Gateau au Chocolat

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” 
[Charles M. Schulz]

A new, rich recipe with lots and lots of chocolate, chocolate sprinkles, cacao, Lindt Lindor chocolate, cream, coffee and rum.

DISCLAIMER> If you don’t wanna read the intro, you may scroll down to CHAPTER I

I was sitting in a Otorhinolaryngologist’s waiting room to finally do something about my nosebleeds. While I was sitting and waiting, I flipped through one of those women’s magazines and found a very rich and dense looking chocolate cream cake recipe, snatched a picture and decided to give it a try. One of my work colleagues is a big fan of anything that involves cake and chocolate and this seemed like made for him. Being a culinary half-blood prince, I of course did not stick to the recipe but made a few adjustments here and there and as usual ignored precise quantities. The numbers in my recipe down there are therefore in between the original recipe and rough estimations of how much I used.

In order to make this gluttony in cake reality, you need patience, time and follow the following steps:

CHAPTER I. The Cake Base.

Preheat the oven to 180°C ( ≈  356 Fahrenheit) on upper & lower heat. Whisk 3 eggyolks with 50g white sugar. Whisk 3 tbsp cocao powder and another 50g white sugar into it. In a separate bowl, beat 3 egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. Carefully fold in the cocoa mixture. Blend 100g plain flour with 2 tsp baking powder and 2 tbsp instant coffee and slowly stir this, too, into the batter.

Take a baking tray, put some baking paper on it and spread the batter circularly so it covers at least the diameter of a cake ring (which we will be using later anyway, so just keep it nearby). Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes and let it rest. Once it’s cooled down, take aforementioned cake ring and cut out a perfectly round cake base. Leave the cake ring attached. Nibble on the leftovers cause that’s what baking is all about, anyway.

CHAPTER II. The Chocolate Mousse

Aka the best, richest and the most chocolaty step. Heat 250g dark bitter chocolate and 100g milk chocolate in a bain-marie – and OMG, what a noble expression, so French cuisine and nothing like the plain “water bath”. Clever people break the chocolate bar into pieces BEFORE opening the package. Now if you feel really fancy, chop up some Lindt Lindor dark bitter chocolate balls and add them to the melting pot.

While melting away, whisk 2 egg yolks, 2 eggs, 50g white sugar and 8 tbsp rum. Add the melted chocolate and 125g Quark (I think it’s curd cheese in English? I remember it was super difficult to get it in the UK. If all else fails, Greek yoghurt could work as a substitute but it’ll make it even denser and richer. You have been warned.). Add 4 tbsp instant coffee. Whisk 250g cream until whipped and add that, too. Pour the mixture over the cake base and let it rest at a cool place over night. I just left it outside on my balcony in deep winter and that worked perfectly.

CHAPTER III. Coating and Decoration

Fast forward to 4-24 hours later, ready for the final step. Again, heat up the water hot pot and set up le bain-marie to melt 150g dark bitter chocolate, 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp honey.

Whisk 125ml cream with some stabilizer and pour the ready-made chocolate fondue into it. Let it cool down a bit – it doesn’t have to be cold, lukewarm is fine – and smear it onto the cake and, the sides. Make it all smooth with a dough scraper. Unwrap Lindt Lindor dark bitter chocolate balls and cut them in halves. Set them on the outer ring of the cake, one half for each slice, and one in the middle. Sprinkle chocolate sprinkles or grated chocolate everywhere – I personally love the dark bitter sprinkles but that’s up to you.

And now take a pastry fork and go right into the soft creamy texture and indulge this sinful, rich dessert. And die from sugar shock now or diabetes later. Worth it, though.

“Boah, ist die aber fett!”
[G. K., who is not exactly eloquent but brutally honest. And to this day, it remains a mystery if he meant me or my cake.]

I’ve met a Gin on my travels and it was love at first try.

It’s name is White Gin. Macaronesian White Gin. And we’re a match made in heaven.

