syrup into a small pan and heat gently until the butter has melted.
4. Mix the flour, peel, nuts and stem ginger / cherries in a bowl.
5. Stir this mix into the saucepan of melted butter/sugar/syrup.
6. Spoon teaspoons of the mix onto the prepared baking trays and spread out with the back of the teaspoon. Leave plenty of room for the florentines to spread further.
7. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 8-10 minutes until golden brown (turn the trays after 6 minutes if your oven bakes unevenly).
8. Allow the florentines to cool and harden slightly before moving onto a cooling rack to fully cool.
9. Melt about 150g chocolate in a glass bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water.
10. Remove the chocolate from the heat and add the remaining chocolate.
11. Stir to incorporate the additional chocolate so that it cools and thickens a little.
12. Use a teaspoon to spoon the chocolate onto the flat side of each florentine and spread out with the back of the teaspoon.
13. Use a fork to mark a zig-zag pattern into the chocolate.
14. Leave to cool. 

Superman Chocolate Birthday Cake

So, third chocolate cake in three weeks! Not bad for someone who doesn’t make chocolate cakes! This week’s cake was for one of my good friend’s son’s 4^th birthday – his requirements were that it had to be chocolate and had to have Superman on it! 

I did consider buying a Superman – maybe a Lego Superman – to pop on top of the cake, but somehow I let EHH convince me that it would be a challenge to make a Superman figure out of icing and that I would enjoy it. Hmmm – enjoy isn’t quite the word that I’d have used on Thursday night as I wrestled with red and blue icing, trying to convince it to come together into the muscled physique of an action hero. The ripped torso was actually fairly easy – it was the sticking on of limbs and the creation of the head that were the tricky bits. However, after a bit of swearing and the help of a few cocktail sticks, it all came together. His nose ended up a bit squashed and his red pants looked a little like a nappy, but he was clearly recognisable (red pants over the top of a blue superhero suit and a big Superman sign on his front always help with this!) and that would have to do! I left doing the red cape until he was actually on the cake to help with positioning.

Making the cake was the simple bit – having made two others in the last two weeks! I followed the same recipe for the cake as the KitKat cake but replaced the booze with water and added a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Rather than filling with jam and fresh cream, I simply filled and topped the cake with chocolate buttercream. As the cake was for children rather than adults, I made a milk chocolate buttercream (recipe below) rather than the richer dark chocolate buttercream.

Once the cake was made and filled and topped with buttercream, I left it to set in the fridge for about an hour. This allows the icing to firm and makes covering it in rolled fondant much easier. I covered first with a fairly thin layer of plain white rolled fondant, followed by a thin layer of navy rolled fondant. You could tint the fondant yourself but I always find tinting a big batch of dark coloured fondant very messy and time consuming, and it also requires a lot of food colour – even when using the decent paste food colours – so I always buy pre-coloured fondant for dark / bright colours. When rolling the fondant out, I suggest rolling it onto parchment paper that has been lightly dusted with icing sugar – you can then simply lift the parchment paper up and turn over onto the cake.

Once the cake was covered in navy fondant, I rolled out some black fondant and cut out various geometric, building-like shapes and stuck them onto the cake with a little water. I then added some white to the black fondant, rolled it and cut out more shapes that I stuck on top of the black cut-outs. I then repeated this – adding more white to create a lighter grey fondant and creating more shapes to create a third layer of buildings. I then used yellow writing icing to add some windows and, along with some red writing icing, to set one of the buildings “alight”! Popped Superman on top and rolled out some red fondant to make his cape, sticking it on carefully with a little water.

Finally (at about 1.30 at night!) the cake was complete! It took quite a lot of time and effort but I was fairly happy with the end result!

  

Milk chocolate buttercream icing

Ingredients

1. 175 grams milk chocolate
2. 250 grams unsalted butter (softened)
3. 275 grams icing sugar (sifted)
4. 1 tblsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water, and set aside to cool slightly.
2. In another bowl, beat the butter until it's soft and creamy.
3. Add the sieved icing sugar and vanilla extract.
4. Beat again until light and fluffy.
5. Add the chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth. 

