Fast and tasty muffins

Some people don't believe me when I tell them I find it faster and easier to bake than I do to buy a cake or biscuits. Because I have a well-stocked pantry, I can mix up flour, eggs, butter and sugar into a tasty cake as quickly as if I loaded two children into the car, drove to the supermarket, agonised over the multitude of choices in the biscuit aisle and then queued to pay.

Of course, there are always times when convenience will win out, but a recipe such as for these tasty muffins shows that baking can be just as quick and easy. There's also the added bonus of minimising preservatives and additives and, to me, home-made always tastes better.

Not only are these muffins, which come from Allan Campion and Michele Curtis's excellent In The Kitchen cookbook, very quick to whip up, they are also toddler-friendly: it's easy for little hands to mix together, although you might find a few of the white chocolate bits make it into little mouths rather than the finished product!

Raspberry and white chocolate muffins

Recipe from In The Kitchen by Allan Campion and Michele Curtis

200g self-raising flour

150g caster sugar

Zest of 1 lemon, chopped

60g melted butter

125ml milk

1 egg

100g raspberries

95g white chocolate chips

Icing sugar to serve

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a muffin pan with paper cases.*

Mix the flour, caster sugar and lemon zest together. Beat the butter, milk and egg together in a separate bowl. Mix the dry and wet mixes together to form a smooth batter, then fold through the raspberries and chocolate.

Divide the mix into the muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes, or until risen and golden brown. Allow to cool, then dust with icing sugar to serve.

* Note: the recipe says this makes 10 muffins, but I found it made 18 small-sized (not Texas) muffins.

A cure for most ills

When you enjoy baking as much as I do, baking for others can sometimes be more stressful than people expect. Friends and family are surprised if I stress about what cake to bake or dish to cook. "But you're a good cook," friends say. "You have heaps of recipes to choose from."



And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Too many recipes, too much choice, too much pressure to come up with the perfect dish for the occasion. A simple slice is easy to make but will it have the 'wow' factor? Should I risk making a new cake that I haven't tried before? Biscuits are a nice treat but will they seem too small and boring?



Of course, all this pressure is self-imposed. Most people are impressed simply by the fact that someone has gone to the trouble of baking something homemade for them. The cook may bewail the fact that the corner of the cake broke when it came out of the tin, that the icing didn't set properly, or that the finished product doesn't look picture-perfect, but I guarantee that most of the recipients won't even notice.



If you want to impress people, I find that a homemade chocolate cake is always a winner. A chocolate cake can be dressed up or down, adorned with simple butter icing or a rich ganache, filled with whipped cream, or left plain. Morning tea, afternoon tea, dessert, birthdays - chocolate cake suits all occasions.



This chocolate cake, from Allan Campion and Michelle Curtis's excellent In The Kitchen, is a recent addition to my repertoire but an instant hit and one I've made several times since. I made this cake recently for the regular Friday morning tea at my work. Although I normally serve it plain at home, usually dusted with a mixture of icing sugar and cocoa, this time I dressed it up with a chocolate ganache. It is a rich fudgy cake that is guaranteed to impress - there were definitely no seconds when I served this one!

Rich iced birthday cake

I'm an absolute sucker for magazines that feature Christmas feasts. It doesn't matter how many recipe features I have with Christmas dishes (and I already have my own extensive collection of family favourites that I usually make each year), if I see a new magazine with an enticing spread, I buy it.

I admit that the December issue of Notebook magazine was one such purchase. I am a big fan of Notebook magazine, which seems to be one of the few women's magazines that addresses women who might want to read something more substantial than celebrity gossip and sealed sex sections. There's always lots of inspirational reading, with articles on finance, personal improvement, spiritual wellbeing and work-life balance interspersed with fashion and cooking spreads.

One of the dishes that caught my eye in the December issue was the rich iced mud cake with boozy berries. I didn't have time to make it at Christmas (nor did we really need extra cakes!) but I bookmarked it and decided it was the perfect cake to make for Adam's birthday.

It's always a risk to make a new cake for a special occasion, in case it doesn't work, but the method was easy and the combination of chocolate, coffee, Marsala and mascarpone was tempting. It's a big cake, suitable to serve at least 12 people, so it's an excellent occasion cake. The original method called for the cake to be made in two loaf tins but I made it in one big square cake tin and just had to adjust the cooking time accordingly.

The end result was enthusiastically received by both the birthday boy and the family members who attended the birthday feast. The cake is moist and dense, with the subtle coffee and Marsala flavours blending harmoniously with the chocolate. A mixture of mascarpone, whipped cream, Marsala and icing sugar sandwiches the cake together. The alcohol softens the rich mascarpone and ensures that this cake, while rich, is not overpowering and will not leave you feeling like you've overindulged.

Review: Donna Hay chocolate cookies

Packet mixes of cakes and biscuits are not often a feature in my trolley. I prefer home-made treats where possible, mostly for taste reasons but also because I know exactly what's going into the final product and there's no hidden preservatives or chemicals.

But I admit to a twinge of curiosity when Donna Hay recently launched her own brand of cupcake and cookie mixes. I'm a huge Donna fan and have all her cookbooks. I couldn't imagine her putting her name and brand to any product that wasn't of the highest quality.

Last week, when visiting Andrew's Choice in Yarraville, which is so much more than a butcher's shop and stocks a great range of deli items, my son Daniel found a box of Donna Hay chocolate chunk cookie mix, conveniently placed at exactly his eye level. He was entranced by the enticing picture on the front of the box and no doubt thought he could open the box and find the biscuits inside, waiting to be devoured by a hungry toddler.

So, in the interests of research, the cookie mix came home with us and we baked the biscuits. Making biscuits is not a hugely time-consuming exercise at the best of times, but mixing up the biscuits was so fast that the 12-minute cooking time felt like an eternity. We provided 80g of soft butter and a melted egg, and the box provided the cookie mix and a generous bag of dark chocolate buttons.

