cake Posts

Almond and Dark Chocolate Flourless Cake of Utter Goodness

almond and dark chocolate cake with cream cheese icing

“Good but sort of healthy – like a cross between a mud cake and a carrot cake,” my friend said to me when I enquired what flavour cake I should bring to her sister’s birthday dinner. With that brief in mind, I pulled a dozen or so cookbooks from my shelf and started browsing until I realised I didn’t need to search. The answer was in my memory: a gorgeous rich chunky-textured chocolatey almondy cake my friend had served at a dinner party about three years ago. I knew the cookbook she’d used. I have the cookbook she used.

I was given a copy of High Tea at the Victoria Room during my stint as a food editor (I was sent lots of review copies of cookbooks, which was the BEST THING EVER) and I even featured some of the book’s recipes in my magazine. But this cookbook is one of my favourites because it contains a recipe for the most beautiful-tasting scones I have ever come across. Buying the book is worth it just for that one recipe.

But it wasn’t scones I was looking for this time: it was the Caprese Flourless Chocolate Cake that my friend wowed me with all those years ago. It’s basically made up of a tonne of almonds, dark chocolate, and eggs. If, like me, you consider almonds to be on the same health level as carrots, it fit the brief. Plus dark chocolate is practically on the same nutrition plane as spinach, it’s that full of antioxidants.

The cake was a bit fiddly to make and I had to modify the quantities a bit to suit the packet sizes at the supermarket, but my awesome new food processor took care of all the whizzing and chopping. I don’t think you can make this one without a food processor.

almond and dark chocolate cake with cream cheese icing

The cookbook recommended serving the cake naked with a dollop of marcapone, but since it was a birthday cake and would require something for candles to stick into, I make a cream cheese icing to go on top.

We didn’t get around to singing Happy Birthday until after several glasses of wine and some very groovy dance moves, but even in our tipsy state the cake tasted DAMN GOOD. Frankly, I can’t wait to get the “cross between a mud cake and a carrot cake” brief so I can do it all again.

Almond and Dark Chocolate Flourless Cake of Utter Goodness
Adapted from High Tea at the Victoria Room by Jill Jones-Evans and Joe Gambacorta
Cream cheese icing adapted from Masterchef Australia Volume Two
(more…)

Posted by Katy in Cakes brownies and slices, Cooking with chocolate, Recipes and tagged with almonds, cake, chocolate

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Dark chocolate almond cake and fruit custard tart at IKEA

I apologise for not posting much recently. Moving house and having my wisdom teeth extracted made September a bit of a write-off as I spent half my time anaesthetised, highly medicated, or in a stupor; and the other half packing, moving boxes, unpacking, or – like many other furniture-seeking 20-somethings – at IKEA. A place that has many flat-pack furniture options and a surprisingly good range of snacks.

Working standard office hours means that along with most of Perth, my IKEA shopping happens on a Saturday. Oh joy. But getting there at 9am on the dot has its benefits – the Welshman and I scored a plum parking spot and cruised through the furniture maze without any elbow-induced broken ribs or our toes run over by prams. By 10am we’d pinched a good haul of paper tape measures and stubby pencils, and were settling in at a table in the IKEA restaurant with our $3.95 breakfast fry-ups and two desserts. Because it’s never too early for dessert.

The desserts were also $3.95 each, which seems like a high price for IKEA food so we decided the baked goods mustn’t be massed-produced in the IKEA kitchen, but maybe mass-produced at some bakery that charges normal wholesale prices. But some of the cakes seem quite IKEA-specific… oh, I don’t know. Either way, they were there and we bought them. And that’s a lazy justification for zero research if I ever saw one.

The Welshman chose the fruit and custard tart, which is a tart shell with custard topped with layer of mandarin, kiwi fruit and strawberries, with a slight glaze. The tart shell seemed very mass-produced (my new favourite phrase, it seems) but it was still sufficiently sweet and crumbly, and the fruit was very fresh. I wouldn’t expect anything more or less from a shopping centre bakery.

I picked the almond cake with dark chocolate (or Tårta Mörk Choklad, the internet tells me in a Swedish accent), which consists of several layers of almondy stuff, almond bits, macaron-shell-style egg white stuff, and some other layers I couldn’t define but enjoyed immensely. The slice is only a few centimetres high but it’s so rich that you don’t need much of it.

As the savoury options are so inexpensive, you’re definitely justified in dropping a few dollars on some sweet goodies at the IKEA restaurant. I haven’t tried the chocolate mousse, the cinnamon rolls or any of the other options, but I can vouch for the Tårta Mörk Choklad. It’s really quite delicious.

By the time we rolled out of there with our flatpacks in tow, the crowds were starting to jostle in and our car bay had become prime real estate. Ah, IKEA. What would our living rooms do without you?

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Posted by Katy in Restaurant & Café Reviews and tagged with cake, custard, fruit, tarts

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Chocolate cake with custard & berries at Broken Hill Hotel

Chocolate hazelnut cake with custard and berries at the Broken Hill Hotel

The Welshman and I were looking for somewhere to have a Goldilocks meal last night – not too heavy, not too light – so we trundled down to the Broken Hill Hotel on Albany Highway in Victoria Park to see what we could find.

I’ve been to the Broken Hill Hotel a few times since it was refurbished, and I’ve never been disappointed, though I’ve never been overwhelmed by any sort of fantasticosity either. It’s a good place to have a pint or a meal, but I wouldn’t rate it above the Queens in Highgate for ambience or décor.

We settled into the dining area and started the night with a bottle of Richland Pinot Grigio, a bargain at $25. I’ve developed a bit of a taste for pinot grigio recently but I’m still too new to detect much of a difference between the wineries. This one tasted fine to me.

I wasn’t in the mood for a plate groaning with steak and chips (I know! Unusual for me) so I opted for the pumpkin and feta tart with rocket salad and balsamic reduction for $16.50, and the Welshman chose the lemon and garlic squid with Greek salad and herbed mayo for $18.50. These were off ‘The Better Start’ section of the menu, with ‘The Main Event’ meals ranging from $24.50 to $33.50.

The meals were both extremely tasty, especially the herbed mayo; I’m planning an attempt to duplicate this at home. The tart was a bit dry – perhaps a few days old – and not heated all the way through, but I still enjoyed it rather a lot.

I felt surprisingly satisfied despite the small meal, but that didn’t stop us from sharing some dessert: the chocolate and hazelnut cake with proper custard and berry compote for $9.50. Usually I’m not a fan of hazelnut with chocolate, and cannot understand why anyone thinks Nutella is an indulgent treat (though I’d never say no to those marbled shell-shaped chocolates). But to tell you the truth, until I checked the name of the dessert just then, I’d forgotten about the hazelnut – it certainly wasn’t a strong flavour in the dish. And the word ‘cake’ kind of sells this dessert short, as it’s more of a rich fudgy chocolatey thing with cake-like edges – and really quite delicious.

Chocolate hazelnut cake with custard and berries at Broken Hill Hotel

The custard was a nice addition and certainly didn’t taste shop-bought, although it was almost frothy in texture instead of creamy, and I suspect it was fizzed up by a blender. The berries looked and tasted like they’d come out of a frozen mixed berry pack and been defrosted; I think they could have used a sprinkle of caster sugar to take the edge off a bit.

It was a great way to end the meal and I was glad we hadn’t stuffed ourselves, as we could walk out of the place in an upright position. Although I’m the first person to order the biggest pub-grub-like meal on the menu, there’s a lot to be said for keeping it small and tasty – and leaving lots of room for dessert.

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