Indulgent Chocolate Mousse

Part of the reason I find myself flipping through Leith's quite so often is that it's great for basic recipes. It's Delia for people who know how to boil an egg. After a batch of meringues left me with several egg yolks, I sought out a recipe for a classic chocolate mousse.

Rich chocolate mousse - unfortunately I ate it before I could photograph the bubbles.

The 'classic' recipe used whole eggs, so I opted for the 'rich' version instead. It was pretty simple to make, although as usual, me and boiling sugar do not get on. The recipe calls for the sugar syrup to be boiled to short thread stage. The suggested way of testing this is to dip your fingers in the sugar and see if a short thread is formed. I didn't fancy putting my hand in boiling sugar (I have definitely been there and done that) so I got the ancient sugar thermometer out instead. Annoyingly, while 'crack' and 'softball' were marked, short thread was not.

I figured that if Prue Leith was telling me to stick my hand in boiling sugar, it can't be that hot. I boiled it to around 80C, although finding the sugar syrup table in the book later (why is it not indexed?) I found out that short thread stage is actually 108.3C. So there.

This probably explains why my mousses were a bit denser than I'd expected, as the syrup and egg yolks didn't fluff up as much as the book said they would. They were still pretty damn tasty, and I filled 5 ramekins with a gloriously thick chocolate goo. I used very dark chocolate, and I think in recipes like this, it is a travesty not to. The chocolate gets watered down with cream and sugar during the process of the recipe, so using a milky chocolate to start with will just dilute it even further. You'll basically have a homeopathic chocolate mousse, and that's not going to cure any ills.

With hindsight, I think it might have been nice to swirl a bit of raspberry puree through as well. It is very rich, so a bit of fruitiness would balance that well.

Rich Chocolate Mousse (Adapted from Leith's Cookery Bible)

Makes 4-6 depending on ramekin size

70g granulated sugar
110ml water
3 egg yolks
170g very dark chocolate
300ml double cream

1) Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan gently. Heat until it reaches the short thread stage (a thread of about 1cm between a wet thumb and finger, or 108C/227F). Leave to cool slightly.
2) Give the egg yolks a quick whisk in a large bowl to combine them. Slowly pour in the cooled syrup, whisking all the time. Continue until the mixture is thick and bubbly.
3) Melt the chocolate in a microwave or bain marie. Fold the melted chocolate in to the eggs.
4) In a separate bowl, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold this in to the mousse mixture.
5) Pour the mixture in to ramekins (maybe layer with some raspeberry puree at this point) and leave to set in the fridge for 4 hours.

January Daring Bakers - Nanaimo Bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

I first discovered Nanaimo Bars while driving round the Canadian Rockies. I left mine in the car while checking out a lake, and it melted. When we got to Peyto lake, I buried it in some snow, and by the time I returned to the car, it was solidified again. Woo!

As well as being excited to make Nanaimo bars, I was also interested in gluten free Graham crackers. I've had a lot of requests for GF stuff on the stall, and I wanted to know what Graham crackers tasted like.

I couldn't find sorghum flour anywhere, and internet searches revealed that UK sorghum is rarely truly gluten free. Instead, I used more white rice flour to replace it.

The Graham crackers were otherwise uneventful. As mentioned in the recipe, the dough is very sticky and soft, and quite hard to work with. Despite flouring the surface loads, only 2 or 3 crackers out of each attempt were sturdy enough to make it off the worktop and on to the baking tray. Patience and a lot of re-rolling was necessary.

Graham Crackers

I didn't really like the taste. The honey flavour was a bit sickly, although the texture was very similar to digestives, which are often cited as the nearest thing the UK has to Graham crackers. I ground up the rest to use in the base of the Nanaimo bars.

I pretty much followed the recipe, except for the coconut. I failed to measure how much was left in the packet before writing the shopping list, so I only had half the amount needed. To make up for the missing coconut, I added in some oats as well.

Nanaimo Bars

The custard layer was incredibly thick, and it wasn't helped that the current weather meant that the kitchen as freezing, so the butter was very hard. I was worried that the custard powder made it taste chalky, but I hoped the other elements would make up for this in the finished product.

Finally, I topped the bars off with dark chocolate ganache. It was tricky to stop the warm chocolate seeping in to the custard layer, so it was important to cool the chocolate and work quickly to stop the custard melting. Once the chocolate layer was chilled, I turned out the bars and cut them in to shape.

Coconut, oat, almond & chocolate base, custard filling, chocolate topping.

They were just how I remembered. The sickliness of the Graham crackers was lost in the chocolate and coconut of the bottom layer, and the chalkiness of the custard had also disappeared. The chocolate topping mirrored the bottom layer nicely. Another great challenge from the Daring Bakers!