The raw dough tasted as good as anything else I've made and the final product was delicious - one of the best chocolate chip cookies I've eaten. In fact, it tasted exactly like the Donna Hay chocolate cookies that I make from her cookbooks. Checking the ingredients list, I discovered that the mix contains wheat flour, brown sugar, natural vanilla flavour and raising agents 450 and 500. There are no added artificial colours or preservatives.

The verdict? This product gets a huge thumbs-up. Most people would not be able to pick that the biscuits originate from a box and it certainly does save time in the kitchen. The only slight downside is the price: on the Donna Hay website, they are listed at $14.95 (although currently on special at a more reasonable $8.95). I know choc bits and other baking goods have recently increased in price but $15 seems quite steep for a box of biscuits - I don't think it would cost that much to make a batch from scratch.


But that is a minor quibble - chocolate chip cookies are a treat, rather than an everyday indulgence anyway. As Donna says on the box, these biscuits is "as good as baking from scratch, only foolproof." I'll definitely use this product again.

Chocolate to the rescue

There is such a thing as too many recipes. Adam is always lamenting the amount of recipes that I clip from magazines and newspapers and the fact that I have far too many food magazines to fit into our bookshelves. I usually laugh off the criticism, confident that his protestations will be silenced by the next culinary masterpiece I serve up from one of these new recipes.

But when friends asked me to bring dessert to a dinner party last Saturday night, I was confronted with a dilemma. What should I make? It's the culinary equivalent of looking in my wardrobe and wailing that I have nothing to wear. How could I possibly not find a special dessert recipe among my collection?

Well, the short answer is that I didn't know where to start. So, rather than choose a recipe, I started knocking out contenders. Our friends made cheesecake for the last dinner party, so, in the interests of variety, that was struck off the list. It had to be something already prepared and easy to transport, so that ruled out hot puddings and souffles. No cakes, because that is too similar to afternoon tea. Perhaps a tart? That is easily prepared in advance and easy to transport. Of course, chocolate is always a winner for dessert, so now I felt I was getting close. And, at last, there was Jill Dupleix's recipe for bitter chocolate tart with Baileys, a recipe I've long had marked too try. Perfect!

As well as being a sinfully rich finale to a meal, this tart is also a cinch to prepare ahead. Its impressive appearance and taste belie the easiness of the method, which makes it a winner on all counts.

Jill Dupleix's bitter chocolate tart with Baileys

Pastry
75g butter
75g caster sugar
75g ground almonds
125g plain flour
A pinch of salt
2 tablespoons iced water, or more

Filling
300ml thickened (or whipping) cream
200g dark chocolate (70 per cent)
50g butter chopped
2 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream

For the pastry: whiz the butter, sugar, ground almonds, flour and salt in a food processor until smooth. Add water a spoonful at a time, still whizzing, until the pastry clumps into a ball. Place in the base of a greased 20cm tart tin and gently press the mixture down, working from the centre out, to cover the base and up the sides. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line the tart with non-stick baking paper and weight down with pastry weights. Bake for 15 minutes, remove the weights and paper and bake for a further 5-10 minutes, or until lightly golden. Cool.

For the filling: Heat the cream until just before boiling point. Chop chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl. Add cream, leave for 1 minute, then mix well with a spatula. Add butter and stir until smooth. Stir in Baileys and pour into the tart case. Leave in a level place to cool, then refrigerate for at least three hours before serving.

This serves 8-10 but is very rich, so serve in thin wedges.

Daring Bakers challenge - chocolate valentino cake

Ah, February, the month of love. And the Daring Bakers rose to the occasion, with hosts Wendy and Dharm nominating a decadent flourless chocolate valentino cake as our project.

The valentino cake, inspired by Malaysia’s “most flamboyant food ambassador”, Chef Wan, comes from his book Sweet Treats. It is a simple composition of three ingredients: chocolate, butter and eggs. Part of the wondrous chemistry of cooking is that these three ingredients can be transformed, through melting, mixing and baking, into a dense, fudgy cake with a similar texture to a brownie. The finished cake tastes exactly like the chocolate that you use, so it is wise to use the best-quality chocolate (and indeed the other ingredients) that you can afford.

To make the cake, melt together 450g of chocolate and 150g of butter. Separate five eggs; add the egg yolks to the chocolate mix, then beat the egg whites to peaks and fold into the chocolate batter, pour into a tin and bake. The recipe called for the cake to be baked at 190 degrees for about 25 minutes but my cake took about 35 minutes. It is not a particularly attractive cake when unmoulded, with a cracked, misshapen top, but this is one cake where the attraction is in the taste, not the looks. I used dark Belgium chocolate for the cake, as I love its deep, rich, bittersweet tones.

Wendy and Dharm gave us the option of making vanilla ice-cream to their recipes, or choosing a recipe of our own. I elected to make coffee ice-cream, as coffee and dark chocolate is one of my favourite combinations. I made a basic custard, whisking egg yolks, caster sugar and a smidgen of cornflour together, before adding scalded milk and stirring over heat until thick. I made a cup of strong espresso coffee which I cooled and added to the custard. Once chilled, I added thick cream and churned it all in my ice-cream machine.

We don't really do anything special for Valentine's Day, but it is Adam's birthday a few days later, so I made this for the family gathering. The cake and ice-cream both received a rapturous reception. A heart-shaped tin is required to make a "proper" valentino cake but I don't own one, so made this cake in a round cake tin and served it in small wedges with a scoop of coffee ice-cream to the side. The cake was very rich and the coffee ice-cream provided a perfect foil. This is a rich dessert cake that requires an accompaniment; it is too rich and dark for afternoon tea, or to have on its own. The original recipe suggested serving the cake with whipped cream but this would be too insipid for my liking; I think it needs a strong, but complementary, flavour to match its assertive tones.

I really liked this cake and it is a simple, but impressive, dessert. The only drawback is the expense of the cake, as it requires a lot of chocolate. But it is worth splashing out if you want a grand chocolate finale to your dinner party. Thanks to Wendy and Dharm for this fun challenge!

