Nutella Cake

Tried Nigella’s Nutella cake. And yes it lived up to expectations. Super easy and delicious. I couldn’t find any ground hazelnuts. So i made them as well. Baked the hazelnuts in the oven @180c for about 7-10 mins. I let them cool down slightly. Then to get the skins off rubbed them in a tea towel. Then blitzed in the food processor.

for the cake
6 large eggs (separated)
1 pinch of salt
125 grams soft unsalted butter
400 grams nutella (1 large jar)
1 tablespoon frangelico (or rum or water)
100 grams ground hazelnuts
100 grams dark chocolate (melted)
for the icing
100 grams hazelnuts (peeled weight)
125 ml double cream
1 tablespoon frangelico (or rum or water)
125 grams dark chocolate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and Nutella together, and then add the Frangelico (or whatever you’re using), egg yolks and ground hazelnuts.
2. Fold in the cooled, melted chocolate, then lighten the mixture with a large dollop of egg white, which you can beat in as roughly as you want, before gently folding the rest of them in a third at a time.
3. Pour into a 23cm round greased and lined springform tin and cook for 40 minutes or until the cake’s beginning to come away at the sides, then let cool on a rack.
4. Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upwards and the nuts are golden-brown in parts: keep shaking the pan so that they don’t burn on one side and stay too pallid on others. Transfer to a plate and let cool. This is imperative: if they go on the ganache while hot, it’ll turn oily. (Believe me, I speak from experience.) If your hazelnuts have skins on then after toasting in the frying pan transfer them to a slightly dampened tea towel and rub them while they are still warm to remove the skins.
5. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the cream, liqueur or water and chopped chocolate, and heat gently. Once the chocolate’s melted, take the pan off the heat and whisk until it reaches the right consistency to ice the top of the cake. Unmould the cooled cake carefully, leaving it on the base as it will be too difficult to get such a damp cake off in one piece.
6. Ice the top with the chocolate icing, and dot thickly with the whole, toasted hazelnuts. If you have used Frangelico, put shot glasses on the table and serve it with the cake.

10/10. Thanks Nigella.

Still looking for the ultimate lemon cupcake

Have tried two different lemon cupcakes recipes. However, still searching for the ultimate soft and zesty cupcake.

• http://alchemybaking.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/really-moist-lemon-cupcakes-for-lemon.html

It was definitely moist and flavour profile was good. However, found that the first batch collapsed . Added some baking soda – second batch was better – but both were peeling away from the cupcakes. Not sure what went wrong  – maybe it also had to do with the crazy hot humid day  -not conducive to baking

• http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2009/08/30/lemon-limoncello-cupcakes/

Putting the cream cheese – made the cupcakes very heavy and dense.  They were ok – the lemon curd was good.

Lemon Curd

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup (165g) caster sugar
• 1/3 cup (80g) chilled unsalted butter
• Zest and juice of 2 lemons

Whisk whole eggs, yolks and sugar in a saucepan until smooth, then place pan over a low heat. Add the butter, juice and zest and whisk continuously until thickened. Strain through a sieve into a sterilised jar. Lemon curd keeps, covered, in the fridge for 2 weeks.

13/02/14: stirred for about 10mins

Makes 1.5 cups

Rate: 10\10

 

Honeycomb

Have had 3 attempts at making this. finally found a version that worked:

Thanks http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/9186/honeycomb-with-golden-syrup.aspx

Ingredients

Serves: 10

• 4 tablespoons golden syrup
• 1 cup (200g) caster sugar
• 3 teaspoons bicarb soda

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Directions

Preparation:5min  ›  Cook:10min  ›  Ready in:15min

1. Grease a 20 cm square cake tin or slice tray.
2. In a large saucepan, heat the golden syrup and sugar together, bring to a boil then simmer on low heat for 10-15 minutes. I used a sugar thermometer and when it reached 150c stopped.
3. Remove pot from heat and add the bicarb soda. Quickly mix it in because the mixture will foam up instantly. Pour immediately into the cake tin. Leave to set then break into bite size chunks.

Rate: 10/10

I crushed some and sprinkled between layers of a chocolate cake and mixed it with the frosting. YUMMO

Preparation:

Baked Raspberry cheesecake

Did a variation from: http://americanfood.about.com/od/desserts/r/Raspberry-Swirl-Cheesecake.htm

Ingredients:
Crust

• 1 1/2 cups Graham cracker crumbs
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling

• 680g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup sour cream
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup raspberry jam
• 4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• Fresh raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 175C Grease a 9-inch springform pan and line the bottom with waxed paper.2. Put the graham cracker crumbs in a medium bowl. Add the butter and toss with a fork until evenly moistened. Press the mixture over the bottom and up 1-inch of the sides of the prepared pan. Refrigerate until ready to use.

3. In a large bowl and using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl when necessary. Beat in the sour cream until blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.

4. Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan.

5. Put the jam and lemon juice in a small saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring often, until melted and smooth. If jam has pips – strain it

Drizzle 1/4 of the jam mixture in stripes over the batter. Spoon the remaining batter over the jam, then drizzle with the remaining jam.6. Swirl gently with a thin knife to marbleize the batter slightly.

7. Bake the cheesecake until firm around the edges but still slightly wobbly in the center, for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes. Set the cake in the pan on a wire rack to cool completely. Wrap the cake in plastic and chill for at least 4 hours.

