ONE BOWL CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH CHOCOLATE FROSTING

It was my daughter Arabella's 8th birthday party today and she wanted a Harry Potter cake - I checked out some of the amazing creations on Pinterest but they were way too ambitious!! So I then decided the best option was baking a chocolate cake and buying some Harry Potter Edible Wafer Cake Toppers from Amazon. I normally cheat when I make a cake and use a Betty Crocker mix however this time I decided to complicate matters for myself and make the entire thing from scratch. I chose the one bowl chocolate cake recipe from Kate Doran's Homemade Memories cookbook as it seemed less "messy" and the frosting from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook.

The cake took about an hour to make and bake and the icing took about 10 minutes, however you need time in between for the cake to cool. According to the recipe the cake feeds about 8 people however we managed to cut it into 16 slices so it depends on how hungry you are. 

Ingredients for a 20 cm chocolate cake:

3 tbsp cocoa powder
125g plain white flour
2 tsp baking powder
150g butter, softened and cubed, plus extra for greasing
150g caster sugar
25g light muscovado sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
A pinch of salt

Chocolate Frosting:
900g icing sugar, sifted
300g unsalted butter at room temperature
120g cocoa powder, sifted
120ml whole milk

I forgot to put the baking powder in the original photo!!

Preheat the oven to 190 C / 170 C fan / gas mark 5. Lightly grease a 20cm round loose-bottomed cake tin with butter and line with baking parchment.

Sift the cocoa powder into a large bowl, add 3 tablespoons of warm water and whisk until smooth. This was easier said than done for me - my result was not very smooth and was quite "bitty" even though I whisked for about 3-4 minutes.

Sift over the flour and baking powder, and then add the butter, sugars, eggs, vanilla essence and salt and beat until just combined. You can do this with a wooden spoon (if you have a lot of energy) or an easier option would be to use an electric whisk, a stand mixer or a food processor. Mine was still quite lumpy but I figured it would all come together in the oven.

Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 minutes - you can check whether it is ready or not by inserting a skewer into the middle and if it is cooked through, it will come out clean.

When it is ready, leave to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cool, slice the cake in half horizontally using a serrated knife.

While the cake is cooling, you can make the frosting. As I said, I used a Hummingbird Bakery recipe for this - my ultimate favourite. I was on the phone to my brother when I did this so I didn't concentrate and added the milk too early - thankfully it didn't matter - however here is how to do it properly!

Sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl. Then beat together with the butter using an electric whisk on a medium speed until the ingredients come together and are well mixed. I made a right old mess doing this - cocoa powder was literally flying everywhere!!

Then add the milk a couple of tablespoons at a time and mix together at a slow speed until all the milk is incorporated. Next turn the mixture up to a high speed and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy - this takes about 5 minutes. The longer the frosting is beaten, the lighter it will be. 

Finally, spread the frosting on the top of one half of the sponges, put the other sponge on top of this and cover the rest of the cake (top and sides) with the remainder of the frosting. I managed to actually break the cake as I did this but thankfully covered it up with the icing!

Finally decorate as you like - with haribo, marshmallows, maltesers, smarties or Harry Potter edible wafer papers like us. My only advice it decorate when the frosting is still very fresh as it then sticks better.

Not to blow my old trumpet, but this cake was really really yummy. It was extremely rich and chocolatey but so decadent and delicious. A real winner. Even though most of the time when I was making it, I felt I was doing it wrong and the ingredients weren't mixing like they were meant to, it still worked out fine - thank goodness! I would recommend this recipe to anyone wanting a chocolate cake - I especially loved the fact it was all made in one bowl however I did manage to trash the kitchen in the process but I guess that is part of the fun of cooking (or something)!

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GRILLED GAMMON STEAKS WITH LEEK AND MUSHROOM SAUCE

Often I ask Arabella what she had for lunch for school and she answers "meat" and when I enquire what kind of meat, I am met with a blank face. However the other day, she announced she had gammon and she absolutely loved it - so I was obviously straight to the supermarket to buy some and hunting online for a recipe. I actually had one in my recipe file that I had cut out from a Sainsbury's magazine - it took about 30 minutes in total.

Ingredients for 4 people:

15g unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
250g pack of closed cup chestnut mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
1 large leek, washed, trimmed and sliced
50g of spring onions, trimmed and sliced
2 x 320g packs of sweet cure unsmoked gammon steaks
2 tsp French Dijon mustard
150ml chicken stock, made with 1/2 a stock cube
125ml soured cream (I actually used mascarpone as that is what I had in the fridge)
14g fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

To serve (optional):
500g mini potatoes
350g frozen garden peas

Heat the butter and half the oil in the frying pan.

