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

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

Chocolate sorbet - vegan

Whether you're vegan or not, this chocolate frozen dessert is for you if you're a chocolate lover. It would work brilliantly as a ripple through a vanilla ice cream if you aren't vegan. 

It is very easy to make, using one pan and a freezing receptacle. If you have an ice cream maker it's an absolute doddle.

If you would like it a bit softer, add two tablespoons of alcohol after the chocolate, vodka or other flavour of your choice. If you want it lighter with bigger crystals add another 1/2 cup of water at the beginning of the method.

Chocolate sorbet

Ingredients
300g caster sugar
350ml / 2 cups strong coffee
1 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup cocoa powder
150g dark chocolate - that's about 1/2 bar

Method

You'll need 

• a saucepan
• a whisk 
• a large shallow fridge container (or an ice cream machine)

• break the chocolate into small pieces and set aside
• put water, coffee, sugar and cocoa powder into a saucepan, put over a medium heat and whisk until the sugar has dissolved
• add the vanilla and chocolate, as they melt into the hot liquid beat together until smooth
• let the mixture cool before freezing - if you're using a fridge container take it out of the freezer every 20minutes until it has the consistency you want

get the sorbet out of the freezer 20 minutes before you want to eat it

It's great with:

• cantucci biscuits
• orange segments
• vanilla ice cream or yoghurt
• banana bread

Kitty's brownies

She reckons hers are the best, and rations who gets some.

Test it out: make your own. Here is the recipe. The beauty is you just use pure cocoa.

chocolate banana bread

Overripe bananas in the bowl mean just one thing: banana bread. I like this recipe, because it is nice and simple, you mix the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients, then you mix both together and cook.

still warm... got it out anyway, now to wait two days
this is smaller than usual, because a made another little one
in case anyone couldn't wait

The cake you end up with has the sticky and slightly weighty quality of banana bread, the cocoa powder gives a good deep chocolate flavour and dries the bread a little. I like to mix wholemeal and white flour sometimes, which makes it a little firmer.

I think the flavour matures if you let the cake sit for at least a day. This may not be possible

Recipe

1 3/4 cups (230 grams) self raising flour

1/4 cup (30 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup (200 grams) sugar

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 large eggs

1/2 cup (113 grams) fat (margarine or butter) melted and cooled

3 ripe bananas(around 500g/1 ½ cups), mashed well

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to Gas mark 4/ 350F / 180C

Grease and/or line a long loaf tin, around 9 x 5 x 3”/23 x 13 x 8cm

o     Stir through the dry ingredients, until they are well combined.

o     Beat the mashed bananas, cooled fat and eggs together

o     Mix the wet and dry ingredients together loosely, until just combined

o     Pour the thick batter into the lined tin and sprinkle with  brown sugar.

o     Bake for 50 minutes then test with skewer to see if it’s cooked. Once the skewer comes out clean leave the banana bread to cool before taking it out of the tin.

cold and grey, it's a brownie day

There's a lot of debate about who makes the best brownies around here, and, I reckon it is me. Or Kit, now she's using my recipe. Some might say there is no way for me to know, since I am not the most chocolate focused person, preferring to spread my net wider, however I love these brownies. They have the chocolate intensity loved by many, as they are made with pure cocoa. They are good and chewy, and surely they must have less calories than their use-five-bars-of-chocolate cousin recipes.

brownie recipe here

Ideal with black coffee.

chocolate brownies

There's a lot of debate about who makes the best brownies around here, and, I reckon it is me. Or Kit, now she's using my recipe. Some might say there is no way for me to know, since I am not the most chocolate focused person, preferring to spread my net wider, however I love these brownies. They have the chocolate intensity loved by many, as they are made with pure cocoa. They are good and chewy, and surely they must have less calories than their use-five-bars-of-chocolate cousin recipes.


This recipe is dedicated to all households where the cooking chocolate disappears before cooking can start.

INGREDIENTS

125g Butter/margarine
40g Cocoa powder
250g Castor sugar 
2 Eggs 
50g Self-raising flour

… add if you like
handful of chopped walnuts
handful of chocolate chunks

also apparently some people like to put in dried blueberries or sour cherries

METHOD

1 Set oven to Gas mark 5 or equivalent.

2 Grease and line 7” square line baking tin.

3 Melt fat in heavy-bottomed pan over low heat. When melted mix in sifted cocoa powder. Leave to cool slightly.

4 Whisk eggs 1 minute then slowly add sugar and keep whisking until egg mixture becomes thick. Use an electric whisk or your arm may fall off

5 Combine cocoa and fat mixture with egg and sugar mixture.

6 Fold in flour.

7 Pour batter into baking tin.

8 Cook for 25-30 minutes. Do not cut until cooled.

9 Don’t overeat.

easy chocolate cake - wheat free

I've come up with another recipe for chocolate cake. It seems to satisfy chocolate lovers, and me. It's moist, but not too moist and it's got texture. It's a little bit chewy, not soft and melting, in case that's what you're looking for. If you can eat wheat you can substitute ordinary plain flour for the gluten free flour. 

you don't need chocolate for this, just cocoa powder

this cake doesn't need icing, and is great with ice cream and/or cream. It's also wonderful on it's own.

ingredients

50g cocoa powder

50g gluten free plain flower

100g ground almonds*

125g margarine or butter

150g castor sugar

4 eggs

2tsp baking powder

few drops of vanilla essence

*you can make the ground the almonds yourself, which I prefer, with their skins on, it gives a bit more texture

prepare a 9" cake tin, lining the base with baking parchment and buttering the sides

method

• sift the dry ingredients together, or break up any lumps by stirring them together thoroughtly using a whisk
  
• beat the margarine and sugar together until smooth, or light and fluffy, if you're over 50
  
• add eggs one by one, beating them in as you go
  
• add a few drops of vanilla essence
  
• stir in the dry ingredients until well mixed
  
• pour into prepared, lined tin
  

bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes at gas mark 7 then 10 minutes at gas mark 4 - the cake is ready when a skewer stuck into it comes out clean

photo to follow