Junglefrog Cooking » chocolate

Chocolate marquis – the less simple chocolate cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:53:43 +0000

Chocolate marquis with figs

I have visions of salads… lovely green salads with maybe just a tiny bit of nuts and a little bit of salty blue cheese and a gorgeous dressing. Salads that make me feel light and most of all healthy. Salads that give me the feeling that I am on the right track, that I am doing something right for my body… As you can probably tell by the brownish colors of the photo above this has nothing to do with salad. Nothing whatsoever. But it’s true, after making all that chocolate (first the arretje nof and then this chique version of arretje nof) I feel much more like having a salad then like having another piece of chocolate cake.

Gizmo doesn't mind another chocolate cake

I actually made this chocolate marquise on the same day as the Arretje Nof cake but we had our friends from Belgium coming over so I figured something a little more fancy then that would be in order. Plus I always love ‘baking’ something new. But then this is technically not baking as it is cold too. While this involved a lot more work then the Arretje Nof cake, I actually like that one better. This was good but just not as good…Funny how that works. Plus it’s double the amount of work, so you can probably guess which one would be my favorite. I’m thinking that the basic chocolate cake can be spiced up a little instead of making this one, but it does have some potential so I figured I would share the recipe with you and as you can tell; Gizmo seems to like it!

Chocolate marquis

Chocolate marquise

Print recipe

Serves:	10-12
Prep time:	40 minutes
Cook time:	2 hours
Total time:	2 hours, 40 minutes
Allergy:	Egg
Meal type:	Dessert
Misc:	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
Region:	Worldwide
From magazine:	Delicious magazine

Ingredients

225g tea biscuits (You will use 150 gr for the bottom and 75 gr for the filling)
40g butter (melted)
200g dark chocolate
200g butter
2 eggyolks
275g sugar
3 tablespoons kahlua
75g toasted flaked almonds
60g dried figs (chopped)
60g raisins (chopped)
50g double cream
150g milk chocolate

Directions


Prepare (can be done one day in advance); Crush the 150 gr of the biscuit in the blender or foodprocessor and mix with the melted butter. Put the ring of a round caketin (20 cm in diameter) on a plate or board covered with baking paper. Divide the cookie/butter mixture in a fairly thin layer and distribute over the bottom and press firmly with the back of a spoon. Leave to set in the fridge.

Melt the butter and dark chocolate au bain marie and stir til it is smooth. Whisk the eggyolks and the sugar into a very thick grainy mass and spoon them through the chocolate mixture and add the kahlua. Spoon in the almonds, the figs, raisins and the remaining 75 gr of the biscuits (crumbled). Divide the mixture across the bottom on top of the biscuit/butter mix.Smooth the top.. Leave to set in the fridge

Put the cream in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Take of the heat and put the milk chocolate in and stir until it is melted. As soon as it has the consistency of thick yogurt, divide a thin layer on top of the marquise. Leave to set in the fridge for 2-4 hrs. Take the cake out of the fridge shortly before serving. A trick to get the outside ring of is to use a hairdryer to heat the outside of the ring, so the chocolate will release easily.

Note

While certainly a tasty cake; I thought the ratio of biscuits vs the butter for the bottom didn't work so well. My bottom could have done with a little more butter (now how wrong does that sound??)

Instead of using the figs you can use any other dried, confit fruits you like. Or replace the kahlua here for cognac, rum or any other liquor you like

In the meantime; I am fed up with chocolate so I will be moving on to healthier dishes really really soon! What are you making for Christmas dessert?

Arretje nof – the simplest chocolate cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:03:46 +0000

Isn’t it funny how certain foods can transport you right back into your childhood? When I was a little kid I already loved to bake, but we never really got much further then the standard (but tasty!) apple pie and this Arretje Nof.. Now as far as I have been able to tell, this is a very typical and old fashioned Dutch cake. We used to make it for just about every kids party and I loved making it, as it was soooo simple and soooo good. I hadn’t thought about arretje nof in ages but when I was looking for Christmas desserts I ran into another recipe which reminded me of arretje nof. So I said something to Tom about it and he looked at me with one of those blank stares… “Arretje.. who???”

