Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Although I first came up with this recipe because I had someone coming for supper who - genuinely - couldn't eat wheat or dairy, it is so meltingly good, I now make it all the time for those whose life and diet are not so unfairly constrained, myself included.

It is slightly heavier with the almonds - though not in a bad way - so if you want a lighter crumb, rather than a squidgy interior, and are not making the cake for the gluten-intolerant, then replace the 150g ground almonds / 1½ cups almond meal with 125g plain flour / ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour. This has the built-in bonus of making it perhaps more suitable for an everyday cake.

Made with the almonds, it has more of supper-party pudding feel about it and I love it still a bit warm, with some raspberries or some such on the side, as well as a dollop of mascarpone or ice cream.

Ingredients

• 150 millilitres regular olive oil (plus more for greasing)
• 50 grams good-quality cocoa powder (sifted)
• 125 millilitres boiling water
• 2 teaspoons best vanilla extract
• 150 grams ground almonds (or 125g plain flour / 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour)
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 pinch of salt
• 200 grams caster sugar
• 3 large eggs

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C/gas mark 3/325ºF. Grease a 22 or 23 cm/ 9inch springform tin with a little oil and line the base with baking parchment.
2. Measure and sift the cocoa powder into a bowl or jug and whisk in the boiling water until you have a smooth, chocolatey, still runny (but only just) paste. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then set aside to cool a little.
3. In another smallish bowl, combine the ground almonds (or flour) with the bicarbonate of soda and pinch of salt.
4. Put the sugar, olive oil and eggs into the bowl of a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment (or other bowl and whisk arrangement of your choice) and beat together vigorously for about 3 minutes until you have a pale-primrose, aerated and thickened cream.
5. Turn the speed down a little and pour in the cocoa mixture, beating as you go, and when all is scraped in you can slowly tip in the ground almond (or flour) mixture.
6. Scrape down, and stir a little with a spatula, then pour this dark, liquid batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the sides are set and the very centre, on top, still looks slightly damp. A cake tester should come up mainly clean but with a few sticky chocolate crumbs clinging to it.
7. Let it cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, still in its tin, and then ease the sides of the cake with a small metal spatula and spring it out of the tin. Leave to cool completely or eat while still warm with some ice cream, as a pudding.

 

Read More

Nutella Cake

Not only is this one of the easiest cakes to make, it happens - joyously - to be one of the most delicious. My household is totally addicted!

Please don't feel obliged to rush out and buy a bottle of Frangelico, the most divinely declasse hazelnut liqueur, its monkish derivation signalled by the rope that is hung from the holy-brother-shaped bottle. I use hazelnuts bought ready-ground, but ones you grind yourself in the processor will provide more nutty moistness.

Ingredients

For the Cake

• 6 large eggs (separated)
• 1 pinch of salt
• 125 grams soft unsalted butter
• 400 grams nutella (1 large jar)
• 1 tablespoon frangelico (or rum or water)
• 100 grams ground hazelnuts
• 100 grams dark chocolate (melted)

For the Icing

• 100 grams hazelnuts (peeled weight)
• 125 millilitres double cream
• 1 tablespoon frangelico (or rum or water)
• 125 grams dark chocolate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4/350ºF. In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and Nutella together, and then add the Frangelico (or whatever you're using), egg yolks and ground hazelnuts.
2. Fold in the cooled, melted chocolate, then lighten the mixture with a large dollop of egg white, which you can beat in as roughly as you want, before gently folding the rest of them in a third at a time.
3. Pour into a 23cm/9 inch round greased and lined springform tin and cook for 40 minutes or until the cake's beginning to come away at the sides, then let cool on a rack.
4. Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upwards and the nuts are golden-brown in parts: keep shaking the pan so that they don't burn on one side and stay too pallid on others. Transfer to a plate and let cool. This is imperative: if they go on the ganache while hot, it'll turn oily. (Believe me, I speak from experience.) If your hazelnuts have skins on then after toasting in the frying pan transfer them to a slightly dampened tea towel and rub them while they are still warm to remove the skins.
5. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the cream, liqueur or water and chopped chocolate, and heat gently. Once the chocolate's melted, take the pan off the heat and whisk until it reaches the right consistency to ice the top of the cake. Unmould the cooled cake carefully, leaving it on the base as it will be too difficult to get such a damp cake off in one piece.
6. Ice the top with the chocolate icing, and dot thickly with the whole, toasted hazelnuts. If you have used Frangelico, put shot glasses on the table and serve it with the cake.

