Apricot and Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding

I don't know if I convinced you regarding bread and butter puddings last time I gave them a try, though I see there was some interest and maybe even some willingness to come round to the idea. I was pretty convinced myself, enough so to try another version that I came across recently.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I visited a friend last week and arrived just as she was finishing off baking. Great timing huh? Her teenaged children had been eating, and raving about, red velvet cupcakes so she decided to make some for the first time. I was fascinated of course, and barged in, stirred the icing, licked the icing, read the recipe and asked a million questions. When it comes to something a little bit different like this, I am always curious to know what makes it different. What IS a red velvet cupcake?

Chocolate Cupcakes

We're not strictly soaking up new knowledge today as there's not a lot here that's new, but I thought I'd like to tell you about my cupcake experimenting. Cupcakes, I have to say, are awfully trendy, which has sort of put me off them a bit. I've never really been a trendy girl, as many of you will know. I started baking brownies only years after everyone else did, I started wearing leggings only when they became mainstream, and the phrase "lol" has never and will never cross my fingertips (that didn't count).

I kept away from cupcakes for a long time because I didn't see a great need for them in my life and, if faced with a choice, I would always go for a slab of cake rather than a cupcake. But I concede, they are quite fun to bake, fun for kids (well, other people's. Mine won't eat them) and, it turns out, fun to have in the freezer.

Annabel Langbein's Ultimate Chocolate Cake

I believe that cakes are good for celebrations, but I have also discovered over recent months that baking is good for the soul. So when my soul and I didn't know what to do with ourselves this afternoon, we baked.

Raspberry, Cherry and Coconut Slice

I try to be good and blog about cooking that is challenging, or requires a bit of technique or something I haven't done before. And I wasn't sure if this was really going to be different enough to qualify. Just sending a few different ingredients round the mixer isn't really what The Cook's Sponge is all about. But actually, this was really different. The ingredients were unusual for me (I mean who buys glace cherries except maybe at Christmas?). I have, believe it or not, never made a three-different-layers slice before, and if you want challenging and nifty techniques, just you try cutting this baby. Oh and also, never in all my life have I ever put a tablespoon of vanilla extract in to anything. That alone is worth blogging about.

  

Sugar-Free Chocolate Chip Biscuits

Ok. After the hard work of my last post I have some results for you. I have a chocolate chip biscuit recipe that uses white sugar and condensed milk, so the obvious thing to do was substitute agave nectar for condensed milk, and either xylitol or coconut sugar for the white sugar. So I tried both. I made two batches, and did agave nectar both times, and either xylitol or coconut sugar. The results are pretty simple to report back on.

The dark coloured biscuits are the coconut sugar biscuits, and the light ones are xylitol. The flavour of the coconut sugar is as noticeable as the colour. They taste dark and syrupy and a little bitter. The xylitol biscuits had no discernable taste difference to the usual biscuits that use white sugar and condensed milk. So this means that not only does the xylitol make little difference to the end flavour result, but neither does the agave. I didn't enjoy the strong flavour of the coconut sugar biscuits very much, and I possibly only persevered with eating them because they were filled with chocolate chunks.

Chocolate Banana Cake

I've made a few challenging things over recent months on this blog, but today was one of the hardest of all. This afternoon we made a birthday cake for our beloved husband and daddy who died 8 months ago.

Reuben and I had a conversation a while ago which made me decide I wanted to make a chocolate and banana cake. A friend of mine recently made a fantastic one and kindly passed on the recipe. I must say this one came out very differently - I seem to have a problem with particularly flat cakes at the moment, and the banana was much more chunky and noticeable in this one, but I *loved* it. It was even more moist than last time I tried it, and I added a little more cocoa. It's really, really good!

Dana's Chocolate Cake

It's been a chocolate cakey week. A friend of mine hosted a mini-gathering to test out chocolate cake recipes for an upcoming event, and a few of us were happy to do the research for her and provide our opinions. Her original online plea for "best chocolate cake recommendations" resulted in an absolute stampede. It seems there are some great recipes out there, or at least some strong opinions.

