World Peace Cookies

It all started when Sugababe 2 read her Richard Scarry book. There was a picture of some small cute animal (I forget which one, the book's full of them) munching on a plate of chocolate cookies. Somehow the moral lesson of the story was eclipsed by that tantalising illustration of tiny chocolate chip cookies, because after that, she kept begging me to make her some. I know how it feels to have a craving, and more so, how important it is to satisfy one, especially when chocolate is involved. So, busy as I was, I immediately set about to make her the best chocolate cookies in the world. Of course, the fact that by that time I was experiencing the onset of the same craving may also explain why I went straight to the kitchen instead of saying "Shoo!".

Thankfully, I DO know the recipe for the best chocolate cookies ever. Seriously. You don't have to look elsewhere. Nothing beats this for an intense hit of chocolate. It's ridiculously good for very little effort. Just use really good dark chocolate, like Valrhona or Callebaut, and enjoy with a tall glass of cold milk. And because I love that salted chocolate thing going on there, I sometimes sprinkle some extra flaked Maldon sea salt on top before popping it into my mouth. Heaven. Bless Richard Scarry and his cute animals.

Recipe for World Peace Cookies

Excerpted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

"I once said I thought these cookies, the brainchild of the Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé, were as important a culinary breakthrough as Toll House cookies, and I've never thought better of the statement. These butter-rich, sandy-textured slice-and-bake cookies are members of the sablé family. But, unlike classic sablés, they are midnight dark — there's cocoa in the dough — and packed with chunks of hand-chopped bittersweet chocolate. Perhaps most memorably, they're salty. Not just a little salty, but remarkably and sensationally salty. It's the salt — Pierre uses fleur de sel, a moist, off-white sea salt — that surprises, delights and makes the chocolate flavors in the cookies seem preternaturally profound.
When I included these in Paris Sweets, they were called Korova Cookies and they instantly won fans, among them my neighbor Richard Gold, who gave them their new name. Richard is convinced that a daily dose of Pierre's cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness."

Ingredients

175 grams all-purpose flour

30 grams unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

150 grams unsalted butter

180 grams light brown sugar

50 grams sugar

1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

150 grams bittersweet chocolate
Instructions

1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

3. Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 160C. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

6. Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you're cutting them — don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

7. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

Chocolate Tweed Angel Cake - Fit for a Princess

My little girl is growing up. For her 6th birthday, instead of asking me to make a 3D cake, or a pink 'princessy' cake, Sugababe 1 graciously told me that she was fine with anything I chose.  This, coming from a girl who has always been a 'girly-girl', insisting on pink, or princess themes, when faced with a choice on anything.

"Anything you like, Mummy" she said.

It wasn't just about the cake.  This year there was no list of demands, and she was even happy not to have a birthday party but to just spend a day out with us.

It's a change that has been happening for some time, this realisation that she doesn't always need to insist on her way, but that she can give way to others, and make room for other ideas of what is good, or what is beautiful.  That it's okay if she doesn't have the only available pink cup or crayon (is it only in my household that girls would fight over this?).  That she doesn't always need to be in a dress, but that jeans and a T-shirt are fine too. That it is okay for her sister to have, wear or enjoy something that is 'nicer' than hers, because she is not any less special for not having the same thing.

Such are the rewards of a parent when you see glimpses of your child maturing into gracious and beautiful inner attitudes and behaviour.

I have always delighted in meeting my kids' birthday cake demands, no matter how much work it took to bake and build those 3D confections.

But this time, given free reign to bake for her what I chose, I had joy of a different kind.

I decided on this Chocolate Tweed Angel Cake, because she loves the soft texture of angel cakes, and also anything with chocolate.  But mainly, I loved that this was such a beautiful cake, its chocolate-speckles against white bringing to mind the elegance of Chanel tweed, and a princess of a different kind.  Yes, not a make-believe fairy tale princess with pink frou-frou and ribbons and bows. But a REAL princess - sophisticated, gentle and gracious.

Happy Birthday!

Recipe for Chocolate Tweed Angel Food Cake

by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Serves 14 to 16.

1-1/2 cups, divided superfine sugar

3/4 cup cake flour, lightly spooned and leveled off (or 1 cup, sifted into the cup and leveled off)

1/4 teaspoon salt

16 large egg whites, at room temperature, or 2 cups

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

fine-quality unsweetened or 99% cacao chocolate, chilled, finely grated, refrigerated

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: One ungreased 10-inch (16 cups) two-piece metal tube pan or 1 long-necked glass wine or soda bottle, or a large inverted metal funnel that will fit into the opening at the top of the pan. (Have this ready before baking and weight it by filling it with sugar or marbles to keep it from tipping.)

