Out of the closet

I've just watched the first episode of the new, fourth series of The Great British Bake Off. As a rule I don't watch reality TV - not because I'm taking the moral high ground but just because I find it awfully boring - so this is pretty much the only reality show I watch. I didn't even tune in for the first series, as I assumed it was more of the same - catty judges, annoying presenters, cringe-inducing contestants, bitter competition and a set-up

Chocolate fudge cake

designed to constantly ratchet up the tension level. Then one day while channel-hopping, I stopped on what turned out to be episode 2 of the second series. Before I knew it, I was hooked. The presenters, Mel and Sue, are both lovely and also funny (without being annoying and too try-hard). The judges are the wonderful Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood (while Mr Hollywood is ostensibly the 'baddie', he's actually quite fair). All in all, it's a big ol' baking love-in. The contestants love baking, everyone involved loves cake and while things can get a bit tense, the general feeling is one of friendly competition rather than a fight to win at all costs. (If you ask me, I think it's all the cake being eaten - the sweet stuff neutralises any potential nastiness).

The popularity of the show over the last few years has grown immeasurably and has coincided with a rise in the popularity of baking. The fact that more people are baking at home may have something to do with the recession - less money, more time perhaps, though it's also true that when life gets tough, we often seek comfort in the familiar and certain tastes can evoke memories of happier times. Whether or not it caused the renewed interest in baking, The Great British Bake Off has most definitely sustained it and caused it to spread like wild fire. As recently as two years ago, I had to source most of my cake decorating supplies online from the UK. Now, there are new shops popping up all over Dublin and even my local Home Store + More has carved out a substantial section of the shop especially for baking and decorating apparatus. 

Now don't get me wrong, I think it's brilliant that more people are willing to give baking a go (more lovely cake to go round), but I'm finding it a bit strange that baking is suddenly 'cool'. As someone who has always baked, I can tell you that there was nothing cool about admitting to your teenage peers that you had spent the weekend baking buns and making a really yummy Scandinavian Apple Charlotte for dessert. Back in the late 80s, it didn't have quite the same cachet as say, going to a disco / sneaking into a bar / hanging out with boys. So I maintained a closeted baking existence, revealing my strange predilection for cake-making only to close friends and family. Things didn't improve terribly in the early 90s, but I didn't notice as I was too busy with college, living abroad and generally having a good time, to do much baking anyway. By the early noughties, I was baking regularly once more and even, occasionally, outing myself to work colleagues - some left-over chocolate and peanut-butter cookies here, a few slices of gingerbread there. Finally, circa 2005, I made and brought in a whole chocolate fudge cake to work, to celebrate the birthday of a colleague who is also a very good friend of mine. There was no escaping it, I was now firmly out of the closet (or should that be out of the baking press?) and I have never looked back. So I'm out and I'm proud - my name is Clare and I love baking. 

Just desserts

Lovely, lovely Tiramisu. It was my brother's favourite dessert and I must confess to being somewhat partial to a piece myself. I was eating this rather tasty serving of Tiramisu on holidays last week and it got me thinking about desserts. You may not be surprised to read that I'm the kind of girl who goes straight to the dessert section of the menu as soon as it's handed to me. Whether or not a fabulous dessert awaits me at the end of the meal will inform my choice of main course and will often rule out a starter (there's rarely room for all three in my tummy unfortunately). If the dessert menu is very promising, I might even decide to have a light main course to save room for the sweet stuff.

 

Dessert is something quite special and although cake can be (and often is) served as the sweet ending to a meal, the two are really very different. To me, cake (that being everything from the tiny Madeleine to a luscious chocolate fudge cake) is a brilliant all-rounder - it works for morning coffee, afternoon tea, picnics, celebrations, commiserations, as a morsel swiped from the cake box as you pass through the kitchen, as a general meal replacement (or is that just me?)... So yes, we've established that cake is simply fabulous, but it can seem, at times, a little bit weighty at the end of a meal (fruitcake for dessert anyone?). Although the lighter, moussier variety of cakes can make a lovely dessert, some of the best desserts are the no-bake confections. This is fabulous when you want to impress with something deliciously home-made at the end of a dinner, but you're slightly scared of baking.

 

Take the wonderful Tiramisu - no oven action at all. Normally, I'm a stickler for making every component of a dish myself, where possible, but when it comes to Tiramisu, a packet of sponge fingers straight from the supermarket shelves is just what you need. These are otherwise known as Lady Finger biscuits, Boudoir biscuits (as I always knew them as a child), or Savoiardi biscuits if you want to be all Italian about it. You absolutely could make the sponge fingers yourself, but it's completely unnecessary for this dish. The biscuits are simply soaked in some lovely liquor and coffee and layered with a creamy mascarpone mixture, before being sprinkled with cocoa or grated chocolate and chilled in the fridge. It's both incredibly luscious and deceptively light all at the same time.

 

When it comes to no-bake desserts, however, sometimes the simplest ideas are the most successful, especially when you're stuck for time. On one such occasion, I had No.1 Sister over for a girlie evening and hadn't had time to bake or make anything spectacular. Instead, I toasted some coconut flakes that I had sitting in the press. Just stick them on a baking tray in a hot oven and watch them like a hawk - it only takes a few minutes and it's one of life's certainties that they will burn to a crisp as soon as you take your beady eye off them (flaked or nibbed almonds / hazelnuts would work too by the way). Then I made a very simple chocolate sauce, which takes mere moments to make (recipe below). I spooned some (not home-made) vanilla ice-cream into bowls, poured over the warm chocolate sauce and scattered the toasted coconut over the top. It was so delicious that I had it for dessert again the following evening and the one after that too (I had to use up the left-over chocoate sauce and coconut of course). If memory serves, the original serving was at the weekend, but the subsequent indulgences strayed into the working week. Dessert on a school night - ah the extravagance of youth!

