Gâteau Marcel. A recipe for a delicious layered chocolate mousse cake (gluten-free)

Happy Valentine's Day to all the lovely Nami-Nami readers out there!

Today's recipe is this gluten-free and fun cake from Denmark, where it's considered to be the French chocolate cake. The recipe is from Michel Michaud, a French chef. Well, Michel Michaud was born in France in 1946, but moved to Denmark in 1971, where he introduced the Danes to the culinary delights of French cuisine. Including this cake.

I never came across this cake when living in Denmark at the tender age of 18. I only came across the cake few weeks ago, when somebody mentioned in one Danish-language Facebook group that "oh, this [cake] is very similar to Gateau Marcel." Well, I had to check out what's behind that fancy name and turned out that it's a gluten-free cake that consists of only 4 ingredients (chocolate, butter, eggs, sugar), results in three dirty bowls and one decadent two-layer chocolate mousse cake.

Intrigued? So was I - and we loved this cake a lot!

Best made on a previous day.

Gâteau Marcel 
(Eestikeelne retsept)
Adapted from several Danish-language sources, but modfied
Serves 10




200 g good-quality dark chocolate (chips/pellets or chopped)
200 g unsalted butter
200 g caster sugar
6 large eggs
a pinch of salt (optional)

To serve:
cacao powder (un-sweetened)
fresh raspberries or chocolate curls

Pre-heat the oven to 175 C/350 F.

Melt the chocolate chips and butter in a bowl set over barely simmering water. Stir until combined, then cool a little.

Separate egg yolks from egg whites. Whisk egg yolks and about 2/3 of the sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. In another, very clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then continue whisking and adding the sugar, until the egg white mixture is shiny and stiff.

(You've got 3 bowls now - one with melted chocolate and butter, one with egg yolks and sugar, one with egg whites and sugar).

Gently fold the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Then fold in about a third of the meringue (aka egg white mixture) until combined, then very gently add the rest of the egg whites to the batter.

Grease a 24 cm/9 inch springform tin thoroughly with butter, sprinkle lightly with sugar or cocoa powder. Spoon up to a half of the batter into the tin, smooth the top. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool a little - it'll collapse a little, which is perfectly normal.

Then spoon the rest of the chocolate batter on top of the cooled chocolate cake - this will become the chocolate mousse layer. Smooth the top, then place into a fridge for at least 4 hours or until the next day.

Before serving, remove the cake carefully from the tin and transfer onto a serving plate. Sprinkle generously with cocoa powder, then decorate with fresh or frozen raspberries or fancy chocolate curls.

Beetroot Brownies (wheat-free, possibly gluten-free)

Photo by Juta Kübarsepp for the March 2014 issue of Kodu ja Aed magazine. 

March. While in some far away corners this means new season's rhubarb and spring greens, then here in far North it's time to dig out the last of the last season's root vegetables and do something nice with them. Beetroot is one of my favourites (see all those beet recipes!?) and luckily it's one vegetable that's still nice and good at this time of the year.

Chocolate-laden brownies are loved by many, and here's a lovely version I've been baking recently. The cooked (either boiled or roasted) beet makes these extra moist and soft, and you can easily make this gluten-free by using appropriate flour (see notes below).

Enjoy!

Beetroot and Dark Chocolate Brownies
(Peedi-šokolaadiruudud)
Makes 16 small squares

200 g unsalted butter
200 g dark chocolate (70%)
200 g cooked beetroot
3 large eggs
200 g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar or extract
100 g flour*
50 g coarsely chopped almonds or walnuts (optional)

* A note on flour: As my son is sensitive to wheat, I use rye - and a wholemeal rye - when baking this. You can use regular wheat flour for this, or even buckwheat or rice flour for a gluten-free version. 

Pre-heat the oven to 200 C/390 F. Line a 24 cm (10 inch) square cake tin with parchment paper.

Break the chocolate into pieces, cut the butter into chunks. Place both into a small saucepan and heat gently on a low heat, stirring every now and then, until the chocolate melts. Remove from the hob and stir until combined. Leave and let it cool to room temperature.

Finely grate the beets, fold into the melted chocolate and butter mixture.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and pale. Gently fold in the vanilla, then the beet-chocolate-butter mixture. Finally fold in the flour and the nuts, if using. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 20-25 minutes - or only until the cake looks cooked from the top. Remove from the oven and let cool before cutting into squares.


Photo by Juta Kübarsepp for Nami-Nami.

Chocolate Muffins Recipe

Recipe repost. This was originally posted in February 2010.

I'm jumping on the Valentine's Day bandwagon here. I must admit it's not a holiday that we celebrate, really. Though Valentine's Day/Friends' Day has become increasingly popular amongst the younger generation here in Estonia, I was out of high school way before that trend began here. But it's a good excuse to bake some chocolate muffins and decorate them with heart-shaped sprinklers :)

When I started looking for a good chocolate muffin recipe, I realised that the choice was endless. Instead I took my excellent rhubarb muffin recipe, replaced the rhubarb with chopped dark chocolate and added some cocoa powder for extra colour and deeper chocolate flavour. The muffins have a very low fat content, as most of the butter has been replaced with yogurt/sour cream - resulting in moist muffins with a nice crumb. I loved them!

Chocolate Muffins
(Mõnusad šokolaadimuffinid)
Makes 12 smaller muffins

2 large free-range eggs
125 soft brown sugar
135 g plain flour
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
150 g plain yogurt or sour cream
50 g butter, melted
100 g coarsely chopped dark chocolate

Whisk eggs and sugar until light and frothy.
Sieve flour, cocoa, baking powder and vanilla sugar into a bowl, stir to combine.
Fold the dry ingredients, yogurt/sour cream and cooled melted butter into the egg and sugar mixture.
Finally add the chopped chocolate.
Spoon the batter into muffin tins that have been lined with paper cups. Sprinkle with heart-shaped sugar sprinklers*, if you feel like :)



Bake in the middle of a pre-heated 200 C/400 F oven for 15-20 minutes, until the muffins are cooked and have risen nicely.