PREHEAT THE OVEN: Twenty minutes or more before baking, set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C.

PREPARE THE SUGAR, FLOUR, AND SALT: In a small bowl, whisk together half the sugar, the flour, and salt until evenly combined. Sift the remaining sugar onto a piece of wax paper.

BEAT THE EGG WHITES INTO A STIFF MERINGUE: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk beater, beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. With the mixer off, add the cream of tartar. Raise the speed to medium-high and beat until soft peaks form when the beater is raised. Gradually beat in the sifted sugar and continue beating on medium-high speed until very stiff peaks form when the beater is raised slowly. Beat in the vanilla until combined.

MAKE THE BATTER: Dust (lightly sprinkle) the flour mixture over the beaten whites, 1/4 cup at a time (if using cake flour, sift it over the whites). With a large balloon whisk, slotted skimmer, or large silicone spatula, fold in the flour mixture quickly but gently. It is not necessary to incorporate every speck until the last addition. Fold in the grated chocolate until evenly incorporated. Using a long narrow spatula or silicone spatula, spread a thin layer of batter onto the sides of the prepared pan to ensure smooth sides. Empty the rest of the batter into the pan. In a 16-cup pan, it will be 1/2-inch from the top of the rim. Run a small metal spatula or knife through the batter to prevent air pockets and smooth the surface evenly.

BAKE THE CAKE: Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown, a wire cake tester inserted between the tube and the side comes out clean, and the cake springs back when lightly pressed in the center. (A wooden toothpick will still have a few moist crumbs clinging to it.) During baking, the center will rise about 2 inches above the pan, but it will sink to almost level with the pan when done. The surface will have deep cracks, like a souffle.

COOL AND UNMOLD THE CAKE: Invert the pan immediately, placing the tube opening over the neck of the bottle to suspend it well above the countertop. Cool completely in the pan, about 1-1/2 hours.

Loosen the sides of the pan with a long narrow spatula and remove the center core of the pan. Dislodge the cake from the bottom and center core with a metal spatula or thin sharp knife. (A wire cake tester or wooden skewer works well around the core. To keep the sides attractive, press the spatula firmly against the sides of the pan, moving the spatula up and down as you go around it.) Invert the cake onto a flat plate covered with plastic wrap that has been coated lightly with nonstick cooking spray and reinvert it onto a serving plate. Allow the cake to sit for 1 hour, or until the top is no longer tacky. Then cover it with a cake dome or wrap it airtight. It keeps for 3 days at room temperature and for 10 days refrigerated. Freezing toughens the texture. The cake is also lovely decorated simply with a light sprinkling of cocoa or lacy drizzles of melted chocolate. Do not serve this cake with sauce as it would fall apart.

Lime Yogurt Cake with Rosewater and Pistachios

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I remember when I first saw Rachel Allen demonstrate this very exotic, Persian-inspired cake with rose and pistachios on Rachel Allen: Bake. I thought it was just one of the prettiest flavour-combinations ever.  It put me in mind of beautiful Middle Eastern desserts like baklava and romantic holiday escapades to Arabia ala Sex and the City and Disney's Aladdin.

I am glad that when I finally had a chance to make and taste this cake, it did not disappoint. 

Refreshing with zesty lime, and fragrant with the floral scent of rosewater, it also has a very light and tender crumb.  Ground almonds give this cake a pleasant nuttiness and a delicate 'fall-apart' texture. A welcome departure from the usual rich, buttery cakes that I am so fond of (this one has no butter at all).  It is a subtle cake which is neither overpowering nor assertive.  Beautifully ambrosial, with a flavour that improves over time.  In a tea spread, it won't jostle for attention among richer cakes of chocolate, cream and butter.  But, like a true Middle Eastern veiled beauty, its unique, alluring flavour will grow on you and have your guests returning for more.

Recipe for Lime Yogurt Cake with Rosewater and Pistachios
(slightly adapted from a recipe by Rachel Allen)

Ingredients

For the cake
225 g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
75 g ground almonds
100 g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 generous tbsp or 50g runny honey
250 ml natural yogurt
150 ml sunflower oil

1 lime, finely grated zest only

For the syrup

150 ml water
100 g caster sugar
1 lime, juice only

1-2 tsp rose water (I used Nielssen Massey)

For decorating 

50 g unsalted pistachio nuts, roughly chopped

rose petals, (optional)

Method: 
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Line the base and sides of a 22cm spring-form/loose-bottomed cake tin with greaseproof paper.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the ground almonds and caster sugar.

