The Up Going Down Chocolate Cake

This one is for Captain Charlie. Mainly because she nagged me to stop being uber busy and post a new recipe.


I have been uber busy. Today I spent 3 hours putting electrodes on someone's head. 
All 64 of them.

Then I had to scrub them clean with a toothbrush.
And then I almost lost all will to live.
But my faith in cake put me back on the straight road and even if deadlines are close and I am still far away from putting electrodes together in less than an hour, here it is.
The one.
The only.
The reason I got an electric mixer.
The Flourless Chocolate Cake.


You are going to need:

• 6 eggs
• 400 gr of chocolate (dark and semi sweet)
• 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
• 100 gr of butter
• loads of patience to deal with the washing up afterwards.

Place some greaseproof paper at the bottom of a spring-form pan 

Preheat over to 160 Celsius.

Separate  6 large eggs. Yolks in one bowl and egg whites in the other.

Break up the chocolate , add the butter and melt until smooth.

Then add the 6 egg yolks to the chocolate and sugar mixture one at a time whisking after each addition.

In a medium bowl beat the six eggs whites until stiff peaks form. (Yey for electric mixers!)

Gently Fold your egg white mixture into the melted chocolate mixture until combined. Pour it in your pan and bake for 1 hour.

In the meantime clean up the mess you just made.

And draw faces on eggs.

The egg survivors....

When the cake comes out it will look a bit like this

And then it will start sinking

Let it cool down for an hour on the counter and then for at least 4 hours in the refrigerator before releasing it from the springform pan

Dust with a bit of icing sugar and Voila! 

Eleleator going up....Eleleator going down....

Mini baked cheesecakes

It is cold...

as in "Oh my goodness cold" in Wales lately...

Clearly all I want to do is skip lectures and stay snuggled under my duvet with a hot mug of coco watching the new episode of "An American Horror Story".

If you haven't started on the series yet you MUST.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1844624/

I intended to post this recipe 2 days ago but got caught in a zombie movie marathon and trying to sort out my Halloween costume. Aw...and listening to the new Puscifer album.

I miss Tool.

I understand Maynard tho. I don't particularly want Merkin Vineyards but would love to have a bakery and hide myself in the basement between bags of chocolate and cinnamon sticks writing recipes in a trance.

So yeah...Mini baked cheesecakes.

This is an oldie but goodie. They are slightly addictive so I suggest you keep them hidden away from everyone and enjoy them yourselves.

For 6 minis you are going to need: 

250gr cream cheese at room temp

1/2 cup (110gr) caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 eggs

6 biscuits for the base (preferably small ones)

Strawberry Jam Or the can be served with berries and icing sugar on top but come one....who says no to strawberry Jam...

(ps: If you double the ingredients it should give you about 16 minis)

1) Preheat the oven to 180 celcius and line 6 large muffin pans each with two paper cases (trust me you DO need two) and place a biscuit in the base of each muffin case pressing down firmly. If you want your cheesecakes looking pretty use fancy animal print cases as the outside ones *wink

2) Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time (this may get messy)

3) Top the muffin cases with the cream cheese mixture. Try not to fill all the way to the top as they will rise slightly when baked

4) Bake for 20 minutes or until slightly risen (or risen a lot if your oven is fan assisted like mine ) and just begin to crack a little on the surface. Do not panic if they rise to much, once they cool down they will sink back in

5) Set aside for 30 mins to cool down and then grab that yummy jam and give it a good spoonfull on top

And voila!

You'll have a hard time keeping anyone out of your fridge....believe me.

That's it for now.

Love

Kitty

xxx

Ba-Na-Na-Na Bread

I still don't have my mixer...I think the postman hates me or some neighbour is stealing my mail...
So I made banana bread mainly because I like bananas and I promised myself I'll go a week without chocolate.


I also managed to shrink my gloves to children's size. Still getting to know my dryer. His name is Bob and clearly doesn't like my gloves. I also sprayed bleach on my bright red oriental rag but you don't wanna see that....

So yeah....Ba-na-na-na bread, I got this recipe from allrecipes.com

You are going to need :

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
• In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. 
• In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. 
• Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. 

• Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

• Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

And this is your Ba-na-na-na bread....It is delicious and easy to make and helped me feel a little more happy and a little less vengeful with the postman. 

YumYum Carrot Cake

Test one...two...
Blog..
Hello...
I've meant to post an opening recipe for days now but somehow this blog never seemed to be ready. After spending hours creating and deleting one banner after the other I decided to "Just do it".


Two days ago I found myself in a dilemma. Bake a carrot cake or a flour-less chocolate cake.
As in every dilemma-tic (I thought I invented that word but dictionary beat me to it) situation I decided to make an estimate of the situation.
I had no mixer and gods help me I absolutely cannot whisk eggs till stiff picks form without going on a rant about how hard it is.
I also decided to skip chocolate for a weekend and leave it for cold winter nights with gluten intolerant friends. (directors note: this is an excuse because I felt too lazy to whisk eggs)
 However, carrot cake proved to be a big enough success to keep half of it for myself although it was a care package (Call of Duty lingo...damn you Xbox)


This is what you are going to need:

·         300g plain flour

·         2 tsp cinnamon

·         1 tsp baking powder

·         ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

·         200g soft brown sugar

·         4 eggs

·         250ml oil

·         1 orange , zested

·         1 lemon , zested

·         200g carrots , finely grated

·         150g walnuts , chopped (I skipped them cause they just make me itch)

·         227g tin pineapple pieces, well drained and chopped 

·         125g unsalted butter at room temperature

·        450g icing sugar

·         250g cream cheese

• Heat the oven to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2.
• Line a 20cm, 10cm deep cake tin.
• Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together and stir in the sugar.

•  Beat the eggs with the oil and citrus zests.

•  Stir in the carrots and fold everything into the flour mixture.

•  Fold in the walnuts and pineapple if using.Your mixture will not be too thick so don't worry about it.
•  Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool.

This is where a picture of the cake before the cream cheese frosting should be but I forgot to take one. In my defence I was trying to prepare two meals as well.

Not for the cream cheese frosting....

• Beat the butter and icing sugar together until soft (and yellow)

• and then beat in the cream cheese and make your partner hold the bowl awkwardly while you take a picture.

• Chill the mixture until it's thick but spreadable. Spread a thick layer on top of the cake. I like getting the frosting around the cake as well.

And Voila! A yummy, not too sweet, moist yet fluffy carrot cake.

Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours (or eat immediately depending on the appetite really).