Pudding Party!

Those puddings in full...

Enjoy the glorious pudding party pictures!

See my earlier post for the recipe for Bruce Bogtrotter's Cake :)

Tom Out!

Bruce Bogtrotter's Cake

In which I make a ridonculously chocolaty cake from a possibly recognisable children's book...

I'm sure many of you will have read/seen Matilda by Roald Dahl. There is a famous scene in which Bruce Bogtrotter having stolen some of the Trunchbull's personal cake is forced to eat an entire chocolate cake.

Luckily Gary Rhodes (you know that TV chef you haven't seen in a while) wrote a recipe book called Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes which tells you how to bake a slightly smaller version of the cake.*

*The cake in the book is "fully eighteen inches in diameter". The original recipe makes a 9" cake so I doubled the ingredients and made it twice as high!

Ingredients

• 450g plain dark chocolate
• 350g butter
• 450g caster sugar
• 120g self raising flour
• 12 eggs (separated)

Icing

• 450g plain dark chocolate
• 450ml double cream

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Chocolate!

Recipe

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Mixing choc and butter

• Melt the chocolate and butter together.
• Allow to cool (so it doesn't cook the eggs).
• Mix in sugar, flour and egg yolks.

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Stiff peaks in the egg whites

• Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed.

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Mixing the eggs into the chocolate

• Fold half of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.
• Fold in the other half until just combined.
• Grease two 9-inch (21 cm) cake tins.
• Bake at 150°C for 35-45 minutes (keep checking with a knife and don't burn it!)
• Leave to cool on a rack while you make the icing.
• To make the icing simply melt the chocolate into the cream over a low heat.
• Leave the icing to cool (~2 hours unless you speed it up in a fridge)
• Ice the cake (you should have around half an inch of coverage all over)
• Serve

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Bruce Bogtrotter's Cake

Tom Out!

P.S. Pudding party pics to follow!

Regular 4-sided polygons flavoured with the seed of Theobroma cacao (aka Brownies)

In which I bake brownies and try to imitate the inimitable Wade...

On Sunday I tasted a brownie and it was good. I asked Wade for the recipe. For those who have never enjoyed a Wade email (he was ManSSAGO secretary) I will try to write this in a similar way to this wonderful worldly wordy wordsmith!

Culinary Necessities (some optional)*

• 250g dark chocolate

• 200g butter

• 150g brown sugar

• 350g caster sugar

• 2 tbsp golden syrup

• 4 eggs

• 1-2 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

• 200g self raising flour

• an arbitrary amount of cocoa (1-2 tbsp)

*The chef points out that this recipe scales linearly if you want more or less of it

Mostly Non-arbitrary Techniques to Employ in Some Form of List-like Order

• Apply heat in a manner which causes gentle merging of constituent parts (Melt)

• Enjoy in an olfactory manner

• Agitate (whisk) the ovoid ovums (eggs)

• Mix in the chocolate ecstasy (allow to cool first, you don't want to cook the eggs)

• Sieve in ground wheat (flour) and the seed of Theobroma cacao (cocoa)

• Fold it in

• Apply grease resistant flat tree matter (greaseproof paper) to a containment device (It's a TRAY!)

• Chuck in the oven at an arbitrary place on the Celsius scale (~200°C)

• Allow the passage of multiple time units (30-40 mins) until stodgy (knife not entirely clean when stabbed through)

• Let it return to near room temp

• Enjoy with your sense of gustatory perception

Remember, Remember

On the subject of verbose verbiage we're only a day late for one of the best speeches ever:

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villian by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengence; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

Tom Out!

P.S. V for Vendetta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film)

Giant Jaffa Cake

Ingredients

• 12 oz self raising flour*

• 12 oz caster sugar

• 12 oz margarine/unsalted butter

• 6 medium eggs

• 2 packs orange jelly

• 1 pint water

• 300g chocolate

How-to

1. Cream the sugar and marge together in a big bowl

2. Add in the flour and eggs slowly.

3. Mix thoroughly.

4. Bake in a frying pan at 180°C for ~30 minutes (or until cooked through)

5. Leave to cool.

6. Dissolve two packets jelly in ½ pint boiling water.

7. Make up jelly to 1 pint by adding ½ pint cold water.

8. Leave to cool in a small bowl (pick one the correct size and shape for a good jaffa cake look).

9. Carefully slide a knife around of the jelly and then upturn on top of your cake base.

10. Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie (small ceramic/glass bowl in a saucepan of hot water).

11. Coat the (top of the) cake in chocolate.

12. Allow to cool

13. Apply a pattern in any remaining chocolate to the top.

14. Allow to cool.

15. Enjoy :D

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Enjoyed!

*The original recipe said that baking powder was required then their cake overflowed. It really isn't required.

Tom Out!

P.S. Original recipe: http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/project/332/

Decadent Chocolate Ginger Torte!

Happy Weekend! Here's a cake recipe!

This is my adaptation of a chocolate torte recipe to make it even yummier (just add ginger).*

Ingredients:

• 250 g Dark chocolate

• 2 tbsp golden syrup

• 568 ml (pint) double cream

• a handful of glacé ginger

• as much ground cinnamon as you can handle :p

• coca powder (for dusting)

How-to:

1. Break the chocolate into a bain-marie along with the golden syrup and about a third of the cream.

2. Heat over a low heat until melted (~15 mins).

3. Wait for the chocolate to cool to 'just warm' (I forgot to do this so it didn't work out as well as hoped).

4. While the chocolate cools put the remaining cream, the cinnamon and ginger in a bowl and whisk until the cream takes a few seconds to lose its shape.

5. Fold the chocolate mixture into the cream.

6. Pour the mixture into a cake tin and allow to set in the fridge (I had to use the freezer because I messed up the earlier step).

7. Dust with cocoa.

8. Serve :)

Tom out!

*Apologies to people who don't like ginger - you won't find this tasty.

P.S. The original recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1357/decadent-chocolate-truffle-torte