Dark Chocolate Tart with Orange and Ginger Cream

Yesterday I was in a serious baking mood, yes I still have 2 assignments to be done but I decided to take a day off and make this lovely chocolate tart instead.

Who doesn't love chocolate?! I know most people do and since tonight I'm in charge in making dessert for Mr. Red Sr.'s birthday I thought this would be a pretty good idea. 

This is a basic chocolate tart with sweet pastry crust 

(Pâte Sucrée if you'd like) and dark chocolate ganache. But that's boring, right?! 

So what do you do to spice up a boring recipe? You add spices, of course! :)

Adding the orange and ginger cream makes the chocolate tart to have interesting texture (I added crushed hazelnuts in the cream) as well as flavour. 

Dark Chocolate Tart with Orange and Ginger Cream (enough for 8 people)

What you need:

For the crust

250 grams flour

a pinch of salt

125 grams butter

125 grams caster sugar

2 eggs

For the cream

50 grams caster sugar

1 teaspoon ginger powder

1 tablespoon cornflour

1 egg

150 ml orange juice

a handful of your choice of nuts (I used hazelnuts), crushed

For the ganache

150 ml cream

150 ml dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

How to do it:

To make the crust, mix the butter and sugar together (if you have stand-up mixer, you can use the paddle attachment) be careful not to over mix. Add the egg and then the flour. 

Wrap the dough in cling wrap and rest in the fridge for about an hour (or until the dough is not too soft.)

Roll the dough in a well-floured surface into 5 mm in thickness. Line a 22 cm tart ring or if you don't have a tart ring, you can use the usual pie pan (with removable bottom).

Chill again in the fridge while making the orange and ginger cream.

To make the orange and ginger cream, simply mix all ingredients together (easy peasy!). Make sure they are all mixed thoroughly.

Pour the cream mixture into the pre-prepared ring and bake for about 30 minutes (don't forget to turn it halfway through) or until golden brown and the cream is set.

Once it's done, wait for 15 minutes before removing it from the ring (or pan) and cool it in the wire rack.

To make the ganache, boil the cream and then pour into the chocolate. Wait for a few minutes and stir it to combine. 

Pour the ganache into the tart. 

Let it set before cutting (unless you are prepared to have chocolate all over you).

PS: You can dust it with icing sugar after it's cool (if you like)

ENJOY! xx

Fruit Crumble

Blueberry crumble

Mmmm, purple goodness..

I have a little bit of hoarding problem when it comes to food: I love to freeze food. There are a bunch of leftover curries, frozen fruits, frozen cakes and frozen liquidy stuffs in my freezer. A few days ago I found the leftover syrup from when I did spiced poached pear . I'm planning on making a granita out of that so I thawed it and forgot about it.

During the weekends I've accumulated a few props for my food photography project, so after work today I decided to make something easy (work was killing me today!). So then I decided on making fruit crumble, incorporating the pear syrup to give it a kick. It took me 5 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to bake it, that's how easy it is. And if you're like me, stashing away food in the freezer, most likely you can find some frozen berries/ fruits in the freezer. For this crumble I used blueberries, but you can use any fruit you like (apple, pear, name-another-type-of-berries, banana and even passion fruit). You can also use any spices (or if your prefer not to) such as star anise, cinnamon, ginger and so on. It is a very versatile and foolproof dish which is why I LOVE IT SO MUCH! :)

Fruit Crumble (enough to feed 2 people or an extremely hungry person)

What you need: 

For the crumble

55 grams plain flour

35 grams unsalted butter, diced and chilled (makes it easier to crumb)

35 grams sugar

For the filling

100 grams fruit of your choice

2 tbs sugar (I used 1 tbs syrup and 1 tbs sugar)

1 tbs lemon juice (you can add the zest too to give it a zingy taste)

1/2 tsp cinnamon (again, you can change this to whatever spices you want)

How to do it:

Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Heat up the fruit and the rest of the ingredients for the filling in a saucepan for 5 minutes. Pour the mixture into oven-proof dish, I used a shallow 12.7 cm ramekins

Place the flour and butter in a bowl and rub them together until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs, then add the sugar. 

Sprinkle the crumble topping on top of the fruit.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Serve warm (maybe with vanilla ice cream?).

ENJOY! xx

Chocolate Cheesecake

Chocolate cheesecake

Fancy a slice?

