Stop Chasing Ganesh! a.k.a. Chocolate cake with Dulce de Leche filling and Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Dulce de Leche Layer Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

I know, I know!! The title’s misleading!  There is no Indian elephant god Ganesh in this cake, however honestly if there was to be a cake that represented a god, this would be, at the very least, a contender!

The title comes from a line out of an episode of The Simpsons, where Homer dressed up as Ganesh and tries to stop Apu from getting married.  In turn, my lovely friend Joe always says “Ganesh” instead of “Ganache”, and frankly, that stuff is pretty godly so it does make sense in a way ;)

Anyway, I was looking for a cake that would fit perfectly with one of my best mates – she adores chocolate and toffee like substances, so what better cake for her than a moist dark chocolate cake, filled with lashings of dulce de leche, topped with smooth dark chocolate ganache??  YUM! 

This is definitely, no doubt about it, a celebration cake.  This isn’t something you do on a weekend to have something with tea.  This is a cake to be placed at the centre of attention, shared and enjoyed. 

I have accidentally also found one of the best chocolate cake recipes ever!  I will most definitely be using this when I make chocolate layer cakes.  It’s moist, dense, insanely dark (I don’t know what it is about an almost black chocolate cake that just excited me!), wonderfully chocolatey, and yet, somehow, it still manages to be delicately soft and light.… YUM!  For the Maltesers, what I was looking for essentially was a cake I can make from scratch that rivaled the old school Fontanella cake.  Unfortunately, I believe they have gone downhill over the last few years, hence the need to replace it with something! AND.. SUCCESS!!   I have finally found the right cake!  And to top it off, I know exactly what goes into it as I’ve made it myself (always a concern when ordering cakes from out) J

Nutella Chocolate Chip cookies

Here goes!  a gooey, chocolatey cookie, delicious after they've cooled for 10 minutes, enough to crisp up the edges and still be warm, chocolatey and gooey in the middle. If you don't have hazelnut meal, just replace with the same weight with more flour.   :) 

I've made variations of this recipe over the years, sometimes i replace some of the flour with quick cook oats, used

Have your Artichokes and eat them :)

Artichokes - I love them SO much!  I love the idea of eating a flower bud, I love the idea of something so fleeting and seasonal!  The only problem I see with seasonal food is that I always want to enjoy it when it's out of season, without the added burden on our planet of unsustainable farming methods.

In Malta, I love how in just a few weeks, I'll be seeing a small field of these lovely plants, being allowed to mature fully so that the farmers can collect the seeds for the next year.  An artichoke in full bloom such a beautiful sight!!  The size of your head, a MASSIVE purple pall, just like your regular thistles, only much larger! :)  I drive past it every year, and it always seems to be at sunset, when the purple flowers look so pretty in the fading light :) 

When you think about it, the fact that Artichokes are a type of thistle really shows!

Apple berry oat crumble :)

This is an experiment to try making a somewhat healthy dessert, that's can still warm the cockles.  It was a total experiment, but I think it turned out well.  It was awesome served with some Greek yoghurt, but you could also use warm custard, cream, or even a nice vanilla ice cream! 

The berries released their delicious red juice into a lovely sauce, and dyed the apples bright red.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the ready product, oops! :)

Just as I put it in the oven, when cooked it turns into a golden crunchy oaty topping with a delicious saucy red base :)

Filling

2 Granny smith apples

1 cup mixed blueberries and raspberries (I used frozen, use fresh if in season and available)

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Crumble topping

2 tablespoons butter (I used "can't believe it's not")

a cup or so of quick cook oats

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Peel, core and slice the apples finely and place in a pie dish

Throw the berries and sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon on top, and mix until evenly spread around. 

