Travelling to St. Louis and Gooey Butter Cake

Now that went well, did it? Rather not! Or did it? Anyway, a lot depends on your attitude. As to that I rather have a negative one, although I am trying my best  to get rid of it. On that thought, as long as you are still alive and well, you should be happy and consider things to be well.
As to the global picture ... well, this isn't the place nor the time to expound this. After all, this blog isn't called "Problems Around the World", but rather "Cooking Around the World". For that, right here, right now, I am not available for talking about what is going on in this crazy world ... and I don't mean good crazy.
Talking about good crazy would bring us a bit closer to the style of this blog. You haven't read anything good crazy lately around here. Well, that's not my fault, is it?
That won't get us anywhere, looking for the guilty one, who's fault it is. Rather we want to look ahead and concentrate on getting out something positive.
On that note, let me ask about your opinion regarding butter. Do you like it? How would you care for extensive use of it in a cake and then ... call it gooey butter cake?
I don't know about you, but for my ears this has a quite positive ring to it
Now it seems that the US city of St. Louis, Missouri, seems to be a bit famous for its gooey butter cake. Well, there is only one way to find out about it. Does this already sound like bullwhip and fedora hat again to you?
So come along as we not only cook (or rather bake) around the world, but as we actually travel around the world ...

Going French with Rillettes and Fougasse

Some weeks ago I was very much in the mood for cooking some French food and improve my knowledge in that cuisine. Well, apart from the option to look things up on the net, I have a few books on French cooking. One of it is The Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo. It's a lovely book and the recipes work excellently. I selected some of them and worked myself through them during a week.
I like to share some of the results with you today as France is also playing Switzerland in the World Cup today. However, I will not share all of them, I need to reserve a bit for later.
Therefore today I like to concentrate on two things: Rillettes au porc and Fougasse aux romarin, avande et from age du chèvre.

 First to the rilletes with pork. If you find the right shop you most probably can by it ready in a jar. However, it's so simple and worth a try. You need pork belly, some bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper and some time. It goes into the oven for 3 hours at 130 °C. Afterwards you can easily shred the pork (rind cut off) and jar it up and eat it with some lovely homemade bread and a glass of red wine.
If you care to make a mess in your oven you can throw the cut off rind under the grill and let them get crispy. Great, you get a crispy, fatty snack, hear some crackling sounds from your oven and get the chance to clean your oven.
Guess what I did ...

I just wanted to test some pork cracklings, too.
Anyway, I enjoyed the rillettes most of it together with the fougasse and the red wine.

Sure, you need some time as well to make the fougasse, but hey, it's all so lovely. What I liked about this fougasse version was, that it included lavender and goat's cheese.
You make a yeasty dough with 10 g dried yeast, 400 g flour, salt, dried rosemary, dried lavender and olive oil.
Then, you know, there is some kneading involved, rising, proving and all that lot, yes shaping. Apart from that we need to fit in the goat's cheese. Push pieces of 80 g of firm goat's cheese into the bread before you let it rise for the last time after the shaping.
The bread needs about 20 minutes at 210 °C in the oven. 
The end result is lovely. So, if you want to try it, you either have to try it as it is or have a look at the book or ask for further details.

Now you get also a closer look at the bread. I enjoyed it very much. So, do you like to have a bite?

If you like to have this ready for the football match today, I have to inform you, that you better have to hurry. Otherwise ... you need to have something else.

I add this to our ever increasing collection of posts for the World Cup 2014 and Bloggers Around the World.

Life, Darkness, Randomness, Chocolate ... Apple Shortcake with Chocolate Chip Cream

I made it to the weekend again. Pah ... what's the use of it, nothing is ever going to happen. Fine, yes, fine, you are right ... then you have to make it happen yourself ... and so I did. The evening had already advanced a bit and so I took my bike for a right around town ... village ... hamlet ... whatever. You can imagine that would be quite some fun ... darkness ... winter ... bicycle-tour ... idiot me! First I went down the way past the office and after that unknown territory when it comes to the bicycle. Luckily I had my cap and gloves along. On the minus side I didn't bother to take my glasses along. Not seeing where you are going with the bike can give you some kicks of adrenaline from time to time. Anyway, the route went up and down, the little dog wasn't hit by a bicycle and the fact that I am writing things here right now proves that things didn't go that bad after all.
I reckon, even stupid exercise at night would entitle me for a sweet treat today ...
Ah, I need something anyway ... 

Besides all that I already had planned to join two lovely blog challenges this month ... Random Recipes and We Should Cocoa. In fact they have morphed into one challenge kind of for this very month of February. You will see ...

Lord of the Cupcakes ... Peanut and Bacon Cupcakes

As strangely as you know me, I had an idea for a blog post. It was supposed to go somehow like this ...

