Chocolate & Ginger Tarts

Who can resist the lovely glossy lure of chocolate ganache! Combine it with pastry and preserved ginger and you've got a special treat. These lovely little tarts will earn you brownie points with your loved ones...or you could just save them all for yourself ;-)

The pastry was an interesting recipe containing flour, ground almonds, icing sugar, salt, unsalted butter, vanilla seeds and an egg yolk. Once baked it held together well and it was nice and light. The tart cases were blind baked with baking beans but if you don't have beans you can use rice. To more easily line each case with baking parchment, scrunch up the parchment before lining as this means it sits more easily inside the case.

 

I've used this muffin pan method before to make Mini Mississippi Mud Pies and it does give you nice little tarts but the effect is rather rustic...but this is an Edd Kimber recipe and Edd's tarts were rustic too!

Preserved Stem Ginger in Syrup is easy to find at the supermarket, I picked some up at Tescos. Each little tart has a secret cache of finely chopped ginger hidden at the bottom and chocolate and ginger are perfect partners.

The filling for the tarts is a classic chocolate ganache. The ganache included the addition of light brown muscovado sugar, this always gives a little bit of a fudgy taste and it also gives sweetness which cuts through the dark chocolate to provide balance. Once ready 40g of unsalted butter was added to the ganache, when mixed in this gives a lovely glossy finish.

The easiest way to fill the tart cases is to transfer the prepared ganache into a measuring jug and then pour the required amount into each one. The pastry recipe made 12 cases but mine were quite large so I only had enough ganache to fill 10 cases fully and I would have liked to have filled these 10 a little more!

To give an extra special finish to the tarts I used a little edible gold leaf on the top of each one. You can get edible gold leaf from most cake decorating shops or websites, mine came from Surbiton Sugarart.

You can buy it as a sheet or flaked in a little pot. It is reasonably expensive with the pot above costing £4.35 but it does add that extra sparkle to a special bake.

These tarts neatly fit into two baking challenges this month. The first is We Should Cocoa, with usual host Choclette from Choc Log Blog taking a break it's hosted by Jen from Blue Kitchen Bakes this month. We Should Cocoa was co-created by Chele at Chocolate Teapot and the theme this month is 'Chocolate and Ginger'.

The second challenge is Classic French, again hosted by Jen from Blue Kitchen Bakes. This challenge aims to help us tackle a different French classic each month, this month the theme is Chocolate Ganache...so again these fit in perfectly!

Ingredients

275g plain flour
25g ground almonds
50g icing sugar
1/2 tsp salt
175g unsalted butter
1 large egg yolk
1-2 tbsp ice-cold water
1 vanilla pod (seeds)
4 pieces of preserved stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped

Chocolate Ganache

225g dark chocolate
185 ml double cream
45g light brown sugar or light brown muscovado
40g unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

Makes 12

Start by making the pastry and preheating the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4. The recipe suggests making this by hand...but I cheated and used a food processor...you could obviously do it either way. I put the flour, icing sugar, almonds and salt into the food processor and then added the cubed unsalted butter. Then whiz the mixture until it resembles rough breadcrumbs. At this stage add the egg yolk and ice-cold water and whiz again. The initial recipe suggested a tablespoon of water, however I found I needed two. Turn out the pastry on to the counter and then bring together by hand. Squash into a disc and then wrap in clingfilm before putting it into the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.

Once the pastry is ready, take it out of the fridge adn leave to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes. Whilst it's resting, lightly grease a 12-hole muffin pan. Lightly dust your work surface with flour and then roll out the pastry to a thickness of 3-4mm (I used spacers). Using a 10cm circular cutter, cut out 12 discs of pastry, you may need to re-roll a couple of times. Put each disc into one of the holes in the muffin pan and press in gently. Then line each tart with baking parchment before filling each one with baking beans. If you don't have baking beans you can use rice.. Bake for 12-15 minutes, then remove the parchment and beans and bake for another 5-10 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool in the pan before filling. Be gentle when removing from the muffin pan.

Finely chop the preserved ginger and sprinkle in the base of each tart. Next make the chocolate ganache by finely chopping up the chocolate and putting it in a bowl. Then put the double cream and light brown sugar in a small saucepan and heat on medium until just coming to the boil. Pour this cream mixture over the chocolate and leave for two minutes until gently stirring together. Add the butter and stir to combine, you should end up with a lovely glossy, silky ganache.

