Degrees of Failure

I can't decide how I feel about recipes which don't work well the first time. In some ways a spectacular failure is easy to deal with, as I can just forget about the recipe. Despite saying this, I often try a recipe twice, in case I made a mistake first time - that's how I found out that Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Gingerbread recipe does work (goodness knows what I did the first time!).

More difficult to deal with are the recipes which almost work; then I have to decide whether it's worth spending time on getting it right. This is especially true with a recipe I've only tried because it's a way of using up a 'leftover' ingredient. Would I really want to make this cake again? Is it good enough to buy that ingredient specifically for the cake? Is it outstanding compared to similar recipes which I have used more successfully?

This whipped cream cake, from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, by Rose Levy Berenbaum, is a case in point. I only tried it because I had a carton of double cream at it's use-by date, and nothing else to do with it. I'm far too much of a penny-pincher to throw this sort of thing away. The cake was almost there, but there was a layer of denser mixture at the bottom of the cake, as if it hadn't cooked evenly, or had started to separate during cooking. It also sank quite dramatically as it cooled.

So then the questions start; was it because I was only making 2/3 of the mixture? Or because I baked it in a regular pan, rather than a tube pan? Or because I used orange blossom water and orange zest as flavouring, instead of vanilla, which seemed to react with the eggs? Or was it just because the cream was old?

I feel it's worth pursuing this recipe a bit further, as the cake had a really good texture - a fine, close crumb which was moist, but still light, and which suited the delicate flavouring used. Next time though, I will have to follow the recipe exactly before I start making alterations.

I almost managed to disguise the sunken top of this cake with a small amount of chocolate glaze, made by melting 90g plain chocolate with 45g butter and a heaped teaspoon of golden syrup. This went well with the orange flavour of the cake.

Chocolate Flapjack

I recently won a competition set by Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog. The prize was donated by Dorset Cereals, and I was surprised, as well as delighted, to receive 6 x 600g packs of their new chocolate granolas (3 of each variety), plus a hessian shopping bag and a breakfast bowl.

The problem is that the while the granolas are absolutely delicious, they are much richer and more calorific than our usual meagre breakfasts! They are much higher in calories than my husband's Bran Flakes, and I only have a banana for breakfast. This Chocolate Granola contains over 19% sugar and 30% fat! Much of this is explained by the 14% plain chocolate and 10% coconut, but, as we are both prone to gaining weight too easily at this time of our lives, we just can't eat afford the calorie intake of eating them for breakfast.

The answer is to use them as desserts, and to bake with them. Occasional desserts and one portion of my baking is factored into our daily intake, so we are just replacing like with like here! (Well, it makes sense to me!) A spoonful or two sprinkled over yogurt makes a delicious mid-week dessert, and my first foray into using them in baking produced this delicious chocolate flapjack. I based the recipe on my usual flapjack recipe, but altered the amounts of the ingredients to compensate for the amounts of sugar and fat already in the granola. I also used some raw oats, which I thought would be more absorbant than the granola and would help bind the mixture together.

The result is a slightly crisp but still chewy flapjack which is really tasty and definitely too tempting! The only improvement I could think of, to make it even better for chocoholics, is to add 100g of chocolate chips to the mixture - the chocolate in the granola is spread evenly over the cereal clumps, not in discrete pieces. I could probably cut down the butter slightly more without affecting the chewiness or the ability of the bar to hold together well, but we don't make flapjacks if we are too worried about healthy eating, do we?

Ingredients

200g butter

100g golden syrup

50g light muscovado sugar

400g Dorset Cereals Chocolate Granola

100g rolled oats

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Line a 30 x 20 cm (12 x 8") baking tin (at least 2.5cm (1 inch)deep) with one piece of baking paper, folding it into the corners, and letting it come slightly higher than the sides of the tin, so that none of the flapjack mixture will touch the tin.

In a large bowl, melt the butter, syrup and sugar together in the microwave, on high. This took just over 2 minutes in my microwave. Then stir in the granola and oats, and mix until evenly blended.

Tip the mixture into the tin and spread evenly, pressing down with the back of a spoon. Bake for 20 minutes. After cooling for 5 minutes, use a sharp knife to cut into squares or bars of a suitable size (I cut into 18 pieces), but cool completely before removing from tin.

Malted Chocolate and Caramel Tart - Take 2

This tart looked, as the saying goes, like a right dog's breakfast! I made a real mess of the topping, which didn't work at all. The only reason I'm even mentioning it here is that I've cracked how to use the malted chocolate filling and dulce de leche together, and the tart tasted wonderful!

The recipe is one of Dan Lepard's, see here, that I've never managed to get right. At the end of my last attempt, I thought that perhaps using the chocolate filling on top of a layer of dulce de leche might work better than trying to 'gently swirl' the caramel mixture Dan uses into the chocolate. So this time, I baked the pastry case blind, and gently spread about 4 heaped tablespoons of dulce de leche onto the hot pastry, before pouring in the chocolate mixture.

This proved to be the right thing to do - but my mistake was trying to gild the lily with a swirl of pure dulce de leche as a topping. This caramelised during baking and sank into the chocolate mixture, leaving a swirly trench on top of the tart. However, the fudgy malted chocolate on top of a layer of dulce de leche worked really well and tasted rich and decadent. Definitely the way to go forward.