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

A special chocolate treat

My parents have just returned from a month's holiday in wintry England. It was certainly a shock to their system to return from 3 degrees in Manchester to Melbourne's summer temperatures of almost 40 degrees. To me, one of the most interesting parts of travel is sampling different food and drink overseas, particularly local delicacies, so I was eager to hear about their experiences. Mum and dad also spent a week in Belgium, so their gifts included some boxes and blocks of gorgeous Belgian chocolate. Mum brought home some special chocolate blocks to try in cooking and she also brought home another special treat: a bag of cacao nibs.

Cacao nibs are an unusual cooking item that I only recently discovered through reading Clotildé's wonderful Chocolate and Zucchini blog. Mum had discussed the use of cacao nibs with the chocolate shop proprietor, who recommended that she use them in chocolate cake to add some extra crunch.

Long ago, I bookmarked a chocolate biscuit recipe from Clotilde that used cacao nibs. Having not yet discovered a stockist for cacao nibs, the recipe had languished among my "recipes that I must try as soon as I purchase unusual ingredient" pile. So when Mum produced the bag of cacao nibs, I whipped out the recipe and proceeded to bake a batch of these velvety, dense chocolate biscuits. The triple hit of chocolate - from melted chocolate, cocoa powder and the cacao nibs - make these a true chocoholics delight. Although these biscuits would still be a winner even if the nibs were omitted, the aromatic crunch from the nibs elevate these biscuits above your everyday chocolatey snack and I highly recommend seeking out cacao nibs, if possible, to make these biscuits.

CLOTILDE'S BISCUITS CHOCOLAT ET FEVES DE CACAO

120g good quality bittersweet chocolate
110g unsalted butter
3 eggs, lightly beaten
100g brown sugar
120g all-purpose flour
90g unsweetened cocoa powder*
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel (substitute 1/4 teaspoon regular salt)
4 tablespoons cacao nibs

Melt together 90g of the chocolate and all of the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Transfer into a large mixing-bowl and let cool for ten minutes. In the meantime, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder and set aside. Finely chop the reserved chocolate, and set aside.

Whisk the eggs into the cooled melted chocolate. Add in the sugar and mix again. Sift in the flour mixture, and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined. The batter will be thick. Fold in the chopped chocolate, cacao nibs and fleur de sel.

Preheat the oven to 180° C (350° F) and line a baking tray with non-stick paper.

For bite-sized morsels, scoop out rounded teaspoons of batter, shape them into balls with the tips of your fingers, and line them up on the baking tray. Use about one dessertspoonful of batter if you prefer larger biscuits. Make sure you leave space between the biscuits for spreading. Put the baking tray in the refrigerator for 10 minutes (if the sheet and batter are cold, the biscuits are less likely to spread), then bake for eight to ten minutes, until the tops feel just dry to the touch. Don't overbake, or they won't be as moist inside.

* Clotilde added an update to her original recipe stating that some bakers found this amount to be too much, resulting in cookies more bitter than they like. You can use less cocoa (about 60g) if you prefer. Make up for the difference in flour.

This recipe appeared on the Chocolate and Zucchini website on 13 February 2006.

Cocoa Farm shiraz chocolates

I find the rich, sensual taste of chocolate hard to match with wine. It tends to pair beautifully with the honeyed richness of Rutherglen tokays, muscats and ports and I've been to several Melbourne Food and Wine Festival events where we sampled a range of chocolates matched with these Rutherglen wines, with some interesting combinations.

But I've tended to steer clear of matching chocolate with other wines. Now, however, I've discovered that the peppery flavours of shiraz can match wonderfully well with smooth dark chocolate - and it can happen without the need for separate glasses and plates.

Farm By Nature is a Melbourne-based chocolate company that makes the Cocoa Farm brand. I've discovered their range of Wine Chocolate: milk and dark chocolate combined with raisins that have been infused with shiraz, pinot noir or merlot. The latest release is shiraz wine chocolate barrel gift boxes. Cutely shaped like a wine barrel, the individually-wrapped chocolates are studded with plump raisins and have a distinctive peppery shiraz aroma. The first mouthful yields strong peppery notes on the palate, followed by a smooth wine aftertaste mixed with satisfyingly rich, but not cloying, dark chocolate. The aftertaste is long and you could almost believe that you had just had a sip of shiraz. I found it impossible to stop at just one chocolate and had to hide the box to ensure Adam didn't polish them all off. I hope Santa brings me some more of these in my Christmas stocking!

For stockists, see www.farmbynature.com.au

Daring Bakers - chocolate eclairs

Chocolate eclairs are one of my favourite cakes. Recently recipes seem to be appearing everywhere for choux pastry, which is the foundation of chocolate eclairs and its more glamorous cousin, profiteroles. I was getting ready to make a batch of eclairs when the August challenge for Daring Bakers was posted - and it was for chocolate eclairs! Excellent timing.

Hosts Tony Tahhan and MeetaK chose their recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme. This recipe departed from traditional eclairs in that the eclairs were filled with chocolate pastry cream and iced with a rich chocolate glaze. We were allowed to modify the original recipe as long as we maintained one chocolate element, so I chose to fill my eclairs with whipped vanilla-flavoured cream and iced with the chocolate glaze, as this is the more traditional eclair that I like. However, I will make this recipe again and next time I will go all out and make the full chocolate version!

Choux pastry is an easy and forgiving pastry to make, with no kneading or resting time required. Butter, water and milk is brought to a boil in a saucepan, then a cup of plain flour is added all at once and the mixture stirred until it is soft and smooth. This dough is removed from the heat and several eggs beaten in until the dough is silky and shiny and can be piped into eclair shapes and baked. I don't have a very good piping bag set (it's on my list of kitchen gadgets to buy), so this limited my eclairs a little. The recipe called for a 20mm plain nozzle but I had one that was much smaller than that, so I piped three strips together to make the required size. This was not hugely successful, as the pastry did not rise as much as it should have, but I thought it was better than trying to spoon it on the tray. I noticed that this recipe, unlike my other choux pastry recipes, did not call for a slit to be made in the side of the eclairs once they were baked and removed from the oven. I think this is a step that I will include next time, as my gorgeously golden, puffed eclairs deflated not long after coming out of the oven. I've found that slitting the side helps the air inside the eclair to escape and prevents the deflating.