Kids heaven

Turns out he never even heard of this!! So naturally I just had to make it again. It had been roughly 30 years ago that I last made this famous Dutch chocolate cake and I was a little curious where that weird name came from, which is also impossible to translate by the way…

Apparently Arretje is the name of a cartoon character that was invented by the Dutch Oil Factory (Nederlandse Olie Fabriek) later to be known to many as Calve. Arretje, a brave little Turkish boy, born and raised in Baghdad was featured in a series of 5 little booklets around the year 1926 (!) and was a big hit. In those books the company was only referred to with the letters NOF, so before you knew it; Arretje was called Arretje Nof.

I haven’t been able to find out why then this cake was called by that name but my guess is that it might have had something to do with the original ingredients which were deepfrying oil and I am guessing that mr. Calve produced that in those days.

I am happy to report that the frying oil has been replaced by butter, although technically I am not sure how much more healthy that is. This is a delicious cake and Tom had to agree even though he keeps calling it my Ivan Rebroff cake. It doesn’t require any baking; a few hours in the fridge is all you need and you can be sure that kids will absolutely love it (and so will grown ups by the way!) It’s almost like a firm chocolate mousse cake with crunchy biscuits in between. It’s about time that Arretje goes international!

Arretje Nof

Print recipe

Serves:	12
Prep time:	15 minutes
Cook time:	4 hours
Total time:	4 hours, 15 minutes
Allergy:	Egg
Meal type:	Dessert
Misc:	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
Region:	Worldwide

Ingredients

4 eggs
250g sugar
125g cacao powder
375g butter (melted)
275g biscuits

Directions


Let the butter melt very slowly on low heat. Break all the biscuits in small pieces. Line a cake tin with baking paper.

Mix the eggs and sugar together. Carefully add the cocoa powder through a sieve into the egg/sugar mixture. Pour in the melted butter. Do this one step at the time to make it easier to incorporate the butter into the mix. As soon as the butter is entirely incorporated into the mix add the biscuits and stir everything together so all biscuit pieces are coated with chocolate. Put everything in the cake tin

Put in the fridge and leave to stand at least 4 hours or preferably overnight to become solid enough to cut.

Note

You cannot substitute the butter in this recipe for oil as it is the butter that makes the cake 'set'. So substituting for oil will mean that the cake will never set and you'll have a liquid cake

Simple but so good!

Lavender brownies – just a hint of summer

Simone (junglefrog) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:00:31 +0000

Gorgeous chocolate brownies with a hint of lavender

If you live anywhere near our tiny little country, the chances are that you had the same amount of sudden sunshine as we did. Just when we all thought summer was over (after having never really arrived) it all of a sudden gets to be gorgeous weather. The kind of weather that makes you want to go out and be outdoors all day long. The kind of weather we should have had months ago. The kind of weather also that leaves you guessing what on earth to wear today. Should I dress for autumn weather (sunny but chilly) or should I pretend it really is summer and dress appropriately? O the utter confusion!

Whatever the case; we should enjoy this small round of summer while it lasts. It might just be over before we know it. Being in London for the past couple of days we were ofcourse extremely fortunate that the weather was as good as it was. Apart from the fact that the subways were also swelteringly warm, we loved being outdoors all day, walking along, enjoying the sunshine, sitting on a terrace and watching the London world go by. I didn’t tell you yet, but we also had dinner on friday night at Gordon Ramsay at Claridges. While an experience all on it’s own, it also posed us for a couple of ridiculous problems. Being the casual kind of folks that we are, we forgot to pack something suitable for a fancy dinner. So all of a sudden we had to start shopping for a pair of pants for Tom and some shoes to go with it. We did bring the shirt, but then forgot the rest (how convenient…) So the dinner turned out to be a bit more extravagant then we had intended it to be. It was worth it though; we had a brilliant meal and we also got to see the kitchen from the inside. I hadn’t expected them to agree to us taking a peek in the kitchen but they immediately said yes and we were soon asked along for a little tour of the heart of the restaurant. I also noticed the chef’s table while we were in the kitchen and while it is really expensive to do that (150 GBP pp) I would love to do that one day! Maybe if we win the lottery..

Now these lavender brownies have nothing to do with Gordon Ramsay but they do have everything to do with summer. If you look at the color you might have guessed that this is the last dish that we did for the chocolate jewels photoshoot of which the blueberry chocolate cake and the strawberry devil’s chocolate cake have already been featured here. I had only once used lavender while cooking before and that was when making lavender macarons. But since that was lavender sugar and only sprinkled on the macarons it was not as pronounced in flavor as these brownies were. These have actual crushed flowers in them and the lavender taste is quite noticeable. I had to get used to it, but after taking the first bite I totally loved them. Beautiful chocolatey and that lavender give it just a bit extra.