Three Cupcakes for the gluten-free under the sky.

Seven for the chocolate-lovers in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to eat,

One for the Dark Baker in his dark kitchen

In the Land of Sugar where the Calories lies.

One Cupcake to rule them all,

One Cupcake to find them,

One Cupcake to bring them all,

and in the sweetness bind them

In the Land of Sugar where the Calories lie.

Well, well, well, that was about the idea. Logically there were supposed to be baked goods on it. Here we go ...

Now, the question would have been, totally hypothetical, of course,whether that would be the one cupcake for you ...

Indy's Mysterious Daim Chocolate Apple Cake

It's about time again I get out my hat. Indeed, that might be useful in this kind f weather we have at this time of the year. However, it's not just the hat, I'm getting out and it's for a totally different reason ...

... it's for baking! There are still so many baking adventures out there, I better get going for it and get in the right frame of mind for it. So, I take my bullwhip and whip up some kind of mysterious cake ... with Daim chocolate and apples ...

Are you ready for the adventure?

Still Plums - Plum Jam and Plum Muffins

Faithfully I keep on using those plums and ... keeping you posted about what you could do. I also checked my cookbooks on what possibilities where available. Well, In fact I only have five books available. All the others are in boxes waiting for a new place to be put.
So, what cookbooks would you keep, if you only could keep five?
To be honest, I just selected four, the fifth one (Tasting India by Christine Manfield) was buried somewhere on my desk and I didn't notice. 
Which four books did I choose then? Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver, Bills Sydney Food by Bill Granger, The Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo and Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking ... Scandilicious by Signe Johansen.
Did they have anything with plums on offer for me?

Catch my Drift - Surfer Cake

Have you seen the 2012 Australian movie Drift? Well, it's about surfing and ... hm ... also about courage and the will to survive against all odds.
Hm, at least the last part is fitting: "survive against all odds". So far I am doing good. About surfing, no I can't do it. No matter which direction I choose, there is no coast nearby, where I could even think about learning to surf. No, not the internet, that's not so much fun.
Anyway, doing some kind of sports in the water would be good for me, I suppose. Unless ...

Maybe I really should think about a change of location some day ... at least one can dream. Yes, it has been there for already quite some time. That could be a reason, why I watch such movies.
Anyway, we are not here for surfing today, but for baking. I hope, you catch my drift on that cake ...

Failure? Blue Cheese Chocolate Cake

"Sorry seems to be the hardest word". True, it is not so easy to say "sorry". Maybe it's also due to the fact that it is not so easy to admit a failure. There is rather the tendency to blame things on others or on bad circumstances. Nobody is happy to take the blame.
When was the last time you admitted a fault or a failure? You can't remember? No worries.
I guess we are having some chocolate cake first of all.

Seafood Diet - Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight

Have you ever heard someone say: "I only have to look at food and I put on weight."? That totally applies to me. If I see food, I put on weight. Maybe that's due to the diet I am on ... kind of. It's a seaefood diet. Of course, if I see food, I am going to eat it. I'm not having it as decoration. Along that line, the following will do a devastating job. This wasn't a reference to it not being decorative. Let someone else judge. We are talking of putting on weight and my Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight.

It has it all ... lots of sugar, cream, butter and of course chocolate. They will do their part. No doubt about it.
In a previous post, I had a Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake. I warned you beforehand the quest isn't over yet and we have to tread further upon that path. You might notice that the recipe is quite similar, but then also different.
Let us speak no further about ... eh ... things. So, without any further ado I bring you my Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight.

Ingredients (he he he ... you see what I mean):
200 g flour
100 g brown sugar
200 g melted butter
100 g rolled oats
300 g sugar
50 ml water
100 ml cream
100 g hazelnuts
200 g dark chocolate
50 g butter

