Probably the best..........

Chocolate chip cookies in the world

I first came across these on Orangette's blog, though they are originally came from the New York Times. I made two batches, one with 24 hours of resting the dough and the other with 48 hours. Both were good but the second lot were a bit easier to handle. The great thing about resting the dough is that you can come home from work, stick the oven on and 15 mins later have yummy fresh cookies to hand. I pretty much followed the recipe to the letter except for using ordinary plain flour for both 'flours' specified and I got 24 enormous cookies from the recipe.

P.S. I used chocolate chips that I bought in Cacoa Sampaka in Barcelona. They were great as they are really small and you get a nice, even distribution of chips throughout the cookie. Does anybody know where I can get ones like these in Ireland? (I found them in one shop but it would have been over 10 Euro for the chips for these cookies!!)

Party in the Park

Ok, the Party in the Park. My friend S decided to invite a few friends to celebrate her birthday with a picnic in Bushy Park. If you remember last Sunday in Dublin she possibly picked our one day of summer for this event. Nobody should have a birthday without a cake so I provided this one.

An American friend gave me a cookbook of cookbooks Food & Wine ‘Best of the Best’ Vol 8 (thanks BJM). I’m not a big fan of very sweet desserts. I like dark chocolate, lemon and raspberries. I especially don’t like overly sweet icing/fillings, the filling in this cake is white chocolate rather than frosting based which made it jump out at me immediately. It is originally from ‘Pure Chocolate’ by Fran Bigelow. I know my recipe is a mixture of imperial and metric - the original is in American imperial and I converted the sugar and butter to metric because I can never get my head around a 'stick' of butter!!

First things first – when a recipe has an instruction like ‘chill overnight’ it’s probably for a reason. I baked my cake on Saturday evening and simply left it out to cool overnight, as a result it was quite stick and difficult to cut. Thus my cake had slightly-less-than-perfect edges but the taste was still good. It's quite a rich cake and you will easily serve 16 from this recipe. You do need to start this the day before you intend to eat it.

Ganache Filling
½ cup double cream
8 oz white chocolate

• roughly chop chocolate and place in a bowl
  
• heat the cream until just boiling
  
• pour over the chocolate and keep stirring until it's smooth and glossy
• cover with cling film (touching the surface) and leave to cool overnight

Cake
8 oz chocolate, chopped
115g unsalted butter, softened
5 eggs, seperated
340g sugar

• preheat the oven to 150º C
  
• grease, line and grease again a 9 x 13'' swiss roll tin
• melt the chocolate
• remove from the heat, stir in the butter until the mix is glossy
• set aside to cool for 20 mins
• whisk egg yolks + 170g sugar together until tripled in volume
• fold the melted chocolate
  
• in a clean bowl whisk the egg whites until firm
  
• add the sugar and whisk until firm again
• slowly and gradually fold the egg whites into the chocolate mix
• spread the mix evenly in the pan
• bake for 25 mins
  
• CHILL UNTIL COLD IN THE FRIDGE (wrap in cling film)
  

Cake Assembly
Put the white chocolate filling in a mixer and whisk for 3-4 mins until it is lighter in colour and texture. Turn the cake out onto a cake board and cut into three lengths of equal width. Spread ½ the filling on slice 1, top with slice 2 and spread it with the remaining ½ of the filling and top with slice 3. Chill for at least and hour before proceeding.

Chocolate Ganache
8 oz dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup double cream

• heat the cream until almost boiling
• pour it over the chocolate and stir until smooth and glossy
• put ¼ the mix in the fridge for 25 mins and leave the rest to cool at room temperature
  

Writing Icing
2 oz white chocolate
2 tsp vegtable oil

• melt chocolate
• stir in oil

Icing the Cake

Use the chilled ganache to thinly coat the top and side of the cake (this seals in the crumbs and provides a smooth surface for the rest of the ganache). Pour the rest of the ganache over the sides and then the top of the cake. For the writing icing I put it into a squeezy sauce bottle but you could use a parchment cone instead. Pipe three lines down the centre of the cake. Then using a cocktail stick draw a continuous series of figures-of-eight down the centre of the cake. Finally chill for about 2 hours so the ganache can set.

Warm Chocolate and Raspberry Tarts

From the moment I first flicked through Claire Clark’s "100 Perfect Desserts" I have wanted to make these. It’s a well-known combination but there is just something special about chocolate and raspberry. I just needed a dinner when there would be more than just me and The Doc. Once we had been invited to his parents for Sunday dinner I immediately offered my dessert making abilities.

