Baking | The Mindfulness Kitchen

Chocolate Mint Chequerboard Cake

By Emma Hawkins | October 8, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

It’s mint, it’s chocolate, it’s massive, and it’s cake! What’s not to like? This one is an impressive center piece and will bring a touch of fun to any occasion. Four layers of chocolate and mint sponge, put together in concentric rings to make the stunning chequerboard effect. Smother it in some green icing, drip some chocolate glaze over the edge, pile high with chocolate mints, and you have yourself a winner. Despite it’s large size, it’s also surprisingly light. The chocolate cake is made using yoghurt, so it’s really moist sticky, and then the mint cake gives a beautiful refreshing flavour to partner the rich chocolate. So all in all you end up with a big slice of choco mint heaven, which slips down very nicely.

The decorating is also really fun as you can top it with pretty much any chocolate you wish. Whenever I’m about to make something like this I have a field day in the supermarket, wandering up and down the isles trying to work out what to pile on top of the cake. Generally speaking it’s a good idea to have a range of textures, tones and sizes in your toppings (my inner art student is coming out!), but apart from that go crazy. This is the kinda cake where you have a full excuse to go OTT, so make the most of it.

Being four layers tall, I can guarantee that this cake is HUGE. Therefore I’d recommend not doing what I did and make it on a casual weekday for household of three. Instead, either scale it down to just two layers (so halve the cake mixtures), or wait until an occasion, party or large gathering of people to show up – otherwise you’ll be shipping it out to anyone and everyone you can before it goes stale (I speak from experience). That said, when the time comes, take it. Go full out and make this extravagant cake, top it with whatever your heart desires and slap it (or probably gently place it, as it’s very heavy) in the middle of the table.

It does take a lot of time to make, so I’d recommend either putting aside a day to pull it all together, or make the cakes the day before you assemble it all, otherwise you’ll have a breakdown and I’ll be named responsible. You also need to know a little of what you’re doing for this one, so if you can’t crack an egg, maybe wait a day or two before attempting this. That said, you don’t have to be an expert. I make a lot of cakes, but I’m more of a cupcake gal, so a four layer monster like this was a little daunting. But follow the steps, use your common sense and you should be absolutely fine. On with the recipe!

Recipe

Serves 12

Time: 5 hours (plus chilling time)

Ingredients

For the Chocolate cake

170g Unsalted butter
100g Dark chocolate
240g Plain flour
280g Caster sugar
3 tbsp Cocoa powder
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
2 Large eggs
284ml Greek yoghurt

For the Mint cake

350g Butter
350g Golden caster sugar
350g Self-raising flour
6 Large eggs
1 tsp Peppermint extract
2 Tubes green food colouring

For the Butter Icing

850g Icing sugar
400g Butter (if using dairy-free spread use another 100g of icing sugar as it’ll be less stiff)
1 tsp Green food colouring

For the Chocolate drip icing

150g Good quality dark chocolate, chopped
100g Unsalted butter

To Decorate

Mint chocolate decorations (e.g After Eights, Aero balls, mint sticks, mint leaves, mint Oreos…)

