Super easy microwave chocolate coconut cake

Got this recipe off a colleague who got it from a friend whose kids have the worst egg allergies. So yes this is a great egg free recipe and its all ready in about 15mins! Thanks Geoff!

125gm butter

1cup milk

1cup sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

Microwave above ingredients for 2 minutes

Add to the following and mix

2 cups self raising flour

1 cup coconut

2 tablespoons cocoa (heaped if you want it chocolatey

1 cup cold tea with 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in (I used earl grey)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Microwave 8 minutes at 800 watts in large microwavable cake pan (I used a silicone pan)

Stand 5 minutes then turn out

Decorate with your choice of frosting once cooled.

Chocolate Hazelnut mousse

Ok... it's been ages since I last posted... in fact, almost a year! bad bad dee! but here we go again and hopefully, I can keep momentum... Anyway, this recipe is a rather drool worthy way kick starting this blog.

Here's what you need:


2 cups heavy cream
4 egg yolks
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
200g bittersweet chocolate, melted and kept lukewarm
1/3 cup chopped, toasted hazelnuts

• Heat 2/3 cup of cream in small saucepan until it just begins to steam. 
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar, and then add ½ hot cream, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thoroughly combined. 
• Add the warm egg-cream blend back into the hot cream in the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches 165 degrees on a digital candy thermometer ( I just stirred this it thickened). 
• Remove from the heat and stir in the hazelnut liquor and melted chocolate. 
• Chill the chocolate custard thoroughly. 
• Beat remaining 1 1/3 cups of cream in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form. 
• Thoroughly stir ½ cup of the whipped cream into the chilled chocolate custard, and then gently fold in the remaining cream. 
• The chocolate mousse is ready when the chocolate custard is thoroughly incorporated into the whipped cream, and no marbling shows. 
• Chill for a couple of hours.
• Serve chilled garnished with toasted hazelnuts.

Makes 8 servings.

Note: this is a deliciously rich mousse so keep serving sizes small. :)
Recipe from about.com.

Christmas Cake

350g prunes, scissored or chopped
250g raisins
175g currants
175g soft butter
175g dark muscovado sugar
225g (175ml) honey
125ml Tia Maria or other coffee liqueur (i used 100 ml dark rum and 25 ml strong coffee instead)
juice and finely grated zest of 2 oranges
1 teaspoon mixed spice
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 eggs, beaten
150g plain flour
75g ground almonds
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 Preheat the oven to 150°C/gas mark 2 and prepare a 20cm x 9cm deep, round, loose-bottomed cake tin by lining the bottom and sides with a double layer of baking parchment, as for the Traditional Christmas Cake on p.172 (though I find that if you use one layer of that tough, reusable silicone baking parchment, my beloved Bake-O-Glide, it does the job well enough, and as the cake is so dark, you don't see if it catches a little).

2 Put the fruits, butter, sugar, honey, Tia Maria, orange juice and zests, spice and cocoa powder into a large, wide saucepan and gently bring to the boil, stirring as the butter melts.

3 Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes, then take off the heat and leave to stand for 30 minutes.

4 When the 30 minutes are up -- it will have cooled a little, but you can leave it for longer if you want -- add the beaten eggs, flour, ground almonds, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula to combine.

5 Pour the fruit cake mixture into the prepared cake tin. Place in the oven and bake for 13/4--2 hours, by which time the top of the cake should be firm but will have a shiny, sticky look. If you insert a cake tester or skewer into it, the cake will still be a little gooey in the middle.

6 Put the cake, still in its tin, on a wire cooling rack -- it will hold its heat and take a while to cool; once cool, take it out of the tin and, if you don't want to eat it immediately (like any fruit cake it has a long life), wrap it in baking parchment or greaseproof paper then in foil and store in a cake or other airtight tin.

7 You can also poke holes in the cake with a toothpick and feed the cake some brandy/rum, till its ready to be iced.

Makes at least 10 generous slices

To decorate:

500g marzipan
750 gms ready to roll icing
2 tbsp apricot jam or marmalade or honey diluted with 1 tsp of hot water

1 Unwrap your cake from the paper and foil you've been storing it in and set it on your worksurface.

2 See whether it is level, if it isn't, you'll need to level it with a knife. use a large serrated knife for this.

3 Prepare your cake board/plate and position your cake on it so that the cut side is downwards.

4 Check that you're happy with your levelling and adjust if necessary.

5 Using a pastry brush paint the outside of the cake with a thin layer of jam/marmalade/honey (avoiding any bits!).  So now the cake is nice and sticky and will be ready to glue on the marzipan layer.

6 500g is enough marzipan to coat an 8" cake.  If you love the taste of marzipan you can make this layer thicker but you will need more to do so.  Knead gently on your worksurface to 'warm' the marzipan which will make it easier to work with.