Finally, pour the ganache into each tart case, I used a jug for ease. Allow to set for one hour before serving. You can then add a little more chopped ginger on top and/or some edible gold leaf. This goes really well with whipped cream.

* Adapted from Edd Kimber's Say it With Cake.

Christmas Wreath Cookies

These Christmas Wreath Cookies wouuld be great to serve to any guests that pop round during the festive period or alternatively they'd make really lovely Chirstmas gifts.

You can serve your cookies to guests as they are or alternatively for a bit of fancy presentation you could also thread them with some Christmassy ribbon and then display them on a mini christmas tree or on a twig tree such as the one below designed by David Stark.

These cookies are simple to make. You can use any cookie recipe you like so you can easily vary the flavour to suit your tastes. My cookies are chocolate with a hint of cinnamon but an alternative could be to make vanilla cookies and then melt dark chocolate to contrast.

To cut out the cookies I used an 8.5cm fluted cuter and then cut out a 4cm ring in the centre with a round cutter.

Then to decorate it was simply a case of drizzling melted white chocolate on each cookie. I used a piping bag to put the chocolate on the cookie and then the back of a spoon to spread it around a little, it was quite difficult to get perfect edges. Then whilst the chocolate is still wet each cookie was sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts, dark chocolate and crystallised rose peteals. The rose petals give a lovely contrasting colour to the cookies and they are actually rather tasty! However, a Christmassy alternative to the rose petals could be chopped sour cherries.

The first challenge I'm entering my chocolate wreath cookies into is Tea Time Treats hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked. Their theme is chocolate as there is always an abundance of the sweet stuff about at Christmas.

I'm also entering my cookies into this month's We Should Cocoa challenge as I added a teaspoon of cinnamon to the chocolate cookie recipe to give it a bit of festive spice. The theme for WSC this month is cinnamon and chocolate so these modified cookies fit the theme perfectly. I usually a stickler for following recipes to the letter, so adding a little cinnamon in place of a small amount of flour was quite adventurous for me! WSC is hosted by Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog and Chele at Chocolate Teapot.

 

Ingredients

245g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
1tsp cinnamon
250g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
140g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla extract
125g white chocolate, broken into pieces
75g dark chocolate
75g unblanched hazelnuts
Crystallised rose petals

The initial recipe suggested making the cookie dough by hand but I cheated and used a food processor...so you can choose either method! Before you start preheat your oven to 180c/160c fan/
gas 4.

Put the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon and diced butter into a bowl and rub together until it ressembles fine breadcrumbs...or blitz it in your food processor. Add the egg yolks, icing sugar and the 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Mix this in well until you have a smooth dough and then wrap in clingfilm and pop in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

Lightly dust your work surface with flour and roll out the dough. This recipe makes about 16 cookies. To cut them out use an 8.5cm fluted cutter and then cut out a smaller round circle from the centre of each cookie using a 3 or 4cm cutter. Place the cookies on a greased baking tray or line your tray with greaseproof paper before putting them on. Make sure you leave sufficient space around each cookie.

Place the cookies in the preheated oven for around 15 minutes but make sure you keep an eye on them as they may catch a little before that. They should begin to darken around the edges when ready. Cool on a wire rack.

To decorate, melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Whilst it is melting use a potato peeler to create dark chocolate curls. Once melted the white chocolate should be drizzled around each wreath cookie. I used a piping back to make it easier and neater and then spread the white chocolate with the back of a spoon. When you're happy with this sprinkle each cookie with a mixture of the hazelnuts, dark chocolate curls and rose petals. I would recommend completing one cookie at a time otherwise by the time you come to sprinkling on the top, the chocolate may have already set and then the nuts and so on won't stick.

* Adapted from Hamlyn's 200 Christmas Recipes

Chocolate Brioche Rolls and Paris Boulangerie Tour

Last month I visited Paris and my trip ended up being more of a gastronomic tour than anything else, you can read more about it here. As part of our trip we visited Le Petit Mitron bakery for a behind the scenes boulangerie tour. This trip inspired me to try making bread as it's something I'm rarely brave enough to make. Obviously following my trip I wanted to make something French, so I plumped for brioche and this particular version has chocolate in it too.

I didn't really read the recipe very well until I was about to start and it was only then I realised that the bread had to be made in a stand mixer with a bread hook. I've never made bread in my K-Mix before so was slightly worried how it would turn out but I thought I'd give it a go. I prefer to do things by hand but this was such as sticky dough that it's a good job I didn't!

