The Chocolate Box

The Chocolate Box

            When I was at home I rediscovered chocolate making. Many reasons, mostly a lack of funds for any real presents for people (plus let’s be honest people always tend to prefer homemade gifts for some reason). So for the final two weeks before uni I turned are kitchen into a pseudo-chocolate factory, completely monopolising one of the surfaces and the entire fridge. The brilliant thing about making chocolates is that once you’ve mastered the basics it is remarkably simple and easy, yet people seem to be incredibly impressed with what you produce, just invest in some good chocolate moulds and that is pretty much all you need.

Simple Ganache

2 parts dark chocolate to 1 part cream (e.g 100g chocolate, 50ml double cream). Heat the cream with an infusion of your choice (have sometimes ranged from earl grey to black pepper) then pour over the chocolate that has been chopped, leave for a minute, then stir to combine. You should be left with a smooth combination.

                                                    

To fill a chocolate mould

Fill each mould up to the top with chocolate and flatten the tops with a palate knife, then turn upside down and tap the top (you can do this into a bowl if you have a wide enough bowl or if, like me, you don’t, just use a piece of greaseproof paper, the chocolate with set and you can reuse it). Then scrape the top again with a palate knife for a clean finish.

To finish

Fill the moulds with the ganache leaving a rim around the edge, leave to set. Spread a layer of chocolate over the top, scraping round the sides of each mould.

Few important details

-       white chocolate ganache will always need more chocolate to cream ratio than dark or milk

-       I like to use a freezer to set each stage because I’m inpatient

-       If you want to use a liquid flavour (orange juice/alcohol etc) reduce the amount of cream and replace with the liquid (for juices reduce the liquid to a syrupy consistency but not for alcohol unless you want a boozefree hit)

-       You can stir in crunch/ other textures into the ganache for new layers

-       Praline/ peanut butter can be mixed with chocolate on its own to create a thicker ganache filling

-       To put decoration on top the best way is to paint the bottom of the mould

-       Caramel is another winner usually. Boil sugar and liquid glucose to amber colour with some salt, straight away add a dash of cream and a  knob of butter, then leave to cool a little before putting in the moulds.
- water is the enemy BUT if you do get some water in your chocolate, the best deal is to add fat, so oil or melted butter and hopefully your pro blame will be solved

Some of my biggest successes have either been simple (earl grey, salted caramel) or themed (biscuit box, Christmas inspired) or even just boozy, I also like using herbs and spices mixed with sweet flavours like raspberry/wasabi (using real raspberry pulp for intense flavour). This years selection seemed to go down rather well anyway. 

  

                                                                 

BFG (black forest gateaux)

Another Fat Duck Recipe that is absolutely amazing is the BFG (black forest gateaux not big friendly giant FYI). This is the piece de resistance of the tasting menu and it is beautiful. It probably takes around 8hrs to make start to finish and involves some of the most wonderful fat duck techniques, the aerator, chocolate spray gun, liquid nitrogen ice cream plus a few more classical ones, maceration, chocolate sponge, cut vanilla pod…… unusually Heston uses quite a few classic flavours, essential a black forest gateaux inside out. So you have a core of aerated dark chocolate and a macerated cherry and a layer of chocolate sponge doused in kirsch liqueur.  Then surrounding that you have dark chocolate mousse, around that you have a white chocolate mousse, and then the base is the most amazing praline crunch. This is then all sprayed with tiny particles of dark chocolate for a furry effect (better than it sounds) and then topped with a second macerated cherry with a vanilla pod slice stuck in the top to look like a stalk (I know attention to detail) all served with a heavenly unsweetened kick of kirsch ice cream to cut through that amazing richness. All the flavours of a BFG without that I think I may throw up clogginess you get after eating it. On top of all this there is a trail of chocolate 'soil' and cherry sauce. J

HESTON'S VERSION

It is intricately amazing and when you chop into it you can’t imagine the effect of all the different textures and flavours – so goooood. Interesting fact about Michelin dessert techniques – they tend to freeze everything (mousses, chocolates, biscuits ) until serving so that you can get the shape right and get it neatly onto the plate plus ensure nothing melts

BFG (my version)

Ingredients (serves 6)