* I used some from Finnish company MEIRA - I liked how the baked into the muffins. No need for a frosting to keep them in place :)

Recipe for DIY Bounty bites aka homemade Mounds candy bars

Some home-made candy bars for a change. If you live in the US, then you'd think of these as Mounds, the candy bar produced by Hershey's. Everywhere else - including UK and Canada - you'd recognise these as Bounty, the candy bar produced by Mars Inc. A dense and sweet coconut centre, enrobed with either dark or milk chocolate.

I used milk chocolate (the American equivalent would be Almond Joy without the almonds :)), and made small cubes instead of the traditional oblong bar shape. I must admit we ate half of the coconut cubes before we even dipped them into chocolate :)

There are links to several homemade Bounty/Mounds recipes at the end of this post - do check these out as well.

DIY Bounty bites aka home-made Mounds candy bars
(Kodune Bounty)
Makes about 3 dozen



Coconut filling:
300 g desiccated unsweetened coconut flakes
300 g sweetened condensed milk
150 g butter, at room temperature

Chocolate glaze:
300 g dark or milk chocolate

I used the mixing bowl of my standing mixer, but you could also simply use your hand muscles to prepare the coconut mixture.

Place the butter and coconut into the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly - about 1-2 minutes. Add the condensed milk and mix for another 2-3 minutes, until thoroughly combined.

Line a small baking sheet/tray/tin with a parchment/baking paper. Transfer the coconut mixture into the tin and press into a block about 2 cm/0.8 inches high. Cover and put into the fridge for about 3 hours or freezer for about 1 hour.

Remove from the fridge/freezer, transfer the coconut block onto a cutting board and cut into 2x2 cm (0.8 x 0.8 inch) cubes. Like this:



Now there are two ways to proceed. First, cover a small tray with parchment paper and put aside.

If you prefer your candy bars at room temperature, then melt and temper your chocolate (here's a good article about tempering the chocolate or see my instructions below), dip each coconut cube into the melted chocolate until coated, then place onto the prepared tray. Cool completely, then keep in a cool place until ready to serve.

If you want to avoid tempering the chocolate - or simply like your sweets cold - then you can simply dip these into melted chocolate to coat, then place onto the prepared tray and put into the freezer. The butter and sweetened condensed milk keep these blocks from freezing completely, so you can always just grab one candy bar and enjoy straight from frozen. (This is how I enjoyed them, but then I also like my brownie bites straight from the freezer).

Why and how to temper the chocolate? The Internet - and food blogs - are full of detailed instructions on how to temper chocolate - and why. The latter is easy - unless you temper the chocolate, the chocolate-glazed candy bars/bites will lack the shine and the snap, both very desirable elements. "How" is trickier and indeed, tempering can be a hit-and-miss. I've followed this simplified seed-technique for tempering. Place about 2/3 of your chopped up chocolate (or, indeed, chocolate pellets - and NOT compound chocolate!) into a heat-proof bowl and place the bowl on top of a small saucepan, where you've brought about 5 cm/2 inches of water into simmer. Let the chocolate melt slowly, stirring as you go along. Remove from the heat, stick a chocolate thermometer into the bowl. Now add the "seed chocolate" or the chocolate you put aside at the beginning in two or three installments and keep stirring the chocolate and cooling it. Once all the added chocolate pellets have melted, you must continue stirring the chocolate, until it registers 28 C on the thermometer - that will probably take about 15-20 minutes of active stirring, so be patient! You can then gently re-heat the chocolate - either over the waterbath, on top of a hot water bottle or by hovering your hair-drier over the chocolate - until it's about 30-31 C (best temperature for working with chocolate). 


Other foodbloggers making these:
Batoniki a la Bounty by Ania @ Strawberries from Poland (recipe in Polish)

Similar recipes:
Nourishing and scrumptious "Mounds" candy bars by Kimi @ The Nourishing Gourmet
Homemade Bounty by Dagmar @ A Cat in the Kitchen
Homemade coconut Bounty candy bars by Christina @ Scientifically Sweet
Mounds candy bars by Elena @ Elena's Pantry
Homemade Bounty bars by Louise @ Lick that Spoon
Homemade Bounty by Eva @ Made by Eva
Easy homemade Bounty bars aka Mounds by Marie @ Not Enough Cinnamon
DIY Bounty barres by Emilie @ Emilie and Lea's Secrets (recipe in French)
Isetehtud Bounty šokolaad by Sandra @ Sentjurin Food Production (recipe in Estonian)
Kookoskommid šokolaadis ehk kodused Bounty'd by Teevi @ Ampsukas (recipe in Estonian)
Kookostrühvlid by Silja @ Jagatud rõõm (recipe in Estonian)

Simple Magic bars recipe

I was due to give a Scottish cookery class last Sunday in Aegviidu - a small town about an hour from Tallinn. While finalising the menu for the cookery class (skirlie and clapshot and cranachan and such like), I flipped again through the pages of Scottish author's Sue Lawrence's excellent "A Cook's Tour of Scotland: from Barra to Brora in 120 recipes". One of the last recipes in the book was for Anta Bars - a tray cake that Sue Lawrence was served at the Anta Pottery's tearoom in Fearn, Tain, near Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands (see here for the exact address). Ingredients? Digestive biscuits, butter, sweet condensed milk, milk chocolate and desiccated coconut. Very similar to Magic bars, though these tend to have a layer of nuts included as well, and are layered somewhat differently (I rely on the Joy of Baking blog for this information).

