Chocolate & Bourbon Torte

This is the other dessert I brought to the barbecue I attended at the weekend.

The host and his partner had promised to serve up a generous portion of pork ribs and one of the best antidotes I know for meat sweats is a dense, dark chocolate torte.

I made a Bourbon chocolate tart (rather than a torte) last year, but the texture of the pastry was a distraction and the filling was bland.  The bland filling was my fault, as I used a not-particularly-exciting chocolate  (the brand rhymes with 'align').  If you're baking something where chocolate makes up more than a quarter of the total mass of the ingredients (see also; brownies), you want to use a chocolate that tastes good when you put a square of it in your mouth.

I love dark chocolate from Madagascar, which as I learnt when I met the owner of Auberge du Chocolat, has fruity, summer berry notes, which I thought would sit well with the dried fruit and toffee notes in the Bourbon.

Scandilicious Toscakaka - Vanilla & Salted Almond Praline Cake

I made this cake last night for a barbecue I'm attending today and I was certain that I'd posted about it before. But I've gone through my archives and can't see it, so here it is. A very buttery, fluffy vanilla cake, topped with a chewy salted almond praline. It's a good cake for picking at over the course of a week; the caramel coating seeps into the cake as the days pass, working to preserve it and to intensify the flavours.

I first tested this cake on my work colleagues. I realised part-way through making it, that I didn't have the full weight of flaked almonds required for the caramel topping, so I topped them up with shredded coconut, this being an alternative topping suggested in the Scandilicious Baking book from which I took the recipe.

Cheddar, Chilli & Courgette Muffins

One of the good things about coming out of blogging hibernation, is that in order to take photographs, I have to tidy my dining table, this being the only space in my flat that provides enough space and natural light to do so.

The dining table tends to act as a Bermuda Triangle for my post and any dry goods in my food shopping, which get abandoned when I get bored with putting away shopping and instead, wonder off to the sofa with a newly-purchased packet of biscuits. Once dumped, things stay there until I have a tidying frenzy, so having a reason to keep the table clear is good.

Another habit I've reacquired recently is buying flowers. This also helps keep on top of clutter. A table full of rubbish is easy to ignore, but a vase of flowers surrounded by rubbish is such a depressing sight, that it compels me to keep the area looking tidy (well, my version of tidy!).

Raspberry & Almond Butter Blondies

Since deciding to tackle the size of my backside, I've adopted the Six Million Dollar Man's tagline and with every meal and journey I make at the moment, I'm seeking to make everything stronger, better & faster.

Trips to the supermarket are being done on the bike, not by car, (very slow) runs in the park have replaced a slow walk to the local town centre and a lot more thought is going into everything that I eat.  All this is being done with the zeal of the newly converted and I imagine my enthusiasm will subside in a few months.

But for now, if I feel like eating some nuts as a snack, I start thinking, 'what's the best nut I can eat to get the most from my snack?  Potatoes have been replaced with sweet potatoes or lentils.  I'm only eating meat once a week on average and when I do, it's the nicest piece of pork or beef I can buy, divided up so I get two meals from it.  I've had to make an extreme cutback on the amount of sugar I eat and specifically, the amount of cake I eat.

With the above in mind, I've been looking everywhere for ideas on how to make cake, but better.

Google Reader to Close: How to Stay Subscribed to Blogs

Google have announced that they are closing their RSS feed subscription service, Google Reader, on 1 July 2013.

There has been considerable backlash online about this, but the general consensus is that Google have done this in order to push people into using Google Plus, so it's unlikely that they'll reverse the decision.

Any readers of this blog who have subscribed prior to March 2013, will have probably done so using Google Reader. If so, you will lose your connection to this site (and any others you're connected to via Reader) after 1 July.

I'd hate to see you go, so I have now updated the subscription options, so you can subscribe via email. I would encourage any new visitors who want to stay in touch, to do so using this service.

A Very Long Sabbatical

As I've recently committed to reducing my sugar intake to the recommended daily amount, in a bid to stop falling asleep at 4 p.m. and get rid of some excess pounds that have attached themselves to me, it's unlikely that I'm going to be baking up a storm any time soon.

I have lots of drafted posts which only consist of a title, which is to say that I have lots of baking ideas ready to try out.  I'll be doing this for social occasions where cake is required, so there will be the odd post here and there.

In the meantime, I'd like to direct you to the following sites, where cake-a-plenty can be found.

An American Cupcake In London. Prolific posts from Kelly, who always creates something fun and delicious.

Marble Bundt Cake

I needed a cake to serve over Christmas that wasn't too rich, or too sweet. Just something to stave off the sugar cravings and to serve with coffee.

I don't know why Bundt cakes aren't more popular in the UK. Using a Bundt tin is such an easy way to make an impression and there seem to be a worrying amount of people who think that you've sculpted the cake yourself, on presenting it. The best known brand of tin is produced by Nordic Ware. As Bundts are a US concoction, the best way to discern the volume of batter which any tin can take, is to check how many cups it holds.  The standard tin seems to take ten cups, but there are variations on this, so look out.