Category: Dessert

Homemade luxurious chocolate rum sauce.

So, did you watch the Royal Wedding? I was out shopping the whole day so was just keeping track via Twitter.

The dress..wow! So gorgeous, elegant and yet understated. Very, very classy. Bride was beautiful and absolutely glowing! I don’t think she would cringe looking back at her wedding pictures 30 years later.

As for Prince William…I wish he had shaved his head! Oh well! Queen was really cute in canary yellow, she looked like she could be a sister to Prince Charles!

# – Congratulations to the Royal Couple!

As I catch up with the news and pictures of the wedding, I feel some pangs of sadness. I wish Princess Diana could be around to see her Will getting married to the love of his life. I guess it’s because I grew up reading a lot of Australian tabloids featuring Princess Diana and thanks to the Australians I developed quite a fondness for her as well. So when she passed away, I really felt like I got the wind knocked out of me. Cried my eyes out while glued to the TV for days, I even made a tribute card completed with lyrics of Candle in the Wind written in cursive….

Anyway, I’m sure she’s watching her sons from above and she would be so proud :)

Lets move on to my favourite topic, FOOD! I blogged about profiteroles yesterday and promised I will blog about the yummy chocolate rum sauce I served with them.

This chocolate sauce is so incredibly easy to make I feel kind of shy about posting the recipe up but hey, if I didn’t know about it before I figure many people won’t know about it too, right?

The ingredients:

  • A block of dark chocolate, chopped (In fact I used just ordinary cooking chocolate but they turned out well. I suspect the taste of cheap shortening was masked by the rum….hehehehe)
  • 2 tablespoons of rum
  • 1 tablespoon of water
  • 3 tablespoons of golden syrup or honey
  • 25 grams of butter

# – First, dump the butter and chocolate into a microwave save bowl. Add the a tablespoon of water.

# – Followed by two tablespoons of rum. Or three…if you should fancy :P

# – Then, add 3 tablespoons of golden syrup or honey.

# – Finally, stick it in the microwave to nuke at High for 2 minutes.

# – After the nuking session, the mixture may still be lumpy but do not worry, just stir with a spoon until completely dissolved.

# – Like this…

# – Voila, homemade chocolate rum sauce, DONE.

If you don’t have a microwave, do not worry! Just use a double boiler; basically standing the bowl of mixture over a pot of simmering water and stir till everything’s melted and combined (ensure the bowl doesn’t touch the water).

They will hardened when kept in the fridge, just warm it up using the double boiler or nuke it in the microwave.

Drizzle the sauce over ice cream, profiteroles or even use it for dipping churros in. This chocolate sauce is very versatile, taste really good and well, is recommended only for adults ;)

I made profiteroles and they FINALLY rose!

You know what? I did it! I freakin’ did it!

Ladies & gentlemen, I successfully made profiteroles! You may have read about my failed attempt at making profiteroles and since, I had attempted two more times and failed :(

# – Crispy, creamy, chocolatey profiteroles. Woohoo!

However, last night, the time felt right. It was late, yes it was 12.30am in the morning and I thought to myself, “Hey Kimberly, I feel like some profiteroles and I have a feeling the choux pastry will puff up this time”. And so, I decided to make them, eventhough I was supposed to be already in bed.

And boy, did they puff! I was so overwhelmed with joy, I did a dance and screamed joy in my kitchen. The BF thought I had gone nuts, but then he too saw the puffed up pastry in the oven and subsequently joined in my awesome dance.

I think the success of this attempt had to do with me implementing a tip I had picked up from Masterchef Australia where the challenge in that particular episode was to make Croquembouche, a complex dessert that can be summarised as a tower of profiteroles bound together by caramel.

During the making of the choux pastry, the Masterchef’s voiceover was saying that the choux pastry of one of the contestants did not rise because she did not cook the flour thoroughly. So this time, I made sure I cooked the flour mixture through. You probably have no idea what I’m rambling about, so lets just go straight into the step by step :D

The ingredients:

  • 65 grams of flour, sifted twice
  • A pinch of salt, sifted twice
  • 150 ml of water
  • 50 grams of butter
  • 2 eggs, well beaten

For serving:

  • 100 ml of whipping cream, whipped till double in size
  • Chocolate sauce (you can buy or make yours but watch out for tomorrow’s post for my homemade version with rum!)

# – First of all, sift the flour and salt twice and set aside in a bowl.

# – Then melt the butter in water in a pot on low heat.

# – When butter have thoroughly melted, turn the heat up a little to get to a gentle boil. Most recipes would ask you to remove the butter mixture from heat at this point, but please don’t. Now, dump in the flour and salt mixture.

# – Turn the heat back down and stir and stir and stir and stir.

# – Stir till everything sticks together and forms a soft ball. Then continue stirring over the low heat for about 5 minutes more. Yes, this is the part about cooking the flour through I was talking about.

# – Now dump the dough into a mixing bowl to cool down for about 15 minutes.

# – In a pitcher, beat 2 eggs well.

# – Gently pour the egg into the dough while you’re beating it with an electrical mixer. Beat till everything is combined and form a soft peak.