Macerated Cherries

10  cherries, de stoned

200g sugar

150ml kirsch

Almond base

60g blanched almonds

100g 75% dark chocolate

50g white chocolate

25g butter

35g ground almonds

Kirsch Ganache

100g 75% dark chocolate

100ml double cream

50ml kirsch

Chocolate sponge

3 eggs

60g sugar

20g cornflour

20g plain flour

20g cocoa powder

White Chocolate Mousse

150ml double cream

1 egg yolk

45g sugar

100g white chocolate

50ml kirsch

Dark Chocolate Mousse

75ml double cream

½ egg yolk

20g sugar

50g dark 60% chocolate

To Serve

Dark chocolate aero

Cocoa powder

50g 100% dark chocolate

20g ground almonds

1 vanilla pod

Kirsch ice cream (if poss)

1.     For the macerated cherries, heat the sugar in a pan with 150ml water and reduce to a thin syrup consistency. Leave the cherries steeping in it for at least 5hours.

2.     For the base, roast the almonds in a dry frying pan over a high heat till toasted. Then chop to small pieces.  Melt the chocolates and butter in a microwave. Meanwhile place the ground almonds on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 3mins at 200oC, making sure not to burn. Mix the almonds into the chocolate mix and spread on a baking sheet, place in the fridge to set.

3.     For the ganache, chop the chocolate into very fine pieces. Heat the cream in a pan to the point of boiling but don’t boil. pour over the chocolate and leave for 1min then combine with the kirsch. Pour into a shallow lined pan and place in the freezer.

4.     For the sponge, whisk the eggs together, and then whisk in the sugar till light and frothy. Fold in the flours and cocoa and place in a ined baking tray, bake at 170oC (150oC fan) for 15mins. When removed from the oven, soak using a little of the syrup the cherries have been soaking in.

5.     When the Ganache has frozen, cut out squares of the almond base and place in square individual moulds. Cut out smaller squares of the ganache, sponge and dark chocolate aero (all same size) place in centre of almond base, top with a cherry and refrigerate.

6.     For the mousse, whip the cream and kirsch to soft peaks and set aside. Then whisk the egg yolks and sugar together. Melt the white chocolate in the microwave, then fold in the egg mix and cream mix, pour into the square moulds so it encases the ganache, cake, aero and cherry, freeze.

7.     For the dark mousse, whip the cream to soft peaks and set aside. Then whisk the egg yolks and sugar together. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, then fold in the egg mix and cream mix. Layer on top of the frozen white chocolate mousse, freexe, placing a lollipop stick in the centre.

8.     To serve, remove the BFGs from the moulds then freeze again. Meanwhile grate the 100%chocolate and toast the ground almonds as before. Leave the almonds to cool completely, then mix with the chocolate. Remove the BFGs then dust with cocoa powder, sieved. Freeze again. When ready to serve, remove from the freezer 5-10mins before, remove the lollipop stick. Put the remaining cherry syrup in a piping bag. Dust a little of the 100% chocolate almond mix onto the place like soil and top with the BFG, on the left side. Squeeze a little syrup into the central hole and squeeze a little more down one corner (if need be, thicken the syrup by reducing further). Slice the vanilla pod finely to resemble cherry stalks. Place a cherry on top of the hole on the BFG and stick a cherry vanilla stalk in. Serve with a quenelle of kirsch ice cream on the right side. 

Crème Fraiche takes centre stage

Crème Fraiche takes centre stage

It gets to a point when you have been cooking for your parents through your teenage years that you realise when you leave for university; it’s not you who might be unable to survive but your parents. Occasionally I wonder if I should have weaned them off my cooking gently so as to prevent occasions such as the time my dad had to send his secretary out for a croissant because inexplicably the cereal wasn’t on the table for breakfast and he had no idea where we kept it. My mother is semi-domesticated, she has a talent for washing and ironing (at which I am abysmal), unloading and loading the dishwasher, boiling eggs and making coffee, but I am not sure she knows how to grocery shop after years of my sister and I taking control. You would think that shopping online would be simple, but having learnt the basics of technology (we taught her how to make animated PowerPoint’s a while ago), Internet shopping may be one technological step too far. I have taken to picking up food on the way home from university just to make sure I have something for breakfast the next day having come home too many times to an empty fridge save a little mouldy cheese and a bottle of salad dressing we can’t seem to shift. It’s no wonder the fridge has started leaking, I expect it’s feeling unloved. To be fair to my parents they both have jobs where lunch is provided and dinner is quite often offered too. There will come a time where they will need to cook for themselves (well unless I really fail in life and am living at home at the age of 30), which is hopefully where this blog will come in handy.

