The most sinful chocolate cake

After going to the market today, I made sure to grab 2 bars of Nestle Dark Chocolate from the baking aisle because I really wanted to bake the most sinful chocolate cake by Casa Veneracion. This recipe is on top of my list despite me not really a chocolate person. I wanted to bake this for hubby and see if its really as simple as the recipe suggests.

For my version, I used one bar of Nestle Plaistowe 70% Dark Chocolate, just over 175g of unsalted butter (I am trying to lessen the butter content), 1 cup of sugar, 2 heaping spoon of flour (hubby wanted a bit more flour than the 1 tbs suggested in the recipe) and 4 eggs. After mixing the ingredients, I then put in on my preheated fan-forced oven at 175C for 30 mins, and left it there for 10 mins with the oven turned off. After cooling my cake, I turned it upside down and saw a burnt bottom of the cake, I scraped the bottom and the picture below is the finished product. My mistake for the burnt bottom was that I didn't reduce the temperature (fan forced oven should be set lower than normal ones!). But it didn't affect the taste of the at all.

 my cake after scraping the burnt part

 so moist and fudgy

really really sinful!

I shared this one slice of cake with hubby and it was really really good! I don'y have a sweet tooth but this one hit the mark ---not too sweet and not too bready either. And believe me, its really sinful --- think about the sugar and butter content and you will think twice of eating over a slice of this cake. And since its only me and hubby, I told him to bring the cake to the office tom and share it with his officemate who are all chocoholics. Hmmm, I think I'm gonna bake this cake more often but not for our own consumption. =)

Thanks PinoyCook for the inspiration! You made my weekend a very fruitful (and tummy-full) one.

Cake orders anyone?





Our Companies feed us, literally!

I sometimes take for granted the freebies Agie and I get from our workplace --- discounted Nestle products for him and free bread for me.

Today, was as a lazy Saturday for us. We stayed home because its just too cold to go out (temperature will reach negative again tonight). So, what to do on a Saturday???

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BAKE!!!

Agie's choco pudding

runny nestle hot choco at the side

(because we didn't have the nestle baking cocoa at home)

a slice of the choco pudding, recipe from Nestle's Good Life mag

my pizza with anchovies, mushroom and pineapple.
Pizza base courtesy of GWF =)





melted four cheese on top, yum!!!

crispy pizza base, i didn't even used my pizza stone for this one.

If we continue to have Saturdays like this, we will end up FAT before the year ends, mwehehehe. Good thing I have the Just Dance wii game, we can burn the calories by dancing. Bring it on Baby! =)

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So, how's your day?

Kalamansi Muffin

What would you do if you have heaps of these?

Why not turn it to these?

Early this week, Jess and Daisy brought kalamansi from their backyard and I ended up with loads of them. I was thinking of creative ways of using the good old kalamansi and I remembered I read somwhere about the very yummy Kalamansi Muffin of Real Cafe in Boracay. So I searched the internet for some recipe and lo and behold --- I got it thru Market Manila, where else??? hehehe

So, armed with (over the top) butter, sugar, yogurt, flour and kalamansi extract, I made the muffin and followed the recipe to a T. It was too buttery for my liking. Brought some to the office and everyone liked it. I might tweak the recipe next time and half the amount of butter to make it less fattening.

Thanks again Marketman for the lovely recipe!

(not so) successful cheescake

So I made my Cadbury cheesecake last night, but because i made so much adjustment to the recipe, it didn't quiet turn out the way I wanted it to be.

First, I couldn't find crushed graham crackers, so instead I bought Arnotts and pulverized it using my blender.

from this

to this

Then, I wanted it to be less fattening, so I used light cream cheese instead of the regular one.

Then, thinking that the cake is too thick, i halved the cream cheese mixture to fill two pans.

cheesecake cooling inside the oven



yummy cheesecake but its not nice looking, hahahaha

Verdict:

Taste - Very good

Presentation - needs improvement!

Biscuit base - needs to be freezed overnight (not one hour!!!)

I will make another one in a few days, and this time, I will follow the recipe to the letter. Then, I will make my adjustments when I am satisfied with the finish product.

Baking 101

will resume tonight. I will try to replicate my friend's version of Toblerone cheesecake. But Woolies doesn't stock white toblerone so I ended up getting Cadbury white chocolate. This will definitely alter the taste but will try it just the same...

Good luck to me!

My first attempt - Banana Bread

I can't wait for the banana to ripen some more, so after hearing mass this morning, Agie and I went to see if there are over ripe bananas for sale... and this costs us $1.05 only. =)



Armed with the right banana, i started my Banana Bread ala Market Man (this is the Payard version, the one with olive oil and is lighter than your normal banana bread, thus the pale-ish color of the finish product).

Banana Cupcakes all ready to be devoured.

Verdict: I love this Banana Bread! It's light and just enough sweetness. I think I'm gonna make some more of these.. problem is, it's too fattening. LOL.

First try at baking = success! Next, i'm gonna make Masterchef Julie's Lemon Cupcakes. Good luck to me. hehehe.

my new toy

So, what will you buy if you received a $20 voucher from Myer?


... its a Beatermix for me!!!

Can't wait for my own creations, yey! I bought ingredients for a Banana Cake/Bread the recipe of which I got from Market Manila. I'm just waiting for the bananas to ripen more (sort of over ripe) so I can start mashing them.

Baking is my new hobby... for now. =)