Nigella's Guinness and Chocolate Cake

"Celebrity Chef" is a strange concept I discovered in the UK (Since I left France, this has also massively taken off in France). Over here, chefs are (almost) as much super stars as singers or actors. 
The press follows their private lives as much (if not more) as their cooking. 
Jamie Oliver shares photos of his kids and his private life everyday on Instagram, and we feel almost close to him for that. It's part of being a Celebrity Chef.
And it's not for her cooking skills that poor Nigella Lawson recently got even more famous.
Let me tell you; British people have a thing for their chefs, and I think I might be becoming like them.

One of my big dreams of the moment is to (finally) get a table at Le Gavroche and meet Michel Roux Jr. (I did get a chance to meet him briefly at a foodie festival last summer but I was so shy and impressed that I didn't even speak to him, when I'd normally have a million questions for the man!)

In the meantime, we should gossip less, and bake more!

Nigella's Guinness and Chocolate Cake

No, this cake doesn't taste of Guinness. It tastes of marvelous and deep dark chocolate, and it's moist and light.

And it's beautiful and delicious. 

And I find it so cool to bake a cake with Guinness in it.

Ingredients: 

for the cake

250 ml Guinness

250 grams unsalted butter

75 grams cocoa powder

400 grams caster sugar

142 ml sour cream

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

275 grams plain flour

2 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

for the topping

300 grams cream cheese

150 grams icing sugar

125 ml double cream (or whipping cream)

Method to make the Guinness and chocolate cake: 

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C/350ºF, and butter and line a 23cm / 9 inch springform tin.
2. Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter - in spoons or slices - and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.
3. Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.
4. When the cake's cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. Or do this in a processor, putting the unsifted icing sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
5. Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

 Recipe by Nigella Lawson

Discovery of the Suffolk coast, home to Great British Seafood

In our quest to make the most the British countryside and driven by our common passion for food, the Man and I recently spent a long week end on the Suffolk Coast, which perfectly mixes seaside, countryside, tranquility and gastronomy.

Relatively easy to reach from London (we traveled a big hour on the train to Ipswich and then hired a car), the area is small but diverse enough to keep you busy for 3 or 4 days without having to travel too much once there.

Staying at the lovely Ship at Dunwich (the Inn offers comfortable rooms, delicious crafts beers and very good gastropub food, including the best sticky toffee pudding I've eaten so far, and god knows my standards are high!), we discovered the area by foot, doing 1-day walks along the seaside and in the nearby countryside. 
On our way there, we stopped at the Orford Ness national park, and paid a visit to the lovely Orford Castle. 
We also spend half a day in Aldeburgh, famous for its seafood restaurants and one of the best Fish and Chips shops in the country according to Nigel Slater (facing an hour queuing in the street, we finally gave up).


The area offers seafood lovers wonders to enjoy indeed, from chippies and dressed crabs to hot-smoked salmon and lobsters that you can buy fresh and ready to eat directly from the fishing boats on the beach.
A great corner of England no-so far from busy London.

 

Pink praline madeleines

I've been feeling down and exhausted for the past few weeks. Don't ask me why, I don't even know myself. I think that's part of the joys of being a woman. Sometimes, strong feelings coming from nowhere lend on us and we just need to deal with them (I know you ladies understand what I'm talking about, don't you? Please tell me yes, or I think I might start crying now!)

Usually, whenever I feel tired or down, the easy things that make me feel better are baking, eating, and shopping. On my own. 
Like Men withdraw to their caves (thank you Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and your ever so useful metaphors), I need to withdraw to my kitchen and wander in the aisles of TK Maxx on my own for hours. 
So that's settled, next week I'm taking a week to myself. While The Man will be busy at work, I'll be tuning to Magic fm, baking bread, making cakes, and going shopping.
If that doesn't do any good to my diet or my wallet, I'm sure I'll come back to work fit and ready for action the following Monday!

Pink praline Madeleines 

This is not a purist French recipe, which usually doesn't include honey and doe include lemon, but I think I like this one better. The honey gives a denser texture to the madeleines, giving them a slight "financier" style. (It's getting too complicated, isn't it?) Anyway, these are gorgious and dead easy to prepare. 
I added little crushed Pink praline from Lyon (France), but they are delicious plain as well.

