Verdict: An Elizabeth David chocolate cake

I can see why this particular chocolate cake has passed into the realm of legends. It was absolutely fantastic; moist, soft, light and chocolatey. The texture is wonderful - a real melt in your mouth cake. Sweetness is nicely balanced and the almond just sits there in the background and really complements the chocolate. A really fabulous easy cake recipe that will quickly become a personal favourite I think!

An Elizabeth David chocolate cake

It's Helen's birthday tomorrow. Time for me to try my hand at (a version of) the legendary Elizabeth David Flourless Chocolate Cake. Countless variations of this are available online, but here is the variant that I used. I would have added a shot of rum and a spoonful of strong, black coffee to the mix in step 2, but I had no rum and my coffee making stuff was in the lab.

An Elizabeth David Chocolate Cake
Ingredients

• 200g Dark chocolate
• 150g Caster sugar
• 150g Butter
• 100g Ground almonds
  
• 5 Eggs, separated
  

Method

1. Put the chocolate, sugar and butter in a double boiler and melt together.
2. Stir in the ground almonds.
3. Beat in the egg yolks.
4. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the chocolate mixture.
5. Pour into a cake tin and bake for 45 minutes at 180C/Gas Mark 4.
6. Allow to cool fully before removing from tin.

And here is the finished cake! As you can see, it's fallen somewhat on cooling, though I did expect that. But it looks pretty good I think. I might even dust it with icing sugar if I have any...

Verdict: Malteser cheescake

Two thumbs up! The cheesecake was lovely - well balanced, fairly light and sweet but not sickly. I think it could have done with more Maltesers personally, but it was certainly a success. Salva even asked me to marry him after trying it...

The continuing cheesecake adventures

So now I've bought more cheese, and this time it's even the right type. The cheesecake is finished, so here it is, in all its glory:
And here with some bonus moody lighting too:And also removed from the cake tin:As you can see, it's turned out quite thin. I think I used to do this in a smaller cake tin. Oh well, next time I'll just double the quantities (o:.

Tune in tomorrow for the final part of the ongoing saga of the cheesecake. Part three: this time it gets eaten...

Maltesers and garlic? Funny combination...

I promised my labmates quite some time ago that I'd make them cheesecake. Since Inés is leaving Oxford soon and James and Salva are off to Austria just before she goes, now seemed like a sensible time for me to make it. Unfortunately, just as I was about to start making the filling, I discovered that instead of buying cream cheese, I'd managed to buy cream cheese with garlic and herbs. I decided that that probably wouldn't go terribly well with the rest of the cheesecake, so I'll have to go get some cream cheese tomorrow and finish it then. Anyway, in the meantime, here's the recipe as I intend it to be.

Malteser Cheesecake
Ingredients

• 10 Digestive biscuits
• 20 Maltesers for the base
  
• 70g Butter
• 200g Soft cheese
• 90g Caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
  
• 150ml Double cream
• 10 Maltesers to decorate
  

Method

1. Crush the digestive biscuits and Maltesers for the base.
2. Melt the butter and mix with the crushed biscuit/malteser mix. Press firmly into a lined loose-bottomed cake tin and refrigerate to set.
3. Cream the cheese, sugar and vanilla together.
4. Whip the double cream in a separate bowl then fold into the cheese mixture.
5. Spoon over the biscuit base and decorate with crushed Maltesers.
6. Refrigerate until set.

The base is done at least:Stay tuned for the next installment of the exciting adventures of cheesecake!

Verdict: Chocolate and Almond Cake

Well, I said I wasn't going to stay for the marathon, but I am a weak-minded fool and so ended up staying for the entirety of it (though I was asleep for pretty much all of the last film). But anyway, the cake: Dry mostly. I think not enough butter, and I don't think I let it down enough with the milk. Also fairly dense, but that's to be expected, given how much flour I swapped out for cocoa powder. Not nearly enough almond, but there would have been more if I'd had any more. But overall, an edible cake at least, though not one that will win any awards.

Chocolate and Almond Cake

It's Imogen's birthday tomorrow and she's celebrating with a Lord of the Rings marathon tonight. I'm not staying for the actual marathon, so I thought I'd better turn up at the start of proceedings - but I've also just come back from a bike ride. So with about two hours to shower, get ready and bake a cake (including cooling time), I decided that now is probably not the time to go and do any zany experiments. So I'm baking a variation on a standard sponge instead.