Method (not listening to any kind of warnings):
Have you compared it to the previous recipe and noticed the changes already? No? I show you now ... kind of.
First we go for the base with the flour, brown sugar, melted butter and the rolled oats (which are new here). Do a thorough job in putting these together for the dough. Press the base into a cake tin that is prepared with baking parchment. I used a round cake tin, but will use a rectangular one next time.
Bake the base for 20 minutes at 180 °C. After that you might think about allowing some time for it to cool down. A good thing, we are not going to use the oven anymore in the course of this recipe. We did so last time, though.
While that cooling business is going on, we devote our time to what has to be done: the caramel. Put the 300 g of sugar together with the water on the heat. Hopefully it will just go brownish without burning. Allow time for some patience. In the rare case you don't have it, learn it. That's a useful quality you will need again and again in life.
Don't burn the caramel. Before that happens, add the hazelnuts and the cream. You will love that noise, when the cream hits the burning hot caramel. 
Make sure it all mixes well and looks thick. In case it doesn't so right away, I guess you can not avoid, but have to let it on heat and stir it a bit. At one point, though, it should be enough. Things only need a certain amount of stirring. It's like in real life.
Now you should pour the caramel onto the cake base ... if we want to call it a cake. Oh ... it was the original plan, but ... just read on ...
Should I say now: "Allow time for cooling."? Eh ... no ... I don't like to say it. We have work to do. After all we want the Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight. Nobody is going to help me finish the job after all.
At this very point our attention is drawn to some beautiful and yet inconspicuous dark chocolate. We need some heat again. I have my special way to melt chocolate and you for sure have your own. So don't let us talk further about it. Fine, I only need to mention that you melt the chocolate together with 50 g of butter.
Once you get this shiny liquid chocolate ready, let it cover the caramel. I would say now: "Allow ...", but ... just make sure the chocolate gets solid again. A fridge might do the trick.

Now have a closer look at this. From what you see, it might be some kind of cake. Let us get our weapon ready and attack it by cutting out a slice.

Well, it tastes great. For me this is my Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Delight. I will try no further in that direction. I'm going to use my time for other food endeavours. What about cheese and chocolate now? Or maybe some other kind of food that will not be so quick in aiding you in putting on more weight. Whatsoever, I will see ... you will see ... we will see.
Back to the original topic.
However, I would not so much eat this as a cake, but rather as a kind of Caramel Chocolate bar. Or just have it as small rectangular slices like shown in the first photo. That way maybe we are not completely lost when we see it ... and consequently eat it - seefood diet! I don't know what you expected when you read the title. Another option would have been: Seafood diet: eat everything, but seafood.

Clueless ... Bánh Mì? ... Asian Baguette with Omelette

I have no clue ... therefore I must be clueless so to speak. One of my teachers once said: "You can be stupid, you only need to find a way." Easier said than done, though ... if you are clueless. I would need some kind of a plan. Should I not manage, things will simply keep flowing in uncertain ways. Do you have a clue what I am talking about?
How, if I'm already clueless. Anyway, I found some photos on my computer. I took them a few weeks ago. Now I need to figure out what they were for or how I did things in order to present you something worthwhile.
Here we are then ...

Now that you could call Bánh Mì, a Vietnamese sandwich or baguette. Right away, I have to be honest that I never had a real Bánh Mì so I have no clue what it is supposed to be like. When I was in London, I went to City Càphê to had a try.
Unfortunately, I came to late and they had ran out on Bánh Mì. I had to eat something differently and still went on without any practical knowledge about Bánh Mì. Then I had no further chances to have a try.
If you start digging for information you will find out that Báhn Mì, the Vietnamese baguette was influenced by the French colonial time.
Well ... "You can be stupid, you only need to find a way."
I had rice the day before or even the day before that day. There were leftovers. So here comes the stupid idea ...
Why not have rice in the dough of the bread.

Ingredients:
350 g strong baking flour
100 g cooked rice
1,5 tsp salt
4,5 tsp yeast
200 - 300 ml lukewarm water

Method (if ... that is a big IF you want to call it so in this clueless case):
The flour goes into a large bowl.
Our attention moves right away to the cooked rice. It was in the fridge before that a day or two. Ah ... toss it  into the blender with a bit of water and then ... go. Try to blend it as good as it gets.
Add the salt and yeast to the flour.
Our attention moves back to the rice. It has to join the flour as well. Additionally we add as much water as it needs to do the job. Use your fine hands to knead the dough and form it into a ball. Let it rest for ten minutes and then knead it for 15 minutes, knowing you save the money for going to the gym, too.
Let the dough rise for 45 minutes. Then separate the dough into four party and form some flat longish objects, which will be left alone and covered with a wet towel for 20 minutes.
Now fold the four objects together to make them look more roundish. Maybe you can extend them lengthwise a bit, too.
Place them back to rest for another 35 minutes in a way where the folding edge is at the bottom side ... just use your imagination.
Transfer the baguettes to a baking tray. Slash them at the top a few times with a sharp knife and bake them for 20 minutes at 230 °C. At the beginning spray the oven with a bit of water for the crust.

