Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake

We had this for breakfast on Monday. What's with the "quadruple" you ask? Well, Nigella Lawson explains that this cake is made up of cocoa, chocolate chips, chocolate syrup and grated chocolate. Love this cake for its simplicity to bake the loaf. Put everything into the food processor , blitz and pour. Easy-peasy. BUT...cooking the chocolate syrup is a whole other thing. You want the syrup to be syrupy, not just melted sugar with cocoa. For that, you'll need to stir consistently over low heat for the liquid to turn caramel-y...if there's such a word. Easy if it's just sugar and water but with cocoa added, looking for the colour change is impossible. Doesn't help that it's simmering. It basically has to reduce to turn into this yummy thick syrup. Anyway, if this is going to be daunting, forget it. In my opinion, the syrup didn't really enhance the loaf nor did the flakes of chocolate on top. Purely aesthetic, I feel. The top did look shiny and chocolate flakes inviting but other than that, the loaf itself was to die for. Rich, moist and flavourful. Maybe it was the Valhorna Manjuri cocoa I used and the 75% dark chocolate chips? Well, Young Master's mates wiped out whatever that was left from breakfast for tea, so I didn't get a second slice to have it 'dance in my mouth' - quoting Manu Fidel.

Big Pasta with Mushroom, Parsley, Garlic & Thyme

I know...the title itself is a mouthful. I would have just called it plain Vegetarian Baked Pasta. This recipe came from Nigella Lawson's Feast and it ensues the baked rigatoni for meat-lovers from the previous page. Our family love butter-sautéed mushrooms with garlic on toast. So, baking this for Sunday lunch was a no-brainer. But working out the right quantity was a lot of brain. Nigella's recipe was to feed 16! I halved the béchamel and mushroom mixture recipes, and used only one 500gm packet of pasta (recipe called for three). I ended up baking the pasta in a 20cm dish and six large ramekins. If you're going to do this, make sure you have a large party or freeze the rest (like I did) for a weekday lunch. Cooking the white sauce may be a bit daunting for beginners but you have to start sometime because lots of comforting food involves béchamel...and even better, cheesy béchamel. Always get the roux right first. Set the stove on low fire, melt the butter and add the flour. Sprinkling them into the pan while constantly whisking helps. When you see a nice paste, add the milk. Never stop whisking. No need for vigorous whisking just a gentle and steady hand will do. Increase the heat a bit and continue whisking till it thickens. Let it come to a boil but not over-flowing it and take the sauce off the heat. You'll have a beautiful sauce for your pasta. The other thing I changed here was using three cheeses to top the pasta mixture instead of one. Less salty with less parmesan, richer with cheddar and great browning with stringy mozarella.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares

I've been on sabbatical from "commercial" baking for 2 weeks now and will continue for another 2 weeks to purportedly help with Young Master's year 6 SATs equivalent. Well, I don't know how much I'm helping when I've been cooking and baking up a storm in lieu of cake decorating! Must be a stress reaction or instinctive mothering...you know, cooking for his brain? Just this morning, a friend updated her Facebook status saying her son's teacher recommended fruit juices to help them. She said sure, will get some Peel Fresh (packaged juices) later. Son replied, "no mum, fresh juice"...You can already see good ol' mumsie skinning oranges. Frankly, I've been doing the same. The MOTH (who'd reason with you that fishes are friends not food if he can have his say in my meal planning) have been scrunching his face a lot lately. Yes, if you don't know, yet, fish is brain food....yeeeesss.
So, Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares - brain food or not? Well, chocolate sharpens the mind and peanut butter nourishes the brain! See? I knew I had a reason for putting this together...*snigger*. These fudgy squares are divine. By using dark chocolate and a smooth peanut butter, the match was made in heaven. They just melt in your mouth. Think these squares have been helping Young Master keep his anxiety level low?

