Chocolate Brownie with Raspberries

How many chocoholics are out there? Hands up, please!? Well, I thought as much. If you like chocolate as much as I do, here's a recipe for you. It's adapted from Sue Lawrence's lovely cookbook "Sue Lawrence's Scottish Kitchen: Over 100 Modern Recipes Using Traditional Ingredients" (UK link/US link), but I've reduced the sugar content by one-fifth with no ill-effect to the texture, but your hips - and tastebuds - will thank you for that, trust me. You'll get a moist and flavoursome chocolate brownie with sweet-tart raspberry spots throughout.

Raspberries are one fruit/berry that really thrive in the cool and humid Scottish climate, so various raspberry desserts abound in Scottish cookbooks (think of cranachan, the traditional Scottish oat-raspberry-whisky concoction; more recent and prettier picture here). Luckily, raspberries also love Estonian climate - and my mum's garden - so I can easily access these lovely sweet-tart berries here.

My dear K. thought these were too chocolatey (what's that???), but my friends all helped themselves to a (large) second piece :)

Chocolate Brownies with Raspberries
(Šokolaadiruudud vaarikatega)
Makes 16 squares

350 g dark chocolate (55-60%), broken into pieces
250 g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
3 large eggs
200 g soft dark brown sugar (muscovado)
100 g plain/all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
300 g raspberries (can be frozen, do not de-freeze!)

Place chocolate and butter in a small heavy-based saucepan and heat over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until almost melted. Remove from the heat when just small pieces of chocolate remain (the chocolate will continue softening) - take care not to burn the chocolate! Cool a little.
Whisk the eggs until thick and pale foam forms, then add sugar in three batches, still whisking. Fold into the cooled chocolate-butter mixture, then stir in the flour, baking powder and salt.
Butter a 23 cm square brownie pan.
Spread half of the chocolate batter into the pan, then scatter raspberries over and top with the rest of the batter.
Bake in a preheated 170 C oven for about 40 minutes, until the cake looks baked on top. Test for doneness with a wooden toothpick - the brownie cake is done, when the toothpick remains just a little bit moist.
Remove from the oven and cool on a metal rack for about 20 minutes.
Cut into squares (4x4 seems to work well, considering the intense chocolate flavour), but let cool completely in the cake pan before removing.

Other brownie posts on Nami-nami:
Chocolate Brownies with Walnuts Recipe (January 2008)

Tarte au Chocolat - the darkest chocolate cake ever

Photo updated in November 2010

If yesterday's salted butter caramel and milk chocolate mousse wasn't your cup of tea (maybe you're not into this salted butter caramel thing, or maybe you simply prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate), then here's another dessert to satisfy your chocolate cravings this week: Tarte au Chocolat. It's very, very dark and intensely chocolatey, with crazy amount of butter and sugar added (with just a spoonful of flour, so if you're eating gluten-free, you could easily substitute gluten-free flour here). I got the recipe from a Finnish recipe leaflet "Jälkiruokaklassikkoja Ranskasta" or "Classic desserts from France" - and it had got rave reviews on my Estonian site, so I decided to try it myself. I'm glad I did - it tasted absolutely wonderful. If yesterday's pud was juvenile, to use Luisa's words, then this is very, very adult indeed.

Tarte au Chocolat
(Tarte au Chocolat ehk prantsuse šokolaadikook)
Serves 10



200 g dark chocolate (I used 72%)
200 g butter
200 g caster sugar
4 large eggs
1 Tbsp plain/all-purpose flour

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt with butter either in a microwave or in bain marie. Stir in sugar, let cool a little.
Using a wooden spoon, mix in eggs, one at a time.
Sift in the flour, stir until combined.
Pour the batter into a buttered 24 cm springform tin. Bake in the middle of a preheated 200C oven for about 25 minutes, until the cake is slightly crisp on the top, but still moist inside (see photo).
Take out of the oven and cool. Serve with whipped cream and season's berries.

More tasty chocolate cakes on Nami-nami:
Chewy Chocolate Walnut Brownies (January 2008)
David Lebovitz's Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake with Chocolate Glaze (December 2007)
Nigella Lawson's chocolate cherry cupcakes (April 2006)
Nigella Lawson's Store-cupboard Chocolate-Orange Marmalade Cake (November 2005)

Just in time for Valentine's Day: Salted Butter Caramel and Milk Chocolate Mousse

I discovered the wonders of salted butter caramel few years ago, when a kind reader sent me a box of Fran's Chocolates Smoked Salt Caramels. Since then, I've bookmarked pretty much every recipe with a salted butter caramel element I've come across. High on the current to-do list are David's Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream (and I'll make sure to hunt down one of his delectable Chocolat Chaud au Caramel-Beurre-Salé when in Paris), Clotilde's Tarte Tatin with Salted Butter Caramel, to name just a few. Of course I bookmarked the recipe for Fanny's (well, Trish Deseine's) Caramel au beurre salé and milk chocolate mousse as soon as I saw it, and then bookmarked it again when it appeared on Luisa's blog.

I warn you, this is very sweet. But then the title says that already, so no surprises there. I loved dipping my spoon into it, and considering it was so easy to make, I will be making it again soon (though maybe in smaller portions, serving 8 or even 10?). The quantities and instructions below are very-very slightly modified.

