Choco-Strawberry Tart

There is something so elegant about tarts that takes my breath away. They are dainty and beautiful. In their pretty little way, they pack in so many different textures and flavours. And they are ALWAYS such a treat! ❤

Yeah, I’m talking about these Choco-Strawberry Tarts!

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Molten Chocolate Cake

First off, Happy New Year to all you wonderful foodies out there! I hope you brought in 2016 with your favourite food. If not, now’s the time. Wait! Errrr, after you read this blog post is the time, actually! 😉

So, Molten Chocolate Cake. This dessert needs no introduction. The past couple of years have been what we can call ‘The Rise of the Molten Chocolate Cake’. It’s everywhere; home-bakers are acing it, it’s on pretty much every restaurant menu and if you do a Google search, there are a million different recipes for this chocolicious delight. It also goes by many names – Chocolate Fondant, Lava Cake, Molten Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Lava Cake.

Long before I began baking extensively, I wondered how this gorgeous pud was baked. After some research I learned that it had all to do with the baking technique. These little pots of pure chocolate indulgence are baked on high heat for a short time so as to have them firmed up on the outside while ooey-gooey and oozy on the inside; in which case, the egg yolks in the recipe help bring out that custard-y effect! But then I also came across a few recipes which suggested putting quick-melting cubes of chocolate in the centre of the mini-cake before baking to have a perfectly liquid centre. Personally, I prefer the former. And among the million recipes out there, here’s mine! 🙂

Here’s what you need:

• Dark Chocolate – 250 g, cubed
• Unsalted Butter – 113 g, plus extra for greasing ramekins
• Confectioner’s sugar – 200 g
• Eggs – 3 whole + 3 yolks
• All Purpose Flour – 120 g
• Vanilla Essence – 4 tsp

Here’s how you make this spectacular Molten Chocolate Cake:

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius and grease glass or ceramic ramekins with butter. In a large bowl, mix cubes of chocolate and butter. Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave at medium heat for two minutes. Take out and stir well until smooth.

Step 2: Sift in the icing sugar and all-purpose flour and beat until the mixture becomes doughy.

Step 3: Whisk in the whole eggs and egg yolks until the mixture is luscious and creamy. Add the vanilla essence and give it one final mix.

Step 4: Pour the batter into the greased ramekins until they are filled to about two-third of their capacity. Place the filled ramekins on a baking tray, pop into the oven and bake for 13 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius. Take the cakes out of the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes. Carefully overturn the Molten Chocolate Cakes onto serving dishes and top with chopped strawberries. Serve Immediately.

We all know what the hero of the perfect Molten Chocolate Cake really is. That moment of joy when you cut into the cake and the molten chocolate lava flows out from the centre is unmatched. And that’s exactly what you will get from this recipe!

This Molten Chocolate Cake is mouth-wateringly delicious, to say the least. With the perfect balance of sweetness from the chocolate and confectioner’s sugar, the tartness from the strawberries and the richness of the molten centre, it’s everything you need to take you to chocolatey paradise (very a la the chocolate river in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’)!

If you’re a die-hard chocolate fan, this dessert is for you. But then, you already knew that! 😀 And for those of you who like a touch of chocolate in your lives every once in a while, make sure you don’t miss out on this classic dessert, made easy by The Foodscape!

Get in the kitchen and get baking! Those New Year’s resolutions can wait a bit! 😛

Easter Cupcakes

A very very Happy Easter to all my readers! May the risen Lord bless you with abundant joy and peace! 🙂

While the world rejoices and celebrates this Easter, I thought I’d make a little something to mark this joyous occasion. We don’t normally do anything special on Easter because in my part of the world Sundays aren’t weekends. Back when I was in college, I spent quite a few Easter weekends with friends and family, creating some crazy memories! However, this year was comparatively quiet. Nevertheless, I baked some pretty sweet beauties for family, friends and my loved ones! Here’s a look at the Dark Chocolate Easter Cupcakes – my first ever attempt at baking Easter themed goodies! (And I must say I’m pretty proud of myself 😛 )

Here’s what you need:

For the Cupcakes

• Sugar – 1 and 3/4 cups
• All Purpose Flour – 1 and 3/4 cups
• Baking Powder – 1 and 1/2 tsp
• Baking Soda – 1 and 1/2 tsp
• Cocoa Powder – 3/4 cup
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Eggs – 2, beaten
• Milk – 1 cup
• Vegetable Oil – 1/2 cup
• Vanilla Essence – 2 and 1/2 tsp
• Boiling Water – 1 cup

For the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

• Unsalted Butter – 120 g
• Icing Sugar – 140 g, sifted
• Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp
• Gel Food colouring in Leaf Green – keep adding a few drops at a time until you get the shade you desire
• Cadbury Mini Eggs for garnish

Here’s how you make them:

• Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
• In a bowl blend together sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, eggs, milk and vegetable oil until well incorporated. Add the vanilla essence and boiling water and mix well.
• Pour 1/4 cup of batter into each of the cupcake liners and pop into the oven for about 16 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
• Take out of the oven and leave to cool.
• In another bowl beat the unsalted butter and icing sugar until soft and creamy. Add the vanilla essence and give it a final mix. Pour in a few drops of food colouring and mix well until you get the desired shade of green.
• Pipe the Vanilla Buttercream Frosting onto the cupcakes in soft starry peaks with a star tip, to create the look of a nest. Finish off the cupcakes by placing a few Cadbury Mini Eggs on top.