The Graduation Bake-a-thon.

As it was graduation week, we have had various friends, relatives and randomers drifting in and out of the flat all week. In an attempt to be hospitable, we all chipped in to an ingredients pot and I went on a baking binge.

• Delia's Lemon Roulade
• Jamie Oliver's Carrot Cake
• Cupcake Bakeshop's Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes
• Dorie Greenspan's Korova Cookies
• Red Mangetout Salted Caramel Mochas

The lemon roulade was amazing, and the left over lemon curd is in the fridge. I haven't told my flatmates this yet as once I do it will not be around for long. The only trouble I had with this recipe was that the sponge broke up when I tried to roll it. Luckily I had enough lemon curd and mascarpone to stick it back together, but it looked a bit messy from the side.

Broken lemon roulade - tastes better than it looks

The carrot cake is one of my favourite ones, as it is so dense and moist. However, I made it in mini loaf tins as I wanted to freeze a cake for later in the week in case the first batch went stale/got eaten. As the mixture is so dense, it is prone to burning on top but still being undercooked in the middle. Luckily I managed to get away with it this time, but the cake was a little moister than I would have liked, and a little crispy on top. I also swapped out the walnuts for hazelnuts as I had them in the cupboard already.

Carrot cake with vanilla mascarpone topping

I have altered the Cupcake Bakeshop recipe, and never use the strawberries in the filling, partly because they don't add that much and partly because even in season they are so expensive! The buttercream icing on top is perfect. It's creamy and sweet but without being overpowering. The texture of the cake itself is nothing special, but when it has the ganache filling it is AMAZING. I have yet to give anyone this cupcake and for them not to fall in love with it.

I'd made the Korova cookies before, but this time I used white chocolate chips instead of dark, just because I'd messed up the shopping list and not bought enough plain chocolate to make these and the chocolate cupcakes. I also think I sliced them a bit thin as they were too crispy and a little tough. Still delicious though!

Roulade and Carrot Cake, boxes of cookies

Once again, me and caramel failed to get on. I burned the mixture and had to strain it through a sieve in to a fresh pan. I also didn't cook it enough for it to stay in the biscuits, so some of them leaked as the caramel was too runny. I also got the quantities completely wrong, so now we have a massive tub of caramel in the fridge alongside the lemon curd!

Overall, I think I need to plan baking binges better. I ran out of muffin cases and baking powder, but had way too many eggs. I tried to make things in an order to best maximise things like oven capacity and cooling racks, but if I'd thought it through better I would have made things like cookie dough in advance. I also need some more attractive display containers. The cake caddy is pretty awesome, but kind of utilitarian looking. Any ideas?

London Food Adventures Part II

Two places I was quite interested to visit this time were Westfield and Selfridges. I'd never been to Westfield, despite it only being a few stops away by tube, and the Selfridges' food hall has long been one of my favourite places to amble around.

Although I failed miserably in my attempt to find a new pair of jeans, I was impressed by Westfield. Everything was clean and well kept, and the snob in me was pleased that fast food chains had been kept out of the main food area. Instead there was an interesting looking risotto stall, along with a Lebanese bakery, a French rotisserie, Indian tiffin boxes, Mexican wraps and a pho stall. I have heard good things about pho, but the queue was massive. I doubt that it was the most authentic stuff you can find in London, but I thought it was interesting that it had been included in a mainstream food court.

Instead I had a frozen yogurt from the salad bar stand. I totally fell in love with frozen yogurt in Canada last year, and would insist that we got a snack every time we passed a Yogen Fruz. It doesn't seem to have caught on much in the UK, and most places just have vanilla yogurt with some random fruit on top. In Canada, they would have a whole freezer full of fruit, and you could choose your own combination to be blended in to your yogurt. The blender was a specialist piece of kit, that blended, chilled and served the yogurt, with the finished product being neatly piped into a bowl rather than scooped out. If you know of somewhere that does this within 500 miles of Edinburgh I would love to visit!

Frozen Yogurt in Westfield

I also spent some time standing outside Wahaca drooling at the menu. As mentioned in my past London post, I love South American food. If I hadn't just eaten all that frozen yogurt I probably would have been tempted by some churros. If I won the lottery and had an extra stomach that would be great, but until then I have to restrain myself.

