Book Review–Gu Chocolate Cookbook

Once in every 3-4 months, we have a book sale organized in our office by lunch time by the book people, where we can buy book at a discount rate. Usually cheaper than the high street prices. Some times even cheaper than Amazon. Usually they will have lots of cookbooks, kids books and some novels. I love cookbooks so I make sure that I pay a visit to the sale, every time the book people comes to our site.

This time among all the lovely cookbooks I spotted the Gu chocolate cookbook. I didn't know that Gu had published a book on chocolate, so it came as a surprize to me and I knew I was going to buy that book instantly. Who wouldn’t just look at the cover picture. However people do say don’t judge the book by its cover! So I went in. Every page I turned I felt good. At the end of it it was like a magnet got stuck in my mind and hand, I just had to buy the book!

The hard covered, 200+ pages book contains many interesting recipes along with the usual suspects. The book has 6/7 chapters and you can choose recipes based on your situation demands. I just love the last chapter name its called “…for Chocolate Extremists”. The pictures of the book kept me glued to the book for a long time. They just looked out of the world. If you are  a chocolate lover, trust me you need to have this book.

I came back to my desk and just couldn't resist letting everyone know about my latest treasure. One of my colleague suggested that I should bake a cake from the book. I knew I was going to make something from the book soon but his suggestion narrowed it down to the exact thing. There were two chocolate cake recipes I was toggling between, but then in the end decided to go with Chocolate mousse cake with chocolate glaze on top.

I started on with the sponge which was pretty easy and straight-forward. Just melt the butter (200gm )add sugar(200gm) and start the mixer. Now added one egg at a time upto 5 eggs (the recipe suggested 6 but I thought 5 would be enough). I got the chocolate melted in a double boiler and set aside to cool down before adding to the cake mix. In a separate bowl I mixed all the dry ingredients, 150gms flour, 3tsp baking powder and 1tbsp baking soda (my addition).  Added the dry mix spoon by spoon to the wet mix while continue to mix with that electric mixer. Finally added the melted chocolate and gave it a good mix again.

I had preheated the oven to 170 degrees and placed a lined cake tin in it before starting on the cake mix so by now the oven is and the tin both are ready to bake. just pour the cake mix on the tin and baked for 50-55 minutes or until the skewers came out clean. Took the sponge out to cool it down and turned the oven down.

Now on to the chocolate mousse. This is an eggless mousse, just two ingredients 200gm dark chocolate and 200 ml double cream. Beat the cream till it forms the soft peak and melt the chocolate and add into it to a smooth mix. Chocolate mousse is ready for the spread. All I needed is the sponge to cool down. Since there was some time to that so I started to make my chocolate glaze.  Again started with melting 100 gm chocolate with 100ml double cream. To that added 100 gms of caster sugar and half a sachet of gelatine mix with 2 tbsp of water. I made the gelatine mix before so that no lumps formed in the chocolate glaze. Mixed every thing together and when it turned in to a rich dark pool of chocolate sauce, took it off the heat and let it cool.

Building the cake: I must say this was the toughest part of all. I have done this before but not with chocolate cream. I have always found cream and cream cheese frosting is the best frosting. Easy to spread and holds shape well. This chocolate mousse spread wasn’t an easy one. It took me longer time to do the icing than I anticipated and It wasn’t as smooth as I expected. Maybe I should have beaten the cream a bit longer but anyway, here I was spreading the mousse on the cake.first I added a bit of mousse to the cake base so that when I work on my sponge it shouldn't move. Next cut the cake in to half and spread generous amount of mousse on top of the bottom half.Carefully placed the top half of the sponge. Now covered the cake with rest of the chocolate mousse. This took a while. Finally when I finished I placed the cake in the fridge to set for at least 2-3 hrs. Then pour the glazed on top of the cake, making sure to cover every bit of it. Once that’s done, placed the cake back in to the fridge for the glaze to set on mousse and this time overnight.

I must say I didn’t manage to get the look I was after but I hopes it would taste good, and that’s what happened. My team mates loved it. I took the cake to office on Monday morning and there was nothing left when I left the office that evening. I was happy, all that hard work paid off.

Pure Vanilla–Book Review

First of all a very Happy New Year to all my readers.

I am not been very regular here lately but trust me I have good reasons for that. Having said that I feel I need to organize myself bit better so that I can give a fair amount of attention to my this baby as well. Hence one of my new year resolution is to be more regular here and share more mouth watering, easy and quick recipes, book reviews, food photography and many more.

I decide to begin my year with a book review. I received to book when I was away so couldn't review the book earlier but finally when I had a good look at the book, I thought Oh! My Lord. What a book!

