For Tuesday with Dorie this week, our recipe is Fudgy Mocha Bars. These are effectively a nutty, chocolatey brownie, based on cocoa but also studded with chocolate chips to up the chocolate "oomph".
The brownie mixture is quite stiff, and it accordingly requires some elbow grease to spread it into the far corners of the pan. They are baked in a 9" square pan, and rise quite high, so you end up with a satisfyingly chunkie sized brownie.
I gave some of these brownies to my friend and her children, and gathering from the enthusiastic response, these are good brownies.
To see what everyone else made this week, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.
A recent Queen Baking Club challenge was Pumpkin Pecan Pie Muffins. As the name suggests, these muffins were full of mashed pumpkin goodness, with added nuts for texture, and topped with an oaty streusel topping.
You can find the recipe for these delicious muffins here.
I substituted the pecans for walnuts because I had walnuts already in the pantry. I also used some leftover streusel from another project and added some oats to give it texture and make it more like the recipe streusel.
These were absolutely delicious muffins, and I would make them again. Given the dire wintry weather here at present, these muffins are a perfect way to warm the soul.
Recently on SBS Food, they showed The Hairy Bikers Bakeation, where the Hairy Bikers rode and ate their way through Europe. (Yep, this show is 13 years old, but I have never seen it before.) They made a number of fabulous looking dishes along the way, inspired by the countries they were visiting.
I was taken with a number of the dishes the Hairy Bikers made, but one which particularly caught my eye was Pogacsa (Bacon or Crackling Scones), from Hungary. Crispy bacon is mixed with sour cream, caraway seeds, parmesan cheese and the usual scone ingredients to create these tasty, filling scones:
A pogacsa spread with butter while it is still warm is just the ticket for breakfast:
If you would like to make your own pogacsa, you will need:
60ml milk
1 sachet dried yeast (~7g)
250g chopped bacon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
500g plain flour
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
120g butter
120ml sour cream
2 beaten eggs
1 egg beaten with a splash of water for egg wash
Heat the milk gently until it is just lukewarm, then stir in the yeast. Set aside for 15 minutes or so to allow the yeast to froth the milk.
Fry the bacon until crisp, then remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, parmesan and caraway seeds in a medium bowl.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the sour cream, beaten eggs, bacon and milk mixture. Pour the liquid ingredients into a large bowl, then add the dry ingredients, in several batches, and mix with a spoon and then your hands until everything is well combined.
Turn the dough out onto a floured bench and knead with your hands until the dough is smooth and elastic (~ 5 minutes). Put the dough into a well oiled bowl and leave to rise for 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.
Turn the dough back out onto the floured bench and punch it down, then press or roll it out to ~ 1 1/2 inches in thickness. Cut out rounds from the dough using a scone cutter, and place onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Make a cross-cross pattern on the top of each scone using a sharp knife, then allow the scones to rise for another 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Brush the top of each scone with eggwash, then bake the scones for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown on top.
Serve warm spread with lashings of butter.
This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Roasted Rhubarb with Bitters. This recipe is what it says on the tin - chopped rhubarb, macerated in sugar, and flavoured with bitters before being roasted in the oven.
The resulting ruby roasted rhubarb is a perfect accompaniment to icecream for dessert, or on porridge for breakfast. It's sweet and it's simple - you can't go wrong.
To see what the others made this week and what they though of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.
Today is World Chocolate Day, thought to be the date of introduction of chocolate to Europe in 1550. I am all for a day that involves the consumption of chocolate, so I baked a cake in which chocolate features front and centre for the occasion.
This cake is Helen Goh's Chocolate, Pear and Olive Oil Cake. It appeared magically from my pile of recipes when I was tidying up yesterday, which as far as I was concerned was a sign.
This cake comprises a soft, velvety chocolate cake base, topped with sliced fresh pear, then crowned with a sandy chocolate crumble - perfect! The moist sweet pears really make the cake for me, although I did enjoy the soft, melting texture of the cake itself.
To make this cake, you will need:
Crumble
75g self-raising flour
1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder
45g brown sugar
50g slivered almonds (I used flaked almonds)
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
Cake
80g chopped dark chocolate
125ml boiling water
2 eggs
150g brown sugar
100ml olive oil
120g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 small ripe pears, peeled cored and cut into 1cm thick slices
For the crumble:
Put all of the dry ingredients into a small bowl. Pour over the olive oil and mix together with a fork until a sandy crumble forms. Chill in the fridge while you make the cake.
Preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 20cm x 10cm loaf tin, leaving some paper overhanging on each side of the cake tin to help to remove the cake later.
Put the chopped chocolate in a small bowl and pour over the boiled water. Allow the mixture to stand for 30 seconds before whisking together until smooth. Allow to cool.
Beat the eggs, brown sugar and olive oil together in the bowl of a stand mixer until pale and creamy.
Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together in a small bowl.
Reduce the mixer speed to low. Beat in one third of the flour mixture, followed by half of the chocolate mixture, then repeat, alternating the flour and chocolate, with the final third of the flour last. Beat until just incorporated.
Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf tin. Top the cake batter with the pear slices, overlapping them to cover, and finally, scatter over the cocoa crumble.
Bake the cake in your preheated oven for 60 minutes or until cooked through.
Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool completely in the tin on a wire rack, before lifting the cake carefully onto a serving plate, using the baking paper overhang to assist.
Serve with cream or icecream.
Happy World Chocolate Day!
This week's Tuesday with Dorie is a savoury cookie known as Triscuity Bites. They are named after a whole wheat cracker called Triscuits. I am not aware of any true substitute for Triscuits in Australia, so I used Vitawheat, which are wholegrain crackers - as close as I think I am going to get.
The Triscuits are crushed in a food processor and mixed with flour, butter, sugar and cream cheese, so that the finished product does taste somewhat like a cracker with cheese in one.
I didn't have any trouble with the dough, and my cookies broke apart readily along the cut lines once baked. They also had a pleasing snap. I quite liked the flavour, and would not be adverse to making these again.
To see what everyone else made this week and their thoughts on it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.
For Tuesday with Dorie this week, I made the very attractive red and green Pistachio and Raspberry Financiers. How pretty are they! Wouldn't they be perfect at Christmas?
These financiers are based on ground pistachios instead of the traditional ground almonds, giving the financiers a lovely green hue. This colour is enhanced by a smidge of matcha. I also added a splosh of Chambord to the batter, as suggested by Dorie as an optional extra. The financiers are topped with a fresh raspberry, like a ruby crown. They also taste good - the perfect bite-sized morsel.
To see what the others made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.