I had a whole packet of sweet condensed milk I wanted to use, and while I really wanted to make the Millionaire's Shortbread, I decided to give these Anta Bars a go instead. Why? Well, for the Millionaire's Shortbread (also known as caramel shortbread) you need to boil the condensed milk first, whereas the Anta Bars have a layer of regular sweet condensed milk drizzled over the cookie crumb base. So much simpler and quicker.

A word of warning, however. While Scotland can be really proud about the great quality of their produce and ingredients (venison, lamb, beef, salmon, raspberries, shortcakes, haggis etc etc), then this cake is not the healthy option, for the fainthearted or for those counting their calories. It's extremely sweet. You know, tooth-achingly sweet. Definitely an occasional treat rather than your regular afternoon tea or coffee cake :)

Sue Lawrence's recipe was excellent - no surprise, as she is considered one of the best Scottish food writers of our times. However, I did reduce the amount of coconut flakes after the initial attempt, as I had hard time getting the original amount (170 g of desiccated coconut) to stick to the cake and not fall off. Also - even if you might be tempted to use dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate, perhaps to counteract the sweetness, then don't - this cake needs the much sweeter milk chocolate. Trust me, I tried both versions..

Anta Magic Bars or a recipe for caramel, milk chocolate and coconut slices
(Anta koogiruudud)
Source: Sue Lawrence's "A Cook's Tour of Scotland", sligthly adapted
Serves about 24



140 g butter, melted and cooled
350 g Digestive biscuits or graham crackers
300 g sweetened condensed milk
200 g good-quality milk chocolate, chopped (or use chips)
100 g desiccated coconut

Line a baking sheet/Swiss roll tin (about 25x35 cm) with a parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F.
Finely crush the Digestive biscuits (I used my food processor), then mix thoroughly with melted butter. Spoon the biscuit mixture into the cake tin, pressing down. Drizzle the sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture.
Now scatter the chopped chocolate evenly on top, finally sprinkle with coconut flakes, patting down lightly.
Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, until the coconut is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before cutting into small squares or bars.

Other foodbloggers have been testing Sue Lawrence's recipes:
Cock-a-leekie soup by Pille @ Nami-Nami
Mince and tatties by Pille @ Nami-Nami
Chocolate brownie with raspberries by Pille @ Nami-Nami
Smoked salmon frittata by Pille @ Nami-Nami
Haggis and winter tzatziki wraps by Sophie @ Mostly Eating (intrigued!!!)
Passion cake by Maggie @ Kitchen Delights
German apple cake by Celia @ English patis

Molten Chocolate Cake, the way I like it

You've seen this recipe on Nami-Nami already, back in 2007, but I'll repost it with slightly better step-by-step photos of eating process, not baking process :) These are super easy to make, and will bring a smile to every chocolate lover's face (that covers pretty much everyone, no?). The worst thing that can happen is that you overbake the cakes, but in that case you'll end up with wonderful chocolate cakes.



Molten Chocolate Cake
(Šokolaadivulkaanid)
Source: Food Migration

170 grams bittersweet chocolate
150 grams butter
160 grams sugar
75 g plain flour
4 large eggs

Butter six small ramekins thoroughly and dust with cocoa powder (a trick I nicked from David's blog). Place on baking tray.
Melt chocolate and butter in a small saucepan, remove from the heat.
Beat eggs and sugar together until thick, pale and fluffy. Add the melted chocolate and butter mixture. Continue to beat for another five minutes.
Add flour, beat for two more minutes.
Pour mixture into prepared ramekin tins.
Bake in a 180 C oven approximately 10 to 12 minutes - NO MORE! (Ovens do vary, so I'd test for doneness earlier rather than later).



Carefully turn the puddings onto serving plates. Dust with powdered/icing sugar and serve at once, when the puddings are still warm - otherwise you won't get that oozing chocolate effect :)



A good and slightly melted vanilla ice cream is a good accompaniment. Or perhaps some cherry compote?

Raspberry and vanilla friands with cacao nibs

Here's another delicious friand recipe, following the lingonberry and coconut friands and blueberry and lemon friands I wrote about last year. I'm still in love with those Australian little cakes, and whenever I have excess egg whites, I bake these as opposed to meringues or mini-Pavlovas.

Raspberry and vanilla friands with cacao nibs
(Vaarika-vanillifriandid kakaotükikestega)
Makes eight, suitable for freezing



100 g unsalted butter, melted (1 stick minus 1 Tbsp)
125 g icing sugar/confectioner's sugar (1 cup)
30 g plain flour/all-purpose flour (50 ml or 3 Tbsp + 1 tsp)
80 g finely ground almonds (1 cup)
3 medium-sized egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
50 g whole raspberries (a generous handful)
a handful of roasted cacao nibs (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200C. Generously butter eight non-stick friand or muffin tins.
Sift the icing sugar and flour into a bowl, add the almonds and mix.
Whisk the egg whites in another bowl until they form a light, floppy foam.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, pour in the egg whites, vanilla and the cooled melted butter. Stir very gently to form a soft batter.
Divide the batter among the tins. Sprinkle some raspberries and cacao nibs over each cake.
Bake in the middle of a pre-heated 200 C oven for about 20 minutes, until just firm to the touch and golden brown on top.
Cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then turn out and cool on a wire rack. To serve, dust lightly with icing sugar.

Homemade candy recipes: fruit and nut truffles

There's a candy I remember from my childhood. Our main chocolate factory, Kalev, was (and probably still is) well-known for its chocolate selections or "assortiikarp" as they're known in Estonian. I loved their ganache and praline filled chocolates in those chocolate selections, but my favourite ones were the foil-wrapped large truffles with fruit and nut filling.

Here's my attempt to recreate these childhood favourites :) You can see the final product on the left on the photo above.