My previous experiences with chocolate pastry have been a bit hit and miss, it can be very delicate and prone to breaking but this pastry crust is a dream to work with. I managed to roll it out really thin with ease, resulting in a crisp crust (you really do have to get the pastry thin when making individual tarts in order to get the optimum crust to filling ratio).

The chocolate filling is really a variation on chocolate mousse and I can confirm that it tastes good all by itself. It doesn’t set firm, as you break the crust with a spoon there is an unctuous flow of chocolate, so I wouldn’t advise scaling this up to a big tart. I served mine with crème frâiche which I much prefer it to cream with rich chocolate desserts; I just feel that it cuts nicely through the richness.

This would make a really wow dessert for a dinner part, all the constituent parts can be assembled well in advance and the tarts then just need 8 mins in the oven to finish them off.

Pastry:
100g unsalted butter, softened
100g icing sugar
1 large egg
¼ tsp vanilla extract
225g plain flour
25g cocoa
Pinch salt

• Cream together butter and sugar
• Beat together egg and vanilla
• Add in stages to butter/sugar mix, beat well between each addition
• Sieve in flour, cocoa and salt
• Bring together with your hands
• Rest in the fridge for 30 mins

• Roll out on a lightly floured surface
• Cut out 8 15-cm diameter circles to line 10-cm individual tart dishes
• Rest again in the fridge for 15 mins
• Line tartlets with greaseproof paper and baking beans
• Bake @ 160°C for 15 mins
• Remove beans and bake uncovered for a further 10 mins

Filling:
400g raspberries
3 eggs
4 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
200g unsalted butter
300g good-quality 70% chocolate

• Whisk together eggs, egg yodlks and sugar until tripled in volume (you really need an electric whisk for this unless you are looking for a sore wrist)
• Melt together butter and chocolate in a bowl over a pot of simmering water
• While it is still warm fold the chocolate mix into the eggs

• Place 6-8 raspberries in each tart shell
• Spoon over the chocolate filling and level with the back of a knife
• Bake @ 180°C for eight minutes until the middle still retains a little wobble
  

Gooey Chocolate Puddings

No pics for these - I had guests and couldn't really intrude with my camera. There must be hundreds of different recipes for this kind of chocolate dessert, firm on the outside with a molten, oozing centre. I saw an episode of Masterchef last week where they said that 'the route to the final is scattered with failed chocolate fondants'. I think one of the keys to this recipe is to resist the urge to open the oven to check on them. Once the top starts to crack the centre should still be liquid.

This recipe comes from Nigella's 'How to Eat', I'm not a fan of her books that go with the TV series but this one is a gem. I've bought a few copies as presents as I think it's a great introduction to cooking.

125g dark chocolate
125g unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
150g caster sugar
35g plain flour

• Gently melt together chocolate and butter
• Whisk together egg yolks, sugar and flour
• Stir in the chocolate mix
• Grease four ramkins
• Bake at 180 degrees for 12-15 mins

I served mine with the last of Kieran's orange ice-cream, yum.

Chocolate Mousse

Although I enjoy experimenting with recipes, when it comes to entertaining I like to stick with things that have been tried and tested. Trying to assemble complicated dishes while the clock ticks ever closer to your guests' arrival is just stressful and takes from the enjoyment of the occasion. The following recipe for Chocolate Mousse is one of my favourites, I like to flavour it with orange zest and a drop of Cointreau but leaving it plain and sprinkling the top with some crushed Ameretti is good also.

Chocolate Mousse (this recipe came originally from a National Dairy Council Publication circa 1988 - I'm not sure how close my version is to the original, it has undergone a number of refinements over the years)

225g dark chocolate
6 eggs, separated
25g caster sugar
125ml cream
50g butter

• melt chocolate and butter in a bowl
• whisk in the egg yolks and sugar
• whip cream and fold in lightly
• whip egg whites until stiff and fold in in three batches
• chill for at least 4 hours
  

Truffles

Among my internet Christmas buying for others I snuck in a copy of "Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts" by Claire Clark (pastry chef at the French Laundry) as a little present to myself. I said in my introduction that I like a culinary challenge and this certainly poses one. It is a fantastic book - but it's not for beginners. Many of the recipes consist of more than one stage - some of the chocolate ones invole steps such as tempering it first. On the list of things to try soon include: orange pistachio cakes; warm chocolate and raspberry tarts; mango and lime mirliton tart; fig and blueberry creme fraiche tarts; green tea and jasmine delice. I forsee a lot of baking in my future!!

In my initial flick through the book these truffles immediately caught my eye, while I like white chocolate it needs something to cut through that cloying sweetness and the combination of balsamic vinegar and black pepper suggested here intrigued me. There are three basics steps to the recipe: preparation of the ganache; tempering the chocolate and covering the sweets; coating them in the strawberry flakes.