Although the eclairs did not look the best, the pastry had a nice flavour and I was able to puff up my eclairs with lots of whipped cream, finished off by the chocolate glaze on top. The eclairs were well received by my tasting group and this is a recipe I would definitely make again. Well done to this month's hosts for an easy but fun recipe that did not take half a day to put together!

From the larder...

We will soon be moving house and I'm finding that packing up can be a great inspiration for cooking, as well as a good chance to rationalise kitchen equipment. As I go through cupboards, I'm revealing all sorts of pots, pans, dishes and platters, some of which have been pushed to the back of the cupboard and forgotten about. Who knew I had so many white platters? Most of them have been gifts but do I really need so many? I'm also finding bowls of varying sizes and casserole dishes and hope that more of these can be put to good use once I have decent storage space in our new home.

It's also a good chance to go through the pantry and refresh stocks of spices and other baking items, and use up half-used jars and bags. I discovered half-empty packets of walnuts and chocolate chips in the pantry this week and they provided the inspiration to make some chocolate espresso biscuits, the perfect dense, fudgy snack to have in the house when you feel like a chocolate treat. I used what I had on hand and what I felt like eating so feel free to play around with this recipe and omit the coffee and walnuts, or substitute other nuts, so that the biscuits suit your tastes.

CHOCOLATE ESPRESSO BISCUITS

250 butter, softened
1 Tb instant coffee powder, dissolved in 2 Tb boiling water
1 cup (tightly packed) brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa, preferably Dutch-process
250g chocolate chips
100g walnuts, chopped roughly

Beat the butter until as white as possible. Add the coffee mixture, then mix in the brown sugar until creamy. Add eggs one at a time and beat until smooth. Sift together the flour, baking powder and cocoa and add to the butter mixture. Stir through the choc chips and walnuts. Roll dessertspoonfuls of mixture together and place onto baking paper-lined trays, flattening slightly with a fork. Bake at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes. You want the biscuits to still be a little soft and fudgy, as they will firm up while cooling. Cool on a wire rack. Makes 36.

Magazine inspiration

I love it when I arrive home from work and the latest issue of a food magazine has arrived in the mail that day. I especially love it in winter, when the cover usually features a mouthwatering photograph of a luscious pudding or a rich winter stew. I love to tuck myself away with a hot drink and spend a good hour or two reading through the magazine, noting the latest recipes and decorating the pages with sticky-notes marking all the dishes I want to try.

The winter issue of Donna Hay Magazine has just arrived. The chocolate and oat s'mores on the front cover are just a small snippet of a great issue. I thought some of the recent DHM issues had got a little uninspiring but the last two issues have been absolute crackers and I've wanted to make nearly everything featured. After flicking through the magazine, I'm already planning to make celeriac roulade and celeriac and potato soup, spinach macaroni cheese, beef, tomato and mushroom pot pies, lamb and garlic meatballs that can be used on pizzas, in soup or mixed in with herbed couscous, roast meats, hot cheese toasties and chips out of all sorts of vegetables.

Inspiration strikes as soon as I reach page 78, which features self-saucing chocolate puddings. My favourite chocolate pudding recipe is my grandmother's recipe but it takes 45 minutes in the oven, whereas these individual puddings take just 15 minutes. Before I can even think "mmm, chocolate pudding", I've already pulled out the bowl and am mixing together the ingredients for the puddings. In less than half an hour, my craving for chocolate and a hot pudding is satisfied. I'm looking forward to more inspiration from DHM this month!

SELF-SAUCING CHOCOLATE PUDDINGS

75g plain flour
1 1/2 tablespoons hazelnut meal
45g brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 1/2 tablespoons coca, sifted
125ml milk
35g butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
90g brown sugar, extra
250ml boiling water

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Sift the flour, hazelnut meal, sugar, baking powder and 2 tablespoons of coca into a bowl. Add the milk, melted butter, egg and vanilla and mix well to combine. Spoon into 4 x 1-cup capacity oven-proof dishes and place on a baking tray. Mix the extra sugar and cocoa into a bowl and sprinkle over the puddings, then pour over the boiling water. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the tops are firm.

From Donna Hay Magazine, issue 39, Jun/Jul 2008.

Too many recipes

At what point does collecting recipes cross from a passion or hobby to an obsession? I have drawers overflowing with recipe clippings, hand-written recipes stashed everywhere, and copies of old food magazines taking over my cupboards and yet I still collect. Not a week goes by without at least one recipe being saved from Epicure, Good Weekend or the Sunday Life magazine (or all three!) Then there's a new edition each month of Gourmet Traveller, Delicious and Donna Hay magazine to drool over. The Internet means I can collect recipes from The Times and Guardian websites in the UK and I recently discovered the excellent Cuisine magazine from New Zealand, which has a wonderful online archive.

I've tried all sorts of systems over the years to try and keep my recipes in order and easily accessible: pasting into a scrapbook, filing into plastic pockets in a folder, and sorting into filing folders according to food type. I commandeered two drawers in our large filing cabinet and embarked on filing in earnest but quickly grew tired of the project and dumped the lot, mostly unfiled, into one drawer. Currently I'm stashing away recipes in a large filing box from Ikea with no filing system whatsoever.

I'm not alone in this passion to collect recipes. Ivonne from Cream Puffs in Venice blogged about how she was always collecting recipes to make in the future. The crunch point came when she discovered a large stack of food magazines and recipes that she'd stored in her cupboard a year earlier and forgotten about.

"Why do I keep all these magazines? And why do I have all these loose bits of paper with recipes printed on them flying around my house? What is this all about?" Ivonne asked. "As I sifted through the endless pile, I kept thinking to myself that I couldn’t possibly throw this recipe out or recycle that magazine. This is the 2002 issue of so-and-so that has that perfect recipe for watchamacallit that when I finally get around to making it will be the best thing ever."