Fruit and Nut Filled Truffles
(Puuviljakompvekid)



100 g dried soft figs
150 g dried soft prunes
100 g dried cranberries or cherries (or a mixture of both)
100 g chopped almonds or hazelnuts
1 Tbsp runny honey or golden syrup or agave nectar
a pinch of sea salt

to coat the truffles:
dark chocolate (tempered, preferably)

Remove the stem from the dried figs. If using a food processor, place the figs, prunes and dried cranberries or cherries into the food processor and process until you've got a coarsely ground fruit mixture. Add the almonds/nuts, salt and honey/syrup and pulse again once or twice. (You don't want the nuts chopped too finely, as you want the texture later).
     [You can also simply chop the ingredients as finely as possible]
Place the truffle mixture into the fridge for an hour to cool and harden.
Roll into small balls (TIP: use a little oil to moisten your hands - the mixture won't stick as much then.)
Either dip into melted dark chocolate - or, preferably, into tempered dark chocolate (see note below) until completely covered. Decorate with chopped nuts. Keep in a cool place until ready to serve.

Why and how to temper the chocolate? The Internet - and food blogs - are full of detailed instructions on how to temper chocolate - and why. The latter is easy - unless you temper the chocolate, the chocolate-glazed truffles will lack the shine and the snap, both very desirable elements. "How" is trickier and indeed, tempering can be a hit-and-miss. I've followed this simplified seed-technique for tempering. Place about 2/3 of your chopped up chocolate (or, indeed, chocolate pellets - and NOT compound chocolate!) into a heat-proof bowl and place the bowl on top of a small saucepan, where you've brought about 5 cm/2 inches of water into simmer. Let the chocolate melt slowly, stirring as you go along. Remove from the heat, stick a chocolate thermometer into the bowl. Now add the "seed chocolate" or the chocolate you put aside at the beginning in two or three installments and keep stirring the chocolate and cooling it. Once all the added chocolate pellets have melted, you must continue stirring the chocolate, until it registers 28 C on the thermometer - that will probably take about 15-20 minutes of active stirring, so be patient! You can then gently re-heat the chocolate - either over the waterbath, on top of a hot water bottle or by hovering your hair-drier over the chocolate - until it's about 30-31 C (best temperature for working with chocolate). 

Christmas Recipes: Chocolate Mousse with Cranberry Fruit Soup

Photo by Andres Teiss

Last year we had a first proper snowfall in mid-November, and that snow never really went away until late Spring. We had a beautiful winter wonderland for months. This year is totally different - it's early December, it's still green outside, and I get to pick fresh herbs from my garden. That's a perk, for sure, but I do miss snow that makes our dark winters so much lighter and more enjoyable. However, the Christmas is soon around the corner - with or without the snow - so I'll be posting mostly Christmas recipes during this month. I recently had to develop six recipes for a particular supermarket here in Estonia, which are included in their 2011 Christmas Newsletter*. This lovely and different dessert - luscious chocolate mousse with refreshingly light cranberry fruit soup (or kissel) - was one of them.

It's best to make the chocolate mousse on the previous day, as it has time to cool and set then. However, I prepared all six dishes, including this mousse, within two and half hours, so it can be made on the night of serving as well - just it'll be a wee bit more stressful :)

* The photos for the newsletter were shot by Andres Teiss, and he has kindly allowed me to use those for my blog posts as well. 

Chocolate Mousse with Cranberry Fruit Soup
(Šokolaadivaht jõhvikakisselliga)
Serves six to eight


Photo by Andres Teiss

Chocolate mousse:
200 g dark chocolate (I used Estonian "Bitter" chocolate), coarsely chopped
1 large organic egg, separated
1 to 2 Tbsp brandy, cognac or liqueur
200 to 250 ml (a cup) whipping cream

Cranberry fruit soup:
1 l cranberry juice drink (I like Granini)
sugar, to taste
3 Tbsp potato starch or cornstarch + few Tbsp cold water

To garnish:
fresh or frozen cranberries

To make the chocolate mousse: place the chopped chocolate into a heatproof bowl and either melt in the microwave or place over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from the heat, add the alcohol and stir in the egg yolk.
Whisk the egg white until stiff foam forms, then gently fold into the chocolate mousse.
Whisk the cream until it turns thick, smooth and forms soft peaks. Fold about one third into the chocolate mixture, then gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream.
Cover the bowl with a clingfilm and place into a cold fridge for couple of hours.

To make the cranberry fruit soup, pour the juice drink into a medium-sized saucepan. Add some sugar to taste, if you wish so. Bring gently to the simmer, then add the starch and water slurry, stirring while doing so. If you're using corn starch, then bring again into a boil and simmer gently, stirring, until the fruit soup thickens. If you're using potato starch, then bring again _almost_ to the simmering point and then promptly remove from the heat. Cool completely.

To serve, take two large spoons and spoon large dollops of chocolate mousse into serving bowls. Pour cranberry fruit soup around the mousse and garnish with some fresh or frozen berries. .

Dangerously moreish (frozen) Oreo brownie bites

To be fair, these should be called Domino brownies, as I used Domino cookies, the Finnish equivalent of Oreo sandwich cookies. But if I'd call them Domino brownies, most of you would expect something like this as opposed to the cute brownie bite above. Also, most of my American readers (that's about 2/3 of all readers of Nami-Nami) don't have access to Domino cookies anyway, and could use more familiar Oreo ones for the same result.