In my humble opinion, the baguettes looked and tasted nice afterwards.
The rice didn't do any harm. But did it do any good? Well, I can say they tasted a bit different from the ones without rice. I was satisfied, although still clueless.
Now we still need something to fill the baguette.
A simple omelette will do. For that we just use three eggs, a bit of salt, one or two finely chopped red chillies and a hand full of coriander. After all we don't want to complicate things. Therefore mix the egg with the salt and the chilli and do your omelette in the pan as you are accustomed to do, if you are.
Obviously you have to cut the baguette open, fill it with the omelette and add the coriander to give it the final touch.
And then?
I reckon, you have to eat it. 
Taste?
I liked it. I might be clueless, but I still know what I like taste wise. Apart from that I know something else. Once more, I managed my leftovers not go to wate. With that in mind I like to add this post to Credit Crunch Munch by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours & Camilla from Fab Food 4 All. The trick, though, this time it is hosted by the wonderful Anneli from délicieux. Go, have a look and start having fun with some lovely entries there.

That's it! I'm through, done and at my wits' end. There is nothing much left to say.
Now I need to continue looking for a plan in order to get back on what track I'm supposed to be ...

Fresh from the garden to the oven: Rhubarb Cardamom Crumble Cake

When I started my tiny garden patch I set out to do some experimenting (always the same) with this and that. You don't have to think to hard that this would not deliver much food for a lot of dishes. I tried potatoes once and ... had just enough for one small potato salad. I had beans. Well ... eh ... I didn't even get as many as to count the years of my life so far with. I just got 37. Whatever I am going to do with them. I still don't know.
Of course there are some herbs growing in that garden patch. I can have thyme any time I want. Right now it is flowering and the chives as well. Then I got lavender, rosemary, oregano and at the moment a bit of coriander. The mint refuses to die. On a regular basis it disappears at the end of the year only to return the following year.
Strawberries! Yes, there are strawberries, too. Now you imagine it is quite cramped on my tiny garden patch with so many different things growing, but ... well ... eh ... there are only quite few strawberries and I can have one or two when I check the garden.
Last year, though, I acquired a rhubarb plant. By the end of the year I had the feeling I managed to kill it, but this spring it was growing well again. I guess, it's still rhubarb season or it will end soon. However, this rhubarb plant is really doing a good job. I wasn't just able to eat once from it. No, not even just twice. Careful thinking brings me to five times and I could still live with it to take something from it a sixth time. The rhubarb is really doing a good job. One job, it accomplished quite well, a cake ... a Rhubarb Cardamom Crumble Cake.
I got some stalks fresh from the garden and then ...

Ingredients:
4-5 stalks of rhubarb, cut into chunks
1 tbs fruit sugar
1 tsp cardamom
125 g butter, soft or softer or even melted
125 g sugar
1 tbs vanilla sugar
4 eggs
250 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
125 g butter
90 g sugar
100 g flour

Method:
Mix the rhubarb chunks with the fruit sugar and cardamom.
Then prepare the dough. Cream the eggs with the 125 g sugar and vanilla sugar. Add the soft butter and flour and combine to make the dough for the cake. Spread it on a baking tray prepared with baking parchment.
Start heating up the oven to 180 °C.
Distribute the rhubarb on top of the dough on the baking tray.
Now make the crumbles with the remaining butter sugar and flour. Put it all in a bowl and massage it together with your finger tips. If you enough of the massage for the crumble you might want to get someone to give you a massage. Maybe you manage. However, wait for that until you have crumbled the crumbles over the rhubarb on the cake.
Put the tray into the oven for 30-40 minutes. You know when the cake is ready.
While the cake is in the oven it might be an ideal opportunity to get that massage I just previously mentioned. Sometimes I like to administer a massage, but it's quite difficult to do that properly on my own shoulders. No worries. There are some things to endure and to live with. Massage also has only a relative value, though it was quite beneficial for the crumbles. 
Speaking of it, don't forget that your cake is ready. Remove it from the oven and plan to eat it ... enjoy it.

At the time I was doing this cake I asked around on the net what to do with rhubarb. By the way, what is your favourite way of having rhubarb?
I got one nice response of doing a crumble with rhubarb and apples. I had to try, too. Maybe I find time to let you know about the results. Of course only, if you appreciate that ... really?! 
Finally, before I devote myself to do other things I leave this post for Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays. After all the rhubarb went just from the garden to the oven. Well, you read how I treated it nicely in between.

Originally, I wanted to add this post to the Simple and in Season blog event from Ren Behan. She mentioned the challenge opens at the 1st of every month, but I couldn't find the post to enter it. Now I found out the post was open a bit later. So I hope, it's still fine to enter.

Take care!

Really! Honestly!

I hope you are doing well and enjoy life to any extend possible and decently. 

Treat the people around you nicely, especially those you love. For you don't know how long you still have them around and can do this.

Sometimes you get just one chance to do things right ... so make sure not to mess it up.

Hope to see you again with some sun on the face and in the heart ...

