Wellington Archives - Page 8 of 9

lucycorry August 7, 2014

The ultimate chocolate beetroot cake

Do you love cake? Then I URGE you to stop whatever you’re doing and make this cake.

The photo isn’t the best – harsh work lighting – but hopefully you can get a sense of what a mighty cake this is. It’s Nigel Slater’s chocolate beetroot cake, taken from his beautiful book Tender (vol 1). It’s quite an involved cake to make – pureed beetroot, melted chocolate, whisked egg whites – but the results are absolutely worth it.

Nigel was right (I can’t believe I doubted him) – it’s probably the world’s best chocolate cake, full of dark, rich, complex flavours. He tops it with creme fraiche and poppy seeds, but because I was making it for our Bake Club I knew I needed to add a little more wow factor. I topped mine with caramel cream cheese frosting, then scattered over some shards of 72 per cent chocolate and some candied purple carrot. I used this recipe for candied carrot curls as a guide, but on my first attempt I ended up with a smoke-filled kitchen and a tray of burnt carrot strips. I’d recommend cooking the carrot in the syrup for a shorter time period and lowering the oven temperature.

The judges loved it enough – I knocked out the competition easily. Most importantly, I got to savour the very last piece. I might not ever experience it again, but I’ve finally tasted success.

lucycorry August 1, 2014

Five fab vegetable cake recipes

The 2014 edition of Wellington On A Plate’s Bake Club (‘like a book club, but tastier’) is underway and next week’s challenge is to make a cake that includes vegetables as a star ingredient. I was shocked when one of my fellow bakers remarked she’d never heard of a vegetable cake before – if you’re in the same boat, here are my own top five fab vegetable cake recipes.

1. Chocolate Potato Cake: To be sure, this is not some kind of Irish joke, but a moist, dense cake slathered in a Baileys-laced cream cheese icing. It’s addictive (and it doesn’t use much Baileys so there’s plenty for the cook to knock back afterwards).

2. Kumara and Cardamom Cake: For something a little more refined and subtle, with complex flavours and a great texture, this cake can’t be beat. It’s also gluten-free (but don’t let that put you off if you’re a gluten fan).

3. Pumpkin Praline Cheesecake: Does cheesecake count? I think so – and this one will convert the most reluctant pumpkin eater. My idea of a good night in is one of these cheesecakes, a sofa and a spoon.

4. The Ultimate Carrot Cake: I know carrot cake is a bit ubiquitous, but this is one of my all-time favourites, with lots of carrot, fruit and nuts in a dense, spicy batter.

5. The Best-Ever Beetroot Cake: This is another winner, not least because the beetroot turns it pink. I’m not normally a fan of pink food, but somehow it works with cake. Anyway, this scores highly on the unusual-ness score (I’m sure that’s one of the judging criteria).

Do you have a favourite vegetable-based cake? Let me know in the comments below – now that I’ve shared my favourite recipes I’m going to have to dig out something pretty special to win!

Have a great weekend everyone x

lucycorry June 6, 2014

Treat me: Easy coffee sorbet

Once upon a time I had a flatmate called Justin who ate, drank, lived and breathed coffee. He worked at a coffee roastery, he installed a state-of-the-art coffee machine in our house and he happily spent hours teaching everyone how to extract the perfect espresso. He was a coffee god.

Now, this would have been great, but coffee and I just don’t get on. I love the smell of it, the science of it, the taste of it – but one sip and I generally don’t feel so good.

In Wellington, where coffee is king, this is quite the social disability. Telling someone you’ll meet them for a cup of herbal tea or a glass of water just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. But I’m happy to sit with them while they drink their coffee and share the nuggets of coffee know-how I picked up from Justin.

The thing I remember the most is about water quality. If your water isn’t pure and fresh, then your coffee will taste dirty and stale. That’s why it’s important to clean out your coffee machine and always use filtered water when you make it. Using a water filter means you’re reducing levels of chlorine and trace heavy metals, which can be detrimental to the taste.

Easy Coffee Sorbet
If you can filter water and boil a kettle, you can make this simple sorbet. I’ve given instructions below for making it with plunger coffee grounds, but if you are a fan of instant (Justin would be appalled, but it was good enough for Elizabeth David, apparently), then by all means use it. If you’re a fan of filtered water, don’t forget to enter your recipe into the Better With BRITA competition – but hurry, entries close on June 30.
The best thing to do with this sorbet is to make it into a kind of reverse affogato – scoop the sorbet into little glasses or demi-tasse coffee cups, then pour over some cream. The cream starts to freeze in parts, making it seem very luxurious to eat.

