Chocolate & Pear Torte

Our friends Simon & Louisa came round for lunch today (accompanied by their super cute son Finn). Following on from my carrot cake post where I was using up some carrots I was given at work I also had some pears that needed using. I decided to opt for Jo Wheatley's Chocolate & Pear Torte from her 'Home Baking' book. You can find the recipe online here. I had considered this BBC Good Food flourless chocolate and pear cake and this BBC Good Food squidgy pear and hazelnut spread cake but I find Jo's recipes easy to follow and that they produce good results.

This torte will serve 8-10. You will need a 25cm springform or loose-bottomed cake tin that you have lightly greased.

Ingredients:

For the syrup:
250ml water
60g caster sugar
peel of half an orange

For the cake:
3 small dessert pears (peeled, cored & quartered - mine were very small so I used 4)
300g good-quality dark chocolate (roughly chopped)
250g unsalted butter
4 large eggs (separated)
100g caster sugar
200g ground almonds
Pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste

Method:
1) Preheat your oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3. Lightly grease your cake tin.
2) Put the water, caster sugar and orange peel in a saucepan and bring to the boil (stirring to dissolve the sugar). Add the pears, cover the pan with a lid and simmer for 5-10 minutes until just softened (this will depend on the ripeness of your pears).

3) After the pears have cooked, remove them from the saucepan using a slotted spoon. Leave them to cool. Continue to cook the poaching liquid (with the lid off) until has reduced by half and is thick and syrupy. Set aside.

4) Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir until smooth and remove from the heat.

5) Whisk the egg whites until they reach stiff peaks.

6) In a separate bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together until pale, light and fluffy. Using a metal spoon fold in the almonds, salt and vanilla (I was worried at this point as the mixture became very thick but don't worry - just try not to knock too much of the air out of it.)

7) Add a spoonful of the egg white mixture and beat it in to loosen the mixture, before carefully folding in the remaining whites. Then fold in the melted chocolate and butter.

8) Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and push the quartered pears into the batter in a circular shape (as mine were so small I made two circles - one on the outside and one in the middle.)

9) Bake on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for 25-35 minutes until it starts to come away from the sides of the tin (mine took a little big longer than this - about 45 minutes as although it was cooked around the outside it wasn't in the middle - it ended being a little bit over done on the edges though.)
10) Once cooked and removed from the oven, run a palette knife around the sides of the tin and remove from the ring from the tin (but not the base.) Leave the torte to cool completely on a rack. Once cool, chill for a minimum of 2 hours before sliding off the base onto a plate.

11) Brush with the reduce pear syrup and serve (with cream if you're feeling indulgent!)

Blueberry Muffin Loaf

Today was the baptism of the son of one of my best friends - the extremely cute Ellis. Knowing my love of baking my friend Rachael asked if I would make a cake for after the service. It was the perfect opportunity to try something new. I had some blueberries that needed using up so I decided to try out this recipe for Jo Wheatley's blueberry muffin loaf. This is a lovely, moist, fruity cake with the added bonus of a crumble topping. Jo recommends serving it warm for brunch but I think it would go down well at any time of day. The recipe comes from 'A Passion for Baking' but you can find it online here.

You will need a greased 2lb loaf tin, with the base and ends lined with a strip of buttered baking parchment.

Ingredients:

Topping
25g plain flour
20g unsalted butter (cubed)
20g caster sugar

Muffin
200g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
75g soft brown sugar
50g caster sugar
70g unsalted butter (melted)
160ml full-fat milk (I used 1% fat and it didn't seem to make any difference)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
130g blueberries

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2) Begin by making the crumble topping. Tip the flour, butter and sugar into a bowl and using your fingertips rub the butter into the flour until it looks like a crumble mixture.

3) Then move onto the loaf. Sieve the flour and bicarbonate soda into a bowl, add both the sugars and mix well.

4) Melt the butter, leave to cool slightly and then mix with the egg, milk and vanilla extract. Whisk the mixture until smooth.

5) Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the milk and egg mixture. Using a large metal spoon, fold the two mixtures together until only just combined.

