Chocolate Tia Maria Fridge Cake

last of the chocolate coffee liqueur fridge (ice box) cake

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Oh, have you tried replacing some of the cream in your ganache for plain Greek yoghurt?

Even if yoghurt isn't in your top 500 foods, once added to ganache a little bit of magic occurs. Well, ok not "magic" (I'm trying to sell you on the idea because I like it so much), but rather the yoghurt has a two fold effect of lightening the texture of the ganache and adding an acid component that cleans the palate. 

I like a ratio of 50% cream to 50% Greek yoghurt. The yoghurt ganache can be made with white, milk and dark chocolate. Think white chocolate yoghurt ganache with strained passion fruit puree for truffles or dark chocolate yoghurt ganache sauce with profiteroles or for your berries and waffles. What follows is the basic ratio/method that you can use in your existing recipes, plus a retro fridge cake laced with Tia Maria that the my step son Daniel declared was so nice "I could eat this everyday". 

Chocolate Tia Maria Refrigerator Cake

Ingredients

Sponge fingers come with different amounts of biscuits depending on the brand... from 250g to 400g but the following recipe makes plenty of ganache, in fact you might have some over to top a cupcake or two. 

I x packet of savoiardi/sponge finger biscuits

125 ml (quarter of a cup) of very strong brewed black coffee  (you can make up instant if you don't have shots of expresso handy) 

1/4 cup caster sugar (superfine) 

3 tablespoons of coffee liqueur (add more coffee if you want to avoid the alcohol) 

1 tsp of pure vanilla extract/essence

150g  (5oz)  milk chocolate, roughly chopped

150g  (5oz) dark chocolate, roughly chopped

250 ml (one cup) thickened cream (whipping cream)

250 ml (one cup) plain thick Greek yoghurt

Place the sugar and coffee in a saucepan, bring to a rapid boil and boil one minute or until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Stir in Tia Maria and vanilla extract. Set aside. 

Melt the chocolate with half the cream in a heat proof bowl over pan a simmering water. Remove from heat and stir through the remaining cream and yoghurt. Refrigerate until the ganache is thick enough to spread. 

Divide up your sponge fingers, I made my cake by laying six sponge fingers side by side and allowed another 12 sponge fingers to create two layers on top. *This size will give you leftover ganache, if you are using a larger packet of biscuits you will use all the ganache. 

Spread some of the chocolate ganache onto your cake platter to secure the first row of sponge fingers. 

Start to build the cake by dipping biscuits in the coffee/tia maria solution, lay six across the bottom, top with ganache, dip another six biscuits lay those on top of the base layer, top with ganache and lay final layer of dipped biscuits on top. Use remaining ganache to cover the sides and top of cake. 

Chill for 4-6 hours. 

Optional: decorate with your choice of chocolate curls, grated chocolate, chocolate coated coffee beans or crushed choc/coffee candy bars. 

adapted from no bake Irish gateau Hamyln all colour cookbook: 200 chocolate recipes 

 Happy Baking :)

You might also interested in no bake Tia Maria Treats

Or perhaps you have been hankering to make a Chinese dragon  

Honey Joy Cupcakes

                                                   honey joy cupcake 

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I do love a bit of retro, it makes people happy, it makes me happy :) and can anything be more retro that breakfast cereal? Hmmm, now I've said that you can probably think of examples that are more retro but ssshhh that will spoil the segue into today's story.

Okay, cereal/childhood, childhood/cereal, those TV advertisements with Tigers, Monkey's, Roosters and Toucans to boot... little toys and collectibles hidden in the colourful boxes and those cute individual cereal packs that you always wanted your mum to buy you.

That's probably a slightly glossed over version of childhood memories, no soggy flakes floating in milk today but rather a small vanilla cupcake, brushed with warmed honey, swirl of milky white chocolate ganache and topped with a mini honey joy.

Honey Joys are a "side of the box" corn flake recipe that has been popular with Australian kids for generations. The Aussie alternative to the marshmallow rice krispies treats in the US perhaps? 

Simple and inexpensive to make, honey joys are usually baked in cupcake paper liners in a cupcake pan. Today I've used silicone half sphere baking pans to make mini honey joys, but a buttered mini cupcake pan would also be suitable. 

silcone sphere baking pan, standard honey joy, baked mini honey joys

Honey Joys 

Ingredients

• 4 cups corn flakes (breakfast cereal)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 90g  (3.17 OZ) butter or margarine

Method

Preheat oven to 150C - 302F  (130C/266F fan)

Melt butter, sugar and honey together in a saucepan until frothy. Add corn flakes and mix well. Working quickly spoon into the holes of silicone pans or buttered mini cupcake pans. Bake in a slow oven 150°C for 10 minutes for silicone or 7 to 9 for minis. Cool. Store in a single layer. 