Ivonne is a far braver woman than me because, confronted with this massive pile of clippings, she did something I can't bring myself to do: she dumped the lot. She farewelled years of recipes without a backward glance and did not regret it.

While I agree with Ivonne's sentiments, I can't bring myself to throw out recipes. I always hope that I'll get around to making them, even though I know that I could spend the rest of my life doing nothing but cooking and still not make them all. I have managed to stop myself collecting some types of recipes - after all, how many lemon delicious, lemon tart and chocolate mousse recipes can you have? Looking at the several versions I have, I see that all use the same ingredients but only the proportions differ. (The same can also be said of chocolate cake but that is one recipe I can never stop myself from collecting, no matter how many I have!)

Ivonne concluded: "It finally occurred to me that the best chocolate cake I will ever make is the one that I actually make. The imagination is delicious, but reality is even more so. It occurred to me that it was time to squelch the insecure little baker in me that keeps telling me I can bake a better this or a better that and just get down to the act of baking."

It's not an insecure baker that keeps me collecting recipes - it's an addict who wants to keep trying new and different dishes and flavours. I'm not on a quest for better recipes; I just like to experiment. I have a treasured collection of family favourites that I make frequently and these are supplemented with new recipes that I collect. How else would my repertoire expand?

But Ivonne is right - we just need to bake. She has come up with the concept of "Magazine Mondays", where each week she makes a conscious effort to get in the kitchen and actually cook all the recipes she's bookmarked. It's a great idea and I might try and do something similar myself. In the meantime, here is a family favourite recipe that is regularly made: my sister's easy melt and mix chocolate cake that she makes every year for family birthdays. It is a never-fail cake and always disappears quickly.

FELICITY'S EASY MELT AND MIX CHOCOLATE CAKE

1 1/2 cups SR flour
1 cup caster sugar
60g butter
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/4 cup boiling water
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk

Mix cocoa and boiling water together.

Sift flour into a bowl and add sugar. Melt butter and mix in, along with egg, vanilla extract and milk. Lastly mix in cocoa mixture.

Bake at 180 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Ice with chocolate icing or vienna cream.

To make vienna cream, beat 125g butter in an electric mixer until as white as possible. Sift together 1 1/2 cups icing sugar with 2 tablespoons cocoa. Gradually add half this mixture. Beating constantly, add 2 tablespoons milk gradually, then beat in remaining icing sugar mixture. Vienna cream should be smooth and easy to spread.

Celebrating chocolate week

According to English newspaper The Guardian, October 15-21 is Chocolate Week. What a great thing to celebrate! Chocolate recipes are by far my favourite and, out of the thousands of recipes I've collected over the years, the chocolate file is the largest. No matter how many chocolate cake or biscuit recipes I have, I can never resist collecting a new one. They essentially all use the same ingredients but there's always a new twist that entices me to try it - perhaps some coffee granules added to a choc-chip biscuit recipe, or a white chocolate fondant centre in gooey chocolate puddings.

What else is there to say about chocolate that hasn't been written before? We all know its wonderful properties and how a piece of moist chocolate cake can fix almost anything in the world. Whether you choose to whip up a basic cake on a whim, a more grand affair that requires a long list of ingredients and concentration in the kitchen, or some choc-chip biscuits to share with friends, there's always a chocolate recipe available to satisfy.

I've noticed recently that most chocolate recipes call for the "best quality chocolate you can afford", usually meaning expensive Vahlrona or Callebaut chocolate. I have no doubt that in some recipes you may notice the difference if cheap chocolate is used but I also think that this is another example of food snobbery, something that seems to be creeping in more and more to modern recipes. There's been quite a few occasions when I've gone to the trouble and effort of sourcing difficult and expensive ingredients only to end up disappointed with the final result. The recipe works, the end result is fine and yet there's a feeling of flatness, that the end did not justify the means. But that's another article all together!

I'm a sucker for any food recipe that has a chocolate picture on the front cover. It doesn't matter if I've already got 10 versions of the recipe; I have to add this one as well. Clearly I'm not the only one who feels this way, judging by how often chocolate will appear on a front cover.

Chocolate is indulgent and chocolate is fun. You can get a mini-hit through a choc-chip biscuit or a major overdose through a decadent dessert. It's not something to scoff but to savour. A French chocolatier once told me that you should eat a little bit of chocolate every day and that you should make it the best piece of chocolate you can afford (there's that phrase again!) so that you can savour it and then feel satisfied. My preference is for dark chocolate and I find that I am satisfied after a couple of small squares, whereas a chocolate bar leaves me feeling like I've had too much.

In Melbourne, we are spoiled for choice with our chocolate shops: Koko Black in Royal Arcade, Haighs Chocolate shops around the city, Cacao in Fitzroy St, St Kilda, Fraus in Victoria St, North Melbourne for wickedly rich hot chocolate, and chocolate afternoon teas at the Sofitel are just some of the treats on offer.

To celebrate Chocolate Week, here's a recipe for Choc-Nut Biscuits that I made up. It's an easy and fast recipe and will satisfy any mid-afternoon craving for chocolate.

CHOC-NUT BISCUITS

125 g butter
125g white sugar
125g brown sugar
250g self-raising flour
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150g chocolate chips
100g chopped nuts (your choice - I find walnuts or blanched almonds are good)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs and vanilla, then stir in the sifted flour. Add the choc chips and the nuts, mixing well.

Put spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking trays (it may be quite sticky, so shape as best you can), and allow plenty of room for spreading. Bake for about 10 minutes or until golden. Cool on the tray for about five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Browniebabe of the month

Foodbloggers are a generous and inspiring bunch. There's always plenty of new recipes featured on blogs to try and people are quick and generous with their tips and advice on how to fix recipes that didn't work, how to source hard-to-find ingredients and how to use up excess ingredients.