6) Fold the blueberries into the mixture (make sure you don't overwork the mixture as otherwise you will get a heavy sponge).

7) Carefully spoon the mixture into your prepared loaf tin and scatter over the crumble topping. Bake on the middle shelf of your oven for about 1 hour or until golden, well risen and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean (mine took 50 minutes).

8) Enjoy warm or at room temperature.

Baked Rice Pudding

This weekend has definitely been a weekend for a comforting, warming dessert. I tried making this recipe a couple of months ago but failed as I a) didn't read the recipe carefully enough and didn't realise just how long it would take and b) didn't own a suitable dish to make it in. The dish situation was rectified through the Marks and Spencer's sale where I purchased a shiny new dish with a lid. Be warned - the pudding needs a long time to cook (just under 4 hours) so you will need to plan and prepare ahead! It is easy to prepare and doesn't require a lot of attention. This is a Jo Wheatley recipe from her 'Home Baking' book and serves 6-8. You will need a round glass dish (Pyrex or similar) 18cm wide and 8cm deep with a lid (my dish was a little bigger than this).

Ingredients:

125g pudding rice
800ml full-fat milk
100ml double cream
60g caster sugar
50g unsalted butter (cubed)
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (I didn't use this)

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
2) Tip the rice, 700ml of the milk, the cream, sugar and butter into the dish and stir gently to combine. Place the dish, with the lid on, on a baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

3) Turn the oven down to 100C/200F/Gas 1/2 and bake the pudding for a further 2 1/2 hours until the rice is tender and half of the liquid has been absorbed. (This is what it should look like at this point.)

4) Stir through the remaining milk and sprinkle over the grated nutmeg (if using). Turn the oven up to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and return the pudding to the oven without its lid.
5) Cook for a further hour or until the rice is plump and tender.

Chocolate Chip Cookies - Take Two

You may be wondering why I am writing about chocolate chip cookies again? Well, I am someone who likes to try different recipes even if I have found one that already works perfectly well. Today I decided to try Jo Wheatley's recipe for chocolate chip cookies that feature in her 'A Passion for Baking Book'. They are different to the Hummingbird Bakery ones I have made recently - although this isn't a bad thing. I can't describe exactly how they are different other than I think they have a more biscuity texture rather than a cookie (although this may be down to me getting the sugar quantities horrifically wrong and if I'm being really truthful probably baking them for a couple of minutes too much). They will be winging their way to our friends Emma and John, who have just become parents for the first time to the gorgeous Leo. I thought they might need some sugar and chocolate!

I managed to make 14 cookies (although as you will read later this is probably because I mistakenly upped the amount of demerara sugar by nearly double the amount - oops!)

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter (softened)
200g light soft brown sugar
125g demerara sugar
2 large eggs (beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
salt (a pinch of)
200g dark chocolate (roughly chopped)

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and line 4 baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
2) Put the butter and sugars in a large bowl and mix (using an electric handwhisk - alternatively use a freestanding electric mixer) until light and fluffy (this is where I mistakenly added 200g of demerara sugar rather than 125g - oops! It didn't seem to have too much of an ill effect.)

Whisk until pale, light and fluffy

3) Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing well between each addition and scraping any unmixed ingredients from the side with a rubber spatula. Add the vanilla extract and mix on the lowest speed until combined.
4) Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt into the bowl and mix again until thoroughly combined.

Add the dry ingredients 

5) Roughly chop the chocolate into chunks and fold into the cookie dough.

Fold the chopped chocolate into the cookie dough

 6) Scoop the dough into even-sized mounds. Place 3-4 cookies on each baking tray, allowing space between them to spread during cooking.

7) Bake the batches in batches on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for about 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and sharply bang the baking trays on the work surface to deflate the cookies, then return to the oven for a further 10 minutes until pale golden brown.
8) Allow the cookies to cool on the baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks until cold.
9) Enjoy with a drink of your choice (alternatively I think they'd be delicious served warm with ice cream!)