7 Take half of the marzipan and shape into a rough sausage shape.

8 Dust your worksurface with icing sugar and roll out the sausage into a long strip to reach around the outside of the cake.  Measure with string to help you know how long it needs to be.

9 Again with the string measure how tall your collar of marzipan needs to be and cut to the right height.  It should be 5mm above the top of the cake.


10 Position around the outside of the cake and trim neatly where the two edges meet.

11 Gather together the trimmings and the remaining half of marzipan and roll out to about 5mm thick on your worksurface.

12 Using the tin you baked the cake in as a template cut out a circle for the top of the cake.

13 Place the circle on the top of the cake, gently sealing together the edges where it meets the marzipan collar.

14 Use your hands to smooth the seanms of the marzipan.  Smooth the top and the sides working out any major lumps and bumps.

15 Now you need to leave it to one side to dry a little - 24 to 48 hours.

16 Once the marzipan has set, you can work with the ready roll icing.

17 Dust the worksurface liberally with icing sugar.  Knead the sugarpaste to warm it up making it much more pliable.

18 Measure across the cake with a piece of string from the board, over the top and back onto the board again and cut the string to the right size.  Dampen the marzipan with a pastry brush dipped in a little bit of water.

19 Begin to roll out the sugarpaste making sure you have plenty plenty of icing sugar on the worksurface, once it sticks it's gameover and you have to start again.

20 You can turn the sugarpaste when rolling but don't flip it over.

21 Measuring with your piece of string keep rolling out, into a rough circle until the sugarpaste is just over the right size.

22 Polish the top of the sugarpaste with the flat of your hand to smooth it out.  Take any rings or watches off first as they always catch and rip up your hard work.  You will feel what I mean as you polish - the sugarpaste takes on a shine and will be super smooth.

23 Place the rolling pin in the middle of the rolled out icing and flip it over.   Use the rolling pin to lift into position on the cake. Flip over the sugar paste and remove the rolling pin.

24 Starting on the top, ignore the sides for now, polish the top of the cake with the flat of your hand again.  When you are happy with the top start working the way down the cake with your hands, smoothing the sugarpaste into position.  Go slowly and work from the top of the cake down towards the board.  If the sugarpaste starts to crease lift it away from the cake and smooth from the top down again.
If the sugarpaste begins to crack you can 'polish' out the start of any cracks with the palm of your hand.

25 Eventually you will have worked all the way down to the board. With a sharp knife trim off the excess sugarpaste at the base of the cake.  Wrap up the excess in clingfilm and save it for now.

26 Set your cake to one side and leave overnight to firm up.  Again this is important before we start adding the decoration as the icing is soft it is really easy to nick and mark it with your hands.

27 Once the icing has set, you decorate it any way you like. I put some red colour in a bit of the left over icing, rolled it out and cut out red stars. I also rolled out some plain icing to get white stars. these I fixed on the cake by wetting the base of the stars with some water.

28 I also set some silver cachous on the cake and drew a snow flake design on the white stars with some chocolate fudge icing.Finally, I wrapped some ribbon around the cake and held it in place by brushing on some water where the edges of the ribbon would sit on the cake.

Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson's "Christmas". 

Chocolate Guinness Cake

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE CAKE
250ml Guinness
250g unsalted butter
75g cocoa
400g caster sugar
1 x 142ml pot sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2 1/2teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

FOR THE TOPPING
300g Philadelphia cream cheese
150g icing sugar
125ml double or whipping cream

METHOD
1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C, and butter and line a 23cm springform tin.
2. Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter – in spoons or slices – and heat until the butter’s melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.
3. Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.
4. When the cake’s cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. Or do this in a processor, putting the unsieved icing sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
5. Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

Recipe from www.Nigella.com.

Chocolate Caramel Tart

Chocolate Pastry 
320g plain flour
60g cocoa
160g caster sugar
Pinch salt
160g cold butter, diced
2 eggs