But before we get to drink, it’s time for some geographical ground work:

Macaronesia is a collection of four archipelagos in the North Atlantic Ocean. Vulcanic in origin, they are unique in their climate and vegetation. We gonna zoom in into one of those archipelagos – The Canary Islands – and further in into Tenerife and even further in into San Miguel de Abona where we find the Destileria Santa Cruz the Tenerife.

Here, the liquid represantation of Mediterranean savoir-vivre is created. Macaronesian White Gin. Bottled up in a white fired clay bottle, the visual design alone stands out:

The Gin is destilled with water that was filtered drop by drop through local volcanic rocks. That makes for an especially pure and high quality. The botanicals used are – according to the destillery’s website – cedar, cardamom, lime, lemon, orange, angelica root and other “top quality plants”. Whatever those are – never change that recipe, dude.

Now when you unseal and open that bottle, a very light and low key odour escapes; a hint of mint and citrus fruits and without the nauseating, repulsive and overwhelming smell of strong alcohol that most 40% spirits often have.

Now close your eyes (or rather read first, then close your eyes and do what I tell you to do now so you can actually follow my imaginary gin tasting) and imagine yourself standing on the pier of Las Salinas (s. here). The late afternoon sun shines down and warms you face and a fresh sea breeze tingles with your hair and makes you wish that this moment may last forever. This is what Macaronesian Gin smells like.

The taste ist similar. Very light and subtle. Some might call it “weak” or “shallow” but I like it. Simple but blissful. Citrus fruits are the dominating flavour, accompanied by the aforementioned hint of mint and an even subtler hint of cedar, followed by a final impression of orange spiked with a with a whiff of cinnamon.

To make a long story short: this is bottled Mediterranean Summer and best enjoyed on the rocks (as in both on ice and also whilst sitting on the vulcaniv rocks of Las Salinas), with Fever Tree’s Mediterranean Tonic Water or Thomas Henry Tonic Water and a garnish of lemon (okay), orange (pretty good) or grapefruit (amazing!).

Salud!

For more information, visit their website
http://www.macaronesiangin.com/


Pumpkin Pie with Homemade Pie Crust

And here I am, with yet another American pie recipe, straight from the US, and intended to be the sweet culmination of our Friendsgiving Dinner – an evening of all-American food traditions, from turkey to stuffing to sweet potato mash with marshmellows (yuk). However, as I was assured by my American fellows, one does not make a pumpkin pie without canned pumpkin puree and a proper pie crust. Unfortunately, you can’t get either of those in Germany on short notice so we needed plan B! Luckily, J’s Mum’s care package with Wegman’s Pumpkin Puree arrived just in time! However, with a little extra effort, you can make your own pumpkin puree, see below.

Our Friendsgiving was a magnificent feast, but that’s another story for another time. Next step: the perfect pie crust. After thorough research and vivid discussion, we settled on a combination of two recipes. Ladies and gentlemen, here it is / the ultimate, super flaky, buttery and tender pie crust that satisfies even the high expectations of my ride-or-die J.

THE RECIPE

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of plain flour

1 tsp of salt

6 tbsp of cold butter (German butter has more fat so for 250g of butter you need to add 1 tbsp of cold water if using an American recipe)

3/4 cup of cold sunflower marguerine

1/2 cup of ice cold water

Instructions:

Mix flour and salt. Add butter and marguerine in chopped pieces. Use a fork to mix and mash it all into a coarselz crumblz dough. Carefully add water so that the crumbs clump together slightly. Gently form a ball and divide it into 2 pieces, one for the base and, if baking any other than pumpkin pie, one for the cover. Real pumpkin pie does not have a cover!! That being said, 3/4 of the ingredients should suffice. Make a flat disk and wrap it up in plastic. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Place some parchment paper on a baking mat. Take the dough and sprinkle some flour on both sides. Carefully roll and press the dough with a rolling pin into a circle a little larger than the pie form’s diameter so you have enough dough overlapping for the side crust. The base should be about 1 cm in thickness. Take the parchment paper, put the dough upside down into the pie pan and remove the pater. Smooth out the edges and make it all look nice, neat and tidy. Trim the overlapping bits and pieces. Look up some pie crust folding origami if you’re feeling fancy.