Once again I am staring into the fridge hoping for a little inspiration when my mum enters the kitchen. ‘I was so pleased to see you bought crème fraiche I really like crème fraiche. When you weren’t here we had some with jacket potatoes’ she states proudly, before promptly walking out of the kitchen. ‘I’m off to finish writing the book’. (I would just like to say that she did indeed finish the book that evening, so this dish was celebratory). There I have it, my inspiration, Crème Fraiche. Not usually the central component of a dish so I routed around in the freezer for something a little more focused. I find prawns and peas and decide that this was all coming together nicely. Add the remainder of those damn endless preserved lemons and you have a prawn, pea, lemon, crème fraiche risotto.

So I fried garlic in a large chunk of butter, throw in a bay leaf, salt, lemon juice, vanilla extract and lots of pepper. (It is worth mentioning at this point that you could add an onion here. My dishes tend to not include onions. My Dad refuses to eat them and he can spot them a mile off. In fact he removed all of the preserved lemon pieces methodically from this dish before being told that they were in fact not onions, at which point he ate them up without a word. Why he claims he likes onions I have no idea……) I added the risotto rice to the pan and stirred it for a bit before gradually adding fish stock, stirring till I got a thick risotto. I added a few frozen prawns, the peas, and a couple of mange tout pieces before stirring in more black pepper and the crowning glory – the crème fraiche-. It wasn’t half bad, although there is still a half full pack of crème fraiche left to eat….

Detox Meal 2 - tomato trout

Detox Meal 2 - tomato trout

After a typical weekend of brunch and boozy evenings (never want to see wine and cheese again) I was coming out of the kitchen with a typical 'I NEED TO GET GREEN VEGETABLES INSIDE ME' dish that my body was screaming out for, when I was stopped and complimented by U8 and U7 for my both healthy looking and yummy smelling dish. Therefore this dish is for them.

Here are the benefits in this dish
1. Trout is healthier than salmon but still has lots of Omega 3
2. Broccoli is good for the liver (a necessity)
3. Garlic cures all overindulgences
4. Fills you up
5. tomatoes make your skin look amazing
6. mostly very cheap - trout is only £1.50 per fillet and everything else is sainsburys basics
7. spice speeds up the metabolism
8. it takes all of 15mins to make and it is all on a hob (thanks student cooking)

Ingredients
1 trout fillet
1x400g chopped tomatoes
1x onion
4 garlic cloves (or 2tsp very lazy chopped garlic)
1 small courgette
half a head of broccoli
salt
Worcester sauce
smoked paprika
dried parsley
black pepper
individual pack of Philadelphia (get the light stuff to be super healthy)

Place the chopped onion and garlic in a pan and sprinkle over some sea salt (this will help them sweat  cooking without oil). After a minute sprinkle over some paprika and worcester sauce. Leave for another minute, then add the tomatoes followed by a little hot water poured into the tomato tin/ carton. Leave to simmer. Meanwhile chop broccoli and courgette and put into a microwave proof bowl and cover with boiling water, place in the microwave for 5mins. Finally add black pepper and parsley to the tomato chutney and when thickened pour into a bowl. Then place the trout skin down in a pan and cook for 2mins, then flip and cook for another 1-2mins. Serve the fish with tomato chutney on the side, topped with Philadelphia and with the green veg on the side. Enjoy feeling healthy before you get invited out to the pub again tomorrow....

Organ lessons

Organ lessons

My friend (who happens to be an organist) turned 21 yesterday. His sole wish was to have champagne and smoked salmon on his birthday (you can probably see why we are friends). So of course I selflessly obliged him in drinking his champagne and going for both lunch and dinner with him (loch fyne and cote since you ask) and had a wonderful evening. But what do you give the foodie organist ? an organ cake of course.
Using the time in my latest Early music lecture efficiently I planned a cake with a little help from another organist for authenticity. I figured a proper large pipe organ was a little ambitious so went with a chamber organ. One thing I am struggling with at uni is the lack of food processor (I know, middle class problems) so my chocolate cake ended up with small chunks of chocolates rather than the smooth texture I was expecting but that was a surprisingly tasty addition which I could easily pass of as an intentional clever twist. After making my two square shaped chocolate cakes I cut one in equal halves, and one with a slightly small half so that there was a ledge at the bottom for the seat. Then I levelled each one so that they had flat tops and square edges and sandwiched the layers together with strawberry jam.

