Chocolate Fudge Cake

- Alex 1 Comment

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Well, it’s Chocolate Week in the UK so it’s a happy coincidence that, at the last minute I decided to make a cake as an additional dessert for a BBQ with friends.

As I still subscribe to (and read!) a lot of UK based food newsletters chocolate was featuring heavily and this simple fudge cake recipe from the UK’s version of Delicious magazine stood out as something I could put together in a very limited amount of time.

I have to confess that part of the reason I was attracted to it was the use of red wine vinegar. There’s something about cake recipes with unusual ingredients that always makes me want to try them out!

The cake hit all the spots … it was super quick to make and everyone liked it (I even packed up a doggy bag for a missing husband!) so it’s definitely one I’ll be making again.

I followed the recipe pretty closely and was a bit scared by the ‘chuck all the dry ingredients’ in the food processor approach but it turned out OK. However, next time I might adopted a slightly more conventional ‘cream butter and sugar’ method …

Begin by greasing and baselining a 20cm spring form tin and preheat the oven to 160°C fan (or 180°C).

In your food processor (or mixing bowl) combine 100g unsalted butter, 15g cocoa powder, 300g self raising flour, 1 tsp bicarb soda, 225g caster sugar (use golden or unrefined if you can) and 2 eggs. If you’re mixing by hand or with an electric hand whisk you might want to sift the flour and bicarb first. The add 100g of melted dark chocolate (I am a new convert to melting chocolate in the microwave – but you do need to watch it very carefully!) and finish by mixing in 250mL of milk mixed with 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar.

Pour the batter in to the cake tin and bake for 1 hour, until firm in the centre and a skewer comes out clean (with my oven I think next time I’ll check after 55 minutes). Cool in the tin for a few minutes and then turn out to cool on a rack.

When the cake is cool, it’s time to make the ganache and finish the cake.

For the ganache, melt 225g dark chocolate with 100g unsalted butter (be careful with the microwave – watch carefully and mix every minute or so to keep an eye on things – you don’t want the microwave coated in butter and chocolate!). Stir this mix until smooth and then add in about 150mL of thick (not thickened) cream. As this is an English recipe it specifies a 142mL carton of double cream so I just guessed approximately 150mL from my 200mL carton of pure cream.

Allow the ganache to cool to a good, spreadable consistency and then slice the cake in half. Use approximately a quarter of the ganache for filling and then use the remainder as icing. Make sure you resist ‘tidying up’ the ganache until you’ve finished with the cake!

The cake kept well for about 2 days … by that time it was all eaten (mostly served with cream!).

Sugar Cane Vietnamese Restaurant

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THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED.

date of visit: Friday 24 Sept 2010

Like our visit to the King’s Head Hotel, another Friday night, another unplanned restaurant visit. We settled on Vietnamese very early in the piece and toyed with heading down Gouger Street, before wandering down King William Street to check out Sugarcane. Our logic was that if it was full or didn’t appeal we could nip around to The Greek on Halifax. OK – that’s slightly weird logic, if you’re after Vietnamese food, but bear with me.

Sugarcane is a very visually appealing restaurant – when it finally warms up there’s an outdoor seating area (it’s far enough down King William Street for sitting outside to be contemplated) and the restaurant itself is large, reasonably spacious and with decor that, while perhaps not to everyone’s taste, is clean and coherent with a definite Asian theme.

The meal started in a promising manner, when the restaurant door was swept open for us and we were ushered to a table. Well, the door part is true … and we were whisked through the restaurant only for the waiter to reaslise, suddenly, that there was no table for two ready. We were instructed to wait while a table was sorted out – and of course, while waiting we managed to confuse at least one other waiter who also tried to fix us a table.

Confusion was very much the theme of the service throughout the meal. One waiter had a minor panic attack when he realised we’d been seated for a while but did not have drinks. He could have stayed calm and taken an order … but he rushed off to get us water and then forgot to take a drinks order. Another waiter eventually took the drinks order, by which point we were ready to order food … which was a mistake, because our food order ended up confused. My entrée and main arrived together, leaving Andy foodless. While quite a few waiters observed us with food at our table but not touching it, none approached us and when we did attract attention, the waiter rushed off only to rush back to find out what we had actually ordered.

