Nutella cake

Seeing as every other food blogger under the sun has done the Nutella cake (e.g. here, here, here, here, here and here) and not wanting to feel left out, I thought I really should do it as well. Not to mention the fact that I've been desperate to see how satisfying it would be to empty a whole jar of Nutella in one go.

Ingredients for the cake
400g jar Nutella
125g soft, unsalted butter
6 eggs, seperated
120g dark chocolate
100g ground hazelnuts
1 tbsp Frangelico, rum or water

For the ganache
125ml double cream
125g dark chocolate
1 tbsp Frangelico, rum or water

Beat butter, Nutella and Frangelico together until combined (BTW, I don't think Frangelico really exists. It sounds like it's been made-up, like Brangelina or frenemies which is why I used rum instead). Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, saving the egg whites for later. Add the ground hazelnuts and melted, cooled chocolate. Fold in whisked egg whites and bake in a lined 23cm springform tin at gas mark 4 for about 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the ganache, you simply heat the cream over a LOW heat to which you add the chocolate then keep stirring until it has melted. I really stupidly started doing the stupid washing-up and didn't see the cream bubbling away with the chocolate inside, burning at the bottom of the pan. This, really unfortunately, led to this mess:

(Warning: Some readers may find the following pictures offensive and/or disturbing)


ARGGHH! How could I mess up something so simple? And what IS that yellow liquid? I obviously couldn't spread that on top of the cake and so had to go to the Co-op AGAIN and once AGAIN be convinced that their "dark" chocolate really does have a cocoa content of 63% and above. Why isn't there such a thing as a Waitrose Local? The second attempt went much more smoothly because I was actually paying attention. This is what it should look like:


Ahhh, much better! This was then lightly whipped and then spread on the cooled cake. I found that it took on the consistency of butter cream although judging by the other blogger's attempts, I'm not sure how ganache is meant to look.


Even though there's a whole jar of Nutella in the cake, I think perhaps it would have been better to add some extra sugar as it is rather rich and hence not great for children even though you might think that kids would be this cakes target demographic. It is ultimately a tacky but fun version of Torta Caprese which, after Christmas cake, is one of my most favourite cakes. And maybe if I didn't have such a stuck up view of chocolate nut cakes, then this one would soon be winging its way to my best cakes list for its fudgy, brownie-like qualities.

(And if you're planning on taking photos of the cake, it's probably best not to display it on that really naff Argos plate your Mum fobbed off on to you because even she didn't want it.)

Apricot jam

I thought there was some big secret behind jam. That it took days of preparation and then hours of cooking and required loads of sugar. Well, I was right about the sugar bit, in fact I was rather shocked to discover how much sugar goes into jam. The cooking bit however, I was wrong about. It took only a couple of hours from start to finish to knock up four jars of the stuff and now that I know how easy it is, I feel like I can't stop myself now.

I already tried out strawberry jam last week. Laughing, I put my half-price, half-eaten punnet of strawberries into the saucepan expecting to get two teaspoons worth of jam at the end of it:

"There's no way I'll make enough jam to make this experiment worthwhile. Aren't there like a million strawberries in a jar of jam? I'm sure I've read that on the label before!"


But no, I was rather pleasantly surprised to find a healthy sized jar-portion sitting in the bottom of the saucepan after my experiment. Which is why I've now moved onto apricots.

Ingredients
1.5kg apricots (after stoning)
1.5kg white granulated sugar
1 lemon
Approx. 10 almonds from inside the apricot stones

This will give you enough for four medium sized jars however you can make however much you want based on how ever many apricots you have. Basically, once you've taken the stones out, weigh the apricots and this will give you the weight of sugar you will need.

Half the apricots and place in the biggest saucepan you have with the sugar and juice from one lemon. Boil for about 30 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. In the meantime, you can get on with the almonds. That is, if you choose to put them in, as I only actually put them in one of my jars.

Crack open about ten of the stones to get the kernels and then blanch them for 2 minutes in boiling water. Skin them, halve them and place on a paper towel to dry out until you need them.

Now you're meant to do the Wrinkle Test on the jam which is now my most favourite test in the world! (And I reckon I passed it with flying colours). It involves eating warm spoonfuls of jam that have been spread on the surface of a chilled plate. If the jam wrinkles when you tilt the plate after a couple of seconds, then it's set and you can take it off the heat. If not, then let it boil for a few more minutes. You should really chill your plate in the freezer before hand but I did mine under the cold tap for a few minutes which is probably a bit of a waste of water and hence not very good for your Water Footprint - that's like your Carbon Footprint only muddier. Once it has been taken off the heat, Delia suggests dispersing the scum collected on the surface with a knob of butter but I found it easier to skim it off and disperse it in my tummy :)

After eating the scummy jam, leave it to cool for half an hour and then divide into sterilized jars. Sterilized jars, just to remind you, are jars that have been washed in warm, soapy water and then dried in the oven on a medium heat for about 30 minutes.

Apparently you should wait a few months to let the jam mature. If you're concerned that you won't have the willpower to go through with this, then I recommend getting your mum to come around and hide them. Just don't get your senile grandmother to do it or in a couple of months time, she would've forgotten where she'd put them.

Super headline

"Superfoods fly off shelves as Britons get healthy" according to The Independant.

Of course they can fly. They can also see through walls and save children from burning buildings!

Cowabunga dudes!

I've been wanting to do an update on this pizza for months now but was always worried that a self-respecting food blog would never do a pizza update for fear of never being taken seriously ever again because after all, any old fool can make a pizza. But seeing as I'm not a self-respecting food blog I thought I might as well do the update anyway.

Before you ask, no I haven't put the pizza straight on my dining table. That happens to be an unnecessarily large cutting board. Back to the recipe...

Ingredients
1 pound bread flour
3/4 cup warm water
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 and 1/2 tsps active dry yeast
1 and 1/2 tsps sugar
1 tsp salt

I found the recipe for the base here before you think I actually have the culinary knowledge to make up something this simple myself.

Combine the water, oil, yeast and sugar in a jug and leave for a few minutes until it starts foaming. Stir the salt into the flour. Mix the two together to form a dough but don't bother kneading it - it's not that type of dough. Now divide it into two and put one half in the freezer for next time unless you're planning on eating pizza two days in a row or actually have a 24 inch pizza pan as the recipe states. Like my kitchen is even that wide! Then leave the dough to rest for at least 24 hours although I found it even better after two or three days. So once it's rolled out and placed onto an oiled pizza pan, spread on about 3 tbsps sun-dried tomato puree and then about 6 tbsps of passatta. I like to use a red pepper, a red onion and lots of salami for my toppings and then about 150g of grated mozzarella. And for the love of God, put the toppings under the cheese and not on top unless of course you like dry, burnt-out vegetables. Bake for 12 minutes at gas mark 7.

Sainsbury's Gu puddings offer

I still can't understand what Sainsbury's are getting out of this. Gu products have become such an integral part of my diet that putting them on offer is like putting bread or milk on special offer.

The novelty of the glass ramekins has officially worn off though. They're taking up so much room in the kitchen cupboard that I'm considering taking them down to the glass recycling bin. Either that or everyone will be getting ashtrays for Christmas this year.


Oh and don't bother with the lemon souffle - it's very greasy and leaves you feeling like you want to brush your teeth for the rest of the evening. Go for the vanilla cheesecake or the tiramisu, or Tiramigu, should I say.