Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers

Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers

At Christmas time, I tend to get pretty adventurous around dessert. Not sure why I make an intricate dessert – I guess because if not at Christmas, then when? Last year, I made Gingerbread terrariums which I realise now never made it on to the blog. Gingerbread cake bottom, lime cheesecake “snow”, tiny Piparkoogid (Christmas biscuit) houses and marzipan trees. Time consuming and fiddly to make, but nothing terribly revolutionary in the elements. This year…this year I was genuinely worried about my dessert turning out. Because this year I had gone to the Yelp Elite Event at the new State Building and watched Sue Lewis do a little presentation on tempering chocolate that demystified the whole thing and made it seem really simple. And then I stumbled upon an Adriano Zumbo recipe for Chocolate Christmas Crackers and with this both happening a few weeks before a Christmas party, it seemed like it was something I needed to attempt.  The basic idea is a chocolate cylinder, with chocolate ends designed to look like a Christmas cracker. It’s filled with chocolate mousse and a pop-rocks truffle as the “pop” of the cracker. Cute, right?

Cute but terrifying! I was so worried about actually working with the chocolate, I actually did a trial run. And I never do trial runs for things like this because I’m lazy! In re-reading over the original recipe with Lance, I discovered a few things, 1. The picture from the Adriano Zumbo recipe is inaccurate. I don’t think it’s just styling and camera angles, I think his dimensions of a 5cm x 10cm tube is way too fat for the pictured Christmas Cracker look. And 2, as Lance pointed out to me – they aren’t even real. If you look carefully, they are just “bridges” of chocolate with chocolate ends balanced up against them. The chocolate doesn’t curl around to make a cylinder, so it’s not even the real thing. Tricksy stylists! That scared me even more. But…it’s actually not that difficult – given you can get a few simple items. I had a fairly infuriating trip to Spotlight trying to find sheets and/or rolls of acetate – which is listed as a product they stock on their website. I was sent to various corners of Spotlight by various staff members. I had one try to sell me PVC table cloth material instead. Described as “readily available in craft stores” by every chocolate and cake making resource, it was so hard to get, that I didn’t. In the end, I found a thicker acetate sheet that was designed for quilting templates. It’s less flexible than you ideally want it to be for chocolate, so it was pretty hard to make the chocolate coating – but with no time to search for an alternative (and not trusting posting times this time of year), I had to make do. You can buy 10cm high cardboard tubing for making your own cardboard crackers at Riot Art and Craft (but not acetate). You can prep ahead by making the mold elements (roll, acetate rectangles, baking paper rectangles) way ahead of time.

 The rest I simplified somewhat to make it a bit easier on myself. Not to mention cheaper by removing the gianduja chocolate. Instead of making a truffle centre, I made a long ‘string’ of pop-rock chocolate to simulate the cardboard ‘popper’ in a real cracker. Like the original, it uses toasted rice bubbles to enhance the pop quality, and I added chocolate crumb from the Milk Bar cookbook for extra chocolate-y texture. Feel free to just use rice bubbles and pop rocks if you can’t be bothered with the crumb. The mousse I flavoured with Chambord to play with the berry flavour of the pop rocks I used, and because I was intending on adding freeze-dried raspberries - but I couldn’t find any so used freeze-dried strawberries instead. The tartness of the berries adding to the 'pop' sensation - Lance's idea and it worked brilliantly. I used white chocolate instead of dark for the coating; both so I could paint the outside in a Christmassy fashion, and to lighten up the dessert from a fairly heavy dark-chocolate mousse with dark chocolate truffle with dark chocolate coating. 

The chocolate coating is really the only hard part of this recipe, and it is heat/humidity sensitive - so I was extremely lucky to have a cooler day to temper the chocolate in. This would be easier to make for a Northern Christmas or Southern Christmas in July. They are so cool though, so it's worth giving a go. It does take a little time to do all the steps, but it can be done in stages ahead of time, and they’ll keep in the freezer for a few days – but any longer than that and the pop rocks will lose a little of their ‘pop’. The mousse makes more than you will need. Any extra can be spooned into pretty glasses/bowls and refrigerated a few hours until set.

