Saturday, September 11, 2010

Little chocolate cakes

Hello everyone, this is going to be my last posting on this blog. I have been writing it since January 2008 and today's recipe is number 150, which seems a good number at which to conclude. It's funny to look at the list of recipes I have shared - it is a compendium of all the things I love to eat! I could quite happily just rotate through all the recipes here for the rest of my life. Of course I won't, there are always new cookbooks calling me with something different.

I decided to conclude with what would really have to be my most favourite food in the world, chocolate pudding. The recipe comes from Jill Dupleix's Simple Food, a book from which I have cooked nearly every single thing. She calls the dish cakes, but she suggests pulling them out of the oven a little bit early so that you can enjoy the luscious squidgy texture. That's how I cook these cakes and I serve them as puddings with cream, ice-cream and chocolate sauce.

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog and provided me with comments and feedback. It made me really happy whenever anyone told me that they had cooked something from the blog, or their family had a favourite recipe from the blog, as that was the original intention. I hope you keep returning to it and find it a useful source of delicious inspiration!

Love from Jane

Little Chocolate Cakes

Makes 12

What you need:
  • 200g dark, bitter, top quality chocolate, chopped
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 120g butter
  • 100g ground almonds
  • 4 eggs, separated
  • Icing sugar for dusting

What you do:
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
  2. In a bowl sitting above a simmering pan of water on the stove, combine the chocolate, sugar and butter and stir as they melt into a smooth, glossy sauce.
  3. Remove from the heat and cool for five minutes.
  4. Add the ground almonds to the chocolate sauce and stir well.
  5. Beat in the egg yolks, one by one, until well mixed.
  6. Place the egg whites into a large, dry bowl and beat until stiff and peaky.
  7. Stir a large spoonful of egg white into the chocolate mix to lighten it, then gently fold in the remaining egg white.
  8. Spoon the mix into lightly buttered large muffin moulds, or a 12 hole muffin tray lined with doubled muffin paper cases.
  9. Bake: if you want a pudding texture check at 15 minutes; if you prefer a cake effect, check at 25 minutes.
  10. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing the puddings from their moulds, and serve as you prefer.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Pizza with prosciutto and ricotta

Hello everyone, I had lunch today at a place I really like called The Cook's Garden in North Turramurra, which I think I have mentioned before. I had a really simple but delicious slice of grilled bread, piled high with roasted capsicum, roasted golden beetroot, grilled haloumi and rocket. I haven't tried golden beetroot before as the traditional version doesn't appeal at all, but it was very good and seemed to have a much firmer and drier texture than the usual purple one.

This week's recipe is a favourite pizza, from a Women's Weekly book called Cooking For Friends There are so many different combinations that you can use for a pizza but this one seems to be just right every time.

Have a great week. Love from Jane xx

Pizza with prosciutto and ricotta

Serves six to eight

What you need:
  • 3 medium tomatoes
  • 3 x medium sized pizza bases
  • 1/2 to 1 cup tomato paste
  • 300g baby spinach leaves, washed and dried
  • 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
  • 9 slices prosciutto
  • 1/4 cup loosely packed, coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves
  • 300g fresh ricotta
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed and stirred through the olive oil

What you do:
  1. Preheat the oven to 240C.
  2. Cut each tomato into eight wedges.
  3. Place the pizza bases on oven trays.
  4. Spread each base with a third of the tomato paste.
  5. Top each pizza with equal amounts of tomato, spinach, onion, prosciutto, basil, ricotta and pine nuts.
  6. Drizzle each pizza with equal amounts of the garlic oil.
  7. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the top of each pizza is browned lightly and the base crisp.