Worth its weight in gold

Lovely, lovely cocoa

I was reading an article in a glossy magazine, written by a clutter-loving journalist, about an extreme minimalist (I'm still on holidays and working my way through a pile of glossies). The minimalist lady is dedicated to reducing the amount of waste she produces and she even makes her own cosmetics, toiletries and household cleaners from natural products. Very admirable. I found myself feeling guilty and thinking that I should be more considered about what I buy versus what I really need. Then I reached the part of the article that described using cocoa powder as a bronzer on the legs and burnt almond powder as kohl for the eyes... My brain went into immediate revolt. So aghast was I, that I physically recoiled from the magazine and could read no further. What a phenomenal waste of cocoa!! 

Now there's nothing at all wrong with applying a bit of fake tan if your pale skin upsets you, though I don't go there myself - too lazy and inept in the application (Oompa Loompa anyone?). And admittedly, I do love a healthy, post-holiday glow, so I understand the desire for a bit of a tan. But if I had to choose between white skin and having cocoa to make a lovely cake, I'd rather have glow-in-the-dark pale skin than use up my precious cocoa. Especially since I use a lovely organic, fair trade one (I can only presume this woman does the same, so concerned is she by protecting our environment and resources). So for those of you who may be tempted to use cocoa as fake tan in an emergency, please resist the temptation. Here are some much better (edible!) ways to honour the fabulous cocoa bean:

- Use a touch of cocoa powder in banana bread (just take out one tablespoon of flour and add the same of cocoa). It gives a depth of flavour, with only a hint of chocolate as a background note.


- Adding dark chocolate to a chilli con carne, stirring it in at the end of the cooking process, is a delicious way to inject another layer of flavour to the chilli. If you prefer, a tablespoon of cocoa, added with the spices at the beginning will do the same.

Chocolate brownies, with lovely cocoa in both cake and icing

- A traditional fruit cake at Christmas is one of my favourite things, but some people find them too heavy, dry or boring. I tend to alternate my traditional Christmas cake recipe (which is loved by all who try it, even the doubters, and came from my paternal grandmother, via my mother), with a gorgeously easy Christmas cake from one of Nigella's books. It uses cocoa, orange zest and juice, Tia Maria and prunes, which produces a darkly delicious, squidgy, moist fruit cake with chocolatey and coffee notes. As an added bonus, it doesn't need to be matured, so can be made only days ahead of the eating - ideal if you never got round to baking your cake in October or November. (Yum, yum - that's put a longing on me for a bit of that cake. Think I'll schedule it in for this Christmas...)

Finally, there are, of course, the obvious suspects: chocolate cake of some description and hot chocolate. Both use cocoa, sometimes exclusively, sometimes in combination with melted chocolate, but always to devastating effect. So, tan or something fabulously yummy made from cocoa? Cocoa every time.

Recipe for success

Little did I know when I first opened the Hamlyn All-Colour cookbook as a child that I was launching a lifetime of happy baking. The recipe on this page alone (chocolate brownies from the Favourite Family Cakes chapter) was the starting point for a long but happy search for the perfect brownie. This one was only wheeled out on very special occasions at home - a luxury bake if you will. Mind you, those occasions seem to have been quite frequent, judging by the stained and much used page (the fact that flapjacks occupy the opposite page in the cookbook also accounts for much of the staining - another favourite of mine).

I'm planning to create a page in my blog devoted entirely to my favourite recipes. As I'm currently on holidays, it might be a few weeks before that gets going, so in the meantime I thought I'd share this old favourite. A fabulously more-ish chocolatey morsel, the brownie component is more cake-like in texture than squidgy brownie, but this works as a brilliant counterpoint to the icing. The gooey chocolate fudge icing is poured over the brownie once it's baked, taking it from average tray-bake cake to a spectacular special (any!) occasion treat. Given enough time, the icing will set and you can cut nice, neat squares, though I'm not always patient enough (witness this photo from my blog post in June, with the brownies featuring as a surprise birthday treat for my youngest sister). 

The original recipe (as with the other sweet recipes in the Hamlyn book) was written by the inimitable Mary Berry, so is as tasty and reliable as they come. I tweak it slightly now, adding a smidge of coffee to boost the chocolatey goodness and using butter instead of margarine (the latter being de rigueur in the 70s). If you're intending to give these a go (please do!),  use a very good quality cocoa powder if you can. Green & Black do a brilliant organic one that has a fabulously rich, dark colour and an intense chocolate flavour (it can be hard to get as Tesco have stopped stocking it, but most health shops have it, as does the wonderful Fallon & Byrne if you're in Dublin). Cadbury's Bournville cocoa just isn't the same but if that's all you can get, it will certainly do (after all, it's what I used for years before anything else became available). Finally, don't over-bake the brownie (25 minutes in my oven is plenty although the original recipe is for 35 mins, so be sure to check it after 25 mins). You'll know it's done if the top springs back when you gently press it; or use the skewer test - insert a skewer into the middle and if it comes out clean (i.e. no crumbs / batter on it), then it's done. 

So here you are, one recipe for chocolate brownies with a fudgy icing. One small caveat - the original recipe is in imperial measures rather than metric, which I still use when the recipe calls for it as my kitchen scales does both (most do actually). The next time I make these, I will convert to metric and check the measurements, but I wouldn't like to do it now and lead you astray with a dodgy recipe. If you can cope with ounces rather than grams for now, then this is a quick, easy and delicious recipe, so bake and enjoy!