8. Remove the cake from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving. Remove the pan sides and place the cake on a serving platter. Garnish with fresh raspberries.

Rating: 9/10

First attempt and it tasted great. However, I poured too much jam – should be lighter with it. Think this may have caused it to crack.

Next time will try a water bath, like i did in the basic Cheesecake recipe

Pre-baking

White chocolate and cranberry cookies

Ingredients:

• 170g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 3/4 cup (150g) dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup (50g) Caster sugar
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cornflour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 135g white chocolate chips
• 105g dried cranberries (added some macadamias)

Directions:

In a large bowl using a stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute on medium speed until completely smooth and creamy. Add the brown sugar and granulated sugar and mix on medium speed until fluffy and light in color. Mix in egg and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, cornflour, baking soda and salt. On low speed, slowly mix into the wet ingredients until combined. The cookie dough will be quite thick. Add the white chocolate chips and dried cranberries, mix for about 5 seconds until evenly disbursed. Cover dough tightly with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. Chilling is mandatory for this cookie dough.

Remove cookie dough from the refrigerator and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 177c. Line a large baking sheet with baking paper. Set aside.

Once chilled, the dough will be slightly crumbly, but will come together if you work the dough with your hands as you roll into individual balls. Roll balls of dough, about 1 Tablespoon of dough each, into balls. Bake for 8-9 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges. They will look extremely soft when you remove them from the oven. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet. If the cookies are too puffy, try gently pressing down on them with the back of a spoon. They will slightly deflate as you let them cool. Transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week. Baked cookies freeze well – up to three months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well – up to three months.

*Do not drop dough onto warm cookie sheets. Allow cookie sheets to cool completely between batches. 

Thanks: Sally’s baking addiction

Rate: 9/10: close to the chewy cookies at Subway

Vanilla Cupcake

Ingredients

• 1 cup (225 grams) granulated sugar
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 3/4 cups (175 grams) cake flour, not self-rising
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup (57 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup (75 grams) full-fat sour cream
• 1/4 cup canola oil or vegetable oil (60 ml)
• 1 tablespoon pure (not imitation) vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup (160 ml) whole milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C).
2. In a small bowl, combine sugar and seeds from the vanilla bean. (For those of you who are new to using vanilla beans, check out this video to learn how to get the seeds out of the bean.)
3. Using the back of a spoon, move around the bowl and apply pressure to break up any clumps of seeds and to better infuse the vanilla flavor into the sugar. Set aside.
4. In a medium-sized mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, mix together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
5. Add the vanilla bean sugar and mix until well combined.
6. Add butter and mix on medium-low speed for three minutes. Because there is so little butter, you’ll end up with a very fine crumb texture.
7. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla extract until smooth.
8. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined.
9. Slowly add milk and mix on low speed until just combined. The batter will be liquid. (Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s supposed to be that way.)
10. Fill cupcake liners just over 1/2 full.
11. Bake for 14 minutes and then test to see if they are done. They are done when a toothpick comes out without wet batter stuck to it. The cupcakes should appear white with specks of vanilla bean. They should not turn a golden brown. If they are not done, test again in two minutes. If they are still not done, test again in another two minutes.
12. When the cupcakes are done, remove them immediately from the tins and leave them on a cooling rack (or just on your counter if you don’t own a cooling rack) to cool.

Thank you: http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2011/09/ultimate-vanilla-cupcake-test-baked-by.html#el66VFZbmyuVQvkE.99

20 December 2013: Baking time was 20mins. Also, after baking i take a bit of the centre out and filled it with dulce de leche.

Score: 10/10

Baked Cheesecake

Thanks to: Stephanie Alexander’s best-ever cheesecake

Ingredients

100g butter, melted

300g wheatmeal biscuits

500g cream cheese, at room temperature

200g caster sugar

1 tbsp cornflour

3 eggs

2 tbsp lemon juice

few drops pure vanilla, or vanilla extract to taste

pinch of salt

2 cups sour cream

Method

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Brush the base and sides of a 22cm x 6cm deep springform tin with a little of the melted butter. Remove the base from the tin.

Cut a round of baking paper to fit the base of the tin, brush the paper with a little butter and set aside.

Tear off an 80cm sheet of foil and double it over so it measures 40cm in length. Lay the foil over the base of the tin, then put the buttered round of paper on top. Sit the springform tin over the base and lock the sides into place, leaving excess foil outside the tin. Draw up the excess foil around the tin and fold the top out of the way. You now have a watertight container.

Crush the biscuits in a food processor. Add the remaining butter and process. Press the crumb mixture into the base of the tin, tapping firmly with the base of a glass tumbler or similar as you go.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar in an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in the cornflour, then add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating each time just until smooth. Add the lemon juice, vanilla and salt. Add the sour cream and beat briefly to combine. Pour the batter into the tin and stand the tin in a large baking dish. Pour boiling water into the dish to come halfway up the sides of the tin. Bake for 50 minutes, then turn off the oven but do not open the door for a further hour.

Lift the tin from the water bath and flatten the foil away from the sides just in case there is any water trapped inside. Cool completely in the tin on a wire rack and refrigerate for several hours or overnight before serving.

20 December 2013:

I used Butternut cookies instead of wheatmeal, unfortunately this resulted in some butter oozing out of the tin

The cheesecake itself was great. Easy recipe

Score: 9/10