It's a topic I have been thinking about a bit lately - the idea of finding the best recipe for some favourite foods, and chocolate cake is not surprisingly on the list. But I am realising this could be more complicated than I originally thought, and have struggled to put this idea together. How exactly do you define chocolate cake? It's a very subjective topic, who decides what tastes best (well, me. And you can see if you agree...)? But, most awkwardly of all, a friend pointed out the other day that even when you hit on a really good recipe (which she and I believe we have) if you have it too many times (which perhaps she and I have) it can start to get a bit boring.

But I want to plough on anyway. Most importantly, I think this "best recipe" idea will have to never be definitive, it will be a moving feast, if you will. Your submissions will be welcome, requested even, and even when I think I have come across the best I can find, I look forward to you topping it with something better (recipes are good, samples in my letter box are encouraged).

So, chocolate cake. The samples I tried on my friend's sunny back deck were outstanding. One of them I have made myself, and I was eager to see it again. The other got better and better the more I ate (always a problem). And not only because my friend hand-ground all the hazelnuts herself! But I'm not sure if they quite fit the definition that I need to put in place. Mainly I think because they don't have flour, and once you leave the standard cake ingredients behind, you can go a long way off course and where does it end? So I will leave you with some photos and references (click on the links) to these great cakes from my friend's sunny back deck, and then suggest to you what I believe to be the best basic chocolate cake recipe around at the moment: Dana's Chocolate Cake. The recipe is found in Sophie Gray's Destitute Gourmet Stunning Food from Small Change, and the sample below was made earlier this week to celebrate the third birthday of the best little guy around.

So this is best chocolate cake recipe part one. I think there may be more.

Dana's Chocolate Cake

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 cups sugar

2/3 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups milk

100 grams melted butter

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Put all ingredients in to a food processor and mix.

Grease and line a 20cm cake loose-bottom cake tin (it's quite a liquid mix and you don't want it leak in to the bottom of the oven).

Bake for 50 mins at 180 degrees.

Nigella's Nutella Cake

Chocolate Cloud Cake

Chocolate Pudding in ya Mug

I think I am grateful to a friend who kindly sent me a link to a quick chocolate cake in a mug recipe late one night when it was just the sort of thing I needed. If you haven't come across this before I warn you now, it's dangerous knowledge if you are inclined to "need" chocolate pudding on a regular basis. The main point being that it is cooked in the microwave and it all happens so fast that it's on the plate (in the mug) in front of you before you can question whether or not it really is a good idea.

It's a very simple recipe, and this blog is not about the simple (for me) stuff. Mixing flour, sugar, cocoa etc is not a new challenge. However I felt I could make some improvements to the recipe I was using, so had a bit of a play and think this result is pretty good. I took out the egg, added baking powder and a little more liquid, added some chopped chocolate and reduced the whole thing so that it really could cook in a normal size mug, and fit in a normal size stomach. Not bad for a novice recipe fiddler. Remember, this is basic chocolate pudding cooked in the microwave, so aim your expectations at a reasonable level, but you can be eating it within 5 minutes of thinking about it so it has its merits.

Chocolate Pudding in a Mug

3 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons milk

2 1/2 tablespoons oil

Drop of vanilla (optional)

A few chunks of chopped chocolate (optional)

Mix the dry ingredients. Stir in the wet. Add the chocolate.

Cook on full power in the microwave for 1 and a half minutes (in an 1100 watt microwave) or a little longer if needed.

Don't even think about sifting the dry ingredients. Just be approximate with the half measures if you like. Grease the mug if you want to slide the pudding out nicely on to another dish, but neither the greasing nor the sliding out are very necessary. The chocolate is optional but the added moisture makes a big difference. Try a blob of jam dropped in to the middle just before cooking instead of or as well as the chocolate chunks. Serve with cream or yoghurt. Or icecream, or milk, or whatever you like.