Now, the frozen bit. I first read about frozen brownies a while ago, but dismissed the whole idea. Who likes frozen cakes anyway? They'd be cold and hard and utterly unpleasant, right? Or that what I thought. On the other hand, I've thrown away quite a few very good brownie pieces during my lifetime, just because I forgot them on the countertop for a day too long and they became dry and boring. That's not happening any more, as I've discovered - and totally fallen for - the joys of frozen brownies. You see, a good brownie, made with lots of butter, sugar, chocolate and just a little flour - and, most importantly, NOT overbaked - is absolutely wonderful eaten straight from the freezer - cooling, delicious and almost thick ice-cream-like. I've been cutting the brownies into relatively small pieces after cooling, and we've been nibbling through two batches of those frozen brownie bites during the last week already. Not just the three of us, of course, but with some help from our Scottish friends, grandparents, nephews and various babysitters :)

Estonian summer has been warm and sunny this year (again), and a frozen chocolate brownie is just what you might need to cool yourself a little..

The idea for putting chopped cookies into my brownies is from Ina Garten (here's her recipe for outrageous Oreo crunch brownies), but I used my old and trusted brownie recipe as a basis. Here's my version, that even my non-chocoholic-K. loves.

Have you been freezing your brownies? Do you like them or hate them?

Domino or Oreo brownie bites
(Domino-brownie koogikesed)
For a 10 inch/24 cm square baking tin

200 g unsalted butter
200 g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Callebaut bittersweet chocolate couverture chips)
3 eggs (size M or L)
200 g caster sugar
100 g plain flour
0.5 tsp fine salt
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
15-20 Domino or Oreo cookies, roughly chopped

Line a 10 in/24 cm square baking dish with parchment paper. Heat the oven to 170˚C/350F.
Place a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Add butter and chocolate and heat, stirring, until chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Allow to cool slightly.
Whisk eggs, vanilla and sugar in a large bowl. Fold in the chocolate mixture.
Stir in the flour, salt and cookies, stir until combined.
Pour batter into the prepared baking pan and smooth top with a spatula.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until the brownie looks dry on top, but is still nicely moist inside.

When you want to serve your brownie warm, then cool a little and cut into big squares (9, perhaps?), serve alongside a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.

For frozen brownie bites, cool completely, then cut into small squares or rectangles and place into a freezer box. Enjoy from frozen.

PaperChef June 2011: Rye bread toasts with chocolate, strawberries and lime

It's time for a Paper Chef, a food blogging event with pedigree (launched by Owen back in 2004, now co-hosted with Ilva and Mike. I'm embarrassed to admit that I've only participated twice before - #8 (spinach, olives, Cheddar cheese, potatoes/cream) and #15 (limes, beetroots, pears and aphrodisiac of your choice)), but with Ilva asking us all so nicely to participate, I couldn't say no :)

The ingredients this month - bread, berries, chocolate and lime. I won't dwell on the difference between bread ('leib') and white bread ('sai') in Estonian - suffice to say that even after living in an Anglophone country for seven years, I automatically thought of our dark Estonian rye bread when I spotted 'bread' in that list of ingredients. Only later did it occur to me that I could have gone the 'white bread' (aka 'wheat bread') route, perhaps with summer pudding with lime-macerated berries and white chocolate and mascarpone mousse? Mmmm...

The rules of Paper Chef do not say that you must restrict yourself to those four ingredients alone. However, I immediately remembered a little neat idea I had seen on the Finnish Herkut.net site a while ago - warm rye bread toasts with melted chocolate and sliced strawberries. I added some grated lime zest for, well, extra zest - and using just the four ingredients that were required - and loved the result! I can easily see serving this at one of the many patio parties or summer grill events that are about to follow.

A word of warning, however. While it's a dessert sure to please all the young ones, it's no S'Mores that you grab between your hands and eat without staining a thing (well, couple of cookie crumbs on the floor, perhaps). Our daughter Nora approached her warm rye bread with chocolate and strawberries with gusto, but in the process she managed to smear melted chocolate all over her :)



Rye bread toasts with chocolate, strawberries and lime zest
(Röstitud koorikleib šokolaadi ja maasikatega)

You can use any type of rye bread here - those flat rye breads, halved horizontally ('koorikleib') are ideal, or then thickly sliced naturally leavened rye bread. I used a recently introduced new product at the Estonian market - saib (sai+leib, get it?!) - tastes and looks like white bread, but it's made with 100% rye flour.



sliced rye bread
dark chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Callebaut bittersweet chocolate couverture chips)
strawberries,
lime zest, thinly grated

Toast the bread until slightly golden and aromatic. Immediately top with chopped chocolate and strawberries, leave for a few minutes, until the chocolate melts.
Grate some lime zest over the strawberries.
Serve at once.

Easter paskha for chocolate lovers

Chocolate paskha, 2011, decorated with dried apricots

It's Easter Sunday this weekend and many a festive table will have a paskha (also spelled as 'pascha') as a centerpiece. We will, for sure.

Paskha is a sweet and rich curd cheese dessert that's traditionally served during Easter. I've shared two favourite recipes with you before - my traditional uncooked paskha with pistachio nuts and craisins and creamy cooked paskha with egg yolks. Here's another delicious paskha, especially for those of you who love chocolate!

Chocolate paskha
(Šokolaadisõbra kohupiimapasha)
Serves 8


Chocolate paskha, 2009, decorated with candied kumquats

500 g curd cheese (kohupiim/tvorog) or ricotta
100 ml whipping cream
100 g dark chocolate, chopped
75 g butter, cut into cubes
50 g caster sugar
handful of dried apricots
handful of dried seedless raisins

Place raisins and apricots into a colander, pour over boiling water and drain thoroughly. Put aside.

Place cream, chocolate and butter into a small heavy saucepan and heat gently, stirring with a wooden spoon, until chocolate and butter are melted and you've got a luscious brown sauce. Remove the pot from the heat and immediately fold in the curd cheese, sugar, apricots and raisins. Mix until combined.

Line a special paskha-dish or a fine sieve with a double layer of cotton muslin that you've rinsed under cold water and wrung dry. Pour the curd cheese mixture into the dish, place a small plate on top. Place the filled paskha-dish over a bowl to collect any whey liquid that will drip out of the paskha.

