Cooking with friends all things chocolate

Today's baking evening was to be based around chocolate of all strengths ranging from pure white to 5% cocao. We weren't limited to pure chocolate either and wanted to make these dishes that bit richer by adding chocolate biscuits....oreos, and then just to make them even more richer one dish had numerous packets of cream cheese, and the other a fudge sauce. If we were going to go all out, we were going to do it right.

My gorgeous friend Annabel wanted to cook with me and since our friendship started over a simple container of nutella, I though it was only appropriate to have a cook up based on such a glorious ingredient.

We sifted through numerous recipes and decided on two: a peanut butter cheesecake with a chocolate glaze, and an Oreo fudge bar.

I went at lunch to buy the ingredients but only left Coles with three things and none of those were chocolate. I have noticed recently that Coles has a much more limited selection of products to Woolworths or Franklins, especially when it comes to chocolate. I am quite particular with which brands I use for cooking as certain brands can taste bitter and make a ganache terrible. So I had to go again to Franklins after work to buy the remaining (nearly all) ingredients, and I arrived home happy that I got my Whittakers Dark Ghana (72%) and Lindt (85%).

The night started with the cheesecakes, something I had never name before, so it was lucky that Annabel was there as she, only a couple of weeks ago, made a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake. She started making the base by crushing the biscuits with a rolling pin, adding the butter and then pushing them into the ramekins. I didn't do very much at all as the rest of the ingredients we just threw into the blender, including the jar of peanut butter so they would be strong and nutty.

Also gathered around was Phillip, my brother, and Tim, my Graphic Designer. At each stage of the cooking I got out teaspoons so we could all analyze the mixture. So far so good. It was ridiculously rich and creamy, but hey it's a cheesecake so it is supposed to be like that.

We spooned the mixture over the bases and then baked them during which we prepped the Oreo Fudge Bars. Again, Annabel the Queen of bases crushed the Oreos, leaving them a bit chunkier than the previous biscuits giving it a nice texture and making you feel like you are eating a huge Oreo.

We made the fudge sauce, which is similar to a ganache, although you use condensed milk rather than cream and it is a lot thicker. We poured it over the base and then decorated with milk chocolate Whitakers then baked.....so so far there are three layers of chocolate, only one more to go.

The cheesecakes came out and in went the oreo fudge bars. Eager as would be expected, we wanted to get straight into the cheesecakes but it was quite obvious they were too warm and should really cool completely. I quickly put one in the freezer to cheat a bit as we wanted to try it that night, not the next day, and within half an hour it was cooler and slightly more firm. Ok to flip out......so we thought.......

It turned out to be a moon crater, cracked all the way over too. I will admit I was a bit disappointed, even though it was abstract and did not matter in the slightest whether it was broken or not. I tried to make it look a bit prettier by plating it and drizzling with some dark chocolate ganache.

Lucky I did though as it was a necessary component to break down the richness of the cheesecake and strength of the peanut butter.

We only had a few spoonfuls each as it was so rich, but also because we HAD to leave room to try the Oreo fudge bar which I had just taken out of the oven. I cut it up and we drizzled it with the fourth and final type of pure chocolate.....white. It was pure gluttony. This is a chocoholic's dream and perfect comfort food. I think as it is so rich it would be fantastic with ice cream.....as crushed oreo's are. We all gave it the thumbs up and though it was the better dessert out of the two.

The next day when I visited Annabel at Cafe Giulia, she had brought a large cheesecake and I asked her if she brought the Oreo bar too. This was her response "When I got home I couldn't help myself........and ate half of it that night :P" I laughed and applauded her as that is a mighty effort. She would have to be the bigger chocoholic out of the two of us I think, but something I am happy to test out in the future.

