Chili-chocolate cake (Nigella's recipe)

This weekend I made Nigella Lawsons chocolate-chili cake and a looooot of people loved it so here's the recipe (with some minor changes)

Bottom:
125 g digestive and mariekjeks (50-50) crumbled and mixed with
60 g melted butter and
1tbs Cocoa powder

Spread on a round baking form

Fill:

400g chopped dark chocolate
60ml rum
60 ml golden syrup (or agave syrup)

Put together in a bowl and melt au bain Marie (over hot water)
Blend in chili powder as much as you like

Meanwhile whip 5dl of double cream stiff but still soft

Fold it in the chocolate blend

Pour over the bottom

Put cold in the fridge for one night

Next day remove the form, sprinkle a Nice layer of Cocoa powder on top, decorate with fresh chili and chocolate plates on the side.

Bon appetit, Jelrik

Pavlova - a heavenly merengue dessert

Today, we celebrated my daughter's 4th birthday and for the occasion, I made this fantastic Pavlova.

Pavlova is a merengue lower layer topped with whipped cream and a thick layer of fresh inviting fruit. The dessert was made for the first time when the Russian dancer Anna Pavlova visited New Zealand in 1926.

The difficulty of a Pavlova is to obtain a crispy outside while inside there is a fluffy marshmallow-ish fill. I got inspired while watching Masterchef Australia and the fabulous Donna Hay speaking with love about Pavlova. So I used her recipe which you can find by clicking here.


The best tips are:
- Be very precise measuring the ingredients
- Make the eggwhites really stif before carefully whisking in the castor sugar.
- Low heat, long baking time
- Let the Pavlova cool totally down in the oven before opening.

It looked like this ready baked:

A crispy side

Top right before serving and serve directly. Otherwise you risk collapse of the meringue and a wet meringue

Good luck with the Pavlova and thanks to Donna Hay for the perfect recipe.

Jelrik

Angel Frappé Frosting Cupcake

This sweety is a vanilla cupcake with a Kahlua twist and a frosting of Angel Feather Icing, espresso and cinnamon.

Autumn is all about sitting in a warm house while it's raining outside, surrounded by the smell of fresh baked cupcakes and experimenting with different tastes. So the reward for baking this wonderfull small cakes is to sit in the couch under a wool blanket and let the taste of sweetness and coffee overwhelm your mouth.

Verdens Beste - Kvæfjordkake

This cake is the first cake I learned to make after arriving in Norway. It is called "Verdens Beste" (the best in the world) or "Kvæfjordkake". It is made of a layer of cake, a layer of french merengue and topped with almonds. Then there is a layer of whipped cream and vanillacream and on top there is a new cake with merengue and almonds. You can find the recipe of this wonderfull cake here on the site of passionforbaking.

Here some pictures of the process of making the cake. I use to make a big cake, cut in two halfs and put those halfs on top of eachother

The first cake layer spread out

A nice and stiff merengue. The important thing: whip the eggwhites very stiff and add the sugar in small amounts. Whip and whip untill really stiff.

Ready to put in the oven, 25 min on 175 degrees C.

Ready amazing cake :-)