As the restaurant wasn’t packed (I’m always prepared to cut some slack if I can see staff are genuinely run off their feet) I can only assume that someone at Sugarcane doesn’t take customer service seriously and certainly isn’t instilling good customer service practices in the staff.

While service is a large part of the restaurant going experience, we can’t ignore the food. Although billed as a Vietnamese restaurant we were a little disappointed by the route the menu took. While I can’t claim to be an expert on the regional cuisines of either China or Vietnam the menu has, to the untrained eye, a very definite Chinese feel. In fact, every dish has its name written out … in Chinese. Not a jot of Vietnamese roast pork in sight, although there are hot pots.

My original order was to start with pork and prawn cold rolls followed by a beef salad, while Andy was going to start with a chicken pancake and enjoy Mongolian sizzling pork for his main course. After a long period of contemplating my food, we ended up with all the food on the table at once. Of these dishes, the beef salad was definitely the stand out – very fine slices of beef, barely cooked, with a lime and chilli dressing, tossed in amongst green salad. The level of heat from the chilli was good, the salad was fresh, and the dressing was light and oil free … perfect for mopping up with a bit of rice when everything else was finished. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I came home and looked for recipes so I could make this myself (perhaps with a hint more coriander and mint though …).

I was less impressed with the cold rolls: they were too heavy on the noodles and too light on the mint. Very definitely in the OK basket rather than something to write home about.

Both of Andy’s dishes were too sweet for me although Andy didn’t have a problem with them (I am very picky about sweetness in savoury dishes). The chicken crepe was served in the same style as crispy duck pancakes – without the crispy or the duck, as the chicken was in a plum style sauce. The Mongolian sizzling pork was dished on to its sizzling plate at the table, covering the table (and, to a limited extent, us) with a fine spray of hot fat. From Andy this dish rated a ‘quite nice but nothing special’.

That does quite a good job of summing up the whole experience. Aside from the shambolic service, everything was ‘quite nice’ but certainly not special enough to warrant a return visit.

Bottom line: $66 for 2 people, 2 courses, 2 beers and green tea.

Sugar Cane on Urbanspoon

Rob Roy Hotel

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Chicken Parmi at the Rob Roy

date of visit:  Thurs Sept 16 2010

PUB QUIZ:  the Rob Roy runs a pub quiz every second Wednesday.  Please contact the pub for further details!

The Rob Roy Hotel is, perhaps, a little out of the way of most city centre workers. After all, you have to get all the way down Pulteney Street to Halifax Street to find it …

However, if you can manage it, it’s more than worth the detour. Continuously licensed since 1840,  restoration and extension work has been sympathetic. The interior is modern and spacious and there’s plenty of outdoor space and seating.

As a malt whisky specialist pub, there always seems to be a whisky tasting or dinner in the event calendar, as well as wine dinners, quiz nights, and members’ nights.

But we weren’t there for any of that (not even the pints). We were there for the Thursday evening $10 schnitzel. Yes – $10 for a schnitzel (add an extra $2 if you want parmigiana). So, what would it be like? Would it be a tiny portion that left us dissatisfied? Or would it be a monster that put the normal $20 pub schnitzel to shame?

It turned out that there was surprisingly keen interest in this experiment: 10 of us turned up to suss out the cheap schnitzel. One person ordered from the menu (and another would have, except her husband informed her that a schnitzel extravaganza meant she had to order schnitzel) but the rest of us opted for schnitzel with parmigianas being heavily represented.

As usual, I chose a chicken schnitzel parmigiana and I was happy. The schnitzel part was good: thick and juicy, and the topping was not too tomato sweet. While I was not thrilled with how generously salted the chips were I was pleased that it was not the usual ridiculous quantity of them (Andy, while agreeing on the salt, thought there could have been more). The salad was disappointing – far too overdressed, leaving it soggy and being all about balsamic vinegar.

That reflects the general consensus. The $10 schnitzels might not be the best schnitzels in Adelaide (to be honest, we’re still working on finding those!) but not only do they represent excellent value (let’s face it, with a schnitzel dinner you can live without a great salad), they also demonstrate just how overpriced the average pub schnitzel is.

I’d definitely head back to the Rob Roy on a Thursday … but before then, I have to try out Tuesday and the half price pizzas!