As you can see, these cupcakes are very pleasing to the eye. When I was done frosting and placing the mini eggs on the first cupcake of the lot, I ran to my mum with the cupcake in hand and did a weird victory dance while my face lit up like that of a kid’s in a candy store! I was beyond ecstatic to see how cute the cupcakes turned out.

These cupcakes earned rave reviews from the little ones. There were a lot of “Woww! These are so cute!,” “Look there are small eggs on the cupcakes!” “These cupcakes are very yummy!” These comments from all the cute little ones really warmed my heart. The boyfriend too went all gaga over these cupcakes. And me, well I just can’t stop admiring them! 🙂

Simple yet lovely, these cupcakes are the way to have yourself a Happy Easter! And they’re going to be a hit with the kids too. 😀

Happy Easter, everyone! 🙂

Kahlua-Mocha Indulgence

They say you can’t have all things nice at any given time and I do believe that’s true. Well, that should apply to dessert as well, shouldn’t it? What if I tell you that I know of the one dessert that defies this norm? What if I tell you that I can show you how to make a dessert that combines the goodness of vanilla sponge cake, the decadence of some velvety chocolate ganache, a boozy hit of Kahlua and that signature crunch of crackling crystal caramel? Isn’t that having all things wonderful at once? (To me, it is!) 😉

This dessert is simple, though it can take a while to put together. Where did I find the inspiration to create this Kahlua-Mocha Indulgence, you may ask? I am a huge fan of coffee (at a point in time, I was edging on addicted) and the idea of a dessert which is an amalgamation of any baker’s or confectioner’s favorite flavors was just too good to resist. Also, in spite of the fact that I am not a fan of alcohol, I do have a teeny thing for coffee liqueur. (It always makes me go – yayyyy Kahluaaa!) 😀

Without any further ado, here’s how you make this gorgeous-looking and fabulous-tasting Kahlua-Mocha Indulgence.

This is what you need:

For the Crystal Caramel:

• Sugar – 150 g
• Water – 2 tbsp

For the Vanilla Cake:

• Unsalted Butter – 150 g
• Sugar – 150 g
• Eggs – 2
• All Purpose Flour – 150 g
• Baking Powder – 1 tsp
• Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp

For the Chocolate Ganache:

• Heavy Whipping Cream (double cream) – 1 cup
• Light Brown Sugar – 1 cup
• Unsalted Butter – 2 tbsp
• Golden Syrup – 2 tbsp
• Milk – 1/2 cup
• Semi-sweet Chocolate – 200 g

For assembling:

• Kahlua or any kind of Coffee Liqueur – 1 and 1/2 cup
• A few deep-edged dessert bowls

Here’s how you make the Kahlua-Mocha Indulgence:

The crystal caramel: 

• Mix the sugar and water in a deep dish. Place the dish on the cooking range on low heat.
• While the caramel is cooking, prepare the baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper.
• Once the sugar dissolves and the water has evaporated, the mixture will begin turning to a gold hue. When the mixture is of a light amber colour, take it off the heat.
• Pour the caramel on to the prepared baking sheet so as to form a thin layer.
• When the caramel cools completely and is hard to the touch, use the back of a spoon to crack it. Be careful while you’re at it, broken caramel can be as sharp as shattered glass.

The cake:

• Pre-heat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
• In a bowl, blend sugar and butter until creamy. Add in the eggs and whisk well until light and fluffy.
• Add the flour and baking powder and fold in until well incorporated.
• Pour in the vanilla essence and give the batter one final mix.
• Pour the batter into a prepared 8-inch square baking tin and even out. Bake for about 17-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
• Once the cake is completely cooled through, cut it into 2-inch squares.

The Ganache:

• Place the heavy whipping cream, milk, sugar, butter and golden syrup in a heavy-based saucepan.
• Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved and the syrup has melted. Then bring to a boil. Boil, stirring continuously for about five minutes or until the sauce is thick.
• Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate, a little at a time, until it is completely melted and the ganache is smooth and velvety.

Here’s how you assemble the Kahlua-Mocha Indulgence 😀

• In a dessert bowl, pour in a bit of Kahlua – about four teaspoons.
• Place a vanilla cake square in the bowl and top it off with another square of vanilla cake.
• Douse the cake in another two teaspoons of Kahlua.
• Pour the warm chocolate ganache over the cake tower until it’s dripping over on all sides.
• Sprinkle some crackling crystal caramel on the top and serve immediately.

One thing is for sure – if you’ve dug your teeth into this oh-so-amazing dessert, you’ve surely visited sweet-sweet heaven! The soft vanilla cake with its moist crumb, paired with the incredibly rich bitter-sweet chocolate ganache and the crystal caramel that lends an extraordinary bite to the dessert – not to mention the added sweetness and the smokey flavor -, is just taken to another level of drop-dead-delicious by the warmth and coffee-licious goodness of the Kahlua. Oh! My! God! (My taste buds yearn as I type this!)

I made this dessert for a dinner-date with the boyfriend and my, were we pleased! Being the first time tasting something like this, the both of us were supremely surprised at how wonderful this Kahlua-Mocha Indulgence tasted, and for days after, we craved for more! (The weighing scale didn’t think we deserved to eat more though…)

Trust me when I say that some of the simplest ingredients and techniques go into making this amazing dessert that is worthy of being served in some of the best restaurants and patisseries around the world! There goes another way to show your family and friends that you’re a culinary genius!

A little tip: If you’re not a fan of Kahlua or you don’t fancy alcohol, this dessert can be made without it as well. Just substitute Kahlua with some brewed strong black coffee (without sugar) and it will taste just as AWESOME!