Christine & Christian: Episode 8 - It's all about Bread

Are you a bread lover? Then for sure you won't mind that it's all about bread today. I am a bread lover! Some fresh bread can make me happy ... at least until I have eaten it all up. Right this very minute while I am writing these words I have some experimental bread baking going on ... wait the next stage is calling ...
...
I'm back. However, that bread experiment was not what I was going to talk about today. Maybe another time. It just depends on the outcome. So far things are looking fine, but you never know.
After all we are still with India and Tasting India. Fine then! What Indian breads do you know?
Naan. Very good. That would have been the first one coming to my mind before I started this Christine & Christian project. I already had some homemade naan bread in the course of this.
In case you have read this series regularly you might have read something about puffed puri breads already. So, puri is another one.
Next, chapati may come to your mind. According to Tasting India it is "The staple flatbread of India, this is served with every meal just about everywhere." So far I didn't have it with every Indian meal I tried in my project. Then it's about time I have it at least once.

Here I had it with a Ladhaki chicken curry. For the bread you just need wholemeal flour, a bit of salt and water. You easily can see why it is the staple flatbread of India. The only downside, when you compare it with naan, is that you have to cook each bread separately. So it takes considerably more time to make more than a few of them. Anyway, if you are doing it for just one or two persons, it's absolutely alright.

A closer look at the Ladhaki chicken curry. I could have used a tiny bit more of spices, but otherwise it was fine. I enjoyed it very much with the chapati. From now on I'm going to have chapati more often with my Indian meals. Now I also remember chapati from when I was a bit younger ... eh ... yes, more than a decade ... I had chapatis a few times at the place of my friends from Kenya. So, everytime I'm going to have some chapatis it will bring up good memories and ... sad ones, too. However, you can't change the past!
There is another wonderful flatbread I had a go at and that you wouldn't want to miss: roti. It's similar to chapati, but it's a little  softer and richer than it. You don't use water for it, but milk and it contains also egg and ghee. You already see what this will do?
Since it is so lovely, there is no harm in having it with just a simple tomato chutney.

I was satisfied with that meal. Well, flatbreads don't look so spectacular on it's own, but have a closer look at the tomato chutney. By the way, it is a Nepalese flatbread.

It doesn't look spectacular on it's own either. So, no worries. I only can say, it tasted very delicious anyway. Apart from that, now it makes me think again about the past, since I know also quite a few people from Nepal. That was a good time, too. It's good to have some nice memories.
Well then, do you know any other Indian breads?
There are many more: Parathas, Luchi, Bhatura, Rumali, Kulcha, Dosa, Idli, Pathiri, Pappad and who knows what more. You see, there is still much more to learn and to try.
The breads I tried to do so far where not so complicated or difficult, especially when you compare it with the French bread I have been trying ... or my current experiment.
Since it is all about bread today, what is you favourite bread? How do you like to eat your bread? 
At least for me it would be even more difficult to go without bread than having a life without cheese. Now, I don't want to have this post turn again into a sad occasion. I'll better keep those things to myself.

From the Cake Lab: Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake

I should have used cashews. That would have made the whole thing a CCCCC - a Cashew Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake. However, now we deal with it as things are. Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake is just fine. Anyway, the hazelnuts are doing a fab job. I simply had to do it. There was this experimenting mood again. That good spirit, which brings me into a good mood and sometimes something lovely to eat. Let's see whether it worked out this time again.

Ingredients:
200 g whole wheat flour
100 g brown sugar
200 g melted butter
100 g chopped hazelnuts
500 ml chocolate custard
300 g sugar
50 ml water
50 g butter
200 ml cream
A splash brown rum

Method:
I'm trying to combine a few things I read or saw elsewhere. You have to get some ideas somehow.
We start with the base of the cake. Mix the flour with the brown sugar, melted butter and the chopped hazelnuts. You still might try to use cashews, if you like. I won't try. That's not because I don't like cashews, but ... I ... eh ... did something else.
Get yourself the usual round cake tin, lightly oil it and then put in some baking parchment. If you want to make even more sure, oil the baking parchment as well. You never know.
Press the base of the cake onto the baking parchment in the cake tin. It's best not to be fussy and use your hands and just go for it. Level it out all evenly and chuck the tin into the pre-heated oven and bake it for 20 minutes at 180 °C. By the end of that you should have some chocolate custard ready.
Cover the base of the cake with the chocolate custard ad return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

Now it's time for a break. Let the cake cool down completely. That may take a while ...
Just before you think you are ready, we go for the caramel. Somehow I use to make caramel quite often these days. The idea for the following I got during my Christine & Christian adventures and some caramelised bananas. Don't worry, if you wonder what has become of Christine & Christian. It will continue.
However, back to our cake business. We start with the sugar and the water in a pot with high heat. Patiently watch the bubbling and sizzling until the sugar caramelises and starts to turn brown. At this point pour in the cream and the rum. Then throw in the butter and start stirring. Do that for a while until things have calmed down a bit. Reduce the heat to medium for that.
Continue to cook until the caramel something slightly thickens. Are you ready? Pour he caramel sauce kind of thing over the chocolate custard on the cake and spread it out.

