The Making of a great dessert – Tiramisu

Or shall I say Tiramigu?

Last few weeks of my job search has been a complete mess!  I have been looking for work for quite some time now and its not that I didn't get any but for some reason or other things are either getting delayed or cancelled. I was managing with that so far but the last week was the heights of madness! I had multiple interviews on most days of the week and some of them were really crappy! Not all of it my fault though! Some of the interviewer didn't even know what they wanted. Long story short, I got really annoyed and frustrated , decided to “leave the gun take the cannoli ” (The Godfather). Turned off my computer, no phones, emails just cooking and baking with my favourite Gu chocolate cookbook. This is  my second recipe from the book. The first one was the Chocolate Mousse Cake. 

 

Have you ever tried beating egg whites till soft peaks by hand? I did, it was therapeutic at that time. My suggestion to you is, try it but only when you are very angry and you only have those poor egg whites in front of you to beat the heck out of them. Else use the electric blender!

 

Ingredients: (The recipe is from the Gu chocolate cookbook, well almost!)

For the sponge/lady fingers

50 gm plain flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

3 Egg whites

50 gm sugar

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

For the Mascarpone mousse

250 gm Mascarpone cheese (book recipe suggests 500gm but couldn't get to the shops to get another tub so managed with this)

50 gm sugar

1 egg yolk

2 tbsp coffee liquor

250 ml whipping cream (book recipe suggests 200 ml, since I was running short on cream cheese, I tried to manage with this)

For building the Tiramisu

50 ml strong coffee for dipping (recipe suggest 100 ml but I had something else on mind!)

60 ml coffee Liquor (My idea and purely optional)

100 gm very good quality dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)

60 ml of double cream

40 ml of coffee Liquor (Again My idea!)

2tbsp cocoa powder for dusting on top

50 gm of dark chocolate bar for grating on top

hand full of dark chocolate covered espresso beans (It was my idea and completely optional!)

Method:

Started off with separating 3 eggs. All egg whites in one bowl, 2 yolks in another one and the reserve the third yolk for later use in the mousse.

For making the sponge, pre heat the oven at 170 degree C and line a 25x30 cm baking tray. Spray or brush some oil in to it. Mix the cocoa powder and the flour together and keep. Beat the egg whites till soft peaks.Add the sugar and continue to beat until it looks like shaving foam. Lightly beat the two yolks and add them to the whites. Mix well. Now Add the flour mix in to the egg-sugar mix and beat well. Pour the mixture in the baking tray evenly and bake for 8-10 minutes or until you touch the top and it bounce back. Leave it to cool down and the cut them in to roughly 3x12 cm  fingers.

Now for the mascarpone mousse put all the ingredients under that list in to a bowl and  blend till it forms soft peaks.

All cooking done now comes the building part of this divine dessert. In a shallow bowl mix the first two ingredient of the third list. Get your serving dish, I used a 20 cm square glass dish, you can also use individual serving dishes. Dip the sponge fingers (half the quantity of total) one by one in the liquid and line them in the base of the serving dish. This should be quick so that you don’t end up with soggy bottom.

 

Cover layer #1 with half the mascarpone mousse. That’s your layer #2 . Melt the dark chocolate bar with double cream and add the coffee liquor when melted (the next 3 items in the building list) Now, for Layer #3 you can either simply dust cocoa powder or pour the chocolate ganache I just made. Layer #4 and #5 are same as Layer #1 and #2. Once done, try to smooth the top as much as you can, cover the top(make sure it doesn’t touch the cheese top) and leave it in the fridge to set overnight.

 

Just before serving, dust the top with cocoa powder and grated chocolate and carefully place some dark chocolate covered espresso beans on top. Now sit back relax and enjoy every spoonful of this divine dessert!

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.

Dairy free Cream au Chocolat

I was trying to do some dieting lately. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

I realized it pretty soon as I was eating more than normal. All I could think about is food, food and food. So, I gave up. Now back to my regular diet which includes dark chocolate. I was looking for an easy dessert to make which involves chocolate of course, and stumbled upon this recipe. Just five ingredients, doesn't take much time to cook or prepare, what else do I need? Only thing I had to make it dairy free. What can replace heavy double cream and still give that smooth, rich and creamy texture to the cream au chocolat? the answer is coconut milk.

Recipe adapted from here.

Ingredients:

1 cup of coconut milk

50 gm dark chocolate

3 egg yolks

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

In a double boiler heat the coconut cream and the chocolate together and keep stirring until they are mixed uniformly. Take it out of the double boiler and let it cool for some time. In a separate bowl separate the three eggs yolks. Add a spoonful of sugar to it and whisk it for at least 5 minutes or until the mixture turns pale yellow.

Pre-heat the oven at 160 degree C. Add the eggs to the chocolate mix and add the vanilla extract and give it a very good mix. Pour the chocolate mix in to five ramekins and place them in a baking tray half filled with boiling water. Cover the baking tray with an aluminium foil and place in the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes in the oven take the tray out of the oven. Remove the cover and check if the puddings are set on the sides. Slowly remove the ramekins from the baking tray and let them cool on a wire rack. Be careful of the boiling hot water of the baking tray. Once the ramekins are cooled down a bit cover them again and keep them in the fridge for at least 4 hours to set. Serve chilled with some strawberries or raspberries on top or just like that.

Valentine’s Day- Trio of Desserts

Every year on Valentine’s day I try to do something special. Last year it was chocolate. As you know that I am obsessed with chocolate and baking so this year it had to be baking. On top of that I got a chance to be one of the 15 bloggers who would take part in Baking Mad UK’s Valentine’s Day competition. Baking Mad UK had sent me a box full of baking goodies for this competition hence I had twice as many reasons to do some baking.