To serve, turn the paskha onto a plate, remove the muslin and paskha dish or sieve.

 Decorate as you please - I love the contrast of chocolate-coloured paskha and something orange (apricots, candied kumquats etc).

Swedish coffee cake aka kärleksmums

I was translating some Swedish recipes the other day, when I came across the word 'långpanna'. I knew it was an oven sheet, but wasn't sure about the size of it. A quick internet search revealed that it's the deep-sided oven sheet, about 30x35 cm in size, that's used for baking kärleksmums. Although I know about quite a few Swedish cakes and pastries, I hadn't heard about these 'love yummies', but was intrigued. They are described as a slightly lighter alternative to regular brownies and are apparently sold pretty much in every café in dear old Sverige. This must be indeed the cake - a friend of mine - Airi - who lived in Sweden for quite a few years during her 20s, instantly recognised the cake at a party last weekend, where I brought it along.

Our little family loved it - not too chocolatey or rich, but still with a good amount of cocoa and very satisfying.

Both Anne and Dagmar have blogged about that particular cake as well, good Swedish foodbloggers as they are ;)

Kärleksmums
(Kärleksmums ehk kohviglasuuriga kakaokook)
Makes about 30 squares

150 g butter, melted
3 large eggs
250 g caster sugar
150 ml milk
240 g plain flour/all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar

Coffee-chocolate glaze:
75 g butter
2 Tbsp strong coffee
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
about 200 g icing sugar/confectioner's sugar

desiccated/shredded coconut, to decorate

Preheat the oven to 200 C/400 F.
Whisk eggs and sugar until thick and pale. Fold in the melted butter (cooled!) and milk.
Combine the dry ingredients, then fold quickly and gently into the wet ingredients.
Spoon the batter onto a lined cookie sheet (abut 30x35 cm).
Bake in a preheated 20 C oven for about 15-20 minutes, until the cake feels springy when touched with a finger. Take out of the oven and let cool.
For the glaze, melt the butter over a low heat, stir in the rest of the ingredients. Spread the glaze over the cooled cake base.
Sprinkle with plenty of shredded coconut.

Cut in to squares before serving.

Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie a la The Hummingbird Bakery

The Hummingbird Bakery is the bakery in London at the moment, specializing in American-style cakes and sweets. It's a brainchild of Tarek Malouf that opened in 2004, and the book - The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook - featuring their most popular cakes and pastries was published in 2009. It's a gorgeous book, full of inviting and appetizing recipes, though the only one I've made so far is this Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie. And I've made it three times during the last month or so - for K's mum's birthday (twice) and for our daughter's first birthday party as well. I've followed the recipe more or less - replacing the icing sugar with caster sugar, topping up the amount of cheesecake to suit our local 150 g packs of cream cheese, and baking it in a round cake tin instead. I might reduce the sugar content in the brownie layer next time, as the cake is rather sweet (though the slight acidity of the raspberry layer balances it all out nicely).

The interesting thing about this cake is that the cheesecake and brownie layers are cooked at once - and this can be made a day or even two days before serving. A great cake for making in advance, as all you have to do before serving is topping it with raspberry whipped cream.

Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie
(Vaarikatega šokolaadi-toorjuustukook)
Serves 12



Brownie layer:
200 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
200 g unsalted butter, softened
250 g caster sugar
3 large eggs
110 g plain flour (200 ml)

Cheesecake layer:
450 g cream cheese, softened
150 g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs

Raspberry topping:
200 ml whipping cream
100 g caster sugar
200 g raspberries

Butter a 26 cm springform tin, line the base with a sheet of parchment paper.

For the brownie layer:
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl placed over a pan of simmering water.
Cream the butter and sugar, then whisk in the eggs one at a time. Sift and fold in the flour and finally fold in the slightly cooled melted chocolate.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the cake tin.

For the cheesecake layer:
cream the softened cream cheese with sugar and vanilla extract until combined, then whisk in the eggs one at a time.
Pour the cheesecake mixture carefully over the uncooked brownie mixture.

Bake in the middle of a pre-heated 170 C / 325 F oven for 30-40 minutes, until the cheesecake is firm to the touch and light golden around the edges. (The cheesecake layer will firm furthen when cooling).

Remove the cake from the oven and let cool for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

Before serving whisk the cream and sugar until soft peaks form, then fold in the fresh or frozen (defrost and drain first!) raspberries. Spread the raspberry cream over the cheesecake and decorate with chocolate and extra raspberries.

Chocolate Pecan Pie

Last night I attended my first ever Thanksgiving dinner. Few days late, I know, but for various logistic reasons, our Tallinn-based American hosts, Rachel & Stefano, decided to throw a party on Sunday night instead. Four couples, four kids and lots of good food (including a locally sourced non-frozen 8 kg turkey!). Rachel had asked me to bring along a Pecan Pie, and as I couldn't decide which recipe to choose, I decided to make a non-traditional pie instead. I liked it - a pre-baked pie crust is covered with dark chocolate ganache that hides a cup of caramelized crunchy pecans - an idea I got from a Finnish Ruokamaailma magazine. Truly chocolaty - and thus a 10-inch cake easily feeds a dozen!

Chocolate Pecan Pie
(Šokolaadi-pekanipähklikook)
Serves 10-12

Pastry:
100 g unsalted butter, softened
85 g caster sugar (100 ml)
200 g all-purpose/plain flour
1 large egg
a pinch of salt

For praline:
100 g pecans, very coarsley chopped
4 Tbsp muscovado sugar

Ganache:
300 g dark chocolate
150 ml whipping cream
100 g unsalted butter, softened

Using the food processor, blend butter, flour, sugar and salt until fine crumbs form. Add the egg, pulse couple of times. Then press the dough into the base and sides of a 24 cm springform tin.
Blind bake in a preheated 200 C oven for 15-20 minutes, until the dough is baked and nicely golden brown.

