Chocolate Gateau

When I was in Hokkaido, LeTao was selling this chocolate thing which looked absolutely heavenly but I did not try it. Recently, I was watching TV and saw this supposedly famous place in Tokyo making something similar, so I found the Japanese recipe.

In the TV programme, they seem to have only mixed egg and chocolate, although since it was not a cooking show, I have no idea if that was truly the complete recipe. The recipe I found online had flour mixed in, so I decide to follow the online recipe.

As it turns out, it seems more like a souffle cake, whereas what I saw on TV seemed more like eating a paste-like chocolate texture, as opposed to a cake-like texture.

Nonetheless, this was pretty fluffy and soft when eaten warm. When refrigerated, it was a little harder and tasted more like a brownie. I think I shall try this again next time without the flour and see if it's turns out closer to what I saw.

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Recipe

Semi-sweet Chocolate 45g
Cream 35g
Unsalted butter 40g
Flour 15g
Caster Sugar 70g
Caster Sugar (for meringue) 40g
Eggs 2

1. Put the butter, chocolate and cream in a bowl, and microwave for 1 minute on high. Mix well after taking out from oven.
2. Separate the egg yolks from the whites.
3. Add the caster sugar (70g) and egg yolks into the chocolate mixture, followed by the flour.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites into a meringue, while adding the caster sugar (40g) in two separate batches.
5. Fold the meringue into the chocolate mixture in 2 batches.
6. Bake at 170 degrees C for 30 minutes.

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Chocolate Lava Cake/Green Tea Lava Cake

Taiwan's in a craze over this now; they call it 火山巧克力. You can watch it on 28 Nov 2009 of 我猜我猜我猜猜猜.

I did overcook it a little, and turned out a little more cooked on the inside than I would like it to be. I also did not have any vanilla ice cream available, otherwise it would have been a perfect combination.

Out of my own ingenuity, I concocted and successfully came out with a green tea version. This, on the other hand, was a little under-cooked, hence the moist looking outsides. But I think the green tea tasted pretty well, and I did not get as quickly sick of it as I did with the chocolate version.

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Recipe

Ingredients:
60% Dark Chocolate 120g
Unsalted Butter 240g
Flour 60g
Caster Sugar 60g
2 Eggs

1. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a microwave and mix well. Leave to cool.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk and eggs and sugar until light and frothy.
3. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into the eggs.
4. Add in the sifted flour and mix well.
5. Pour into your containers till about 3/4 full. Bake at 170 degrees C for about 12-15 minutes depending on how cooked you like it to be.

Green Tea version
1. Replace the dark chocolate with white chocolate.
2. Add in 40g of green tea powder.
3. Proceed with other ingredients and steps as above.

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Moist Chocolate Cake

Softest and moistest chocolate cake ever!

 

I actually tried to make this last week, but failed miserably, hence the lack of posts since 2 weeks ago. Then, I replaced the sugar with molasses and ended with a cake which did not have any chocolate taste at all since the molasses overpowered everything else.

This time, I stuck to sugar and used only a little molasses, so I can now taste the chocolate. I even increased the sugar, but I think it can still be a little sweeter.
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Recipe

Ingredients:
Vegetable Oil 1/3cup
Caster Sugar 200g
Fresh Whole Milk 200ml
Eggs 2
Flour 110g
Cocoa powder 60g
Baking Powder 1/2tsp
Baking Soda 1/2tsp
Vanilla Essence 1/2tsp
Molasses 1tbsp
2 in 1 Coffee mix 1tbsp

1. Warm the milk and mix in the sugar until dissolved.
2. Add in molasses, vanilla essence, coffee mix and oil and mix well. Set aside till cool.
3. In another bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda together.
4. Lightly whisk the eggs and add into the milk mixture.
5. Slowly add in the flour in batches until you have a runny batter.
6. Line your baking pan with baking paper so that it will be easy to remove later on, as the cake will be very soft and fragile.
7. Pour the batter in, and steam at medium heat for about 50 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.

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Chocolate Orange Mille Crepe

I had wanted to recreate what I first had in Japan. Unfortunately, as you can see from all the postings here, I have never been much of a great cook in the savoury department.


I always thought chocolate and orange went well together, almost like chocolate and banana, just that the citrus-y flavour of the orange gave it a different dimension compared to pairing with bananas. I almost wanted to not do this as the original recipe uses whipped cream and seem ultimately sinful. But I chanced upon the idea to substitute it with light creme pattiserie instead.

In terms of flavour of the creme, I did achieve what I had set out to do. Unfortunately, I have never been great at making crepes or pancakes. While the crepes this time were slightly fluffy and not too dry, I was not able to make the whole crepe uniformly thin. I made about 38 crepes in total. These were then layered with alternately layers of chocolate and orange creme pattiserie.

Guess I'll stick to the oven as often as I can...
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Recipe

Crepe Ingredients:
(You want a ratio of 1 part flour, 2 parts milk, 2 parts eggs)
Eggs 200g
Milk 200g
Flour 100g
Baking powder 1tsp
A pinch of salt

1. Mix all the ingredients together and let stand for 30 minutes.
2. Cook over medium heat. When you see bubbles underneath the crepe, flip over and cook for another minute.

Chocolate Creme Pattiserie Ingredients:
Egg yolks 2
Milk 200ml
Dark Chocolate 50g
Sugar 40g
Flour 20g

1. Heat the chocolate in the milk until melted and you get a chocolate milk mixture, and slightly boiling.
2. In a seperate bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together. Add the flour and mix well.
3. Take the hot milk and add into the egg mixture slowly. Whisk as you pour the milk in.
4. Return the combined mixture into the pot, and boil over medium heat. Keep stirring as you boil it, until you get a thick texture like custard.
5. Pour into a bowl, and cover the top with cling film to prevent the top from hardening.
Orange Creme Pattiserie Ingredients:

Egg yolks 2
Milk 200ml
Sugar 40g
Flour 20g
Orange juice 3tbsp
Zest of 1 orange
1. Heat the ornage juice in the milk until slightly boiling.
2. In a seperate bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together. Add the flour and mix well.
3. Take the hot milk and add into the egg mixture slowly. Whisk as you pour the milk in.
4. Return the combined mixture into the pot, and boil over medium heat. Keep stirring as you boil it, until you get a thick texture like custard.
5. Remove from heat and fold in the orange zest.
6. Pour into a bowl, and cover the top with cling film to prevent the top from hardening.

Assembly:
1. Lightly whip about 100ml of whipping cream.
2. Divide into half and fold each half into each of the orange and chocolate creme.
3. Spread creme onto crepe, and cover with another layer of crepe. Alternate layers with both creme.

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Death by Chocolate

An extremely rich piece of cake; so rich a small slice would actually suffice. In order of appearance from bottom up - brownie, mousse, fudge, mousse, cake, ganache. The fudge layer would probably be good alone and warm with a dollop of ice cream. Cake layer a little dense cos I ran out of butter, while ganache still needs to be perfected. Overall, still din taste all that bad. Pure chocolate-y goodness.

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