Salted Butter Caramel and Milk Chocolate Mousse
(Piimašokolaadikreem soolase karamelliga)
Serves 6



125 ml (1/2 cup) caster sugar
3 Tbsp water
200 ml whipping cream (35%), at room temperature
2.5 Tbsp (35 grams) butter, at room temperature
a generous pinch of Maldon sea salt flakes
200 grams milk chocolate*, broken into small chunks
3 large eggs, separated

Combine the sugar and water in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat to a dark caramel, swirling as it begins to brown to distribute the sugar (do not stir, as sugar will form lumps then.) Take off the heat and add butter. Stir, until combined, then add the warm cream. Season with salt.
Add the chocolate and stir gently, until chocolate melts smooth. Mix in the egg yolks.
Whisk the egg whites until they form firm peaks. Fold one-third of the egg whites into chocolate mixture, then gently fold in the rest.
Divide between 6 small ramekins or dessert cups and chill for at least 6 hours.

* I used Kalevi piimašokolaad (32% cocoa content).

A Weekend Full of Cooking, and a Recipe for Chocolate Brownies

Last weekend I baked no less than four cakes (chocolate buttercream cake with mocha glaze, saffron and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, Manhattan cheesecake, and chocolate brownies), a cookie sheet full of small potato puff rolls, and prepared a festive salmon dish with lime and mustard. These were all for K's mum's birthday parties on the weekend. We attended just the one on Saturday, but were asked to prepare cakes for the other birthday party session as well:) Of course, I also cooked casual meals for myself and K. (sauerkraut soup with chicken drumsticks for dinner last night, and curd cheese patties with apples for dessert; K. made us these pretty curd cheese pancakes for brunch yesterday. We enjoyed the pancakes with some Cherry Republic's Blue Cherry Preserve - a surprise gift from one of my US readers, Ülle.

I love weekends like that.

And it looks like there's something American in the air at the moment. Only recently I found myself making coleslaw in the midst of winter. And two of the four cakes I brought along to K's mum's place were distinctly American - Manhattan cheesecake and Chocolate brownies. It's not surprising, of course, considering that many of my favourite food blogs and daily reads are written by Americans. No wonder then that my culinary mind and appetite lusts after American classics every now and then. However, the brownie recipe I've used for years is from Thorntons, the British high-street chocolatier. I've tried few others, but this is the one I keep returning to over and over again, when I'm craving chocolate. I don't like crumbly and over-baked brownies. This recipe results in brownies with a perfectly chewy-crispy top, and moist-chocolatey inside (even if one cannot really see that on the photo). I love large squares of it when still warm. And when it's cold, I cut it into tiny squares - no bigger than 2 cm - and eat as nutty chocolate candies :)

Chocolate Brownies
(Šokolaadiruudud)
Makes 16



200 g butter
200 g dark chocolate (min. 70%)
3 medium eggs
250 g sugar
100 g plain/all-purpose flour
100 g walnuts, chopped
0.5 tsp salt
0.5 tsp vanilla extract

Line a square cake tin (24x24 cm) with a parchment paper.
Melt the butter and chocolate in a bain marie or microwave. Cool a little.
Whisk eggs and sugar with an electric mixture. Stir in the melted chocolate and butter mixture.
Fold in flour, salt, chopped walnuts and vanilla extract and stir until well combined.
Pour the batter into the tin, and bake in a preheated 170˚C oven for 30-35 minutes, until the cake is chewy-crisp on the top and still moist inside.
Serve when still warm.
Alternatively, let cool in a tin, then cut into (smallish) squares.

David Lebovitz's Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake with Chocolate Glaze

In every household there comes a time when one has 100 grams of finely shredded sauerkraut left (like after making some boozy sauerkraut) and needs to find a good home for that. Granted, one can just nibble the cabbage shreds (an excellent source of vitamin C). Or one can bake a chocolate cake.

Yes, you understood me correctly..

When I finally received David's book a few months ago, his version of Maida Heatter's chocolate sauerkraut cake immediately caught my eye. Sauerkraut, you see, is very common in Estonia - there are quite a few sauerkraut recipes on my blog to prove that. However, I had never encountered a cake recipe using sauerkraut before. So when I did end up with some extra sauerkraut and extra time earlier this week (K. had popped over to Finland for the night), I decided to give David's recipe a go. I finely chopped up the cabbage, creamed and mixed and poured the batter (which looks - as you can see on this photo - like your 'normal' chocolate cake batter), baked, waited, glazed, sliced and devoured. Mmmm... I must admit that I couldn't taste any sauerkraut in the cake - but it was incredibly moist, extremely light and very chocolatey.

NB! Note that the recipe is also the cover image of the US edition of the book. I think David is strongly suggesting you'll give this one a go :)

Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake with Chocolate Glaze
(Hapukapsa-šokolaadikook)
Source: The Great Book of Chocolate by David Lebovitz
Serves 12

There is no recipe for this cake on David's blog, so if you're after the US cup-and-buttersticks measurements, buy his book (US/UK), or check out the recipe on Leite's Culinaria. The measurements below are for the people cooking in metric Europe when butter tends to be sold in 50 gram increments and not in tablespoons or 113-gram sticks :)



For the bundt cake:
100 grams sauerkraut
50 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
280 grams plain/all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
0.25 tsp salt
150 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
300 g caster sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
250 ml milk, cold

For the chocolate glaze:
100 grams dark chocolate (I used Fazer's 71% chocolate)
50 grams unsalted butter
1 tsp light syrup (Dansukker) or light corn syrup

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Butter a 3-litre Bundt or tube cake pan.

Rinse the sauerkraut in cold water, gently squeeze dry and chop finely.

Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add eggs, one by one, beating after each addition.