3. Mix together the eggs, honey, yogurt, sunflower oil and lime zest together well in a medium-sized bowl until smooth. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and slowly pour in the wet ingredients, bringing them together with a whisk until they are just combined. You can add some chopped pistachios to the mixture if you wish, or save them for decorating.

4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for about 20 minutes.

5. While the cake is cooling, make the syrup. In a small saucepan, boil the water and sugar for about 5 minutes until it is reduced by half. Add the lime juice and boil for a further 2 minutes, then cool. Add rosewater to taste (about 1 teaspoon, see note below).

6. With a fine skewer, make holes on top of the warm cake and spoon the syrup all over the top. Scatter the pistachios over, if you wish, and leave to settle for 1 hour.

7. Decorate with rose petals, if using. Serve with cream, natural yogurt, sliced mangos or berries. It is a very moist cake so keeps extremely well in the fridge for a few days. 




Note: 
1) Rosewater can be overpowering if used excessively, so use sparingly. I used 1 teaspoon for the syrup.  The original recipe calls for 1-2tbsp but that is excessive in my opinion. 


2) Although this cake can be refrigerated, it is best served at room temperature. Part of its beauty is that it has a very delicate, tender and crumbly texture.  However, this will not come through if the cake is cold and not thawed properly. I kept mine at room temperature for 3 days in an airtight container and found that it improved in taste and texture over time. 

3) This cake looks best when baked into little rose or flower shaped mini cakes. I used a Nordic Ware bouquet pan.  A Nordic Ware rose muffin pan, like the one I used for my Salted Caramel Banana Cakes,  is also an excellent choice.  

Blueberry Yogurt Brûlée

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Here in our household, we've all been trying to eat more yogurt these days, ever since a recent Harvard study concluded that yogurt was the best food for long-term weight loss. Apparently, the study found that not all calories are created equal. So one could theoretically eat the same number of calories of yogurt as another might eat in, say, french fries, and the former would lose weight while the latter gained weight.

Interesting, you may say. Tragic, if you ask me.

Since the same study also found potatoes to be the worst food for keeping off weight gain.  Hard to swallow as that may be, I can't pretend that the finding was really a surprise. Deep in my gut I always suspected my faulty logic of replacing lunch or dinner with a giant bag of chips wasn't good weight-loss practice (although I frequently pretended it did).  So guilty was I about my unhealthy potato habit (and also for all the times I've used chips to bribe the kids) that I immediately declared our home a potato-free zone for a year. Yes, that means no chips, french fries, mash or hash for 365 days. I think this might be the hardest dietary choice I have ever made in my life. If it makes no difference to our health or weight in a year, you can be assured I will resume my chip habit.

At the same time, I also decided we could all try to consume more yogurt.

I was mulling over a healthy-ish dessert/supper option for tonight (not many, I can assure you) when I chanced upon this Blueberry Yogurt Brûlée in an old copy of Delicious Magazine.  Not only did it look delicious, it was also easy, and more importantly, guiltless. How great is that.   

I LOVE that it uses Greek yogurt, which is richer and creamier and therefore feels absolutely sinful in its luxuriating unctuousness while being absolutely not. A most lovely contradiction. Apparently, Greek yogurt is also healthier than regular yogurt, as it contains more protein and less carbs - all the more reason to make the switch.

The additional step of cooking the blueberries lightly in honey, really helps the flavours to meld together much better than merely folding in fresh berries (which is what I usually do for breakfast). Sprinkled atop the yogurt, the velvety muscovado sugar turns into a beautiful, dark, caramelly syrup, which I slurp up (and pretend is toffee sauce).  Good quality manuka honey, with its unique woody, caramel notes, also makes a real difference to this dessert (so don't use the cheap stuff).
 
Great as a simple dessert, and refreshing for breakfast.  At 112 calories per serving, guiltlessness really doesn't get much better than this.

