Sachertorte

Hello, Internet!

It's the Speeding Turtle here, back from a trip in another country.  I had a lot of fun, and ate heaps of delicious food.

My Grandmother was having a dinner with some friends, and she was in charge of bringing desserts.  The dinner was an 'Operatic' theme, so she asked if I could do some biscuits and a Sachertorte.  I agreed, knowing I had a Sachertorte recipe stashed away in my French Pastry book, and made her some macarons for the biscuits.


Below is the recipe and procedure for Sachertorte.  I made a small Sachertorte for the dinner, and a whole pile of mini Sachers to keep at home for consumption.


Sachertorte is a dense chocolate and apricot cake with a smooth chocolate covering.  It takes its name from Vienna's Sacher Hotel.  Austrian law specifies that a Sachertorte must be made with butter (not margarine or shortening), fresh eggs, apricot jam and real chocolate (not cocoa powder).  I abandoned my margarine for this one.


The recipe actually uses chocolate poured fondant for the icing, but poured fondant and I have a strained relationship after the petit four incidents; so I used a handy, and delicious Glacage au Chocolat instead which still gives a beautiful flat finish.

Recipe Source: The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts

Ingredients - Cake

100g dark chocolate

100g unsalted butter, room temperature

55g icing sugar

6 eggs

110g flour

100g white sugar

Ingredients - Glacage au Chocolat (Chocolate Glaze)

455g dark chocolate

330g unsalted butter, room temperature

30mL (2 tbsp) glucose syrup

Ingredients - Assembly

500g apricot jam

30mL rum (optional)
Extra chocolate (dark) for piping

Method - Cake
1. Gather all your ingredients for the cake (I don't usually do this, but hey, I think it made the whole process a lot easier!)  Separate the eggs into two separate bowls, you need both the yolks and the whites.

2. Preheat oven to 177 degrees C.  Butter and flour two 6 inch/15cm cake tins.


3. Melt the chocolate for the cake, set aside to cool.


4. Place egg whites in a bowl and beat on low to aerate (until bubbles appear).

5. Add the white sugar and whip until soft peaks form.

6. Fit a mixer with the paddle/K attachment and beat the butter on low to soften it.

7. Add the icing sugar and beat on medium for about 4 minutes, or until light and fluffy.

8. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well and scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions.

9. Grab the melted chocolate that you prepared earlier.  With the mixer on low, pour in the chocolate all at once to keep it from setting before it's incorporated into the batter.  Keep beating until the chocolate is completely incorporated.

10. Using a spatula, fold the egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture gently.  Don't completely combine the two batters, it will all come together in the next step.

11. Fold the flour into the streaky batter until everything is incorporated.

12. Pour half the mixture into each cake tin and flatten.

I put half my mixture into muffin moulds.  However, if you want mini Sachers, I suggest you make the two large cakes and then cut little circles out of the cakes.  The muffin mould cakes didn't turn out looking pretty.

13. Bake the cakes for about 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Method - Glacage au Chocolat (Chocolate Glaze)

1. Combine chocolate, butter and glucose syrup in a microwave-safe bowl.

2. Microwave until the chocolate is partially melted.

3. Stir until the glaze is perfectly blended, with no lumps or evidence of separation.

4. Set aside to cool to body temperature.

Method - Assembly

1. Invert the cakes onto a wire rack, remove the tin and let cool.

2. Use a serrated knife to trim the top of the cakes.  Your aim is to make every surface as flat as possible so that the smooth chocolate glaze will go on nicely.  After trimming, cut each cake in half crosswise.

My cupcake Sachers turned out a bit deformed, so I trimmed the tops and cut them out into nice circles with a cookie cutter.

Delicious 'wastage'.

3. Warm apricot jam until very hot (but not boiling) either in the microwave or in a saucepan.  If using rum, warm the jam and rum together.  If the jam is lumpy or has bits in it, press through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.  I used a smooth jam, so I skipped this step.