Stir in one-third of the dry ingredients, then half of the milk. Then stir in another third of the dry ingredients, then the remaining milk. Finally, mix in the remaining dry ingredients, vanilla extract and the chopped sauerkraut.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely then invert onto a serving plate.

To make the chocolate glaze, heat the chocolate, butter, and syrup together until melted and smooth. Let stand until room temperature, then spoon the glaze over the cooled cake, allowing it to run down the sides.

This recipe was also included in my second cookbook, Jõulud kodus ("Christmas at Home"), published in Estonian in November 2011.

I'm a Daring Baker: Bostini Cream Pies

Yes, it's that time of the month again when Daring Bakers strike across the foodblogosphere! And I'm one of them. Since joining the ranks of Daring Bakers I've made Jewish Purist's Bagels, then a fancy Strawberry Mirror Cake, followed by a delicious Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart a la Eric Kayser, and last month I was baking very comforting Sticky Buns & Cinnamon Buns. This month a lot of Daring Bakers are making Bostini Cream Pies. October challenge was set by Mary of AlpineBerry, and you can find the recipe here. Mary tells you all about the background of Bostini Cream Pies, but apparently it's an adaptation of Boston cream pie (vanilla layer cake with cream and topped with chocolate glaze). Boston cream pie is an American classic - the official state dessert of Massachusetts, no less - created by French chef M. Sanzian at Parker House Hotel in Boston a while ago.

Bostini Cream Pie is similar, yet different. The dessert was nice - a combination of rich vanilla custard, light orange chiffon cake and a glossy dark chocolate glaze. It was easy to make and assemble, and I used my silicon muffin tray for baking the chiffon cakes which worked really well. We enjoyed this American classic just before watching a great American movie (TransAmerica), so it was a thoroughly American Sunday:) However, there's something about the American cakes & desserts that I never understand. As it was just two of us eating it this weekend, we halved the recipe, which should have yielded four desserts. Yet we still ended up with enough custard, cakes and chocolate glaze to feed at least 6 (if not 8) comfortably - and believe me, neither I or K. can boast to have a small appetite. I could, in theory, have eaten a 1/8th of the original recipe instead of lunch or dinner, but never ever as a dessert after the starter and main course..

Anyway - my favourite Daring Baker challenge so far is still the Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart a la Eric Kayser, K. swears by the Strawberry Mirror Cake. We're both looking forward to the next month's challenge :)

You can learn how other Daring Bakers did with this month's challenge by browsing through the blogroll here. There are about 200 Daring Bakers already, so be patient:)

I'm a Daring Baker: Eric Kayser's Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart

Me, my cool apron and my buggert recipe notes.

My adventures as a Daring Baker continue. So far I've made Jewish Purist's Bagels, and a fancy Strawberry Mirror Cake. This month another multi-layered challenge was chosen by the hosts Veronica and Patricia - Eric Kayser's Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart. Chocolate and caramel go really well together, as far as I'm concerned, so I was pleased with the choice.

I enjoyed making this cake. The chocolate hazelnut shortbread pastry worked like a dream, and tasted heavenly. The caramel (I used the 'dry method') was easy to make, and set nicely during baking (I cooked it for 25 minutes instead of recommended 15, following advice from fellow bakers). My troubles only started when making the milk chocolate mousse. I managed to churn the first batch of whipping cream into butter (well, it was another hot summer day, so I wasn't really surprised). K. kindly - and very quickly - brought another packet of cream from a nearby store, and whipped it up into a nice thick cream himself, to which I added a cooled melted milk chocolate (I used Fazer Blue milk chocolate). The mousse was a bit thinner than I had imagined, and sure enough, refused to set even after hours in the fridge*. It tasted absolutely wonderful however - a subtle symphony of cinnamon, cocoa, caramel, chocolate - all very nice, and although sweet, then not cloyingly so. None of the 7 official cake tasters in our judging panel (me included) seemed to mind that instead of chocolate mousse the cake was covered with chocolate mousse sauce :)

Oh, and as you can see from the top photo, I managed to destroy my testing notes in the process, but I think the 'metric' recipe below is what I did:)

Whereas I wasn't so enthusiastic about the previous Daring Baker challenge,the Strawberry Mirror Cake, I would happily make this cake again without modifications. That's how delicious it was. And I'll make sure that the milk chocolate mousse behaves next time..

Click here to see a list of other Daring Bakers!

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart
Adapted from Eric Kayser's Sweet and Savory Tarts
Serves 10



Chocolate Shortbread Pastry

80 grams unsalted butter, softened
50 grams caster sugar
3 Tbsp ground hazelnuts
0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 small egg
130 grams cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tbsp cocoa powder

On the previous day:
In a mixing bowl of a food processor, cream the butter.
Add the confectioners’ sugar, the ground hazelnuts, and the cinnamon, and mix together
Add the egg, mixing constantly
Sift in the flour, the baking powder, and the cocoa powder, and mix well.
Form a ball with the dough, cover in plastic wrap, and chill overnight.

On the day of the assembly:
Preheat oven to 160 °C.
Line a 26 cm loose-bottomed baking pan with the chocolate shortbread pastry and bake blind for 15 minutes.

Caramel Layer

300 g granulated sugar
250 g whipping cream (room temperature)
50 grams butter (room temperature)
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2.5 Tbsp (15 g) plain flour

In a saucepan, caramelize 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar using the dry method until it turns a golden caramel color. Incorporate the cream and then add butter. Mix thoroughly. Set aside to cool.
In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs with the extra egg yolk, then incorporate the flour.
Pour this into the cream-caramel mixture and mix thoroughly.
Spread it out in the tart shell and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Milk Chocolate Mousse

300 grams whipping cream
250 grams milk chocolate

Prepare the milk chocolate mousse:
Beat the whipping cream until stiff. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave or in a bain-marie, and fold it gently into the whipped cream.
Pour the chocolate mousse over the cooled caramel mixture, smoothing it with a spatula. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.