Recipe for Blueberry Yogurt Brûlée
(by Joy Skipper, Delicious Magazine)

This is a healthier take on crème brûlee which, because of the high cream content, is extremely high in saturated fat. Using yogurt instead of cream makes for a lighter, yet still delicious end to the meal. Serves 4


Ingredients
200g blueberries
2 tsp manuka honey
250g Greek yogurt
4 tsp dark muscovado sugar

Method 

1. Place the blueberries and manuka honey in a small saucepan and heat gently, until the juices of the blueberries start to run and the fruit softens slightly. Remove from the heat and spoon the fruit and juices into 4 individual serving bowls (about 125ml). Leave to cool.
2. Spoon the yogurt over the blueberries and sprinkle each bowl with 1 tsp of the muscovado sugar. This will melt and turn syrupy. Place the bowls in the fridge to chill until ready to serve.

Nutritional Information:
Per serving: 112kcals, 3.8g fat (2.6g saturated), 3.6g protein, 9.5g carbs, 14.4g sugar, 0.2g salt

(This dessert was submitted for Sweets for a Saturday Party #25)

Pandan Chiffon Cake

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It's amazing what one can accomplish when the baby sleeps. Sugababe 3 took an unprecedented 2 hour nap yesterday and I immediately got to work on this Pandan Chiffon Cake.  It's a recipe from the well-known food blog ieatishootipost that I had been dying to try for some time.  I am pleased to report that the Pandan Chiffon turned out as fluffy, moist, voluminous and delicious as promised, and is easily the best chiffon recipe I have tried so far!

In particular, I really liked that the recipe asked for the additional step of beating the egg yolks until light and lemon-coloured.  Most chiffon recipes only call for the egg whites to be beaten to stiff peaks, and for the egg yolks to be mixed with the other ingredients (i.e. oil, milk, etc).  Beating the egg yolks until they are light does make it easier to fold the egg whites in at the later stage, and also seems to incorporate more air into the batter, which is a good thing. I will definitely be using this technique for all my chiffon cakes from here on.


If like me, you have none-too-fond memories of dry, coarse and scarily mutant-green pandan chiffon cakes sold in local bakeries, you will be won over by this recipe. My Sugababes, who are partial to soft, fluffy cakes, absolutely adored this cake.  And as I always say, anything that my picky eater Sugababe 2 willingly devours, is a must-try!   

Recipe for Pandan Chiffon Cake
(from Leslie Tay of ieatishootipost. Instructions have been summarised and paraphrased in my own words. For more detailed instructions and an excellent step-by-step tutorial, please go to this link)

 Ingredients


A
6 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
115ml corn oil
140ml coconut milk
200g cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp pandan juice
2 tsp pandan essence
1 tsp vanilla essence
(* You can use 3/4 tsp of pandan paste, in place of pandan juice and pandan essence.  Although convenient, pandan paste definitely tastes more artificial, so stick with fresh pandan and pandan essence, if you can)
** I used Kara brand coconut cream, which is nice and thick)

B
9 egg whites
100g caster sugar
1 tsp cream of tartar

Instructions


Preheat the oven to 170C.

Sift cake flour and baking powder, mix evenly. Set aside. 

Beat egg yolks and sugar until light and lemon-coloured. Add in the oil, coconut cream, pandan juice, pandan essence, vanilla essence and salt. Sift flour and baking powder over the mixture. Mix well until smooth.

Beat egg whites with wire whisk attachment until slightly foamy. Add cream of tartar, and beat until soft peaks. Add in sugar tablespoon by tablespoon and beat until stiff peaks form and mixture does not slide out of mixing bowl when upturned.

Add in 1/3 of the beaten egg whites into the egg yolk mixture and mix gently with whisk, to 'lighten' the mixture. Using a spatula, fold in the rest of the beaten egg whites into egg yolk mixture, gently, to prevent batter from deflating. Do not overfold.

Pour batter into 25cm ungreased tube pan. Run a spatula through the batter to eliminate large bubbles in the batter.

Bake at 170C in preheated oven, for about 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean (or with few dry crumbs adhering)

Remove cake from oven, prop it up on a bottle to cool, upside-down so as to prevent the cake from sinking.

Once cool, remove from tube pan by sliding a knife along the sides, and bottom.

To serve, cut with a serrated knife (so as not to flatten the cake).

(This dessert was submitted for Sweets for a Saturday Party #25) 

Let's Do the Hokey Pokey!