Skamp's Chocolate Christmas CrackersSkamp's Chocolate Christmas CrackersSkamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers



Skamps' Chocolate Christmas Crackers


For the “poppers”

1 cup rice bubbles
1/2 cup “chocolate crumb” (100g plain flour, 100g white sugar, 65g cocoa powder (the best quality you can find), 1 tsp corn flour, 85g melted butter)
70 gm popping lollies, such as Pop Rocks
200g 70% dark chocolate (I used Lindt raspberry intense)
15g freeze dried raspberries, chopped

Chocolate Raspberry mousse

660mL whipping cream (1x 600mL carton, plus ¼ cup)
150mL whipping cream
8 egg yolks
100g white sugar
30mL shot Chambord
200g 48% dark chocolate, broken
100g 70% dark chocolate, broken

For the casing

500g white chocolate
Decorator pens (optional)

To start, make the ‘poppers’. To start making the ‘poppers’, you need to toast the rice bubbles and make the chocolate crumb, then set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 180C. Spread rice bubbles on a tray and bake for only 2-3 minutes until golden. Watch them, as they toast quickly. Reduce oven to 150C. In a mixer, blend together the flour, sugar, salt and cocoa powder. Add the melted butter and mix until it all comes together into a clumpy mess. Break the clumpy bits onto a lined baking tray, then place in the oven to cook for around 20 minutes. Half-way through, gently toss. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool and harden. Measure out 1 cup of the crumb (breaking up any very large pieces), and freeze the remainder for another use – such as ice cream topper!) When the rice bubbles and crumb are completely cool, mix together in a bowl.

Set a glass bowl over a pot with about 5cm of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Add 2/3 of the chocolate and leave to melt, stirring here and there. Once it’s melted, remove from the heat and add the remaining 1/3 of the chocolate. Leave to sit for 1 minute, then stir through to completely melt and make smooth. Mix the pop rocks through the rice and crumb, then pour the melted now slightly cooled chocolate over the whole mess. Mix quickly to coat everything. You will hear a few of the pop rocks go off as they get wet then hit the air, but if you work quickly, the popping will be minimised as they’re coated. On a baking paper lined tray, use a spoon to create thin lines of ‘pop’ mix around 10cm long (the length of your tubes).  You want them to be around 1cm thick. Pop in the fridge to set hard.

Before you can make your mousse, make sure you have your molds ready. Cut out 12 rectangles of acetate, 10cm by 12.5cm. Roll into tubes, placing them inside cardboard tube (such as the inserts for paper towel rolls cut to 10cm tall). Cut out 12 rectangles of baking paper, roll into tubes and place inside the acetate. Place them standing upright on a piece of baking paper inside a tray and set aside.

Now you’re ready to make your mousse! Whip the 660mL measure of cream to soft peaks, set aside. Place the whisk attachment in your standmixer and place a bowl ready. Combine the 150mL cream, yolks, chambord and sugar in a small saucepan and whisk to combine. Place over low heat and keep whisking until it thickens, much like a lemon curd would – around 5-7 minutes. Scrape it into the standmixer bowl and leave it whisking on low until it cools to room temperature, around 10 minutes. While that whisks, add the 48% dark chocolate and leave to melt, stirring here and there. Once it’s melted, remove from the heat and add the 70% dark chocolate. Leave to sit for 1 minute, then stir through to completely melt and make smooth. Stir for 2-3 minutes to cool down to around 40C. Fold the chocolate through the whipped cream, then fold in cooled yolk mixture.

Gather your mousse, ‘pops’ and prepared mold tray. Spoon the mousse around 2/3 of the way into the molds. Holding the mold hard against the tray, gently slide a ‘pop’ into the centre of the mold. Tidy the top and/or top up with extra mousse if required. Cover with cling wrap and freeze for at least 4 hours until set.