To decorate

Melt ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar in a saucepan until it reaches an amber color. Pour it onto waxed paper laid out on a flat surface. Leave to cool. Break it into small fragments and stick them lightly into the top of the tart.

* In the interest of clarity I should probably reveal that the slice on the photo is cut from a frozen piece of cake :) And just for the sake of it - the cake froze beautifully, and tasted really nice. K. actually preferred the slightly defrozen frozen version..

Back from London; Delicious Canelés; A Much Better Molten Chocolate Cake

I'm back from London. Arriving from truly summer-like London (sunny, 20 Celsius) to much colder and almost wintry Tallinn (rainy, ca 4 Celsius) last night was a bit of a shock, but as K. had baked a batch of canelés* to welcome me back home, I quickly warmed to the idea again :-)

I'll be back with a new post tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a photo of a molten chocolate cake/chocolate fondant pudding I had just before leaving for London, that was much better than the earlier attempt:



Same recipe, just shorter baking time (8 minutes) and darker chocolate (Lindt 82%). Yum...

* See here, or here or here.

Am I Molten or Not?

Last night I got a bad craving for chocolate. Although K. kindly offered to whip up and bake some chocolate souffle for me, I declined, as I remembered the number of dirty dishes in the kitchen after his last attempt. Instead I went to my del.icio.us bookmarks and printed out Food Migration's recipe for molten chocolate cake. I gave the recipe to K., together with Nigella's recipe for molten chocolate babycakes and asked him to choose between the two. He went for the first one, as the idea of using 350 grams of chocolate for 6 small cakes (as requested by Nigella's recipe) seemed a bit excessive on a weekday night.

Only then did we realise that we don't have any bitter chocolate left in the house, so we used Manjari 64% Madagascar Plantation ("Rich, dark chocolate with a raspberry finish") from Edinburgh-based Coco Chocolate instead (yet another chocolatey farewell present I had got back in October). As you can see from the picture below, we left the cake in the oven for a minute too long, so it's not as molten as it should be. But we will be trying this recipe again soon, with a darker chocolate. And then, on one beautiful day, we'll try Nigella's chocoholic's dream, too..

Molten Chocolate Cake
(Šokolaadivulkaanid)
Source: Food Migration



170 grams bittersweet chocolate
150 grams butter
160 grams sugar
75 g plain flour
4 eggs

Butter and sugar (or maybe sprinkle with cocoa instead, as per David's suggestions?) the insides of six small ramekins or pudding molds. Place on baking tray.
Melt chocolate and butter in a small saucepan.
Beat eggs and sugar together. Add the melted chocolate and butter mixture. Continue to beat for another five minutes.
Add flour, beat for two more minutes.
Pour mixture into prepared ramekins.
Bake in a 180 C oven approximately 8-10 minutes - NO MORE.
Dust with powdered sugar and serve warm. A good and slightly melted vanilla ice cream is a good accompaniment.

PS Shaun of Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow has tried Nigella's molten chocolate babycakes - check out his post.

Copycat: Molly's wonderful chocolate & nut blocks

Here's something you simply MUST make for your Christmas table: Molly's Chocolate & Nut 'blocks'. They're wonderfully tasty, really-really simple to make, and quite elegant. One of those take-five-ingredients type of recipes. They also went down a treat at the party yesterday, and I'm entertaining naughty thoughts of leaving work early today, so I could rush home and quickly devour the few that were left over..

Happy holidays, everyone!



Molly's chocolate and nut 'blocks'
(Pähkli-šokolaadiruudud)

If you prefer to use imperial measurements, then please check out Molly's original recipe. Here's an approximated and metrified (is that a word?) version. Aren't they pretty? :



500 grams of good-quality bittersweet chocolate (I used Bitter from the local Kalev company)
100 grams dried cranberries
100 grams seedless raisins
100 grams salted peanuts
100 grams salted pistachios

Line a 20 cm square dish with parchment paper and brush slightly with mildly flavoured oil. Set aside.

Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring the chocolate occasionally, until melted and smooth.
When chocolate is melted, stir in the nuts, raisins and cranberries until combined. Pour into the prepared pan, spread evenly and smooth the top. Put into a refrigerator for an hour to harden slightly.
Remove from the pan, place the chocolate block on a cutting board. Cut into small 2 cm squares with a sharp knife.
Keep in a cool place, but bring to a room temperature about 30 minutes before serving.

Peppermint dragées with chocolate

There's lots of pre-Christmas baking and candy-making taking place in our kitchen at the moment. During the weekend, K. made pistachio & dark chocolate truffles as well as saffron & white chocolate truffles. I tried Anne's peppermint patties. Last night I whipped up a batch of dough for the traditional Estonian gingerbread - piparkoogid - that I'll be baking on Sunday morning when my nephews come over for the big Christmas meal that night. As I'm still over-excited about the newest addition to our household - I'm talking about the beautiful red Kitchen Aid mixer, obviously - I whipped up another batch of raspberry marshmallows, but this time using the eggless version from Cooking for Engineers (Michael attributes his recipe to no other than Thomas Keller himself). And if that wasn't enough, I made a batch of lovely Molly's even lovelier chocolate & nut 'blocks'.

Let me tell you, the house smells heavenly.

And it's snowing outside, for the second day already. We're going to have a beautiful, white Christmas..