Hokey Pokey, Sponge Toffee, Sea Foam, Honeycomb Candy - whatever you may call it, I recently had an inexplicably intense craving to gorge on some - chocolate-covered ones specifically.  This was right on the heels of my cravings for chocolate ice cream, iced chocolate, and chocolate cake, in that order. No, I am no longer pregnant, but cravings while one is breastfeeding can be just as powerful, if not more so.  And in my particular case, it was all the more cruel as having a newborn on my hands meant I had little time to bake up my own treats. Unfortunately, store-bought chocolate treats are largely disappointing.  Blame it on the fact that I've been eating and baking with Valrhona chocolate for almost 3 years now. I never set out to be a chocolate snob, but after you get used to the good stuff, it's hard to enjoy supermarket chocolate.  They taste too waxy and milk-powder-like for me. I bought 3 Nestle Crunchie bars to satisfy my chocolate honeycomb craving. In the end, I barely finished one, and not before scraping off the chocolate to get at the honeycomb insides.  I tried foisting the remaining 2 Crunchie Bars on my kids (how clever of me I thought), but while Sugababe 1 happily polished off hers in a jiffy, Sugababe 2 refused to eat more after a wee bite.  Believe it or not, she's developed a taste for Valrhona chocolate too.  

So if you are asking why bother with scratchmade honeycomb if you can get Crunchie or Violet Crumble, I would say, because you can use better chocolate, that's why. But if you are not partial to that then, by all means, save yourself the trouble.

Having said that, honeycomb really should not be that much trouble. The recipe is simple and straighforward, and if done correctly shouldn't take more than 20 minutes.   I confess however, that having a newborn put me in such a very distracted mummy state that I burnt my caramel no less than THREE times. 

Thankfully, once out of those three times, I ended up with caramel that was not TOO burnt, but salvageable for the purposes of making burnt caramel ice cream.  It was one of those times when my attempts to manage a kitchen disaster brought about a most fortuituous result - an improvised no-churn burnt caramel gelato that didn't take more than 10 minutes to make (minus freezing time).  Yes you heard right -  an Easy No-Churn Salted Burnt Caramel Gelato.  Otherwise known as Obesity 101. I will happily endanger your health by sharing the recipe in a future post. 

In the meantime, back to the honeycomb.  There are many recipes for honeycomb candy, all calling for largely the same ingredients - sugar, corn syrup and the magic-making baking soda.  In the end, I struck honeycomb gold with a recipe that called for the addition of gelatine, which resulted in a better, crispier texture, with fine bubbles throughout.

Making honeycomb is fun and exciting, and always makes me feel rather like a science-experimenting lab genius.  You'd feel the same too when you see how the hot caramel syrup bubbles up into a towering mass of candy foam once the baking soda is added.  If you have older kids (who can handle molten sugar safely under supervision) I can imagine this would make a fun cooking exercise for them.

Look at those little golden nuggets, dipped in luscious milk chocolate. So much better than Crunchies. And super addictive too.  My kids have been asking me for Hokey Pokey all day. These will surely be even more phenomenal with dark chocolate, but unfortunately I'm out. A good excuse, surely, to do the Hokey Pokey again!

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How to do the Hokey Pokey
(A recipe adapted from Wilde in the Kitchen)

¼ tsp gelatin
1 tsp water
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup corn syrup
1 tbsp baking soda (sifted)


Melted milk or dark chocolate (tempered)

Butter a 9x9 pan then dust with flour. Tap out excess flour. Alternatively, line pan with greaseproof paper.

In a small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over 1 tsp water and allow to bloom.

In a medium stock pot with high sides, mix sugar and corn syrup together. Heat over medium heat and swirl the pot occasionally to ensure that the sugar dissolves evenly, and the mixture comes to a boil. Do not stir. Clip on candy thermometer and heat to 310° F.

Remove from heat and let sit for a few seconds, the bubbling should subside. Add gelatin and whisk, be careful, the sugar syrup will bubble up. Sprinkle baking soda over syrup and whisk vigorously. Return mixture to the heat and whisk for 30 seconds. The sugar will rise up in the pot, a lot!

Quickly pour into prepared pan, it should come out in a big blob. Do not spread the mixture, just let it settle into the pan. Allow to cool completely (about 2 hours or overnight) before removing from the pan.

Either break into odd pieces or cut into squares (this is a messy process!). To cut into squares - using a serrated knife, score the candy at 1-inch intervals. Snap the candy apart at the score lines. Then score and break into squares.

Dip sponge candies in molten tempered chocolate, tap off excess. Ensure that the honeycomb is completely covered with chocolate, as any exposed parts will absorb moisture from the air and quickly degenerate. Chill in the fridge to set the chocolate shell.

