Coffee Mocha Sponge Cake
Well, who doesn’t like a light coffee sponge with a mocha buttercream filling? Simple, straightforward and great for sharing. It’s the One True Cake recipe I use a lot – a Genoese sponge. You could top it with walnuts for another classic flavour combination, but I didn’t have any in the house so I used chocolate sprinkles. I made this for my Seniors Lunch Club this week and it went down a treat. We had some new members so we did initial introductions and a gossip while we all ate lunch (and cake) and then we played Beetle. We got quite competitive and noisy. Everyone seemed to remember the concept, although several members said they hadn’t played Beetle since their teenage years and Church social occasions. Luckily I have some large dice, so we didn’t have to squint through our glasses, and I brought along plastic boxes to throw the dice into, to save us scrabbling on the floor too much. For those who are not familiar with the game (is there anyone?) you throw a die and according to the score you draw part of a beetle. You have to start with a 6 for its body, and throw a 1 for the head, 2 for eyes, 3 for antennae, 5 for wings and 4 for legs. Of course, it has 6 legs so you have to throw some numbers much more than others, which is fun and takes longer than you think. The first person to draw a full beetle is the winner and you can go on to have several rounds if you have time. Our drawings ended up causing much hilarity – some looked more like birds than beetles and some looked rather grim while others had smiley faces. Our winner took home a small pot of home-made raspberry jam, so the effort was worthwhile. We probably needed another piece of cake when we got home to recover from the shouting! Serves 12 Timings: 30 minutes preparation, 30 minutes cooking, then cooling time, 30 minutes to ice and fill the cake.
For the buttercream filling: 200g salted butter; 1 tablespoon cocoa powder; 1 tablespoon camp coffee essence; 150g icing sugar For the water icing: 150g icing sugar, 2 tablespoons camp coffee essence, 2-3 tablespoons water Pre heat your oven to 180°C. Grease and line two 15cm diameter loose bottomed cake tins. You can make it in one deeper tin and cut through the equator if you prefer. Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy. Melt the butter and leave it to cool a bit. Sieve the flour and coffee granules together – you might need to scrape the coffee through the sieve a little to crush it down to a finer powder. With the motor running slowly, add half the flour and coffee into the cake, then the rest. Stop whisking and add the melted butter, stirring in gently with a metal spoon – this helps keep the air in the sponge. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and bake for 25 minutes, until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven, cool on a wire rack, remove from the tins and cool completely before icing. Make the buttercream: whisk the butter until fluffy and add in the icing sugar one spoon at a time with the motor running. You will need to cover your mixer with a teatowel to stop the icing sugar rising up and making the kitchen look as if it has snowed. Add the cocoa powder and the camp coffee essence and keep whisking to a mousse-like consistency. Spread this over the surface of one of the cakes, reserving about 1/3 of the mixture for the outside. Top with the other sponge and smooth the remaining icing round the outside. Make the water icing by mixing the icing sugar, coffee essence and gradually adding water to reach the right consistency – a thick spreadable gooey icing. Spread this on top of the cake and decorate with sprinkles or chocolate curls as you like, or halved walnuts. Leave the cake in a cool place for the icing to firm up before slicing. It will keep up to 3 days in a tin in a cool place.
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Pepper Crusted Tuna Steak & Lemon Butter Sauce
A favourite weeknight treat, quick to get on the table. I usually serve it with oven-cooked thick chips and a simple vegetable such as lightly cooked green beans or sprouting broccoli. The lemon and butter combine with the juices from the meaty tuna to make a lovely tangy sauce, and the peppercorns give a mild warmth, not too hot. Tuna is an expensive food, I know, but there is no waste. If there's any left over, you can use it the next day to top a salad or flake into a sandwich with some mayo. Serves 4 Timings: 30 minutes
Get the tuna out of the fridge about half an hour before cooking. In a pestle and mortar, grind the peppercorns coarsely. You could use a spice grinder but be careful, you are looking for a gritty texture rather than finely ground. Coat the tuna steaks evenly in the ground gritty pepper and leave to set for 10 minutes. Heat your deep frying pan and use a little oil. Fry the tuna steaks for about 5 minutes per side, depending on the thickness and how you like your fish done. You can poke the steaks with a sharp knife to see how done they are – they will cook a little more as you make the sauce so have them a little under rather than a little overdone to keep them juicy. When you are nearly done, add the butter and let it foam up, then add the lemon juice. Swirl the pan to coat the steaks and serve straight away. Green Beans Curry (vegan)
Another recipe from my neighbour, Asha, who makes such glorious food. It’s called a “dry curry” – it’s not completely dry but there is no sauce to be mopped up. The fresh green beans still have their snap, and they end up coated in a savoury paste with spicy tomato flavour and the faintest background nuttiness from the coconut. You don’t taste or feel the desiccated coconut, so this can be served even to people who generally avoid the texture of coconut, and it just adds the extra nutrition and slight creaminess. I like to serve it with a dhal or other quite liquid dish for contrast. I’ve never seen this recipe in a restaurant, so I don’t know exactly where it came from. I’ve seen a Sri Lankan green bean curry that uses coconut milk but that’s a lot more sauced than this version. If anyone knows any more about it, please let me know – I’d be interested to hear. You can of course add other things to the basic vegan dish – cubed paneer or leftover cooked chicken are lovely mixed into the beans. Serves 4 as a main dish alongside Makhani Dhal or other Dhal dish Timings: 45 minutes
Ground spices: 2 teaspoons turmeric, 1 teaspoon chilli powder, 2 teaspoons garam masala Whole spices: 2 teaspoons cumin seeds, 2 teaspoons mustard seeds Top and tail the French beans and if they are thicker than a pencil, slice them down the middle to make thinner slices – you are cooking them quite quickly so they need to be thin. Put the beans, the ground spices, coconut, ginger and tomato puree into a microwave bowl with 2-3 tablespoons of water and cook on full power for 6 minutes. You can of course cook them in a pan with only a small amount of water – you are looking to steam the beans quite lightly. When finished cooking, leave them in their pan until the next stage. In a large frying pan, fry the onion in a little oil until transparent. You don’t want it to brown, so keep stirring and don’t heat too much. Add the potato cubes and continue stirring to warm them through. Add the whole spices and cook to release the flavours. Tip the beans and any liquid they have into the pan and turn up the heat a bit. Stir through and cook finally for another 2-3 minutes. Adjust the seasoning – it will need salt and pepper and add the lemon juice. Serve sprinkled with fresh coriander. |
Some Changes - April 2022
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