Gateau Chocolat Framboise

On Sunday, it was my friend Veronica's birthday, so her friend Margot and I took her to breakfast at Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder. This cafe is a Melbourne institution, and needs no introduction. The food was just marvellous, and well worth the 40 minute wait for a table. Veronica had pancakes with pears, cardamom, cassia and blood orange curd, Margot had the fruit toast and I had porridge with, among other things, pumpkin seed brittle. The food tasted as good as it sounded on the menu, and was very filling. A wonderful range of gourmet jams and relishes, cheeses and breads are also on sale at the cafe.

For afters, I made Gateau Chocolat Framboise (or Chocolate Raspberry Cake for those who, like me, don't speak French!) from p209 of the delightful Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate & Zucchini recipe book.

This cake, pictured above, is more akin to a shell-less chocolate tart than a cake. It is extremely dense and chocolatey, containing almost an entire block of chocolate and plenty of butter. However, as you can only manage a small slice of this melt-in-the-mouth, fudgy delicacy, you do not have to worry about your waistline. The raspberries give the cake a little bit of zing to contrast with the intense chocolate taste.

My cake does not look as elegant as the one in Clotilde's photograph, primarily because I had to ice it to cover up a failed attempt at piping Veronica's name in white chocolate on the top. No matter - it tasted delicious, and Veronica loved it.

If you choose to make this cake, you need to be prepared well in advance, as it must be refrigerated for at least 8 hours. Don't attempt to lift the cake from its springform pan base until it has completely chilled - I found to my peril that this cake is rather fragile until it has chilled and I almost lost it.

While it is not a cheap cake to make, with ample quantities of chocolate and raspberries being crucial ingredients, it is well worth it for a special occasion, and the taste is sinfully devine. Happy birthday Veronica!!

Beef and potato pie

Beef and potato pie
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

After a run of relatively warm weather (well, warm for Melbourne in winter!), it has turned chilly again today. Accordingly, warm, rich comfort food is what the doctor ordered to keep out the cold. The Winter 2006 edition of Donna Hay Magazine features a selection of delicious pie recipes, so I dug out my copy and selected the Beef and Potato Pie for my dinner tonight.

This pie is non-traditional in that, instead of a pastry crust, it has a crust of thinly sliced baked potatoes. The beef filling is also unusual in that its key flavour comes from seeded mustard, giving the filling a distinctive smell and tangy flavour. Other ingredients accompanying the mustard flavoured beef are onion, garlic, mushrooms, bay leaves and beef stock. The filling takes one hour on the stove top to simmer (half an hour with the lid on, half an hour with the lid off), followed by 45 minutes in the oven to bake the potato topping. Once the filling has reduced on the stove top, you are left with a thick, tangy, flavoursome pie filling. However, I wasn't so keen on the potato topping, which seemed rather bland to me.

This recipe tells you to put the oven on to warm up at the start, despite the fact that the filling takes over an hour to prepare before it goes into the oven (grr...). Next time, I would also season the potatoes (the recipe doesn't call for this), or use a pastry crust for the delicious filling. However, the filling recipe is very good, and I would make it again.

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Self-saucing chocolate pudding

Self-saucing chocolate pudding
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

When I set out to make self-saucing chocolate pudding, I actually meant to make a gloriously rich version containing chocolate and sour cream. Unfortunately, when I went to make it, I didn't have enough chocolate, so I did the next best thing - I made the saintly low fat option made with cocoa instead.

This pudding recipe comes from p284 of The Australian Womens Weekly 501 Low Fat Recipes, and is titled "Rich Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding". Although it is nice, particularly when it is hot, I would hardly describe it as "rich". If you can afford to go the whole hog occasionally, my recommendation is to make the full fat version and enjoy it with icecream and custard. However, for those watching their weight or who just don't have the right ingredients to make a real chocolate version, then this is a pleasant enough substitute.

Lumberjack Cake

Lumberjack Cake
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

I'm going to a friend's place for dinner tomorrow night, so I have decided to bake for work on "hump day" - Wednesday - instead. I received a gift voucher from work for my baking efforts and used it to buy two new cookbooks. One of these books, Sweet and Savoury Bites, contains a recipe for the intriguingly-named Lumberjack Cake at p66. Full of the fruity goodness of Granny Smith apples and dates, and topped with crunchy coconut, I found it hard to resist.

This cake is deliciously moist and more tart-like in texture than cake-like. It was also quite sweet because of the large quantities of fruit that it contains.

This cake did not receive the same rave reviews that a chocolate cake does, but I enjoyed it for a change. There are a number of other fruity cakes that I have been wanting to try, so this may be the beginning of a new phase.

Chocolate!

Chocolate!
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

This is simply a gratuitous chocolate post to show off the two new flavours of chocolate that I bought on the weekend - Kiwi Fruit and Spicy Ginger, made by Whittakers, a Kiwi brand sold at Big W. I haven't broken into either of them yet, but as I am a chocoholic, and I already know that I adore ginger chocolate, I would be very surprised if I am disappointed by either of them. Enjoy!

My first commissioned creation

Happy Birthday Chocolate Cake
Originally uploaded by Cakelaw

Wonderful Patsy from work asked me to make her mother-in-law's 95th birthday cake. I was very honoured, as (a) it was such an important occasion; and (b) no-one had ever asked me to bake a cake for them before; and (c) I was amazed that anyone thought my baking skills were good enough to be entrusted with such a task.

I made the Dinosaur Rock Chocolate Cake again at Patsy's request - it is both a large cake to feed crowds, and is very moist. However, it did not go smoothly this time - I ended up making two identical cakes, with the first one providing morning tea for the people at work.

Cake no. 1 was turned out too early and started to crack because I forgot to factor in the size of the cake to the tin cooling time. This of itself was not the deal-breaker for this cake, as I could cover up the crack with icing - it wasn't that major. However, I thought I would use ganache for the icing, not realising that such a large cake needs a longer than usual cooling time before being iced - when I woke up the next morning, the ganache had marbled from the heat. This could not be so easily fixed, so I started baking cake no. 2 at 7am before going to work, and went home at lunchtime (luckily I live really close to work) to ice and decorate it.

Happily, cake no. 2 went much better, although I skipped the ganache and used glace icing (which perhaps I should have done in the first place). Patsy said that the cake went down well, and she seemed happy with it (which is after all the most important thing).

As well as being remunerated for the cost of the ingredients, Patsy gave me a lovely box of Lindt ball chocolates for my efforts. Thank you Pasty for having faith in me (although I am not sure it was deserved!), and for providing me with my first commissioned work.