To make the "crumble", melt the butter and then add the sugar, oats and cinnamon.   Sprinkle/spread on top of the fruit and bake until the fruit is cooked and the top is lovely and brown.  Mine took about 25 minutes in a hot (200C) oven.  Let sit for a few minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Tartiflette

Oooh!  Tartiflette!  I love the name, and I love absolutely everything about this!  It's a lovely dish, a DEFINITE winter warmer, and the whole of this dish, from beginning to end is all about decadence! :D  This is definitely not a "diet-friendly" meal, in any way, shape or form.  It's originally from Haute-Savoie a tiny part of France tucked away between lake Geneva and Mont Blanc (also, incidentally, the first ever Winter Olympics were held there, in Chamonix).

This dish is such a great dish to serve with a couple of friends, it's lovely and simple, and so tasty! You could easily adapt this recipe (say, using mushrooms, or using different cheese to Reblochon) to become something that is not Tartiflette, but Tartiflette based.  I have no issue with this.  I'm sure that it would be awesome, and to be honest now I just want to try the recipe with mushrooms and Brie/Port Salut.  But that is not Tartiflette.  This is Tartiflette :)

Tartiflette!  What a great word <3

yummmm

Chocolate Guinness Cake

If you want a dark, moist chocolate cake, this is the one for you.  I was looking for a dark chocolate cake for Halloween - we had red velvet cakes, and I was thinking about making black velvet but a friend noticed this recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book, and since I happened to have a can of Guinness, it was the perfect time to try!

The recipe is for a single cake, however I've found that Hummingbird bakery cakes always work out well as cupcakes too! 

• Some notes about this cake mix:  It will be MUCH runnier than many cake mixes. 
• At first, it smells kinda beery.  Then once it's all mixed in together, life is good :) 
• Before I took it out, i touched it lightly and the cake sprung back anyway, however please note that even though it did this, it still didn't actually look cooked.  This is fine.
• This particular time,  I used regular butter-cream as I was making millions of little cupcakes, however I believe it would probably taste even better with the cream cheese frosting
• I made regular cupcakes, mini muffin, and also mini cupcake size.  I adjusted the cooking time by sight, I figured about 10 minutes for the tiny ones, 12-14 for the medium size.  If you are making a whole cake, it should take about 45 minutes, until the top is springy (bounces back when touched lightly) and a skewer comes out clean when put through the middle of the cake.

Ingredients

(for 24 large cupcakes, approx 40 fairy cakes, about 50-60 mini cupcakes)

For the cake/s

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

80g good quality cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

2 eggs (at room temperature)

1 tsp vanilla extract

140ml buttermilk (if you can't find buttermilk, use runny plain unsweetened yoghurt)

280g cake ("OO") flour, sifted

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp baking powder

For the frosting

50g unsalted butter, softened

300g  icing sugar

125g full fat Philadelphia cheese

Cocoa powder, for dusting (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C, then line 2 x 12 muffin pan thingie with muffin liners (fairy cake liners are too small) 

Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarb together into a large bowl. 

Pour the Guinness into a small saucepan, add the butter and gently heat until it has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and stir the cocoa powder and sugar into the warm liquid. 

Mix together the eggs, vanilla essence and buttermilk by hand in a jug or bowl, and then add this to the mixture in the pan.

Add the liquids to the bowl containing the flour, and whisk on a low speed until incorporated, making sure you scrape down the sides and get it all well mixed.

Spoon the batter into the cake liners until 2/3 full.  If there is any extra, put it to the side, you can cook it in another batch after the first batch is done.  

Bake for approximately 15-18 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when lightly pressed.

Leave cool in the tin for about 5-10 minutes, then remove them from pan and cook on a wire rack.  

Make sure the cakes are completely cold before frosting. 

To make frosting: 
Sift the icing sugar into a bowl (the bowl of free standing mixer if you're using). 
Chop the butter into small cubes, and if it's not soft, put in the microwave in 5 second intervals until it's soft and pliable. 

Work the butter into the icing sugar with the back of a spoon.  This is my method of preventing the whole kitchen becoming a cloud of icing sugar, as whilst it does smell quite nice, it's also horrible and messy.  