This year I thought of being brave and attempt to do not one, not two but a trio of desserts. Because I was making 3 different things I had to go for the low effort, high reward combination. After a brainstorm I decided to go for a shortbread biscuit, a cake and a combination of white and dark chocolate mousse.

Although it may seem like a lot but all of these are very easy to prepare desserts and the best part is you don’t need to make them all together. I made the chocolate mousse a day earlier and kept it chilled in fridge for overnight. Also the dough for the shortbread can be made in advance and kept in the fridge but I only kept it for couple of hours to set.

White and dark chocolate mousse

Let me begin with the white and dark chocolate mousse. Initially I thought of making white chocolate heart surrounded by the dark chocolate but wasn’t sure how will it turn out so as a back-up plan I went for the popular angular presentation. But when I finished making both the glasses, I couldn't decide which one to put forward. So here you go, both the glasses full of delicious white and dark chocolate mousse.

For white chocolate mousse I used:

100 gm Silver Spoon white chocolate

200 ml extra thick double cream

1tsp of Silver Spoon Vanilla Paste

Silver Spoon Sugar balls (optional)

Method:

Melt the white chocolate in the double boiler on a simmering heat. Keep stirring till it is a smooth mixture. Remove from the heat and keep it aside. Beat the double cream till it forms soft peak. Be careful while doing that as the cream become harder if you continue to beat. Now add the vanilla paste to the melted white chocolate and the add the cream to it and keep mixing until every thing is mixed properly and no lumps remaining.

For the angular presentation, I used a wine glass which I placed on one corner of an empty container and lean the glass on the other side of the container in a way that when the white chocolate is poured it covers the wine glass diagonally. Keep the whole arrangement, in the fridge and let it chill for 6-7 hours or even overnight.

When the white chocolate mousse is set, I started making the dark chocolate mousse. For this I used the recipe that I had made before only thing the I changed is the type of alcohol. This time it was cherry liquor, quantity was same.  Once ready pour the mousse on the wine glass by keeping the glass straight now the chill the glass in the fridge for another 6-7 hours or until set.

For the heart shape I simply placed a heart shape cookie cutter  in the glass and pour the white chocolate through it and filled it only half. Once set then pour the dark chocolate around the cutter and let it set. Once that is done then I took the cookie cutter slowly out and filled the heart shaped cavity with white chocolate mousse again. keep in the fridge till it is set.

For serving I used Silver Spoon Sugar balls and few orange peals on top. Trust me you wont be disappointed.

Shortbread Biscuit (makes 12 biscuits)

To go with this creamy mousse I made these shortbread biscuit which will provide the change in texture to the dish. I didn’t know making shortbread biscuit will be this easy. All I needed was four ingredients listed below.

Ingredients:

130 gm plain flour

115 gm Butter (at room temperature)

30 gm Icing Sugar (I used the lemon flavoured Icing sugar from Silver Spoon)

1 tsp of Silver Spoon Vanilla Paste

Method:

Beat the butter (I used an electric mixer) till smooth and creamy then add the sugar and vanilla paste and keep beating. Now add the flour and keep mixing till it forms a dough like consistency. Take it out of the bowl to make a round dough, cover it with cling film and chill in the fridge for couple of hours. This is also something you can make in advance. When you are ready to make the biscuits, take the dough out of the fridge and keep it in room temperature for 15 –20 minutes or until the dough is soft enough to roll and cut cookies out of it. Place the dough between two cling film and start rolling till the dough is quarter of an inch thick. Using the cookie cutter of your choice cut the cookies from the flattened dough.

Line a baking sheet on a baking tray and pre heat the oven to 180 degree. Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes or until the cookies are lightly brown on the side. Cool them in a wire rack and they are ready to eat. I drizzled some melted dark chocolate from Silver Spoon which you can melt on bag and cut a small corner to drizzle on them but that is purely optional.

Coffee cake with Nuts and Chocolate Ganache

Finally to complete the trio of dessert I made this cake. Can’t think of celebrating Valentine’s Day without a cake and not just any cake, a coffee cake.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

75 gm flour

75 gm butter

75 gm lemon flavoured Icing sugar from Silver Spoon

1 tsp of Silver Spoon Vanilla Paste

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

For decorating the cake, I used:

Handful of mixed nuts pieces

Coffee and walnut cake Icing

50 gm Silver Spoon easy melt dark chocolate

25 gms butter

2 tbsp cherry liquor

 

Method:

Beat the eggs first until light and fluffy, to that add the melted butter and sugar and continue beating. Once you have a well combined homogeneous mixture add the flour slowly, little by little to the mixture while continuing to beat. Add the baking powder, baking soda and the vanilla paste to the cake mix and continue to beat. Pre heat the oven to 180 degree C, grease a cake tin/loaf tin and pour the cake mix in. Bake for 25 minutes, insert a thin skewer in the cake to check if it has baked properly. if the skewers come out clean then its done else if it comes out sticky then bring the oven temperature down a bit and bake for some more time until its done.

For building the cake I used a ring cutter to cut a round portion of the cake then slice in horizontally. Make the coffee cream icing then spread between the cake layers and sides.Now on a plate spread the nuts and roll the cake on it to cover the sides of the cake. Make the chocolate ganache by melting the chocolate with the butter and the cherry and pour on top of the cake and serve. Sending this to English Mum’s ‘baked with love’ Bakeoff and Teenz’ Yummy Delights Valentine’s Day Event.