Method

Preheat oven to 180˚C. Grease and line four 6 inch cake tins (or two if you only have two, but you’ll need to wash them out half way through to re-use them).
First make the chocolate cake. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
In a bowl mix the flour, sugar, bicarb and cocoa together.
In another bowl whisk together the egg and yoghurt. Add this mixture, the chocolate mixture and 100ml boiling water to the flour mixture. Whisk quickly until combine and then pour into two of the lined tins.
Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean once inserted. Leave the cakes to cool for 15 minutes before turning them out onto wire racks and leaving to cool.
Now make the mint cake. Put the butter, sugar, flour, eggs and peppermint into a bowl. Beat with a wooden spoon or whisk until smooth and fully combined. Add the green food colouring and mix again until it’s all the same colour.
Spoon the mixture into the other two lined tins. The exact weight will vary depending on the size of your eggs, but you want about 700g in each tin. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Check if it’s cooked through by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean it’s ready. Leave to cool for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
Whilst the cakes are cooling, make the buttercream icing. Beat the butter and sugar until smooth. Then slowly add the green food colouring, mixing between each addition, until you have your desired colour. I like quite a soft green, but you can make it any shade you like.
Once the sponges are completely cooled you can begin to assemble the cake. Take a 4-inch and a 2-inch smooth, round cookie cutter. In all four cakes, cut a circle with the 4-inch cutter in the centre of the sponge. Then take the 2-inch cutter and cut another circle out of the middle of the 4-inch circle. Take the rings out of each other, so you end up with 4 sets of 3 consecutive rings.
Now is the fun bit. Take the medium size ring of the mint cakes and put them into the now empty large rings of the chocolate cakes. Then take the small chocolate rings and put them in the centre, so you have a cake which looks chocolate-mint-chocolate.
Then take the leftover medium chocolate rings and put them into the empty rings of the large mint cakes. Take the small mint rings and put them into the centre of the medium chocolate rings, so you have two cakes which look mint-chocolate-mint.
Now it’s time to make the chequerboard. Take one of the cakes which goes chocolate-mint-chocolate, and put into onto the board you’ll display the cake on. Spread some of the butter cream over the cake with a palette knife. Then take one of the mint-chocolate-mint cakes and place it on top. Spread this layer with buttercream as well. Repeat this again so the next layer is chocolate-mint-chocolate, and then the final layer is mint-chocolate-mint, with buttercream sandwiching each layer. From the side the cake should have layers of chocolate, mint, chocolate, mint.
Take a palette knife and blob half the butter icing onto the top of the cake. Smooth the icing out and push it round the sides. Use the palette knife to smooth out the icing in a not-too-thick, smooth layer. Leave the icing to set in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.
Take the cake out of the fridge and do another layer of butter icing over the first, making sure it’s really smooth, as at the end as this layer will be on show. Dipping the palette knife in warm water before smoothing can be a good way to get really smooth icing. Leave in the fridge to set until needed.
Now make the chocolate ‘drip’ icing. Put the chocolate into a heat-proof bowl (glass or metal) and put over a pan of gently simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted, take off the heat and throw in chunks of the butter, a little at a time – stirring to melt and mix.
Using a thermometer, record the temperature whilst adding the butter chunks. Once the butter is melted and the mixture reaches 30˚C you can use the glaze.
To prevent the glaze from melting the icing put it into a jug and then into the fridge for 3 minutes. Any more than this and the glaze will set so be careful. If this does happen, put it into the microwave for 10 seconds to loosen it up.
When ready, spoon the glaze into the centre of the cake. Using the back of a large spoon, spread out the glaze so that it just drips over the edge. You want the drips to be slightly uneven and not to drip all down the cake, so carefully push the drips over in different amounts.
Leave the glaze to set for 5-10 minutes. Then take the mint chocolates and decorate the top of the cake. I went for KitKats, Malteasers, Mint Aero balls, Mint Aeros, chocolate buttons, mint matchsticks, Mint Oreos, and mint leaves. Now you can serve!

Alternative:

Not a big fan of mint? Not a big fan of chocolate? Apart from needing a sanity check, this isn’t a problem. Why not try making a coffee and walnut chequerboard? Or cherry and almond? Simply make both cakes using the mint cake recipe, but instead of adding the green food colouring and mint extract, add chopped nuts, coffee, glace cherries or ground almonds and almond extract.

To get the defined chequerboard it’s a good idea to go for two contrasting colours in your sponges. So in the coffee and walnut one, for example, make sure that the coffee sponge is dark brown from rich coffee, and then leave the walnut sponge pale, by folding chopped walnuts into the cake batter. Then cover in plain or coffee buttercream and decorate however you want (e.g nuts and Fereero Rocher?).

Thanks so much for reading! Any comments, questions or requests don’t hesitate to ask. Next post coming soon…

Emma x

Sweet and Savoury Bagels

By Emma Hawkins | October 4, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

It may be surprising, but the first time I had a bagel was just this summer when I was travelling around Canada. Since then I’ve been wanting to try different as many flavours as possible and, most of all, to make my own. When I got back I started experimenting, and these are the results. I’ve come up with two bagel recipes, one savoury (cheese and red onion) and one sweet (cherry, pistachio and chocolate). Whilst they may not be the prettiest things to look at, they taste really good and are perfect for packed lunches. They’re also a really nice bread to make as you can get really hands on and they’re not too tricky.

