Strawberry Time - Strawberry, Mascarpone & Chocolate Cake

Some say it is best to eat foods that are in season. I especially enjoy this with regards to strawberries. They taste so much better, when they are fresh from the region compared to the ones you get at the supermarket and are imported from who knows where. Last year we didn't take full advantage of that, but this year will make up for it. Nearby is a large field of strawberries where you can pick them for yourselves at a very good price. Therefore whenever we feel like it we head over and get some fresh strawberries. Well, that is when we have finished off the last once we got. Usually the last remaining once end up in a smoothie or something like that.
There are many ways to enjoy the strawberries. You can eat them fresh, with yoghurt, with your muesli, with curd cheese, in smoothies, in cakes, in salads ... well, we just watched Forrest Gump the other day, but I think I really shouldn't go into this part in detail of what you can do with strawberries like they did in the movie with shrimps ... hm ... eh ... well ... eh ... and that's about all you can do with strawberries. Well, I haven't got that much time and I really can't imagine an end of that list.
Therefore I will rather limit my writings to what I did and what I announced in the title of this blog post: Strawberry, Mascarpone & Chocolate Cake.

I tried to think of another name for this cake, but I really couldn't come up with any and above that in these days there are certain words you rather shouldn't use in public. Anyway, let's focus on the more important things ...

Picking strawberries is really enjoyable for me, in the sun, it's relaxing after a full day at the office. I reckon we still have a few weeks, maybe about two and then it will already be over with this field. I guess, though, it is not our fault.

We usually get about two kilos or a wee bit more of strawberries. After all we can easily return and get some more another day.

After we have gotten one of the key ingredients for our Strawberry, Mascarpone & Chocolate Cake, I reckon it is about time to start with the preparation ...

Christine & Christian - Episode 3: Use your Imagination

Just imagine: You are sitting relaxed at a beach in the shades of a palm tree. There is even a cool breeze, as well as a cold drink in your hand. You take a sip. The sound of the water of the ocean hitting the beach makes you feel even more relaxed. The sky is shining brightly and everything is perfect.
Did it work? Did you see yourself there at this beach with this pure fine white sand? No? Maybe you need to close your eyes in order for it to work or the description wasn't vivid enough.
Anyway, that is not going to happen!
But since you trained your imagination a bit now, we can go on with step 2. Let's get Tasting India ready and have some Curd-cheese Balls in Rose Syrup. How does that sound? Use your imagination ... for that is not going to happen either.
Let me show you a picture and you might get a faint idea ... or simply faint.

While looking for some easy going recipes to start things off with, I selected to make these Curd-cheese Balls in Rose Syrup. They looked lovely in the book and I imagined them to taste that way as well ... with a nice almond surprise in the center.
However, as you have seen from the picture ... eh ... there was a different surprise and ... eh ... well, you haven't seen any balls.
What happened?
Hm ... good question!
Maybe at first it was the syrup going into a wrong direction ... turning into candy rather. Nevertheless I got things simmering again and was ready for the balls to be poached.
Carefully placed and resting in the simmering syrup-like water they decided to do something else ... falling apart.
In the end it was just a gooey semolina curd-cheese something. I added another splash of rose water, stirred until everything was smooth and spooned it into a bowl. Tasting! Well, it has a nice rose water taste. Now it was rather a semolina pudding. I thought, a few fruits on top would be nice. Then there where these coloured chocolate sprinkles. The least I could do. Make it colourful. That gives it an Indian touch probably.

If I get chance, I have to try it again and get some real Curd-cheese Balls. Could it be, the semolina wasn't coarse enough? Just use your imagination ... I'll be off to the beach ...

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 ...