Chocolate-Juniper Cake with Milk Jam Crème Fraîche

I made this a while ago because I thought spicing chocolate cake with juniper would make quite an interesting combination.
I found the recipe on "Bon Appetit"-blog, and yes, their photos are much nicer than mine, I know.

However, as predicted it tasted very unique (lots of gin/juniper flavor going on) and/but really good.

Original recipe found here!

Aside from the fact that I learned that chocolate and juniper are indeed a good match, this recipe also taught me something else, which is:

WHAT TO DO WHEN CAKE TURNS OUT DRY INSTEAD OF MOIST AND JUICY!

Just cut it up, throw it in the freezer. Then pull it out, roll it in sugar, place it in a hot frying pan and sear it from each side until the sugar has caramelized. 

Et voilá: dry cake turns into moist cake with a little bit of a crunch from the caramelized sugar.
It's fantastic!

I will definitely do this from now on!

Anyway, here is the recipe:

For the cake

Ingredients

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• 2 teaspoons (heaping) juniper berries
• 225g or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 335 or 1 2/3 cups sugar plus more for coating
• 75g or 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 175ml or 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 165ml or 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs

Special equipment:

A spice mill - I just used mortar and pestel and crushed the juniper berries with some sugar

Preparation

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Coat a 33x23x6cm/13x9x2" glass baking dish with nonstick spray. Line bottom with parchment paper; spray parchment and set aside. Toast juniper berries in a small skillet over medium heat until aromatic, 2–3 minutes. Let cool. Finely grind in spice mill (or mortar and pestel)

Sift flour, 1 2/3 cups sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and ground juniper berries into a large bowl. Whisk buttermilk, oil, eggs, and 1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. water in a medium bowl. 

Whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Pour batter into prepared baking dish; smooth top.

Bake cake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 35–40 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack. Cover and chill in freezer until frozen, about 2 hours. 

DO AHEAD: Can be made 3 weeks ahead. Wrap in 2 layers of plastic; keep frozen.

Unwrap cake and invert onto a work surface; discard parchment. Using a long serrated knife, trim cake to form clean edges. Cut cake in half lengthwise, then cut each half crosswise into 3-3,5cm/1 1/4-inch–wide bars.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Pour a layer of sugar onto a plate. Roll each bar in sugar, coating completely. Working in batches, caramelize cake in skillet, turning with tongs to brown evenly, about 30 seconds per side per batch (be careful; the sugar burns quickly). Serve warm, with Milk Jam Crème Fraîche.

For the Milk Jam Crème Fraîche

Ingredients

• 475ml or 2 cups whole milk
• 130g or 1 cup sugar
• 240g or 1 cup crème fraîche or sour cream

Preparation

Bring milk and sugar to a boil in a medium pot over medium heat, stirring to dissolve sugar (take care that milk doesn’t boil over). Reduce heat to low. Simmer gently, whisking occasionally, until milk is thick, turns light reddish-brown, and measures scant 1 cup, 40–45 minutes. Transfer jam to a heatproof jar; let cool. 

DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover; chill. 

Or you could also simply use sweetened condensed milk.

Whisk together 1 Tbsp. milk jam and crème fraiche in a small bowl. Add more milk jam to taste to sweeten, if desired.

Note

As mentioned earlier, the cake turned out a little dry. Don't know if it was my fault and I baked it too long, or that's just the way this one is supposed to be...maybe in order o not fall apart when searing (?). 

But, yeah, freezing it, rolling it in sugar and searing it certainly did the trick.

This can probably be done with any other cake that's too dry, and it even gives it a little bit of a wow-factor.

I mean...fried and caramelized cake...could be worse.

On an unrelated side-note:

Wil and I spent our Sunday in the garden today and prepared it for the upcoming growing season.
Our onions, garlic and chive bed is going to be quite impressive, and the rhubarb is on it's way, as well.

And we found our first violet. Looks a little rough...but hey.

Perfect Lava Cake

This post makes me really happy. Some of you may remember that in one of my first blogposts I attempted to bake a warm chocolate soufflé with a liquid inside. 

