Choco Pudding Strawberry Cake チョコプリンと苺ケーキ

The strawberry season is over, I know, but anyway - this cake is great!

For a 24 cm quiche tin

cake base

• 100 grams of dark chocolate (with at least 70% cocoa solids), finely chopped
• 3 eggs
• 15 grams vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• Pinch of salt
• 100 grams flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees. Separate egg yolks and egg whites.

Beat the egg whites with 2 tbsp of ice cold water and a pinch of salt until it reaches a firm peak stage, gradually adding the vanilla sugar to it while beating (or, if you use vanilla bean paste, you can add it to the egg whites before you start beating them). Gently fold the egg yolks into the whipped egg whites.

Mix flour and baking powder and sieve them (!). Fold the sieved flour into the batter in 3 steps.

Grease a quiche tin with butter and sprinkle it with bread crumbs. Transfer your batter to the quiche tin and spread it evenly with a spatula. Bake in the oven for 15 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely while making the chocolate custard cream.

chocolate custard cream

• 125 ml whole milk (full fat)
• 1 ½ egg yolk
• 13 grams flour
• 1 tbsp sugar (if you use soy milk, then skip it!)
• ½ vanilla pod
• 70 to 100 grams chocolate with 60 to 70% cocoa solids (depends on how rich you want the chocolate flavour to be), finely chopped

Pour milk into a pot, deseed your vanilla pod and add them with the vanilla pod to the milk. Heat the vanilla-milk until it almost reaches the fever pitch, then remove from heat. Mix egg yolks, sugar and flour (sieved!) together until smooth. Using a whisk, pour the milk gradually into the egg-mixture, stirring all the time.

Pass the mixture through a sieve back into the pot. Heat the pot again, stirring all the time until it thickens. Remove from heat. Stir in the chopped chocolate until completely dissolved (shouldn’t take long time).

Leave to cool slightly, then spread it evenly over your cake base. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

glazed strawberries

• Approx. 800 grams strawberries
• 250 ml strawberry juice, sieved
• 3 grams leaf gelatine, soaked in cold water for 10 minutes

Heat the strawberry juice over a low heat, but do not cook! Then stir in the gelatine until dissolved. Now leave to cool slightly, but not too long or it will get firm.

Slice each strawberry into 4 halves, dip them into the glaze and then arrange the strawberries the way you like. :D If you don’t like my way, just browse the internet for some inspiration!

Death by Chocolate

I spent the weekend watching Lord of the Rings. After I had watched the second Hobbit-movie “The Desolation of Smaug”, I really wanted to know the whole story of LOTR. I became a big fan of Legolas, although I do not like Orlando Bloom. Aragorn is pretty cool. But if I had to be one character, it would be Gimli due to height and character.
 

The story of “middle earth” is pretty complex, like the cake that we made this weekend. Recipe is inspired by by French pastry chef Pierre Hermé. We call the cake “death by chocolate” – a must for you if you’re a chocoholic, in a depressive or sad mood or just feel hoggish. :D
 

I prepared some of the “layers” one day ahead to save time, which I recommend.

Recipe is for a 13 cm cake tin
 

Prepare one day ahead
 

brittle

• 30 grams butter at room temperature
• 25 grams sugar
• 15 grams flour
• ¼ egg white

Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Sieve the flour into the mixture and add a pinch of salt. Stir well until smooth. Finally add the egg white and mix well. Spread it on parchment paper as thin as possible and bake in the oven at 200°C for about 5 minutes. Cool completely, then break it to crumbs.

chocolate disk

• 20 grams couverture with 40% cocoa solids + 5 grams couverture with 60% cocoa solids

Melt the couverture over a bain-marie. Line your cake tin with cling film and pour in the melted chocolate evenly. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until you need it. 

chocolate cream

• 140 ml cream
• 80 grams couverture with 40% cocoa solids + 15 grams couverture with 60% cocoa solids

Heat the cream until it starts to steam (do not bring to boil!) and pour gradually into the couverture. Mix well until the couverture melts completely. Cool at room temperature and refrigerate overnight.

On the next day

Recommendation: Roast 135 grams of hazelnuts in a pan and rub off the skin with a towel. That’s the whole amount of hazelnuts that you will need for the following steps. So you save time.