Brioche is a highly enriched bread, there were six eggs, 250g butter, melted chocolate and milk all included in the recipe.

When first made the bread was left to rise in the airing cupboard for 2 hours, it was then knocked back and put in the fridge overnight. Then in the morning it was lightly kneaded before being shaped into the rolls before being put back in the airing cupboard for another hour. The last time it went in to rise it was put in a plastic bag that was slightly inflated!

Finally, the rolls were brushed with milk and baked for 10 minutes. These brioche moulds are 7cm in diametre...the recipe suggested 8cm so they were a little bit too large when they came out of the oven but by using the moulds you get a lovely traditional fluted edge.

These chocolate brioche rolls turned out better than expected and would be perfect warm straight out of the oven for breakfast. They could have perhaps done with a minute or two longer in the oven but overall I was pleased with the result.

I also thought I'd share with you some of the things we learnt on the boulangerie tour:

Interesting Fact # 1: French bakeries cannot call themselves a Boulangerie unless they make their bread from scratch on the premises. This law was brought in to halt the decline of the traditional bakery. Therefore the French chain 'Paul' cannot call itself a boulangerie as they bake their bread from frozen and the products are made offsite and delivered daily.

Our boulanger for the day was Didier. He makes hundreds of baguettes a day at all hours of the day as locals pop in before work, at lunchtime and also on their way home. He also makes a special baguette called La Parisse which must be made in a very specific way in order to be called by this name, it is made with natural leaven and has a traditional flavour. You can see La Parisse in the picture below with it's distinctive knob on the top. It even has to be slashed on the top in a particular way!

Didier uses a high quality butter in his breads, it's pure butter and is AOC which means it must be produced to very specific standards like the La Parisse baguette. This butter is purchased in 2kg blocks of which there were many in the bakery's industrial sized fridge.

Following the explanation and demonstration of the baguette production we even had a go at rolling our own croissants...they weren't bad but certainly not as good as Didier's!

Interesting Fact # 2: A croissant that isn't 100% butter cannot be straight but if it is 100% pure butter then it can be any shape it likes! So in general a straight croissant = 100% pure butter, a curved croissant = less than 100% pure butter.

Interesting Fact # 3: Croissants only have about 10g of butter in each one...which doesn't sound so bad when you put it like that...they could even be considered healthy! ;-)

Interesting Fact # 4: Croissants did not originate in France. They are widely believed to have originated in Vienna when it was undersiege from the Turks. When the Turks were defeated local bakers produced a pastry to celebrate which resembled the Turkish cresent...et voila the croissant was born!

If you look at the picture below you can also see that when a proper croissant is baked and then cut or broken in half you can see the layers from the pastry circling inside. This is as a result of the process by which the dough is made, it is a puff pastry which is repeatedly rolled and folded with generous amounts of butter to create the layers.

We also tried our hand at rolling Pain au Chocolat which was a little easier than the croissants as it is just a straight roll. Didier puts two chocolate sticks in each one to ensure it is suitably chocolately.

Interesting Fact # 5: The chocolate used is made especially for baking as it is has a very high glucose content which prevents it from completely melting and possibly burning during the baking process.

Another of Didier's specialities are Cranberry and Chocolate Chip Escargot or snails...very similar to a Pain au Raisin. You can also see in the picture below that he has a special machine to roll out his pastry perfectly... I WANT ONE!

We booked our tour with Viator and I was slightly dubious as to how authentic and intersting it would be, especially at £16 but I was very pleasantly surprised as it was genuinely interesting and Didier was so keen to share his craft with us. The tour was supposed to last one hour but we were there for around an hour and a half and we also came away with croissants and bread. I'd recommend it if you're heading to Paris anytime soon.

 

And so to this month's challenges. First up it's Calendar Cakes with the theme being bread, rolls and buns. Calendar Cakes is hosted by yours truly and alternately by Rachel over at Dolly Bakes.

This month's We Should Cocoa is being hosted by Nazima from Franglais Kitchen with it's regular home being at Chocolate Log Blog and Chocolate Teapot. These chocolate brioche fit the theme of bread and chocolate.

Finally, I'm also entering them into the breakfast club as these really would be perfect on a Sunday morning with the papers, orange juice and a coffee! This month it is hosted by Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog with it's regular spot being over at Fuss Free Flavours.