It went slightly a bit different as I had imagined. The caramel went solid quite quickly. So working with a spatula wasn't really satisfying.
Cutting the cake into pieces wasn't that easy either. The cover cracks quite easily. You can imagine that a piece of cake has quite some energy in it, for which you really need some time to burn it or use it up. Gladly I hadn't to eat the cake all by myself. I could spread the love and share.
What were the reactions? Delicious, lovely, disgusting. Well, the disgusting part was only because the slices were cut so large and you really can not manage to eat a whole giant piece of that cake. Well, I can, but not everyone is that strong.
In other words the cake is quite sweet. If you like that, then you need a Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Cake. Whatsoever! Although I liked the cake, I wasn't finished yet with achieving my ultimate caramel delight. 

The quest still goes on. Therefore watch out for more cake experimenting from the cake lab. In fact I have been doing quite some baking lately. So I guess you have to manage with a few more cakes. 
If you have any caramel suggestions for me, I'm happy for it! See thee!

It's useless to resist - Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ...

... "It's useless to resist." ...

... "I am your father!" ...

... "No, no, that's not true. That's impossible!"

CUT! CUT!

Let's start over: A few weeks ago in a small, normal kitchen ... It's useless to resist. No, not the dark side. No, rather the dark chocolate of those Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies. I'm your cookie. Yes, it is true, it is possible. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Just have a look at the list of ingredients first and you will see ...

Ingredients (get them and join):

200 g icing sugar

200 g butter

25 g cocoa powder

60 g macadamia nuts, chopped up

300 g flour

100 g dark chocolate, broken or cut into chunks

Method (no tricks, no nonsense):

Carefully melt the butter in a large saucepan. Then take it from the heat and stir in the sugar and the cocoa powder.

Add the macadamia nuts and incorporate them as well.

It's time for the flour then. Sift it in if you like or ... just go for it.

Finally give in to your feelings and use the chocolate chunk to make the cookie dough complete.

Did I say finally? Well, must have been for the cookie dough. 

Almost there! 

We only need to put small pieces of the dough on baking trays that have baking parchment on them and then put the whole lots of them into the oven for 15 minutes at 180 °C.

After a bit of cooling down ... for the cookies ... but if preparing them was too much hard work for you, you might cool down as well.

Said and done! Now it's useless to resist those lovely Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies.

On the other hand you might reconsider your strategy. While Wookies might pull out the arms of innocent droids when they loose, you might let the cookies win anyway, but they might change something in connection with your body, if you eat them all at once on your own ... Don't ask!

Well, as far as I can see it, it's May the 4th. Does this have anything to do with Star Wars? Or with cookies? 

Don't have a bad feeling about this. Remember, if you go and make those cookies now, the 4th will be with you ... always!

Alternatively, you can put the cookies into your cookie jar and eat responsible. Well, this month's Tea Time Treats from Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked is about that Eh, not necessarily about eating responsibly - we are doing that anyway ... most of the time - but the theme is rather: The Biscuit Tin and Cookie Jar! Biscuits and Cookies. So for sure you find also some alternatives as to cookies at Lavender and Lovage, who is hosting Tea Time Treats this very month.

So ... have a look around and join forces for that ...

Bookmarked Recipe: Chocolate Guinness Cake

You know and I know it as well, that you don't have as much time as you would like to have to read through all the interesting blog posts around and read also new blogs. At times I read only those catching my interest already with the title.
The next step: trying things you read on other blogs. While I wouldn't limit it to those, the recipes I tried - on the average - where mostly those that contain chocolate in some form. Tricky!
There were times I even managed to try a recipe that I have just read. So, it's like going from computer to kitchen and go for it. That's good.
Sometimes, though, things are not that easy. A recipe I would have tried right away was the Chocolate Guinness Cake, JibberJabberUK wrote about.
When I first read it, I was short of one ingredient. So the cake would have looked like that ...