Here's a very slightly adapted recipe for Anne's lovely peppermint patties. There are ideal for popping into your mouth (either one-by-one, or by handful) after a meal..

Chocolate-covered minty dragées
(Piparmündidražeed šokolaadis)



1 medium egg white
300 grams icing sugar, sifted
3 to 5 drops of peppermint oil*
0.5 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

dark chocolate to cover

In a big bowl, beat the egg white until frothy. Mix in the icing sugar, little by little (I used the flat beater in my new KA mixer), until combined and you've got a thickish paste. Add peppermint oil and vanilla extract, if using.
(I used a lot less than Anne's recommended 1.5 tsp, and the dragées were definitely minty enough. Maybe it's the specific brand I used (see below)? The shopkeeper warned me to use only a few drops, too)
Roll the sugar paste into small balls, lay out to dry overnight on a metal rack (see photo on the right).
Melt the chocolate in a double-boiler, dip dried sugar balls into the melted chocolate and let them harden in room temperature.
Keep in a air-tight jar for up to a week.

* I got mine from Specialkøbmanden in Copenhagen last month - thank you, Zarah Maria, for the tip!

SHF#25, for adults only: dark chocolate & matcha truffles

Indeed. Although most kids I've met love chocolate and anything with chocolate, then I doubt if they'd like these. The bitterness of powdered matcha tea would probably be too 'adult' for their tender tastebuds. But then, these are so lovely that I'm not sure I'd want to share them with any kids in the first place:)

These decadently dark and devilishly bitter truffles are my contribution for the latest edition of Sugar High Friday, hosted by wonderful Johanna of the Passionate Cook. She's chosen truffles as a theme. I wanted to use some of the matcha powder my dear Edinburgh friend Ryoko had given me, and inspired by the Mont Fuji cake I enjoyed in Paris in May, I decided to make dark chocolate and matcha ganache truffles, rolled in matcha powder. When you put one of those truffles into your mouth, then first the somewhat bitter, powdery matcha melts onto your tongue, giving way to a sweet and creamy chocolate. Deliciously adult delight indeed.

Dark chocolate & matcha truffles
(Matcha-trühvlid)
Adapted from Epicurious



100 ml double cream (I used 38%)
1 Tbsp good-quality butter (slightly salted is fine), chopped
2 tsp matcha powder, plus a lot more for rolling the truffles
100 grams dark chocolate (I used 72% chocolate from the Estonian company, Kalev)

First make the ganache. Heat the cream and butter until almost boiling. Take a spoonful or two of the mixture and stir into the matcha powder. Return this green paste into the hot cream, whisking vigorously, until combined. Remove from the heat.
Add chopped chocolate, and stir until it melts.
Cover and leave to cool in the fridge for 2-3 hours.
Take teaspoonfuls of the set ganache and form into round-ish shapes. Leave to cool in the fridge again for an hour.
Roll in matcha powder, place into small paper cups and keep in a cool place until serving.

These truffles keep up to a week, if kept in the fridge.

UPDATE 29.11.2006: Here is Johanna's round-up - check out all the mouthwatering truffles!

SHF#24: Little Bites of Delight

Petit four. A petit four is a small fancy cake, biscuit, or sweet - such as a piece of marzipan or a crystallized or chocolate covered fruit - typically severed nowadays with coffee at the end of a meal. The term is French in origin. It means literally 'small oven', and may have come from the practice of cooking tiny cakes and biscuits a petit four, that is in low oven, at low temperature'. It was adopted into English in the late nineteenth century.
An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 252)

The latest round of Sugar High Friday is hosted by Jeanne and she wanted us to make Little Bites of Delight. To be really honest, tiny fiddly sweet thingies aren't really my cup of tea. Don't get me wrong - I love eating them, I do. But to prepare them seems like too much fuss for too little. I'd rather bake a cake a la Nigella with oranges, cherries or cranberries or bake my apple cake. K, on the other hand, enjoys preparing fiddly food. He even made me look up a book that I hadn't looked at since I inherited it from a colleague some eight years ago (aitäh, Ave!). Whereas I hadn't bookmarked a single recipe in "The Book of Chocolates and Petit Fours" by Beverley Sutherland Smith (HP Books, 1986) , K. got all excited, like a small kid in a candy store, listing a recipe after recipe to try.



In any case we made four different little bites of delight last night. I had for a long time wanted to make Pierre Herme's chocolate dipped mint leaves that I've mentioned here. Now was my chance, but sadly I couldn't find fresh mint leaves in the supermarket. However, they did stock fresh lemon balm, a great favourite of mine. So I used that instead, resulting in a lovely alternative to after dinner mints - crisp and light and fragrant.

K. contributed the other three petit fours: candied orange peel dipped in dark chocolate, chocolate disks infused with chilli syrup and covered with candied red chillies, and finally some delightfully tiny cranberry and almond macarons.

Mmmm, I'm off to try some of those little bites of delight now. Again..

PS I've previously written about spicy sugared almonds, which would also make perfectly nice little bites of delight, especially as we're getting closer to the mulled wine season..

UPDATE 30.10.2006: Here's Jeanne's roundup!

I've been eating a lot of chocolate lately ...

... and how could I've not to, when Nash (on behalf of himself and his beautiful wife Guro) brought me this box of Plaisir du Chocolat chocolates as a goodbye present. Plaisir du Chocolat was set up by Bertrand Espouy and Heather A Kiernan few years ago in Edinburgh, and they've now opened branches also in Manchester and Melrose. Do check them out if you're in the neighbourhood. If neither Manchester, Melrose or Edinburgh are in your future itinerary, then you can peruse their online store. If you're not convinced, then take Melissa's word for it - she's sung praise to Plaisir du Chocolat here.

