Festive Desserts

I made two desserts for the Christmas period, as something chocolate is obligatory, but my daughter had also asked for a repeat of Dan Lepard's Mont Blanc Layer Cake.

The Mont Blanc Layer Cake recipe, based on meringue, is far too big for just three of us, particularly as it doesn't keep well, so I made a meringue roulade with only 3 egg whites, filled it with a half quantity of the chestnut and ricotta cream and drizzled melted chocolate over the top.

We decided, on trying the dessert, that although it was delicious, we all preferred the crisper meringue of the original recipe, which gives a better textural contrast with the chestnut cream than the soft meringue of the roulade.

For  the chocolate dessert, I made a half-sized quantity of Delia Smith's Chocolate Truffle Torte, which fitted nicely into a 7" (18cm) shallow cake tin. The only departure from the recipe was to use Amaretto liqueur instead of rum.

My daughter also contributed a batch of mince pies, which has become a tradition now. She uses this Mary Berry recipe, which adds dried apricots to the mincemeat and tops the tarts with grated marzipan.

Limoncello Tart with Amaretti Crumb Base

This dessert was one of  several available over the Christmas period. I made it for Christmas Eve and only two portions were eaten at that meal, so it reappeared on the dinner table for the next couple of days too. I'd been looking for ages for a suitable dessert incorporating some of the limoncello I brought back from Italy in the Autumn, and this proved to be an excellent use for it.

I used this recipe from Proud Italian Cook, as the tart filling seemed particularly easy compared to some I'd found, and I liked the idea of using Amaretti crumbs in the base. I bought a 250g pack of crunchy Amaretti biscuits and used all but the 4 I tried for quality control purposes (!) in the base. I used 125g melted butter, as I would for other biscuit crumb bases, then followed the recipe exactly as written for the filling and cooking instructions.

Once chilled I gave the tart some festive decoration with crystallised lemon zest chopped really finely and some sugar snowflakes. The decoration was meant to form a large star on top of the tart, but this was a little ill-defined, as I couldn't lay the stencil directly on top of the tart because it was too delicate and stuck to anything that touched it, even briefly. I found that out when I tried to cover it with cling-film, which was the reason I needed the decoration in the centre of the tart - I'd originally intended to add a border of the decorations.

The tart filling was wonderful - soft, creamy and quite delicious - almost like lemon curd straight from the jar. I usually prefer my lemon tarts to be sharper than was the case here, but the balance of the lemon flavour and the creamy texture, against the almost bitter Amaretti biscuits in the crunchy crumb crust was just right.

I'm not sure how much extra flavour the limoncello added, compared to using more lemon juice; and I'm not sure if the alcohol would have cooked out in such a short baking time, but I'll definitely be using this part of the recipe again.

Unfortunately, although the crumb crust tasted good, the crumbs hadn't absorbed all the butter and a lot had leaked out during cooking. It also made the texture of the crust a little greasy, although this wasn't bad enough to spoil the overall experience. I think in future I might try using part Amaretti biscuits and part a more absorbent biscuit such as digestives or oat biscuits, and also cutting down on the butter a little. It would also be a good filling to use with a pastry or almond shortbread crust.

The second of my Christmas desserts isn't worth a separate post, as I wasn't able to get any good photographs. I made a pavlova case which I filled with some of this olive-oil based chocolate mousse, then topped with a half quantity of the chestnut and ricotta cream from this Dan Lepard recipe. I was trying to make a more chocolatey, but smaller, version of Dan's Mont Blanc Gateau, and although it was delicious, it failed miserably in the looks department. I filled the pavlova case just before serving, and with hindsight, I should have used a piping bag for the chestnut cream. As there was no natural light by that time, it wouldn't have improved the photographs, but it might have made the dish little more presentable. The pavlova was a little overbaked too, so was pale brown instead of snowy white.

Amaretto Truffle Cake

Christmas tradition in this house dictates that there is always one chocolate dessert. It dates back to when the children were smaller and didn't like the dried fruit in Christmas puddings, cake and mince pies. To be honest, they still don't like much of the traditional stuff, although FB will eat mince pies!

