Churros!

As part of the long weekend/small plates deal, I took on dessert. Churros with Spanish style hot chocolate, to be precise. If it weren't for the bad idea of making it all a-la-minute (I had unfounded fears of making both parts ahead of time, and them not reheating properly) then I would count it all as success! Unfortunately it stressed me out a little, I got oil splatter burns up my arm, broke my cookie gun, and we didn't eat them til 11pm.

1. For the Churros: I followed this recipe, but it proved too tough to push through the cookie gun, who's fault that is I don't know, but if I was to use that thing again I'd make the dough a lot softer and hope that it still all holds together once it hits the oil. After breaking the gun I ended up just rolling some out into rough looking tubes by hand and crankily throwing them in the pan. They still worked! I should've done that from the start. Something to watch out for - exploding churros! This is how I got splattered with hot oil :(


2. For the Chocolate: I had a few recipes I tried for this, none of which were particularly great so it ended up being a bit of a mongrel in the end. A delicious mongrel, though. Something along the lines of:

• Bring milk to a boil & stir in chocolate, add a cinnamon stick & split vanilla pod (this isn't necessary really but it always feels nice to use a real life vanilla.)
  
• Stir in a mix of corn flour + water (so there isn't lumps of flour) over a low heat until it thickens to be something you can dip your fried things into.
• Ladle into cups, wonder what you are going to do with such a massive pot of leftover hot chocolate, make a mental note to not make so freakin much of it next time.

Chocolate pasta with creme anglaise

I'm sure that Italians would be horrified at such a bastardisation of their cultural legacy, but chocolate pasta with creme anglaise (that's 'custard' to you and me) is very, very tasty.

Chocolate pasta


This pasta dough probably serves 8 people or more

350g tipo '00' flour
50g cocoa
1 tbsp sugar
4 eggs and a yolk (you want about 270g of liquid, so if you have 67g eggs you only need 4)

Sift the flour, cocoa and sugar onto a clean board or bench. Make a hole in the middle, crack in your eggs. Mix well, then knead until silky smooth (this takes about 10 minutes of hard kneading).

Leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour or so wrapped in glad wrap, then cut in four and roll out using your pasta roller. I found that I could only take it down to a 6 or 7 on the rollers before it started to break up; the cocoa is not as pliable as a pure-flour pasta.

Creme Anglaise (aka sweet custard)
Serves 6 or so

This recipe comes from the very reliable Ratio by Michael Ruhlman.

250 ml milk

250 ml cream

1 vanilla bean, split down its length

115g sugar (1/2 cup)

115g egg yolk (7 yolks)

Combine the milk cream and vanilla bean in a sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat and let the bean steep for fifteen minutes. With a pairing knife, scrape the beans from the pod into the milk-cream mixture. Discard the pod (or store it in sugar).

Combine the sugar and yolks and stir vigorously with a whisk for thirty seconds or so (this will help the sugar to begin dissolving and will also help the egg to cook more evenly).

Fill a large bowl with a 50-50 mixture of ice and water, and place a second bowl into the ice bath. Set a fine-mesh strainer in the bowl.

Over medium heat, bring the cream just to a simmer, then pour it slowly into the yolks while whisking continuously. Pour the mixture back into the pan and continue stirring over medium heat until the mixture is slightly thick, or nappé—it should be completely pourable but if you dip a spoon in it, it should be thick enough on the spoon to draw a line through it—2 to 4 minutes, depending how hot your burner is.

---
Serve a small amount (say 1/3 of a cup) of custard in the bottom of a bowl, top with a few strands of chocolate pasta. If you want to be extra ridiculous you can serve some white chocolate with a microplane at the table, to shave over like parmesan.

Warm Almond & Berry Cake

Here be some messed up version of Rhubarb Slice from the 'Bake It' book, due to a) not having any rhubarb, b) making it gluten intolerant friendly for my favourite norwegian at work and c) it not really working well enough to be considered a slice in the end. HOWEVER it was pretty good still warm, the bottom half of it still soft and a bit gooey and the top and edges with a really nice chewiness almost like meringue for some reason. Served with a scoop of icecream it was a nice dessert.

Sooo it didn't turn out much at all as intended (that being a slice to feed coworkers at morning tea) or like the original recipe but I am ok with that! Where the original looks like a tasty rhubarb topped cake, this looks like nothing very exciting BUT has awesome surprises of blueberries and raspberries underneath the vanillary cake top. SURPRISE! Here is the recipe:

Cream 185g unsalted butter, 230g caster sugar & 1/2 tsp vanilla.

Add 3 eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift over 3/4 tsp baking powder & 90g almond meal (*original recipe used plain flour) and stir to combine.

Spread over a greased & lined tin (20x30cm), and scatter a big handful of (defrosted, though i think mine were still a bit icey woops) blueberries and raspberries (*original used 300g chopped up rhubarb) over the top.

Sprinkle with sugar and bake in 180C for about 40 minutes or til golden.

Cool in the tin, lift out and slice up and serve with some icecream and a sprinkle of icing sugar.

As a warm dessert I give it A+. As the intended slice, FAIL. TOO SOGGY. I will try it again though and get it to actually be morning tea-able, some time..