Peanut Butter Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Base
1 packet Arnotts Shredded Wheatmeal biscuits
125g butter
2 tbsps sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

Cheesecake Filling
3 packets Philadelphia cream cheese
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsps lemon juice
1 tbsps vanilla essence
1 tub (375g) peanut butter, crunchy

Ganache
100mL Pure cream
200g Dark chocolate, at least 70%

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees in a fan forced oven.
2. Melt butter and mix with crushed biscuits and sugar to form the crust.
3. Line pan or ramekins, whichever you are using, with baking paper, or if using a spring form pan, grease.
4. Press base mixture into pans so it is about 1.5cm thick.
5. Mix Philadelphia and sugar in a bowl until smooth then add each egg one at a time.
6. Finally mix in cream, vanilla, lemon juice and then lastly add peanut butter.
7. Spoon mixture over base and then put the tins or ramekins in a large deep pan filled with boiling water (a water bath), which goes at least 3/4 of the way up the tins or ramekins.
8. Depending on what tin you are using and its size, the baking time will vary. The small ramekins only took 25 mins but then a larger tin would take up to 40 mins. You will have to monitor this as everyone's oven acts differently. You do not want them to brown on top. Just set enough.
9. Cool completely or fridge overnight. Once cool make the chocolate ganache topping by warming the cream and then stirring in the chocolate.
10. If you want to serve with warm sauce falling down the sides, use a knife to go around the edges and release the cheesecake from its tin, then plate up and pour sauce over the top. Otherwise pour sauce over the cheesecake and then refrigerate again until chocolate is cool. Then serve.


Oreo Fudge Bars

Ingredients

2 sleeves Oreos
125g butter, melted
1/4 tsp salt
1 condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
250g Whittakers Dark Ghana, 72%
100g, 85% Lindt chocolate
About 3 rows of Whittakers Milk chocolate
1/3 block White chocolate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Melt butter and mix with crushed oreos and salt. (Do not crush too finely, you want them to be a bit chunky)
3. Line a square tin with baking paper and press down oreo crust.
4. Heat condensed milk in a pot with vanilla, then mix in dark chocolates. Pour over base.
5. Decorate with individual blocks of milk chocolate and then bake for 20 minutes.
6. Allow to cool and then when ready to serve drizzle with melted white chocolate.

Apple Pillow's & Chocolate Twists

Apple Pillows

Ingredients

1 apple (I think a nice sweet variety like Pink Lady or Royal Gala are best)
2 tspns cinnamon
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tbsp honey
1 sheet puff pastry

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Cut apple into small cubes.
3. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
4. Cut a sheet of pastry into four squares. Put a quarter of the mixture into the centre of each square and then fold in the corners to close the pillow.

5. Bake until golden brown.
6. Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.

Chocolate Twists

Ingredients

6 squares 70% Lindt broken into small pieces
1 sheet puff pastry

Method

1. Cut sheet into 4 strips.
2. Put 1.5 blocks of Lindt in a line along the centre of each line.
3. Fold pastry around chocolate and press shut.

4. Wrap two strips around each other and place on a baking tray.

5. Bake until golden brown.6. Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.

Being Inspired

After spending a beautiful Saturday in Wollongong with a friend of mine I hadn’t seen for ages, I suddenly had the urge to make gnocchi from scratch. Sonia’s mother was known for her gnocchi and we thought it would be a nice idea to surprise her and cook it for her one day.

On the Sunday I had planned to see another friend and cook at her house. Even when I had woken up that morning I was clueless as to what to cook. All I could see in my fridge was about half a kilo of ricotta. It was a gloomy day, clouds rolling in, so my mind was swaying towards some comfort food.......gnocchi.

I knew gnocchi was normally made with potatoes but it takes a bit longer doing it that way, so after a bit of research I discovered that by combining ricotta, spinach, flour and eggs, you can form the little dumplings just as successfully, and in a lot less time.

I arrived ready to cook just after 11:30. We jumped straight to it boiling the spinach ready to make the dumpling mixture. We combined everything together very quickly and put it in the fridge to get a bit stiffer. While we waited we thought about sauces. One of the best combinations with ricotta and spinach is a burnt butter sauce but I felt that it needed one more ingredient to give it a third dimension. Burnt butter sauces can use sage, but since I already had so much spinach I decided to use pine nuts instead to give it a bit of crunch. We melted the butter with the pine nuts int he pan and cooked it over low heat until it became slightly golden and burnt.