When I was in Canmore, Alberta I went to a shop called the Rocky Mountain Bagel Co (I’d highly recommend going there if you ever end up near Canmore). There they sold a whole variety of flavoured bagels, with toppings and fillings to go with them. Whilst the following recipes produce bagels which taste great on their own, and don’t really need fillings, if you do want a bagel sandwich you can use these, or you can easily make plain bagels. To make these plain, simply leave out the extra ingredients (such as the cheese and onions) and then fill them with whatever you want once they’re baked (smoked salmon, cream cheese and watercress is really good).

Red Onion and Cheddar Bagels

Recipe

Ingredients

½ tbsp Sunflower oil
½ Red onion, finely chopped
300g Strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
250g Wholemeal flour
1 ½ tsp Salt
1 tbsp Runny honey
1 tbsp Olive oil
7g Instant yeast
240ml Warm water
2 Medium eggs
50g Strong cheddar cheese, grated

Method

Put the oil into a small pan and add the chopped onion. Heat gently until the onion begins to caramelise. Set to one side.
To make the bagel dough put the flours, salt, honey, olive oil, yeast, water, cooled red onion and one of the eggs into a large bowl. Mix the ingredients together to make a dough (using your hand works well) and then tip the mixture onto a worktop.
Knead the dough for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and stretchy.
Oil a chopping board with olive oil. Divide and roll the dough into 12 equally sized tight balls and arrange on the board. Cover the balls with oiled cling film and set aside to prove for around 40 minutes, or until doubled in size.
Make a hole in the centre of each ball by punching a finger into the middle. Widen the hole with your finger so that it doesn’t close during cooking.
Cover the bagels with oiled cling film again and prove for 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200˚C. Take a large saucepan and fill with water. Bring the pan to the boil and add the bagels in batches of two. Boil the bagels for 75 seconds on each side and then scoop them out with a slotted spoon and place on a wire rack to dry.
Once all the bagels have been poached arrange them on two lined baking trays, making sure they’re well spread out. Take the second egg and beat in a bowl with a fork. Brush the bagels with the egg and top with the grated cheese.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown and with a skin-like crust. Take the bagels out of the oven, leave to cool on a wire rack and then serve!

Now, the sweet ones…

Cherry, Pistachio and Dark Chocolate Bagels

Recipe

Ingredients

500g Strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
1 ½ tsp Salt
1 tbsp Runny honey
1 tbsp Olive oil
7g Instant yeast
240ml Warm water
75g Dried cherries
50g Morello cherries
60g Pistachios, chopped
2 Medium eggs
100g Dark chocolate

Method

To make the bagel dough put the flours, salt, honey, olive oil, yeast, water, cherries, pistachios and one of the eggs into a large bowl. Mix the ingredients together to make a dough (using your hand works well) and then tip the mixture onto a worktop.
Knead the dough for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and stretchy.
Oil a chopping board with olive oil. Divide and roll the dough into 12 equally sized tight balls and arrange on the board. Cover the balls with oiled cling film and set aside to prove for around 40 minutes, or until doubled in size.
Make a hole in the centre of each ball by punching a finger into the middle. Widen the hole with your finger so that it doesn’t close during cooking.
Cover the bagels with oiled cling film again and prove for 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200˚C. Take a large saucepan and fill with water. Bring the pan to the boil and add the bagels in batches of two. Boil the bagels for 75 seconds on each side and then scoop them out with a slotted spoon and place on a wire rack to dry.
Once all the bagels have been poached arrange them on two lined baking trays, making sure they’re well spread out. Take the second egg and beat in a bowl with a fork. Brush the bagels with the egg.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown and with a skin-like crust. Take the bagels out of the oven, leave to cool on a wire rack.
Meanwhile put the dark chocolate into a heatproof bowl and melt over a pan of simmering water. Drizzle the chocolate over the bagels, leave to set and then serve!