The name “Pure Vanilla” sounds to me something divine..and the cover picture of the book gave me the same heavenly feeling. From start to end the book has a divine feeling about it. The pages, the structure of the book the recipes, the photos every thing has a mellow sweetness about it, just like vanilla itself.

Some 80+ recipes including Vanilla cloud cake, Vanilla spread, jams, marshmallow etc..etc.. I am not giving you the full list..you need to buy the book to see it. Its almost like a one-stop reference and recipe book for vanilla you have in your store cupboard. I will be trying out some recipes soon from the book and will make post on that soon. 

The book is written by California based fellow food blogger Shauna Sever. Beautiful, talented the next door baker’s blog can be found here. If you wish to buy the book from Amazon then the link is right here. The beautiful photos of the book is taken by Leigh Beisch and the book itself is published by Quirk Books.

P.S. All the pictures in this post are clicked from the book Pure Vanilla.

Book Review - Tart It Up!

I am fairly regular in twitter and most social networking sites. So when Octopus Publishing Group tweeted a photo and asked if anyone can guess the source, I instantly knew what I was looking at. With full confidence I replied and guess what, now I own a copy of it and you are about to read my thoughts on it.

 

It was a bit longer wait then usual as I was eagerly waiting for it to arrive. Not only because it is a baking book but the thrill to have a book before it is released in to the market is amazing. Also this is a book I was expecting to have lots of baked dessert recipes which it does. 

“Tart it up!” is Eric Lanlard’s latest book on baking. BTW, I also own his first book “Home Bake” and I must say that is a fabulous book and a must have if you are into baking.

This is his second book of baking, mostly involving some kind of pastry, the book is clearly divided in to two parts - Savoury and Sweet, and contains nearly hundred recipes including the accompaniments. The book starts off with the recipe of shortcrust pastry, which is probably the most used one in rest of the recipes listed in the book.

The book is a box of treasures. As I flip through the pages I was realizing that how much baking I will be doing soon. Its difficult to choose from as each and every one is equally tempting. To add to that There are mouth-watering photographs which will not let you close the book.

This is not a book for people who are on diet or planning to loose weight. Also I feel this is a book from where you will cook for special occasions and for someone you care for. If you plan to do a Julie and Julia project with this book and eat them all, you better keep your hospital number in speed dial. The amount of butter used in the pastry which is the base for any of the recipe in the book is just a fraction. for the filling there is similar amount of butter, double cream and sugar. Having said that, all these ingredients are key to the divine taste of the dishes.This book is definitely for the celebrations and the dinner parties you will be hosting in future and not for everyday cooking.

This is a beautifully pictured by Kate Whitaker with step by step recipe given. Along with the textual description, some of the recipes have steps shown in pictures, which I thought is a huge plus point from readers perspective.

Tart it up! will be released on the market from tomorrow, and you can buy it online here at Amazon. P.S. All the pictures in this blog post are clicked by me from the book.

Book Review-Dock Kitchen CookBook

Stevie Parle’s Dock Kitchen Cookbook is a collection of recipes from around the world. The recipes are categorized according to the four seasons in the year, beginning with Spring and all the way till winter. For the people who are not aware yet, Doc Kitchen is Stevie Parle’s popular restaurant in London and he is been awarded the Observer Food Monthly Young Chef of the Year 2010. 

The fact I love about the book is that it is very well designed, photographed and organized. At the very beginning with the seasons are listed with page numbers, which makes the book very easy to access. The book is full of beautiful photographs and easy to follow recipes.

As soon as I read that the book claims to have recipes from all around the world, the first thing I was looking for some Indian recipes and I wouldn't have guessed this one “Chaat”. I also found “white chapati”, “brown chapati”, “Amritsari Kulcha” and then I found “Rabbit Biriyani”! I have never had or heard of it but I guess that’s how innovation works! I am definitely going to try that one! The book also contains recipes from Mexico, Italy, Iran, Lebanon and many more.

In the book the author has used many ingredients in his recipes that we normally won’t pick up on our weekly veg shopping. For example, elderflower in grappa batter. But that’s the uniqueness of the book that you will find recipes that they will make your everyday meal a special one. If you are an experimental foodie then this is one cook book you should definitely have.

Now about my favourite topic : Desserts of this book! The book contains 11 ice cream recipes!! and none of them are very commonly used combinations! Now all I need is an ice cream maker to try these recipes!

I loved the photos in the book. A picture speaks a thousand words and that exactly most of the photos of this book are doing. The recipes are very straight forward along with beautiful food photography by Toby Glanville. The book is published by Quadrille publication and now available in Amazon.