Malt Loaf

This isn't like the soft sticky commercial malt loaf which UK readers may be familiar with, but it's just as tasty. It's a dense loaf which needs a lot of chewing, so a small slice is quite satisfying (particularly when spread with butter). Despite the huge amount of sugary substances in the recipe - golden syrup, treacle, malt extract and dried fruit - it does not taste excessively sweet.

This Malt Loaf recipe is an old one from Dan Lepard, which has been revived recently by some of his board members. I used chopped prunes, lard, and a smoked malted bread flour in place of the wholemeal flour in the recipe. My mistake, I think, was to choose a badly proportioned loaf tin, relative to how much the loaf rose, but that did mean I could cut small slices!

Dulce de Leche Brownies

with Pecan Caramel Crumble Topping.

I used this recipe as a guide, but reduced the sugar in the brownie batter a little, as I didn't have unsweetened chocolate, only 85% cocoa solids. I left off the fudge sauce topping, as I wanted a cake, not a sticky dessert. I also took a guess at how much dulce de leche to use, when converting to metric weights. As suggested in the recipe, I needed to add more flour to the crumble topping to get it dry and crumbly enough to scatter. I left out the cinnamon from the brownie batter but put it into the crumble topping.

The crumble topping was very hard after baking, although it seems to have softened a little during storage. The brownies were overbaked when I tested them at the minimum suggested time, so that might have contributed to the crunchiness of the topping too. The brownie part of the recipe was nothing special - it really needs to be richer - but overall these were saved by the nutty caramel crumble topping which gave a good contrast in texture and flavour. With either more chocolate or more dulce de leche in the batter, and a few minutes less cooking, these could become something very good. I guess replacing the reduced sugar would improve the texture too - we live and learn!

Here's my metric weight conversion, if you are interested.

Brownie Mix:
115g 85% plain chocolate
175g butter
200g caster sugar
50g dark muscovado sugar
50g dulce de Leche
3 large eggs
140g plain flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:
80g Dulce de Leche, 60g plain flour, plus more as necessary, 3 tablespoons light muscovado sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 60g pecans, chopped small, 30g melted butter.

White Chocolate Bars with Nuts and Lemon

This will be the last lemon recipe for a while, to the relief of others, as it used the last of the lemon curd I made just over two weeks ago.

This was based on this recipe for White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Brownies, which I've used before, but I made quite a few changes, including inadvertently increasing the sugar by 50%! I intended to use only walnuts, but didn't have enough in stock, so had to change my plans here too.

The result was a dense, moist chewy bar which tasted quite nutty, but surprisingly the lemon flavour was very mild. I wonder if the white chocolate somehow masked the flavour of the lemon?

Ingredients

60g butter
150g caster sugar
2 tablespoons water
180g white chocolate - chopped into small pieces
2 large eggs
150g plain flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
large pinch salt
finely grated zest 1 lemon
80g approx lemon curd
90g finely chopped nuts - I used equal amounts of walnuts and hazelnuts

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 160C, and line a 8" square shallow tin with baking paper.

Mix the lemon zest, baking powder and salt into the flour.

Heat the water, butter and sugar together in a medium saucepan until the butter has melted, then remove from the heat, add the white chocolate and stir until it has melted.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the flour mix, followed by the nuts and lemon curd. Stir until evenly mixed.

Pour into the prepared tin and spread evenly. Bake for about 40 minutes, until a tester comes out with a few moist crumbs still clinging.

Cool in the tin, then cut into 16 portions when completely cold.

Lemon Tart 'Amandin'

This is similar to a Bakewell Tart - pastry case, frangipane topping - but I used lemon curd instead of jam. The name comes from the mix of ground nuts I used in the frangipane - a mix of 44% almonds, 44% apricot kernels and 12% hazelnuts, produced by Vahiné and sold in France under the name 'Amandin'. It's said to give a more intense flavour than using almonds alone, and although it's very subtle, I think it does make a difference - many desserts made with ground almonds do not actually taste nutty unless some almond essence is used.

I was so pleased with the way the pastry for Raymond Blanc's Apple Tart turned out that I used the same recipe and method here. Again, it worked beautifully, with crisp pastry and no shrinkage - why has it taken over 30 years of cooking to discover this method?
So - I lined a 23cm(9") diameter fluted flan tin with pastry (following the instructions in the recipe), and chilled until I was ready to cook. Then I covered the base with a generous layer of lemon curd. I didn't weigh this, but estimate I used at least 100g.
I made the frangipane by beating together 100g softened unsalted butter, 150g caster sugar, 100g Amandin mix ground nuts, 50g SR flour and three large eggs.
(I thought about not using any flour, but decided in the end to add a little SR flour to lighten the mixture.)
The frangipane was spread over the lemon curd, then I sprinkled a handful of flaked almonds over the top. The tart was put onto a pre-heated baking sheet and cooked at 200C for 20 minutes, then the heat was lowered to 180C and the tart baked until it was deep golden in colour and firm to the touch. I got distracted with other kitchen chores, but I estimate this took about another 30 minutes! The frangipane puffed up as it cooked, but sank down again as it cooled.
Serve at room temperature with whipped cream, custard or whatever you fancy!