Revenge of the Food Blogger - Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate ... #%$?&

Some food bloggers really have the guts to write about lovely, gorgeous, amazing, delicious, mouthwatering, craving-producing food and then you don't have the chance to taste from it. How is that?
Really! How do you feel about this? I'm not longer going to bear this. I have a plan ... REVENGE!!!
For example, just yesterday, I read a post about brownies. Even without linking, the person responsible, would notice right away.
Once more there is no chance to taste those well described brownies. Now, the only thing left to do is ... go and make my own. How hard can it be, if you are a brownie expert ... not!?

I go for it anyway. Where would my revenge be otherwise.
But how do we go about? A list of ingredients would be helpful ...

Ingredients:
150 g butter
200 g chocolate (100 g dark and 100 g daim chocolate)
100 g caramel
50 g cocoa powder
100 150 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
200 g sugar
4 eggs
2 1 tsp sea salt

The way of the revenge:
As you see from the list, there have been some adjustments. I came up with those afterwards. So I went with the original figures.
Melt the butter and chocolate together with the caramel in a bowl above boiling water.
While this is happening, sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder in a different bowl, add the sugar and the sea salt and mix well.
Again separately whisk together the four eggs.
Once the butter and chocolate have melted take them away from the heat and add the eggs. Then add the chocolate-butter-caramel-egg mixture to the flour-baking powder-cocoa powder- sea salt mixture and combine thoroughly.
Said and done! Transfer the darkish brown gooey substance to an appropriate tin lined with baking paper. That's were I lacked sensitivity. I chose the wrong one ... too small.
Anyway, bake it at 180°C for 30 minutes. That should be enough. Not as in my case, I thought afterwards ... 'well, they could go for another 10 minutes'.
Afterwards allow sufficient time for the brownies to cool down and set and if that is not going to help, put them in the fridge for several hours or overnight.
Mine were quite gooey, partly also to the fact of the wrong container for baking in the oven. Apart from that, they were a bit salty as well. So I would advice to use less. Not that I would say, they taste horrible. They still taste good. I can manage with the gooeyness as well.

Maybe they don't work too much as brownies themselves, but they still go as a quite good pudding.
But maybe you want to do things a bit different.
Back to the REVENGE then. What kind of revenge was this? Was the revenge to create something that isn't tasty or isn't looking gorgeous or mouthwatering?
Well, honestly? Forget about this whole revenge thing. I was just kidding. After all sometimes I do just the same thing as I mentioned in the outset, or at least I try. Thank you again, Choclette, for 'letting' me have a try at baking those 'brownies'.
The simple fact is, that so many food bloggers are doing such a great job, whetting our appetite so we are going to try new things, giving us inspiration and ... doing many many more good things. Just go ahead and keep doing this.
I could go on now and mention quite a few bloggers that have just done that, but I already have. So simply have a look at the blogroll, although I don't claim that list to be 99,99% complete.
Whatsoever, what food bloggers inspire you to try things in the kitchen?

Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake

I was thinking ... yes, for a change ... and it came to my mind ... right, I haven't lost it completely ... that there was this lovely blog hop I used to join in once in a while. It is called The Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, in short SABH.
The SABH is presented by Delicieux, The Hungry Australian, Dining With a Stud, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, and 84th & 3rd. I had a look and ... the theme for this month is cake and three veg.
Here I am now, somehow I have to bake a cake with veg in it. The only things that come to my mind are carrots and beetroot in a cake ... that is, a sweet cake. If you have a look at the other blogs later (as would be recommended) you see how inventive others have been.
After some research through various books and taken the ingredients I have at home I came to this: Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake.

Well, lemongrass is used as a herb in the Asian cuisine and you for sure wouldn't call it a veg. What about the veg then? I used carrots. In fact you could call this cake also: Lemongrass-Lime-Ginger-Carrot-Chocolate-Cheesecake.
However, that would not sound as intriguing as the name I came up with friends from the net. I try this cake exclusively for this Blog Hop. I have no experiences with it, as I never did it before. We will see, how things end up. So, let's do Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake. 
Ready, set, bake ...

Ingredients, here they come:
Cake base:
300 g flour
14 g baking powder
Pinch of salt 
1 tbs cocoa powder
50 g brown sugar
100 g of carrots
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger
150 g yogurt
2 tbs of vegetable oil
2 eggs or 4 egg whites

Cheese topping:
400 g cream cheese
100 g sugar
2 eggs
2 tbs milk
1 stalk of lemongrass
Zest of one lime

Chocolate topping:
100 g 25 g of chocolate (I thought I needed more, but I didn't)

How the experimenting went:
First of all we like to concentrate on the cake dough.
I mixed all dry ingredients together in one bowl, that is sifted the flour with the baking powder in, added the brown sugar and cocoa powder, and, not to forget, the pinch of salt.
Then I concentrated on the other ingredients with a different bowl. I put in the yogurt and the oil. Time for grating ...
The carrots and the ginger were grated to the yogurt. The oil and the eggs (or egg whites) joined. A little bit of mixing was due then.
It's time for the contents of both bowls to join forces together. Therefore I added the yogurt mixture to the flour mixture and ... of course ... mixed everything together into a brown and sticky dough.
Already before all that, I had a spring tin form greased. This was ready now to receive the dough ... sometimes, though, I wish afterwards I had used baking paper, but ... I didn't.
With a rubber spatula I tried to level things out and once that was accomplished more or less, the cake went to the oven for 10 minutes at 200°C.

