Showing posts with label cooking for two. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking for two. Show all posts
There is something about chocolate baked goods that makes them very difficult to photograph. I have never been able to crack the secret to being able to do this successfully, but then again I am not the best at photographing anything anyways!
I think I am far too impatient. I could probably spend hours setting up shots and things, planning them, etc. But me . . . impatient. I just want to photograph them so that we can eat them.
I have a very narrow window of opportunity when the daylight is in my favour and it differs all year round, changing with the seasons. I am usually just getting it sorted and then it changes and I have to fiddle with it all over again.
I have never really promised my readers the best food photographs anyways, I don't know why I stress over them as much as I do. I have only ever promised you great recipes that work and that are delicious.
I think I deliver on that most of the time. Anything else is down purely to individual tastes and preferences. One man's meat being another man's poison and all that.
For instance Todd loves chocolate candy but hates chocolate bakes. I very rarely bake anything chocolate because I know only I am going to be eating it and I don't need to be . . . this cake is the perfect size for such an occasion. Because it only feeds two.
I adapted the recipe from America's Test Kitchen, Complete Cooking for Two. So you know this recipe is good. Its been triple tested, and tested again.
The cake layers are rich and very chocolatey. I did cut the icing in half. I decided it was enough to just frost the top and the middle, and I added a layer of cherry jam in the middle . . .
An homage to my mother who always filled her cakes with jam . . . a cake is not a proper cake to me without jam in the middle . . . even chocolate cake.
Cherry jam because . . . chocolate and cherries are the quintessential combination. A marriage of moreishly good flavours . . .
This cake is moist and delicious . . . soft light brown sugar and sour cream make sure of that . . .
Two kinds of chocolate, a dark baking chocolate with a high cocoa content and unsweetened cocoa powder . . . and just a hint of coffee powder, which we all know intensifies the flavour of chocolate!
It may not be the prettiest crayon in the box, but from where I am sitting, this cake gets Five stars all round. If you like chocolate cake. You are going to love this.
Dark Chocolate Layer Cake
Yield: 2
A frosted dark chocolate layer cake built just for two, filled with cherry jam and adorned with with a rich vanilla buttercream.
Ingredients:
- 45g dark chocolate with a high cocoa count (1 1/2 ounces)
- 3 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder (not chocolate drink mix)
- 1/4 tsp instant coffee granules
- 120ml boiling water (1/2 cup)
- 60g sour cream (1/4 cup)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla
- 70g plain flour (1/2 cup)
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 4 TBS unsalted butter, softened
- 100g soft light brown sugar (1/2 cup packed)
- 1 large free range egg at room temperature
For the frosting and filling:
- dark cherry jam
- 1 TBS heavy cream
- 3/4 tsp vanilla
- pinch salt
- 8 TBS butter softened
- 130g confectioners sugar (1 cup) sifted
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter two six inch layer cake tins. Line the bottoms with baking paper. Dust lightly with flour, tapping out any excess.
- Chop the chocolate and put into a small bowl along with the cocoa powder and coffee powder. Add the boiling water. Set aside to melt the chocolate and then whisk together until smooth.
- Sift together the flour, soda and baking powder.
- Cream the butter with the brown sugar until light and fluffy with an electric whisk. Beat in the egg.
- Whisk the vanilla and sour cream into the chocolate mixture. Add the chocolate mixture to the creamed mixture alternating with the flour mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
- Divide the batter between the two layer cake tins. Smooth the tops. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Leave the tins to rest on a wire rack for 10 minutes before tipping out to cool completely and peeling off the paper.
- Put all ingredients for the icing into a bowl and beat with an elecric whisk until light and fluffy.
- Place one cake layer on a cake plate. Cover with half of the icing. Spoon over some cherry jam to cover. Place the top cake layer on top of the jam. Spread the remaining frosting on the top of the cake.
- Cut into wedges to serve.
Todd makes me laugh. He sits there eating a huge piece of this cake, saying "You know I don't like chocolate." But he still eats it and seems to enjoy it. Men! If I didn't like something there is no way I would be eating it! Nobody forced him. 😕 Happy Saturday.
