Possibly the best ever Christmas chocolate brownies

I was very excited when The Holiday, starring Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz and Jude Law first came out in 2006 as Winslet’s character was a journalist on a real-life British daily newspaper - where I actually worked. There were even rumours that Jude Law had been seen on a tour of our real-life office though I unfortunately didn’t see him myself!

While the film was lovely what I found most far-fetched was the depiction of some of the details. Winslet works on the paper’s obituaries desk and manages to own a beautiful roomy cottage in Surrey (surely out of her price range) which is apparently a 40 minute commute - my memory is more like 40 minutes after leaving the office you would probably still be standing at the station waiting for a delayed Southern train). 

The village where many of the U.K. scenes are filmed isn’t that far away from me - Shere, near Guildford - and though I haven’t actually been there, but we did do a Weber barbecue cookery course in a village called Abinger Hammer a few years ago which is only a five minute drive from Shere, and I can vouch for the fact that there really are some English villages as picturesque as the ones in the Holiday! 

Debra at Eliot's Eats selected The Holiday as the theme for this month's Food 'n' Flix, The idea is that we all cook or bake something inspired by the film, and it's a great movie to rewatch at Christmas!

In terms of foodie inspiration from the film itself, one of the scenes that stands out is when Amanda (Cameron Diaz) arrives in her house swap and goes to the local shop where she stocks up on wine, chocolate, Christmas cake, mince pies and more. The shop keeper assumes she’s having a party but it’s all for her! The other food moment that sticks in my mind is when Iris (Kate Winslet) makes Christmas fettuccine, which I didn’t realise was a thing (and according to a few rather indignant posts I’ve read online, isn’t). 

I decided to go with something a bit more traditionally festive - chocolate brownies. They strike me as both the sort of thing that Amanda may have bought to indulge in at her holiday cottage but also the sort of thing that she might make herself - she doesn’t strike me as much of a cook but I can’t help feeling that she would have made brownies before even if from a packet mix!

I used a recipe I found on a website called Jane's Patisserie and I can say that these are some of the best chocolate brownies I’ve ever made. They are particularly good on day two if you keep them in the fridge!

I didn't add anything to them (Jane's recipes suggest adding chopped up chocolate bars like Mars or Crunchie, but I just wanted the standard brownie texture) but I decorated the top with some drizzled icing and some mini KitKat Santas, but you can put anything you want on top, or indeed nothing at all. These are truly more-ish and might have to become my go-to brownie recipe!

 

Floating Malteser Cake for Comic Relief

 

 

Comic Relief is a hugely popular UK charity and the work it does to tackle poverty and social injustice around the world is fantastic. It has been going for 25 years this year and Red Nose Day – and now Sport Relief too – has become part of the British lexicon. Comedians and celebrities have been doing “something funny for money” since I was a child; last year Sport Relief (which takes place in alternate years with Red Nose Day) raised a whopping £71,800,000.

This year Red Nose Day falls on Friday March 13 and people all around the UK are being encouraged to “make their face funny for money”, whether that’s wear a wig, face paint, or have their eyebrows shaved off for charity. Comic Relief has also teamed up with the Great British Bake Off to help people organise bake sales in their communities or workplace – there’s nothing the British like more than a good old bake sale.

For that reason I’ve found myself pledging to make cakes for two different bake sales, one helpfully taking place the day before. I thought I’d share with you the cake that I’ve made, so if you are having a bake sale (or a bake off – this is something of a showstopper!) on Friday, you’ve still got time to make it.

Maltesers is one of the official partners of Red Nose Day this year and everyone loves chocolate, so I decided to make a maltesers cake. I’d seen pictures of cakes before which looked like they had a bag of Maltesers floating in the air, pouring chocolates onto the top of the cake – and since Red Nose Day is all about silliness and fun (with a good cause) I thought this would be the perfect cake.

My friend Ros aka The More Than Occasional Baker has made one of these cakes before and as I was fairly short of time, I went to her site to find out how to do it. I even used the same chocolate cake recipe she had used so I can’t claim any originality with this recipe at all – please hop on over to Ros’s site! The only change that I made was to use purely Maltesers rather than M&Ms as well.