Chocolate Pistachio Fudge

Another hit! This is exactly how fudge should taste and feel in your mouth....smooth, velvety and decadent. Helps that you try to use only the best dark chocolate you can find. I found mine in Melbourne's The Essential Ingredient in Prahran Market. Callebaut make's one of the finest dark chocolate callets (chocolate bits shaped like lentils) in the industry. I got a packet of 57.8% cocoa and though that's semi-sweet, it didn't kill the fudge. While fudges are supposed to be sugar-coating the insides of your mouth, it doesn't need to be diabetes-inducing. The result was addictive. Can't have enough of it! I was also very pleased to use the slivered fresh pistachios in the fridge. Got that in I-will-not-go-to-Vic-Market-again. Pistachios in my opinion, are the Hermes of nuts. It's great for your heart, very high in anti-oxidants and one of the most expensive nuts in the market....yes, I think Hermes is also very good for my heart, thank you. So expensive that we only get old, waxy, dried ones here. Probably the lowest grade Iran can spare. But seeing that vendor with the pile of green gold amongst its pale earthy cousins, I had to buy some back. The chocolate fudge was a perfect catalyst to the pistachios. Now, THAT is food porn.

White Chocolate (and Macadamia) Brownies

Another morning of , "What shall I bake for tea?". No, I don't always bake for tea on a weekday but I had to make a point to do that on Mondays. Young Master has a jam-packed schedule on Mondays and while he's swallowing his food instead of chewing 20 times, I had to make sure whatever he swallowed were jam-packed with calories. On Mondays, he has to be snacking tea in the car on the way to sports practise. So, snack had to be something small and easy to eat. We had dark chocolate brownie the week before, and I had to try finish the white chocolate buttons in the fridge. So, I looked for a Blondie - white chocolate brownie recipe. HTBADG has one and with my apprehension with white chocolate....I was determined to tweak it from the beginning. First, I cut the sugar by 1/3. Second, I replaced macadamia nuts with dried cranberries. The recipe change worked wonders. It was divine and you don't hear that from me very often when it comes to white chocolate. The balance was perfect. This will probably be the only white chocolate dessert recipe I'd repeat.

Maple and Ginger Cheesecake Tarts

What do you do with leftover (because no one wants to lose their teeth,) Arnotts Ginger Nut biscuits? Use them as cheesecake base. I have a couple of books with recipes using Ginger Nut biscuits....probably all with the same reasons as I do. Why do they make them so hard? The recipe I chose was from another Aussie purchase I made - Donna Hay Magazine Winter 2012, hot out of the press. Using the food processor to pulse crumb the Ginger Nut biscuit nearly killed the poor machine. The biscuits were THAT hard. It couldn't even make a crack in the first few pulses! In the end, I took out my mortar and pestle, and gave each and every biscuit a good smash for being stubborn before blitzing them to oblivion. Pressing the biscuits into the individual tart tin was a pain. I couldn't feel my fingers after lining the 8 tins. The cheesecake was a mix of two cheeses - ricotta and cream cheese. I do like that because the cheesecake turned out light and pleasurable in the mouth. Not your usual rich and sticky-through-your-throat-kind of cheesecake. I'd do this again replacing the Ginger Nut biscuits, of course.

Pizza Casareccia

I'm back! And I'm back with a 10kg loot from my recent trip Down Under. Much thanks (or no thanks, depending on whose view ;-p) to my girlfriend, I was in culinary haven over those few days. Not only did we feast, we, I mean I, shopped. Melbourne is Australia's foodie territory and there was no question that I could find every gadget, pan or spatula here. I had a very modest 1 item to shop for this trip, and ended up with....let's see...10kg worth including a pizza stone. Needless to say I was keen to put it to use and see if my pizzas crisp with the stone. I chose to use a new pizza dough recipe (from Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess), feeling very goddess-like with my new toy. Well, the excitement pretty much ended there with my enthusiasm. Turned out that this dough recipe was a soft and sticky kind. The kind that needed well-oiled hands to handle. I flattened one half of the dough onto a non-stick pan and the other half on the pizza stone. Both turned out exactly the same texture! Crispy! Talk about a good pizza dough recipe. Well, I must say though, the crust got stuck on the the stone leaving traces of oil impregnated in it and extra cheese melted and burnt on the the stone left it looking very well-used. I shall try the stone with my regular pizza dough recipe and see if it's better than before. I'll be damned if it's the same after carrying that heavy stone back!! Stay tuned....