The heavenly smells were wafting through her house. It was a beautiful combination as her house overlooks Coogee, and watching it rain, just made it so much nicer to be inside cooking.

Once the ricotta mixture had stiffened a bit, we attempted to make the gnocchi, but having been our first time, they ended up a very broad range of sizes, but all of them were larger than normal gnocchi.

The test to if the worked would be if they rose. We waited, and waited, and when we thought we had made a mistake in the mixture or by making them a lot larger, they started to float to the top. Smiles grew on our face as we watched the green speckled blobs bob around the top of the pot. After 30 seconds they were done and laid to rest on some paper towel to soak up some f the excess water. Once they were all cooked, the sauce hot and ready to go, we plated our creations and then sprinkled freshly grated parmesan on top. Our plated looked and smelt delectable.

We took a bite and the were so nice. Very cheesy yes, but not like a cheddar, a lot lighter and mixed with the spinach they were perfectly balanced, especially with the addition of the pine nuts. A lot of people may not think I would eat something with butter poured over the top, but to be honest I don’t think a tomato sauce or a cream sauce would have worked as well, and I will say that I enjoyed EVERY SINGLE bite, butter and all. I will admit though, I could only get through three gnocchi as they were so large and heavy, but leaving us wanting more, however I .......needed to save room for dessert as well.

View Ricotta & Spinach Gnocchie Recipe

Dessert was a bit or a ‘Read Steady Cook’ episode as we had a few ingredients to start with......70% Lindt and a bowl full of fruit. I suppose we were also on a time limit as Kelly had to get to work within an hour, so my vision of doing a Kahlua, raisin, chocolate tart would not work. I wanted to show her something that was ridiculously easy yet still looked impressive to others. For that I needed puff pastry as it always seems to do this job.

The aim was to do a selection of tarts using these different fillings. The first tart I though would use the classic combination of apples, cinnamon, brown sugar and a little honey. The shape of this tart would end up like a little pillow to compensate for the mount of apples in the centre. The second ‘tart’ was more like a pastry twist. I filled it with the chocolate and would have liked to make a smoother chocolate sauce, like a ganache, to line the twists but time and ingredients available did not allow that. Not to worry though as I would still indulge in a line of 70% Lindt wrapped with pastry. Pure decadence!

View Pastry recipes

Once in the oven they don’t tale long at all, and even less time to devour in the couch watching dvd’s, especially while it was still pouring outside.

What a great way to spend a lazy Sunday with a friend cooking, and especially rewarding after trying a new dish which worked really well. Now I think Sonia will hold me to surprising her Mum with some beautiful gnocchi.

Passionfruit Semifreddo

Preparation time: 25 minutes
Freezing time: Overnight

Ingredients
- 8 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup caster sugar
- 1 1/2 cups passionfruit pulp (yes it required many many passionfruit to achieve this ~ 25
+ extra to serve
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
- Juice of 1 lime
- 300g Double Cream
- 150g Pure Cream

Method
1. In an electric mixer, beat egg yolks until pale and fluffy.
2. In the meantime put sugar, passionfruit pulp and vanilla essence in a small pot and cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves.
3. Turn down the heat and simmer the passionfruit mixture for 10 minutes until thicker and slightly syrupy.
4. Add lime juice and passionfruit syrup to egg yolk mixture whilst beating continuously until mixture is cold.
5. Whisk creams together until soft peaks form and then fold into passionfruit mixture.
6. Line 2 rectangular cake tins (or one really long one) with glad wrap then pour mixture in and freeze overnight.
7. To serve, flip semifreddo onto a plate and drizzle with extra passionfruit pulp. Serve immediately.

Key Lime Pie

Someone asked me this week if I would try a Key Lime Pie for them, and as I am always up for a challenge I was more than happy to give it a try. I wondered however what a Key Lime was and why it would be so different to a normal like.

Key Limes are found in Florida and are much smaller than regular limes. They have thinner rinds, less seeds, a much much higher acidity and a sweeter flavour, which is why they are preferred for particular recipes like marinades for fish and meat.