Cake batter

Preheat oven to 180C/350F (160C/320F  fan)

Ahhh, being a bit "Australian" sizing today because I've used smaller than standard cupcake but bigger than mini paper liners. Patty cake/Fairy cake sized... though I'm not really sure what the correct name for them is. You can use a mini cupcake tin and paper liners for a slightly small result.

Line two 12 cup trays with paper liners (the small patty/fairy cake size)

Ingredients

125g butter (4.4oz)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup (150g) castor sugar (superfine)
3 eggs
1½ cups (225g) *self-raising flour
¼ cup milk (60ml)

optional

1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of honey warmed in microwave until runny

Method

Beat butter, extract, sugar, eggs, sifted flour & milk on low speed with an electric mixer until ingredients are just combined. Increase speed to medium & beat for 3 minutes until smooth and pale in colour.

Drop spoonfuls of mixture into the paper liners. Bake about 20 minutes for patty cake sized and 15 to 17 for mini cupcake size. The cakes will be lightly golden with a slight spring when the centers are gently touched.

Allow to cool in tins for 5 minutes removing to a wire rack. Brush tops of cakes with warm honey is using. Leave cakes to cool.

Ganache

Ingredients

250 grams (8.8 OZ) white chocolate (finely chopped)

125 mls (4.2 fluid OZ) cream 

Method

Combine the chopped white chocolate and cream in a dry and heat proof bowl over simmering water. (Do not let the water touch the bowl). 

Stir occasionally until both chocolate and cream are almost all combined, but you can still see a little chocolate unmelted. 

Remove bowl from heat and stir until the chocolate and cream are fully combined.

Refrigerate until the ganache thickens and reaches piping consistency.

Stir the ganache and either fill your piping bag and pipe a donut shape on top of each cake with a large round piping tip or use a teaspoon to drop a spoonful of ganache in the center of each cake.

*Store any remaining ganache in the refrigerator. 

Top each cupcake with a honey joy just before serving. 

*can't find self-raising/rising flour where you are? 

From the Australian Women's Weekly this easy conversion; To convert plain flour into self-raising flour, add two teaspoons of baking powder to each cup of plain flour. Adding one teaspoon of cream of tartar and half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to one cup of plain flour gives the same result.

*left over ganache can be rolled into truffles or gently melted in the microwave for a white chocolate sauce. 

Happy Baking :)

You might also be interested in chocolate scones 

or Little Lime Lemon Lamingtons  

I'd love to see on Facebook too. 

Chocolate Oreo Fudgy Peppermint Christmas Treats

chocolate oreo fudgy peppermint treats

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Melt, mix, pour, chill and eat.

A quick, easy recipe for chocolate Christmas treats... they taste yummy and are perfect unadorned for gift giving or decorated with mini Oreo's for your Christmas get together.

makes 36 to 40 squares

23x23cm (9x9in) cake tin lined with non stick baking paper... as there is no baking involved don't worry if you don't have the exact matching tin size.

Ingredients

360g (11.5 oz) dark eating chocolate... just pick one you like the taste of and roughly chop. 

1 can sweetened condensed milk

30g (1oz) butter

I pack Oreo's, lightly crushed

1/3 cup crushed candy canes

Optional decoration; more crushed candy canes, mini Oreo's and a dab of pure cream or ganache or frosting to hold the decorations on. 

Method

Place the roughly chopped chocolate, butter and sweetened condensed milk in a medium large saucepan. Stir over low heat until about 3/4 of the chocolate is melted, remove from heat and continue to stir until the *chocolate is fully melted. The mixture should be barely warm at this stage.

Stir in your lightly crushed Oreo's and crushed candy canes. Pour into prepared tin and smooth top with a dampened spatula. 

Refrigerate for 2-3 hours before cutting into squares. Decorate if desired. 

Store in an airtight container for up to a week in the refrigerator.

Happy Baking :) 

*Note: I know it's tempting but do melt the mixture slowly, if you turn up the heat the chocolate risks overheating and becoming grainy and you want smooth and creamy :)

adapted from Christmas 'AWW little Christmas treats' 'dark chocolate nougat fudge bars'

Try your hand at making your own fruit mince

star fruit mince pie pops 

or how about traditional shortbread... wonderful crushed and added to melted chocolate too!