For the praline, mix the sugar and nuts on a frying pan and heat on a moderate heat, until the sugar melts and sticks onto the nuts. Remove from the heat.

For the ganache, bring the cream almost to a boil. Add chopped chocolate and stir, until melted. Stir in the soft butter. Stir, until combined and uniform, then fold in the pecan praline.

Pour the ganache over pre-baked crust (decorate with some toasted pecans, if you wish). Place into a cool storage or fridge for at least 4 hours for the chocolate pecan filling to harden.

Chocolate Cheesecake Recipe

My dear K. celebrated his umpteenth birthday last Friday. He wondered if I'd bake him a cake that he could take along and share with his colleagues during the day. At first he asked me to bake my Manhattan cheesecake, but then we remembered how much his colleagues had enjoyed a dense chocolate and lingonberry cake I made few weeks ago, and decided to try a chocolate cheesecake instead. The recipe below is based on a chocolate cheesecake recipe published in the November issue of Food & Travel, but I've changed the base completely, as trust me, there is such thing as too much chocolate :)

It was delicious, very rich and dense. It's rather sweet, so you should serve this with some nice raspberries or perhaps a generous spoonful of spicy crab-apple marmalade (on the photo) to counter-balance the sweetness a bit.

Chocolate Cheesecake
(Šokolaadi-toorjuustukook)
Serves 10 to 12

Crumb base:
175 g Digestive biscuits
2 Tbsp cacao powder
75 g butter, melted

Topping:
4 large eggs
100 g sugar
800 g full-fat Philadelphia cream cheese, at room temperature!
1 tsp vanilla extract
200 g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids)

Process the cookies until fine crumbs, mix with cocoa powder and melted butter. Press onto the base of a lined 26 cm springform tin.
Cut the chocolate into small pieces, then melt in a bowl set over a barely simmering water, until chocolate is melted (stir every now and then). Cool a little.
Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and pale foam forms. Then add the soft cream cheese, vanilla extract and finally stir in the melted chocolate. Stir, until combined, then pour over the crumb base.
Bake in a prehreated 160 C oven for one hour, until set.
Remove from the oven and let cool completely before serving.

David Leite's Chocolate Chip Cookies, slightly modified

Here's what I had for breakfast today - a large cup of coffee, and two gigantic chocolate chip cookies. Following the famous recipe David Leite's Chocolate Chip Cookies pretty closely, I made up a batch of cookie dough on Monday night, and baked 6 large cookies this morning. They weren't bad - I especially liked the slightly chewy inside and crispy edges, and the sprinkling of Maldon sea salt flakes on top of a chocolate cookie is genious. But if I ever make these again, I drastically reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe. I made the mistake of having two of these with my coffee this morning, and that is not something I recommend. I was very close to opening a can of tinned sprats to reduce the effects of all that sugar.

Other than that, I was pretty pleased with the way these spread out and baked. Some foodbloggers mentioned that the cookies were flat - not in my kitchen - they were about 1 cm /just under half an inch/ in the center. I baked large cookies, ca 75 grams each (that's just under 3 oz), which is way larger than what's considered a socially acceptable cookie size outside the US, I'm afraid. I'll share the metric recipe here - if you're cooking and baking in cups and ounces, then please refer to any of the good foodbloggers below.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Ameerika šokolaadiküpsised)
Makes a lot, recipe can be halved and the formed unbaked cookies can be frozen



480 g all-purpose flour
1.25 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
275 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200 g soft brown sugar (I used 'fariinsuhkur')
300 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
500 g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped (at least 60% cacao content)
Maldon sea salt flakes for sprinkling

Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a measuring jug. Put aside.
Using the paddle attachment of a food processor, cream the butter and sugar together for 5 minutes, until it's creamy and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla extract, and beat until well combined.
Add the flour mixture, and stir just to combine. Fold in the chopped chocolate.
Using your hands, press the dough into a large ball and place in a bowl. Cover with a clingfilm and refridgerate for 36 hours (or up to 72 hours).
Line a baking sheet with a Silpat mat or parchment paper. Using a large ice cream scoop or a similar utensil, scoop out balls of cookie dough, each weighing about 75 grams. Place the cookie dough balls on the baking sheet, leaving plenty of space for spreading (I placed 6 cookie dough balls on my large baking sheet). (Return the remaining dough into the fridge!)
Sprinkle lightly with Maldon sea salt flakes.
Bake in the middle of a pre-heated 175°C oven for 16-18 minutes, until the cookie looks golden on the edges, but is still just pale tanned in the middle.
Remove from the oven, gently transfer onto a metal rack to cool slightly and firm up.
Repeat with the remaining dough.

Some other foodbloggers have tried and tested the recipe:
Molly @ Orangette
Deb @ SmittenKitchen
Stephanie @ Bay Area Bites
Clotilde @ Chocolate & Zucchini (who was smart enough to halve the recipe)
Kristin @ Kitchen Sink Recipes
Pim @ Chez Pim

Marbled Blackcurrant and Chocolate Mousse Cake

Not exactly a seasonal recipe, I must admit (it appeared on our Christmas table just over 5 months ago), but I got an email from a reader named Caroline on Monday, requesting the recipe. She'd love to make that for her husband's birthday, you see :) Considering I must translate the recipe anyway, I may just as well blog about it. It's a bit more difficult recipe than most of my other recipes, but IMHO it was totally worth the effort.

Hope your husband likes it, Caroline!

