Coconut Flour Chocolate Cake

Coconut flour chocolate cake with chocolate ganache bacon frosting, from Paleospirit.com.

Oh wow, here is the cake I have been waiting for! From paleospirit.com, a nutritious and dense chocolate cake that is gluten-free, grain-free, legume-free, dairy-free and nut-free so it should be ok for anybody!

I may have to make two, just to try the different frostings: chocolate bacon ganache, and coconut honey frosting. Afternoon tea at my place anyone?

Visit the creator’s website for the recipe details:
http://paleospirit.com/2012/paleo-chocolate-birthday-cake-coconut-honey-frosting

Coconut flour chocolate cake with coconut honey frosting, from Paleospirit:

 

Yes folks, you read it right, chocolate ganache bacon frosting. That’s right, chocolate frosting with bacon pieces! This recipe comes from Paleo Spirit and it sounds amazing. Or at least, you must agree that it sounds interesting (provided you eat bacon of course)? I love chocolate, bacon is good, so let’s see what romance these two conjur together. Results coming soon… (or if you’re good to me then I’ll even let you know when I make it 🙂

 

Red Wine Chocolate Cake

This cake is decadence on a plate. Make no mistake, you can’t eat this everyday – it’s all about sugar, chocolate and wine (I think I heard your lips smack from here 😉 ). I’ve made this cake many times and it is a hit at dinner parties. The deep richness and density of the cake means that one little slice is perfectly satisfying. If we work hard, exercise hard and eat well then there’s no reason that we can’t have a little treat from time to time.

Serve with a couple of strawberries and a dollop of cream or with a raspberry sauce.

Ingredients
1 cup white rice flour
¾ cup almond meal
¼ cup soy flour
2 heaped tsp baking powder
1 cup cocoa powder
200g unsalted butter
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
400ml red wine*

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Prepare 26cm round springform cake tin by greasing and lining with greaseproof paper.

Sift together the flour, almond meal and baking powder into a medium bowl or container.

Place cocoa into a large bowl.

With a whisk, whisking continuously, slowly add wine to the cocoa until a watery chocolate paste is formed with no lumps.

In a large mixer bowl beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Gradually add sugar and beat well. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each egg.

While mixing, slowly pour the chocolate wine mix into the large bowl of ingredients. Reduce mixer speed and gradually add the sifted flour.

Pour into a prepared cake tin and bake at 180 degrees C for 90 minutes.

Alternative: pour mix into a muffin tray and make mini cakes to freeze for office treats or for short-notice events. Only bake the for 25-30 minutes if you do this, or until a skewer comes out clean.

* I like to use a high quality wine because it affects the flavor of the cake and because the remainder usually goes to the cook. 😉 A Shiraz or a Grenache really works well in this cake.

 

Lemon Marscapone Tart with Blueberries

My friend Anthea reminded me of the value of marscapone for quick, easy and delicious desserts (see her comments in my Tiramisu post). And here is a great one from Donna Hay, for those welcome days when you are invited to a dinner with only a few hours notice. All you need is some marscapone cheese (it has a relatively long use-by date of a couple of months, so you can have some in your fridge on stand-by), a lemon, frozen berries, icing sugar and some shortcrust pastry. These ingredients can be on call in your fridge, freezer or pantry and bring calm when you get that last minute dinner invite. Now you can can quickly and confidently say: “Excellent! I will bring dessert.”

! Note – Donna Hay has a nice, evenly spaced crinkle along her pastry edge (très photogenic). I believe you can use a crinkle-edged rectangular pastry cutter to get this.

Ingredients

500g marscapone
2 tbsp grated lemon rind
1/4 cup (80g) icing sugar, sifted
375g blueberries*
1 1/2 sheets shortcrust pastry**

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Lay pastry sheets out to thaw.

Lightly grease a rectangular loose-bottomed tart tin (33cm x 9cm).

Line the tart tin with thawed pasty and trim the edges. Prick the base with a fork. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Line the pastry case with non-stick baking paper and fill with baking weights or rice. Bake for 30 minutes.

Remove paper and weights and bake for further 10 minutes until golden. Set aside to cool.

While the pastry is baking, place marscapone, lemon rind and icing sugar in a bowl and mix until well combined.

Spread the marscapone mixture into the cooled base and top with blueberries*.

Serves 8-10.

Modifications

* I used a combo of frozen blueberries and frozen raspberries. Let the berries thaw while you are preparing the other steps, or of course you can use fresh berries if tis the season.

** you can make your own sweet shortcrust pastry. I haven’t had the time (and it takes the point out of a “quick dessert”) but please let me know if you have tried this, or other great desserts, with shortcrust pastry from scratch.

My FAVOURITE SUGGESTION is to use small pastry shells (such as Pampas dessert sweet tart pastry cases) for small bite-sized “cheese-cakes” for at parties or BBQs. YUM!

 

Anniversary Tiramisu

Has anything bad ever come from Italy?? Possibly, although once you have had this cake you will doubt that it could be so.

SBS Food enchanted me with this deep-dish tiramisu and, with a few modifications by my best friend and her fine Italian roots, this dish was served to mark a “two-years-since-we-met” anniversary. There was also an ulterior motive: to plant the seed of travel (to Italy) into my other half… by way of cake (and is there any other way?!). Time will tell if my ingested idea has worked. Meanwhile, let’s enjoy a cake so irresistible that you will want to have it the next day with your breakfast espresso.

Ingredients

6 eggs, separated
1 cup caster sugar
500g mascarpone
Hot strong espresso coffee (I added one shot of espresso and the flavour was quite mild. If you like your coffee then go for two shots!)
Liqueur (as little or as much as you like. SBS recommends a mixture of Tia Maria, Kahlua and Amaretto. I used Brandy and Masala.)
Pavesini biscuits (a slim version of Savioardi – which also work. I only needed one packet of Pavesini.)
Small block chocolate (Lindt dark, of course).

Method

Beat egg yolks with sugar until thick and white. This will take at least 15 minutes. Add the mascarpone and beat until just combined and smooth.

Combine coffee with liqueurs. Quickly dip biscuits, a few at a time, into coffee mixture. Set aside on a plate to cool. (I forgot to do this and I went straight to lining the bowl with the biscuits. I don’t think it matters).

In a clean bowl, whisk egg whites until thick and stiff and gently fold into the mascarpone mixture.

Create a single layer of biscuit base inside a large round serving bowl*. Cover the biscuit base with a layer of the mascarpone mixture. Place a second layer of biscuits followed by marscopene mixture into the bowl and finish with a grating of good chocolate* over the top.

Refrigerate for 2-3 hrs or longer, preferably.

Serves 8.

* Modifications:
If you don’t like the flavour of coffee, replace the espresso portion with lemon juice to create a zesty lemon tiramisu.

Traditionally, tiramisu is prepared in a shallow square dish with 1-2 layers of biscuit. For me the deep-dish was a little more decadent approach.

The tiramisu can also be prepared and served in individual glass bowls for that added touch at a dinner party.

If you really love your coffee, then dust the top with fresh ground coffee beans instead of chocolate.