CHOCOLATE MARBLE CAKE!

Love cake – if I’m really honest, it’s the thing I like cooking (and eating of course) best of all. So in honour of Easter, here’s a chocolate marble cake. There’s nothing vintage or re-modernised about this at all, and the only reason for its existence is that it’s simply delicious. And given there’s probably a lot of chocolate around right now, and well it’s always possible that you might be looking for a way to get rid of some of it – ha , fat chance! – But none the less, spare chocolate is a good excuse to make a chocolate marble cake.

So – cake is one of those things that you’ll read about in books and on the tv, you’ll be told that you can do nothing but follow the recipe, and if you don’t it’ll fail and that cake is a chemical recipe for which you must have the right quantities of everything or it’ll fail. This is not entirely untrue, you have to include some form of raising agent, but that raising agent can be a simple as air. At any rate I have a method for making cake that means essentially it will never fail, and you can apply it to just about any recipe of cake that you like, and keep whatever proportions the recipe says.

In this instance, the proportions should be as follows.

4 eggs

4 oz of caster sugar

2 oz of corn flour

2 oz of self raising flour

2 oz of plain flour

2 oz of butter

A dash of Vanilla extract

4 oz of good chocolate and a tablespoon full of Nutella

Alternatively of course you can go for 4 oz of self raising flour, or even 4 oz of plain, but in that instance you will need a level teaspoon of baking powder, sifted into the flour.  

Modern flours need very little sifting per se, which was originally used to remove the weevils from it – vile little black insects, and if you buy your flour from a corner shop where no one else ever buys it, and it’s been there on the ground shelf for months, you may well find black round ‘bits’ in your flour – this will be weevils, and I recommend ditching the whole bag, and washing out whatever container you keep it in. Flour should always be kept inside a container that will protect it from damp. 

Now you will also need a baking tin – in my instance I use a 7 inch springform tin, that I line with cake liners that I can buy in the supermarket. If I’m making smart cake, and don’t want the lines up the sides, then I will line the tin with greaseproof paper, and you can get a simply wonderful four inch roll of baking parchment from Lakeland, that sits around the sides extremely well. In fact when I think of the changes there have been to baking equipment over the last 30 – 35 years, and I was stuck in domestic science classes making the good old Victoria Sponge – it’s an entirely new ball game. 

Anyhow, you will also need two bowls to start with, and the first thing that you should do melt the chocolate over a pan of gently simmering water. 

Ensure that the water does not touch the bottom of your bowl, you can do this in a microwave, but I tend to stick to the methods I know best – just pop it in the bowl and leave it be until it is completely melted. Remove the choc from the pan and leave it to cool whilst you make your cake mixture.  Separate your eggs – pop the yolks into a small bowl, and the whites – and there’s no substitute here for fresh eggs, the whites should stand up proud and thick, it makes such a difference – into a large bowl. I have a set of electric beaters, and I use them, but there’s no reason why you can’t do it by hand, I’ve done this for years. And of course if you have one of those fabulous table top mixers by all means use them, but frankly I don’t think many people do, and to use nothing but on cookery programs on the box means many people think you can’t use anything but, which is rubbish. 

You'll have to excuse the lack of photos of this bit - my phone ran out of power!

Anyhow add your sugar to the whites, and set too – you are aiming to produce something near to a meringue.  However not a stiff peak meringue, simply a nice thick mixture, that when you lift your whisk, or your beaters, leaves a nice trail on the top of your mix. The trail should remain too, not sinking back into the mix after a couple of seconds – I find a good three to five minutes of beating produces the mix I’m looking for.  With a spoon I give the whites a good beat, and add the vanilla extract to them. I then add the yolks to the whites, with a tablespoon of flour which prevents the mixture from splitting. This should be mixed with either a large flattish tablespoon, or a spatula – you want to get the flattest implement that you have, and mix carefully. No beating at this point, the whole point of the meringue effect is that this is the air that will raise the cake, and having got it in there, there’s no point in beating it out. Mix using a figure of eight motion, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Melt the butter and pop it on one side to cool.  Whilst it’s cooling, add in the rest of the flour, and make sure it’s well incorporated into the mix.