 

Read More

Devil's Food Cake

Forget the name, this cake is heavenly. The crumb is tender, the filling and frosting luscious.

When I made it one friday, I expected my children, resident food critics much in the mould of the Grim eater, to find it too dark, too rich, not sweet enough: you get the gist. Instead, I came down on Saturday morning to find nothing but an empty, chocolate-smeared cake stand and a trail of crumbs.

You may prefer to prepare this the other way round from me, and get the frosting underway before you make the cakes. Either way, read the recipe through before you start cooking (I shouldn't have to remind) to get the shape of things in your head, not least because the frosting is softer, stickier than you may be used to. While you're making it, don't panic. The mixture will seem very runny for ages once the chocolate has melted and you will think you have a liquid gleaming glaze, beautiful but unfit for purpose; leave it for about an hour, as stipulated, though, and it will be perfect and spreadable. It never quite dries to the touch, but this is, in part, what makes the cake so darkly luscious.

Ingredients

For the Cake

• 50 grams best-quality cocoa powder (sifted)
• 100 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
• 250 millilitres boiling water
• 125 grams soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)
• 150 grams caster sugar
• 225 grams plain flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs

For the Frosting

• 125 millilitres water
• 30 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
• 175 grams unsalted butter (cubed)
• 300 grams best-quality dark chocolate (finely chopped)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350°F.
2. Line the bottoms of two 20cm / 8inch round sandwich tins with baking parchment and butter the sides.
3. Put the cocoa and 100g / half cup dark muscovado sugar into a bowl with a bit of space to spare, and pour in the boiling water. Whisk to mix, then set aside.
4. Cream the butter and caster sugar together, beating well until pale and fluffy; I find this easiest with a freestanding mixer, but by hand wouldn’t kill you.
5. While this is going on – or as soon as you stop if you’re mixing by hand – stir the flour, baking powder and bicarb together in another bowl, and set aside for a moment.
6. Dribble the vanilla extract into the creamed butter and sugar – mixing all the while – then drop in 1 egg, quickly followed by a scoopful of flour mixture, then the second egg.
7. Keep mixing and incorporate the rest of the dried ingredients for the cake, then finally mix and fold in the cocoa mixture, scraping its bowl well with a spatula.
8. Divide this fabulously chocolatey batter between the 2 prepared tins and put in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.
9. Take the tins out and leave them on a wire rack for 5–10 minutes, before turning the cakes out to cool.
10. But as soon as the cakes are in the oven, get started on your frosting: put the water, 30g / 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar and 175g / 1 1/2 sticks butter in a pan over a low heat to melt.
11. When this mixture begins to bubble, take the pan off the heat and add the chopped chocolate, swirling the pan so that all the chocolate is hit with heat, then leave for a minute to melt before whisking till smooth and glossy.
12. Leave for about 1 hour, whisking now and again – when you’re passing the pan – by which time the cakes will be cooled, and ready for the frosting.
13. Set one of the cooled cakes, with its top side down, on a cake stand or plate, and spread with about a third of the frosting, then top that with the second cake, regular way up, and spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides, swirling away with your spatula. You can go for a smooth look, but I never do and probably couldn’t.

 

 

Read More

Scallops With Thai Scented Pea Puree

Introduction

I love the bouncy sweetness of scallops and, although you might think the equal sweetness of the peas would be too much alongside, the deep flavour of coriander and chilli and the sharpness of lemongrass miraculously provided by the thai green curry paste, make it a zingy and yet still comforting accompaniment. This is a real treat of a supper, both for the eater and the cook.