Chocolate and Almond Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:

• 120g Butter
• 50g Soft brown sugar
• 70g Caster sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp Almond essence
• 1tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 80g Self-raising flour
• 50g Cocoa powder
• 40g Blanched almonds (there would have been more, but I ran out)
• Dash of milk

For the topping

• 110g Dark chocolate
• 15g Butter
• 2tbsp Water
  
• Blanched almonds to decorate
  

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.
2. Beat in the eggs, vanilla essence and almond essence.
3. Sift the bicarbonate of soda, flour and cocoa powder into the mixture and fold in.
4. Let the cake mixture down to dropping consistency with milk.
5. Pour into a lined cake tin and bake at 180C/Gas Mark 4 for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Remove to a wire rack to cool.
7. In a bowl, melt the chocolate, butter and water over a double boiler.
8. Spread over the cooled cake and decorate with almonds. Allow to set.

Here's the cake fresh from the oven:
And here's the finished article:
I think the cake looks quite dense and the chocolate top hasn't set yet, but it's about 25 minutes walk to Imogen's and I'm already late, so I'd better get going...

Verdict: Coffee and Walnut Cake

In a word: Terrible.

This was, in my opinion, an abject failure. The cake was dense (unsurprising given how much nut and how little flour/raising agents were in the mixture), but most of all tasted of pretty much nothing. The coffee was just not noticeable in any way. The sandwich layer had far too much butter in and the cake tasted greasy. I thought it was absolutely dire, personally. Other people present at the party thought it was better, some even claiming to like it, but I'm sure they were just being polite. I sure as hell won't be baking that cake again!

Not your boring sponge: Part the Second

Time to finish off the cake!

Coffee and Walnut Cake Continued
Ingredients
For the sandwich layer:

• 50g/2oz Butter
• 1 Egg yolk (left over from the cake)
• 125g/4oz Caster sugar
• 50g/2oz Walnuts, finely chopped
• 60ml/2fl oz Strong black coffee
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

For the top:

• 120g/4oz Icing sugar
• 60ml/2fl oz Strong black coffee
• Walnut halves to decorate

Method

1. Cream the butter in a bowl then beat in the other sandwich layer ingredients
2. Cut the cooled cake in half horizontally and spread the sandwich layer mixture on the lower half before replacing the upper half
3. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and stir in the coffee
4. Add water gradually until the icing reaches a spreadable consistency
5. Spread the icing over the top of the cake using a warm palette knife and allow to set
6. Decorate the top with the walnut halves

Here is the end product:

I'm really not sure about this cake. The icing was ridiculously runny (unsurprising given the coffee:sugar ratio) so ended up as more of a glaze than anything else. And the sandwich layer also turned out much more liquidy than I expected. We shall see, but I suspect this might be one of the less successful cakes...

Not your boring sponge: Part the First

Lindsey's birthday falls in the Easter break this year, so she wouldn't be able to celebrate with Oxford friends on her actual birthday (a predicament I can sympathise with). Thus, she's having her celebration tomorrow instead and I decided to bake her a cake in lieu of a present. Now, I have pretty much always thought that sponge cakes are fairly boring. Nice, but very boring. So I thought I'd try something different. She said she wanted a coffee cake, so I did almost resort to making a sponge and adding instant coffee. But luckily, I stumbled across a more interesting recipe that I could adapt. So here's the cakey bit of the cake. Sandwich filling (yes it will be a sandwich cake, but I don't have sandwich cake tins - in a perfect world, I would have baked it for ~25 mins at 200C/Gas Mark 6 in shallow sandwich tins) and maybe also icing will follow in a subsequent post...

Coffee and Walnut Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:

• 5 Eggs, separated
• 125g/4 1/2oz Caster sugar
• 125g/4 1/2oz Soft dark brown sugar
• 250g/9oz Walnuts, finely chopped
• 2 tsp Instant coffee, crushed
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 100g/3 1/2oz Plain flour

Method

1. Mix four of the egg yolks with the caster sugar and soft dark brown sugar in a bowl
2. Stir in the chopped walnuts, the instant coffee and the vanilla extract
3. Stir in the flour, a little at a time
4. Whisk the (five) egg whites in a separate bowl until they form stiff peaks. Fold gently into the cake mixture
5. Pour into a lined loose-bottomed cake tin and bake at 170C/Gas Mark 3-4 for an hour, or until a skewer comes out clean
6. Remove from the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack

I was amazed when I took it out of the oven first time around - it looked absolutely gorgeous, so I thought I had better take a photo before poking a hole in the top with a skewer:

And here's the finished cake:

Incidentally, if anyone is wondering why the holes in the top of the cake are quite so large, it's because I don't have skewers and I've been using chopsticks to test my cakes! (Actually, a much bigger problem at the moment is that I don't have a mixing bowl. I've been making my cakes in saucepans mostly!).