Right when this corona virus was just beginning and we were all just starting to be afraid that it would spread to the UK, I had my last Chiropracter visit in Chester city. We always treated ourselves to a lunch afterward on our walk back to the bus station. Usually at a different place each time.
On that day we decided to treat ourselves to a Yorkshire Pudding Wrap at one of the hot sandwich shops in downtown Chester. I remember feeling very paranoid about germs at the time. It wasn't a nice feeling. That was the last time we went anywhere. It was the 5th of March. The rest is history. We did enjoy our sandwiches however. They were very good indeed.
The ones we had on that day were turkey ones, with stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. I decided to recreate them in our home today using what I had in the house. Leftover roast beef, leftover roasted vegetables, peas, leftover gravy, etc.
I cut my regular recipe for yorkshire pudding down in size and baked it in a jelly roll tin. Because it was spread out quite a bit, it didn't rise quite as high, which is what I wanted. I rolled it up in a clean tea towel as soon as I took it from the oven for a few minutes to soften it and make it a bit more pliable for wrapping purposes. This worked very well.
I then cut it half crosswise to make two smaller wraps. I spread each half with a quantity of horseradish sauce and grainy mustard and then I started layering.
First heated roast beef. You want to cut it very thin for this purpose. You can season it a bit with some salt and pepper if you like.
Onto that I layered on the leftover and heated cooked veg that I had. Roasted potatoes, cut into smaller bits, roasted parsnips, carrots, cabbage . . . baby peas, roasted onions . . .
Just use what vegetables you have. You don't need a lot really, just a tiny bit of each scattered over your roast beef . . .
A bit of gravy got drizzled on top and then I rolled them up tightly. In town you can eat these in a parchmen wrapper and yes they are messy.
Here at home, we ate them on plates, with knives and forks and some homemade coleslaw on the side, coz . . . that's how we roll.
Of course there was extra gravy for drizzling over top. You just have to have some gravy drizzled over top. Just look at that tender roat beef, those crispy roasted potatoes, parsnips, peas . . . carrots . . .
It was nigh on impossible to eat these out of hand. We didn't even try . . .instead we gobbled them up with knives and forks.
There were little utterances of glee in between mouthfuls . . . and why not. These were delicious!
Yield: 2
The Yorkshire Pudding Wrap
Leftovers from a roast dinner, heated and wrapped in a flattened yorkshire pudding. Scrumptiously tasty!
Ingredients:
For the pudding wrap:
- 110g plain flour (3/4 cup)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 large free range egg
- 250ml milk (1 cup plus 2 tsp)
- oil to cook
You will also need:
- 1/2 pound of cooked roast beef, sliced thin and heated
- a quantity of leftover cooked vegetables, heated (carrots, swede, parsnips, onions, cabbage, peas, etc.)
- 2 TBS horseradish sauce
- 1 TBS grainy mustard
- salt and pepper to taste
- leftover beef gravy, warmed
Instructions:
- Whisk all of the ingredients for the pudding wrap together in a bowl until smooth. Let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes while you preheat the oven to 220*C/ 425*F/ gas mark 7.
- You will need a jelly roll tin, approximately 12 inchs by 17 inches. Pour a quantity of oil into the pan, about 1 1/2 TBS. Put the pan in the oven to heat. Once the oil has heated pour in the yorkshire pudding batter and return the pan to the oven. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes until risen and golden brown.
- Have ready a clean tea towel the size of the pan.
- Warm your roast beef, gravy and vegetables.
- When the pudding is done remove it from the tin, flipping it onto the tea towel. Roll it up tighly from the short end, and leave it for a few minutes. Unroll and then cut it in half crosswise so that you have two pieces of pudding 12 inches by 8 1/2 inches in size.
- Spread each piece with 1/2 of the mustard and horseradish sauce., followed by the thinly sliced beef, warmed vegetables and a bit of gravy drizzled on top. Roll up and serve. Pass some extra gravy on the side if desired.
I couldn't finish mine actually. Mitzie didn't mind. My loss was her gain. She loves a good roast dinner, minus the onions and the potatoes! Do yourself a favour the next time you have leftovers from a roast dinner and make yourselves some of these delicious wraps! They are Mmm ... Mmm ... Good!
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