the importance of a garnish: Chocolate cake

This is a compiled dessert of all the recipes from this week: chocolate sponge cake, lemon butter cream frosting, and zabaglione custard.

 This dessert is an excellent example of the importance of garnishes, as far aesthetics go. Look at the first one. Something just seems missing, right? Now look at the picture below.

something still seems missing, but that's because I ate some. The chopped lemon zest really brings the whole thing together, and fills in the empty space on the top.

have fun cooking, and enjoy your cake!

Chocolate Spongecake

Spongecake is a delicious, dense, and moist cake made with whipped eggs. I will definitely use this recipe again, because it was so delicious this time.

I did my measurements for this by weight (grams), which was far more exact and constant than using volume (cups) which can change depending on how much you pack the ingredient, the humidity of the air, as well as a few other factors.

Here are the ingredients:
225g flour
250g butter (1 cup, room temperature)
4 eggs (preferably room temperature)
1tsp vanilla
225g sugar
50g cocoa
1/2 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 355°F or 180°C

Grease your pans with butter and a light dusting of flour. If you're using the square 9x9 cake tins like I did, use 2 of them.

Break your eggs into the bowl of a standing mixer with your vanilla. Beat on high, 8-10 minutes or until the mixture reaches the ribbons stage (when you lift the whisk up and make a figure 8, you should be able to make an entire 8 before the ribbons re-absorb into the mixture)

In a separate bowl, cream your butter and sugar together, then whisk them until fluffy. This will take about 3-5 minutes by hand, or 2-3 minutes with an electric hand mixer.

Sieve your flour into the butter and sugar mixture, then add half of the egg mixture. Combine by folding them together and cutting your spatula throught the center, then repeating. Add the remaining egg mixture after you fold it a few times, and continue until the whole thing is well combined. Dont worry about a few little lumps, as these will eventually form the bubbles inside the cake, and over mixing will cause the cake to deflate. However, if there are a lot of large lumps, continue folding the mixture together.

Add the milk into the bowl, and mix well. then, pour the batter into your greased pans, and bake for 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of your pan. A cake tester or toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake straight up and down, then quickly removed should come out dry and clean.

Once the cake is finished baking, let it rest for 15 minutes before removing it from the pan. Eat it straight away or let it cool completely to room temperature or in the refrigerator before frosting it.

My cake is pictured below. I made the mistake of using one small pan, so the cake was very thick. I cut it in half horizontally for presentation, and so it would be easier to eat. This picture is pre-frosting, but feel free to use my buttercream frosting recipe and zabaglione recipe in collaboration with this amazing cake.

As always, have fun cooking and enjoy your delicious Chocolate Spongecake! Tomorrow, I will show you a beautiful way to present all three of this week's recipes as one single, beautiful, and excellent tasting dessert. see you all then.

Zabaglione

Zabaglione is a delicious Italian custard made from eggs and sugar. easy, quick, and delicious.

First things first, gather your materials.
You need a double boiler, or a pot and a heat-safe bowl to use as one, as well as a whisk. My double boiler setup is shown below.

Ingredients:
5 egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
a few drops of vanilla extract
**optional**
a liqueur such as khalua, limoncello, etc. for flavour
lemon zest for garnish

Put about an inch of water in your double boiler and throw it on medium heat.

Wait until the water is just starting to steam, then place your bowl with eggs and sugar inside on top of the boiling water, making sure that the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water in the pot.

Whisk and stir the eggs and sugar constantly while they cook together. After 5 minutes they should thicken up like a pudding, and pale in colour to a whiter shade. If not, increase the heat.

Once this is done, take it off the heat and stir in your vanilla and about 2 tablespoons of your chosen liqueur.

Boom, you're done. Spoon it into a serving vessel, and enjoy it hot or refrigerated.

In order to turn mine into a more sauce-like consistency, I added only 2 T sugar at the beginning, and then added 2 T of heavy cream when the custard was nearing completion. This gave it a lovely, silky, flowing texture, perfect for drizzling over some cake.

Buttercream Frosting

Butter cream frosting: a delicious garnish for any cake or cookie. And now you can make this glorious spread in your very own kitchen. It takes just a few minutes!

The ingredients are delightfully simple, and make for an equally delightful finished product. All you need is powdered/confectioner's sugar, butter, and a few Tbsp of milk or heavy cream.

3 cups powdered sugar
1 cup room temp butter (salted or not; it does not matter)
2 Tbsp of heavy cream or milk

Start off by bringing your butter to room temp. Next, throw it in your Standing mixer with the whisk or paddle attachment(preferably the whisk). Beat it for just about 10-20 seconds, until its spread out over the bowl and is no longer in stick form. MAKE SURE YOU TURN THE MIXER OFF IN ORDER TO AVOID DISASTER

Next dump in your sugar. Yes, all of it. Now turn your mixer on the lowest setting. Once the butter and sugar are starting to combine and have formed a clump inside the whisk attachment (or it is no longer powdery enough to billow sugar into the air, if you're not using the whisk) gradually bring your mixer up to full speed, spending about 5-10 seconds on each setting.

