WooHoo!!! What a great day so far! I haven’t been in the kitchen for AGES what with finish the final semester of my master degree and getting sidetracked by friend’s weddings and pursuit of money in my post study days – but today was the day that changed all that :D
My mother normally kills herself each year at Christmas cooking for 30 people at our annual Christmas Eve dinner. Not only can she not relinquish control, but she attempts to do alternate drop entree’s, so many roasts, bakes, salads and sides that there is LITERALLY not enough room on the table for all the food (not to mention the poor fridge after we’ve eaten what we can!) followed by alternate drop deserts.
Although I’ve been doing at least two of the deserts for a few years now, as luck would have it, she worked herself so hard last year she had to cancel her one and only annual trip to Caloundra with friends, to stay in bed for three day – recovering! I say “luck” because she has FINALLY realised she can’t do it all herself. She spends all night sweating and stressing in the kitchen and no one sees her all night!
So my brothers and I have taken up the challenge and our number one goal for the night is that NO-ONE gets stuck in the kitchen for more than 30mins. One of the mains I’m doing is handmade sausages – which I had fun making this morning. If you ever do your own sausages (and I highly recommend you do!!) don’t stuff around with synthetic casings – get into the natural casings – MUCH better flavour, they don’t split as easy and they are easy to work with. Good fun to much around with J I’m undecided whether I’ll do a traditional pork sausage, pork and apply or perhaps a turkey and cranberry one... hmmm....
Deserts!! Penna cotta topped with mango salsa, citrus tart, and good slab of this Adults Only Chilli Chocolate Cake. Why is it adults only?? Because it is DEM hot!!
SO, enough jibba jabba sorry – and onto the cakelicious part of this entry.
This is a flourless cake, so its super moist and yet still fairly light!
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| A little fuzzy, but you get the idea :) white bits are bits of hazlenut that I didn't grind too fine, so as to add texture. |
I’ve used a Stephanie Alexander recipe and changed it up a bit. To give credit, where credit is due, this is the “George’s Chocolate Nut Cake” (George Biron & Diane Garrett). Here is my adaptation though:
250g Hazelnut meal
½ cup Dutch cocoa
9 Eggs, separated
350g Caster sugar
35ml Espresso coffee (avoid instant if you can)
20ml Muscat
1tbs Pure vanilla
50ml Olive oil (although I used macadamia oil)
Zest of 1 lemon
Good pinch Cinnamon and of Nutmeg
4 or 5 Sml red/birds-eye chilli’s (we grow & dry 'em) seeded
(unless you’re REALLY game!)and chopped very finely
or better yet ground
Oven temp: 150 C or 300 F
Cooking time: 40-50mins
1. Preheat your oven and lightly great a 26cm springform tin
2. Sift nut meal and cocoa into a separate bowl
3. Beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale – this will take a few mins!
4. Lightly fold in cocoa mix
5. Add coffee, Muscat, oil, vanilla, lemon zest, spice and chilli
6. Beat egg whites to creamy peaks and fold into mixture lightly
7. Bake in prepared tin (40ish mins) until the cake still seems a little moist in the middle
8. Allow cake to cool in tin before removing
I find that the next step is a bit too decadent, but in the original recipe, it calls for an additional 30mls of Muscat to be poured over the cake before serving. Although I haven’t tried this yet – it would be cool to stuff around with liqueurs to find a nice match – I’m betting a drop of Hennesy XO would be dem fine!! (if you can afford it – I certainly can’t!!)
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| Big cake - fresh out of the oven |
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| Smaller cake, once rested (big one looked the same after resting too) |
I wasn’t sure if I would be writing this so I failed to take heaps of photo’s – I hope the one’s I’ve posted do it justice – but more importantly I hope you love this cake as much as we all do!!
Happy baking!!
