SWEET TREATS: CHOCOLATE CREPE CAKE

Posted on by foodamazers

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Recently I have become a great fan of pancakes and crepes. When I was a child we would always make sweet crepes for Fridays or as Saturday snack. My mum never liked making them as it takes ages. So I was usually the lucky one to spent at least an hour watching golden crepes and perfecting my ‘flipping’ technique. But somehow I enjoyed it, and it has it’s perks of eating hot pancakes when no-one is watching. After all I love a fresh hot crepe on it’s own.

So this year on Pancake day I decided to make a chocolate crepe cake. There are so many ways on how to make them thought. But I settled for a simple recipe from my mum. Because obviously she knows best! Chocolate make it really hard to guess if the pancake is cooked and when it starts to burn. So it took me about 5 pancakes to figure out when I need to turn and not to leave the second side on for too long.

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Chocolate Crepe Cake
(serves 6-80)
Ingredients
1 l milk
440 g plain flour
4 eggs
50 g cocoa powder

700 ml whipped cream
70 g raspberry jam
150 g dark chocolate
150 ml double cream

Sieve the flour and cocoa to break all the lumps and them mix well with milk and eggs. Leave the batter to stand ideally for an hour or 2 in the fridge. Heat up a small frying pan with a few drops of oil. Pour one ladle of batter and spread evenly over the surface of the pan. Turn the crepe over once the edges are coming away from the pan. Each pancake takes about 2 minutes to take but be careful not to burn as batter is dark already. Leave each pancake to cool before putting on top of each other so that you don’t trap too much moisture between them. Once all pancakes are done you are ready to whip the cream.

Spread the cream over each pancake and spread jam after every 5 pancakes. Once all pancakes are stacked up, spread the rest of the cream over the sides. Place a plate on top and leave in a fridge for a few hours or overnight.

For chocolate ganache, bring double cream to boil and then pour over dark chocolate. Leave it to melt and mix well together to dissolve all the lump. Spread the chocolate over the cake and leave to set for about an hour.

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by Maria

Sweet Treats: Naked Raspberry & Chocolate Cheesecake

Posted on by foodamazers

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I have been neglecting the blog recently. And this is due to my oven being broken and also spending way too much time outdoors. This summer has not been very hot but then I guess I am getting used to the English mild temperatures. Unfortunately my oven decided to give up on me and it seems to be on a mission to wreck every cake I make. So let’s keep the fingers crossed for the engineer to fix it up really quickly.

On the other hand I found a new yummy recipe for an unbaked cheesecake. I have been experimenting a bit with fresh fruits. I know raspberries and chocolate are a superb combination and so I have tried to mix them into the cheesecake. First, I thought it would be a great idea but then I realised that raspberries have fallen apart very quickly and therefore they got a bit lost in the mixture. So I decided to place raspberries on the biscuit base and to keep them intact. I was delighted that the raspberries did not get crushed. But I quickly realised it is not so easy to spread the chocolate on top of them. However the final cheesecake looked really lovely and tasted delicious.

This cheesecake is very rich and the best way it to keep it chilled. I would strongly recommend to take it out of the fridge about half an hour before serving as it is much easier to cut. Also I prefer to eat it at the room temperature.

Sweet Treats: Raspberry & Chocolate Cheesecake (serves 8-10)

Ingredients
170 g digestive biscuits
35 g melted butter
1 tbsp golden sugar
350 ml double cream
200 g soft cream cheese
40 g icing sugar
300 g dark chocolate
200 g fresh raspberries

Line the sides of 9 inch cake tine with baking paper, preferable one with high sides. Brush the side of the tin with melted butter in case the paper does not want to hold on the sides . Crush biscuits with the rolling pin, until they become breadcrumbs. Then mix with golden syrup and butter. Press the crushed biscuits to the cake tin and level out, then leave in the fridge to set.

Place washed and dried raspberries on top of the biscuit base.

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Melt the dark chocolate over the boiling water and set aside to cool. Whip the double cream until it thickens, then add icing sugar and cream cheese. Finally add cooled chocolate to the mixture and mix well. Once all the chocolate is incorporated with the cream, transfer the mixture to the tin and spread carefully over the raspberries.

Leave the cheesecake to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours before serving.

by Maria

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Sweet Treats: raspberry and chocolate cake

Posted on by foodamazers

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Birthday cakes are very special kind of cakes. They can be excessively extravagant, decorated, and shaped to anything you wish them to be. I like cakes to be simple but, at the same time, I want them to stand out and let the candles brighten up everyone’s face. Keep that in mind if you are struggling to find a perfect birthday present…

Chocolate and raspberries taste sublime together and bring a wonderful colour contrast. It is always easier if you try to arrange the raspberries on the side rather than straight onto the cake, to allow a regular pattern and to ensure you won’t run out of them before finishing the cake.

Raspberry and chocolate birthday cake (serves 10-12 people)

175 g salted butter, plus 10 g for greasing
75 g dark chocolate
300 g plain flour
375 g golden caster sugar
25 g cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 medium eggs
200 g buttermilk
100 ml boiling water
4 tbsp raspberry jam
250 g fresh raspberries

For the chocolate ganache
170 g dark chocolate
120 ml of double cream

Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/mark 4. Grease with butter and line two 8-inch cake tins. Boil the kettle with water. Put chocolate, broken in small pieces, and butter into a small pan, then heat gently and continuously stir until melted. Mix flour, sugar, cocoa, and soda bicarbonate together with a pinch of salt in a bowl. Whisk the eggs and buttermilk until lighter in colour then add to the flour mixture together with melted chocolate. Add 100 ml of boiling water and whisk preferably with electrical whisk, until the mixture is lump free.

Divide the cake mixture into two tins and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Remember to swap tins halfway through the bake if place on different shelves in the oven. Also rotate tins if you put both tins next to each other to allow even rise and bake. Check with a skewer every now and then. Cake is ready once the skewer comes out clean. Take the cake out of the oven and allow to cool down before decorating.

For the chocolate ganache, pour the double cream into a heavy based pot and bring slowly to boil. Then pour over broken chocolate and leave it to melt the chocolate for a few moments. Be careful when stirring the ganache, if you stir it too soon, not all the chocolate will melt. If you have a few lumps of chocolate left, then place the bowl in warm water to allow the heat to melt the rest of the chocolate.

Squash a few raspberries with a fork and mix with raspberry jam. Spread the jam over the first sponge and place the second sponge on the top. Spread another but thinner layer of jam on the top sponge. You can also spread some of the chocolate ganache over the first sponge if you wish to make this cake a bit richer. Pour the chocolate ganache over the cake and cover all the sides. Leave the cake on the side for about 10-15 minutes to allow the chocolate to set.

Wash all the remaining raspberries and dry. Then place them on the top of the cake. Dust with icing sugar if you wish.

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by Maria