Nigella Christmas Chocolate Biscuits

Nigella promises that these are a "doddle to make, and meltingly gorgeous to eat", and she is not wrong at all.

The recipe doesn't require eggs.  Just creaming the butter and sugar, then beating in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and cocoa.  The most finicky bit about making these biscuits are rolling them into little balls.  I used my plastic gloves.  

Nigella decorates the biscuits with Christmas sprinkles. But I just used whatever I had at home - which were chocolate black, brown and white dog shaped sprinkles....not very festive at all!

The biscuits were really yummy.  Super soft.  It really does melt in your mouth.  You can eat a dozen before you realise it.  I packed them up as Christmas gifts so I didn't face the temptation of eating a dozen at a time.  

Chocolate Cake (Rachel Allen)

I was looking for a simple basic chocolate cake recipe for Junior's 7th birthday celebration at home (just the family).  I chose Rachel Allen's Chocolate Cake recipe (from her book "bake") as it looked like a classic chocolate sponge with chocolate buttercream icing.  It was relatively easy to make.

In terms of flavour, it was OK. Jr liked it and said it was sugary (mainly due to the icing, which was more sugar than chocolate).  I thought the chocolate flavour was not as strong as I would've like it to be, and the icing was much too sweet (which I think for some people is really the point of icing).

I have mentioned before that I am wondering if my oven is too hot, thereby drying out my cakes. I did bake this a little shorter than the recommended time.  But the cake was also a teeny weeny little bit drier than I prefer, though I must say I am comparing it with the really moist chocolate cakes I've made before.  Perhaps it was because it was refrigerated before tasting time.  The cake certainly did not look overcooked (not cracks on the surface or mountain effect).

Overall, it was pleasant tasting, but I think I have other much nicer chocolate cake recipes that I'd reach for before this version.   I like my chocolate cakes really moist and chocolatey, almost fudgy.  But this is really just a simple chocolate sponge, which is a different cake altogether.  So I guess I was expecting too much.  Sorry Rachel Allen!

Dense Chocolate Cupcakes (2)

I had made these wonderful cupcakes from Nigella's HTBADG previously, and blogged about it here.  The recipe is soooo soooo soooo good, that I've made it again and again.  Most recently for Teachers' Day in September.

This time round, I used the skills learnt from my Basic Cupcake Decorating Course at Bake It Yourself to do little pretty swirls with the chocolate ganache.  The ganache, as usual, was a pain to make. But I managed to get it (sort of) right after employing the refrigeration trick learnt from my experiment with strawberry shortcakes.

Here are the pretty pictures!

Brownies (Joy of Baking)

I baked this in August but didn't have time to blog about it as things have been quite crazy the last few months!  Anyway, Jr watched an episode of Masterchef Australia which featured brownies and asked to make some.  I thought we should try the brownie recipe from Joy of Baking this time. (I had done Nigella's Flourless Chocolate Brownies previously.)

Based on my previous experience with Joy of Baking's recipes, and the fact that they warn you about the baking time only being a guide, I decided to bake the brownies for 20 min instead of the recommended 25 - 30 min.  Even then, it turned out a little bit dry.  I'm wondering now if my oven is too hot. But the oven thermometer tells me that the temperature is OK.  I'll try out Nigella's recipe again and see if it's an oven thing or a recipe thing.


Or perhaps, they are two different types of brownies. One fudgier and one more cookie-like.  (Which suddenly reminds me of those gorgeous Ben's cookies I used to get at Oxford's covered market during my student days.)

Anyway, it was quite yummy, and not as sweet as Nigella's version.  Still, I prefer Nigella's brownies.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

I baked these Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes for some friends as to a a treat for their birthdays. The special ingredient is the morello cherry jam which is rather hard to find in Singapore. When I found them at Cold Storage (United Square), I told myself that this was a sign that I had to make these cupcakes!

It is very very easy to make. I must admit that I messed up the icing though, and overwhipped the double-cream slightly.

So instead of a nice smooth icing, it got somewhat lumpy. But it was still good.

It is very very lovely dense cake. I must admit that the first bite was slightly disappointing, because I thought it was too sweet from the jam.