Thanks so much for reading! The next post is coming out on Sunday and it’s a good’n, so keep a look out for it!

Emma x

Bakewell Roly-Poly Pudding

By Emma Hawkins | September 27, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

I think this might just be the most British pudding that has ever existed. Not only is it a roly-poly pudding – the Lord of quintessentially British desserts – but it’s a bakewell roly-poly pudding. For years this steamed suet roll has been gracing our tables in the UK, whether it be in the school canteen or at a humble family meal, and so it’s naturally become synonymous with warmth and comfort. Thus, if you need a little comfort food, all you need to do is rustle up one of these – it’s bound to bring back memories of cosy autumn evenings and home baking, even if you never had this as a kid.

The flavours of a bakewell pudding can be summarised as almonds + raspberry. In this case I’m going to use plums instead as they’re in season and also work really well with the almonds. I’m also not going to use traditional animal suet as it isn’t vegetarian and vegetable suet is just as readily accessible. You could use it if you want the true ‘authentic’ version, but it’s completely your choice. I must warn you that suet is weird. If you’ve never worked with it before, imagine those pellets that you feed rabbits, then imagine them made out of wax. That’s the kind of stuff we’re dealing with here. But, that said, it does make really good puddings, so we’re going to use it.

I should probably write more for this post, but a simple pudding only needs a simple write-up. So, in summary, this tastes good and it’s comforting, perfect for now!

Recipe

Serves 8

Time: 1 hour plus extra time for cooking

Ingredients

50g Slightly salted butter
200g Self raising flour
50g Ground almonds
½ tsp Almond essence
½ tbsp Vanilla bean paste
50g Vegetable suet, shredded
150ml Milk
150g Plum jam

For the custard

250ml Whole milk
1 tbsp Vanilla bean paste
50g Caster sugar
3 Egg yolks
10g Plain flour
10g Cornflour

To serve

2 Plums
75g Plum jam
25g Flaked almonds

Method

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Take a deep roasting tin and fill it with water about 2/3 full. Put this onto the bottom shelf, or base of the oven and leave in the oven.
Take a sheet of foil and another of greaseproof paper and lay the paper on top of the foil. Grease the paper lightly with butter, and set aside for later.
Now it’s time make the roly-poly. Put the butter, flour, ground almonds, almond essence and vanilla into a bowl. Cut into the butter with a round bladed knife to chop it into small lumps. Once you can’t chop the butter any further, go in with your fingers and rub the butter into the flour until you have a bread-crumb texture. Shake the bowl from side to side every now and then to get the lumps to the top so you can rub them in.
Stir the suet into the mixture. Then pour in the milk and bring together with a round-bladed knife until a dough forms. If the dough is dry add some more milk, you want the dough to be a little sticky.
Flour a surface (a lot) and tip out the dough. Shape into a rough square and then roll out to around 25x25cm. Don’t roll it as thin as you would pastry, and this dough is very soft and will tear easily.
Spread the jam over the sheet of dough, leaving a 1cm strip at one end. Roll the dough up from the other end into a tight spiral. Pinch the non-jammy dough into the roll to seal it.
Lift the roll onto the greased baking paper, making sure that the join is on the paper and not facing up. I know this part is much harder than you would expect, I found that it’s true to it’s name, and so literally rolling it onto the greaseproof was the best way to get the roll off the work surface.
Bring the foil and paper up around the roly-poly and fold over the top and scrunch the ends to seal the parcel. Don’t wrap the dough too tightly as it’ll need to stretch when cooking.
Make sure a rack is above the tin of water in the oven and place the parcel onto the rack. Steam in the oven for at least 1 hour.
Meanwhile make the custard. Put the milk and vanilla into a saucepan and bring to the boil.
Mix the sugar, egg yolks and two flours until fully combined. Once the milk is heated, remove the pan from the heat and mix 1/3 of the milk into the egg mixture.
Whisk the mixture quickly and then pour the egg mixture into the milk. Put the pan back over a heat and whisk on a medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens. Pour into a jug and cover with cling-film to prevent a skin from forming. Set aside for later.
Once the pudding is ready take it out of the oven and let it sit for a few minutes before unwrapping. When this is going on you can prep the decorations.
Put the almonds into a small roasting tin and roast in the oven for 3-5 minutes, or until starting to brown. Set aside for now. Then halve, stone and thinly slice the plums. Take the extra plum jam and put into a pan. Heat gently for around 2 minutes, until it’s thinned out slightly. Put into a pipping bag with a small round nozzle.
Unwrap the roly-poly and put it onto a serving plate. Arrange the plum slices on top of the pudding. Pipe the thinned jam on top of the plum slices in a zig-zag and top with the flaked almonds. Serve with the custard and enjoy!