The cake was pretty easy to make; you might be better off making it a day or so in advance and keeping in an air tight container if like me you are assembling the cake after work, as it needs to be completely cold.

Making the cake - see link above for recipe. In goes the chocolate, cocoa powder, butter and water.

Flour and eggs of course, and sour cream is the added ingredient to make this cake extra moist and tasty.

Ready to go in the oven

Now cooling

So this is the tricky part... to assemble the cake you need a lot of chocolate ganache. A lot.
Heat 300ml double cream in a large pan and when it is just simmering, take off the heat and add 600g chocolate. You can use plain or milk; I used milk as I prefer the flavour. Stir in the chocolate until it has melted.

Leave the ganache to cool before using - I put mine in the fridge for about half an hour.

Spread about 1/3 of the ganache on the bottom layer of cake and gently sandwich the other cake on top. Then spread a thin layer of the ganache around the side of the cake and stand up Kit Kats around the sides, facing inwards so the flat side faces outwards. I used 36 Kit Kat fingers for what I think was an 8-inch cake. You can either put them completely around the cake or as I have done, leave a gap at the front.

Spread about 2/3 - 3/4 of the remaining ganache over the top of the cake.

Push a plastic drinking straw into the cake, far enough in so it is stable but so you have plenty sticking out the top. Cover the top of the cake with Maltesers. Don't forget to keep one of the empty packets as you will need this later!

Slowly start building a tower of Maltesers. Dip each one in the chocolate ganache so it has a little dot of the chocolate mixture on it. Carefully stick to the straw, building up from the bottom. I found that I had to put the cake in the fridge after every two or three Maltesers, otherwise they would start to slide down.

Finally use some more ganache to stick the empty Malteser packet to the bent top part of the straw and finish sticking the Maltesers so the straw is completely covered. For the finishing touch I stuck more Maltesers down the front of the cake and on the cake board to look as if they were overflowing.

I'm really pleased with this and think this is the perfect cake for Comic Relief - it's fun and Maltesers is one of the official sponsors. I just hope it makes it into work on the train and bus OK!

I'm sharing this with the Alphabakes blog challenge which I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker; she has chosen the letter S this month and this cake uses sour cream.

I'm also sending this to Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes for Bookmarked Recipes.

 The theme for this month's We Should Cocoa is chocolate layer cakes so this fits in perfectly. The challenge is hosted this month by Sarah at Maison Cupcake on behalf of Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog.

 The cake also uses eggs which is my excuse to send it to Dom at Belleau Kitchen for his new challenge Simply Eggcellent.

Leaving Cake - Finding Nemo/ So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

This blog post will tell you how to make fondant fish, and how to make a chocolate barrel or fence cake with Kit Kats.

I recently left my job to join another company and knew that I had to make a showstopper of a cake for my last day at work. I was known for making elaborate and imaginative cakes, and was asked to help run the charity bake sales, so when it got closer to my last day at the firm, several people were asking what kind of cake I would make! The most popular cake I had made before was this pigs in mud cake; I made it for a bake sale but by the time the cake trolley made it to the 6th floor there was none of this particular cake left, and several disappointed people who had heard from their friends on other floors that they must try it! So I have had a few requests to make it again, but didn't want to make exactly the same cake a second time. I started thinking about how I could decorate it as my leaving cake and thought of a famous line from the Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams- "So long and thanks for all the fish". I wanted to make a fence or barrel effect out of KitKats as before and thought that fish in a barrel would work (no suggestion of my job being particularly easy, if you also know that quotation!). I decided I could make white chocolate ganache instead of plain chocolate to go on top, and colour it blue to look like water.

To start with I made the fish a few days in advance. I'm going to show you how I made the fondant fish. To start with, I had a look through my box of food colours - this box came from Boots with some toiletries at Christmas but it's perfect for my bottles and tubes of food colouring!

To begin I decided to make a clown fish like the one in Finding Nemo. Here's what you need to do: coloured some white fondant with orange gel colour and make a ball.  Roll it between your hands to elongate the shape so it is thicker at one end than the other, then pinch the end between your fingers to make a flat shape.