4. Using a pastry brush, brush the two cut sides of each cake with jam and sandwich them together.

You should now have two cakes, each with jam in the middle.

5. Brush the outsides of the cakes with jam.  Set aside to let the jam cool and set.

6. Pour the glacage over one cake at a time.  

Using a flat spatula or knife, smooth the glacage out so it runs over the edges of the cake.  Make sure all surfaces of the cake are covered.  Allow the glacage to set.

7. Once the glacage is set (it will go a matte colour), melt some more chocolate.  Transfer it into a baking paper piping bag (or a Ziploc back with a hole cut in the corner).  Pipe the word Sacher in the middle of the top of each cake.

8. Eat.

The Beginning of an Addiction - Peanut Butter Bars

Yes, it's official.  I, The Speeding Turtle, am addicted and obsessed with peanut butter.
It probably isn't healthy to have little twitch-fits and hyperventilate with the mere mention of the delicious food, and yet it happens to me.


I'd never been much of a fan of peanut butter before, and only really ate it when it was mixed with honey on toast.  So where does this addiction spring from?  I'll tell you.  It all began the fateful day that I made Nigella Lawson's Peanut Butter Bars.


The Peanut Butter Bars were amazing; sweet, chocolatey, peanutty and so good I wanted to whip up another batch right away and devour it all.  It's easy enough, too, with no baking involved (unless you count microwaving).  In the words of Nigella Lawson: "You may think that seeing how the dough is made - just peanut butter, butter and sugar - might put you off eating them.  Sadly not."

I made them so often after that first time that Mum had to restrict me to making them only once every two months.  *Sigh*
12 days until July.

Recipe Adapted From: How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients - Base (20 cm (8 inch) square tin)

50g brown sugar
200g icing sugar
50g margarine (you can use butter, but I think it tastes better with margarine)
200g smooth (or crunchy) peanut butter

Ingredients - Topping
150g dark/milk chocolate (I use dark)
1 tablespoon margarine/butter


Method
1. Combine the ingredients for the base.  I use my Kitchenaid with the K beater attachment.

2. Sample the dough.  If you want it more peanutty, add more peanut butter; but know that this will make the dough softer and more squidgy.


3. Line a 23cm square tin (or equivalent) with baking paper.  Press the dough evenly into the tin and refrigerate.

4. Make the topping.  Put the chocolate and butter into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave until mostly melted.  Stir.


5. Pour the chocolate mixture onto the base and spread.  To get the chocolate flat, rap the tin on the tabletop and it should flatten out.

6. Refrigerate until chocolate is just set.  Occupy yourself with other tasks so you don't die of anticipation.


7. Cut the peanut butter bar into little squares with a hot knife.  If the chocolate is too hard and the base too soft - meaning that when you try to cut, the base all squidges out of shape - then turn the bar upside down and cut.


8. Eat.  Omnomnomnomnomnom.

For a bit of class, instead of having Peanut Butter Bars you can have Peanut Butter Balls.  Instead of forming the dough into a bar, roll the dough into small balls and freeze them.  Then dip in chocolate.  If desired, you can drizzle more chocolate over the top once the bottom layer is hard.

Another change you can make is to add Rice Bubbles to the dough.  This is a good thing - the crunchiness is good, and the addition of another ingredient means the volume of dough is greater.  Therefore, you can get more yum out of the same recipe!

I thoroughly recommend that you try these.  Enjoy!

Sticky Date Pudding

It seems that my posts at the moment are all about birthdays!  My brother's birthday was in May, and I made him Sticky Date Pudding.  It's the perfect weather for it right now: cold.

The Sticky Date Pudding I make is dense, filling, and warming. Sometimes I add good quality chocolate to the pudding, which adds another layer of goodness to the dish.  Of course, a sticky date pudding is not ever complete without a generous covering of the stuff that makes it sticky - butterscotch sauce.  I am always super offended if a restaurant serves their sticky date pudding without enough sauce.  This recipe makes more than enough delicious, rich, utterly unhealthy sauce; enough to drown each piece of pudding in.  Perfect.

