Ottolenghi's chocolate fudge cake

 So my eldest sister has been requesting me for the past few months to make this: Ottolenghi's chocolate fudge cake. He has a bakery in the London which I would love to go to. I mean look at the picture...

Source: Triptease.com

Let me warn you that this is a chocolate cake not for the faint-hearted. This is a true chocoholic's dream (and I have a chocoholic family).

There's a lot of chocolate and butter involved. And you bake it twice! I accidentally used a big cake pan because I thought the mixture was going to over-flow, so my cake was rather flat. The texture of this cake is incredibly fudgy with a crackly top, almost like a brownie, but a bit on the lighter side since you have whipped egg whites. It's also not too sweet. Unlike the other flourless chocolate cake I made (using almond meal), it's more rich & dense.

The cake is indeed quite rich, and berries would complement it real well. Or even with ice cream. It's also pretty delicious when warmed in the microwave..Think warm fudgy cake.. 

But do you know what also goes really well with this? Green tea ice cream. We had a family lunch with my two sisters' boyfriends and my mum made some Malaysian food and I made this cake and green tea ice cream. Combine chocolate & green tea and voila, c'est super! 

Ottolenghi's chocolate fudge cake
Serves 8-10
Ingredients
240 g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
265 g dark chocolate (52% cocoa), chopped
95 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped
290 g light muscovado sugar (I just used light brown sugar) *
4 tbsp water
5 large eggs, separated
Pinch of salt
Cocoa powder for dusting
* I reduced the sugar to about 250 g

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F).
2. Butter a 20 cm (8 inch) springform pan and line bottom & sides with parchment/baking paper.
3. In a large heat proof bowl, combine chopped chocolates & butter and melt.
4. Combine the brown sugar/muscovado sugar with water in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently. Pour the boiling syrup over the chocolate & butter and stir until they have melted.
5. Add the egg yolks, one at a time to chocolate mixture and then set the bowl aside until the mixture comes to room temperature.
6. In a large bowl, using an electric whisk, beat the egg whites & salt to a firm but not dry meringue.
7. Pour 2/3rds of the batter into your prepared pan (about 800 g, saving the remaining batter for later)
8. Bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
9. Remove the cake from the oven, and leave it on a wire rack to cool completely. Flatten the cake with an offset spatula, don't worry about breaking the surface crust and pour the rest of the batter on top.
10. Level the surface again. Return the cake to the oven and bake for a further 20-25 minutes. When tested with a skewer, the cake should have a few moist crumbs clinging to it.
11. Allow to cool completely in the pan before removing it. Dust with cocoa powder before serving.

Adapted from Ottolenghi's cook book (via Not so humble pie)

Browned butter chocolate chunk cookie cups

To wrap up the end of the first semester, I wanted to whip up something quick and fast.. A portable dessert to feed some hungry friends of mine at school! Thursday I was rather lazy, so I just helped my mum cook some curry (With roti jala!) and watched Masterchef.. Cause ya know.. It's the end of the term! Thursday is essentially filled with 'Friday vibes'.

Semester 1 of year 11 was pretty tough.And what's coming ahead is supposedly even harder. I've learned to sort of cope with it now, at the beginning it was quite a transition.

So I'm promising  myself to a better semester 2! Even though I've only got 2 weeks of holiday, it's already jammed packed with outings & devoting my time to studying and NOT PROCRASTINATING.

These remind me a bit of the mini honey buns.. Everything mini looks great.

Anyway I didn't get great pictures because of the lighting. Food bloggers, you'll know what I mean when there's not much natural light and it's so frustrating to take pictures of food! Nevertheless, these were awesomely delicious. Have it warm and you'll have chocolate oozing with the dough crumbling in your mouth. Have it at room temp and it'll be nice, soft and chewy! Either way, it's a nice cookie.

Would I make these again? Absolutely. These are fantastic or parties/gatherings or really for just a quick cookie fix.

Browned butter chocolate chunk cookie cups
Ingredients
1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter, browned
1 large egg
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 and 1/2 cups bread flour (I used 1 cup all purpose and 1/2 cup bread flour)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt, optional and to taste
1 and 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate chunks

Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 F(180 C) and spray or grease a 12 standard-sized muffin tin (I used a mini-muffin tray) with floured cooking spray or butter.
2. Melt butter in a skillet, over medium-low heat, stirring continuously. The butter will melt, foam, turn clear, golden, turn brown and smell nutty. As soon as the butter begins to turn brown, take the pan off the heat and continue to stir for about 1 minute, to make sure that the heat doesn't continue the browned butter.
3. Pour butter into a large mixing bowl and allow it to cool, so you don't scramble the egg.
4. Add the eggs, sugar, vanilla and whisk until smooth.
5. Add the flour, baking soda, optional salt and stir until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips.
6. Distribute amongst the muffin pans, about 2/3-3/4 cup full.The cookies don't rise much.
7. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until tops have set and are golden. If you are using a mini-muffin tin, cut the baking time, or just be wary not to over-bake them.
8. Allow cookies to cool in the pan and remove them.

Cookies keep up to 5 days in an airtight container at room temp or up to 3 months in the freezer.
Adapted from Averie cooks

Hiatus

Source: Averie cooks

I haven't posted for almost a month, so it's been quite a while. I have been baking but nowadays, I've become a little lazy to photograph it, and since it's winter here in Australia, it get darks pretty early! But anyway, I made Averie cooks apple cheesecake bar without the salted caramel sauce (because that failed), and it had the most incredible cheesecake base. I'll definitely have to make that again one day! I also made Sally's baking addiction lemon cheesecake bars. It's more convenient to bake cheesecakes in square tins, and I don't even bake them in a water bath. Plus, it's very portable, so cheesecake bars are a great dessert to bring to parties etc.

Anyway, I wrote this piece for the Huffington Post. See, I'm rather ashamed that I can't speak Mandarin or Cantonese fluently. Sometimes I'll have to mix Cantonese and Mandarin if I need to talk to someone who doesn't know English.. I was forced to attend Chinese school, and I suppose, just being that little ignorant girl, I didn't take advantage of it. I guess I was sort of influenced by culture and peers in Australia, and I also went to a primary school where I was quite literally the only Malaysian there.

But anyway, now I'm older and I understand things better. All it took was one trip to Beijing to see Uncle D & Aunty M and that really gave me a reality check that Chinese, let alone any foreign language is extremely useful. I'm hoping to study Mandarin during university or sometime in the near future. So go ahead and read it, and feel free to let me know your thoughts!

ALSO I HAVE A TUMBLR for photography and other things..