This dessert (based on a recipe from Wicked Chocolate by Jane Suthering) was made from a layer of chocolate truffle mixture set on a genoise sponge base and topped with crushed Amaretti biscuits. The sponge cake was sprinkled with coffee and Amaretto liqueur to add to the flavour.

The sponge base was made by beating 2 eggs and 55g caster sugar together until light and fluffy, then 30g plain flour, 2 tablespoons cocoa and 1 tablespoon cornflour were sifted together and folded in, followed by 25g melted butter. The batter was baked in a 22 cm tin, then cooled and trimmed to fit a 20cm tin. After the sponge was fitted into the base of a 20cm springform tin, it was sprinkled with 2 tablespoons each of strong coffee and Amaretto liqueur

The truffle layer was made by creaming 115g unsalted butter and 115g caster sugar together, then beating in 75g cocoa, 3 egg yolks and 200g crème fraiche. Finally a mixture of  85g plain chocolate melted with 2 tablespoons of milk was stirred in. This was spooned over the base and spread level. The top was sprinkled with 100g crushed crisp Amaretti biscuits before the cake was chilled overnight.

The cake was brought to room temperature before serving, and dusted with a mix of cocoa and icing sugar.

This was a sinfully rich chocolate dessert, with layers of contrasting textures and flavours. The Amaretti biscuits stayed crisp (despite my fears that they would go soggy on top of the truffle),  the sponge was soft and light, and in between was a rich, dense truffle layer. The almond flavoured topping and the coffee and Amaretto flavoured base  both helped to lighten the taste of pure chocolate from the truffle layer, a little.

This dessert is my entry to December's We Should Cocoa challenge. This month, Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog, set the challenge of using chocolate and alcohol together - just right for the festive season. The rules for We Should cocoa are best explained by the host, so have a look here if you think you would like to join in, in future.

Dan Lepard's Chocolate Macaroon Cakes

This was another case of seeing a recipe and wanting to make it immediately! It was a little naughty of me, as the cakes contain butter, but I thought it was quite a small proportion compared to the amount usually in cakes of this type. Of course, there was the double cream too.......

Anyway,  the recipe is published in the March issue of the Waitrose Kitchen magazine as a Mother's Day treat - see here. There's no chance of me getting a Mother's Day treat unless I bake it myself, so why wait? The method is very similar to Dan's much loved Chocolate Custard Muffins, in that a cocoa based custard is made first, to which the other ingredients are added. The topping of crushed Amaretti biscuits was inspired - I love crunchy streusel toppings on cakes and this was an instant way of achieving one. I used 60g of the tiny ratafia biscuit to top twelve buns.

Of course, things rarely go smoothly, and I found I was short of a few muffin cases. I used squares of baking parchment instead, and although I liked the visual effect, working with pieces of paper which don't want to hold their folded shape and keep trying to spring flat again was quite frustrating. Fortunately there were only four of them, or the cake batter might have ended up on the kitchen walls.

The finshed cakes were richly chocolatey, dense and moist. They were unlike either spongey cupcakes or muffins - more like a cakey brownie, or the best sort of rich chocolate cake. The ground almonds in the cake mixture add nicely to the almondy flavour of the topping. This recipe is one to try for those not keen on muffins or over-frosted cupcakes, I think. I'll definitely be making them again for special occasions.

Truffle Torte

One of our Christmas traditions is a chocolate dessert, as one of the choices at Christmas lunch. I don't often have a proper Christmas Pudding, as most of the family prefer other things, but this year we gave in to the mass hysteria and bought one of Waitrose's Heston Blumenthal Hidden Orange Puddings. Sometimes you just have to know what the fuss is about! This was deliciously orangey, as it oozed orange syrup, and the candied orange was a lovely texture to eat, but the pudding part itself wasn't anything special.

