Double dark chocolate sorbet

If you want an intensely chocolate experience, then this is the recipe for you. And it's dairy free. I don't know about low calorie since it's got sugar in it, however, the flavour is so good you might be able to just eat a little of it.

There's a debate what to call it, sorbet or granita, sorbet being smoother and having finer crystals. It's a matter of how much you smoosh it up I suppose. I like it with finer crystals. I use the bowl on a stick blender.

If you have any left over, it does keep in the freezer, getting harder and harder the longer it's there, so you will need to break it up again.

The main thing is that this is easy to make and it tastes good. If you want a hit of cold and of chocolate give this a go.

500ml/2 cups/16fl oz dark coffee
65g/2/3 cup/3 oz cocoa powder
150g /2/3 cup/30z granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
85g/3oz of dark chocolate (thats around 4/5 of a 100g bar)

• take a medium sized saucepan, put in the coffee, sugar and cocoa and whisk over a low heat until everything is combined and smooth and the sugar has completely melted.
• add the chocolate broken into pieces along with the vanilla essence and keep stirring until mixture is smooth
• allow it to cool, then pour into a plastic container and put into the freezer, stirring the mixture every hour for around five hours. Then leave the mixture to freeze completely
• take the frozen mixture shortly before you plan to eat it and beat it with a fork to break it up - it will melt quickly
• serve with cream or coffee or vanilla ice cream, it's also good with chocolate sauce

Beetroot leaf soup

We love beetroot, especially when it's been freshly cooked at home.

Not so long ago I was standing on a platform at Liverpool Street station, metropolitan line. On my way home from a little jaunt. Something was nagging at me, but then that's what tube travel used to be like - right now it seems a far off dream of course. I got to Dollis Hill and it came to me. An hour or so before I'd run out of the house leaving a pot of beetroot cooking on the stove, in our newly built kitchen. I called a neighbour friend who keeps our key for emergencies and went around straight away to check and turn it off. Everything was fine, although the house smelled like I'd been smoking food. Which I had. The beetroot were charred shrivelled remains, having been left to boil dry on a very low heat with a lid on the pan. They were a also inedible, although another slightly less charred edition tasted great, kinda chipotle style, smoke dried ripe beetroot. 

Undaunted I am still cooking beetroot, and admiring the pan in question. It was an inherited pentole pan, you can see it in the pictures below. It's the best pan I have for beetroot. Like many things of value it has a heavy bottom.

Time was you bought beetroot fresh cooked off a market stall, the stall holder had a gas burner and was cooking it in large batches on the spot. I suppose in the cold weather it kept them warm. Now beetroot are often sold with all their greenery, and loath to bin it, I've been cooking it. I've made beet leaf tarts and lately beet leaf soup.



I took the tops off the fresh beetroot, gave them a wash and popped them into a pot with water, veg stock. I boiled them for about 20 minutes, then I got the stick blender out and pureed the lot.

Beetroot top soup, very tasty.

Voila. A little bit of greek yoghurt and some pepper to stir through

Sesame salt - store cupboard essential - Gomasio

Gomasio is ground and toasted sesame condiment that makes plain vegetables and plain rice a delicious meal. You can use it alongside soy sauce or instead of it. I can't recommend it enough. I make it by toasting the sesame seeds and adding a pinch of salt. Some people use more salt, but I find it overwhelming.

I use a suribachi but you can use
a pestle and mortar or a food processor

you can see the grooves that help grind the seeds

I made some cottage pies too..

Gluten free chocolate joy - Queen of Sheba cake, Reine de Saba

So chocolate lovers, this cake is for you.
Intense chocolate flavour
in a gluten free cake and a brilliant name. Give it a go

You may have noticed that there isn't a lot of flour on the shelves in many supermarkets. Is everyone baking? Since I'm not walking around the whole area I can't smell the results, and there's no biscuits baking smell wafting over from the McVities factory at the moment either.

I finally got some flour actually, at the Co-op in Cricklewood, thank you Co-op. And I got a bar of basic dark chocolate (43% for those who want detail). And it's my lovely daughter's birthday.. and she loves chocolate. At the same time I found a recipe in Elizabeth David was being shared by a BBC London Radio listener on facebook and since it's called the Queen of Sheba and my daughter is a special person, definitely got some regal stuff going on, I decided to give it a go.

Queen of Sheba cake

Ingredients

the cake dusted
with icing sugar

125g butter

125g sugar

125g dark chocolate

100 g ground almonds 

3 eggs, separated
1 tbsp coffee and spirit if you like

Set your oven to 160C

Method

• separate the eggs, into yolks and whites 
• melt chocolate (in bain marie, microwave or oven)
• add butter to melted chocolate, beating it until smooth
• add in the egg yolks one by one, beating to combine, following with the sugar and ground almonds, beating until everything is properly combined
• whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks
• fold the fluffy egg whites through the chocolate mixture, in cutting motions to keep as much air as possible
• pour mixture into prepared 8"/20cm lined tin
• bake for 45m

allow to cool before removing from the tin - be careful, it's fragile cake, dust with cocoa or icing sugar to servev.

You need a strong arm or an electric whisk or equivalent. I use an old fashioned hand held electric whisk. I don't have a big machine, just a lot of bowls. I realised that I would need a gadget garage to fit one in the kitchen, or it would have to sit on the side and I don't find it very attractive, so I got the hand held whisk. There's no flour or baking powder, the raising agent is beaten egg whites. 

20cm tin prepped
with butter and cocoa

melt the chocolate

stir the butter into the melted chocolate
 then stir in the yolks, sugar and ground almonds

beat together and leave to cool

whisk the egg whites
until they make soft peaks

stir the whites through the chocolate
mixture until combined

you can see a bit of unstirred
egg white

reverse crumble chocolate dessert

Raymond Blanc’s reverse crumble chocolate dessert is something I've come across while cruising the interweb for chocolate cake recipes, because who doesn't? It looks pretty good. Overnight chill needed, and not much flour, so the current shortage of the stuff might not put you off, so long as you can get cream, butter, milk and eggs.

If you substitute gluten free flour in the crumble, you have a gluten free dessert. 

Method

Grease an 8”/20cm cake ring, line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and sit the ring on it

Set the oven to 160 fan oven 170 normal oven

For crumble

35g butter unsalted, cold

35g sugar demerera

pinch of salt

30g flour (gf if you like)

1/5 tsp cocoa powder

Combine to a breadcrumb texture to make a crumble and bake in oven 170 for 10-12m

for choc cream

90ml whipping cream

150ml full fat milk

155g 70% choc broken into pieces

1 egg

• heat the milk and cream together to almost boiling
• start beating the egg gently then slowly pour hot milk into the beaten egg continue beating to combine.
• add the chocolate to the hot egg/milk mixture and keep beating slowly until the chocolate has melted completely, which may take a few minutes.
• allow the mixture to cool then pour over the crumble base and leave to chill in the fridge overnight

Just before serving

• slip the cake onto a plate
• loosen the edge of the cake with a hot knife and remove the ring before serving