BBQ & Liquory Snicket’s Unfortunate Series of Events

Don’t question the title, I know it seems real silly-sounding, but pretty apt in my opinion. 😀 Had a great bbq today..messy, greasy but of course good. Before that, i was pretty much flustered, what with all the smses, and the online msges, & the phone calls, whilst whisking away at the stove. Was nearly going mad, but thanks so much to Kitchen on Clarendon for her easy steps for Nigella’s Guinness Chocolate Cake! I was extremely excited abt this new recipe. Thought it was something very bold to do with chocolate, and great for a bbq. A very relaxed, let-your-hair-down kinda cake.

Was a little unsure at first abt the simplicity and seemingly lazy steps of the batter-making process but all ended well, at least..to my own belief. After taking a gulp of guinness, i forgot to measure 240ml for the cake batter & poured the whole can in instead (this was an additional 70ml of stout). Of course, in my hurry, I only realised this after putting the cake in the oven and could do nothing to salvage the situation except pray very very very hard. How could I ruin the cake before the bbq (sth i was organising) even began?! The result was pretty ok though. The taste was still great. Sweet, dark and lusciously rich chocolate, with deep undertones of stouty bitterness. It came out very well on the tongue, where the flavours melded very well together and unfurled smoothly on your palate. Very pleasant indeed. The extra stout only served to contribute to an already damp cake, and increased its general fudgyness. So overall, I’d still say i did not screw this up! Something I’d definitely do on another special occasion, even christmas!

p/s the cream cheese icing was superb. the next time I do it though, i’d try adding a few drops of lemon juice though, just the zang it up a bit! you can get the recipe on Kitchen on Clarendon’s webbie, or get it here, below with my own messy directions tt worked out just fine! enjoy!!

Ingredients
250ml Guinness (or the whole 320ml can)
1 cup unsalted butter
rounded 1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups sugar
140ml sour cream (light)
2 eggs
1 tbs vanilla essence
2 1/4cup plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
Icing:
250g cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cup icing sugar (i deviated from the original recipe by 1/2 cup cos i couldn’t really get the sweetness)
125ml pure cream

Preheat 180dCelsius. Grease and LINE with waxed parchment a 23cm springform.
Pour Guinness in saucepan. Heat slightly and added sliced butter. Heat till the butter has fully melted, stirring constantly & remove.
Sift in cocoa, pour in sugar & whisk.

In another bowl, beat sour cream till smooth. Beat in eggs & vanilla. Pour cocoa stout mixture slowly into this bowl. Sift in flour & soda, beat. Be careful here as it’s a pretty wet batter & might slosh over the bowl. Use a large one to ensure a clean kitchen!
Bake for 45min-1hr. (I baked at 180dC for close to 50min & baked another 10min at 190dC)
Leave to cool in tin for round 15min, remove the springform sides and cool completely. Note that this is a very damp cake and you’ll have to be extra gentle with it.

Icing: Beat cream cheese. Sift icing sugar and beat till nice & smooth. Add cream and beat till spreading consistency. Then decorate the cake to your heart’s desire!
I used raspberries & cherries for the top to add a little colour and to match the summer tropical heat. 😀

Serve nicely chilled after lots of sensationally greasy bbq-grilled meat & potatoes, with cold beer.
Follow this up with crazy chit chat, drinking games, lots of ice cream & good ol’ fun.

To the guys out there : thanks for loving my cake. Had such a great time…hopefully ppl will start lookin me up in birmingham & stop hanging around london? 😉

Peanut Butter Toffee Chocolate Bars

Have you tried eating super gooey messy chocolate bars on a hot afternoon with a glass of ice-cold lemonade whilst watching something stupid like Spongebob Squarepants? That was exactly what i did today. It was 100% sinful because it was laziness and sloppiness carried out to the extreme, and i loved every moment of it! Felt like i deserved it and honestly, i think i did! Even though I’ve been slacking around for a very long period of time (months i suppose)…one can never have enough rewards or good lazy ol’ summer times, i should say.

I had a request from my mom to bake sth nice & English – tea scones, pretty muffins – to match her new silver tea set. It’s really lovely I must say, something that blends in very well with our silver, white, brown kitchen. Some relatives were coming over for tea so I was pretty excited to do something nice & pretty too…thus, I was rushing around last evening in town looking for a grocery store to get good butter. But then, I was told last nite that plans had changed & i really wouldn’t be needing to trouble myself to make tea cakes and all. Feeling really tired, i thought yeehaa, that ain’t so bad. Moreover, it would mean i could sleep late and try to escape the heat in my own bedroom with my fan blasting it’s blades off the ceiling wall.
Of course, that didn’t happen because my hands were itching to do something pretty exciting today. And gosh, was I glad i woke up early. Besides, these would be good as a gift for dear bertie’s bday too. Nice, messy, rich, crazy gooey, and so good. I remember the times when I always craved for chocolate bars, or brownie bars, or anything that came in a good solid rectangle so that my short, chubby fingers could just grab one as I ran for my life away from cavaty-fighting teachers/parents.And that memory really inspired me to try make cookie bars…or GOOEY bars as what mine turned out as. I’m a reaaaally lazy (honest!) worker in the kitchen, and i wasn’t fancyin the idea of doing a cheesecake or a pie or some 3-layered slice for tt matter, so this recipe I found in Lisa Yockelson’s Chocolatechocolate (pg 146) was perfect for me. For those with this adorably pink chocolate bible, you’ll know that the recipe is a Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chunk Bars and I tweaked this recipe in terms of ingredients because I literally had all my Cadbury Chocolate missing AND i’d thrown out my Reese’s peanut butter because it’d gone past the safe to eat date with all my lazy procrastination.

Below is my own version..the ultra gooey messy Peanut Butter Sticky Toffee Chocolate Bars, inspired by good ol’ Lisa, but if you do want the original recipe, feel free to leave a comment with your email & I’ll get it sent over right away. 😀

Ingredients
1 cup + 1 tbs all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsk salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup + 2 tbs creamy peanut butter (the creamier it is, the more moist ur choc bar)
1 tbs vegetable oil
approx 3/4 – 1 cup mix of giant, miniature semisweet & dark choc morsels + more for sprinkling over the top(i did my own mix here of nestle morsels, hershey’s miniature choc chips and a german brand of dark choc chunks)
hershey’s semisweet choc, chopped into chunks
8-10 chewy toffee candies

Preheat oven to 180dCelsius. Grease a 9×9″ pan.
Sift flour, baking soda and salt.

Cream the butter on low speed for 3min till nice and creamy. Add the sugar, and continue beating another 3min.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing for approx 30sec. Beat in the vanilla, peanut butter and oil.
Scrape down to ensure a smooth batter.
On low speed, mix in the sifted mixture.
Fold in the choc morsels and cut up toffee candies.

Scrape batter into pan, and spread it evenly. Do smooth the top with the back of your spoon or a rubber spatula, and proceed to sprinkle the top with more choc morsels, big, small, huge, tiny WHATEVER! 😀 just have fun doing it and press in the broken choc chunks for added choc power. If you’d like a glossy sticky top, add some more toffee candies to the top, these will melt and add a little gloss to the choc bar, but will make an ultra sticky bar to eat. beware!

Bake for 25-28min. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool completely.
Once cool, cut into bars. Be careful with cutting or removing frm the pan as these are terribly soft and gooey, unlike what Lisa actually meant them to be. Store in airtight container and consume within 2 days.
I recommend eating it with a glass of cold drink in front of the telly, preferably watching some nonsense cartoon.
It really makes you feel like a million bucks! 😀