Okay, I’m not a big fan of cheesecake but Mr. Red loves them. So when I asked him what cake he wanted for his birthday, that was his answer *sigh*

We got invited to his parents’ house to celebrate his and his mum’s birthday and I was in charge for dessert. I honestly cannot stand fruity cheesecake (I don’t know why) so I decided to try making chocolate cheesecake instead (at least I know that everybody loves chocolate).

I stumbled upon the recipe from Joy of Baking website and tweaked it a little bit to suit everybody’s taste bud (Mr. Red and his family prefer a not-so-rich dessert). Instead of putting the ganache on top, I lightly dusted the cheesecake with chocolate powder and put fresh strawberries for garnish. I also baked the cheesecake on double bath to keep it moist.

Everybody was happy with how the cheesecake turned out, I didn’t mind it too much and ate a piece (good sign!).

So here’s the recipe for you folks if you’re a cheesecake fanatic, unlike me.

Baked Chocolate Cheesecake (enough to feed 8 people)

What you need:

For the crust

150 grams digestive biscuits, crushed

75 grams butter, melted

For the cheesy goodness

340 grams dark cooking chocolate (I use the 70% cocoa), roughly chopped

680 grams full-fat cream cheese at room temperature

200 grams sugar

3 eggs at room temperature

1.5 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

240 ml sour cream

How to do it:

Preheat the oven to 165°C . Grease a 25 cm spring form cake tin, wrap aluminium foil completely covering the bottom and halfway down the side of the tin (I wrapped it twice because I’m paranoid that the water will leak inside).

Combine all the ingredients for the crust and press the mixture evenly over the bottom of the tin. Cover and refrigerate.

Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir occasionally to prevent burning the chocolate on the side and in the bottom. After all the chocolate is melted, leave it aside to cool down a bit.

Beat the cream cheese with a mixer on low speed until smooth, gradually add the sugar and then fold the melted chocolate into the cheese mixture.

Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time, make sure each egg is incorporated properly before adding the next one.

Fold in the vanilla extract and sour cream and mix well.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Put the tin in the middle of a baking tray (I use roasting pan) that has been filled 1/4 with hot water (make sure the water sits under the aluminium foil).

Bake the cheesecake for around an hour and a half or until it is set (insert a skewer and it should come out clean).

Carefully run a knife around the tin to loosen up the cheesecake, cover and rest in the fridge for a day.

Take it out of the tin, lightly dust with chocolate powder and garnish it with the fruit of your choice.

ENJOY! xx

Basic Sablé

Chocolate sablé

Matcha sablé

Sometimes I have the urge to bake something (mostly when I’m bored) so one time I decided to make a simple sablé (or shortbread or butter cookies). Sablé is a very versatile biscuit, you can pretty much add any flavour you want. It has simple you-can-easily-find-them-in-your-pantry ingredients and takes less than an hour to make.

I found the recipe on my school notes (I study patisserie, you see) and took it up a notch (or two) by adding matcha (green tea) and chocolate powder, et voila I came up with two different types of sablé.

By using almond meal (or ground almond if you wish) the biscuits taste nuttier than when you only use plain flour.

Basic Sablé (makes 20 biscuits)

What you need:

50 grams icing sugar                                                              

                                                          

100 grams butter, softened                                                                       

1 egg yolk

90 grams flour

40 grams almond meal

Coarse sugar for rolling (I used coffee sugar crystals that I found at my local Woolies)

For chocolate sablé I substituted 20 grams of flour with 20 grams of chocolate powder.

For matcha sablé I simply added 2.5 teaspoons of matcha powder without substituting anything.

How to do it:

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Sift the flour, almond meal and your preferred flavouring. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and icing sugar together. Add the egg yolk and mix thoroughly.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture until it forms a ball, be careful not to overmix.

Roll the dough  until it forms a log with roughly 3 cm in diameter and sprinkle it with coarse sugar. Wrap it in cling wrap.

Put the dough in the fridge until it is quite firm (roughly 1.5 hours) or to speed up the process put it in freezer for about 30 minutes.

Cut the log into 1 cm slices (in thickness), arrange them on the baking tray with a little gap in between the cookies as they will spread a wee bit.

Bake for 12 minutes or until the edges are golden (if your oven is like mine, make sure that you turn the tray 3/4 through the baking process to avoid burning on one side).

Rest for a few minutes before transferring them to cooling rack to cool completely.

ENJOY! xx