When set hard, remove the cardboard and acetate, leaving the baking paper casings and popping back into the freezer until needed. Wash the acetate and dry thoroughly. Absolutely no water can remain. Temper the white chocolate by melting 2/3 of the chocolate over heat, then take off the heat and stir through the remaining 1/3. Continue stirring to cool down to where it is a little cooler than body temperature (dip a spoon in the melted chocolate, and place it on your lip. It should be a little cooler than your lip). Place it back over the heat for around 30 seconds, and check the temp again. It should now be a little warmer than body temperature and shiny. Working with one piece of acetate at a time, spread a thin layer (around 2mm) of melted chocolate with a palette knife, set aside until starting to set, 3 minutes. Wrap around a chocolate mousse cylinder, chocolate-side inward. Tape the acetate closed. Refrigerate until chocolate is well set, remove acetate and refrigerate until required.

Brush insides of 24 mini patty cases or the flower ice molds from IKEA with most of remaining chocolate, freeze until set, peel away the cases/pop out the molds and refrigerate chocolate cases until required. Brush underside of chocolate cases with a little more melted chocolate, attach to each end of chocolate-coated cylinders, decorate with edible decorator pens, refrigerate until required.


Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers

Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers
Skamp's Chocolate Christmas Crackers


Saturday, September 5, 2015

Slow Cooker Love - Mulled Wine Kangaroo

Slow Cooker Love - Mulled Wine Kangaroo

When I was sitting and eating a bowl of my Beef, Pear and Red Wine Casserole, my mind wandered into how the cinnamon and red wine were like a mini-mulled wine with the beef. So naturally, my next thought was why not make a full-on mulled wine casserole? Cinnamon, cardamom, cloves all lend themselves to a hearty meat dish – as well as the wintery beverage. A lot of casseroles already use red wine as a flavouring component, why not go all the way and use a whole bottle? I know that you should  use decent quality wine to cook with, but when I’m using a whole bottle and adding a lot of other flavours to a dish, I’m not reaching for my best bottle. It just won’t be appreciated. My general rule is if you can’t drink it, don’t cook with it. There are a lot of good quality lower cost spectrum wines available, try a few out until you find one you like. Just make sure you drink a good quality wine with the dish! 


Kangaroo is a good meat to use for this dish as the wine and spices cut through the gameyness that can put people off. Adding the lentils makes it a one-pot meal. Meat and vege in one. Although I also served it with steamed sweet potato and sautéed kale with gorgonzola. That way I had leftovers to take to work! Whilst I am so ready for Spring, meals like this still make me appreciate the benefits of colder nights. It won’t be long til it’ll be nothing but BBQs and salads.


Slow Cooker Love - Mulled Wine Kangaroo
Slow Cooker Love - Mulled Wine Kangaroo


Mulled Wine Kangaroo


500g diced kangaroo
1 red onion, diced
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp rosemary leaves, minced
Juice and peel of one lemon
2 sticks cinnamon
5 cloves
5 cardamom pods
¼ cup brown sugar
1 cup beef stock
750mL bottle of red wine (something with oomph like a Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon)
2 carrots, cut into 2cm dice
1 cup de Puy lentils


Heat some olive oil in the base of your slow cooker up to a medium high heat and brown the kangaroo pieces, around 3 minutes on each side. Remove to a plate, cover and keep warm.


Turn the heat down to low and cook the red onion until translucent, around 5 minutes, then add the garlic cloves and rosemary. Stir and continue cooking 10 minutes until the onions start caramelising. Stir through the carrot and cook until it softens, 5 minutes. 

Add the lemon juice and scrape up any bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pot. Add the stock, wine, sugar, spices and peel. Bring to the boil and add the kangaroo and lentils. Place into your slow cooker and cook on high for 2 hours, alternatively, just reduce the heat back to low, place the lid on and simmer for 45minutes to an hour, or the lentils are soft and the meat is tender and pulling apart.