I hopped on the central line to Bond Street to check out Selfridges. I always get confused about which is the nearest station, and have to stride along Oxford Street dodging thousands of tourists, but I made it in the end. I wasn't really intending to buy anything, especially not since Le Cafe Anglais ate all my money. I particularly enjoyed the chilled counters, as they had some fantastic looking Middle Eastern food on display, as well as a very well stocked fish counter. The butcher's counter had every cut of meat imaginable, including a pig's head. There was also a "raw food" counter with dehydrated carrot cake, which looked too wholesome to be any fun. I was slightly disappointed by the ambient section, as I was trying to get some orzo for my mum. The pasta section had spaghetti, penne and lasagne, and not much else. Poor show.

As it is Selfridges 100th birthday this year, there were lots of promotional products in the trademark yellow.

Selfridges' Centenary Coca Cola

Another culinary first on this trip was dim sum. I am not majorly in to Chinese food, and I've always been a bit scared by the lack of description, especially when in comes to dim sum. I am less wimpy these days, and more likely to order something without knowing what it is, but I still found dim sum a bit too much of an unknown. My friend E, who I have known since primary school, decided we should visit Ping Pong for dinner. As an introduction to the world of dim sum, I thought this was the gentlest route! Again, while the authenticity of some of the dishes must be compromised, I thought it was great that a fairly niche cuisine could be popular enough to form a local chain. I quite enjoyed the dinner, and I especially enjoyed trying some of the more unusual items such as the steamed buns. I have heard there are a couple of decent dim sum places in Edinburgh, so I'll have to give them a go now I have a bit more confidence!

Lastly, here are the Laduree pictures I promised you last time. Sorry for the rubbishness, my camera is 5 years old with 4 megapixels, so the pictures are not the best quality. It was so snazzy when I got it, and now it just looks lame compared to modern cameras!

Jess and I ordered a box of 8 to share. I got lemon, praline, salted caramel and bergamot, Jess got the salted caramel too. (Annoyingly, I can't remember what other flavours she got, I was too absorbed in the macaron goodness!) We ate the first ones nearby, sitting on the base of a statue of Beau Brummell, while the others got saved for a sunny spot in Soho Square.

Macaron Tower

Lemon is still my favourite, although praline is now a contender. The bergamot was too subtle, and just tasted of almonds. I was looking forward to the salted caramel, so much so that I saved it until the end. However it was over-caramelised in my opinion, tasting a little burnt and bitter. I might try to make some macarons at home soon, as the recipe looks hard but not impossible.

Laduree macarons, and my reflection

Real Food Festival

I am in London this weekend, partly to catch up with friends, but partly because I fancied a trip to the Real Food Festival at Earl's Court.

I booked tickets for the Sunday, and planned to go with my mum. However, she had to work on Sunday, so we decided to sneak in to the trade show on Friday. We had a deli-based cover story, but part of me thinks being a blogger now counts as "trade", especially when you see how many blogs get sent free samples as a promotion tactic. Anyway, enough of my views on whether exploitation of new media as free promotion is ethical or not.

A very extensive tea stall

It was an enjoyable day, and I learnt some interesting stuff about tea, and saw mozzarella being made. I also saw Willie Hardcourt-Cooze being filmed manning his chocolate stall, which was quite exciting. Sadly we missed Fergus Henderson doing a cookery demonstration, but we were too cheap to buy a programme and didn't realise he was on.

Mozzarella curds

Given my "expert" knowledge in food lies mostly within baking, I was particularly interested in the bakeries at the show. There were a couple of bread stalls that looked good, and some great Italian biscuits. The cake stall were generally disappointing, with cupcakes being a major theme. I like making these at home, but I think commercial cupcakes usually suffer from style over substance. On top of that, I even saw one stall that had such poorly iced examples on display that I would have rejected them if I had made them myself.

The real star find was PT's biscuits. Not only were his biscuits delicious, but they used proper ingredients like butter (rather than margarine or oil). The flavours were not particularly revolutionary, but it was great to look at the label and see the same list of ingredients as I'd use at home. No additives, preservatives, weird chemicals - home baked biscuits without the hassle! I also chatted with him for a while and he gave me loads of free samples. I truly believe good baker is a generous one! I hope Paul succeeds.

Cyrus Todiwala

Despite having a great day pretending to run a deli, I still had tickets for Sunday. So I went again with my friend C! We watched Cyrus Todiwala make an Indian meal, before wandering around the stalls. I had a nice hazelnut ice cream, and a pear and cardamom cupcake from one of the more professional looking stalls. The pear filling added moistness, but the icing had dried out a little. The cardamom flavour was also too weak, and the cake mainly tasted of sugar. C had an espresso cupcake that was a bit more successful.