And that's what it's all about!

Notes:
1) The original recipe also called for 1/2 cup of water to be added to the sugar.  This is the 'wet method' of caramelization which takes a longer time. I prefer to use the dry caramelization method and therefore the adapted recipe does not require the addition of water. The caramelization will occur pretty quickly, so one must keep a careful watch on the colour of the sugar syrup. If you are using a digital instant read candy thermometer, great.  If you are eyeballing it, stop once it turns a medium amber shade, otherwise you run the risk of burning it. My preferred method is to drop a few drops of molten syrup into a bowl of water every once in a while.  When it reaches the hard crack stage (which is what we want), the syrup will form hard, brittle threads that break when bent.

If you are not careful and it becomes dark amber, it will be no longer good for honeycomb.  However, if it has only a whiff of burntness but is still fit for cunsumption, quickly pour in 2 cups of milk or cream to stop its temperature from rising (and therefore being TOO burnt) and then make burnt caramel gelato with it.

2) If you cannot be bothered to temper chocolate (like me), simply use tempered chocolate (like Valrhona). When melting, ensure that you do it over low heat (whether in a double-boiler or in microwave) and stir often. Once 2/3 of the chocolate is melted, remove it from heat or microwave, and keep stirring until the remaining chunks of chocolate are melted.

3) Honeycomb degenerates quickly in humid weather. Make sure to store them immediately after making, in an airtight container with food-grade desicants, or they will degrade into a sticky mess within minutes.

Cranberry New York Cheesecake

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New York Cheesecakes are by far my favourite kind of cheesecakes. I like that they are dense and cheesy, and when combined with chocolate,  deliciously fudgey.  A ruby red cranberry topping just takes it over the top.

I adapted a recipe from Smitten Kitchen by (1) adding in whipping cream to lighten up the texture of the cheesecake, (2) incorporating chocolate into the bottom layer of the cheesecake; and (3) giving the cake a cranberry topping. I do love how the bright red topping spills dramatically down the cake when you cut it.
 
Recipe for Cranberry New York Cheesecake
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Crumb crust
8 ounces (227g) finely ground graham crackers or digestives

8 tablespoons (1 stick or 4 ounces or 113 grams) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt


Very tall cheesecake filling:
5 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (or 1134g) (I used Elle Et Vire, great quality and cheaper than Philadelphia. Pick it up from Euraco finefood, next to TOTT Store)
1 3/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
5 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup whipping cream
200g dark chocolate


Make crumb crust: Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom and up the sides, stopping one inch shy of the top rim**, of a buttered 9 1/2-inch (or 24 cm) springform pan. Pop it into the freezer so it quickly sets while you prepare the filling.

Make very tall cheesecake filling: Preheat oven to 550 degrees***. Beat together cream cheese, sugar, flour and zest with an electric mixer until smooth. Add vanilla, then eggs and yolks, one at a time, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated. Scrape bowl down between additions; I cannot stress this enough as if you do not, you’ll end up with unmixed stripes of cream cheese. I always find at least one, despite my best efforts. Stir in whipping cream and mix until evenly blended.

Melt dark chocolate in a double boiler or microwave, taking care not to burn it.  Divide cheesecake filling in half.  Mix one half with the melted dark chocolate, until even.


Put springform pan with crust in a shallow baking pan (to catch drips). Pour chocolate filling into crust, smoothen the top, then pour the remaining cheesecake mixture in the pan. Bake in baking pan in the middle of the oven for 12 minutes or until puffed. Please watch your cake because some ovens will top-brown very quickly and if yours does too fast, turn the oven down as soon as you catch it. Reduce the temperature to 200 degrees and continue baking until cake is mostly firm (center will still be slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken), about one hour more.

Run a knife around the top edge of the cake to loosen it and cool the cake completely in springform on a rack, then chill it, loosely covered, at least 6 hours.

Recipe for Cranberry Topping
(adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum)

1 cup (100g) fresh or frozen cranberries

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (75g) sugar
2.5 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 cup (59g) water


(Note: If you like more topping, you can use 1.5 recipe like I did) 
In a small saucepan, combine the water, sugar, cornstarch and cranberries and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Stop stirring, reduce the heat, and simmer for 1 minute, swirling the pan occasionally. The mixture will be thick but pourable. Allow it to cool to room temperature.  Spread topping over chilled cheesecake.