Caramel Filling
395 gm can Condensed milk
50 gm butter
2 tbsp golden syrup


Chocolate Filling

1 cup heavy cream

150 gms bittersweet chocolate, chopped

A pinch fine sea salt 


Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. 
2. Place the flour, cocoa, sugar, salt and butter in the bowl of a food processor and process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the eggs and process until dough just starts to come together. 
3. Turn on to a lightly floured surface and gently knead until just smooth. Shape into a disc and cover with plastic wrap, then place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest. 
4. Roll out the pastry to about 3mm thick. Line a shallow tart tin with a removable base with the pastry and trim any excess. Place in the fridge for 15 minutes to rest. 
5. Line pastry with baking paper and fill with rice. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove paper and rice and bake for a further 5-10 minutes or until firm to touch. 
6. Once the pastry is cooked set it aside on a wire rack to cool. Once cool, turn out of the tart tin.
7. For the caramel : While the pastry is cooking, put the condensed milk, butter and golden syrup into a heavy bottomed saucepan and stir over low heat till the mixture thickens and becomes a lovely golden colour. Remove from heat and let it cool for a while.
8. When the caramel is still warm (still has a slightly pourable consistency) spread it in the tart shell. Let it fill about half the tart shell.
9. For the Chocolate filling: Heat the cream over medium heat till it boils. 
10. Pour the cream over the  chocolate pieces in a bowl and let it rest for a couple of minutes. Mix the chocolate and cream together with a pinch of salt to make a smooth mixture.
11. Pour the chocolate mixture over the cooled caramel in the tart shell. Spread to cover the caramel. 
12. Set the tart aside for about 2 hours to set. 
13. When it is firm, cut into wedges and serve with some crème fraíche.

Enjoy!

Fudgey Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Add ons:

1-2 cup chocolate chips (semisweet, white, butterscotch, peanut butter) or raisins or chopped maraschino cherry or chopped nuts or M&M' or Reese's pieces or miniature marshmallow

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Grease an 8 inch square pan or line with foil.
3. In a medium bowl combine melted butter and cocoa and stir until cocoa is dissolved.
4. Add sugar and mix well.
5. Add eggs one at a time and stir until well combined.
6. Stir in vanilla, flour and salt until you no longer see any flour (do not overmix).
7. Fold in any of the add-ons you want,
8. Spread in pan and bake for approximately 25 minutes.
9. DO NOT OVER-BAKE -- your brownies will come out dry. Adjust time/temp accordingly for your oven. If you do the knife/toothpick test, it should come out with moist crumbs, not clean.
10. Cool completely before cutting into squares.
11. For vegetarian omit the marshmallows.
12. For double recipe, bake in 9x12 pan and add 5 minutes to baking time. For a double batch you could reduce the sugar to 11/2 cups and the cocoa to 3/4 cup so it isn't too sweet or too bitter. 
13. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream  or just have it on its own! 

Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Karen's Brownie recipe on recipezaar.com

Chocolate Éclairs

1 recipe choux pastry
1 egg beaten
3 cups whipped cream
145 gms dark chocolate cut into pieces
1 tbsp double cream
1 tbsp butter, room temp.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F or 190 C.

2. Put the chilled choux pastry into a piping bag with a 1/3-inch round tip. Pipe four inch strips onto a baking tray covered with baking paper. Leave 1/2 inch between each strip. (My trick to stop the pastry when I've got it long enough is to dip a paring knife in water and cut it close to the tip of the piping bag).


3. Brush the strips with beaten egg and bake for 25 mins or until golden. Remove from oven and let it cool on wire rack. Cut small slits in the base of the éclair to help it cool and stop it from becoming soggy.


4. In a bowl mix whip the cream with some icing sugar to sweeten it. Then put it into a piping bag with round tip.


5. Holding the éclair in you hand with the flat side facing up, stick the tip of the piping bag in close to the bottom edge of the éclair and fill till the éclair seems heavier.


6. Once the éclairs are filled, melt chocolate (on a double boiler or in the microwave). Remove from heat and add butter and cream and mix well.


7. Lightly dip the top of the éclairs in the chocolate mixture and place on a try lined with baking paper. Put in the fridge to chill for 30 mins. Can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 days.

You can also fill the éclairs with pastry cream or even a chocolate mixture which is made of 3 cups pastry cream, 1/4 cup heavy cream and about 86 gms of dark chocolate. Heat the cream, pour it over the chocolate to melt. Mix and cool to room temperature. Add the pastry cream and mix till smooth. Transfer to piping bag and pipe into éclair shells.

The best ever chocolate cake!!

This chocolate cake is a sure fire winner! its moist and rich and absolutely divine! Its the only chocolate cake recipe you'll ever need!

Ingredients:
110ml sunflower oil
150ml Plain Greek-Style yoghurt (any thick yoghurt will do)
100ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp instant coffee powder
1 cup warm water
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup baking cocoa
2 cups plain flour
2 cups castor sugar
Pre-heat the oven to 170°C.
Whisk together oil, yoghurt, milk, vanilla, coffee powder, warm water and eggs until foamy.
In a large bowl sift together baking soda, cocoa and flour and add the sugar.
Add the yoghurt mixture and whisk together until smooth.
Pour into a greased 9-inch cake tin and bake for 35-40 minutes.
Dust with icing sugar or ice with your favourite frosting and serve.
I used chocolate ganache:
400gms dark chocolate chopped
11/2 cups cream
Heat cream in a heavy bottomed pan.
Bring it to a boil and pour it over the chocolate.
Wait for 1 min and then stir slowly with a spatula.
Be careful not to stir any air into the mixture. mix till it looks satiny.
Cool and then spread it on the cake.
Serve with a dollop of greek yoghurt on the side.
Enjoy!


-source: www.cuisine.co.nz