Chocolate Biscuit Cake

Here's wishing you all a Very Happy Valentines Day! 

I've been celebrating the whole week, doing all kinds of crafts for Anushka's school. I've cut and glued so many hearts, Valentines Day has never been more real! To me its another day to be around chocolate and if I'm really lucky maybe I'll have something new by the end of the day:)
I'm going to be doing a lot of baking in the coming weeks, so I decide to make this super simple no-bake dessert instead. This recipe was given to us by one of our teachers when we were in the 6th grade and it was probably the first dessert I ever made. The original recipe used a simple buttercream frosting but I like this fudge frosting much better. I used to make it so often back then, my brother and I just loved it. 

You can easily adjust the amounts to make as many cakes as you like or you can pile the biscuits high and make a really tall cake. This is also just the thing to make with your kids. Anushka loved dipping the biscuits and stacking them.

Chocolate Biscuit Cake

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk

2 tsps instant coffee powder

1/2 tbs sugar

12 digestive biscuits

Quick Fudge Frosting:

50gms bittersweet chocolate

1 tbs butter

1/2 tbs golden syrup or light corn syrup

Method:

Warm the milk slightly and dissolve the coffee powder and sugar in the milk. Keep the milk aside to cool.

Dip one cookie at a time in the milk and stack them neatly one on top of another to make two cakes of 6 cookies each. 

Place the stacked cookies in the freezer while you make the icing.

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler until melted and smooth. Stir in the corn syrup and butter until melted. Keep aside to cool until the frosting is thick enough to frost with.

Remove the biscuit cakes from the freezer and frost both the cakes. Decorate as desired and keep refrigerated.

Chocolate Sorbet

You really cannot ignore Valentines Day, even if you want to. The TV, internet and every store will serve as a constant reminder. I was at Costco yesterday and almost every shopper had a bouquet of flowers or a big box of chocolates in their cart. I probably was the only exception and I almost went back to get some chocolates for myself, almost! We look at Valentine's Day and all such other 'Days' as an excuse to splurge, on food that is! Going out was not an option this year, so I had planned to make some of our favorite dishes at home. The little one however had her own plans and decide to skip her nap today, Manoj was held up at work and got home really late. All I could make was a quick pasta dish. Dessert, which had to be chocolate, was already made over the weekend. 

I love all kinds of fruit sorbet but I was a little hesitant to try this, wondering how chocolate and water, considered to be enemies, would work together. But the resulting mixture was heavenly, so incredibly chocolaty. We even had a couple of shots of it before it went into the ice cream machine. Besides a sorbet makes me feel good, atleast I am avoiding the cream. If you are chocolate crazy like me try this, I promise you'll love it!

Chocolate Sorbet

Ingredients:

2 1/4 (555ml) cups water 

1 cup (200 gm) sugar

3/4 cup (75 gm) unsweetened cocoa powder

pinch of salt

6 oz (170 gm) bittersweet/ semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Use a large saucepan, or the mixture will boil over.

Mix together 1 1/2 cups water, sugar, cocoa and salt in a large saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil, whisking frequently. Let it boil, continuing to whisk, for 45 seconds.

Remove from heat and add the chocolate. Stir until it melts completely and then stir in the vanilla and remaining water. Transfer the mixture to a blender and blend for 15 seconds.

Chill the mixture thoroughly and then freeze it in your ice cream machine as per instructions. 

If the mixture has become too thick to pour into your machine, just whisk it thoroughly to thin it out.

Transfer the sorbet into a container and put some plastic wrap on it touching the sorbet. Then cover with the lid and store in the freezer.

Recipe from Smitten Kitchen.