Taking your small bowl that you had the yolks in, add two tablespoons full of the mixture, and add the butter to this. This should be beaten well to incorporate the butter into it, and it won’t want to be incorporated – I tend to use a whisk for this, and beat it very firmly. As soon as the butter is incorporated, add the buttered mix to the whole of the mixture, and using the spatula, and the same figure of eight motion, incorporate the buttered mix into the whole of the mix. Do this lightly. At this point, if you were making a plain Vanilla sponge, your mix would be ready, but for our marble cake, divide the cake mix and stir in gently to the melted chocolate. Mix this well, you want a completely chocolaty portion of the mix.

Have your cake pan ready with its lining. Put spoonfuls of both mixes into the pan, carefully – I suggest two of the vanilla mix, and a spoonful of the choc, then another of the vanilla and two of the choc – however you like to do it is fine at this stage. Then taking a skewer, insert till it is gently touching the bottom of the mix and mix! 

Draw through the mix gently twisting around until you achieve a marbled effect on the top of the cake. Now you can see from the photos I wasn’t entirely successful in this for this particular cake – it’s because I lifted the skewer off the bottom of the pan. Make sure all of the cake is fully marbled. Then put into a hot oven, I baked mine at 180 degrees C, which would be 350 degrees F, or gas mark 4 – 5 for 40 minutes. 

When this was done, I then tested it with the clean skewer – insert and when you pull it out, the skewer should be clean with no trace of unbaked mix on it. Take it out of the oven, leave it in the pan for ten minutes before decanting and allowing to cool completely on a cooling rack. I left mine undecorated, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pour melted chocolate over the top, or sprinkle it with icing sugar. This cake freezes excellently, and makes a pefect contribution to a bake sale – and indeed, you could make them in large muffin cases to sell as individual cakes. Additionally you could add chocolate chunks, or buttons to the mix, but I’m not sure I would be wanting to add anything else. There’s a perfection in a marble cake that comes from the marbling itself and the combination of flavours. Enjoy!

Utility Curry!

Yes, well I had aimed to be doing this a bit more regularly but alas trouble with uploading the photos delayed this somewhat! Anyhow what I also meant to include in the last post was the fact this recipe grew out of Savoury Apples, which comes from a Second World War cookbook that you can still get in your library – published by the Daily Telegraph from the recipes sent in by their readers. 

This week’s post is going to be Utility Curry. I don’t know if any of you came across it but recently here in Glasgow we’ve had a spate of reports on take away curries not being made from the meats they purport to be – and we’re not talking about horsemeat here.  And given that we’ve had snow, well up to our ankles at least, but what really has been unpleasant has been the wind, it’s been simply freezing cold, got me to thinking about curry. I admit, I thought we had been eating curry in this country since the days of the Raj and the returning of colonial types, but I was reading through a reprint of Eliza Acton’s recipes, based on her writings from 1845 – a good deal earlier than I had thought, and I came across a “Mr Arnott’s Currie Powder”.  This is a basic curry powder, with simply huge quantities, but you can reduce these and it makes a very acceptable rub. I put it down in teaspoons, and of course in this day and age we have no need of the chemist she recommends to pound the spices and put them through the fine lawn sieves – simply buy them from your supermarket and mix!

2 teaspoons of turmeric

1 teaspoon of coriander seed

1 teaspoon of cumin seed

½ a teaspoon of Fenugreek

2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper

Mix and you can store the excess in a clean dry old spice bottle and it’s to hand when you need it.  Sprinkle it over whatever fish or meat – or indeed vegetable, you’re going to use, rub it in well and pop it in the frying pan to cook appropriately.

But to get the best out of this, you need to make and keep in the deep freeze portions of my Utility Curry – inspired by the vegetable curries of WWII. Once you’ve defrosted one of these in the nuke machine, otherwise known as the microwave, you heat it in a pan, and add it to your meat, fish or veg of choice, and allow it to sauté together until cooked to bring out all of the flavour of a homemade curry, where you know every ingredient and where it comes from. Add poppadom or two, and perhaps a few vegetable side dishes and there you have every bit as good a meal as any takeaway could provide. But here’s the utility curry recipe.

