September 2024 / DELICIOUS BITES

9 Sept 2024

A long time ago I read an article by a food writer lamenting that her children couldn't nominate a 'favourite dish' that she made for them but they could for their Dad. She was a bit taken aback before she realised the reason. Dad had a small repertoire of dishes that were on repeat while she constantly presented new dishes to her family and rarely remade dishes.

It's a bit the same with me these days, as every week I try and make something new. Favourites wouldn't be favourites though without good reason so I've decided to revisit a few of my tried and true recipes and today it's tahini halva brownie's turn.

I've made these before and every-one loves them but instead of the Ottolenghi version, I turned to Claire Ptak's recipe from her book, Love is a Pink Cake. The recipes aren't all that different but Claire's uses spelt flour instead of plain flour. I didn't have any spelt flour, so I looked through the cupboards and came up with a combination of flours I thought would go well with the tahini, chocolate and halva. I used some rye flour, plain flour and a little tapioca starch to ensure the brownies stayed squidy.

Here's the recipe for you which makes 8 tahini halva brownies. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Tahini Halva Brownies adapted from Love is a Pink Cake by Claire Ptak
Ingredients
125g unsalted butter
125g dark chocolate
2 eggs
125g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
70g spelt flour (I used 20g tapioca starch, 25g rye flour and 25g plain flour)
25g cocoa powder
Pinch salt
50g tahini paste
112g vanilla or marbled chocolate halva, broken into 1 cm pieces
Generous pinch sea salt flakes

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Butter and line a 7x7 inch cake tin with baking paper.

Put the butter and chocolate into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Stir occasionally until the mixture has melted completely. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until combined, taking care not to over whisk; the idea here is not to add too much air. Stir the eggs into the cooled chocolate mixture with the vanilla extract, then sift in the flour, cocoa powder and salt. Fold all together then pour into your prepared tin.

Drizzle the tahini over the top of the brownie mixture then gently run a knife across the surface to marble it. Dot with halva pieces then sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 23-25 minutes in the preheated 180°C, conventional oven but start checking for doneness at 22 minutes.The brownies should be just set but still wobbly. Leave to cool in the tin before cutting into rectangles.

Baker’s tip: Remember that brownies continue to bake while they cool down. It is always a good idea to err on the side of caution and remove the baked goods just before you think they are done to avoid overbaking and to keep that lovely gooey texture.

The brownies went down a treat at work and I think everyone was glad I'd made them - the true definition of a favourite recipe I guess.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

blood orange and almond syrup cake

1 Sept 2024

Sometime last year I discovered Nicola Lamb, a UK based pastry chef with a extrordinary devotion to recipe development. She posts recipes weekly and this orange cake recipe caught my eye. I was just waiting for blood oranges to arrive in the fruit shop before making my own version of her recipe. By the way, Nicola has just released her first cookbook, called Sift.

I tried to simplify Nicola's instructions a little and added a few extra decorative flourishes, inspired by a photo I saw of a Revani cake, from an old issue of Gourmet Traveller. The recipe makes a lot of syrup and not wanting to waste any of my precious blood oranges, I decided to candy some peel and used the peel to decorate the cake.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake. My cake used 4 blood oranges, which were around 200g each. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Blood orange almond syrup cake – adapted from Six Orange Cake recipe by Nicola Lamb

Syrup
1 orange, peeled and the flesh blended and reserved
2 oranges, grated and juiced to make 150g orange juice. Reserve the rind
1 x lemon, juiced (35g)
150g caster sugar
pinch of salt

Cake
15g reserved grated orange rind (from approximately 1½ oranges)
125g caster sugar

1 orange peeled and blended to make 115g blended orange flesh
2 eggs
115g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
135g unsalted butter, softened
40g ground almonds
pinch flaky salt

To serve
Candied orange rind
1 x orange, segmented
Thick greek yoghurt
30g coarsely chopped toasted raw almonds

Make the syrup and candy the rind
Blanch the peel of one orange in boiling water for 30 seconds, then drain. Repeat this step. Juice the 2 grated oranges and the lemon - you want about 150g of orange juice and about 35g of lemon juice. Pour 135g of the juice mixture into a saucepan and add the 150g sugar and the blanched orange peel. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Take off the heat and leave to cool completely before fishing out the peel. Place the peel into a small airtight container with a little of the syrup and store in the fridge until needed. Add the remaining fresh juice and a pinch of salt to the syrup and then taste - it should taste fresh and sweet!

Cake
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional. Grease and line the base of a 17cm cake tin with baking paper.

Add 15g of finely grated orange rind (approximately 1½ oranges) directly into the caster sugar. Use your fingers to rub the zest into the sugar to release the oils. Leave for 10 minutes for the sugar to fully draw out the oils; It will be very perfumed and turn a pleasant shade of orange.

Place the blended orange flesh into a bowl. If you don’t have a blender, you can also just use 115g of freshly squeezed juice. Whisk the eggs into the blended oranges and set aside. In a separate bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together and set aside.

Cream the soft butter, almonds, salt, and zesty orange sugar together for 2 minutes in a stand mixer until lightened. Scrape down the edge of the bowl, and then begin adding the orange/egg and flour/raising agent mixtures alternately in 3-4 additions. The mixture may look a bit split but don’t worry. We are trying to combine a lot of water and fat, so it will likely split - the cake will still be perfect.

Pour into the lined 17-cm tin and bake in the preheated 190°C conventional oven for 50 minutes or until deeply coloured and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out with just a few moist crumbs. There should be a deep, dark crust on the cake. You want this! Leave the cake to cool completely.

Once the cake is cool, pour around 1/4 cup of syrup on top of the cake, allowing it to flow down the edges, too. Leave for 1 minute, then pour another 1/4 cup of syrup on top. Leave to soak for about 20 minutes at least before serving. Keep the rest of syrup to additionally dose the cake when serving. You can also use it to ‘feed’ the cake as it dries in the coming days. To finish, boil the remaining syrup until it is very thick and syrupy. This will be the final glaze.

Just before serving, unmould the cake and place on a serving plate. Brush a little glaze over the top of the cake and top with some chopped toasted almonds and the candied orange peel. To serve, cut into slices, spoon a little syrup onto a plate and place a slice of the cake on top.

Top with more syrup and if desired, serve with some orange segments and a dollop of yoghurt. The cake will keep at room temperature for 1-2 days. This cake is very tender so to ensure clean slices, refrigerate the cake for about 20 minutes to firm the cake before slicing.

This cake was as good as I expected it to be - the cake was tender, deeply orange and the citrus slices and the yoghurt added a nice touch of freshness. This recipe is a definite keeper.