Thanks so much for reading. I hope this one brings you a little warmth and comfort for the cold days ahead. Next post coming out on Sunday!

Emma x

Fruit Tartlets

By Emma Hawkins | September 20, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

As you can probably tell, there’s nothing I like more than some classic French patisserie, so here’s another one. This is a fairly generic combination, but once you try it you can see why it’s stuck around for so long – a simple sweet shortcrust pastry, with vanilla infused crème patisserie and lots of fresh fruit on top. We’re coming to the end of the season where fresh red berries are around, but I find frozen can also work well, and if that fails you can always go for blackberries and damsons which are at their best now.

These are really light and that’s partly down to this delicate crème patisserie. For anyone who doesn’t know, crème patisserie is basically the stylish cousin of the powdered custard, and it pairs beautifully with this selection of fruit. This recipe is pretty simple, and once you’ve tried it you’ll never want to back to a ready-mix custard ever again.

I’ve kept this recipe simple and classical, but as you may have seen by now, I love giving variations to try. For this one I’d recommend adding 1 tbsp of cocoa powder to the crème pat – hey presto chocolate crème patisserie! You can also top the tartlets with some chopped nuts, caramel or marshmallows to make them even more special. So stretch your creativity and go crazy, or stick to the classic and indulge in French pastry perfection. Either way you won’t regret making this.

Recipe

Serves 8

Time: 2 hours

Ingredients

For the pastry

175g Plain flour
2 tbsp Caster sugar
Pinch of salt
115g Butter
1 Egg, separated
2 tbsp Cold water

For the crème patisserie

500ml Whole milk
2 tbsp Vanilla bean paste
100g Caster sugar
6 Egg yolks
20g Plain flour
20g Cornflour

For the topping

Any berries you like (I went for raspberries, strawberries, cherries, and blueberries)
50g Dark chocolate

Method

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. To make the pastry put the flour, caster sugar and salt into a bowl and mix with a round bladed knife. Add the butter to the bowl and cut the butter up into small pieces with the knife. Once the butter is in small chunks put the knife to one side and go in with your fingers. Rub the butter into the flour to create a breadcrumb texture mix.
Mix the egg yolk with 2 tbsp of cold water. Slowly add the egg yolk mixture to the flour mixture and bring together with a round bladed knife until a dough forms. Use your hands to make the dough into a ball and then wrap the dough in cling film and chill for at least 1 hour.
Remove the pastry from the fridge and separate it into 8 equally sized balls. Roll them out onto a floured surface to make 8 thin circles. Compare the size of the circles to the size of the tins by putting one of the tins your using onto the circles. You want the pastry a couple of cm wider than the tart tins so that the pastry will go up the edges and have a little overhang.
Line the tins, pressing the pastry into the flutes in the tin. Let the pastry hang over the edge, then use a rolling pin to trim off the excess by rolling over the edge of the tarts. Chill the pastry-lined tins in the fridge for another 45 minutes.
Line the tartlets with greaseproof paper and baking beans (or dry rice if you don’t have any). Put them into the oven to bake for 10 minutes, or until you can see them start to crisp up round the edges.
Remove the baking parchment and the baking beans (careful, they’ll be very hot). Brush the pastry with the beaten egg white to coat lightly and then return them to the oven for 5-10 minutes, until golden brown and crisp. Take out of the oven and leave to cool.
Next make the crème patisserie. Put the milk and vanilla into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Meanwhile, mix the sugar, egg yolks and flours until fully combined.
Once the milk is heated, remove the pan from the heat and mix 1/3 of the milk into the egg mixture. Whisk the mixture quickly and then pour the egg mixture back into the milk.
Put the pan back over a heat and whisk gently on a medium heat until the mixture thickens and boils.
Remove the pan from the heat and let the mixture cool slightly. Put 2-3 tbsp of the crème patisserie into each of the pastry cases and smooth out with the back of a spoon so that it’s evenly spread.
Top the tartlets with fresh fruit so that the patisserie is fully covered.
Put the chocolate into a heatproof bowl and put over a pan of simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted, put it into a pipping bag with a small round nozzle and drizzle over the tartlets.
Leave the chocolate to set. Serve! (- with clotted cream if you want).