A good thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated.

1 and a half onions, finely chopped (adjust quantity to the size of your onions)

2 cloves of garlic.

A good squeeze of lemongrass paste.

I sauté my onions in a dab of olive oil, and add a dash of freshly boiled water to increase the steam. I then added the ginger, garlic, and lemongrass (about an inch and a half of squeeze.) This helps to cook the onions thoroughly, and additionally, I find it helps to turn the ginger, lemongrass and garlic into a paste effect.  As it dries out, add more of Eliza Acton’s spice mix and this gives the spices a good roasting – I added chilli flakes, and pounded cardamom seeds. 

I chop vegetables roughly for this curry; I like the rustic effect but chop your veg as finely as you want. For this particular curry I used carrots, a big leek, and courgettes. 

This was my base veg mix, and although I didn’t, you can of course add tomato’s, from either a tin or fresh if you have them, but if you were going to use fresh, I would have halved them, drizzled a little olive oil over them and a pinch of salt and pepper and popped them into a low oven for a couple of hours before using them. I would have added a good squeeze of tomato puree too. As a purely side comment, I didn’t use tomato’s in this curry at all because my heartburn is quite bad at the moment, and they exacerbate it. It’s a highly acidic fruit. 

Anyhow all of these veg are added to the pot, and you can choose from any veg that you want for this curry.  Really good additions include squash, beetroot or cauliflower, but I tend to avoid broccoli  and all of the cabbage style veg, whose strong flavour tends to dominate the mix. I added a good dash of water as well, and cooked it in the oven for a good hour at a medium heat, 180 degrees C. I also added left over potato’s I had cooked earlier in the week with rosemary and thyme – this is an excellent recipe for using up leftover veg. This is a utility curry, and you should use what you have to hand, or what’s on offer at the supermarket, or come into harvest in your garden.  I added sweetcorn – taken off the cobs, and French beans when I reheated it the following day. It’s definitely a curry that improves with keeping.

For my addition, to turn my utility veggie curry into a beef curry I cut up a half of sirloin steak I had leftover. A big pack of steak is far too much to eat in one go, and besides which, at the price of it these days, it’s better stretched into at least two meals. I gave it a good rub with the curry powder, left it to sit for 15 minutes, then heated a dab of oil in a pan and sautéed it until it was well done – if I had been eating it pure so to speak I prefer my steaks done rare to medium, but for a curry, you definitely want the crusty caramalisation of well done steak. When I was satisfied it was done, I transferred a couple of spoonfuls of my utility curry and mixed well – in particular I added a good spoonful of the juice, to ensure that I deglazed the pan. I gave it a good five minutes over a medium heat to ensure everything was well heated through, and I served it with basmati rice.

The curry then divided up into a further five portions of curry that go into the deep freeze. I can either get them out on the morning of a day I know I’m going to fancy curry, and I could cut up fish chunks to rub with the spice mix, or I could do prawns – I particularly like a prawn curry, my parents used to make this!, Chicken is also particularly good, and because you are adding this to a ready cooked base curry, you can either add more water, or yoghurt to the spice mix, and pop it into the oven for half an hour and cook say chicken thighs from raw, or if you have left over roast chicken, stir it into a frying pan on high for ten minutes to reheat – again with extra water, or yoghurt. Always ensure that this curry does not dry out.

I make no pretence that this is any sort of adapted real Asian curry recipe – it’s not. What it is is an English curry, descended out of years of experimentation where Colonel Blimp from Tunbridge Wells fancied a recreation of the meals he had enjoyed in the 1920’s. In fact it’s directly that, because my own mother was posted to India in WWII. This is exactly the curry she fed us as children – it makes no pretence towards authenticity beyond what it is. English Utility Curry, except of course nowadays we have the real spices. My mother had to make do with “curry powder”, whereas I’m lucky enough to be able to buy the actual spices and mix it to my tastes. It’s important that you use this recipe as a guide, not as something set in stone. Adapt it to your tastes – add more of this, less of that. If you hate carrots, leave them out and put squash and tomatos in. Taste it as you go along, make a note of what works and what doesn’t for the next time.