But then, towards the end of the first bite, and definitely by the second bite, the complex flavours kick in, and you get that sour kick from the morello cherry and the wonderfully rich, smooth, bitter background of the dark chocolate. What an explosion of flavours! And for some reason, the sweetness never bothered me again.

I love this cake. I can't wait to do it again. I don't know if I prefer it to the Dense Chocolate Cupcake, though, as they are very different types of chocolate cake. Both are very good.

One in a very traditional chocolately chocolate sort of way, and the other in a snazzy jazzy sort of way.

My friends loved it. It did look rather pretty too, after I added the little rose-buds and packed them in a nice cupcake box (both from Bake-it-Yourself).

Chocolate Honey Cake, Nigella Lawson, Feast.

This recipe is from Nigella Feast, which has got a great section on chocolate cakes. I decided to bake this cake for my Dad's birthday party. It would be too small for the over 80 people expected to attend, but I thought it would provide a really pretty visual treat.

It's a damp, moist cake that is easy to make. Just dump the ingredie

nts into the food processor and blitz.

Honey is used in both the cake and the icing. And because of it, it's one of those cakes that some people love, and some others could hate. It looks dark and chocolatey, and so it is what your tastebuds are expecting. If you didn't know it was a honey cake, you would be surprised by the taste of the honey, which is quite pronounced. Therefore, you need to choose the type of honey you use carefully. It wasn't something I thought about and so I used whatever was already open in the cupboard. The fact that I didn't actually like the taste of that particular type of honey very much, somewhat compromised my eventual satisfaction levels. You could also probably reduce the amount of icing sugar in the icing, which was very very very sweet.

I did, however, love the decorative bees, which are made with marzipan and almond flakes and drawn with the honey chocolate icing. They were adorable.

The cake was generally well-received. The kids, especially, came back for seconds and thirds, and asked to eat the bees. I thought it was nice, in an OK kind of way. I'm not sure I'd make this cake again, since I have other chocolate cake recipes to try out and ones that I've tried before that I know are winners. As a chocolate cake, it's not the best I've tried. As a honey cake, with better honey, I think I might like this more. Love the bees though.

Oh, and I need to acknowledge my brother's help with this cake. It's useful having an assistant!

Chocolate Truffle Cake, Nigella Lawson, Feast

Forgive the pictures this time. I forgot to take a picture of the cake when it was ready and by the time I remembered, it had been cut and messed up.

This Chocolate Truffle Cake recipe is from Nigella Feasts. It's a relatively simple recipe, although it does comprise 2 parts, which can be quite easy to mess up.

The first part, and the only baking part, is the making the chocolate meringue base of the cake. I made twice the amount required, as I didn't have a 20" springform tin, only a 22" one.

The second part of the recipe, involves melting down

the chocolate, which as highlighted in a previous post, can be a treacherous affair. This time round, I had to melt 400g (!) of dark chocolate with some golden syrup and rum, then mix it with double cream. First of all, I only had baker's chocolate and a couple of bars of 75% chocolate. So my chocolate was very very very dark. Then, the melting didn't seem to go as smoothly as before, possibly because there was just soooo much to melt. It was impossible to get the chocolate into that nice smooth paste. After mixing it with the cream, it realised that there were small chocolate lumps in the mixture!

The cake didn't turn out too badly, despite the few lumps of unmelted chocolate in it. It was very very rich, and because I used bakers chocolate, it was also very very very bitter, to the point of being sour! This is one recipe from Nigella's vast collection that results in a very unsweet cake. Even if I had used 70% chocolate, I think it would still have retained that bitterness, though probably not so intensely. The chocolate meringue base gave the cake a nice twist, and was a nice light touch juxtaposed with with intensity of the truffle.

I love chocolate truffle, but I'm not sure I would do this recipe again as I wasn't able to get the truffle smooth enough. And, in my book, that counts for everything in a chocolate truffle cake.

THAT Chocolate Cake

This is the absolute best chocolate cake recipe I have tested.  It's from "The Essence of Chocolate" by Steinberg & Scharffenberger. I made it for the hubby's birthday.  My decorating skills are pathetic, so it doesn't look so good. But ignore how it looks. 