Lavender brownies

Print recipe

Serves:	10
Prep time:	30 minutes
Cook time:	30 minutes
Total time:	1 hour
Meal type:	Dessert, Snack
Misc:	Pre-preparable
Region:	Worldwide

Ingredients

120g Good dark chocolate
90g butter
2 Egg
200g sugar
25g lavender flowers (dried)
90g flour (all purpose)
50g almonds (whole, coarsely chopped)

Directions


Heat the oven to 180C. Grease a brownie tin or baking tin lightly with oil and cover with aluminiumfoil (also grease this lightly).

Melt the chocolate with the butter au bain marie and once all incorporated and smooth, leave to cool off.

Put the lavender and some of the sugar in a pestle and mortar and grind together.

Add the briefly whipped eggs, sugar mixture and flour to the chocolate mixture. Mix everything together well but don't overmix it. Once there are no dry spots stop mixing. Put the batter in the tin and bake for about 30 minutes in the hot oven. Leave to cool in the tin before taking it out and onto a cake rack to cool further

Note

Not your average flavor but once you get used to the taste after the first bite... you're gonna love it!

Blue chocolate cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 07:00:26 +0000

Delicious blue chocolate cake!

Technically this is of course not a blue chocolate cake but this was our blue version of the ‘Chocolate Jewels” photoshoot where you previously saw that amazing Strawberry chocolate cake. I am just very glad that Alex does not bake me cakes like this every week or I would be in a lot more trouble then I already am (weightwise that is!)

The trick with this cake is that it has a chocolate wrap around it. Not sure if you would call it a wrap but I can’t think of any other name for that at the moment.. I always thought it would be extremely hard to do something like that and it was actually simpler then it appeared. It gets a little messy as you can see in the little video we made of the process of creating and placing the wrap but it’s not nearly as difficult as you would think it is.

The video is in Dutch but the process is pretty easy to understand if you don’t speak Dutch. You can’t really go wrong. Just be sure to be wearing something that is ok to get chocolate stained… Someone commented on the 2nd photo you see below that it looks like the cake is wrapped in paper as the chocolate is too smooth… I kind of agree with her to be honest, but what do you think? These are two cakes; in case you were wondering. The first one we had a little trouble getting the chocolate wrapped around nicely and the chocolate had a lot of holes in it plus as you can see it is missing the end part. The one below here looked like this without any editing except for removing two tiny holes (which are still visible in the 3rd picture). Whatever the case; these are real cakes and real chocolate…

Chocolate cake with blueberries and black berries

Chocolate cake with blue- and blackberries

Print recipe

Serves:	10
Prep time:	45 minutes
Cook time:	45 minutes
Total time:	1 hours, 30 minutes
Meal type:	Dessert
Region:	Worldwide
By author:	Alexandra Schijf

Ingredients

300g dark chocolate (at least 70% chocolate content)
4 tablespoons strong coffee
250g butter (unsalted)
225g cane sugar
8 eggs (split)
50g all purpose flour
25g cocao powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
250 g ground almonds
100g macaroons ground (bitterkoekjes in dutch)
500g blue berries and blackberries

Chocolate ganache

3 dls double cream (or whipping cream)
300g dark chocolate

Chocolate wrap

200g dark chocolate

Directions


Heat the oven to 180 C. Grease two baking tins with a diameter of 20 cm (and preferably with high edges). Melt the chocolate with the coffee au bain marie. Leave to cool Mix the butter and sugar until the mixtue is soft and then add the egg yolks one by one.

Mix flour, cocaopowder and baking powder in fold this in parts through the eggbutter mixture. Fold in the melted chocolate, the almonds and the macaroons too. Whip the eggwhites to stiff peaks and carefully fold those through the batter as well. Divide the mixture between the two baking tins and bake both cakes for about 45 minutes in the oven or till they are done. Protect the top of the cake with aluminium foil after 30 minutes if needed.

There are several ways of making ganache but Alex makes it by bringing the cream to the boil and then pouring it over the chocolate. Keep stirring until all the chocolate has melted into the cream. Leave to cool.

Stack the cakes on top of eachother with the ganache in between.

