Recipe 219 – Chocolatines

Well, this is it, the last recipe in the book.  I can’t believe that I’ve actually baked a whole book of recipes!  If I’m honest, I never thought I’d keep going, I thought I’d give up after a couple of months, but no, I’ve really done it!!

Well here it is, the last recipe is Chocolatines.  They’re very similar to the mokatines I made a few weeks ago, except this time they’re chocolate, rather than coffee.

The oven was put on to preheat at Fan 160°C and an 18cm (7″) shallow square cake tin was lightly greased and the bottom lined with parchment.

The first step was to make the Genoese Sponge.  I was surprised to see that it was the same as the one for the mokatines, I’m not sure why, but I thought it would be a chocolate sponge.  But thinking about it the sponge in the mokatines wasn’t coffee.  Into a bowl I cracked 3 large eggs and added to this 75g sugar.  Before mixing this I weighed out 40g butter and melted this before putting it to one side to cool slightly.  It was time for my (or my daughter’s) good old Phillips electric hand whisk which has served me well throughout this challenge and hasn’t let me down once.  Perhaps it’s now time to put it to bed to retire and buy myself a food mixer, the only decision there is what colour…  anyway, back to the recipe.  The eggs and sugar were beaten together until the mixture was pale in colour and mousse like in texture.

Into another bowl I measured (sieving the flour in to a bowl) 65g self-raising flour and 1 level tablespoon cornflour.  Half this was sprinkled over the top of the egg mixture and folded in.  Half of the melted butter was then poured around the outside of the mixture and again folded in.  This was repeated with the other half of flour and the remaining melted butter.  The mixture was then poured into the tin and put in the oven for 35 minutes.

After 35 minutes it was well risen and golden brown in colour.  It had also started coming away from the edges, so it was taken out of the oven and left in the tin for a few minutes, before turning it out and leaving it to cool on a wire rack.

Whilst the cake was cooling it was time for the next stage, the Creme au Beurre Chocolat (chocolate buttercream).  Into a heavy based saucepan I put 50g granulated sugar and added to this 4 tbsp water.  This was heated very gently until all the sugar had dissolved and then it was brought to the boil and boiled steadily for another 3 minutes.   Whilst the syrup was boiling I put two egg yolks into a bowl and lightly broke them up.  The syrup was then poured in a thin stream onto the egg yolks, whilst whisking all the time.  It’s times like these when I wish I had a food mixer, but by now I had worked out that the liquid needs to be poured to the back of the whisk, otherwise the fan from the motor blows the syrup onto the side of the bowl, where it quickly sets!  I continued whisking the egg mixture  until the mixture started to thicken and was cold to the touch.  In yet another bowl, I broke up 100g plain chocolate and melted it.  Whilst this was cooling, in another bowl went 175g softened butter which was creamed until it was very soft.  The egg mixture was then gradually beaten in to the butter.  Once this had all been beaten in the melted chocolate was added and stirred through until mixed.

It was now time to put the Chocolatines together.  The first thing to do was to cut the cake in half horizontally and sandwich the two pieces together with a thin layer of the chocolate buttercream.  The cake edges were trimmed and the cake was cut into 5cm (2″) squares.  I spread the top and sides of each cake  with the buttercream and dipped the edges  in  75g chopped roasted nuts.  This was quite a fiddly and messy thing to do.  In the end I put the buttercream on the sides first and dipped them into the nuts before coating the top.  The top of the cakes were finished off by piping tiny rosettes with the remaining buttercream.  I did actually have quite a bit of buttercream left over, so don’t be afraid to add more to the middle of your cakes as I think Mary’s idea of a ‘thin layer’ must be a lot thicker than mine.

I was actually very pleased with the way these had turned out.  They did look quite stunning and they taste delicious – a very light sponge with a very rich buttercream – yum.