Looking like that wouldn't be a problem in itself, but I wanted to go for the whole thing. 
Due to this, I first had to get some cream cheese. Obviously, without it the cake wouldn't be complete.
Some people to whom I talked about a chocolate Guinness cake shrank back at the thought of beer in a cake. However, for those experimenting regularly in the kitchen and not being afraid of trying new things, you know that it works perfectly and gives a rich intense chocolate flavour. I liked that.
Now back to the baking. As I was shopping for food one day, I remembered I need cream cheese. So I bought a pack. 
Finally I was getting ready to do the cake. Proper planning and shopping would have been better. I didn't have the yogurt mentioned in the recipe. What now? I replaced it with milk that got a splash of lemon. I thought that might do the trick. I didn't notice anything negative afterwards.
The other fact hitting me was, that while I got some cream cheese, it was just a little bit of half what I needed. Consequently the cake ended up like this ...

I got a bit of icing training, but somehow it should have been more. No matter how it looked like now, it was absolutely worth trying that recipe. So, why don't you head over to JibberJabberUK and try it, too.
As we have come nearly to the close of this post I add it to the April Bookmarked Recipes over at Tinned Tomatoes.

For sure there will be more recipes worth trying ...

The Show must go on - Fougasse de Chocolat et Fraise

Maybe you have been hearing me talking about cooking through a complete book with all it's recipes. As far as I noticed I have been talking about it since I started the blog and ... it hasn't materialised. But ... I might start one day!
On the other hand, if you have read posts on this blog also in the last year, you might have noticed that I started to bake myself through a book, namely Secrets of a French baker. I haven't even finished that. In fact, I haven't done much for it, either. However, it's mostly bread in it and each recipe takes several hours to complete. It's good exercise, though, because a lot of kneading is involved. 
It happens to be the case at times, that I like to join blog challenges. There is an ongoing one done by Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked. It's called Tea Time Treats. This month Lavender and Lovage is hosting and ... très bien ... the them is: Ooh La La! French Tarts, Cakes, Bakes and Pastries.

That is a perfect opportunity to let the show go on and do another recipe from that book: Fougasse. That is a kind of bread with a lovely filling. While the book is suggesting 7 different savoury fillings I decided to go for sweet one with chocolate spread and strawberry jam. I would have loved to add some fresh strawberries from the garden, but obviously it isn't the time yet.
Somehow I managed to do something wrong while preparing the bread, but I don't take the blame all on myself. The recipe - strangely - didn't state what to do with two ingredients and as I didn't bother to think about the recipe and simply went step by step, well, I didn't use the one tbs of soft butter and 3 tbs of milk powder.
I only did as follows:
Sift 225 g of strong baking flour and 225 g of spelt flour together with one and a half tsp of salt into a bowl. Then added a sachet of dried yeast and added bit by bit 240 ml of lukewarm water. I used a hand mixer to ... eh ... mix it. Then I used my hands to make a solid ball of dough. I left it on the kitchen work surface for 10 minutes and did something else.
I did my exercise by kneading the dough for over 15 minutes.
Then I carefully made a half flat half ball kind of object and placed the dough like this into the bowl, covered it with a wet kitchen towel and left it for 45 minutes. I went to do something else. Can't remember what!
I might have read something or just checked things on the computer, but who knows or cares.
I took the dough again and divided it into two balls, which I placed one a floured kitchen towel and covered with the other still wet kitchen towel and left the dough again for 25 minutes, while doing something else. In between I noticed I forgot to roll the bowls in coarse sugar. So I tried to fix it and continued  to wait for the 25 minutes to end.
Now I started to heat up the oven to 220 °C. The two dough balls were flattened and stretched to two rectangular dough pieces.

On one side of each rectangular dough piece I smeared first some chocolate spread and then some strawberry jam. On the other half I made five incisions respectively. After that the sides with the cuts went over the chocolate jam and I tried my best to seal the bread. Then I transferred the breads to a baking tray and brushed them generously with some egg wash. Finally I sprinkled sugar on top and put the tray for 20 minutes into the oven.

They came out like this. I expected the incisions to be open, but maybe it was better that way so there was no chance for the filling to seep out at all cuts.
First of all I thought to do some arranging and get a nice picture. I put the breads on a wooden chopping board and started thinking ...

... but to no avail. I got no idea on how to do it. Therefore I simply cut them open ...

As you see ... eh ... you see quite some bread and not so much filling. Maybe flattening the dough a bit more and adding more filling would have been something. Nevertheless the fougasses tasted lovely ... maybe that would be something for a chocolate lover.
Well, I'm not promising now, that the show will go on and you find a bread here on my blog every week, but still I will be trying the remaining recipes from that book ... one day ... one day ... in the future.
Oh, well, I have to leave soon for the airport. Just managed to finish the post. Fine, I still have a few more minutes ...