I have a set of modelling tools which are great when you are making things like this. There's one that has an end that looks like a fluted shell:

Press this into the end of the fish to give a fin effect.

Roll some thin sausage shapes from white fondant and stick around the fish to make stripes.

Make a short thick sausage shape and use your finger to squash at both ends to make a sort of bow shape, and stick this on top of the fish to make a fin. Make two thick semi circles and stick these on each side. I used the same modelling tool to make indentations.

's another tool which is perfect for making a smiley mouth!

Press into the fish's face to make a mouth, then roll two small balls of white fondant and two tiny balls of black fondant (you can also use piping icing or an edible ink pen) for the eyes.

I wanted to make a fish's tail so it would look like one was diving under the water. This is what you do: Colour some white fondant - in this case I went for a paler orange. Roll a thick ball and cut in half with a knife; this will be the end of the fish's body (left). Roll out a thick circle and use a heart-shaped cutter to cut a piece out then slice the bottom of the heart shape off with a knife. Stick this onto the body, using some edible glue if necessary.

To make the next fish, an angel fish, I added some Dr. Oetker gel colour to some white fondant. In the past I've been quite disappointed with supermarket food colouring and I never use liquid food colouring any more. Dr. Oetker has a range of gel colours that are not as strongly pigmented as the professional brands like Wilton or Sugarflair, but they are inexpensive and easily available in supermarkets. I decided to use the violet Dr. Oetker colour for this fish as I wanted a relatively pale lilac, but for a stronger, more vibrant colour I would always use Sugarflair.

To make this fish, roll a large ball and slightly pinch at one end. Make a short sausage and use your thumb to press into both ends to flatten them; then use the same tool as before to add the markings. Fix the tail onto the body, using edible glue if necessary.

Make a fin in the same way to go on top of the fish and flatten two small balls for the fins at the side. Use the same tool as before to make the mouth, and roll tiny balls of white and black fondant to make the eyes.

Finally I coloured a small piece of fondant with Wilton black gel colour and shaped it into a triangle to look like a shark's fin. And now your fish are ready to go on the cake!

For the cake I chose a recipe from the Good Housekeeping Baking Book for an Easter Chocolate Fudge Cake, though I didn't use the recipe given for the icing or decoration. I doubled the recipe but made the cake in two separate tins rather than slice a large cake through the middle.

For each cake, you need (so double this to make both layers):

175g butter

150g plain flour

50g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

150g light brown sugar

3 eggs

250ml sour cream

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

For the filling:

about 100ml double cream

100g plain chocolate

100g softened butter

200g icing sugar

blue food colouring

about 40-42 Kit Kat fingers

and of course your fondant fish!

Preheat oven to 180C. Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a separate bowl.

Beat in the eggs, and then the flour and cocoa mixture. Then beat in the sour cream and vanilla.

Grease and line an 8 inch loose-bottomed cake tin; I sprayed mine with PME cake release.

Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for about 45 minutes. If you have two tins of the same size you can bake both cakes at once, but I did it separately.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin

Then turn onto a baking rack to cool.

I made a chocolate ganache by melting the chocolate and cream together; it doesn't take long to thicken and set.

I spread this between the two cakes and spread a little of the ganache on the top and around the sides too. I took the Kit Kats out of their packets and stuck them one by one around the side of the cake.

I love the way this looks!

I decided to make some white chocolate ganache which I coloured aqua with food colouring, but the white chocolate just wouldn't set and my ganache was still very runny. I spooned it on top but a few minutes later it started to seep out between the Kit Kats - so I wouldn't recommend doing it this way!

Instead I decided to make some buttercream which I also coloured, though it looks quite pale in this photo as I was using the camera flash. Spooning the buttercream on in a fairly haphazard manner looked a lot like waves on the ocean.

Finally place your fish on top.

This was very popular with my work colleagues and I know they are all going to miss my baking! 

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I'm sharing this with Tea Time Treats, the blog challenge hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Janie of the Hedgecombers, as their theme this month is chocolate.

I am also sending this to Love Cake, hosted by Jibber Jabber, as the theme is "baking with passion". Everyone I worked with knows I have a passion for baking and this cake was a real labour of love as the fondant fish did take quite a long time!