The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris (37 page)

Cherry Ripe

My husband is from New Zealand, where this is a national treasure of a chocolate bar, so I recreated it for ANZAC day and it worked very well. Well, I think it worked well, the entire tray was gone by the time I turned round…this kind of treat that chops up into a bar is great for parties/school fetes etc.

Ingredients:

Base:

•
1
1
⁄
2
cups self-rising flour

•
2 tsp cocoa

•
7
⁄
8
cup sugar

•
1
⁄
2
tsp baking powder

•
7 tbsp butter

•
3
⁄
4
cup milk

Filling:

•
1
1
⁄
3
pounds glacé cherries

•
1
⁄
2
cup condensed milk

•
5 ounces desiccated coconut

•
vanilla extract

To make:

Preheat oven to 350°F degrees. Butter and line square pan.

Mix the base and bake for 15–20 minutes.

Whizz filling ingredients together and spread on cooled base.

Top with melted dark chocolate and leave to set, if possible.

Malteser (Malt Ball) Cake

The great thing about this really simple cake is that it looks much more beautiful and finished than it actually is. It is a
big
cake
, I shall tell you now, for big occasions and works very well for birthdays.

Ingredients:

Cake:

•
1
3
⁄
4
cup sifted cake flour

•
2
⁄
3
cup sifted superfine sugar

•
10
1
⁄
2
tbsp softened butter

•
4 eggs

•
3
1
⁄
2
tbsp cocoa powder

•
8
1
⁄
2
tbsp sour cream

•
1 tsp baking powder

•
pinch salt

•
1
⁄
2
tsp vanilla essence

Icing:

•
2
3
⁄
4
cups superfine sugar

•
7 tbsp cocoa powder

•
17
1
⁄
2
tbsp butter

•
1
⁄
2
tsp vanilla essence

•
milk if the mixture gets too stiff, to water it down

To make:

Preheat oven 350°F degrees and grease and line two (same-size) cake pans.

Mix ingredients till nice and smooth, bake 20–30 minutes, or till a toothpick comes out dry.

Ice the cooled cake between the sandwich layers and all over the top.

Then, take four bags of malt balls (actually, scratch that, buy five, just in case you eat one) and start decorating. Even a total klutz like me can make lovely straight lines from malt balls, and once it's done it looks like something out of a fancy patisserie shop window. Hurrah!

Heaven and Hell Cake

I am including this cake not because I have ever made it—I am
terrified
, quite frankly—but because I thought it was so beautiful and amazing. It's the winning Heaven and Hell Cake from John Whaite, which won the
2012 Great British Bake-Off
. This is a show I love dearly and watch religiously. I do bake some things from it and, like any right-thinking person, worship Mary Berry as the queen she so clearly is, but this was just so full of chutzpah and imagination and amazing baking, I could only applaud its skill and ambition, and it made John a worthy winner. Thanks to the BBC for letting us reproduce it here, and if anyone has a good go at it,
please
let me see it! I might just make the “hell” half…

Hell:
dark chocolate and orange cake.
Heaven:
lemon and coconut meringue cakelets. A stunning cake worthy of a Bake-Off final.

Equipment and preparation:

You will need an 11-inch cake tin, 2-inch cake tins, a chef's blow torch, half a dozen straws, and a piping bag with a small nozzle.

Ingredients:

For the hell cake:

•
9 free-range eggs, separated

•
5 tbsp cocoa powder

•
1 cup hot water

•
1
1
⁄
3
cups plain flour

•
1 pound golden superfine sugar

•
1
1
⁄
2
tsp baking soda

•
1
1
⁄
2
tsp salt

•
3
⁄
4
cup sunflower oil

•
2
1
⁄
2
tsp vanilla extract

•
2 oranges, zest only

For the heaven cake:

•
1
3
⁄
4
cup plain flour

•
3
⁄
4
cup water

•
1 tsp baking powder

•
1
1
⁄
2
tsp salt

•
1 cup golden superfine sugar

•
4 fluid ounces sunflower oil

•
2 unwaxed lemons, zest only

•
6 free-range eggs, separated

•
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the hell filling:

•
21 ounces dark chocolate

•
1
1
⁄
3
cups double cream

•
1 cup good quality cherry jam

For the hell mirror glaze:

•
2 leaves gelatine

•
1 cup sugar

•
2 tbsp golden syrup

•
11 tbsp cocoa powder

•
1
⁄
2
cup double cream

For the heaven meringue and filling:

•
3 free-range eggs, whites only

•
3
⁄
4
cup superfine sugar

•
1 tsp corn syrup

•
1
⁄
2
tsp vanilla extract

•
7 ounces best quality lemon curd

•
1
3
⁄
4
cup desiccated coconut

•
1 booklet (5 sheets) gold leaf, to decorate

For the hell piping and chocolate shards:

•
7 ounces dark chocolate

To make:

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Grease and line an 11-inch cake pan.

For
the
“
tartarus
”
hell cake:
Beat the separated egg whites in a bowl until stiff.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the remaining ingredients for the hell cake together. When well combined, fold in the egg whites.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan and bake for 75 minutes.

Remove the cake from the oven, and once hot enough to handle, turn out, upside down, on a cake rack to cool.

For
the
“
caeli
”
heaven cake:
Grease and line 16 2-inch-diameter cake pans.

Repeat the process for making the hell cake with the heaven cake ingredients, but pour the cake mixture evenly into the 16 molds rather than one cake mold.

Bake for 17 minutes. Remove from the oven, trim the cakes to make them exactly the same size, then turn them out upside down onto a cake rack to cool.

For
the
hell
cake
filling:
Make a ganache by placing the dark chocolate and cream into a bowl and heating in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, until the chocolate has melted. Mix the cream well into the chocolate. Set aside in a bowl.

For
the
hell
cake
mirror
glaze:
Soak the gelatin in cold water for five minutes until it softens.

Heat the sugar and
1
⁄
2
cup water in a pan until boiling. Add the corn syrup, cocoa, and cream. Heat through, then strain the glaze through a sieve into a jug. Add the soaked gelatin to the strained glaze, stirring to make sure it's evenly dissolved. Set aside until needed.

For
the
meringue
coating
for
the
heaven
cakes:
Place the egg whites, sugar, corn syrup, and two tablespoons water in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk the mixture for 7–8 minutes, or until stiff and glossy. Add the vanilla extract and mix in well. Set aside.

Cut the cooled hell cake horizontally to make two disks. Wrap each disk in cling film and place in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up and cool further.

Place the lemon curd in a piping bag with a small nozzle. With a small knife, cut a hole into the heaven cakes, to create space to pipe the curd into. Pipe the curd into the cakes.

Cover the filled heaven cakes with the meringue (reserving a little of the meringue to hold the heaven cakes in place) and roll in the coconut.

Stack the heaven cakes on a 6-inch cake board using straws to hold in place.

Remove the two hell cake disks from the freezer and spread one with one-third of the ganache and another with the cherry jam. Sandwich the cakes together. Using a palette knife, cover the outside of the cake with another third of the ganache.

Carefully place the coated hell cake in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.

Meanwhile, temper the chocolate for the chocolate shards. Chop the chocolate into equal pieces, and place half in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Allow to slowly melt. Once melted, take the bowl off the heat and add the remaining half of chopped chocolate. Mix into the melted chocolate until everything has melted and allow to cool to 86°F. (Use a thermometer to measure this.) Once it reaches temperature, it's ready to use. Spread most of the tempered chocolate onto silicon paper and leave to cool completely—once cooled, it should snap into shards. Pour a few tablespoons of the chocolate mixture in a piping bag with a small nozzle and pipe “tartarus” on the silicon paper—leave this to cool too.

Add another coating of ganache (using it all up) to the hell cake to get very straight sides, and return to the freezer for 15 minutes.

Remove the cake from the freezer, warm the glaze in a small pan, and carefully pour the glaze over the hell cake and smooth.

Heat the glaze with a blow-dryer so it is very shiny and even.

Place the “tartarus” piped chocolate nameplate on the cake.

Insert straws into the hell cake, to hold the heaven cakes in place. Cut the straws off to a suitable height. Place the stack of heaven cakes onto the hell cake, secured with the straws.

Pipe swirls of meringue over the gap between the heaven and hell cakes, then toast the meringue with a chefs' blow torch.

Finish the cake with shards of tempered chocolate around the edges.

Finally add gold leaf to the heaven cakes to decorate.