Key Lime Pie is a very traditional recipe which dates back to the 1850's in the Florida Keys area. Before biscuits were used for the base, a pastry crust was made.

I started by crushing the biscuits which I put in a paper bag and bashed with my fist like there was no tomorrow, good stress relief, but I think a plastic bag would have been better as I ended up ripping a few paper bags in my quest for small biscuit crumbs.

The next task, after mixing the crumbs with butter was to press it into the base of a pan AND up the sides. Attempt 1 = fail. I put the crumbs back in the bowl and added double the amount of butter to really get the mixture moist so it would stick and it worked. Attempt 2 = success (although not perfect). Then due to force of habit I put it in my preheated oven until about 30 seconds later I realized I was supposed to put it in the fridge to cool for 15 once I prepared the filling then bake it all at once. No harm done though, as I took it out straight away.

The filling was quite simple, and at first taste I felt it lacked the real kick that limes have, so I added the zest of 2 more limes. I think one of the most important ingredients of this recipe is the whisked egg whites which you fold into the mixture as it gives such heavy ingredients (egg yolks and condensed milk) suck a lightness and makes this pie nice and fluffy when baked.

My base was ready so I filled it and baked. When I took it out of the oven I was quite eager to see what it was like once I took it out of the tin. I let it cool for about half an hour then attempted to take it out. I could see that it was still soft but I underestimated how much. Once I took lifted it out I pretty much put it back in straight away and left it in the fridge to set.

I went to inspect it this morning and it was harder and in a much better state. I lifted it out again and it was nice and square like it was meant to be (well for the fact I used a square tin as all of our round ones had gone walkabouts, especially the spring form one). The result was a nice and fluffy cake with a beautiful base. I have always loved the biscuit base many cheesecakes use but have never tried it, so now I know how easy it is.

The pie is generally garnished with extra whipped cream, but I thought it is not necessary as it is not a overly rich cake which needs something like ice cream or cream to balance the flavours.

Key Lime Pie

Preparation time: 25 mins
Cooking time: 25 mins
Cooling time: 4 hours

Ingredients

250g wheatmeal biscuits
200g butter
5 egg yolks
400ml (1 can) condensed milk -- please don;t use skim version as it just as extra sugar to compensate for lack of fat
zest of 3 limes
200mL lime juice (about 5 limes worth)
3 egg whites

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
2. Crush biscuits and mix with melted butter.
3. Grease either a spring form tin, or line a non-spring form tin with baking paper (so it is easy to take out)
4. Press crumbs onto tin base and up the sides then refrigerate for 15 minutes.
5. Beat egg yolks until light and smooth. Add condensed milk slowly and mix until combined.
6. Zest the limes BEFORE you juice them then add both into the egg mixture.
7. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until hard peaks form then fold into lime mixture.
8. Pour onto base and then bake for 25 minutes or until the top of the filling sets (the filling will still be soft on the inside but it will set further while it cools.
9. Once slightly cool, refrigerate overnight or at least for 4 hours.
10. Serve with slices of lime on top and IF you want, add fresh cream.

Olive Oil Cake

Ever since I did an olive oil tasting course last April, I have become absolutely obsessed with olive oil. There is so many factors which influence the flavour of an oil including harvest time, location and soil, type of olives, the way the oil is pressed and its purity level. I personally like a very strong pungent oil but also really appreciate fresh and fruity styles.

I recently came across an oil I have fallen in love with called Rich Glen and after tasting this oil you realise that there is a difference to a fresh olive oil and a supermarket oil which has probably been sitting on the shelf or in boxes for a few months, and if they are imported just imagine how long it was since it was pressed.

Olive oil does not last forever, it does go rancid, or off, and should be stored in a cool space away from UV light as this will affect the taste. This is why most bottles wither have a foil around them or are very darkly coloured, to prevent this from occurring.

Well now that I have told you a little bit about olive oil I will get into how I have used it in cooking. Usually I would make savory dishes with this olive oil, like a nice fresh salad with a small drizzle over the top to give it a bit of a lift, or I would make hummus with it which turns out so much smoother and creamier with a little bit more olive oil.