Another fun aspect is the number of baking events people host. There's both regular and one-off events for people to contribute to. I always intend to enter these events but somehow the time gets away and I miss the closing date.

This time I'm more organised and am entering the Browniebabe of the Month event, hosted by Once Upon A Tart. What could be more inspiring than a collection of brownie recipes, hopefully crammed full of chocolate and nuts?

My mother-in-law was recently experimenting in the kitchen and came up with these nut brownies. She gave us a plate to take home and we almost said no, foolishly thinking we should be cutting down on sweet food. Luckily she pressed us, so we took home the plate and tried them the next day. We were hooked and scoffed the whole lot. These brownies are wickedly rich and densely chocolatey, with a thick chocolate icing, and a nice crunch of nuts throughout. They're also great heated and served with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. Make these brownies when you're in a decadent mood.

NUT BROWNIES

200g (7 oz) dark chocolate, chopped
175g (6 oz) unsalted butter
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 eggs
230g (i cup) soft brown sugar
1/3 cup plain flour
1/2 cup slivered almonds
100g extra dark chocolate, chopped
Icing
200g dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup icing sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Lightly grease a 20cm square tin and line with baking paper (overlap the sides). Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk the eggs and sugar for five minutes, until pale and thick. Fold in cooled chocolate and butter, then the sifted flour and cocoa. Fold in the nuts and extra chocolate. Pour into the tin and smooth the top. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until firm. Cool.

To make the icing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and then cool slightly. Add the sour cream and sifted icing sugar. Mix well. Spread over the brownie, smooth the top and sprinkle over some slivered almonds. Leave to set, then cut into squares. Store in an airtight container.

Hot pudding for a cold night

As the days have turned colder and darker, I've started dreaming of puddings: hot steamed puddings, studded with dried fruit, flavoured with chocolate or ginger or topped with hot jam, treacle or golden syrup, and served smothered in custard or chocolate sauce or dolloped with thick cream.

I have two classic recipes from my grandmother, one for golden syrup dumplings and one for a self-saucing chocolate pudding, both of which have been eaten on many a winter's night in my family. The chocolate pudding is always a hit, whether it is dressed up with whipped cream for a dinner party or served with a scoop of ice-cream after a casual Sunday night meal of soup. It tastes good hot or cold and reheats well.

Despite my love of chocolate, I've had golden syrup steamed pudding on my mind recently. But when Adam called at 6pm to say he was on his way home from work and would pick up some cream to have with dessert (hint hint...), there was no time to make a steamed pudding, which requires at least an hour-and-a-half steaming time, or even my grandmother's chocolate self-saucing pudding, which needs 45 minutes in the oven. There wasn't even time to consult my recipe books and drool over potential options.

Fortunately I've recently reorganised my large collection of food magazines into seasons, rather than by calendar month, so I went to the winter section and pulled out a copy of Delicious magazine that had hot brownie puddings on the front cover. Amazingly, there was a block of dark chocolate in the pantry that Adam hadn't found and devoured, and the puddings took only 25 minutes to cook. It was a winner!

Delicious magazine food writer Valli Little served these puddings with chocolate leaves and a sauce made from white chocolate and cream. Although I think they add a lovely touch, especially for the photos, I didn't have the ingredients or the time to make these and served the puddings with just a dollop of whipped cream, which worked well. The combination of melted chocolate and cocoa gives these puddings a rich, fudgy flavour that is even better when reheated the next night.

CHOCOLATE BROWNIE PUDDINGS

120g dark chocolate
125g butter
4 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
1 tablespoon liqueur (such as frangelico or amaretto, although brandy also works well)
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Place the chocolate and butter in a heat-proof bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until melted, then take off heat and set aside.

Beat the eggs until creamy, then beat in the sugar until the mixture is thick. Beat in the chocolate mixture and the liqueur. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa together and fold into the mixture.

Grease four large ramekins and divide the mixture between the ramekins. Bake for about 25 minutes (be careful not to overlook, as there should be a slight squidginess in the centre). Run a knife around the edge and tip out into a bowl. Serve with cream, ice-cream or thick chocolate sauce.

Adapted from a recipe by Valli Little in Delicious magazine, August 2005

Friday morning tea - chocolate cake

There can never be too much chocolate cake in the world. It suits all occasions, whether dusted with icing sugar for a sweet snack, dressed up with chocolate icing for morning tea or served with a dollop of thick cream for dinner party guests. It can be flavoured with cocoa or melted chocolate, adorned with nuts or raisins, sexed up with liqueur or espresso, served with a basic butter icing or dripping in the thickest ganache. It's no wonder I have hundreds of chocolate cake recipes in my files and plan on making them all at least once in my quest for the perfect chocolate cake.

I'm not sure if there is such a thing as the perfect chocolate cake or one that is perfect for each occasion. The rich, dense, flourless chocolate cake you serve as a dinner party dessert is not necessarily what you want to eat with your morning coffee. (But a slice for breakfast is an entirely different matter...)

This milk chocolate cake by Jill Dupleix comes pretty close to being perfect. As long as you can resist the temptation of letting chocolate sit in your pantry, you will have all the ingredients on hand and can whip it up in no time. This version uses milk chocolate but I've successfully made it with dark chocolate and it is just as moreish.

MILK CHOCOLATE CAKE

170g good-quality milk chocolate (such as Lindt)
150g butter
4 eggs, beaten
150g sugar
150g plain flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. Butter and line a 25cm square cake tin with non-stick baking paper. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl sitting over a saucepan of simmering water. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until they are pale, thick and creamy. Add the sifted flour and baking powder and stir well. Lightly mix in the chocolate mixture. Spoon into the cake tin and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Cool and turn out. Dust with icing sugar or bitter cocoa powder before serving.

Happy birthday to Sacher torte

One of the world's most famous cakes, the Sacher torte, has just celebrated its 175th birthday. (If you think that an inanimate object can't celebrate a birthday, let me tell you that there was a party for the cake on 12 April at Hotel Sacher in Vienna, and that it included a serenade by an opera star!)