Their exquisite chocolates - look at the picture! - are best consumed within a week, so I've been dutifully eating them together with K. every night. All of them have been absolutely delicious, with an exception of one or two (Manosque didn't appeal to me, for example). Plaisir du Chocolat produces two 'collections' per year - one for Christmas and one for the Edinburgh festival season. My box of chocolates are from the Collection Winter 2005-2006. Here's what we had:



Top row from left to right:
Sacher (dark chocolate, bitter almond, apricot), Mesopotamia (dark chocolate, liquorice), Sheherazade (dark chocolate, pistachio), Laphroaig (dark chocolate, malt whisky), Bounty (white chocolate, coconut)

2nd row from the top, from left to right:
Spekulatius (dark chocolate, Christmas spices, citrus fruits), Khartoum (white chocolate, hibiscus), Vienne (dark chocolate, coffee, marzipan), Brazil (white chocolate, passion fruit), Agen (dark chocolate, prune, Armagnac)

Middle row, from left to right:
Szechuan (dark chocolate, Szechuan pepper, pear), Bergamot (Single origin Java milk chocolate, Earl Grey tea), Schwarzwald (dark chocolate, Cherry and Kirsh), Addis Ababa (milk chocolate, cardamom and pineapple), Indochine (single origin Java milk chocolate, green Vietnamese tea, lotus flowers)

2nd row from the bottom, from left to right:
Tombouctou (dark chocolate, cinnamon), Zanzibar (Single origin Java milk chocolate, cloves, orange peel), Java (single origin Java milk chocolate, green Jasmine tea), Persephone (milk chocolate, pomegranate, orange), Arabesque (white chocolate, rose buds)

Bottom row, from left to right:
Sologne (dark chocolate, fresh mint leaves), Manosque (dark chocolate, dried lavender), Antilles (dark chocolate, spices /vanilla, cinnamon, citronelle, cardamom, lemon, orange, elderberry, tonka, cloves, star anis, bitter orange leaves/, Martinique rum), Piemont (gianduja hazelnut), Guérandes (soft caramel made with salted butter mixed, white couverture, vanilla)

Thank you, Guro & Nash!

Going OTT with Ginger (SHF#19): chocolate & ginger tartlets

The latest edition of Sugar High Friday is hosted by Toronto-based blogger Ruth of Once Upon A Feast. It's been a while since I took part at SHF, but this time I couldn't resist because of the theme: ginger. You see, couple of months ago I discovered dark chocolate coated candied ginger from the Edinburgh flagship department store, Jenners. Granted, I had seen them there and elsewhere before, but somehow the combination didn't really appeal to me. I love chocolate (but prefer milk chocolate to dark for nibbling) and I do like my ginger - in savoury dishes, that is. Yet, I couldn't really see how ginger pieces in dark chocolate could be nice. Until I tried them, that is. They are seriously addictive - the warm heat of the candied ginger balances the sweet bitterness of dark chocolate perfectly. The burst of flavours exploding on your tongue is so intense that it lingers there for a while, making you eat less chocolate in the first place.

The recipe below is a very slight modification of Clotilde's. I wanted to make these tartlets even more gingery by using the Organic Ginger chocolate from Green & Black - hence the OTT in the title of this post. I also used demerara sugar in the pastry, as this results in somewhat crunchier cases and I find that the slight caramel flavour of demerara complements ginger well. As Clotilde says, chocolate and ginger are a match made in heaven - and as an additional benefit, they are both acknowledged aphrodisiacs. What's not to like!?

Chocolate and Ginger Tartlets
(Ingveri-šokolaadikoogikesed)
Based on Clotilde's recipe for Tartelettes au Chocolat et Gingembre Confit
Yields 6



Shortcrust pastry:
50 grams salted butter, cubed
50 grams demerara sugar
100 grams plain flour, sifted
2-3 Tbsp of cold water

Ginger chocolate ganache filling:
150 ml double cream
100 grams Green&Black's bittersweet dark chocolate with crystallised ginger pieces (or equivalent)
50 grams butter, room temperature, diced
crystallised ginger pieces to decorate (I used Buderim Ginger Nibbles, available in the UK from Lakeland Ltd)

Mix sugar and flour in a bowl, add cold butter cubes and mix with a knife (and then pinching with your fingertips) until you have fine crumbs. Add couple of spoonfuls (one by one, as you may need less) of cold water to bring the dough together with your hands.
Roll out the dough thinly on a slightly floured worktop, then cut into 6 discs and use these to line 6 non-stick individual tartlet tins (about 8-10 cm in diametre). Put the lined pastry cases into a freezer for 20 minutes or so (this reduces the shrinkage during baking). Prick the bases with a fork and bake in the middle of 180-200C oven until golden brown.
Let them cool in the tins for about 15 minutes, then tap gently out of the tin and leave to cool on a metal rack (click on the photo on the right).

Now prepare the chocolate ganache. Break the chocolate into small pieces, cut the butter into cubes. Heat the double cream in a small saucepan until quiet simmer on a very low heat. Add chocolate and butter and stir gently (still on a very low heat!) until combined. Remove from the heat and let it cool slightly.

Spoon the ganache into cooled pastry cases*, decorate with a piece (or couple) of candied ginger and leave to cool in a cool place. If you are patient or organised These are even better on the following day, as the ginger flavour has infused better and the tiny candied ginger pieces in chocolate have regained their bite.