Chocolate Surprise with Vanilla Mascarpone Topping

Do you like surprises? I guess as long as they are of the pleasant kind, who doesn't? Maybe you get a lovely gift from your mate or a friend. Your husband brings home some flowers for you - without you haven given a hint beforehand that he hasn't done so for quite a while now. Something else, you meet someone on the street you haven't seen for ages. Or you get a notification, that you won a price in a contest after you already have forgotten about it. 
What I mentioned last just happened to me. I won a new cookbook in a recipe contest. Well, they had sent the notification in a message via Facebook, but somehow I just got to see it nearly a month later. However, I still got the book.
Now we want to talk about a surprise in connection with a cake I came up with. It happened to be the case that I received some samples from Sugar and Crumbs. They have a wonderful supply for your baking needs.

With a part from these samples I whipped up this Chocolate Surprise with Vanilla Mascarpone Topping. When thinking about what to bake originally it wasn't my intention to use a bit of everything that Sugar and Crumbs had send me in one cake, but it just happened to be. Here is what I got the chance to test: Creamy vanilla icing sugar / plain chocolate blossoms / chocolate orange cocoa powder.

On Sugar and Crumbs they say: "Flavoured Cocoa Powder? At sugarandcrumbs.com we are committed to developing new products for the adventurous bakers! We have developed a UK first flavoured Cocoa Powder which offers you guaranteed flavour consistency for all your bakes and toppings."
Let's get adventurous then ... and on the way you will see where the surprise in the cake is. Go for it ...

Ingredients:
Sweet Pastry:
125 g butter
100 g creamy vanilla icing sugar (or just icing sugar)
A pinch of salt
250 g plain flour
2 egg yolks
2 tbs cold milk

Chocolate filling (the surprise):
100 g dark chocolate
50 g butter
50 g sugar (optional)
4 tbs chocolate orange cocoa powder (or whatever flavour you desire)
50 g plain flour
2 eggs
2 egg whites (I simply didn't want to store them)

Vanilla mascarpone topping (kind of):
250 g mascarpone
250 g curd cheese
4 tbs creamy vanilla icing sugar

Plain chocolate blossoms for extra decoration

Method:

The sweet pastry is a standard pastry, which you can find for example as well in Jamie Oliver's book The Naked Chef. I simply substituted normal icing sugar with the creamy vanilla icing sugar.
I enjoyed putting the dough together. You already get this lovely vanilla aroma while doing it. First you cream the butter with the sugar and the salt.
Then you get in the flour and the egg yolks and work carefully work it so you get a crumbly mass. Add the milk and somehow manage to get one lump of dough with too much kneading action. Best would be to just push things together, so you get this lump. 
Now I'm sorry to say, we need some time. Wrap the dough in cling film and transfer it to the fridge for one hour. What do you do with one hour? Find out for yourself ...

... the hour is over. You got a round cake tin and lightly oiled it with cooking oil. Fit the dough into the cake tin producing a one centimetre high edge at the wall of the tin. You can get another hour, if you want and put the cake tin with the dough for another hour into the freezer this time. Otherwise you can do this blind baking thing with chickpeas or beans ...

... say you got your tin from the freezer. The oven is hot with 180 °C. You transfer the cake tin to the oven for 12 minutes.
Meanwhile you set your mind on the chocolate filling. In a bowl over hot water melt the chocolate and add the butter, sugar (if you want) and cocoa powder and mix well. Once everything has transformed into a smooth chocolate mass, you can remove the bowl from the heat.
Thoroughly incorporate the flour, eggs and egg whites into the chocolate mass.
The first baking is already done? Good. Get your chocolate mixture onto the cake bottom and bake it for another 35 minutes at 180 °C. Enjoy the chocolate orange aroma while the baking takes place.
Remove the cake from the oven and allow time to cool down. You see, all this is taking quite a while. Will it be worth it? We have to proceed!
Mix the mascarpone, the curd cheese and the creamy vanilla icing sugar together. Oooooohhhhh, this tastes gorgeous!
Don't eat it like this right now, although you could whip such a cream together separately and have it for pudding. Nevertheless, in this case we are using it on top of our cake.
Finally we finish it off with the plain chocolate blossoms. I imagined making these blossoms by myself (which I have done before) with chocolate and a knife. Well, this is not funny. The chocolate starts melting before I'm finished and I always end up eating the unused chocolate. So, it's a very good and convenient thing to have these ready chocolate blossoms from Sugar and Crumbs.

Was all this work worth it? At least I liked it very much. There was a hint of chocolate orange from the cocoa powder - it really did it's job. The greatest punch, though, brought the vanilla mascarpone topping with the creamy vanilla icing sugar in it. 
I could imagine as well taking this chocolate surprise cake to a cake event, if I would get an invitation or get the chance to invite myself.

Now that you have seen the surprise - the well hidden chocolate center of the cake - how did you like it? You can surprise me with some comments about this ...