Sacher torte is two layers of a dry, dense chocolate cake, sandwiched together with apricot jam and enrobed in dark chocolate. It was invented by Franz Sacher in 1832 and the trademark registered by the Hotel Sacher, which keeps the original recipe locked in its safe.

I first encountered Sacher torte when I was 15 and my family travelled around Europe and the UK for three months. While in Vienna, Dad refused to pay the outrageous tourist prices at the Hotel Sacher, so we missed our opportunity to taste the cake at its place of origin. But a week or two later, my sister celebrated her 12th birthday in Lucerne, Switzerland. We ate dinner at a restaurant with a beautifully decorated and frescoed front and the birthday cake was a Sacher torte, bought from a bakery earlier in the day, and brought out by the restaurant staff decorated with sparklers. I remember it as deliciously rich cake, with small slices being enough to satisfy.

Dad was right about the tourist prices at Hotel Sacher. About 15 years later, when my sister and I were visiting Vienna again, we paid 12 euros for a slice of Sacher torte and two hot chocolates. We enjoyed it but I'm not sure any chocolate cake is worth the equivalent price of a Cheap Eats meal in Melbourne!

Although the original recipe is a closely guarded secret, plenty of chefs have produced their own versions, and it is an easy cake to make at home. I use Jill Dupleix's version. It makes for an indulgent afternoon tea or a glamourous dinner party dessert.

SACHER TORTE

150g plain flour
50g bitter cocoa powder
6 eggs (60g each)
180g sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
150g apricot jam
100g good-quality chocolate
100g butter, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Butter a 23cm diameter springform cake tin.

Sift the flour and cocoa into a bowl and set aside.

Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks and sugar until so thick and creamy that it forms ribbons when you lift the beaters. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Beat the egg whites in a separate, clean, dry bowl until stiff and peaky. Gently fold a little of the egg white into the egg yolk mixture to lighten it, then fold in the remaining egg whites.

Gently fold the sifted flour and cocoa into the mixture, adding two tablespoons at a time. Transfer the quite thick mixture into the cake tin and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool completely.

To assemble, cut the cake into two equal rounds. Place the base on a wire rack over a baking tray. (If the top has risen considerably, cut off the domed part to level the top). Warm the apricot jam in a small saucepan and spread a thin layer on top of the bottom half and its sides. Replace the top half and spread the top and sides with jam (you might not use it all).

Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until glossy and smooth, then set aside for a couple of minutes. Pour the icing over the top of the cake and sides, smoothing sides with a hot palette knife if necessary.

Allow to cool, then set hard in the fridge for an hour or two before serving.

Sacher torte is traditionally accompanied by whipped cream.

Friday morning tea - chocolate beetroot cake

Among my thousands of recipes, I must have at least one hundred recipes for chocolate cake. Although they are probably all variations on a theme (after all, most of the cakes consist of varying quantities of flour, milk, butter, eggs and cocoa or chocolate), I persist in collecting them and aim to try them all at least once (yes, I do realise this will probably be a life-time commitment!)

Recently, Cindy from Where's the Beef tagged me to participate in a vegetable meme. In it, I was asked if there was a vegetable that I hated as a child but loved as I got older. My response was beetroot and in my answer I mentioned that I had once made a chocolate beetroot cake. Cindy was keen for the recipe, so I share it with you today for Friday morning tea. The recipe came from Jill Dupleix, who seems to love chocolate cakes as much as I do. The cooked cake is a slightly weird burgundy colour but the cake has a lovely moist texture.

CHOCOLATE BEETROOT CAKE

50g bitter cocoa
180g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
250g caster sugar
300g cooked fresh beetroot
3 eggs
200ml corn oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Butter and flour an 18cm round or square cake tin.

Sift the cocoa, flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Mix in the caster sugar and set aside.

Puree the beetroot in a food processor. Add the eggs, one at a time, then add the corn oil and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the beetroot mixture into the well. Lightly mix, using a rubber spatula, and pour into the prepared tin. Bake for about 40 minutes (or until a skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean). The cake won't rise a great deal and the top may crack a bit but it won't affect the flavour. Allow to cool a little before removing from the tin, then leave to cool completely on a wire rack. To serve, dust with icing sugar or cocoa.

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival - sweet & sticky

Most people with a passing interest in gourmet matters know the basics of matching food and wine. While many of the old rules (white wine with fish, red wine with red meat) are no longer set in stone, and many of us have developed our own personal favourite matches, it's very easy to learn the basic rules, as there's so much information available.

Matching food with fortified wine is a less explored topic and something that the Sweet & Sticky event at the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival aims to change. It's a thoroughly indulgent event - fine chocolates matched with some of Australia's best fortifieds - and all for the bargain price of $22.

This event was first held several years ago, when Buller Wines were matched with Cacao chocolates and I've eagerly scanned the festival program each year since, waiting for it to make a return appearance. Thankfully this year it did and the Buller Wines were this time matched with Fardoulis chocolates from Sydney.

Buller Wines were founded in 1921 and have cellar doors at Rutherglen and Beverford. The Rutherglen region is world-famous for its wonderful fortified wines, particularly its muscats and tokays, and Buller Wines rank very highly.

"For a long time now, table wine has taken the spotlight and fortified wines have been overlooked [in terms of matching with food]," winemaker Richard Buller told the guests at Sweet & Sticky.

"There is a taste sensation with fortified wines and chocolate. It lends itself to an interesting combination of flavours and characters and, if you think outside the square, then you get some wonderful pairings."

We tasted seven wines, each matched with a chocolate: fine old malmsey (honey macadamia), fine old liqueur tawny (cherry cream), fine old tawny (fig), fine old tokay (orange macadamia), fine old muscat (ginger), calliope rare tokay (strawberry macadamia), and calliope rare muscat (lemoncello).

Some of the pairings were more successful than others (although, as the night went on, the palate became tired and overloaded and this could have something to do with it!) The fine old malmsey was my least favourite wine at the last tasting but, this time around, I really enjoyed it and it matched superbly with the honey macadamia chocolate. The chocolate picked up the honey flavours in the malmsey and the macadamia also shone through strongly.