Pear and Cardamom cupcake

Espresso cupcake

We also managed to get a spot at the Bordeaux Quay cookery school stand. We made a fennel and courgette salad, and a cheese omelette. Our omelette was a bit runny, but the salad, which also featured garlic, pine nuts, sultanas, coriander, mint and lemon was delicious. Raw fennel and courgette didn't excite me at all, but the end result was very tasty.

C showing off her chopping skills

The finished salad

My other top find was a Welsh chocolate maker called Hipo Hyfryd. They are nominally vegan, but really in the case of chocolate this just means plain chocolate rather than milk. I got a box of the salt and pepper flavour, which was really unusual and much more interesting than some of the other chocolates on offer on other stalls. I think it might be trumped by lime chocolate in terms of weirdness, but lime chocolate didn't work while salt and pepper most definitely did. Again, they seemed like nice guys and I hope they do well!

I had a really good day on both my visits, but I felt that the show would have benefitted from something a bit more "showy". Most of the festival was a glorified farmer's market, with some of the stands being quite big names, rather than smaller "real food" producers. Although it was great to meet the people who made the food, some stalls had employed temps, notably Rococco chocolate, were most of the girls behind the counter were unable to even speak English, let alone tell you about the chocolate you were tasting. I really enjoyed the cookery school, and the demonstration kitchen, so I think the focus should shift from being about market style stalls to more interactive/instructive elements.

I am such a nerd.

Leftover Egg Whites and Vanilla Marshmallows

I get through a lot of eggs. I've used maybe 18 or so in the last week on various baking projects. I almost always end up with egg whites leftover though. I guess because I tend towards richer, creamier things, like creme patisserie, custards or mousses.

Before I started baking so frequently, I would have made pavlova with them. Actually, I would have more likely have put them in the fridge meaning to make meringue, forgotten about them for a week, and then thrown them away as I worried they had gone bad.

While the main staples for baking are cheap, it's the good stuff like ground nuts and chocolate that make it expensive. Given that I can easily spend £20 on ingredients if left unchecked, I am really trying to not waste things in an effort to make money go further. This includes those pesky egg whites.

Vanilla Marshmallows

Although I like meringue, its not something you can eat that much of. My go to recipe for egg whites lately has been financiers, but this weekend it was wearing thin. Part of my reasoning behind the Red Velvet cake was that the icing used egg whites, but that still left me with 2 egg whites festering in the fridge. Googling "2 egg whites" lead me to marshmallows, and this particular recipe by Hugh FW. I also fancied the foodbeam recipe, but that used more than 2 egg whites and I didn't like the idea of messing with quantities on something as precarious as confectionery.

Instead, I mixed the two recipes together. I replaced Hugh's beet juice for colour with Fanny's vanilla seeds for flavour.

The only tricky moment was boiling the sugar syrup. I was using my parent's old sugar thermometer that I stole borrowed from my dad's house. It is only in Fahrenheit, so I had not a clue how hot the sugar actually was, just that it had to get to 250F before I could pour in the gelatine and vanilla mix. It was boiling pretty vigorously, got to 220F, and stopped. I actually thought the thermometer was broken, as the temperature seemed to hover at 220F for about 5 minutes. Turning the heat up didn't seem to do much either, and I was worried that the sugar would burn, explode or do something else equally unpleasant.

Eventually it got moving again and I mixed the gelatine and syrup before adding to the beaten egg whites in small dribbles. The resulting mixture had a similar texture and look to meringue mix, but was runny instead of stiff. I wasn't sure how long to whip it for, and I think I could have given it a bit longer to make the marshmallows even lighter.

After a rather anxious two hours wondering if it had set, and trying seriously hard to resist the urge to poke it every 5 minutes, I turned out the square of marshmallow. It was sticky, but firm, and came away from the tin surprisingly easily. I then set about cutting the block into bite sized cubes. I used a palette knife, although I think a sharper knife might have made the job a bit easier and my cuts a bit neater. Once dusted with sugar and cornflour, I packed them into Tupperware, but not before trying a couple myself.

Unlike shop bought marshmallows, these didn't seem overwhelmingly chemical. The vanilla flavour was perhaps a tad too subtle, but it was there nonetheless. They had the slight crust from the icing sugar coating, but were billowy inside. My flatmate E declared that it was "probably the best marshmallow I've ever had", but he is not a renowned marshmallow connoisseur so this is not quite as sweeping as first seems.

More Fluffiness

Given that I'd never even heard of homemade marshmallows until 6 months or so ago, I was surprised at how easy they were to make. I would suggest that this would be a good kids recipe, as the results are impressive for very little work, but the large amounts of boiling sugar are perhaps not so suitable!

I'm even looking forward to my next batch of leftover egg white...