For anyone who didn't want to try the Christmas Pudding, and for the few days following Christmas, I made a version of Delia Smith's Truffle Torte, something I've been making occasionally over many years. This year I made 2/3 of the truffle mixture, and set it in a 8" diameter springform tin, on a crumb base made using half digestive biscuits and half crisp Amaretti, crushed to fine crumbs and mixed with half their weight of melted butter. I decorated the top with chocolate flutes, getting them to stick to the top of the truffle mix by melting the flat bottoms with  the back of a spoon heated in a gas flame. I then dusted with cocoa and icing sugar.

Delia doesn't warn you about this, but it is very crumbly and difficult to cut while really cold, and needs about 30 minutes out of the fridge to soften up before serving. This makes it a nicer texture for eating, too.  I forgot to do this, of course, and really struggled to get the first slice out. This is a really rich dessert, and can only be eaten in small slices, but it really allows the true flavour of the chocolate you've chosen to shine through, so needs to be made with a good quality chocolate that you enjoy eating.

Chocolate Chip and Apricot Bars - 'We Should Cocoa' July

However much you like fresh ripe apricots, I'm sure you'll agree that they don't have an awfully intense flavour; they are easily overwhelmed by stronger flavours and really need pairing with something even more delicate for them to shine. For that reason I chose to use dried apricots  for July's We Should Cocoa challenge. This month the challenge to use apricots was set by Chele at Chocolate Teapot. If you would like to join in the challenge of using a specified ingredient in a chocolate product, then the rules can be found on Chocolate Log Blog.

After a rather disastrous attempt at combining apricots and chocolate into a cake, earlier in the month, I had a rethink about the kind of thing I wanted to bake and I decided to make a bar cookie. None of my recipe books, nor an online search, gave me a satisfactory result, and it didn't seem easy to incorporate dark chocolate either. In the end I amalgamated two recipes from 'The Ultimate Cookie Book' by Catherine Atkinson (currently out of print) - one for a shortbread base and one for an apricot filling - and added chocolate chips to the shortbread and an Amaretti crumb topping to the apricots, instead of the nuts used originally. I think that gives me a new recipe, so I'll write it all out here:

Ingredients
Shortbread:
150g plain flour
90g unsalted butter
50g icing sugar
50g plain chocolate (85% cocoa solids) finely chopped

Apricot Filling:
175g dried apricots
250ml water
grated rind of 1 lemon
75g caster sugar
2 teaspoons cornflour

Topping:
75g crisp Amaretti biscuits, crushed to fine crumbs

Method:
Line the base of an 8" square shallow cake tin with baking parchment. If the tin is not non-stick, grease the sides with a little butter.
Preheat the oven to 180C

For the shortbread - either process the cold butter, flour and icing sugar until the mixture begins to come together as a dough, or rub the butter into the flour and sugar mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs and can be squeezed into a dough. Add the chopped chocolate at the end of whichever process you choose and mix in.  Tip the mixture into the baking tin, spread evenly and press down firmly with the back of a spoon. Bake for 15 minutes until firm and just beginning to change colour. Remove from the oven, but leave the oven on for the next stage. Allow the shortbread to cool for a few minutes before adding the topping.

Apricot filling - while the shortbread is cooking, put the apricots and water in a small saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain, reserving any excess liquid. Chop the apricots in a food processor - they need to be quite finely chopped, but not a purée. Return the apricots to the pan and add the lemon rind, sugar, cornflour and 4 tablespoons of the reserved cooking liquid. Cook for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and cool slightly.

To assemble the bars - spread the apricot mixture over the shortbread and sprinkle evenly with the Amaretti crumbs, pressing them lightly into the apricot mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes, making sure the crumb topping doesn't get to darkly browned. Cool in the tin before cutting into bars. I cut into 18 bars, but they were very small!

These bars were really delicious. The dark chocolate and bitter flavour of the Amaretti biscuits balanced the sweetness of the dried apricot filling very well, although the chocolate wasn't a dominant flavour. I was initially dubious that apricots and dark chocolate would suit each other, but they worked together well here. My only disappointment was the shallowness of each layer - the bars needed to be cut very small to keep everything in proportion. Such dainty cookies aren't really my style - or the family's - we needed to eat three or four each to feel we had really tasted them!