Recipe adapted from: The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander

Ingredients - Pudding (18cm square cake or equivalent)

170g dates (without stones)

1 tsp bicarb soda

300mL boiling water

60g unsalted butter

180g caster or brown sugar

2 eggs

170g self raising flour

1/2 tsp vanilla essence/extract

Ingredients - Butterscotch sauce

400g brown sugar

250mL thickened cream

250g butter

2 tsp vanilla essence/extract

Method - Pudding

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and line an 18cm square tin with baking paper.  You can also use a circular tin of equivalent size, or use a cupcake pan for sweet little desserts you don't have to cut up.

2. De-stone your dates if they aren't already, then chop them up.  Don't cut them too thin, each date should go into 3 - 4 bits.

3. Put the dates in a bowl and mix with bicarb, then pour the boiling water in and let stand.

4. Meanwhile: cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

5. Fold flour in gently.

6. Add vanilla, and the date mixture (water and everything!) then stir until combined.  The batter will be quite liquid.

7. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 30 - 40 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.


Method - Butterscotch sauce
I usually make the butterscotch sauce just before the pudding is served - this way the sauce is nice and hot.  It doesn't take long to make so it can easily be done while the main course is being cleared from the table!


1. Combine all sauce ingredients in a saucepan.  Make sure you use a big enough saucepan, as the sauce will boil quite vigorously!

2. Bring to boil, then simmer for about 5 minutes.

3. Plate up the pudding...

4. Pour the hot sauce over and leave to soak for a few minutes.  I keep some sauce aside to tip into a jug and pour over each individual piece of pudding.

5. If it's your little brother's - or anyone's - birthday, skewer the pudding with a candle, set it alight, sing, etc etc etc...

6. Even if it's not anyone's birthday, cut up the pudding into smallish pieces, pour some more sauce on and devour.

Happy birthday, brother of mine.  I love you.

ANZAC Biscuits

ANZAC Day

ANZAC - Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

ANZAC Day, the 25th of April, remembers the Australians and New Zealanders who gave up their lives for their countries; particularly in the Gallipoli siege of World War 1.

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This fantastic recipe for ANZAC biscuits/crisps is from my Great Grandmother, and I think they're my Dad's favourite biscuits.  They're crunchy, sweet and satisfying - also easy to make!

ANZAC Biscuits

Recipe Source: my Great Grandma

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats, unprocessed

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tbsp golden syrup - use more if you want them sweeter!

1 tbsp boiling water

Extra 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda and boiling water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees C.

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl.

2. Melt butter in microwave or over a double boiler.

3. Add the melted butter, and the golden syrup to dry ingredients - mix well.  Make sure you coat all of the oats in the butter.

4. In a small bowl, combine the extra 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda with some boiling water.  Mix to dissolve, then add to the main mixture along with the 2 tbsp water.  Mix well.

5. Add more boiling water if the mixture is not wet enough.  (I had to).  Add more golden syrup if it's not sweet enough.  (I did).

6. Take tablespoons of the mixture and roll into balls, then flatten them out with your fingers.  They need to be quite thin.  It helps if you wet your hands a bit, so that the mixture doesn't stick to you.

7. Cook until dark-golden brown in colour; about 25 - 30 minutes.  You need to make sure that they are crispy, and that they have cooked through.  If they aren't baked for long enough, the middle can still be a bit soggy from the water.

8. Transfer the baked biscuits to a cooling rack after they have cooled on the tray for a while.

9. Get the biscuits into a sealed box as soon as they are completely cool, otherwise they will go a bit soggy.  If you leave them out, just stick them back into the oven until they go crispy again.

10. Share with friends and family.

Have a good ANZAC day and a good long weekend!