# – What’s a soft peak? This is soft peak, where the dough sticks to a spoon and very, very slowly droops downwards.

# – Now, stick the dough into a piping bag. Of course, you can use a makeshift piping bag with a freezer bag, just nip the corner off and voila!

# – Pipe the dough into half of your desired profiterole size onto a greased baking tray, because when cooked they’re going to double in size!

# – Dip you hand into a bowl of water and lightly sprinkle water all over the tray, like this. This is another way to help the choux pastry rise.

# – Stick it in a preheated oven at 200 degrees celcius for 20 minutes.

# – Watch them puff up. You may now do a dance.

# – As you can see, I made some eclair shapes too so yes, I made eclairs too with this batch…hehehehe.

# – Immediately after you take the pastry out from the oven, use the skewer to poke a hole through the under of each pastry. This is to release any pressure built up inside.

# – Split each pastry into half with a knife.

# – When they’ve cooled down completely, stuff each with as much chilled whipped cream as much as you can :D

# – Lay them all on a plate and drizzle generously with warmed delicious homemade chocolate rum sauce (will blog about this tomorrow).

# – Bite into a piece. And there, profiteroles, DONE!

These profiteroles were light & crispy on the outside, with a hollow inside perfect for cradling a good dollop of yummy, milky cream.

The combination of the pastry, cream and rich chocolate sauce is seriously something bordering perfection. What can I say, they were absolutely perfect. The BF and I hoovered up everything at one go, we were quite naughty really…

My apologies while I swim for a little while more in pure self-satisfaction.

The chocolate, beer and yogurt cake with peanut butter frosting!

Otherwise known as Perfection.

Cause seriously, what is not perfect about a cake that combines the best of chocolate, beer, yogurt and wait for it, peanut butter in one whole package?

# – Perfection.

I adapted the recipe (originally called Chocolate Stout Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting) from Donna Hay’s 50th issue, where I replaced stout with lager, sour cream with yogurt and smooth peanut butter with chunky peanut butter.

I love this Donna Hay magazine! If you remembered, I also adapted a very successful chocolate buttermilk layer cake from it.

Anyway, this cake is fluffy and so moist (I suspect that’s the work of the yogurt) with a hint of beer and taste of the chocolate enhanced and heightened by the bitterness from the lager. With the very peanut-ty peanut butter frosting, each spoonful of cake is simply sublime…beautiful!

I particularly love eating it while watching an episode of Glee.

Everyone is bound to like either chocolate, beer, yogurt or peanut butter, so this cake is a sure-winner. If you know of anyone who doesn’t like either one of these…please let me know because I’d really love to shove a lightbulb down their throats because they need to lighten up!

Without further ado, lets see how perfection is attained…

For the cake:

  • 125 ml of beer
  • 115 grams of butter, chopped
  • 35 grams of cocoa powder, sifted
  • 1 egg
  • 80 grams of plain yogurt
  • 150 grams of flour, sifted
  • 3/4 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda, sifted
  • 180 grams of caster sugar

For the frosting:

  • 160 grams of icing sugar
  • 280 grams of chunky peanut butter
  • 80 grams of butter, softened
  • 80 ml of whipping cream

# – First, heat up a pot and pour the beer into it.

# – Then, throw in the butter and stir till butter has melted.

# – Next, sift the cocoa powder into the beer butter mixture.

# – Whisk till all’s combined. Remove from heat and set aside.

# – Now, in a bowl, break an egg into the yogurt. I can’t stop staring at this picture. Egg yolk gazing should be adopted as a therapeutic treatment.

# – Whisk till they are completely combined. Set aside.

# – Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl. Add the caster sugar too.

# – Now, pour the eggy yogurt mixture into the flour mixture…

# – Followed by the beery chocolaty buttery mixture.

# – Whisk till everything is combined. Now, you’ve got your cake batter!

# – Donna Hay said pour into a loaf pan but because I’m such a rebel, I poured it into a round cake tin lined with parchment paper. Whatever works for you, I say. Stick it into a pre-heated oven at 160 degrees celcius for 1 hour 10 minutes or till cooked (stick a skewer into the cake and pull it out, if there’s no sticky bits means it’s done).

# – When the cake is done, turn it out to cool completely. I’m sorry I’ve got a cracked cake but I prefer to look at it as maximum frosting absorption!

# – Now, it’s time for my favourite part. Frosting!!! Dump the icing sugar, peanut butter and butter into a mixing bowl.

# – Beat till all are combined and creamy.

# – Then, pour in the whipping cream.

# – Beat again till it’s fluffy and creamy and yummy.

# – Set cake and frosting side by side like this. (Okay you don’t really have to do this exactly.)

# – Lay the frosting onto the cake and frost the heck out of it!

# – The chocolate, beer, yogurt and peanut butter cake A.K.A Perfection, DONE!

# – In the background is how the original cake is supposed to look like but I prefer mine obviously because I have more frosting, teeheehee.

I kept the cake in the fridge for about a week and it still tasted so delicious! As the BF said, “this is the kind of good that can’t be bought outside”. Make it happen!