Once you reach full power, let it run for about 15 seconds, then stop the mixer. Grab a small swab on your pinky and spread it on the side of the bowl, just enough so that its smooth. If it is sufficiently glossy and smooth, take it out. However, you will probably want to add 2 T of heavy cream to the mix, and let it run on full power for another 15 seconds, until the cream combines with the mix. If you're adding flavour and colour, now would be the time to do it. If not, your frosting is finished.

For mine, since it was meant to go with the slight bitterness of the chocolate sponge cake, I added a few drops, and I mean only 3 or 4 drops since this stuff is strong, of pure lemon extract. I also added 1/4 of a lemon's worth of finely chopped zest. I then mixed it in at the same stage as the cream, and for the same amount of time.

the slight acid of the lemon perfectly complements the creaminess of the zabaglione and the slight base/bitterness of the chocolate in the spongecake, its so delicious.

As always, have fun cooking and enjoy your delicious Butter cream frosting!

NEW posts coming soon!

I have a few posts coming up:

•Zabaglione (an italian custard)

•Buttercream frosting with lemon

•Cocoa spongecake

•A compilation of all four

See you all soon!

How to make a nice roast

Preheat oven to 375°.

VEGGIES:

Chop your chosen veggies (onion, garlic, carrot, apples, and potato are really the best, they become sweet like little veggie candies) roughly. Big carrots go to 1/2 inch or 1 cm thick slices, baby carrots just leave whole, or cut into the same size slices, onions cut into 1 inch thick disks then into quarters so you have wedges, and potatoes into hefty home-fry-like wedges. Garlic cloves get peeled and thrown in whole, or smash 'em with your fist on the table if you like. Anything really can be any shape as long as the inside can get cooked, so don't make it too thick. These are my personal recommended shapes.

PREPPING FOR OVEN:

 In earthenware pan/on a pizza stone/in a roasting tray, arrange roughly chopped veg. 

Drizzle with olive oil, coarse sea salt, and coarse black pepper. 

MEAT:

Rub your chosen meat with olive oil. Season with sea salt and pepper, and lay on top of your veggies. I highly reccomend using whole chicken breasts, i usually like to trim them and tenderize them as well. 

I chose to stuff my chicken with the same veggies but very finely chopped and sautéed for a few minutes just to get nice and tender.

COOKING: 

Roast in the oven until

A.) veggies are all golden brown

B.) Or if you have meat, until the meat has reached the desired temperature. For chicken, its 150-165 Fahrenheit or 65-71 Celsius range. This will probably take 20+ minutes. I set a timer for 15 minutes and then check it every 5 minutes after that.

Remove from oven, and plate meat on a bed of roasted veggies. Drizzle with olive oil. Serve.

Have fun cooking, and enjoy tasting your lovely roast veggies with/without chicken!

The apples are so good, they absorb the flavour of the garlic and onion and chicken fat. The chicken itself mingles flavours with the stuffing, and the stuffing breaks down inside amd starts to get all melty. Everything matches so well, it is truly beautiful.

Perfect sunny side up eggs (v.2)

Eggs: they can be one of the most basic foods to prepare, yet one that can be impressively beautiful and incredibly delicious if prepared correctly. This is one of many methods of making the sunny side up egg. 

First things first, you need your materials. A good cook needs his tools to be ready, and his station to be clean and organized. Here are your tools in order of use:

~ non-stick pan

~ eggs

~ glass lid that fits non stick pan

~ teaspoon of water

~ soft spatula/flipper

~ plate

~ seasoning

Put your non-stick pan over med.-low heat. immediately crack in your eggs.

Wait until you can see a solid white layer completely covering the bottom of the egg, while the top is still transparent. Cover with a GLASS lid, and reduce to low heat.

*glass is important so you can see if the egg is beginning to bubble*

If you see a bubble forming, take off the lid for a few seconds and lance it with a cake tester or knife, then wait a few seconds. Once the top of the egg is clear only on the very inner white are, add a teaspoon of water to the pan, but do not let it touch the eggs. Here is a (very professional) rough layout of the pan. Orange means eggs, blue means water.

Cover with glass lid again, but make sure you tilt the lid so the water drips back into the puddle it started in once it vaporizes. Always watch for bubbles. If they form, remove the lid and lance them with a cake tester. Below is a properly tilted lid:

Once the inner white has reached its desired consistency, use a soft spatula to remove the egg from the pan. Be very gentle.

Plate your eggs gingerly, making sure the yolk doesnt rupture. Season with salt, pepper, and whatever else you put on your eggs.

Serve to guests or family, if it came out right it will surely impress them.

Have fun cooking, and enjoy your delicious, perfect eggs, sunny side up!