Marbled Blackcurrant and Chocolate Mousse Cake
(Uhke šokolaadi-mustsõstratort)
Adapted from the Finnish Pirkka-site.
18-20 slices

Chocolate sponge cake:
2 large eggs
75 ml caster sugar (5 Tbsp)
75 ml plain flour (5 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
0.5 tsp baking powder

To moisten the sponge cake:
100 ml (2/5th of a cup) undiluted blackcurrant juice or cordial

Blackcurrant Mousse:
3 gelatine leaves
220 g blackcurrants (thawed, if frozen)
75 ml (5 Tbsp) caster sugar
200 ml whipping cream
3 Tbsp undiluted blackcurrant juice or cordial

Chocolate Mousse:
2 gelatine leaves
150 g dark chocolate
200 ml whipping cream
2 Tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp cognac or brandy

To decorate:
chocolate-covered almonds or hazelnuts

Line the base of a Ø 25 cm/10-inch springform tin with a parchment paper. Butter the paper and the sides of the cake tin.

Make chocolate sponge:
Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Mix the dry ingredients, then sift and gently fold into the egg foam. Spoon the batter into the cake tin and bake in the middle of a pre-heated 175 C/350 F oven for about 15 minutes. Cool in the tin.
Leave the cooled cake in the cake tin and brush the sponge with the blackcurrant juice couple of times, until you've used up all the juice.
Make the mousse layers:
For both mousse layers, put the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water and soak for about 10 minutes.
Melt the dark chocolate. Cool.
Blend the blackcurrants and sugar into a pureé.
For both mousse layers, whisk the whipping cream until soft peaks form, then divide equally between the chocolate and the blackcurrant base (fold in 1/3 of the cream first, to soften the chocolate, then fold in rest of the cream).
Season the chocolate mousse with sugar and vanilla extract.
Take the soaked gelatine leaves out of the water and squeeze them gently to dry.
Heat 3 Tbsp of the blackcurrant juice, then stir in three of the lightly squeezed gelatine leaves. Pour the gelatine mixture into the blackcurrant mousse base.
Heat the 3 Tbsp of cognac, add two of the lightly squeezed gelatine leaves. Fold into the chocolate mousse.
Using a large spoon, add a spoonful of chocolate and a spoonful of blackcurrant mousse onto the cake base, creating a marbled/spotty look. Do not stir!
Smooth the top, cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge to set until the next morning.
Transfer carefully onto your cake stand and decorate with chocolate.

Fancy an After Dinner Mint Mousse?

Here's a clever way to combine the dessert and the after dinner mints served with coffee. The recipe is inspired by a British one using unwhipped double cream (fat content 48%, but not available in Estonia), so I've played around with quantities and serving sizes a bit. It's very-very minty and rather chocolatey - not perhaps everybody's cup of tea. But if you do fancy an after dinner mint, then you'll love it..

I used After Eight Dinner Mints, just because it's a classic, but you could try with some of the other mints instead..

After Dinner Mint Mousse
(After Eight šokolaadivaht)
Serves 6

200 g box of After Eight chocolate mints
2 Tbsp cognac or brandy (I used Georgian Gremi brandy)
300 ml whipping cream (35%)
1 Tbsp caster sugar
0.5 tsp vanilla extract (I used Pure Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla)
fresh mint, for garnish

Put six chocolate mints aside for decorating later.

Place the rest if the chocolate mints and cognac/brandy into a small heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat on a low heat, stirring every now and then, until chocolate has melted. Remove from the heat and cool a little.
Whip the whipping cream and sugar until soft peaks form, then fold in vanilla extract.
Stir one-third of the whipped cream into the cool melted chocolate mixture, to soften the latter. Then gently fold in the melted chocolate into the whipped cream, until combined and fluffy.
Divide into small dessert bowls or glasses.
(If necessary, you can cover the portions with a cling film and put into a fridge for a few hours).
Before serving, garnish with a chocolate mint square and a pretty mint sprig.

Kladdkaka or a Swedish lingonberry and chocolate brownie

Photo updated in October 2013. The photo above is by Juta Kübarsepp for Nami-Nami/Kodu ja Aed. 

I went on a Stockholm day cruise last week with my friend Melissa and her daughter Natali. Melissa is a friend from my Edinburgh-days, who is now based in Toronto. She spent 9 days in Tallinn, and to give her a small break from my hometown, we popped over to the capital of Sweden for a day. It was lovely, if a bit chilly and wet, and luckily the ferry ride wasn't too bumpy.

On a way back to the ferry terminal I picked up two Swedish food magazines, and this Chocolate and Lingonberry Cake in the August issue of Allt of Mat immediately caught my eye. K's mum provides us with lots of lingonberries these days, you see, and although I liked the last week cardamom-scented Swedish lingonberry cake, it's fun to try new recipes. This one was a great hit with K (he had 3 slices on Saturday night alone), and his mum called me yesterday afternoon to tell how much she and her friends liked the cake, too. It's almost brownie-like in texture - smooth and velvety - with lingonberries giving a nice acidic kick to it. Well worth a try!

Lingonberry and Chocolate Cake 
(Pohla-kakaokook)
Serves 12



175 g butter
3 large eggs
200 g caster sugar
120 g all-purpose/plain flour
50 g cocoa powder (unsweetened!)
a pinch of salt
100 g lingonberries

To serve:
vanilla ice cream or softly whipped cream

Melt the butter on a low heat, then cool a little.
Whisk eggs and sugar until pale and foamy.
Sift flour, cocoa powder and salt into a bowl, then fold into the egg mixture together with the melted butter.
Spoon the batter (it's pretty mousse-like) into a buttered 24 cm spring form, smooth the top. Sprinkle the lingonberries evenly over the cake.
Bake at the lower half of a 175 C/340 F oven for 25-30 minutes, until you can see the sides of the cake loosening from the tin.
Let the cake cool in the tin for a short while before transferring it onto a cake plate.
Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.