Slow Cooker Love - Mulled Wine Kangaroo
 Slow Cooker Love - Mulled Wine Kangaroo
Slow Cooker Love - Mulled Wine Kangaroo

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Christmas in July - Honeycake

Christmas in July - Honeycake

When my brother first started doing Cake Club at his work about three years ago, he talked up this traditional Russian cake that a guy at his work brought in. Honeycake. He said it was lots of layers and one of the best cakes he'd ever had. I googled Russian Honeycake and had a recipe sitting in my "to-try" folder for years. It is a little fiddly, as it's basically a bunch of honey biscuit layers, softened into a more traditional cake texture by a cream filling that soaks into the cake. Before the cream is added, the layers are sort of the texture of gingerbread cookies. Being fiddly, it was pushed to the back of the pile when deciding on what cake to make.

But honeycake started popping up in my Instagram feeds as The Honeycake market stall became more and more popular. People in Perth were becoming obsessed with it. I was tempted to try it at last year's Taste festival, but I'd eaten so much by that point, I knew I wouldn't be doing it justice. Come the Good Food and Wine Festival this year, I finally got my chance. And it was good. Really good. But much more caramelly than I was expecting a Honeycake to taste. Especially as I knew the basic recipe for it.

Enter Google once more for answers! According to The Honeycake folk, they use a traditional Czech Recipe. The recipe I originally sourced was for a traditional Russian cake. So, what's the difference? Essentially, it is the caramel that I wasn't expecting. The Russian cake uses a sweetened sour cream filling. The Czech version uses two fillings, one a caramel cream, one a condensed milk cream. Given I'm less partial to super sweetness, It's still a sweet cake, but the honey is the much more dominant flavour.

I decided to stick to the original Russian version, with a few tweaks. Being Russian, a lot of recipes use vodka, I decided to switch to rum because I think the spicy flavour profile combines with the honey perfectly. Make sure you use a good dark rum, such as Angostura or Captain Morgan and not Bundaberg. The rest of the recipe is mixed and matched from around 7 different "traditional family recipes", and I think it is perfect. Which makes this now my traditional family recipe. Because I am definitely making this again. It is a little time-consuming, rolling and baking all the layers, but it needs to be made ahead of time for the cream filling to soak into the cake layers and soften them which makes it perfect for parties. And the effort is totally worth it. Definitely one of my favourite cakes ever, too! 

The caramel shards are made by melting together 1/2 cup of sugar with 1 tbsp lemon juice, heated over low temperature until the sugar dissolves, then turns caramel in flavour, drizzled onto baking paper to set into hard shards. Add these just before serving, otherwise they will soften too.

Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake


Honeycake

Cake

75g butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 tbsp honey
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp dark rum (optional, but delicious)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups flour

Syrup

3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp water (room temperature or slightly warm)
2 tbsp dark rum (optional, but delicious)

Filling

500g sour cream
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup icing sugar
125g walnuts, toasted in a pan and processed until fine

Preheat your oven to 170C

Set up a double boiler situation using a large saucepan of water over a low simmer with a large metal or glass bowl in the top - ensuring the bottom doesn't touch the water.

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs,and vanilla.

Melt the butter, sugar and honey in the double-boiler. Stir, until the sugar dissolves.Very slowly, add the egg mixture to the butter, whisking as you add it so it incorporates and doesn't scramble. Then whisk in the rum, baking soda and salt.

Switch to a wooden spoon and add about a quarter of the flour, mixing in fully before adding more. It'll turn into a rollable biscuit-type dough and give your mixing arm a good work out. When all of the the flour is added, take the bowl off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Get together your tools for making the cake. You need to decide what plate you are going to serve it on and then find a plate or cake ring just smaller than that so you cut all of the layers the same size and that it fits on the serving plate. Grab as many baking trays as possible, and line them with baking paper. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces, covering the ones you aren't working on with a clean tea towel so it doesn't dry out. Roll the dough to 2mm thick and slightly larger than the cutter plate. Bake for around 4-5 minutes or golden, then remove from the oven and cut around the cake layer while it's still warm, then leave to cool and crisp up. Keep the offcuts.

Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.

For the syrup, mix all of the ingredients together with a pastry brush.

For the filling, whip the sour cream, sugar and honey together with an electric handbeater until soft and fluffy - it fluffs up almost like normal cream. Mix in the toasted crushed walnuts.

To assemble, place a layer on your serving plate, then brush with the syrup. Top with a few dollops of sour cream filling, spread right to the edges. Repeat the process, then cover the top and sides with the remaining sour cream filling and smooth.

Process the biscuit offcuts into crumbs and gently coat the sour cream layer, pressing in to cover completely. Wrap with plastic and refrigerate at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Take out of the fridge 30 minutes before serving to take the chill off.

Decorate with caramel shards if desired.

Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake
Christmas in July - Honeycake

Christmas in July - Honeycake


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake

Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake

Another July come and gone, which means another Christmas in July come and gone! This year has just flown by! And in some exciting news, at Christmas in July whilst there was already bubbles flowing, we also got to toast my new job! I am really happy and can’t wait to start!

Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake


As usual, our Christmas in July is a bring-a-dish affair. Lance smoked a leg of pork and I made two cakes. This was the spread – how good does it look? I can assure you that it tasted even better!

Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake


This is the first of the two cakes and wanting to use Christmassy flavours, I decided to spice up the Boston Blackout Cake from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. Quite literally. Red wine, wintery spices and citrus add a depth to the already rich chocolatey cake. It is made of three layers of cake held together by a mulled wine chocolate “custard” which is then covered in cake crumbs. It needs at least a few hours in the fridge to “set” the filling and cake, which makes it perfect for entertaining as it can all be made beforehand. Keeping with the wine theme, I’ve decorated it with some grapes for a fun look! Being a rich cake, this is best served with whipped cream, or even crème fraiche.

Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake

Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake

Cake

100g butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
¼ tsp cloves
¼ tsp nutmeg
1 1/3 cups plain flour
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup red wine (I used Shiraz)

Custard

2 ½ cups sugar
1 tbsp light corn syrup
½ cup cocoa
60g dark chocolate
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
Pinch nutmeg
Pinch cloves
1 cup red wine (I used Shiraz)
1 ½ cups water
1 ½ cups cornflour
¾ cup water (extra to the above)
80g butter
1 tsp vanilla
Zest of an orange

Start by making the custard so it can chill and set in the fridge. In a small bowl, mix the cornflour and ¾ cup of water together to make a slurry. Set aside.

In a large saucepan, add the sugar, light corn syrup, cocoa, dark chocolate, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Pour the red wine and water over the top and over a medium heat, stir to combine and bring to the boil.

When boiling, add the cornflour slurry and stir constantly to combine. When it starts to thicken, add the butter, vanilla and zest and mix well until it’s fully incorporated. Pour into a baking dish, cover the surface with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

For the cake, preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and flour three cake tins of (preferably) equal size.

the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy on a medium speed. Add the eggs, one at a time, and keep beating until fully incorporated. Scraping down the sides if necessary. Turn the mixer down to low and add the vanilla, spices, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt. When combined, add half of the flour and turn the mixer up to medium again to mix well. Add the red wine. When fully combined, add the milk. Finally, add the second half of the flour.

Pour the cake mix evenly amongst the three cake tins and bake for 25 minutes, or until it springs back when touched and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in the tins, then turn out to cool completely on racks.

To assemble, pile the three cakes carefully, and cut a small ring around the outside. Blitz the offcuts in a food processor to get cake crumbs. Place on ring on your serving plate, then smear a layer of custard over it. Top with cake, then more custard, then the last layer of cake. Smother the whole thing in a layer of custard, smoothing the sides and top as best as possible. Gently pour and press the crumbs into the custard so they stick.

Refrigerate for 4 hours (or the day before), then remove from the fridge half an hour before serving.


Decorate with grapes if desired. Serve with whipped cream.

Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake
Christmas in July - Mulled Wine Chocolate Cake