Chocolate Brownie Meringue Cake for World Baking Day

Today is World Baking Day...last year it was 'Caking', this year it is Baking Brave. If you check out the World Baking Day website, you'll find 100 different recipe increasing in difficulty from 1 to 100. All you have to do is choose your level and then get baking!

My initial thought was to go straight to recipe 100 but then decided that it was probably actually better to pick something that I'd really enjoy baking and that other people would enjoy eating, so I plumped for level 91 which falls into the category of 'I bake, therefore I am!'. The recipe in question is a Chocolate Brownie Meringue Cake from World Baking Day Ambassador Miranda Gore-Brown who you may remember was a finalist on the Great British Bake Off. I chose this recipe as what's not to love about chocolate brownie, meringue, hazelnuts, raspberries and lashings of cream!

I'm not really a brownie aficionado but this was a really simple recipe to follow, it contains chocolate, icing sugar, margarine, eggs and flour. The brownie base was baked for 8 minutes before taking it out of the oven half cooked, at which point the hazelnut meringue was spread on top and it was then baked for a further 25 minutes.

Once the brownie and meringue was cooled the two halves were removed from their tins. In order to do this, a knife had to be run around the tin but this did give me a slightly scruffy finish. The final touch was to whip up some cream, icing sugar and raspberries to give the lovely pink layer in the middle.

I'm a bit of a baking perfectionist but I think for this one it is impossible to get a really smart finish, however the slightly dishevelled appearance is part of the charm of this cake I think! Cutting it neatly is also a bit of a challenge.

This is a lovely recipe which everyone will enjoy, it might be particular nice if you have friends with kids coming over for Sunday lunch for example. If you'd like to give it a whirl you can find Miranda's recipe here.

I'm entering this cake into this month's Calendar Cakes challenge as the theme this month is Baking Brave. So if you've baked anything for World Baking Day you can enter it here. We're also after any bakes that you have made in the month of May that are out of your comfort zone or particularly challenging and bear in mind that everyone's level of challenge is different, so whatever your own personal triumph, you're welcome to enter it into Calendar Cakes.

Calendar Cakes is hosted on alternate months here at Laura Loves Cakes and over at Dolly Bakes. You can find out the theme on the first of each month :-)

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.

Tropical Tumbler Trifle

Something a bit different today...a mini mid-week offering. These Tropical Tumbler Trifles serve two purposes:

1. I'm having a bit of an oven crisis at the moment...since moving into a new house I've been battling with a new oven that doesn't want to play ball...there have been one or two cake wrecks thus far! So this is a no bake option that doesn't require a temperamental oven!
2. It is my entry into new blogging challenge 'Dish of the Month'...find out more below.

This is so simple to make, so if you want something quick and easy or you're having oven problems like me then give this a go. The tropical aspect comes from the hidden surprise in the bottom of the tumbler...banana that has been brought to the boil in coconut milk and then left to cool. You can just see a hint of the banana at the bottom of the glass. On top of this there are sliced peaches, whipped cream with vanilla extract and some crushed ginger nuts.

As mentioned I'm entering my trifles into new challenge, Dish of the Month. All you need to do to enter is make and blog any Nigel Slater recipe, the idea arisng from his Dish of the Day programme. The challenge is being run jointly by Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen and Sue from A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate.

You can find the recipe for these trifles on the BBC GoodFood website. Although a word of warning, if you're thinking about making them then check the ingredient list as the proportions don't seem quite right for two people....500ml double cream for two? I would say you could probably half all the ingredients except the banana and so not to be wasteful, find another use for the coconut milk once used as a boiling liquid. I also used peach slices as they fitted more neatly into the glass.

Strawberry Shortbread Meringue Pies

Hurrah...it's officially the start of summer...British Strawberries have arrived...we might just have to ignore the weather though!! What could be better on a warm summer's evening than sitting in the garden with a glass of wine and one of these Strawberry Shortbread Meringue pies.