Chocolate and raspberry Kitkat gateau – again!

Having had a practise bake last weekend (!), this weekend was actually my friend’s hen do and so time to make my second chocolate and raspberry Kitkat gateau. Making it for the second time was definitely easier – having made a few mistakes last week, I followed my own instructions and tips this time and it was actually a fairly easy and simple cake to bake.

I did make a couple of changes this time – I didn’t have much raspberry liqueur left and so I had a search through our alcohol cupboard and found a bottle of plum brandy and decided to use that in the cake instead. You can’t really taste the alcohol in the cake but it does add an extra depth and slight fruitiness to the cake and so I figured changing the type of alcohol shouldn’t affect the flavour too much. I’m not sure if adding the alcohol rather than just water affects the texture at all – will test this out next week when I have to make another chocolate cake – this time for a four-year-old’s birthday so no alcohol in this one!

Last week, I wasn’t that keen on the chocolate icing so I decided to make a few changes. This time, I added a tablespoon of cocoa, to increase the chocolate flavour and reduce the sweetness. Instead of the raspberry liqueur, I added a tablespoon of very strong coffee (1 tsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tblsp hot water) and also 1 tsp salt. You can’t taste the coffee but adding it helps to reduce the sweetness and intensify the chocolate flavour; the salt similarly helps to bring out the chocolate flavour. For me, these changes definitely helped to improve the icing – adapted recipe below.     

The only other change was to use three different types of Kitkat on the outside – dark, milk and Cookies and Cream (topped with white chocolate) – just for a slightly different look.

Chocolate icing:

Ingredients

1. 175 grams dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
2. 250 grams unsalted butter (softened)
3. 275 grams icing sugar (sifted)
4. 1 tblsp cocoa (sifted)
5. 1 tbsp strong coffee (1 tsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tblsp hot water)
6. 1 tsp salt

Method

1. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water, and set aside to cool slightly.
2. In another bowl, beat the butter until it's soft and creamy.
3. Add the sieved icing sugar, cocoa, salt and coffee.
4. Beat again until light and fluffy.
5. Add the chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth. 

Chocolate and raspberry gateau

As part of a friend’s vintage/retro themed hen party, we had all been asked to bring a contribution to an afternoon tea party. In order to avoid hundreds of cupcakes / bottles of sparkly, we’d been allocated an item to bring. I mentioned that I was happy to bake and so was allocated chocolate cake. Except, I’ve never really made chocolate cake! As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m not really a fan of chocolate or of chocolate cake and so I just don’t tend to make it!

Having scanned through my ever-reliable source of inspiration – Flickr – I’d been inspired by impressive looking Kitkat-surrounded gateaux and made the decision to have a go at one of these. Next decision – which of the many thousand chocolate cake recipes to follow? A few friends recommended Nigella’s Chocolate Fudge Cake and so I decided to go with my own amended version of that. As I’m not really into rich chocolate cake, I decided to add raspberries, strawberries and fresh cream to add a bit of tartness and lightness. If you wanted to stick with the very traditional chocolate fudge cake, you could fill the cake with a caramel-fudge sauce and top with a mixture of fudges and chocolate truffles – which could look equally impressive.  

Finding a bottle of raspberry liqueur in the cupboard, I decided to use that in the recipe in place of some of the water, and to omit the vanilla essence suggested. To keep the cake slightly lighter and more of a gateau than a rich chocolate fudge cake, I filled the cake with jam and fresh cream, rather than more of the (very rich) topping. For a bit of an indulgent twist, I watered the jam down with more of the raspberry liqueur, which also helped the filling soak into the sponge to keep it moist and full of flavour.

The great thing about adding the Kitkats to the edge of this cake is that you don’t need to worry about making the icing that neat – the Kitkats hide any imperfections brilliantly. You don’t have to dip the strawberries in chocolate to go on top, but I do think it adds a lovely touch!