* If you have any ganache left over, then pour into small shot glasses and decorate with candied ginger for a simple, yet luscious, dessert.

Ruth's round-up of all the entries is available here.

UPDATE: Barrett has included this post in this week's Too Many Chefs Posts of the Week. This is the second time Barrett has done this - my Simple tart with tomatoes, courgettes and Roquefort was also also featured back in September 2005. Thank you;)

Comfort food at its best: Nigella's chocolate cherry cupcakes

This is just a miniature cherry version of Nigella's chocolate & orange marmelade cake I baked for my dear friend T's birthday back in November. Seeing this particular version over at Esurientes last weekend made me reach for my beloved How To Be A Domestic Goddess once again. Nigella surely knows how to feed a girl in need of some cheering up:)

The original recipe is available here, on Nigella's website, both with UK and US measurements. I used Bonne Maman Cherry Compote (80% cherries, sugar); the chocolate was Lindt Excellence 85% cocoa dark one. The cupcakes were really delicious and moist, with a clear cherry flavour. As I run out of chocolate (disastrous!!!), I replaced the chocolate frosting with mascarpone one, topped with a small Easter chocolate.

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes
(Kirsi-šokolaadimuffinid)
Yields 12



For the cupcakes:
125 grams butter
100 grams dark chocolate
300 grams good quality cherry jam or compote
150 grams golden caster sugar
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs, beaten
150 grams self-raising flour

For the frosting:
mascarpone cheese
icing sugar
some drained liquid from the cherry compote

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan on a low heat. When almost melted, add chocolate pieces. Leave to soften for a moment, then remove the saucepan from the hob and stir with a wooden spoon until chocolate has melted.
Now add the cherry jam, sugar, salt and beaten eggs, stirring with the wooden spoon. Sift in the flour, stir until combined.
Spoon the mixture into prepared muffin tins (either oil them or use muffin papers) and bake at 180˚C for about 25 minutes.
When cupcakes are cool, cover with frosting. For the mascarpone frosting, just cream the ingredients with a wooden spoon and smear on the cupcakes.
Decorate with small Easter chocolate eggs.

Other great recipes inspired by Nigella Lawson:
Pasta alla vodka
A cranberry upside-down cake
Upside down red onion pie
Chocolate & orange marmelade cake

Chocolate & rice, anyone? Pierre Hermé's chocolate rice pudding

I recently exchanged some cookbooks with a kind fellow foodblogger Melissa. One of the books I got on loan was Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé. The book is written by Dorie Greenspan and contains beautiful recipes & pictures of amazingly tempting desserts. It's definitely a gorgeous coffee table book - you can read the recipes, daydream over the photographs and almost satisfy your chocolate cravings by just imagining how the cakes, pastries, creams and puddings would taste like.

However tempting though, many of the desserts seem too much of an effort, involving usually quite a few separate steps and very long ingredient lists. Not really suitable for your easy midweek sweet. I'm convinced the desserts would be divine, but as my tastebuds are reasonably easily pleased with less effort as well, then most of Pierre Hermé's creations remain untackled by me at the moment. Maybe in the future, when I have more free time to play with my rolling pin and cookie cutters, I'll return to the book.

There are couple of interesting ideas (f. ex. Chocolate-Dipped Candied Mint Leaves as an alternative to After Eight mints) that I'll definitely keep in mind. And before I return the book to Melissa next week, I decided to try one of the more easy desserts: chocolate rice pudding.

Remember the rice pudding from your childhood? Well, according to the writers, this is

'Not your grandmother's rice pudding. Not even your mother's. This has all the cuddly, cozy warmth of a childhood dessert and all the sex appeal of a sweet for the raffiné crowd. Yes, it's creamy rice pudding as we know it, but it's made with Arborio rice - small, round risotto rice whose kernels stay firm at the core even when cooked through - plump golden raisins, and bittersweet chocolate, the ingredient that transforms this pudding, making its flavour deeper, its texture denser, and its character stronger.'

The dessert was incredibly easy to make and it's one of the few recipes in the book that covered less than 3 pages and required less than 20 ingredients:) Whole milk, Arborio rice, sugar, salt, butter, raisins and bittersweet chocolate (Hermé suggests Valrhona Guanaja, I used Green&Black's bittersweet dark chocolate with 70% cocoa solids) was all that the recipe asked for.

Chocolate rice pudding
(Riisi-šokolaadipuding)
Source: Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
Serves 6



950 ml whole/full-fat milk
100 grams arborio rice
2.5 Tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
200 grams bittersweet chocolate, melted
125 ml/60 grams plump golden raisins

Pour the milk into a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the rice, sugar and salt. Bring to the boil, stirring frequently (NB! the milk boils over very quickly, so pay attention!). When boiling, reduce the temperature and simmer slowly for about 15 minutes, until the rice is cooked through, but still al dente.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the butter. When the butter is melted, fold in the melted chocolate, stirring gently. Finally stir in the raisins.
Pour the chocolate rice pudding into individual serving glasses. Cover the glasses with clingfilm, cool to room temperature and then chill until ready to serve.

It was simple to make, and the resulting dessert was luscious and flavoursome, intensely creamy and chocolatey with al dente Arborio kernels giving a bit of texture. I ate the pudding plain, but authors suggest caramelised Rice Krispies, or raspberry coulis. I think a simple drizzle of single cream would also be nice.. And maybe finely chopped dried apricots instead of raisins.. Or raisins soaked in some rum for an extra kick?

Definitely recommended.

Nigella's chocolate & orange marmalade cake

Photo updated in February 2010.