Well, looking back now I have to admit that didn't work out that well. 

Even though it was still a tiny bit liquid inside, it simply wasn't chocolaty enough.

Good, but not good enough... I know, I kind of raved about how good it was. 

But let's face it: It was my first blogpost, I was all excited and proud. But with a little bit more experience, I can only recommend you to FORGET ABOUT THIS RECIPE! 

I found a lava cake recipe that is way better and easier to prepare. And I can guarantee you that it will stay perfectly liquid inside, if you follow my instructions.

What you need:

6 eggs (medium-sized, at room temperature)

225g / 7.6 oz refined sugar

90g / 3 oz flour

170g / 5.7 oz bittersweet chocolate 

(good quality, like Valhrona or Lindt, with at least 60% cocoa)

170g / 5.7 oz butter

some butter and sugar for the soufflé cups

Directions:

Preheat oven to 160°C/320°F.

Using a hand blender mix eggs, sugar and flour in a large bowl.

Melt chocolate and butter over a bain marie (bowl in a hot water bath). 

Slowly add the chocolate-butter to the egg-sugar mix while blending.

Butter the cups and sprinkle with sugar.

Fill each cup to about 2/3 or 3/4 with the chocolate batter (the lava cake won't rise that much).

Place cups on top of a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. 

My lava-cake needed much longer. Could be because I have a gas-oven where the heat does not circulate that evenly. I did one test cake and checked after 8 minutes for the first time, and then every 2-3 minutes.That way you get a good idea of how long they need to bake.

You can tell the lava cakes are perfect, when the edges are firm, but the center is still runny. 

Take the cakes out of the oven, carefully run a knife  around the edges to loosen the cakes from the cups.

Invert the cakes onto plates, garnish if you like and serve immediately!

Notes: 

• I served hot cherry-elderflower sauce with mine!

• To make it a little less sweet, try using brown instead of refined white sugar. I haven't done tried that before, therefore I don't know if it'll work, though...

Mudslide Cookies with Fleur de Sel

I found the recipe for these delicious cookies here the other day

 and had to try them out right away!

With all their dark chocolate they just looked too tempting...and chocolate combined with Fleur de Sel works so well together, anyway.

The woman of the blog I got the recipe from did a far better job on the photos than I.
Check her blog out to get into the ultimate cookies baking mood!

I changed a few things in the recipe, though.

I'm not the biggest fan of boozy sweets.

Therefore I decided to only add 1 to 2 Tbsp of whisky to the batter.

You won't taste the alcohol at all. But the the whisky's oak- and peatiness adds a very nice and subtle flavour. I also didn't have instant coffee powder.
Instead of adding 1/4 cup of liquor I decided to brew a very strong coffee,
and replaced the liquor with the same amount of that, plus the whisky.

Oh, and I used margarine instead of butter.
I usually prefer the taste of butter.
But when it comes to baking the margarine helps making cakes, cookies etc.
more chewy and less crispy...

The cookies turned out fantastic!

They were a little bit more caky then I expected, but reminded me of chocolate fudge brownies. 

I had to give some away. 

Otherwise you would see me rather rolling than walking through the streets of Berlin, by now.

Here is the whole recipe :

(source: http://www.howsweeteats.com/)

2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (475g)

1/4 cup dark cocoa powder

3 tablespoons instant coffee powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 cup (120g) of unsalted butter, melted and cooled for 10-15 minutes

1 cup (235g) brown sugar

1/2 cup (120g)sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup (60g) coffee liqueur + 1 teaspoon (Godiva, Kahlua, etc)

1 cup chocolate chunks

Fleur de Sel for topping

1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (160ºC).

                              Mix the flour, cocoa, coffee powder, salt and baking soda in a bowl and set aside. 

In another bowl, mix the melted butter and sugars until they are combined. 

Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and stir until mixed. Stream in coffee liqueur and mix. 

Gradually add flour and mix until a dough forms – it will look crumbly at first, but it will come together. 

I even used my hands to help at one point. 

If you find you absolutely need more liquid add in a teaspoon of coffee liqueur, but it should come together. 

Fold in the chocolate chunks. 

Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.

Remove dough from the fridge and roll into golfball sized balls. 

Set on a non-stick baking sheet with 2 inches between each. 

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are set and the middles are still soft. 

The centers should be puffy. 

Do not over bake. 

Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle with sea salt. 

Let cool completely then dig in!

M&Ms Easter special edition

It was Valentine's Day...

... and I decided to make Wil's favorite cake for this very special occasion:

CHOCOLATE BUTTERMILK LAYER CAKE!

But this time I threw in some chocolate chunks and decorated with hearts of pink sugar icing.
For never having celebrated Valentine's Day before it turned out pretty well, I guess.

The very best CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!

Ok. After all this hearty and meaty posts I thought it was time for something sweet again:

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

German cookies are usually hard and rather crispy.

I always preferred the soft and chunky American cookie version and kept searching for the perfect recipe.

And here it is (approved by several Northern Americans)!

What you need:

240g all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

150g margarine (butter makes cookies crispy!)

115g white sugar

115g firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tsp. vanilla extract

300g dark chocolate chunks, or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180°C.

In a bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Set aside.

In a second bowl, cream the margarine with white and brown sugar until smooth for about 2-3 minutes. 

Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix well.

Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly.

Stir in the chocolate chunks/chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto baking paper covered cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown.

Cool the cookies for a few minutes before removing them from the sheets.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk!

Chocolate Buttermilk Layer Cake

Today I made this fantastic cake. I found the recipe here.

I just changed it a little tiny bit and used a Cream Cheese Icing instead of the chocolate frosting.

Preheat oven to 175°C-180°C

360g all-purpose flour

290g sugar

10g Vanilla sugar

1½ tbsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

120g unsweetened cocoa powder

320ml vegetable oil

360ml buttermilk

3 large eggs

360ml cups freshly brewed, extra-strong hot coffee

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Mix all the dry ingredients together, than add buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract and eggs using an electric mixer on low.

Slowly add hot coffee by pouring it down the bowl in a thin stream (to prevent the eggs from clotting).

Mix everything until smooth.

Don't be alarmed by the thinness of the batter!

Everything is fine...

Grease two pans (26cm Ø) and line the bottoms with parchment paper.

Divide batter in two and pour it into the two pans  or use one pan and bake both halves one after another.

Bake for about 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs.

Let it cool down (otherwise the icing will melt and won't be able to stick on the cake).

For the Cream Cheese Icing mix

250 confectioner's sugar

115g soft butter

500g cream cheese

2 tsp vanilla extract

with an electric mixer until smooth.

Place one layer of cake on a serving plate.

Cover the top of the layer with the Cream Cheese Icing (approx. 0,5-1cm thick).

Place the other layer of cake on top of the iced layer pressing gently.

Carefully spoon the rest of the icing on the layer top and smooth it around the sides of both layers, until the whole cake is completely covered with icing and nothing is shining through.

Allow to cool.

chocolate soufflé

So I decided to start my blog with this delicious chocolate soufflé.
I never tried it before and it turned out pretty well...well, except for the part inside that was supposed to be liquid. 
But my oven got a bit too hot. 
Still it was all moist and fluffy and at least a little bit liquid on the inside.

Here is what you need:
4 soufflé baking dishes   
100g dark chocolate (60-70% cocoa)
50g butter
50g margarine
3 eggs
50g flour
90g sugar
10g vanilla sugar
salt and a squeeze of lemon
½Tsp cinnamon
preheat oven to 170°C



Grease and coat soufflé baking dishes with butter and sugar. 
Melt chocolate together with butter and margarine in a double boiler. 
Whisk melted chocolate with flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, and cinnamon until smooth.
Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites.
Add the egg yolks to the chocolate batter and whisk again until smooth.
Beat egg whites with pinch of salt and and squeeze of lemon.
Carefully fold egg whites into batter.

Fill the baking dishes with the batter. 
Bake them for 15-20 minutes at 170°C.
Be careful not to open the oven door while baking.
Carefully remove Soufflé from baking dish and serve immediately.

Delicious with vanilla ice cream, rasberry or mango sauce.