The recipe for these desserts specified to use shop bought shortbread which I would be more than happy to do but for this blog post I thought I'd add a bit more of a baking element and make the shortbread! The recipe I used is below but I perhaps found it a little crumbly...so you can either try the same recipe or how about this one from Delicious magazine...they also add a hint of Orange.

To make the base for these pies, it's a bit like a cheesecake, crumb up the shortbread and then add melted butter before pressing it into the tin. My only complaint about this recipe was that it was nigh on impossible to get the dessert off the base so in the end I had to resort to leaving on. To get round this problem, the recipe suggested making the baking paper for the base larger than needed. My other thought was to just use a food ring and leave the base as a whole circle of shortbread, baked in the shape for the purpose.

So once the base is chilled, it's just a case of cutting the straweberries in half and putting a circle around the edge. Inside of this goes whipped double cream with a little sugar, mint and crushed strawberrries. Then the finishing touch is to make a gorgeous Italian meringue which can be piped on to make dramatic peaks. The meringue is then browned off under the grill and voila! To make the meringue it does help to have a sugar thermometre but you can do without.

So the finished product is a dreamy desssert of shortbread, cream, strawberries and clouds of gorgeous Italian meringue...who could resist...certainly not me...I'm going to make this again next weekend!! :-)

It seems everyone has gone berry mad this month...and who can blame them! I'm therefore entering these luscious lovelies into the following challenges. The first being Tea Time Treats hosted by Karen over at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked.

Next up is the One Ingredient Challenge hosted by Working London Mummy and Laura at How to Cook Good Food. The theme for their challenge this month is Strawberries.

Finally, we have Simple and in Season where you can pick any seasonal product you like...hence the lovely British Strawberries! The challenge is from Fabulicious Food and this month it is also hosted by How to Cook Good Food...a busy month for Laura!

Ingredients

65g unsalted butter, melted
200g shortbread fingers
500g strawberries
1 tsp vanilla extract
185g caster sugar plus extra for dusting
200ml double cream
Handful of fresh mint
2 eggs
Pinch of cream of tartar

So to put it altogether...start by melting the 65g of butter and breaking your shortbread up into crumbs. Combine the two and then press into the base of four greased and based lined 10cm tins (springform). It is suggested you make your base paper circle larger than the actual base to help you remove the dessert from the tin when it's finished. Chill this in the fridge.

Next up whip the double cream with 1 tbsp of sugar and quarter 200g of the strawberries. Mix the quartered strawberries with the vanilla extract and 1 tsp of sugar. Then add the whole lot together with a little mint and crush the strawberries slightly with a fork.
You should have 300g of strawberries left which can be halved. To make the Italian meringue place 185g of sugar in a heavy based saucepan with 60ml of water. Gently dissolve the sugar and then bring to the boil (do not stir). In the meantime shisk up the two egg whites until they are at the soft peak stage. Using your sugar thermometre heat the sugar and water to 115 degrees. When it gets to this heat begin whisking the egg whites again and slowly pour a steady trickle of the sugar syrup into the egg whites. Try to avoid the beaters as you pour, otherwise it tends to splatter everywhere.

Finally, to assemble place the cut strawberries on the shortbread around the edge of the tin. The recipe calls for alternating cut side and non-cut side out...however, I think it looks better with all the cut sides out! Place a blob of the strawberry cream in the middle and then using a medium size round nozzle and piping bag, pipe the Italian meringue into peaks on top. Fo finsh off, brown the meringues under a grill until they go golden or use a blow torch if you have one. The whole thing can then go back in the fridge to chill before serving.

Shortbread

200g flour
200g butter
50g castor sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan. To make this it is suggested that you use a food processor but you can make it without too. Add the flour and butter into the food processor and mix, then add the sugar and combine, it should be crumbly at this stage. Ensure you have a 22cm greased fluted tart tin to hand and press the mixture into the tin with a spoon. Bake for 30-35 minutes, when it's golden it's done! Cut into wedges whilst still warm and then dust with a light covering of castor sugar.

* Recipe adapted from Delicious Magazine and is by Allegra McEvedy