 
2 hazelnut bases

• 75 grams icing sugar, sieved
• 70 grams ground hazelnuts
• 75 grams egg white
• 15 grams whole hazelnuts

Roast 40 grams of hazelnuts in a pan and rub off the skin with a towel. Blend them in a food processor with a pinch of salt until finely ground (pulse 2 to 3 times, that’s enough I think).
Preheat the oven to 170° degrees. On parchment paper, draw two circles with the same diameter like your cake tin has.
Mix icing sugar and ground hazelnuts. Beat the egg white up (not too stiff!) and fold it gradually into the sugar-hazelnuts-mixture. Fill a piping bag with the batter and pipe a spiral of batter onto your drawn circle, following the circle and pipe spiraling inward to fill the circle.
Ground the 15g of hazelnuts and sprinkle them over the batter. Bake in the oven with the oven door slightly opened for about 25 minutes. Let them cool completely!
 

ganache

• 25 grams cream
• 20 grams couverture 40% + 10 grams couverture 60%

Heat the cream and gradually mix into the couverture, until smooth. Cool to room temperature.

nougat filling

• 8 grams butter
• 20 grams couverture 40%
• 30 grams hazelnut nougat (for example, Nutella)
• 40 grams hazelnut paste*
• 40 grams brittle (keep the rest for decoration!)
• 10 grams roasted hazelnuts, grounded

*hazelnut paste:
Roast 40grams of hazelnuts in a pan and rub off the skin. Put them in the food processor and ground it with 1 tsp vanilla sugar until you get a fine paste.
 

Melt butter, couverture and hazelnut nougat over a bain-marie. Add the hazelnut paste, the brittle and the roasted hazelnuts and let it cool to room temperature.
 

cake’s composition
Use your cake tin (or alternatively a cake ring) and line it with parchment paper. Assemble the single layers of the cake in this order:

1. put one hazelnut-layer in the form
2. on the hazelnut-layer, spread the nougat filling evenly
3. take your chocolate disk and brush it with the chocolate ganache on both sides, then put the disk into the tin
4. beat the chocolate cream and pour half of it over the chocolate disk, spread it evenly
5. put the second hazelnut-layer over it (with the top looking down)
6. spread the second half fo the chocolate cream over it evenly

Refrigerate the assembled cake for 5 hours, before glazing and decorating it sideways with the rest of the brittle.

For my glaze, I just melted couverture (60 % cocoa solids) and butter over a bain-marie, let it cool and then spread it over the cake. You can also use a bought cake glaze, like one from Dr. Oetker. 

You’ll find the recipe on the blog of cook-poet Eva. My version is a bit different.

Chocolate Amaretto Cookies

Hello my dear readers,

A Happy New Year // Ein frohes neues Jahr! //明けましておめでとう！

I hope it will be a good year for you all, but I’ve got a good feeling about it. <3

I got some pretty cool and lovely presents for Christmas, which is: Three recipe books that I longed to call mine!!!

I want to show you the first recipe that I chose to bake among so many not less tempting others in my new books. It’s a recipe for little cookies with a subtle amaretto-taste. They are so easy to make and even faster gone! ;3

ingredients (makes approx. 25- 30 cookies)

• 80 grams flour, sieved
• 25 grams cocoa
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 40 grams sugar
• 25 grams cold butter, cubed
• 10 ml Amaretto
• 1 egg
• some icing sugar to coat

method
 

Mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder and sugar in a mixing bowl until well combined. Then sieve it. Add the cubed butter and using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour-mixture until its consistency reminds you of fine sand.
 

Mix the egg and amaretto together and add to the sandy mixture. Mix it with your hands then switch to a greater. The dough will be very sticky! Wrap the dough in clingfilm and refridgerate for about 30 to 40 minutes.
 

Preheat the oven to 180°C and prepare the icing sugar. Line your baking tray with parchment paper.
 

Wet your hands a little bit with cold water. With a teaspoon scoop out some dough and form it to little balls. Toss in the icing sugar and coat them completely and put them on the baking tray. 
Bake for 10-12 minutes in the oven. Allow to cool completely.

Source "The Hummingbird Bakery: Home Sweet Home", Harper Collins Publ. UK (2013)