Savoury Apple Porkie!

Ingredients

3 shallots

2 onions

4 washed apples – I used Brae burn, but Coxes would also be good, you’re looking for a sharpish eating apple.

400 gms pork mince

splash of oil

herbs – sage and rosemary

spices – bayleaf, half a cinnamon stick, 5 – 6 cloves, grating of nutmeg.

1 bottle of cider – mine was Magners,  again you’re looking for a sharp drinking cider.

An ovenproof casserole dish that will hold all of your apples with a little space around for the onions and mince.

Heat the oven to 170 – 180 degrees C, gas 3 – 4, 350 degrees F.

Method

Peel and slice the shallots finely. Add them to a frying pan, with a glug of oil, and a good grating of nutmeg. 

Fry them gently over a low heat – you do not want the shallots to brown or burn. If any do, fish them out,  and discard.

Make the herb bundle. 

I buy cheesecloth from the fabric store to make these, but a new Jcloth is just as good, or Lakeland sell squares of muslin very reasonably. If you use muslin (which is cheesecloth by another name) it can be washed and dried for additional use, but a Jcloth will not keep and must be thrown away after use.  A square of approximately 6 inches square will suffice, put the bayleaf, cloves and half a cinamon stick into the centre, gather the ends and tie firmly.

Increase the heat, and add the pork mince. Add a third of the bottle of cider, the steam will help to cook the mince, and add the herb bundle.

Saute the pork for a good ten minutes over a medium heat. Again, be careful none burns. Turn regularly with a spatula.

Season the pork with salt and pepper.  Put aside to rest.

Core your apples. There are tools you can buy that will make coring a relatively easy process, but it can be done safely with a knife if you take care. Halve the apple horizontally, place on a firm and secure board (a damp teatowel underneath will secure a slippy board) and cut 4 lines into the apple around the core. Ensure the lines meet at the corners. Pick up your half of apple and using your thumbs, push the core out. Halve and core four apples.

Slice two onions thinly, and scatter in the base of a good oven casserole dish with a well fitting lid. Add the herb bundle centrally to the uncooked onions, add another small splash of oil and put on a low heat to saute the onions.  When they are pale and translucent add the bottom halves of your apples.

Place a small sage leaf inside each apple’s central cavity. Spoon the mince into the hole and scatter remaining mince over the top of the apples. 

Place a sprig of rosemary centrally over the herb bundle – and there’s no reason why you couldn’t add the rosemary and sage to the bundle if you don’t like the herbs in your final dish and want to make sure you get them all out – then top with the top halves of the apples. Place another small sage leaf into the cavity, and ensure that the top half of each apple is also stuffed with pork mince. 

Season the casserole again, and place a dot of butter over the top of each stuffed centre. If liked, add another small sage leaf – sage is a strong herb though, and if you’ve never used it, or the kids aren’t that keen on strong tastes, I would perhaps leave it off, or put a single leaf in with the rosemary.  Add the remaining cider, put the lid on and place in the oven for 1 hour.

When the dish is cooked, the apples will be softened, but still hold together. There will be plenty of gravy, which will be sweet, and flavoured with the apples, herbs and spices.  The flavour is very traditional English, and reminiscent of Medieval cookery where fruits and meat were more typically mixed.  Whilst I won’t bore you with the costs, I made this four portion casserole for approximately £1.50 a head, and as I’m on my own, two of the portions will be deep frozen for supper. It would make an excellent family supper, and I’m intending to eat mine with some roast potatoes I have left over and broccoli – I expect the sweetness of the casserole to lighten the often strong taste of broccoli, and the gravy will be wonderful mopped up with a forkful of potato.  I also think this would eat well with rice or noodles. It is of course a great meal for someone who likes a well flavoured casserole but is not overly fond of garlic!