Sugar cookies!

Adapted from Annie's Eats

For the party we had to celebrate my job at a place I've always wanted to work at, Dragon and I had a party, themed and everything. So I made sugar cookies, in white, orange and black. (Okay, only the orange ones were orange!) The recipe I used needed icing, so while the chocolate ones turned out delectably chocolate, the plain ones were a bit sad, but the ones covered in orange icing were perfect. So I adjusted the plain recipe.

Chocolate Tart

Ello! No I have not been neglecting you, I just didn't have the camera one week I cooked a lot and then I didn't cook much! However, here is the next in the birthday series, Chocolate Tart, from Deb of course. I must admit I was a tad skeptical, since I made a ton of the tart dough the previous week for a lemon tart and it was just too sweet, and a titch crunchy for my taste - I like em flaky and powdery. However, possibly because of the dark chocolate in the tart and the cup of sugar in the lemon tart, it worked fine.

Chocolate Whiskey cake with Baileys frosting

I promised all my friends I'd bake them cakes in March and April, mainly so I could bake all the delish recipes I've been dying to try, and then not have to eat them. A fellow whiskey-loving friend who periodically ensures there is Cutty Sark in my life recently had a birthday, and having seen these over on smittenkitchen, I decided I'd try them.

The first problem was that they're cupcakes and I needed to make them into a cake. Luckily, trawling the comments revealed a fairly straightforward formula for it. The second and larger problem was the lack of Guinness in our lives and not enough knowledge of beer to know what I could use to substitute it. I decided to ditch the beer entirely - a bad mistake I found out later when the cake itself tasted really bad. Then I needed to get my hands on Baileys, but that was solved by a quick search online, after which I made my own Irish Cream. DAYAM it was good.

Double Chocolate Cake

So I quit my job recently and decided to have a party to celebrate. Heck, who'm I kidding, I just wanted an excuse to bake. Hee. I've been dying to try more from smitten kitchen, and it's been a long time since there was chocolate in my life. Therefore, double chocolate cake. As usual, it lived up to everything I am now coming to demand from anything of Deb's, and was inhaled by my friends. Not a crumb left.

Evil chocolate cake Redux

This was formerly, Mint Chocolate Cake with Strawberries and whipped cream. After moving here, the recipe had to be adapted to unavailability of fresh strawberries and dark chocolate. The result.

Momma's Special Deepavali Chocolate Barfi

Every year this barfi was the highlight of our lives. Seriously. Bouncing around the kitchen in unbearable excitement so we could eat the scraping and poke the goo before it set. This year I got her to direct me to make it and voila! Le recipe. I am told it is also called 3 cups barfi, and you can replace the cocoa with ground almonds, cashews, anything you want.

1 cup besan (chickpea flour)

2-2.5 cups sugar (depending on how sweet you want it and whether the milk powder is sweetened)

1 cup milk

.25 - .5 cups milk powder

1 cup cocoa powder

1 cup ghee

equipment: 1 thick bottomed kadhai (wok), nonstick is possible but we make it in stic, with a big metal ladle for scraping so think about it.

big ladle/spatula the round kind with holes in it

a wide metal plate with a lip

Mix the milk powder into half the milk, and the cocoa into the other half. Set aside. Grease the plate with ghee and set aside. Mix the besan and sugar together in the kadhai, then add the ghee and mix it up well. Put it on a medium flame and keep stirring. The ghee will melt and the sugar will dissolve and eventually it'll become a smooth paste. Add the milk powder mixture. Keep stirring. In about 7-8 minutes, add the cocoa mixture. Keep stirring. (There's a LOT of stirring!) The mixture will start getting lighter, thicker and much heavier. Stir and stir, lifting from the bottom and turning it over.

Yes it will hurt. you think halwais are born with those biceps?

You'll see that the residue on the kadhai is turning light and crumbly. Around now, the mixture will start to come together, and when it's like a gooey ball it's done. Take out into the greased plate and flatten - we use the bottom of a cup similarly greased with ghee. Cut into diamonds/squares and allow to cool.

nomnomnom

Mint Dark Chocolate Cake with Strawberries and Cream

Madness has resulted in the extremely belated post. Sorry. I haven't cooked in AGES. But I'm back! With two recipes today.

• 2 bars dark chocolate (60% cacao, 43g)
• 1 bar mint chocolate (43g)
• 125g butter
• 6 eggs, separated, with whites beaten stiff
• 250g sugar
• 2 tbs milk
• 4 tbs flour
• Sweetened whipped cream to put between layers and cover cake
• Strawberries to decorate
  

Melt the chocolate and milk in a saucepan. Add the butter and melt it in. Remove from heat and add sugar, flour and egg yolks. Fold in beaten whites. Bake at 400F in a greased pan for 45 min. Remove cake and allow to cool. Slice some strawberries longitudinally. Cut it horizontally and spread sliced strawberries and whipped cream across the bottom half. cover with top half, making sure that there is enough cream to make them stick. Cover cake with more cream. Decorate with strawberries as desired. Chill in freezer or refrigerator till serving.

This is a modified version of a recipe the Food Alchemist sent me

edit: alternative icing
chocolate truffle

Melt 100g of dark chocolate in a saucepan. Take it off the fire and let it cool a bit but not solidify. Stir in 50g of cream. Allow to cool some more, spread on cake and stick in fridge. Devour once set.

For alternative desified version, Evil Chocolate Cake Redux.

Supernatural Brownies

This is a recipe from the New York Times! Yes really.

They have a fantastic texture, not chocolatey enough for me, though as Minkie will testify I like my cake really really chocolatey.
I used Ghirardelli's semisweet baking chocolate. Definitely microwave melted the butter and chocolate, very convenient! I would start with the chocolate and add in the butter later cos it melts faster. I used wax paper instead of parchment and regular supermarket-issue dark brown sugar. And yes, they do taste better the next day.

Enjoy! Lemon cake recipe will follow.

Recipe: Supernatural Brownies
Adapted from “Chocolate: From Simple Cookies to Extravagant Showstoppers,” by Nick Malgieri (Morrow
Cookbooks, 1998)
Time: About 1 hour
2 sticks (16 tablespoons) butter, more for pan and parchment paper
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark brown sugar, such as muscovado
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or 3/4 cup whole walnuts, optional.
1. Butter a 13-by-9-inch baking pan and line with buttered parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In top
of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, or on low power in a microwave, melt butter and chocolate
together. Cool slightly. In a large bowl or mixer, whisk eggs. Whisk in salt, sugars and vanilla.
2. Whisk in chocolate mixture. Fold in flour just until combined. If using chopped walnuts, stir them in. Pour
batter into prepared pan. If using whole walnuts, arrange on top of batter. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until shiny
and beginning to crack on top. Cool in pan on rack.
Yield: 15 large or 24 small brownies.
Note: For best flavor, bake 1 day before serving, let cool and store, tightly wrapped.