The fine old liqueur tawny had a luscious cherry syrup flavour, with some caramel and blackcurrant flavours, and the subtle flavour of the cherry cream chocolate complemented the wine perfectly.

The rich, spicy fruit flavours of the fine old tawny married wonderfully with the fig chocolate - its flavour practically exploded in my mouth and softened the alcoholic taste of the wine.

Less successful was the pairing of fine old tokay with orange macadamia. The fine old tokay is a deliciously smooth wine, with toffee, malt and caramel sweetness, plus a hint of butterscotch. These flavours were completely overpowered by the dominant sweet orange flavour, which also masked the macadamia.

My favourite of these wines is the fine old muscat, which has strong raisin flavours, and it combined well with the ginger chocolate.

The two calliope fortifieds are magnificent wines. Influential wine critic Robert Parker has apparently rated both these wines 100/100, which is a great coup for Buller Wines but has unfortunate consequences (for consumers anyway) for the price. (We're kicking ourselves for not buying bottles at the last tasting, which were then about $60 - now they are more than $200). These wines are so good that they stand on their own and almost don't need the distraction of matching food. Robert Parker describes the Calliope Rare Tokay as boasting "colossal aromatics and flavours of melted caramels, coffee, toffee, candied fruits marinated in Cognac, magnificent richness and a huge finish that last over 70 seconds". He is equally glowing in describing the Calliope Rare Muscat: "...an intoxicating fragrance that includes scents of prunes, figs, maple syrup, molasses, and gobs of fruit. The glycerine is extraordinary, the acid level provides freshness and definition, and the finish lasts over a minute."

Only exceptional vintages are used in these wines and limited quantities are bottled each year. The muscat uses old material that dates back more than 35 years. It is an experience and a joy to taste both these wines but unfortunately the chocolate matches did not do them justice. The strawberry macadamia is cloyingly sweet, with the strawberry overpowering both the wine and the macadamia flavour. The lemoncello is more successful. It has a zesty lemon flavour that keeps on coming. At first taste, it appears too much but, after several more nibbles, it ended up being a reasonable match with the wine.

Sweet & Sticky was a wonderful night and I highly recommend attending if this event is held during a future festival. Although I think the wines were more successfully matched with the Cacao chocolates at the last tasting, it was still an enjoyable mix and we learnt a lot about how to taste both fortified wine and chocolate and about the skills involved in successful matching.

Buller Wines
Three Chain Road, Rutherglen
Ph: (02) 6032 9660

Fardoulis Chocolates
105-107 Prines Hwy, Kogarah, NSW
Ph: (02) 9553 9552
Melbourne distributor: (03) 9887 0329

Nostalgia

Cooking is part of the rhythm of life. So many of our celebrations and social occasions are tied up or celebrated with food: birthdays, weddings, dinner parties, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day and Father's Day. There are special food rituals and traditions associated with these events, some indulgent (such as birthday cake, Christmas pudding, wedding feasts) and others not (the giving up of something during Lent).

Many of our memories are tied in with food. A smell or a taste may evoke a memory of your grandmother, a special ritual from childhood or a meal eaten on an overseas holiday. Marcel Proust wrote most famously about this association of food with involuntary memory, which the narrator experiences upon tasting a madeleine with a cup of tea in Remembrance of Things Past.

Kitchen Wench has invited fellow food bloggers to write about the sense of nostalgia certain recipes inspire in you. It's easy to think of food memories but difficult to narrow it down to a defining memory. From my childhood are memories of delicious roasts every Sunday lunch, the smell of basting meat permeating the house all morning; steamed ginger pudding smothered in thick custard for lunch at my great-aunt's house; hot scones fresh from the oven at the CWA stand at the Royal Melbourne Show; and spaghetti bolognaise with an untraditional but delicious cheesy crust that we always had when mum and dad went out for dinner and left us with a babysitter. Once my mum's American friend Debbie came to stay and brought a box of beignet mix from New Orleans. We mixed it up, deep-fried the beignets and served them with coffee and chicory mix and felt quite the sophisticates!

Or memories from my overseas travels - the delicious midnight supper of oysters, baguettes, pate, cheese and white wine that Adam and I shared on our first night in Paris; the creamy seafood chowder that we ate in a little windswept seaside restaurant in northern Ireland; impossibly rich and thick hot chocolate and cakes at a cafe in Krakow.

When I think of all these special memories, I can picture the scene and practically taste the food again. But the recipe I've chosen as my entry in Kitchen Wench's nostalgia event is one of the simplest: chocolate rough slice. I don't know where the recipe came from but mum has made this slice all my life. It was there as an afternoon snack after school or a morning tea treat on weekends. When ladies were requested to "bring a plate please" for the supper after our school concert, mum always took this slice. She made it in big batches and put it in the freezer before shearing season, when the team of shearers would woof down the slice, coconut biscuits and cups of tea at morning tea and still front up for a two-course lunch a few hours later. This slice has been part of our family for so long that it was only recently that I realised that I didn't actually have a copy of mum's recipe, as we always rely on her to make it. I have finally persuaded mum to commit the recipe to paper and now I share it with you.

This slice is also my entry for this week's Friday Morning Tea.

CHOCOLATE ROUGH SLICE

I always make a double batch of this slice, to use up the tin of condensed milk. It keeps well and also freezes well.

125 g butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon golden syrup
3/4 cup coconut
1 cup SR flour

Grease and line a slice tin with non-stick baking paper. Cream butter and sugar, add golden syrup and coconut, then flour. Bake in a moderate oven (180 degrees) for 10 to 15 minutes (don't let it brown). Cool slightly and add topping.

Topping

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon cocoa
½ can condensed milk
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup coconut
½ teaspoon vanilla

Melt butter and warm condensed milk over gentle heat. Add vanilla and sifted cocoa and stir well. Add icing sugar and coconut. Spread over cooled slice.