Devil's Food Loaf - Annie Bell

Dark, sticky chocolate cake with a tender crumb

I wouldn't make this cake for children it's too dark and chocolaty - the icing is also too dark and chocolaty for children! My cake is so good I don't really want to share it with anyone - although I've made an exception and let hubby enjoy a few slices.  The cake cuts well and is a keeper too - I made this cake last Monday, stored it in a 'Lock and Lock' box and today (Saturday) it is still fresh.

The recipe is by Annie Bell, one of my favourite food writers, her Devil's Food Loaf recipe caught my eye in last weekends Daily Mail You Magazine. I've always enjoyed making her recipes because I can trust them to turn out well.

I love that this is a cake-cum-dessert and a dollop of creme fraiche or ice cream are the perfect partners for the cake.

If you love chocolate cake, you'll definitely fall head over heels for this one. A great cake to make for Valentine's Day and all you have to do is scatter some heart decorations over the icing.

Jamie Oliver's Chocolate Love Cake with Cherries and Booze

Does the special person in your life like brownies? If so, you could make this Love Cake, a recipe from Jamie Oliver, especially for them. It has a squidgy brownie consistency, is dotted with cherries and has a boozy chocolate sauce poured over. The original recipe has crushed hazelnuts added but I like this dessert without.

Men often leave present buying until the last minute, and find it really difficult choosing presents. Why not be kind to him this Christmas and leave a list of ideas, this way at least you should get something you like. If you have a dish like mine, you can attach a craft label onto the handle with a list of your Christmas wishes!

You are possibly wondering if I have done this - the answer is no, I'm just trying to help!


The dessert is quite rich and very similar to a brownie in taste and texture. I served mine with some of the reserved chocolate sauce, and a dollop of creme fraiche, which cuts through the richness.

You will need: 9 or 10 inches ovenproof dish greased.

For the cake: 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 100g softened butter, 100g caster sugar, 1 egg, 100g self-raising flour, ½ tsp baking powder, ½ tin black cherries drained.

For the chocolate sauce: 25g butter, 142ml double cream, 75g dark chocolate broken into pieces, a splash of either brandy, rum, Amaretto or Baileys.

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.
2. Mix the cocoa powder with a few tablespoons of boiling water and stir until the mixture is smooth.
3. In another bowl beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the cooled cocoa mixture, egg, flour and baking flour. Mix all together and pour into the ovenproof dish. Sprinkle over the cherries and bake in the oven for 25 minutes.
4. To check if the cake is ready, make sure it doesn't wobble too much then it's done, if not give it some more time in the oven.
5. To make the chocolate sauce: Place the butter in a small pan with the cream and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat and add the chocolate pieces to the pan. Give it all a good stir and leave for 5 minutes so the hot cream can melt the chocolate. Add a splash of either brandy, rum, Amaretto or Baileys and stir until thoroughly combined.
6. Once the cake is ready, pour over the warm chocolate sauce. Any sauce that is left will reheat in the microwave.

Good Luck!

VALENTINE'S DAY AMARETTO TRIFLE

It's a sin not to eat trifle, at least once a year. I haven't made trifle for at least a couple of years, but to compensate I have made an Amaretto, berry, meringue and cream trifle, it was certainly worth the wait. The trifle was made with frozen berries, but I will definitely be making this again with fresh summer berries.



Meringues - just a few to break up. I used two large egg whites and 110g golden caster sugar, the recipe is here on Delia's website.
500g mixed berries - if using frozen, thaw in a sieve over a bowl to remove the excess juice.
4 tablespoons of Amaretto
250g Madeira cake - I made mine but again it is perfectly fine to buy some, don't be tempted to use trifle sponges though because you don't want soggy cake and trifle sponges will go soggy!
500ml fresh custard
300ml whipping cream, softly whipped

1. Place the thawed berries in a bowl and pour over the Amaretto, leave to marinate for 15 minutes.
2. Cut the Madeira cake into cubes and place in a large, deep serving bowl. Top with two-thirds of the fruit, and pour over the custard.
3. Pop into the fridge to firm up for a couple of hours then remove.
4. Spoon a layer of cream on top of the custard, arrange broken pieces of meringue on top of the cream and then place clouds of whipped cream around the meringue pieces.
5. Top with the rest of the berries.
6. Decorate with Valentine hearts.

VALENTINE'S DAY CUPCAKES

More Valentine's offerings from my kitchen!