Thanks for reading! I’ve got another one coming out on Sunday so look out for it.

Emma x

Chocolate Tiffin

By Emma Hawkins | September 17, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

It’s tiffin time! This little treat is a favourite in my family and is also my Dad’s speciality. Whenever we see piles of chocolate and digestive biscuits in the kitchen, we know a tray of this is on the way. What essentially amounts to a collection of digestives, nuts, dried fruit all encased in a chocolate block is surprisingly tasty, and whilst it’s not great for anyone on a diet, it’s perfect as an any-time treat.

As this is fundamentally a tray bake, it also works really well for cake sales and sharing, as it’s easily transportable and can be cut into as many pieces as you want. This is also really easy and quick to make, so even if you’re not a whizz in the kitchen you can give this one a go. It’s also a great one to make with kids as it’s hands on but not too complicated.

Whilst I’d recommend sticking to the quantities of chocolate, syrup and butter in the main mixture (as this gives the ideal soft set mixture you want in tiffin), you can from there customise these however you want. I’ve included a list of variations you can try at the end of this post, but you can go as crazy with additions as you want.

Recipe

Makes 12 squares

Time: 30 minutes, with extra time for chilling

Ingredients

250g Digestive biscuits
150g Milk chocolate
150g Dark chocolate
100g Unsalted butter
150g Golden syrup
50g Pistachios, chopped roughly
100g Dried apricots
75g Dates, chopped
50g Raisins
50g Pecans, chopped roughly
50g White chocolate to decorate

Method

Put the biscuits into a large bowl and crush by smashing them with the end of a rolling pin.
Put the two chocolates, butter and golden syrup into a large heatproof bowl and melt slowly over a pan of simmering water. Stir to combine.
Whilst waiting for the chocolate mixture to melt, line a square tin with cling film. If you’re having trouble with this, lightly greasing the tin with butter can help as the cling film will stick to it.
Remove the chocolate mixture from the heat and stir in the biscuits, dried fruit and nuts until it’s all coated in the chocolate.
Spoon the mixture into the lined tin and smooth out with the back of a spoon until all the same thickness.
Put the tin into the fridge to set for at least 1 hour, until hard enough to slice.
Melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Drizzle the chocolate over the tiffin, top with any more fruit and nuts you want, and then leave to set.
Take the tiffin out of the tin, remove the cling film and slice into 12 pieces.

Variations

As I said above, this recipe is really yours to change and make your own. I’ve given 5 other variations which are also great to try. All these run on the basis that you use the same amount of chocolate, butter and syrup as above and then add to the melted mixture the following ingredients…

Cranberry and Pistachio – 250g crushed digestive biscuits, 75g dried cranberries, 100g raisins, 100g chopped pistachios, 150g white chocolate Maltesers.
Black Forest – 250g crushed dark chocolate digestives, 100g dried cherries, 50g glace cherries, 75g quartered mini chocolate brownies.
Cookies and Cream – 250g crushed Oreos instead of digestives.
Chocolate Heaven – 250g crushed chocolate digestives, any chocolates or sweets you like chopped into bite size pieces (e.g Twirls, Maltesers, Crunchies, Double Deckers, KitKats, Popping candy, Jelly babies, Smarties…).
Rocky Road – 250g digestive biscuits, 100g mini marshmallows, 75g raisins.

Thanks for reading! If you haven’t already, check out my Instagram and Facebook to stay updated (links on the side bar). New post coming out on Wednesday…

Emma x