Tag Archives: pudding

Chai-spiced baked chocolate puddings

Posted on June 16, 2010 | 2 comments

Las cosas claras y el chocolate espeso. (Ideas should be clear and chocolate thick.)
~ Spanish proverb

It’s fun experimenting with different flavours, and it’s so rewarding when the combination works! Last night, I decided to try putting together chocolate and chai, using one of Tessa Kiros’s recipes as a base (previously tested and found to be successful).

These are so easy to whip up, and you can leave them to bake merrily in the oven while you cook your dinner (just remember to take them out in time, and leave them to cool while you are dining!)

    Chai-spiced baked chocolate puddings
    Recipe adapted and modified from Tessa Kiros’ “Falling Cloudberries”
    Ingredients:
    200ml milk
    150g dark chocolate
    1 tsp vanilla extract
    2 fiery masala chai tea bags (I used Dilmah’s)
    2 eggs, separated
    40g caster sugar
    200ml pouring cream
    Method:
    Preheat the oven to 200°C. Put the milk, tea bags and chocolate in a heat-proof bowl and suspend over a saucepan of boiling water. Heat until the chocolate has completely melted. Stir often so the chocolate doesn’t stick, but take care not to break the tea bags. Add the vanilla. Remove the bowl from the heat, and throw away the tea bags.
    Whip the egg whites in a small bowl until fluffy peaks form. Set them aside and work quickly so the whites don’t deflate. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until combined. Whisk in a ladleful of the chocolate milk so that the eggs don’t scramble, then add the rest in a slow steady stream, whisking continuously. Whisk in the cream, fold in the egg whites and spoon the mixture into 6 oven-proof little ramekins.
    Set the ramekins in a deep baking dish. Carefully pour boiling water into the dish to come halfway up the side of the ramekins. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the puddings are slightly crusty on the surface. Remove from the water bath and leave to cool. Serve warm, or refrigerate and serve cold alone, with cream, or a very light dusting of icing sugar (I served mine cold alone).
    Yields 6 yummy servings.
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Posted in All, Cakes & desserts, Falling Cloudberries, Impromptu, P, Recipes included

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I’m typing this in the dark, while watching cricket

Posted on February 6, 2010 | 2 comments

After eating chocolate you feel godlike, as though you can conquer enemies, lead armies, entice lovers.
~ Emily Luchetti

At this hour, I can’t remember why I am doing a cook-through-a-cookbook project and worse, blogging about it now, at midnight when the lights are off and I am touch-typing while John and Jono are sensibly sleeping and Matt is sleepily watching cricket here.

On account of my current sleepy brain, swiftly curtaining eyelids and strange inclination to blog anyway, I can’t come up with a smart sassy title or promise a coherent post.

Twas a busy day at work – and I was well ready to start cooking in the kitchen by the time I came home! I invited Jian & Nish round, and Char came too – so we bustled around in the kitchen and Jian helped me to take photos before we all sat ourselves down for dinner with my flatties and the things you talk and laugh about while eating fish, then chocolate. Tonight’s attempts from Tessa Kiros’ “Falling Cloudberries”:

#24 Triglie Al Pomodoro (Red Mullet with Tomatoes) – Page 312
#25 Baked Chocolate Puddings – Page 370

Made the puddings first. Dessert first is just a novel way to go about things… especially when there are chocolates and ramekins involved…

I still struggle to know when beaten egg whites have reached the stage of being “soft peaks”? Mine emerged frothier than my last bubble bath and as they folded in to the chocolate mixture like ugly rubble I was disheartened. Spooned the mix into ramekins anyway and popped them into the oven, toes and fingers crossed…

(Oh, and with no caster sugar at home, I used a little muscavado sugar and normal white sugar instead.)

40 minutes later, they emerged a little like chocolate-flavoured creme brulee, soft, mellow and slightly custardy within with a very slight crust on top. Sweet. A good conclusion to dinner. Nearly perfect… I think I would make these again.

(And yes, we were good kids and ate them after dinner)

Icing sugar carpets do make all things better too.

As for the fish, it ended up looking nothing like the picture, of course. I had to substitute red mullet (which New World had none of) for monkfish. And besides the capers, olives, tinned tomatoes and garlic the recipe called for, I added some sugar, basil, oregano, more salt & pepper – resulting in nicely flavoured monkfish with a good sauce that could coat pasta or bread nicely.

Dinner was served with pesto-ed pasta and a side salad of mesclun, spinach, orange + red capsicum, red onion, orange zest, orange cubes and kiwifruit slices.

Fun times… always so, with cooking and friends and sun streaming through the windows. And now it really is time for bed, since I am getting up early for a nice Saturday day-trip… good night!

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Posted in All, Cakes & desserts, Falling Cloudberries, Fish & seafood, P

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