Flourless Chocolate Rum Cake

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and are eagerly looking forward to welcoming the new year. For the first time in years I did not bake a fruitcake this time. I just wanted something different. And when I saw the recipe for this cake, I new it would be the perfect treat.

This is one of those amazing, hassle free, one bowl desserts that can be put together in a few minutes and tastes absolutely heavenly. It is amazingly decadent, rich and intensely chocolaty and the rum in the cake takes it to a whole other level.

The original recipe has a fudge icing with rum in it. I topped the cake with ganache and skipped adding any rum to it, as I knew Anushka would want to lick the ganache bowl clean:). Moreover as much as I love the flavor of alcohol in desserts, even a little too much makes me tired and sleepy. But if you can take it, I'd say got for it.

To make it alcohol free, simple substitute the rum with some coffee. I can only imagine how good that would be!!
Recipe from Pastry Affair.

Flourless Chocolate Rum Cake

Ingredients:

 6 ounces semi sweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

4 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted

1/3 cup rum

Method:

Grease and line an 8" round pan. Preheat oven to 190 C/ 375F.

Melt the chocolate and butter over a double boiler, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and mix in the sugar. Make sure the mixture is only slightly warm and whisk in the eggs one at a time, mixing well until smooth after each addition.

Stir in the vanilla extract, cocoa powder and rum and mix until smooth. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs. Take care to not over bake the cake.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and invert onto a platter. Cool completely and top with the ganache.

Ganache

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cream

4 ounce dark chocolate, chopped

1 tbs rum (optional)

Method:

Heat the cream just until you see bubbles around the edges. Pour over the chocolate and let it stand for about 1 minute.

Stir until smooth. Stir in the rum if using and once cool spread over the cake.

Melt 'n' Mix Custard Shortbread

I usually shy away from recipes calling for a lot of butter, but then it is the season for sharing and gifting so why not! These shortbread cookies are an indulgence...soft, buttery, melt-in-your mouth and just lightly sweetened. I also love the flavor of custard powder and the light yellow color it adds to the cookies.

Recipe from here, adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly.

Custard Shortbread

Ingredients:

250gms unsalted butter

35gms icing/ confectioners' sugar

55gms castor sugar

40gms custard powder

360gms all purpose flour

pinch of salt

sugar for sprinkling

Method:

Line and grease a 7"x11" pan. Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F.

Melt the butter over low heat and keep aside to cool slightly.Sift the icing sugar and custard powder into a bowl and mix in the sugar.Add the melted butter and beat mixture until thick and creamy. Add sifted flour and salt and mix gently until combined.

Press the mixture into the prepared pan evenly and level the surface. Mark the dough into fingers and prick each finger decoratively with a fork and sprinkle some sugar on top if desired.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until lightly golden. Cut into fingers while still warm and cool in the pan.

If you like your cookies to be crispier, just bake for another 15 minutes or so.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies...Holiday Baking

Anushka started school last week and that leaves me with a couple of hours each day to do all those things that are otherwise impossible with an hyperactive kid at home. My to-do list just keeps getting longer and now maybe I could catch up with some of them.

I am also looking forward to bake some more. Now that Christmas is just around the corner, I have the perfect excuse to try some cookie recipes that I've had bookmarked forever. Moreover Anushka is turning out be quite the cookie lover and that's gotten me really excited.

I have made these cookies before and they are an absolute treat. Not only are they pretty to look at, they taste heavenly too. Bake them right and they are amazingly fudgy and chocolaty, like the perfect brownie. What I love about this recipe is that there is no butter involved and the ingredients have to be just mixed quickly in one bowl and the dough tastes amazing too.

The one change I made was to use substitute some of the bittersweet chocolate with unsweetened chocolate as I remember finding them a little too sweet for my tastes. With this change though they were just right. Recipe from here.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 1/3 cup unsweetened chocolate)

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional, but highly recommended

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Method:

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. 

Add the sugar and oil and mix well.

Make sure that the mixture is almost at room temperature and add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after after each addition.

Add the vanilla.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the chocolate mixture. Stir in nuts.

Cover and chill the dough for two hours or until firm enough to roll.Preheat the oven to 175C /350F.

Form into 1" balls and roll in the powdered sugar until completely coated. 

Place in a parchment covered cookie sheet about an inch apart and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Cool on wire racks. 

I baked my cookies for 8 minutes, they will be soft when you get them out of the oven, but wait for  a few seconds and they will be firm enough to transfer them to the rack and will get firmer when completely cool.

Please, do not overbake the cookies. They look the best on the day they are baked, but they taste just as great for a couple of days more.