Ingredients

• 500 grams frozen petits pois
• 1 tablespoon green thai curry paste
• 75 grams creme fraiche
• sea salt flakes (to taste)
• 2 teaspoons groundnut oil (or other flavourless oil)
• 2 teaspoons butter
• 6 large scallops (preferably diver caught) (or 10-12 small ones)
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander (or Thai basil)

Method

1. Cook the peas in boiling, slightly salted water until tender, then drain and tip into a blender, adding 1 tablespoon curry paste and the crème fraîche. Season to taste with salt and perhaps add more curry paste, depending how strong it is.
2. Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan until foamy, then fry the scallops for about 2 minutes a side. If you are using big scallops, then it is sometimes easier to cut them in half across. When they are cooked, they will have just lost their raw look in the middle and be lusciously tender, while golden and almost caramelized on the outside.
3. Lift the scallops onto 2 warmed plates and then de-glaze the hot pan by squeezing in the lime juice. stir to mix well and pick up every scrap of flavour, then pour this over the scallops on each plate.
4. Dish up the pea purée alongside the scallops, and sprinkle with the chopped coriander or thai basil. Serve with another wedge of lime, if you feel like it.

 

Read More

Chicken Traybake With Bitter Orange and Fennel

Introduction

I don’t think I could say how often I’ve made this since settling into my new kitchen. Not that I’m ashamed of being repetitive – I find that comforting – but I’ve simply cooked it too often to count. This, as it cooks, fills your kitchen with its gentle anise and citrus scent, working as well in midwinter with in-season Seville oranges as it does in summer with eating oranges, their sweetness soured by lemon.

I always get the chicken in its marinade a day ahead, but if you don’t have time, an hour would be fine (out of the fridge, but in a cool place) so long as you start off with good chicken. If you can afford good organic chicken, buy it. It is this chicken that provides a strong natural “gravy”, and the other reasons to do so are even more compelling.

Ingredients

• 2 large bulbs fennel (approx. 1kg/2 1/4lbs total, though less wouldn't matter)
• 100 millilitres cold-pressed rapeseed oil (or extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling on the chicken when cooking)
• 2 seville oranges (zested and juiced, or zest and juice of 1 eating orange and juice of 1 lemon, about 100ml /scant half cup of juice)
• 2 teaspoons sea salt flakes
• 4 teaspoons fennel seeds
• 4 teaspoons dijon mustard
• 12 chicken thighs with skin and bone still on (preferably organic)

Method

1. Remove the fronds from the fennel and put them in a resealable bag in the fridge for serving. I discard (that’s to say, eat) the tubey bits of the fennel, but if you have a roasting tin big enough, use everything. Cut the bulbs of fennel into quarters and then cut each quarter, lengthways, into 3. Leave on the chopping board while you get on with the marinade.
2. Placing a large freezer bag in position inside a wide-necked measuring jug or similar, pour in the oil, add the orange zest and juice (and lemon juice, if using), and spoon in the salt, fennel seeds and mustard. Stir briefly to mix.
3. Remove the bag from the jug and, holding it up, add a quarter of the chicken pieces, followed by a quarter of the fennel pieces, and so on until everything’s been used up.
4. Seal the bag tightly at the top, lay the bag in something like a lasagne dish and squelch it about so that you make the small amount of marinade cover as much of the chicken as possible. It will look as if it isn’t enough, but it is, I promise. Leave in the fridge overnight or up to 1 day.
5. When you want to cook, remove the marinating chicken and fennel from the fridge and tip the contents of the bag – marinade and all – into a large shallow roasting tin (I use a tin that measures 46 x 34cm with a lip of 1.5cm/half-sheet pan with a lip of ½ inch). Using tongs, or whatever implement(s) you prefer, arrange the chicken pieces so that they are sitting, skin-side up, on top of the fennel. Leave it for 30 minutes or so, to come up to room temperature while you preheat the oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6/400ºF.
6. Drizzle some more golden oil onto the chicken, and cook in the oven for 1 hour, by which time the fennel will be soft and the chicken cooked through and bronzed on top.
7. Put the chicken and fennel onto a warmed serving plate and put the pan over a medium heat (use a saucepan if your tin isn’t hob-friendly) and boil the juices, stirring as you watch it turn syrupy; this should take about 1½–2 minutes in the tin, and about 5 in a saucepan.
8. Pour the reduced sauce over the chicken and fennel, and then tear over the reserved fennel fronds.

 

Read More