6 Tbsp plunger grind coffee
750ml filtered water
250g raw sugar
2 egg whites

Put the coffee in a plunger. Bring the all the water to just before boiling in a kettle, then slowly pour 500ml of it over the coffee grounds. Stir briefly, then leave for four minutes to steep.
Put the sugar in a small saucepan and pour the remaining 250ml water over the top. Stir briskly to start dissolving the sugar, then put the pot over gentle heat and bring to a quiet simmer, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from the heat.
Plunge the coffee, then pour through a fine sieve into the sugar syrup (this makes sure the end sorbet isn’t gritty). Let cool, then pour into a plastic container with a lid and freeze overnight (or for at least eight hours).
Let it defrost slightly, then blend it in a food processor with the egg whites. The mixture will increase in volume and turn a lighter colour.
Pour it back into the plastic container and freeze again for a couple of hours.
Serve in scoops as directed above, add to an iced coffee or eat straight from the freezer on a hot day.

Have a great weekend, everyone x

* This post was created with the assistance of BRITA, but all opinions (and the recipe) are my own.

lucycorry May 9, 2014

Treat me: Fairtrade choc banana cake

This week two extremely important women in the world of food visited Wellington. One attracted loads of attention while she filmed an advertisement for Whittakers chocolate; the other could have walked down Lambton Quay without attracting a second glance from anyone.

I’m not saying Nigella Lawson’s Wellington sojourn didn’t deserve all the fuss, but it’s a shame that the equally gorgeous Rose Boatemaa Mensah wasn’t as feted. Rose was in town as part of Fairtrade Fortnight – as well as being a teacher she is a cocoa farmer in Ghana. Some of the beans grown by Rose and her family end up at Whittakers, where they are turned into my favourite chocolate (and the husks even end up on our garden).

I didn’t get to catch up with Rose (or Nigella) this week, but to celebrate all things Fairtrade I’ve whipped up this utterly lovely cake. It combines the two Fairtrade things we eat most in this house – chocolate and All Good Bananas. It’s even inspired by a Nigella recipe – how circular is that?

Fairtrade Chocolate Banana Cake
If you can manage not to gobble this the minute it comes out of the oven, glistening with nuggets of melting chocolate, then it keeps really well. And I’m sure your mum would love it for Mother’s Day (that’s this Sunday, in case you’d forgotten).

400g ripe bananas (peeled weight) – about 3 large ones
250g ground almonds
250g caster sugar
6 eggs
grated zest of two lemons
1 tsp baking powder
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Heat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin.
Put the bananas in a food processor and whiz until pureed. Add all the other ingredients, except the chocolate and whiz again until well mixed. Pour into the prepared tin and scatter the chocolate on top.
Bake for 35-45 minutes – it will be damp and sticky but a toothpick plunged in should come out cleanly. Let cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then turn out to cool on a rack.

Have a great weekend, everyone x

lucycorry March 19, 2014

The great kitchen makeover

For the first time in 10 weeks, our house is a tradesperson-free zone. There is no need to scramble out of bed before they arrive, no need to skirt around ladders and buckets of plaster and dropsheets. It’s lovely.

There’s more chaos to come in a week or two (flooring) and we are still missing a bedroom door (among other things), but at least the kitchen is done. The best part is that the kitchen has one of those those sleek bespoke kitchen doors. And now I can show you!

Here’s ‘the journey’ as Kevin McCloud would say….

…

Powered by Cincopa Video Hosting solution.

It wasn’t a majorly fancy makeover – we – or rather, the nice builder – knocked out the old pantry, then we got a new one installed on the other side of the kitchen. It might take a village to raise a child, but it took five men more than two weeks to get the pantry sorted. Well, actually, in the end it took one man who knew what he was doing about half an hour to sort it. He was a top bloke.

Major credit also has to go to my beloved, who replaced all the horrible 80s melamine joinery with nicely painted plywood facings, which ended up costing about $200 rather than the $2000+ we’d been quoted elsewhere. He also ripped out the grotty cabinet above the bench by the sink and got rid of the grimy shelf on the other side. Oh, and he carefully crafted a wooden benchtop wotsit to cover the hole where the old extraction unit was. Even the builder was impressed by that.

The only task left is to sort out the cake tins and that cupboard where plastic containers and empty jars go to breed. If you have any tips on dealing with those issues, I’d love to hear them.