This is a very special birthday cake to a very special person. Unfortunately the birthday person is far-far away, so I have to deliver my cake virtually - but it's the thought that counts, isn't it:)

It's umpteenth time that I make this cake and it's still yummy and tempting. It is a doddle to make, smells divine, and it's really tasty. The recipe is from Nigella's How To Be A Domestic Goddess bible. I've reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe, but otherwise follow it.

A good thing about this cake is, that there are just three items to wash afterwards - the saucepan, wooden spoon and the baking tin..

Store-cupboard Chocolate-Orange Cake
(Apelsinimarmelaadikook)
Serves about 8

125 grams of unsalted butter
100 grams of dark chocolate
300 grams of good quality orange marmalade
100 grams of sugar (Nigella uses 150 grams)
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
150 grams of self-rising flour (or 150 g all-purpose flour and 1.5 tsp baking powder)

Melt the butter slowly in a heavy-bottom saucepan. When it's almost melted, add chocolate pieces, stir and take off the heat. Stir with a wooden spoon, until chocolate has melted.
Add the marmalade, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir thoroughly (it's okay to leave small visible chunks of marmalade in the batter).
Add sifted flour, stir and pour into a buttered and floured 20-22 cm loose bottomed cake tin.
Bake at 180˚C oven for 45-50 minutes, until the cake has set (test with a knife or wooden stick).
Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes, then slide onto a plate.

I usually serve it warm-ish, dusted with icing sugar. But it's also delicious on the day after.

Orange-chocolate mousse

My sweetheart's favourite cake is chocolate-orange cake - and Nigella's simple and heavenly storecupboard chocolate orange cake is one of my staples here. However, I wasn't on a cakey mood last weekend, so I followed the Greek hob-to-table moussaka with chocolate orange mousse. Yummy.

Again, the original recipe comes from a Finnish website - this time from their biggest dairy producers, Valio. I did adjust it a little - replacing lemon juice and vanilla extract with orange juice, as well as using orange chocolate (well, I was trying to 'replace' a chocolate-orange cake here, remember:) I also slightly played with the amounts this time, upping the amount of cream cheese. Here's my version. Second time I made it, and still pleased with it.

Orange chocolate mousse
Serves 4.



150-200 grams of plain cream cheese (low fat is fine)
100 grams of dark chocolate (I used Tesco Finest with orange bits)
1 Tbsp of sugar
100 ml whipping cream
some freshly squeezed orange juice (0.5 - 1 fruit)

Cream the cream cheese with a mixer or a wooden spoon, season with orange juice (and a dash of Grand Marnier, perhaps?) .
Whip the double cream/whipping cream with sugar, fold into the cream cheese mixture.
Melt the chocolate (leave a small piece aside for garnish) in a microwave, cool a little and stir into the cream cheese mixture.
Put into small glasses. Grate some chocolate on top.
Put into the fridge until ready to serve.

NB! Strawberries go nicely with this!

Šokolaadivahu retsept

Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins

One of my favourite deli shops in Edinburgh, Peckham's, is still stocking some gorgeous Scottish raspberries from Bruce's of Balmyle. Apparently Scotland is rather good in growing raspberries - the fruit seams to agree with the Scottish weather - and who am I to argue. (The ones in my mum's garden come close though, and I miss the pretty yellow variety she grows). I reckon I've bought a box of those raspberries every other day, usually popping them into my mouth when watching news or reading. They're so tasty and full of flavour that it'd be pity to cook them.

Still, I used these raspberries in Cranachan few weeks ago, though this wasn't really 'cooking' the raspberries. This time I decided to make a batch of chocolate and raspberry muffins, as I had got a few requests for this from visitors to my Estonian language website and I thought to try them out.

Eventually I found and followed a recipe from Cadbury's website pretty much to the letter, although I slightly reduced the amount of cocoa (I reckoned my Green & Black's organic cocoa powder may be stronger than Cadbury Bournville Cocoa). I'm not too keen on chocolate muffins in general, so I was trying to be on the safe side.

Cadbury's Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

125 grams butter, softened
250 ml caster sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
375 ml self-raising flour
75 ml cocoa powder
0.5 tsp bicarbonate soda
250 ml milk
150 grams fresh or frozen raspberries

Preheat oven to conventional or 170ºC fan forced.
Combine butter, sugar and eggs in a bowl and mix until light and creamy.
Sift flour, cocoa, and bicarbonate soda. Add to creamed mixture with milk. Mix thoroughly until the mixture is smooth.
Spoon into greased 12-hole muffin pan.
Top all muffins with raspberries and bake at 190ºC for 20 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
Cool and dust with icing/confectioner's sugar before serving.

The recipe was easy and muffins lovely. Although the recipe said that it would yield 12 muffins (using 1/3 cup muffin pan), then I ended up with 12 regular and 18 mini muffins. I used 3 raspberries to decorate the regular muffins and 1 to decorate mini muffins. I liked the way how the raspberries 'drowned' in the batter during baking.

And I enjoyed the end result - moist raspberry centre, not too chocolatey (I'm a self-confessed chocoholic, but I do _not_ like chocolate or cocoa in my muffins curiously). The raspberries nicely balanced the cocoa flavour. Even my Turkish flatmate, who dislikes chocolate muffins AND raspberries (apparently the latter isn't really to the Mediterranean taste buds), had one:)

Just wondering if it's correct to call these 'chocolate and raspberry muffins' if they don't contain any chocolate. Should it be 'cocoa and raspberry muffins' instead?

Kakao-vaarikamuffinite retsept