That 10 minutes is exactly the time I wanted to use to prepare the cheese topping.
No need to panic! Really?
We just have to mix all the ingredients for the cheese topping together. Well, not exactly. The lemongrass needs chopping up, as fine as possible. Of course, I didn't forget to grate in the zest of the lime.
10 minutes over. I made it!

I removed the cake from the oven and turned up the heat to 225°C.
Now the cheese topping goes onto the cake ... on top. Oh, oh, it seems quite liquidish. Will it set properly? No worries, we will see.
Back goes the cake into the oven for 15 minutes. Then the heat is reduced to 125°C and the cake stays in the oven for another 30 minutes.

After that the cake needs cooling down and somehow we have to figure out to remove it from the tin without destroying it again ... hard job.
Anyway, I couldn't even wait properly for the cake to cool down. It was getting late. I wanted to eat the cake at a proper cake time ... what nonsense am I talking ... cake time could be anytime.
Whatsoever, I grated some chocolate over the cake. Somehow it melted partways, but i wasn't bothered. After all I had to take some pictures and have cake.

What would you say? Will such a cake taste nice, delicious, wonderful, or whatever good?
It did! You will not be disappointed.
Although now, it was the first time I tried this cake, I can only say, it's worth a try ...

 Now back to the SABH ...

I hope you enjoyed the Hanoi Lemongrass Cheesecake!

For sure you will enjoy the other entries ...

Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu

What is this now? Tiramisu again? Hm … yes, why not!

The Scottish Whisky Cake went down well. I guess I had too much whisky then, or not enough? Whatsoever, one leads to another. All this and fantasising together with some workmates (who enjoyed most of the cake) about what else to do with whisky, the Irish coffee tiramisu came up.

Good then I had all the desired ingredients at home! How about the name?

I was limping between Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu and Killarney Irish Coffee Tiramisu. Apart from Dublin, lush green fields and hills and sheep, these are the places come to my mind when thinking about Ireland. Although staying only brief, these towns stayed in my mind. By the way, there is a nice hotel across the road near Muckross House.

Is maith liom Gaillihm. Galway, the largest city on the west coast of Ireland, is a lovely place. Sometimes it is called the gateway to the rough west of Ireland. From here it’s not far to the Cliffs of Moher and Connemara is also around. 

It's not too far to the Burren national park either. What about a Burren decoration for the tiramisu ... a rough one? Na, I don't know.

You like castles or other ruins? Dunguaire Castle.

Or just cruising along the coast ...

... whatever ...

... time would be missing, if I would start to bubble over with explanations and memories from Ireland. There is some good music coming from Ireland, too, though.

Anyway, we are going to have some Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu, and you are not going to regret it. I didn’t! After all we are not doing a Guinness Tiramisu (imagine that – or better not).

Let’s leave those old ruins alone and let the sheep graze alone on their meadows …

Tar isteach! Suigh sios!

Ingredients:

200 g shortbread fingers (no worries, if you feel it’s rather Scottish)

250 g mascarpone (which would be rather Italian)

150 g double cream

100 ml sweetened hot coffee (maybe two teaspoons of sugar)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

4 more teaspoons of sugar

4 cl of Irish whisky (here we go)

Cocoa powder or grated chocolate (enough – ha ha ha)

Method (more or less):

Good! I hope, I didn’t forget to mention anything. Ah, you won’t notice anyway, if I add it afterwards (it’s not really live blogging now).

Have a medium sized bowl ready (about 20 x 20 cm or a bit smaller). Ha, when a square bowl would be better, I’m using a round one, and the other way around. What’s wrong with me?

Let’s go on! Line the base of your bowl with the shortbread. If your bowl is too small, you have to start a second layer or simply it up the leftover shortbread fingers.

Mix half of the whisky into your coffee and pour it  over the fingers (not yours, but the shortbread ones) get soaked. In the first go, I used the double amount of coffee. This didn’t look right.

Leave the shortbread fingers enough time to drink up as much of the coffee as possible. Use that time to whisk together the mascarpone, double cream, vanilla extract, sugar, and the remaining whisky. Should it still be too thick, I fear, you have to use a bit more whisky.

Said and done! Now you have to spoon this cream over the soaked shortbread fingers. However, if you like some extra chocolate kick (why shouldn't you?), you can grate some chocolate over here before you add the cream. I hope for you, it works well. I managed somehow, more or less – still suffering from too much coffee in the bowl.

Then you can ice the tiramisu with enough cocoa powder. According to your mood you can try to have it decorated with putting “things” on the tiramisu before icing. I tried it.

Place the finished (or nearly finished) tiramisu to your fridge and let it cool down a bit. Afterwards, a lot of self-discipline, was needed not to finish the whole bowl all by myself. The buttery taste of the shortbread … yum … the push of the coffee … yum … and the fragrant hint of the whisky … delish! Well, you have to taste it yourself – again – to get a full picture of the taste.

But beware, as you may know that mascarpone is high in fat, as is double cream. No worries!

You may see a bodhrán in the background of the picture, however, this doesn't mean I know how to play it well. Then there might be something else, you recognize on here (no, I don't mean the clover-like decoration on the tiramisu). 

On the bohrán you can spot a Claddagh symbol. The significance of this you can find out for yourself. Somehow, I placed it in the picture in a way, showing, that I very much like this tiramisu. Moreover, this Claddagh symbol has a romantic background, but what do I know about these things!

Slán agat!