I was feeling rather impressed with myself once the cake was complete – it looked fairly spectacular! Impressed, that is, until I arrived at my friend’s house only to find that I was a week early – the party isn’t until next week! Gutted. Anyone want a slice of chocolate cake …?

Edit - 2 June 2013

So - what happened to the cake? I was a bit worried as I made the cake on the Friday and neither of us were at work until Tuesday, and most of the local friends I would usually give cake to, were away for the long weekend! I checked the cream and its use-by was Wednesday - so figured the cake would be ok until Tuesday as long as it was kept in the fridge. I did take all the fruit off (as it would have gone off slightly by the Tuesday) and we ate this for dessert over the weekend. 

EHH and I cracked into the cake on the Sunday and it was actually really tasty! The texture was great - really moist and delicious and the raspberry filling really complemented the chocolate cake: the liqueur added a nice kick of flavour without overpowering. The only thing I wasn't that keen on was the chocolate icing - I found it a little over-sweet and actually not that chocolatey! EHH took the rest of the cake into his work on the Tuesday and was demolished fairly quickly! (Although there were a few complaints from my work that I hadn't taken it there!)

Chocolate and raspberry gateau

Ingredients

For the cake

1. 400 grams plain flour
2. 250 grams golden caster sugar
3. 100 grams light brown muscovado sugar
4. 50 grams best-quality cocoa powder
5. 2 teaspoons baking powder
6. 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
7. ½ teaspoon salt
8. 3 large eggs
9. 142 ml sour cream (1 small tub)
10. 175 grams unsalted butter
11. 125 ml corn oil
12. 200 ml chilled water
13. 100ml raspberry liqueur

For the icing

1. 175 grams dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
2. 250 grams unsalted butter (softened)
3. 275 grams icing sugar (sifted)
4. 1 tblsp raspberry liqueur

To fill

1. 300ml double cream, whisked until spreadable
2. 200g raspberry jam
3. 4 tblsp raspberry liqueur

To decorate

1. 21 double Kitkat chocolate bars
2. 200g raspberries
3. 400g strawberries
4. 100g dark chocolate
5. 100g white chocolate

Method

1. Place butter in a microwaveable bowl and microwave until melted (alternatively, melt in a saucepan over the hob). Set aside to cool.
2. Put the water and raspberry liqueur in a jug and place in the fridge to cool.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
4. Butter and line the bottom of two 20cm sandwich tins.
5. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt.
6. In another bowl or wide-necked measuring jug whisk together the eggs and sour cream until blended.
7. Beat together the melted butter and corn oil until just blended, then beat in the water mixture.
8. Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix together on a slow speed.
9. Add the egg mixture, and mix again until everything is blended and then pour into the prepared tins.
10. Bake the cakes for 50-55 minutes, or until a cake-tester comes out clean.
11. Cool the cakes in their tins on a wire rack for 15 minutes, and then turn the cakes out onto the rack to cool completely.

 Preparing the chocolate dipped strawberries

1. While the cakes are baking, melt the dark chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
2. Melt the white chocolate in the same way.
3. Dip some of the strawberries in the chocolate and set aside on a sheet of baking parchment.
4. Place the remaining chocolate in a disposable piping bag and snip off the end of the bag.
5. Pipe drizzles of chocolate onto some of the remaining strawberries and add these to the sheet of baking parchment.
6. Leave some strawberries plain.
7. Allow the chocolate to set and then pipe drizzles of the alternative chocolate onto both the dipped and the drizzled strawberries.
8. Use any remaining chocolate to pipe chocolate shapes onto parchment paper