Raspberry and Orange Gluten Free Friands

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Goodness me, is $5.50 each too much to pay for a small gluten free friand? That's what our local department store cafe was charging when I was there with friends recently. 

The poor little plain orange friands looked a bit on the dry side; it got me thinking about why are gluten free cafe cakes always so dry, hard and often lacking in flavour? 

With only 1/3 to 1/2 cup of flour per recipe friands must be one of the easiest recipes to convert to gluten free. I tested the following gluten free friand conversion out on friends and family this week, concentrating on "moistness" and packing with flavour. Everyone loved them... hope you do too :)

Raspberry and Orange Gluten Free Friands

greased oval friand tin or muffin tin (1/2 cup 125ml capacity)

preheat oven to 200c (392F) or 180c (356F) fan forced

Ingredients

6 egg whites

185g butter melted and cooled

1 tbl orange juice

1 cup almond meal (almond flour) 

1 1/2 cups (240g) sifted pure icing sugar (confectioners, make sure it's pure with no flour added)

1/2 cup gluten free plain flour (gluten free all purpose) 

4 teaspoons fine orange zest

1 cup of raspberries, fresh or frozen

Topping

1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds

* optional .... 1/4 cup freeze dried raspberry pieces

1 cup of sifted pure icing sugar 

1 to 2 tablespoons of orange juice

Method

Put the egg whites in a medium bowl in a medium bowl, use a fork to lightly whisk and break up the whites. Add the butter, zest, almond meal, sifted icing sugar, juice and *berries; stir until the mixture is combined. 

Divide the mix between the 12 hole pan. Bake 18-22 minutes, don't over bake. Allow to cool 5 minutes in pan before removing cakes and transferring to a cooling rack. 

adapted from AWW lemon and cranberry friands

Icing

In a small bowl, add one tablespoon of orange juice to sifted icing sugar. Stir until smooth, add more juice if needed to created a drizzle over consistency. 

Drizzle over icing and top with toasted almond slivers and freeze dried raspberry pieces.

                         moist and flavourful 

Notes:

*if using frozen berries don't defrost first, stir through in their frozen state

*if you can source freeze dried raspberry pieces they do add a natural flavour punch; the pieces will loose their crispness after a short while however they still will taste wonderful.

*undecorated friands freeze well wrapped for three weeks, defrost in the refrigerator before decorating.

*friand tins are easily available in Australia, mine is a Wiltshire tin from the supermarket. Cute Mini friands  silicone moulds are available on Amazon..they really are "mini" about 3 teaspoons of batter per hole.

 Happy Baking :)

Need to use your left over egg yolks? How about a batch of pastry cream to fill tarts, pastries and cakes.

Or an easy Hollandaise sauce.

Peach Verrine in minutes

           stem-less red wine glass holds a Peach Verrine

A verrine is a confection, originally from France, made by layering ingredients in a small glass. It can be either sweet or savoury, making a dessert or snack. Wikipedia

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Goodness, sometimes you just have one of "those weeks!!" A week when the faithful Apple Mac computer broke down, the puppy discovered it can rip stuffing from every chair and our new landscaping business 'Mark Paxton Landscapes' has taken off with a pre-Christmas frenzy of work. A week where there was no baking going on ):

Time to raid the pantry to see what I can whip up in the 5 minutes I have to spare!! Tinned peaches (in mango puree), ginger nut biscuits (cookies), Peach Schnapps and white chocolate curls. Ok, now to the fridge, whipping cream and mascarpone... it must be time for a verrines! 

There is no amounts for this recipe, just start by putting chilled peach slices in the bottom of your glasses. Whip some cream (sweeten to taste), fold through a few spoonfuls of mascarpone and add a glug of Peach Schnapps. Top the peaches with a spoonful of the cream mixture, add crumbled gingernut biscuits (cookies) and chocolate curls. Serve immediately.

For verrines in minutes; think fruit, crunch, cream and chocolate.

You do have that jar of pitted morello cherries lurking in the pantry somewhere don't you? Divide the cherries between glasses. Top the fruit with a kirsch cream mixture, crushed chocolate biscuits (cookies) and dark chocolate curls. 

So remember when you having one of "those weeks", there is always time for dessert!!

You might also be interested in Combed Chocolate Curls

or a quick Toblerone dessert