Hotel Chocolat's Adventurous Chef's Collection - Part 1

A few weeks ago I was very excited to receive a large parcel from Hotel Chocolat which contained one of their amazing hampers from their Cocoa Cuisine range. This particular hamper is their Adventurous Chef's Collection and contains a range of both sweet and savoury products beautifully presented in a large white box bound with black ribbon.

The first, and most intriguing, product I tried was their Penne Cocoa Pasta. This is just traditional penne with unsweetened cocoa powder added to it and can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes. The uncooked pasta had a lovely chocolatey smell but when cooked I found the flavour a bit more subtle than I expected, hence the addition of the chocolate chips to the recipe below.

Not surprisingly I decided to use it in a sweet dish rather than savoury and created a dessert version of a pasta bake, inspired by a favourite Cheesecake Brownie recipe. This turned out really well and the chocolate pasta worked really well with the rich cheesecake topping and sharply sweet raspberries.

Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Pasta Bake

125g penne cocoa pasta

handful chocolate chips

1 egg

200g cream cheese

75g caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Handful of raspberries

1) Preheat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4. Cook the pasta as normal until cooked then drain and empty into a small oven-proof dish. Sprinkle with chocolate chips.

2) Beat the cream cheese, egg and icing sugar together until smooth then pour over the pasta.

3) Top with the raspberries and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until just firm.

Serves 2

Next up was a packet of Pure Cocoa Bean Shavings. This is just pure cocoa, with nothing else added to it, and it can be used in sweet or savoury dishes.

These are ideal for adding to savoury dishes to add some depth of flavour or to sweet dishes for an extra chocolatey kick and were perfect for a smoothie recipe I tried out recently. Have a look here for the recipe. I also added some to a chicken marinade I made using another of the products from the hamper and the recipe for that will appear in my next post.

The third and final sweet item was a packet of 70% Dark Chocolate Drops. I've used these before and they are definitely one of my favourite Hotel Chocolate products, mostly because the chocolate drops are so practical for cooking with and they come in a generous 400g bag so will usually last for two or three recipes.

Most of this particular pack were used to create a fantastic marmalade version of the classic chocolate brownie. Have a look here for the recipe - this is definitely one of my favourite recipes so far this year!

As I mentioned above, the hamper also contained three products designed for savoury dishes and the details of these items will follow in a separate post in the next couple of days.

We Should Cocoa Monthly Challenge - Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies

When I heard that two other food bloggers were organising a new monthly baking challenge AND it involved chocolate my ears pricked up immediately (in the virtual, online sense anyway). Chocolate is one of my most favourite ingredients to work with and provides a base for so many fantastic recipes.

The challenge, We Should Cocoa, is being hosted alternately by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot and the idea is to make something using chocolate each month. The most important rule is that it should include the special ingredient(s) selected by the host for that month.

This month Chele is hosting the challenge and she has chosen raspberries as the special ingredient. No problem for me here - if you want to combine chocolate and raspberries into one recipe then this one is just perfect.

Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies

(adapted from a recipe found in delicious magazine)

200g/7oz quality dark chocolate

200g/7oz unsalted butter, softened

400g/14oz caster sugar

5 eggs

110g/4oz plain flour

400g/14oz cream cheese

1 tsp vanilla extract

120g/4 1/4oz fresh raspberries

1) Preheat the oven to 180c/fan 160c/gas mark 4. Grease and line a 30 x 20cm rectangular cake tin.

2) Please the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water until melted. Set aside to cool slightly.

3) Cream the butter and 250g of the caster sugar until pale, then add 3 of the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. Stir in the melted chocolate then fold in the flour. Spread three quarters of the mixture into the lined pan.

4) In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese, remaining sugar and eggs and the vanilla extract until smooth, then spread over the chocolate base. Dollop the remaining chocolate mixture over the cream cheese layer and use a fork to swirl the chocolate. Push the raspberries into the top and bake for 40-45 minutes until just firm on top. Allow to cool then cut into squares.

Makes about 15

Thanks to Chele for hosting this month's challenge. To have a look at all of the other entries this month make sure you visit her Chocolate Teapot blog after the 26th of September.

Unloved Cookbooks - The Best Part 2

The rediscovery of some of my loneliest cookbooks continues with the trial of two further recipes from The Best, the book from the series of the same name by Silvana Franco, Paul Merrett and Ben O'Donoghue.

Following on from last weeks post, where this project began, I selected two sweet recipes from the above book.

The first of these - Coffee and Pecan muffins from the "Best Sweet Breakfast" section - was, I'm afraid to say, not a great success. I'm well aware that some care needs to be taken when making muffins so that you don't overmix the batter and end up with stodgy muffins but I feel pretty sure that I mixed with due care and attention. Nevertheless these demonstrated the most unenthusiastic display of rising I've seen in a cake for some time.

And unenthusiastic pretty much sums up my feelings about the end result. On the first day they tasted OK I suppose - passably edible at any rate. Thereafter they just got progressively stodgier and I'm afraid to say the last few ended up in the bin (almost unheard of in this house). The coffee flavour was not particularly pronounced either. From a cooking perspective there really is nothing worse than a failed recipe is there? The waste of precious time and good ingredients is so infuriating! Ah well, onwards and upwards as they say. I will spare you the recipe - there are far better alternatives out there.

A couple of days later I had a go at the Peach and Raspberry Clafoutis from the "Best Summer Berry Dessert" section. This was definitely more successful, but not without it's problems. This was how is looked after the prescribed 10-12 minutes in the oven.

Pretty good you might think, however an investigative dig into the centre revealed that all bar the outside inch was still runny and most definitely not cooked.

So, I put in back in the oven and, after pacing the kitchen and peering in the oven for a further 10 or 15 minutes, I figured it was probably just about done and even if it wasn't I was jolly well going to eat it anyway.

Luckily it tasted delicious, particularly with a scoop of ice cream on the top. Not what I really expected though - I always thought that clafoutis was just a sweet sort of yorkshire pudding, but this was much lighter than that. A result, no doubt, of the 10 minutes of whisking given to the eggs. The recipe is as follows but be warned - don't turn off the oven until you're sure it's done!

Peach and Raspberry Clafoutis

(adapted from The Best as above)

4 eggs

140g/5oz caster sugar

300ml/10 fl oz double cream

1 tablespoon plain flour

1/2 tablespoon ground almonds

1 vanilla pod

2 peaches (peeled and chopped)

16 raspberries (I though 4 raspberries per person sounded a bit mean so added some more. In hindsight though I don't think this was necessary as the raspberries ended up overpowering the dish somewhat)

1) Whisk the eggs and caster sugar with an electric whisk until thick and the mixture holds its shape (this will take about 10 minutes and the mixture is now called a sabayon)

2) Lightly whip the cream and fold into the sabayon. Fold in the flour and ground almonds and carefully stir in the seeds of the vanilla pod.

3) Divide the peaches and raspberries between four individual oven-proof dishes. Pour over the clafoutis batter and bake for approximately 10-12 minutes (ha ha) at 180c/350f/gas 4 until golden.

I would tentatively call this recipe a success however I would like to try out a different clafoutis recipe at some point as a comparison.