 

Ingredients

150g plain chocolate (the recipe suggested Waitrose Plain Chocolate with Coffee...I just used plain)
500g Very Strong White Flour
7g sachet McDougalls Fast Action Dried Yeast
6 large eggs, room temperature
250g unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
2 tbsp milk to glaze

Melt the chocolate along with the milk in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Once melted remove from the heat and leave to one side to cool.

Sift the flour, yeast and 1 tsp salt in a free standing mixer with a dough hook. In a jug beat the six eggs lightly and then with the mixer on it's lowest speed, pour the eggs in a little at a time. Once all the eggs have been added, scrape down the sides and then add the chocolate mixture and mix again until the ingredients are all combined. Scrape down again and then knead the dough for 5 minutes on the lowest speed.

Put the butter and sugar into a separate bowl and then cream them together until creamy. Then add this mixture to the dough a little at a time with the machine running at it's lowest speed. Scrape down and then knead the dough again for another 5 minutes. The dough will be very soft and sticky! The dough is now ready to rise, cover with a lid or clingfilm and then leave in a warm place for 2 hours - the dough should double in size.

Once the dough has risen, ensure you have floured your fingers and then punch down the risen dough, this should deflate it. It will resemble a chocolate mousse or cake mix at this point so don't be alarmed. Cover the dough back over and then put it in the fridge and chill until firm and doubled in size again. It should be left for at least 4 hours or overnight if you'd prefer.

To make the brioche you can either use a 12 hole muffin tin or a 2 x 6 hole brioche shaped tray. I used 8cm individual brioche moulds with fluted edges (makes 18). Whichever you choose they should be well buttered. Turn the dough out and knead carefully for 1 minute. Divide the dough in equal portions as required. If using the muffin tray split into 12 and 18 for brioche moulds.

To make the traditional brioch shape, pinch off a small ball of dough from each portion and roll it out smoothly, it should be about the size of a hazelnut. With the remaining dough from each portion make a smooth ball and place it carefully into each muffin hole. Flour your index finger and push it into the middle of each ball of dough in the tray and then place the smaller ball on top of this indent. Put this tray into a large plastic bag, inflate a little and then leave to rise until it has doubled in size. This will take 1 hour in a warm place or overnight in the fridge.

To bake, preheat the oven to 200c/180c fan/gas 6. Take the brioche out of the plastic bag and brush with milk to glaze. Bake for 18-20 minutes if using the muffin tray, 10 minutes if the 8cm brioche moulds. Leave to cool in the mould for a minute or so before turning out onto a wire rack. You can eat these warm or alternatively they'll keep for 24 hours in an airtight tin. You can also freeze them for upto 1 month.

* Adapted from www.waitrose.com - recipes

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

These tasty chocolate orange cupcakes are my entry for Chocolate Log Blog's monthly 'we should cocoa' competition...and yes, you guessed it, all entries must include the magic ingredient...chocolate! Every month there is also a special ingredient which must be added. This month it was orange.

In terms of chocolate and orange, these cupcakes tick all the boxes and then some! The cakes themselves are chocolate sponges, made with melted chocolate rather than cocoa and then when cooling an orange juice and sugar syrup is drizzled over each one.

Finally, to top it off the buttercream has melted white chocolate in it, along with grated orange zest. The finishing touch is grated orange chocolate sprinkled over the completed cupcakes and a segment of Terry's Chocolate Orange... phew that's a lot of chocolate and orange!

The recipe for these cupcakes came from Jo Wheatley who baked them on the Great British Bake Off and you can find the recipe here.

I do like a good cupcake and these seemed like the perfect combination. However, if you're going to attempt them, here are some of my thoughts on the recipe as the methodolgy was slightly unusual!

1. The dry ingredients are pulsed in a food processor before adding the wet ingredients... they didn't mix very well and left little lumps which took a little bit of mixing in.
2. It only made 12 smaller cakes, so if you want to fill the bigger cupcake cases I would probably go for 10... and it's quite runny, so helpful to use a piping bag to fill the cases.
3. Don't be too hasty to add the white chocolate to the buttercream...as I was too quick and as it was quite hot, caused it to melt a little.
4. Wait a few minutes before piping the icing on... again I was too hasty and because it was very loose, my piping swirls didn't hold as well as they usually do!

The cakes were well received and I would certainly recommend the recipe, although it is slightly more time consuming than your average cupcake.

Happy baking!