Mud Cake with chilli cherries

This is a slightly adapted recipe from a Marks and Spencer book called Chocolate.  It's hugely calorific and not cheap to make but utterly delicious!  There are quite a few stages so set aside plenty time to make it.

Mud Cake with chilli cherries

Mud cake

250g butter, chopped

200g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

440g caster sugar

250ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

80ml whisky

225g plain flour

35g self raising flour

25g cocoa powder

2 eggs

1.  Grease and line a deep 22cm cake tin

2.  Combine butter, chocolate, sugar, milk, vanilla and whisky in a medium pan.  Stir over a low heat until smooth.  Transfer mixture to a large bowl and cool for 15 mins.

3.  Whisk in sifted flours and cocoa.  Then add eggs.

4.  Pour mixture into tin and bake for about 1 and a half hours.  I have an Aga baking oven but other oven temp should be 170C/150C fan assisted.

Meanwhile make chilli cherries.

Chilli cherries

500ml water

165g caster sugar

1 small red chilli, halved lengthwise

1 star anise

6 black peppercorns

10cm piece orange peel

300g frozen black cherries

Add all ingredients to pan except cherries and stir over a low heat until sugar dissolves.  Bring to boil and boil for 2 mins.  Add cherries and simmer 5 mins.  Remove from heat and leave to cool.  If syrup isn't thick enough for your liking, remove cherries and boil syrup for further 5 to 10 mins.  Return cherries to syrup.

Remove cake from oven and stand for 5 mins.  Turn out onto wire rack to cool.

Make the chocolate ganache.

Chocolate ganache

80ml cream

200g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Bring cream to boil in small pan and add chocolate.  Remove from heat and stir until smooth.

Spread cold cake with ganache and leave to set.

Serve with chilli cherries

The cake should be gooey and squidgy in the middle.  Yum!!

Frog soup and more cake

It doesn't have real frogs in it, it's just very green!!!  We call it frog soup as my one of my sons remarked it looked like frogs! One of my favourite quick soups and is just as nice served as a cold soup in summer.  Honest!

Leek and Courgette Soup

I don't usually saute my vegetables before adding stock to make soup.  I've found over the years it doesn't make a difference to the finished taste and it saves on calories.  But this is one of the exceptions.

2 courgettes (diced)
1 large leek (sliced)
50g butter
1 litre vegetable stock

Gently saute the vegetables in the butter for 5 mins before adding the stock.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins.
Blitz until smooth.

Tropical Fruit Loaf

6oz butter
6oz sugar
6oz self raising flour
3 eggs
2oz glace ginger (chopped)
2 1/2oz dessicated coconut
2oz tinned pineapple, drained and chopped

Cream butter and sugar
Add eggs 1 at a time
Add flour
Fold in ginger, coconut and pineapple

Bake in a loaf tin 40-45 mins

The above recipe was created by my friend Sarah.  Her blog is Unbought Delicacies.

Years ago I read that you can take out 1oz/25g of sugar from cake recipes without it altering the outcome.  The cake in the photo had 5 oz of sugar and still tastes delicious :-)

Leftovers

Two recipes that used up some fruit and veg lying around.  The bananas were squishy and black.  The carrots and peppers were leftover crudities.  The banana loaf is an old handwritten recipe I've used for years.  Measurements are imperial, not metric. 

Banana and Cranberry loaf

6oz self raising flour (sifted)
5oz butter (softened)
4oz caster sugar
3 eggs (beaten)
2 or 3 ripe bananas (mashed)
2oz dried cranberries (or any dried fruit)

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add eggs a little at a time, adding a spoonful of flour to prevent curdling
Add bananas and cranberries
Fold in flour
Pour into a greased loaf tin
Bake at 190C or baking oven for 40 mins until middle is firm (skewer test)
If it needs longer cover top with tin foil and bake for another 10 mins
Cool on a wire rack

I use paper liners from Lakeland, saves a lot of faffing with greasing tins and it looks nicer if you're giving it to someone

Carrot and Red Pepper Soup

Approx 3 carrots, 1 red pepper and 1/2 yellow pepper cut into sticks
Approx 25g red lentils
3/4 litre veg stock
1/2 tsp crushed chillies

Add everything to a pan and bring to the boil
Simmer until carrots are soft
Blitz until smooth
Serve with a dollop of yoghurt