For making the chocolate wrap around the cake measure the total height of your cake (measure the finished one with the stacked cakes and the ganache in between). From baking paper cut a piece that is a little higher then the height of the cake and a little longer then the circumference of the cake. Put this piece of paper onto a larger piece of paper and lay it out flat on the table. Melt the chocolate au bain marie. Pour the melted chocolate on the piece of baking paper and spread it out thinly. Leave to cool of a little bit but it still needs to be flexible enough to wrap around the cake. It shouldn't drip too much (although you will see in the little video that it did on ours..) Grab the piece of paper with the chocolate on it and carefully wrap this around your cake. Press it slightly to the cake and put in the fridge. After about 20 minutes take it out of the fridge and remove the paper from the chocolate and decorate the cake with lots of fruit in the bottom part of the cake.

Note

Please note that the quantities mentioned here are for 2 smaller cakes or one really big one. The size depends on the baking form size you use so if you want just one normal sized cake, you might be better off dividing the qty's in two.

Filled to the rim! And yes, since this is unedited there is a tiny bit of paper stuck at the bottom here.. Can you tell?

Strawberry chocolate devil’s food cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:26:14 +0000

Pure decadence!

I consider myself to be a positive person… No matter how hard life can sometimes be, I always try and see the bright side of things… It’s been a trying year in that respect with first Tom’s grandma passing and then his mum, just a few months later. Slowly but surely however, we picked up the pieces and moved on.. And just when you think life is looking pretty good again, something else happens. Something that is not major earth shaking, but it still worrying. And I can’t even tell you exactly what the issue is, since you never know who might be reading this, but the way it is looking now; Tom will be out of a job (again) by the end of this year. And that’s shitty to say the least.

It means that a lot of things are uncertain again. The economic situation seemed to have recovered a little bit but predictions are it is gonna get worst before it’s gonna get better. So all in all… not a good time to be out of work. Especially when it is not really something you could have done anything about. For now he still has a job but three months is not a long time to find a new one, considering the current crisis. He’s brilliant in what he does, so let’s all keep our fingers crossed and hope that it will all work out!

Thankfully -whatever else is wrong in our lives – we will always have chocolate! And chocolate in this scrumptious (I just like that word… don’t you??) dessert is just beautiful. I will also have to tell you straight away that I did not bake this beauty. I took the photo but Alex is the one responsible for me salivating right now behind my computer screen!

A cake you will want to eat with chocolate and strawberries

Devil’s food cake with strawberries

Print recipe

Serves:	12
Prep time:	20 minutes
Cook time:	50 minutes
Total time:	1 hours, 10 minutes
Meal type:	Dessert
Region:	Worldwide
By author:	Alexandra Schijf

Delicious and decadent cake that is perfect for a festive occassion

Ingredients

185g butter (unsalted at roomtemperature)
385g sugar
1,5 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 eggs
125ml buttermilk
80ml water
300g flour
80g cocao powder
1,25 teaspoon baking soda
250g strawberries (or other red fruits)

Optional

0,5 teaspoon red food coloring (optional)

Ganache

150ml cream
170g dark chocolate

Directions


Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease two springforms with a diameter of 20 cm (and preferably with high sides) and cover the bottom with baking paper.

Mix butter, sugar and vanilla to a light and fluffy mixture and then add the eggs one by one. In a separate bowl mix the buttermilk, water and foodcoloring. Fold flour, cacaopowder and baking soda through the egg batter and then mix in the buttermilk mixture. Divide the batter over two baking tins and bake both cakes for about 50 minutes or until the cake is cooked through. Protect the top after 30 minutes with baking paper or aluminium foil to prevent it from getting too dark.

For the ganache you bring the cream to a soft boil and pour this over the chocolate. Melt the chocolate while stirring slowly until it is all smooth and shiny. Leave to cool.

Build a layer of strawberries on top of one of the cakes and stack the other one on top of the strawberries. Divide the ganache across the top of the cake and decorate with strawberries and shaved chocolate.

Note

Be aware that this is a very heavy dish. While the berries make it slightly more fresh it would still not be a good idea to serve this after a copious meal.. :) It's brilliant for a party though!

In terms of the qty's; this makes two smaller cakes or one really big one. Divide in two for a smaller group of people!

Junglefrog Cooking » chocolate

Chocolate marquis – the less simple chocolate cake

Chocolate marquise

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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