Add the mushrooms and fry over the heat for 2-3 minutes and then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the leek and spring onions to the pan with the rest of the oil and the recipe says to cook for a further 8-10 minutes over a medium heat. I actually just did about 5 minutes as it started to burn.

At the same time, preheat the grill to high and cook for 5 minutes on each side until cooked through.

If you are cooking potatoes, you need to boil them for around 12 minutes as well.

Anyway add the mustard and stock to the pan with the cooked onions and leeks. Next mix in the sour cream or in my case the mascarpone and simmer for 1 minutes.

Finally add the mushrooms, parsley and season with black pepper and give it a good stir. Also if you are cooking peas, boil them for 3-4 minutes now.

Serve the gammon steaks topped with the mushroom and leek sauce and enjoy.

I didn't have the potatoes and peas and I have to admit I didn't need them, this tasted brilliant just as it was - it was very similar to a stroganoff and all the flavours were great together. Arabella had it with the peas and potatoes and no sauce as she hates mushrooms. This was easy and quick to cook and the sauce would work well with any meat, or even on its own. Another success!

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SWEET PESTO BAKED SQUASH

I haven't really been into cooking recently - I don't know why, I am still certainly into eating. Anyway I have been meaning to cook this recipe for a while - it is Fay Ripley's third book and could be cooked as a main or a side. I did it as a side with some salmon. I have to admit that as I was cutting up the butternut squash I said to myself, it is such a hassle I will never cook squash again. However when I ate it, I thought it was so delicious, I can't wait to cook this again!! It took 15 minutes to prepare and 50 minutes to cook.

Ingredients for 4 people:

2 butternut squashes, halved lengthways
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 heaped tablespoons of fresh pesto
2 heaped tablespoons of mascarpone
2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan

Firstly the "tricky" part - cut the butternut squashes in half, deseed and cut the long narrow end off each half. Put the bowl like ends into a baking tray. Peel the long ends, chop into small cubes (mine weren't small enough) and add to the tray. This is a messy process! Drizzle with olive oil and bake for 45-50 minutes until cooked and tender. I was trying to do all this before taking Arabella to ballet and it was a real rush!

In a bowl, mix the pesto and mascarpone together, season, and then stir through the small cooked cubes of squash.

Divide the mixture between the squash bowls and load some Parmesan on top. Then put them back in the oven for ten minutes.

Serve and enjoy! As I said we had ours with salmon however they would be delicious with chicken or lamb or just on their own. They tasted fantastic, the cheese, pesto and squash really go well together and after the initial cutting up, they weren't difficult to make. Despite promising myself I would not cook with butternut squash again, I now can't wait to have these again soon.

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HONEY AND GOAT'S CHEESE CHICKEN

I haven't cooked a new recipe for nearly a month - poor show from a food blogger! In my defence I have been away for a couple of weeks and I have to admit our staple meal in France is bread and cheese - when in Rome and all that.

Now I am home it is time to get back into the old routine. As I have mentioned many times, Arabella LOVES goat's cheese and so I decided to cook this recipe - one of my best friends had recommended it a couple of years ago so it was really time to give it a go. It is from the American chef Paula Deen and it took about 45 minutes to prepare and cook.

Ingredients for 2 people:

2 boneless chicken breasts
50g of butter crackers (I used ritz crackers)
Salt and pepper
60g goat's cheese 
2 tbsp of melted butter
2 tbsp of honey
Fry light or a drizzle of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Cut a slit in each chicken breast horizontally, being careful not to cut all the way through, and stuff with equal amounts of goat's cheese.

In a bowl, crush the crackers with a wooden spoon and season generously. Next time I might break up the biscuits in a blender as it would be quicker and easier.

Spray the bottom of a baking dish with fry light or grease with some olive oil or butter and then add the chicken breasts and cover with the cracker mixture. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes.

While this is cooking, mix together the butter and the honey in a small bowl. Ideally you should melt the butter beforehand but I forgot to do this so I heated the bowl gently over a saucepan of boiling water - this did the trick.

Take the chicken out of the oven and spoon over the honey butter. Then put it back in the oven for 25 minutes.

Finally serve with some salad or vegetables and enjoy.

I don't normally like sweet and savoury together but I actually loved this - honey and goat's cheese are a great combination and the chicken was really tender. Arabella adored the goat's cheese and chicken but wasn't so keen on the honey.

A quick easy midweek supper and a great way to spruce up a simple chicken breast. 

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