The quantities are slightly off in this recipe - it is supposed to make 40 truffles and I got about twice that many. They are quite rich and I wouldn't want to be making them any bigger that I did, it just means that there are plently for sharing.

Strawberry, Black Pepper and Balsamic Vinegar Truffles (from Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts" by Claire Clark).


Strawberry Flakes:
500g strawberries (I used frozen ones - just be careful that there is no added sugar in them)
2 tsp black pepper

• Preheat the oven to 110 degrees C
  
• Line two baking tins
  
• Blend the strawberries until smooth
• Place all but 1 tbsp of the puree onto the baking tins and spread out thinly with a palette knife (spend some time trying to get it a uniform thickness so that it dries out at the same rate)
• Put in the oven for about 2 hours until it is dark red, dry and crisp (recipe says 1 1/2 hours but I left mine in for 2 hours and should probably left it for another 15 mins as it coul have been a little crisper)
• Leave to cool
• Crumble and mix with the black pepper

Ganache Filling:
300g white chocolate
150g dark chocolate
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp reserved strawberry puree - see above
200ml double cream
1 tsp black pepper

• Chop the chocolate finely and place in a bowel with the balsamic vinegar and strawberry puree
• Heat the cream to boiling point, remove from heat and pour it over the chocolate
• Whisk until smooth
• Stir in black pepper
• Leave to cool

• When cool fill a piping bag with the ganache a pipe lines on a baking tray (this step worked like a dream - line upon line of neat chocolate cylinders)
  
• Refrigerate until cool
• Slice into 3cm sticks (using a metal knife warmed in a cup of hot water makes this step easy)

White Chocolate Coating:
500g white chocolate

Ok this is the bit that defeated me, I didn't temper the chocolate for the coating. For the scientifically minded among you when chocolate is tempered it simply means that it contains many stable crystals giving it a glossy sheen, smooth feel in the mouth and makes it easier to handle. Which all sounds good, but it involves heating to 30.5 deg C, cooling to 27 deg C and warming again to 28 deg C and I only have a sugar thermometer in my kitchen! At some point I will tackle this challenge.

Spread the strawberry flakes out in a thin layer on a chopping board. I simply melted the chocolate in a bowl, dipped the tubular ganache into it and then dropped each one onto the strawberry flakes.


Even though my coating is not a smooth and gloosy as one might like the final verdict, as always, goes to the tastebuds. Result: these are very very good, the pepper and balsamic vinegar are good counterpoints to the richness of the white chocolate and add a extra dimension to the flavour.

Chocolate Yule Log

I'm starting the New Year with a Christmas recipe. I made this Chocolate Yule Log for Christams Eve and again for a family gathering yesterday. It's inspired by a recipe in the December issue of Delicious magazine where the creamy chocolate filling is offset by the sharp tang of cranberries. I prefer a lighter sponge so I used a version from Good Food (Dec 06) which whisks the egg whites separately. On Christmas Eve I didn't have the required amount of cream so I reduced the ganache by 1/3 - there was still loads - and I have continued to use these proportions.

Sponge:
5 eggs
140g light brown sugar
100g self-raising flour
25g good-quality cocoa

• preheat oven to 190 deg
• butter an line a Swiss roll tin
• Beat together egg yolks, sugar and 2 tbsp water until light and thick
• Sieve in flour and cocoa and fold in lightly
• Whisk egg whites until still and fold gently into cake mix in 3 batches
• Bake for 10-12 minutes and turn out onto some clean greaseproof paper
• Leave to cool and roll up tightly in the greaseproof paper (along the long edge)
  

Cranberries:
200g fresh/frozen cranberries
75g caster sugar
2 tbsp water

• Put 3 ingrediants in a saucepan and heat together gently until cranberries pop
• Leave to cool
  

Filling:
450ml cream
300g good-quality chocolate

• Break chocolate up and place in a bowl
• Warm 300ml cream up to boiling point and pour over the chocolate
• Whisk gently until chocolate is melted - leave to cool
• Whisk reamaining cream into soft peaks - fold in 5 tbsp of the cooled ganache

Unroll the sponge and spread with the chocolate cream and then the cranberries. Roll up tightly, I then cut 1/3 of the log at an angle and placed it at the side to resemble a log. Spread over the cooled ganache, I put some greaseproof paper around the log to catch any ganache that drips down.


The sponge can be made a few days ahead - or even frozen for up to 3 months. It was reported that the first log tasted even better 2 days later - the second one didn't last long enough for me to test this hypothesis!