Now for the rest of the recipe, just follow the instructions on your pumpkin puree tin. We had Wegman’s which gives you the following directions, slightly rephrased and adjusted by me:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees = 176° Celsius.


Mix 1 cup of milk, 1 pumpkin puree can and 2 large eggs. In a second bowl, mix 3/4 cup of granulated sugar, 2 tbsp of corn starch, a pinch of salt, 2 tsp of cinnamon and 1 tsp of nutmeg. Afterwards, stir into the pumpkin mixture and then pour it onto the pie base.

Bake in the oven for 50-55 minutes. Now comes the hard part: let it completely cool down on a pie rack. Do not eat a slice right away. It’s difficult, I know. But it tastes so much better the day after. Trust me.

❤❤❤❤❤❤

New York Philadelphia Cheesecake

I’m a freestyle chef. The kitchen is my open stage, and my recipes are nothing but the key for culinary jazz impro. There are people – and maybe I read or heard that somewhere, maybe it was a meme or some actual person told me – who say that baking, in comparison to cooking, is much more strict and can be compared to potion lessons in Harry Potter. Well then, call me the Halfblood Prince because guess what? I don’t give a damn here either. Since recently, I hadn’t even owned kitchen scales. So overrated. The ratio is what it’s all about. And most cakes need a bit of adjustment, you know, for that extra extra hint of flavour. Cheesecake recipe? Add a bit of rum or advocaat. Just as an example. And most recipes could do with half of the sugar.

However, for the New York Philadelphia Cheesecake I followed strictly the Original Philadelphia homepage orders. Why? It was a friend’s birthday, and since he’s not only from the States but more precisely from Philadelphia, it was the most obvious dish to go for. Here we go!

Ingredients

150 g shortbread biscuits (I generally use 2/3 Leibnis Original Butterkekse and 1/3 Leibniz Vollkorn, but I love to vary the base. Try speculoos, meringue, whatever. Jazz it up!!)
75 g butter
4 pck. Philadelphia Doppelrahmstufe à 175 g
150 g sugar (I recommend Domino’s Light Brown Sugar, but regular sugar works, too)
1 tbsp lemon zest
4 eggs
150 g cream
2 tbsp vanilla custard powder
250 g sour cream
30 g icing sugar

Directions

Pre-crumble the biscuits into a freezer bag, zip it up and roll over it with a rolling pin until they are super crumbly. Or, if you’re mad at someone, pretend its them and hit it. Melt the butter in a water bath and stir in the crumbles. Take a round greased baking tin and pour the crumbly mixture on it, slightly pressing and kneading it till you have some sort of firm base. Chill in the fridge till later.

Hot tub for the gute deutsche Markenbutter!

Leibniz Butterkekse, pre-crumble

Mhmhmhmh, melted butter, you golden, delicious taste intensifer!

Preheat the oven to 160° C (circulating air). Mix Philadelphia cheese with sugar and lemon zest and afterwards, whisk the eggs in, too.

Whip cream and custard powder to a well, whipped cream, and carefully fold it over into the Philadelphia cream. Pour the whole thing over the crumble base and spread it evenly. Bake in the lower part of the oven for 45min, then take it out and let it cool down for 10min. Don’t switch off the oven yet!

Whip sour cream and icing sugar together and pour it over the cake, then bake for another 10min. Now switch off the oven – but leave the cake in there for another 1h!!!

Afterwards, let it completely cool off and then chill in the fridge for at least 4h.

So easy and so tasty, I can’t believe I never made that before.

Best compliment of the evening? When the two Americans told me not only does it look and smell like a real New York Cheesecake, it more importantly also tastes like it. Bless them!

New York Philadelphia Cheesecake. Yum!

So there you go – try it and enjoy a piece of the Big Apple wherever you are.