Beware of the Dark Side ... Raspberry Chocolate Tart

"Is the dark side stronger?" "No! No ... no. Quicker. Easier. More seductive."

A long long time ago in a kitchen far far away ...

In fact, it wasn't so long ago and not far far away. Well, the kitchen might be just around the corner, but still ... you have to beware of the dark side, for it is very seductive ... eh ... this raspberry chocolate cake is very seductive and if you don't beware and have more pieces of it than you reasonably should, you can imagine what can happen.

Well, I show you anyway ...

This Raspberry chocolate tart is based on a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie.

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

150 g butter

100 g sugar

A pinch of salt

250 g flour

1 egg

30 g cocoa powder

For the filling:

100 ml full fat milk

400 ml cream

250 g dark chocolate

2 eggs

... and raspberries

Method:

First of all, we go for the pastry, naturally, for it has to rest in the fridge for at least an hour. So, cream together the butter and the sugar. Then add the pinch of salt, flour, egg and cocoa powder. Carefully bring all the ingredients together to form the dough.

After the hour, get the pastry into a greased loose-bottomed tart tin (you knew that would be coming one day again). Blind bake the pastry for 12 minutes at 180 ºC.

Now you can already prepare the filling. Add the milk, cream and sugar to a suitable sized pot and carefully bring to the boil. Stir once in a while. Then take the pot from the heat and add the chocolate. Stir it until the chocolate has melted away and you have a smooth mixture. Then whisk in the eggs one by one.

Pour the filling onto the blind baked pastry case and get it back into the oven at 170 ºC for 15 minutes. After that leave the raspberry chocolate tart some time to cool. Wait? Why raspberry chocolate tart? Fine, after a while, place the raspberries on top of the tart, pushing them into the chocolate filling. Use as many raspberries as you wish. Are you satisfied now?

When you go for it, you can even add a dollop of whipped cream, crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream., but ... beware of the dark side ... and May the 4th be with you ...

Now I have added this post also to Bake of the Week at Casa Costello.

While we still have time for thing, it's good as well to add this to May's Calendar Cakes, which is being hosted by Rachel at Dolly Bakes.

2nd Blogiversary and Cake

A long long time ago ...

... eh ...

... about two years ago I started blogging with Cooking Around the World. Who would have thought I would be still doing it today!? What has happened in those two years? Where have I gotten myself to and where will this be going?
Questions and still more questions. I think what we need right now is not answers, but cake ...

Without a cake we cannot celebrate properly. That is a Sachertorte, originating from a recipe that was created in Austria ... quite some time ago. It's named after Austrian Franz Sacher, who lived in the 1830s. Whatsoever, it's one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties. In other words, a worthy cake for my 2nd Blogiversary.
I reckon we just need some flowers then ...

Good, now we are ready. So, come along and have a piece of cake ...

What Really Matters Strawberry Chocolate Muffins

Yes, it is really true, today I have some muffins for you, which I like to call "What Really Matters Strawberry Chocolate Muffins". Indeed, this is quite a long name, but in a minute or so I will tell you why it had to be.
It's time to go adventuring again. However (some might be disappointed), this time we have to do without hat and whip. Now I have the chance again to particpate in a lovely blog hop: Sweet Adventures Blog Hop (short SABH). It is run by 84th & 3rd, Dining with a Stud, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader and occasional guest hostesses (hm?). The latter one is the case now in July, where Swah from the blog "Love Swah" is hosting.
Here comes the theme: Sweet Surprise. Right away, then, here is my sweet surprise: What Really Matters Strawberry Chocolate Muffins (short WRMSCM, but ... eh ... who cares).

Where is the surprise? 

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 ...

Am I lazy or crazy? Ginger-Marzipan-Chocolate-Pralines

Sometimes I have to ask myself, am I lazy? I just hang around and do nothing in particular, although there would be plenty to do. However, I simply don't want to.
Then again, I could be crazy - kind of - that is if you want to use such harsh words. On the other hand (apart from four fingers and a thump) it could be quite helpful at times to be lazy and crazy. Not only once that has led to new inventions in the past.
While I don't want to suggest that the now following would be a great invention, you still could have a go at these Ginger-Marzipan-Chocolate-Pralines ...

Please, have one ... 

What you need:
100 g marzipan
About 40 g candied ginger
A few tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
Some almond slices

How you do it:
Get a small piece of marzipan and wrap an about 1 cm long piece of candied ginger in it. Make sure the ginger is surrounded by marzipan on all sides. Repeat this until all the marzipan is gone and ... it might look like this.

Put the cocoa powder (I still got some chocolate orange one from Sugar and Crumbs) in a small bowl and roll the marzipan ... eh ... rolls in it, so that it gets all nicely coated with cocoa powder. How does that look (be careful with your imagination)?

Well, I would have said now, that's all, folks! But somehow we need to distract a bit from that look. So I decided to stick a sliced almond piece into each one.

That already makes a difference. Now ... that's all, folks! We only need to transfer them to another plate for looks.

Just last week while visiting a friend, I got a surprise gift. He is an artist and 'paints' pictures with metal pieces. He goes all over and collects all kind of metal objects to use them in his pictures. Some pictures he sells and others just stay in his place. Maybe he will do an exhibition with them one day. 
Anyway, he also got some old silverware, which you can see now in my picture. I was going to destroy those pieces to use them for painting, but he thought I might appreciate them more.
How do you like them?
Now the question still remains, whether I'm lazy or crazy.
While hanging around - at the computer - I noticed that I didn't take part in We  Should Cocoa for a while. In fact the last post I could find on my blog was from June 2012: Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu.

 

I thought it would be about time to have a go again. Here, though comes the lazy problem again. The person who invented the We Should Cocoa challenge had me already kept busy with one of her last posts: Chocolate Log Blog: Chocolate Walnut Pastries. I tried to bake some from memory after reading this post once.
So I didn't want to do baking of any kind again this time. Therefore I went for the Ginger-Marzipan-Chocolate-Pralines. This month theme of We Should Cocoa is 'Ginger' and it is hosted by Jen from Blue Kitchen Bakes.
Now bit by bit a bit more about being crazy ...
This recipe was kind of a low cost one. I didn't use any further energy apart what came from my body. So it could work for ...

... this month. Camilla from Fab Food 4 All wanted to see something for dessert this month. Hey, you could use the pralines as well for that. Camilla is doing this challenge together with Helen from Fuss Free Flavours.
In order to further demonstrate that this recipe is frugal, I'm going to enter this post as well to Recipe of the week from A Mummy Too.

And finally, I add this as well to Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays and, hey, this time it's really Monday.

If that's not crazy, orinally I just wanted to take part in one challenge and I was lazy and now ... I end up with entering in multiple challenges.
Above that, ff you know any further challenges these pralines would fit into this month, let me know! Then we got a nice collection of challenges other can take part in as well.

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 ...