Out of office

Day 1 : I spent all morning yesterday looking for my papers for 2 years worth of tax return, and eventually took the bus to see my accountant. Turned out I owe the government some money rather than getting some back. Disgusting!
Day 2 : I baked my daring bakers challenge... unusually early considering the reveal date is another 5 days or so. Hey by the way... from this month I am also a daring cook! The thrill of waiting for the announcement of new challenges, now times 2.

This isn't the challenge by the by... in case you're wondering. Just a little sumthin I baked for the P's. You see... a month or two ago, when I met T+C for lunch I also planned to bake. Alas! I chose an completely new recipe from Gourmet Traveller which failed, to my horror! So when last friday we planned to meet again, I wanted to make sure the recipe I was going to attempt is fail safe.



One-pan chocolate cake
A recipe of Belinda Jeffery, from Vogue Entertaining + Travel mid-winter 2002, p.51

1/3 cup cocoa powder
75 gr cultured unsalted butter
1/3 cup light olive oil or vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
90 gr good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
250 gr caster sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup buttermilk, sour cream or yoghurt (see note)

To serve :
350 ml thick cream, whipped lightly + Hazelnut praline

Preheat the oven to 150C and butter a 23-24 cm round cake tin. Line the base with buttered baking paper, then dust the tin with flour. Shake out the excess flour and put it aside.

Put the cocoa, butter, oil and water into a fairly large saucepan. Bring to the boil over medium heat, stirring regularly until smooth, then remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and sugar and whisk until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool. When cool, add the egg and vanilla and whisk them in thoroughly. Sift in the flour and baking powder and stir until just combined. Whisk in the buttermilk.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and shake gently to even it out. Bake the cake for about 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre withdraws clean. Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then turn out onto the rack, remove the paper and leave to cool completely.
To serve : invert the cake onto a plate. Just before serving, spread the cream on top, using a spoon to swirl it up. To finish, sprinkle some praline over.

Note :
1. Sour cream. I went with the highest fat content option.
2. I added some chopped up tinned pears in order to firstly, sort of satisfy T's request for a fondant au chocolat et aux poires (which this cake is no where close, but nice nevertheless), and secondly to balance the fact that I used sour cream.
3. All in all, quite a nice cake actually... I used couverture chocolate, but next time I might use Green and Black's Maya Gold.
4. Tomorrow I will be back in the office. Boo!