Once you've worked the butter in, using the electric whisk (or freestanding mixer with paddle attachment) mix the butter and icing sugar together until there are no large lumps of butter and it is fully combined with the sugar in a sandy mixture.   You can choose to cover your freestanding mixer with a clean teatowel at this point, to make sure the clouds of icing sugar don't puff out. but if you've worked in the butter, this shouldn't happen.  Having the butter at room temperature REALLY helps for this!

Add the cream cheese and mix in a low speed (I "pulse" it in until it's combined then increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy.  Be careful not to overbeat the cream cheese frosting, as it can go from voluminous and fluffy to runny in a surprisingly short amount of time.  You can beat the hell out of it for a couple of minutes though!  it DOES need to be nice and fluffy!
Place the cooled cake on to a plate or cake card and top generously with the cream cheese frosting. The cake can be decorated with a light dusting of cocoa powder.

As I used buttercream, I piped the frosting on.  The frosting above should just be spread on using a palette knife :)  

Coq au Vin

Ah.... this is one of my favourite dishes, to make, to serve and to eat.  Like the Maltese fenkata, this is a dish best served with loved ones!! :) I've adapted it to use things I can find in a regular butcher/supermarket/greengrocer.
It really makes a difference to cook this the night before, so try to do that if possible as the flavour really develops.  Plus it's way easier if you're entertaining anyway!  If not, try and make it as early on in the day as possible, and leave to sit for a couple of hours before reheating and serving!
Really good served with some kind of roast potatoes (i made hasselbacks, recipe to follow) and/or some fresh beautiful loaf of bread (luckily there's no short supply of that in Malta!)

Delicious and nutritious comfort food :)

Lala's lasagne

This recipe is pretty much my mum's recipe.. although we always manage to make it taste completely different.  To be honest mine tastes different every time. but i must say, I do like my own (and my family's) lasagne.  There are a few other people's lasagne dishes I've enjoyed, I can literally count them on 1 hand (my Uncle Kiki's, and my Aunt Isabel's, and my best friend's mum Pat).  I'm sure there are plenty of delicious lasagnas out there but i haven't had the pleasure, and frankly, I don't even really want to try cos there's not much I abhor tasting more than a bad lasagne. 

anyway here goes:

baby balls of meat

Today and yesterday I took on the task of sorting through everything we had in the fridge and freezer, throwing out expired stuff, and arranging the rest so that it's easily accessible and ready to be used in time for it to still be good.

Sorting out the freezer was interesting, have found lovely packets of fresh artichoke hearts that my dad lovingly prepared when it was artichoke season, some delicious looking pumpkin ravioli, amongst so much other stuff like desserts, meat, veggies and a heap of ready chopped garlic and ginger :D very handy to know :D

I took out 500 grams of pork mince, as i had an idea brewing when I'd cleaned the fridge yesterday and found some pork stock (leftover from a roast this weekend - recipe to follow!) and leftover 10 minute pasta sauce (well, my dad's version of). Plenty of the other ingredients are also leftover, or bits that were found in the freezer that i thought would be nice to add.

A bolognese/ragu based sauce for spaghetti (and baked rice the next day!)

Just like many people, bolognese sauce reminds me of being a kid, it's still the ultimate comfort food dinner for me. It instantly sends me back to being little, with my sister and 3 or 4 cousins, and mum and/or one of my aunts serving up steaming spaghetti loaded with sauce and cheese. Learning how to eat spaghetti with just a fork was like graduating, I remember the pride I felt when mum stopped cutting up the spaghetti because I'd learnt to twirl it deftly around my fork without dropping the pasta everywhere :)

Bolognese is also what started my cooking adventures apparently. At the age of 3, I was at my Aunt's house, and she was making bolognese. I looked at her in shock at one point, and started telling her that "my mummy makes it like this" and went on to explain what she was doing "wrong" and how she should make it. Needless to say she was very amused, and reminds me of this often hehehe...

The recipe I'm about to give is by no means a traditional bolognese. Apparently the original bolognese doesn't even have tomatoes or garlic in it, and uses heaps of milk and even funghi porcini! So I suppose a "ragu" or "meat based pasta sauce" is the better term.