After that I covered the whole cake in strawberry jam which stops the icing from getting all crumby when you spread it over and also gives a nice tang to the cake (I didn't necessarily realise this would happen but on tasting it was pretty good). Finally I covered the whole cake in buttercream chocolate fudge icing, added a Caramac? (me neither) as a music stand, a Twix as the seat, iced a keyboard and pipes on the back and it sort of looked like an organ. Although it's a good thing my artwork gets eaten almost immediately

 

because put it this way, I'm no Van Gogh. 

Il Tricolore: Red, White and Green

Another one of my favourite courses of the fat duck menu was one of the few seasonally changing ones. Heston has developed an amazing idea for the presentation of this course. A white chocolate picnic blanket with a check transfer which just before serving is gently melted with a blow torch before serving and it looks so delicious. Not only this but it tastes delicious, I've already posted about olive oil shortbread which on its own is a really surprisingly good (I would say better than butter....tentatively) but combining it with the strawberry flavours and white chocolate it is even better. Here is my version of the dessert (warning it is addictive and very very sweet) edible flowers are not required for the home version.

Heston's

Il Tricolore: Red, White and Green

 Ingredients (serves 2)

Freeze Dried Strawberries

400g strawberries

Olive Oil Ganache

150g white chocolate

100ml cream

100ml olive oil

Olive Oil Shortbread

50g butter

50g sugar

100g flour

50g ground almonds

vanilla extract

salt

½ egg yolk

1/2tsp baking powder

50ml olive oil

black pepper

Strawberry Syrup

50g sugar

1tbsp balsamic vinegar

Macerated Strawberries

2tsp Cardomon pods

1tbsp sugar

coriander seeds

To serve

50g shelled pistachios, chopped

micro herbs

1.     For the Ganache, line a 18cm/18cm square tin on the base. Heat the cream on a medium heat, to the cusp of boiling. Chop the chocolate into very fine pieces, mix the cream and oil together and pour over the chocolate, leave for 1 min then combine. Pourinto the tin and place in the freezer for 1-2hours till solid.

2.     For the shortbread, preheat the oven 150oC. Cream the butter and sugar together. Then add the vanilla, salt, flour, almonds, oil, baking powder, egg yolk and a pinch of black pepper. Mix to form a soft dough, adding more oil or more flour depending on the consistency. Line a baking tray wit baking parchment and place the dough on top, cover with a layer of clingfilm and roll the dough out, with the rolling pin above the cling film to approx. 6mm thick.  Bake in the oven for 15mins until hard and golden brown at the edges, place in the fridge.

3.     For the freeze dried strawberries, thinly slice 5 strawberries, removing the husks for a flat edge. Place in a preheated oven at 100oC and leave for 30-40mins.

4.     For the syrup, puree 6 strawberries from the 400g and combine with the balsamic and sugar over a high heat will the mixture reduces and becomes syrupy, drain if possible and pour into a sauce bottle, refrigerate.

5.     For the Macerated strawberries, shortly before serving, cut 5 strawberries in half lengthways, removing the husks so they can stand on a flat base. Crush the cardamom pods and sprinkle over the strawberries with the sugar and leave to macerate for 5mins. Meanwhile crush the pistachios and turn the ganache onto the shortbread. Cut the shortbread and ganache with a short knife into rectangular pieces.

6.     To serve, squeeze a line of strawberry syrup onto the centre of the plate to stick the shortbread. Place the shortbread on top. Lay three freeze dried strawberry pieces on top and sprinkle over the crushed pistachios, pressing into the ganache and place a spoonful of pistachios in the top LH corner just above the shortbread. On the top RH corner above the shortbread position 3 macerated strawberry halves curling around the biscuit and different angles. Squeeze a line of strawberry syrup from the bottom strawberry to the edge of the plate downwards. Position 2 more strawberries along this line. Place a coriander seed on the tip of each strawberry and garnish with microherbs.