The cupcakes are a basic sponge mix of 125g each of butter, caster sugar, self raising flour, 1 tsp vanilla extract, two large eggs and a couple of tablespoons of milk added after the initial 'all in one' mixing of the ingredients. Twelve muffin cases are placed in a muffin tin and filled with the cake mixture. Bake at 200°C/Gas 6 for approximately 20 minutes.

As the cupcake tops need to be flat, if they peak, just cut some of the cake off. After cooling make up some royal icing to cover the tops, allow to set a little, and top with fondant shapes.

I decorated mine with red and white fondant icing, coloured sprinkles, gold disco dust and sugar roses. Let your imagination run wild to put the necessary Valentine's Day pizazz into them.

VALENTINE'S DAY CAKE

How about making a heart shape cake for sharing and one that is perhaps a little too pink, topped with lots of butter cream. I bought the shimmer sprinkles and silver dragees from Sainsbury's (these were made by Supercook) and planned the cake around them. The cake is simply a three egg Victoria sponge mix.

We had a family wedding yesterday morning and lunchtime was spent at the bride and groom's house for snacks and cakes before we had a 'bit of a do' in the evening for the wedding reception. As cake is my domain, I baked three quite simple cakes to take along. Everyone seemed to enjoy them and I thought I would share the cakes with you. I made the heart shape cake, a Bakewell cake and an iced lemon drizzle cake.


Cherry Bakewell cake from the February 2009 BBC GoodFood Magazine tasted as wonderful as it looked. The only alteration to the original recipe was I used Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve instead of the suggested morello cherry conserve. If you like Bakewell Tart then you will love this.


I topped a lemon drizzle cake with butter cream and a few pastel coloured dragees. Use any lemon drizzle cake recipe, but for the 'drizzle' you will need to make a lemon syrup by placing into a small saucepan 25g caster sugar and the juice of one lemon, heat gently to dissolve the caster sugar into the lemon juice, simmer until syrupy. Prick the cake all over when it comes out of the oven and carefully spoon over the hot lemon syrup. Leave in the tin until the cake is cold before turning out.

It's perhaps best to line the cake tin first with baking parchment so that you can just lift the cake out of the tin - it makes life easier. The buttercream was made with unsalted butter, otherwise the buttercream is just too sickly.

Followers of my blog might like to pop over to read a piece by Becky Hogge who has written an article for the NewStatesman called Recipes for Twitters. Becky has given my humble blog a little mention!

VALENTINE'S DAY PAVLOVA Retro Recipe Challenge RR6

St.Valentine's Day is nearly here, but I made this for what is sometimes called St.Valentine's weekend and also for the
Retro Recipe Challenge #6 Food of Love.

Recipe taken from:

BRITAIN'S FAVOURED RECIPES
BY AMBROSE HEATH (WOLFE PUBLISHING 1964)

Serves: 4 people

Skill Level: Moderate

Taste Test: The meringue was sweet and a little chewy.

The ingredients list was unusual in that icing sugar instead of the usual caster sugar was used, also baking powder was in the list of ingredients to make the meringue. I made this in a heart shaped tin which I lined with a large piece of parchment baking paper. The method was unusual in that you didn't whisk the egg whites until they were stiff as you would usually do. The sugar etc was added to the egg whites gradually from the beginning. The addition of baking powder worried me slightly. When the meringue was cooking it rose quite alarmingly (obviously the baking powder was doing its job) - far too much for my liking. I cooked the pavlova at 140°C for 90 minutes then left it in the oven to dry out.
I took the pavlova out of the oven, turned it out - oh dear! it had a top, middle but no base! Also, the top looked like a crater. I think maybe my tin would have been more suitable for a 2 egg white mixture and not the three specified in the recipe, perhaps that is why the mixture rose too much and it didn't have a base.
The cream I used to cover the top was my usual favourite - ¼ pt of softly whipped double cream, ¼ pt of thick Greek yoghurt and 1 tablespoon of icing sugar mixed together.
What is your favourite cream?
I made a raspberry coulis to go with the pavlova - 170g raspberries, 60g icing sugar, 1½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice. Just whiz everything together, push the sauce through a plastic sieve. Store covered in the fridge - Beautiful.
Would I use this recipe again - definitely no. Would I make this again using a different recipe - yes!!
We ate it all up, even the meringue crumbs and so it couldn't have been all bad could it?

EQUIPMENT USED: A heart shaped tin.