Assembling, icing and decorating the cake

1. Place the jam in a bowl and mix with the liqueur.
2. Cut each of the cooled cakes in half (easiest done with a cake levelling tool).
3. Cover three of the cake halves with cream and then with jam.
4. Place each cake half carefully on top of the others, finishing with the plain cake.
5. Place the cake in the fridge to cool and set for at least 30 minutes.  
6. While the cake is in  the fridge, make up the icing.
7. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water, and let cool slightly.
8. In another bowl, beat the butter until it's soft and creamy.
9. Add the sieved icing sugar and beat again until light and fluffy.
10. Add the raspberry liqueur and chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth. 
11. When the cake is set and fairly firm, ice the top and sides, spreading and smoothing with a rubber spatula or palette knife.
12. Separate the Kitkats into single bars and press firmly around the edge of the iced cake.
13. Place in fridge again to set for at least 30 minutes.
14. Once set, top with the raspberries, chocolate dipped strawberries, remaining strawberries and chocolate shapes.

Chocolate and raspberry brownies

Wow! It’s been ages since I last wrote a blog post! Don’t worry – I’ve been making and eating lot of cake in this time, just haven’t gotten around to writing it up!

So, going back a couple of weeks, a very good friend had just given birth to her first baby and so, of course, I wanted to make cake for her and her husband. They don’t live nearby and so I had to post the cake – so no cupcakes, or anything else delicate! I’d recently been given a chocolate and raspberry brownie recipe from a friend (strangely, I had cut out the exact same recipe from Good Food recently!) and so decided that this was the perfect opportunity to give it a go! The only thing that I changed to this recipe was the addition of 100g of white chocolate chunks - just to add an extra dimension!

I’m not much of a chocolate cake fan and I generally find brownies too rich, however, raspberries are just the perfect addition to brownies – they really cut through the richness. These brownies are definitely a treat – just try not to think about the amount of sugar, butter and chocolate in the recipe! They are very simple to make but do be careful of adding the eggs too early – you need to allow the melted chocolate mix to cool, otherwise the eggs will cook in the heat of the chocolate!

In the past, I have found brownies tricky – getting the outside crisp and the inside set but gooey! This gave me the perfect opportunity to dig out a baking tray that I hadn’t yet used (bought on impulse when Lakeland had a 3 for 2 offer on their baking tins!) – a Lakeland individual tray bake tin. A quick spray of cake release spray over the tin and it was ready to go. There was a reasonable amount of mixture that wouldn’t fit into the tray, and so I used this to fill some mini loaf cake cases and just popped these into the oven at the same time.     

As the brownies were in the individual traybake tin, I decided to reduce the baking time by 5 minutes and this turned out to be perfect – the brownies came out crisp on the outside and gooey inside – perfect! I left them to cool for a while in the tin and then eased them out and onto a cooling rack.

I wrapped these in clingfilm and popped them in a box and into the post for my friends. Annoyingly, despite paying first class postage, they didn’t arrive until 6 days later. She claimed that they were still delicious, however, whether they truly were, whether she was being kind, or whether she was in that early motherhood, sleep deprived state that meant that any cake was good cake, I’m not sure!  The one that I had, a couple of days after baking, was really tasty and a really good texture! I’ll definitely be making these again!   

Chocolate and raspberry brownies

Ingredients

1. 200g dark chocolate, broken into chunks
2. 100g milk chocolate, broken into chunks
3. 100g white chocolate, broken into chunks
4. 250g pack salted butter
5. 400g soft light brown sugar
6. 4 large eggs
7. 140g plain flour
8. 50g cocoa powder
9. 200g raspberries

Method

1. Heat oven to 170C.
2. Line a 20 x 30cm baking tray tin with baking parchment OR spray an individual traybake tin with cake release spray.
3. Put the dark and milk chocolate, butter and sugar in a pan and gently melt, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.
4. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
5. Stir the eggs, one by one, into the melted chocolate mixture.
6. Sieve over the flour and cocoa, and stir in.
7. Stir in half the raspberries and half of the white chocolate chunks, scrape into the tray, then scatter over the remaining raspberries and white chocolate.
8. Bake on the middle shelf for 30 mins (25 if you are using the individual traybake tin) or, if you prefer a firmer texture, for 5 mins more.
9. Leave in tin to cool before slicing into squares.
10. Store in an airtight container.