However, today I wanted to try a dessert with olive oil. I have heard of olive oil cake before but was always hesitant to try it as it seemed to be boring and I envisioned it to be bland as there are so few flavours. Quite the contrary. I was very shocked with the flavour and also the texture, but I will go into this a little later on, first I must tell you how I made it.


Trish's Olive Oil Cake

3 eggs, beaten lightly
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1/4 cup Galliano (or Grand Marnier)
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice
3 tsps lemon zest
2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

1. Firstly Mix together the eggs, sugar, olive oil, milk, Galliano, orange juice and zest.
2. Sift remaining dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture and mix until well combined. (It will be quite runny, and at first I thought too much so, but after baking it was fine so do not add extra flour).
3. I baked it for about 1.5hrs, 45 mins on 180 degrees and then 45 mins on 160 degrees. It started to cook too quickly on the outside and not enough on the inside, so I had to turn it down to make it more even. Mind you, I do not have a fan forced oven. It is arguably the worst oven ever, but we need to make do with what we have right!
4. Cool it on a rack and then serve with Orange Marmalade and a spoonful of cream or yogurt.

I decided to use a Bundt cake mould as I thought it would look prettier and nice to portion small slices from. It didn't matter that I sprayed that tin with a lot of olive oil spray so that the cake didn't stick......it did unfortunately and ripped the top off about a quarter of the cake. I was quite disappointed as it tasted so nice, but it happens, just means that I need to try again.

The cake had a nice crisp crust but was very moist, light and fluffy inside, which was surprising. It tasted slightly creamy and eggy which was a beautiful combination with the citrus, and yet due to the texture wasn't too heavy or rich that you cannot eat at least a slice (of course I had to while it was still warm). It didn't really taste like olive oil, but I realised this added much more to the texture. To compliment the flavours, it would be lovely served with some nice orange marmalade and a dollop of natural yogurt, I'm talking really marmalade with chunks or orange through it, not the sugar packed supermarket style.

Ricotta Tiramisu

I wanted to use the mound of ricotta I had sitting in the fridge, but instead of doing something boring like making strawberry ricotta muffins or a cheesecake I thought, why not try a tiramisu recipe but substitute ricotta for marscapone? I'm sure it wouldn't taste too much different, but I would play around with combinations till I got it tasting good.

I thought since marscapone is kind of creamy I will add some cream cheese and also some sugar as ricotta is quite a plain cheese. Then to give it a bit of coffee flavour I poured in a but of kahlua. I mixed that till it was smooth and still a little runny. You don't want it to be too thick as that probably means there is too much ricotta and it won't be sweet enough.

Now the fun part!!! Soaking the biscuits in coffee and alcohol. I made up some strong black coffee, plunger of course, then added kahlua + galliano. If you don't want it too strong just add kahlua or no alcohol at all, but I like my tiramisu with a bit of an alcoholic flavour to it (probably not the best idea since it is double demerits this Australia Day long weekend).

I soaked the biscuits till they were almost falling apart and then put them into the glasses. The reason I wanted them to absorb as much liquid as possible is because you want there to be some extra liquid which will combine with the cheese mixture. You then layer the biscuits then the cheese until you fill up the glasses.

N.B. you will probably have to top up the soaking liquid about 4 times as the sponge biscuits take up the liquid very easily.

Finally its time to dust with grated chocolate, and for all of you who know me well, you will know I love my dark chocolate, so it was a given I would be grating over some 85% Lindt. Now they just have to set in the fridge a bit. If you are leaving them overnight I would cover the top in cling wrap so the cheese mixture doesn't get too dry on the top.

So this is the final combination I came up with and they tasted fantastic, not too heavy yet still creamy and indulgent.

1 1/2 cups ricotta
3/4 cup cream cheese
1/4 cup kahlua
1/4 cup sugar
sponge fingers

1 cup strong coffee
1 cup kahlua
1/2 cup galliano
(these are only guides as I didn't really measure out the liquids, I just poured them in and tasted until they were balanced,but this can be adjusted to your own liking)

Now they are just waiting to be eaten...............so who is going to visit me tomorrow???