It's a lovely and moist cake, with a deep rich chocolate taste.  And it tastes better the day after! I could swoon about it all day, but I'll spare you, so I'll just leave you with these pictures (ok, my photo taking skills leave much to be desired...).

Flourless Chocolate Brownies with Hot Chocolate Sauce

As you would probably have guessed, I'm a chocolate lover. And all chocolate lovers love a good brownie. This brownie from Nigella is very good, and very easy to make.

In place of flour, the recipe uses ground almonds. It also uses a lot of butter. The batter is a very oily proposition.

You basically melt the chocolate and butter, mix in the rest of the ingredients and then bake it. While hot, it never looks quite done, as it is still very gooey inside. But it will cool and set!

It's very very rich and damp and fudgy. Great with hot chocolate sauce. Nigella's recipe for hot chocolate sauce which contains some coffee powder, adding a nice kick. Great with ice-cream.

Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Who doesn't like a chocolate chip cookie? And, unless you don't like chocolate, why wouldn't you like this chocolate chip cookie from Nigella Express? It's more than a chocolate chip cookie, it's even more than a double chocolate chip cookie. It's a Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie.

As it's name suggests, it involves 350g of chocolate chips in addition to the chocolate & cocoa powder already in the dough. The dough was thick and smelt good enough to eat.

To bake, you spoon an ice-cream scoop full of dough onto the baking tray. The result is one huge and very very chocolatey chocolate chip cookie. Very nice with milk.

As usual it was easy to put together. The only problem I faced was that it was hard to tell when the cookie was done just right, as you don't have the usual "or when the cookies are golden brown" to guide you. My first attempt was a little burnt. But my next few attempts were fine.

It is rather rich and very huge, so you might find it better to share one cookie. I didn't think I would be able to finish a dozen cookies, so I froze half of the dough for a quick treat another day.

Dense Chocolate Cupcake

For my church's fund-raising bake sale, I decided to offer up Nigella's Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake, modified into cupcakes. On paper, the recipe looked really good, and I had been dying to try it out for the longest time.

As this was my first time baking chocolate cupcakes, I had no idea how chocolate cupcakes should look when ready. The cupcakes had to spend 30 mins in the oven, which is much longer than the 15 - 20 mins for regular cupcakes, and I was concerned about over-cooking them. Because of the chocolate content, the cupcakes came out of the oven looking rather scarily black. It was hard to tell if they were over-cooked. Or under-cooked!

But I needn't have worried. Miss Nigella is right. The cupcakes turned out beautifully. They were wonderfully moist and chocolatey, and had the most amazing aroma. The critical ingredient for this recipe, I believe, must be the dark muscovado sugar, which I had much difficulty sourcing, so much so that when I stumbled upon it, I bought a stash for my cupboard. (If any of you need any in Singapore, they can be found at Tanglin Marketplace.) The sugar imparts a beautiful depth to the flavour of the cupcake. And unlike Nigella's other recipes, I was able to use the recommended amount of sugar, without having the end-product tasting too cloyingly sweet (a consistent weakness I find in Nigella's recipes). I will try the cupcakes with other types of brown sugar next time to see how it affects the flavour. I would definitely not use white sugar.

But this is not all. I decided that since these cupcakes are for sale, they deserved some prettifying. So, icing was needed. And Nigella provided a wonderful chocolate ganache icing accompaniment. I am pleased to report that this time round, I melted my chocolate perfectly. (Read my previous post describing my disastrous chocolate melting experience.) I took up Katong Gal's suggestion, and melted the chocolate and cream in a bowl above simmering water. Once about a third of the chocolate started to melt, I turned off the heat, not allowing the chocolate to overheat at all.

I had a treat icing the cupcakes, and topped them off with sugar rosebud I bought from a specialty baking shop (Bake it Yourself). Apart from tasting damn good, the cupcakes looked real good too. My husband, who doesn't usually bother with cupcakes, enjoyed them thoroughly.

The decorating must have been a good idea, as the cupcakes sold out at the bake sale. :-)