Ingredients 
225g unsalted butter, melted

250g plain flour

250g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 free-range eggs

2 tbsp runny honey

1 small handful pink praline from Lyon, coarsely crushed

  
Make the madeleines
1/ Preheat the oven to 170C. Butter and flour a madeleine tin or silicone mould.

2/ Place the flour and caster sugar into a bowl and add the vanilla extract, eggs, honey and melted butter. Stir well

3/ Fill the madeleine tin/moulds almost to the top and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden-brown and springy to the touch. Dust with the remaining caster sugar.

Recipe adapted from James Martin's Madeleine recipe

My "Best of Spring" Recipes

As I'm celebrating my 32nd Birthday, my blog Pauline à la crème anglaise is celebrating its second anniversary. It feels like a good opportunity to look back at the past two years and give you a shortcut to some of my favourite recipes so far. 

This week's theme is  

Spring Recipes!

Spring is all about getting excited about the first pic-nics, baking fruity cakes and sharing food. Below you'll find a few recipes to discover or re-discover, that I feel like making these days.

Potato and Rosemary giant scone

Tomato, asparagus and curry clafoutis

Coronation chicken

Scotch eggs

Lemon, coconut and mascarpone tart

Citrus and poppy seeds cake

White Chocolate and Berry Cheesecake

Rhubarb Crumble

Millionnaire Shortbread

Irish Soda Bread, No-kneading wholemeal and oatmeal bread

This week's post and recipe are dedicated to my partner in crime The Entertainment Co-chief Executive, aka Little Bunny, aka Secret Santa.
When I first met you, I couldn't understand either your English accent nor your dry humour, which I've both learnt to love since. 
You have been the kind official banana provider for all the banana breads I've baked for the past 5 years. 
You've supported all my crazy entertainment ideas, and we've had such a good time putting them together.
You were one of the very first people to encourage me to make a blog out of my baking, and so many time did we have fun dreaming about me turning it into a cake shop and you becoming my official British products importer. God knows, maybe one day we'll do it? And even if we don't, the dreaming part has been a great pleasure in itself.

Thank you for everything. I wish you all the best in your new adventures!

Irish Soda Bread 

 (no kneading wholemeal and oatmeal bread)

I absolutely love the crumbly and cakey texture of soda bread. I only recently discovered that it is a bread which dough doesn't require kneading, which makes it really easy and quick to make. With a food processor, it really is a matter of minutes, but by hand, it won't take much longer!  
Ingredients

30g butter
450g wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt
115g oatmeal (I didn't have oatmeal so I processed rolled oats in a food processor for 30sec, which worked perfectly)
11/2 tsp cream of tartar (or baking powder)
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
425ml milk and water (half and half. I used skimmed milk)

Make the Irish Soda Bread

1/ Preheat the oven a 180deg C

2/ In a large bowl, mic flour, salt, oatmeal, cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda

3/ Using your fingers or in a food processor, rub in the butter until the mixture resemble fine crumbs. add the milk and water, then mix to a soft dough

4/ Turn into a slightly floured surface and knead briefly to a loaf shape or slightly flattened round ball. Deeply score the bread with a sharp knife (I made a cross)

5/ Place the loaf on the prepared baking sheet, place at the bottom of the oven a dish with a few tbsp of water at the bottom (this will create some steam and ensure the bread has a lovely crust) and bake for 30-35min

6/ Eat warm or cold, with sweet or savoury accompaniment.

Self-saucing butterscotch pudding - super quick version of a golden syrup pudding

The early dates of life together as a couple are somewhere between an ad for Center Parks and an ad for Kinder chocolates: 

• we cycle home together hand in hand (and The Man, his attention drawn into your beautiful eyes, rides into a lamp post in the park. Actually a true story)
• we sent each other messages in the middle of the afternoon "What would you like for dinner tonight honey pie?" "I'm popping down to Borough market, would you like me to pick some nice cheese for your lunch box?"
• we hang clothes up to dry together and we share house chores with a smile

Let's be honest, these days we're so deep in the honeymoon phase that, compared to us, my self-saucing golden syrup pudding seems light in sugar!

Self-Saucing Butterscotch Pudding

I've come across a few self-saucing pudding recipes, and they all call for this surprising flooding of the pudding mix under a mix of water and sugar, which, as the pudding bakes, sinks underneath the pudding itself and turns into a delicious sauce.
Even though it sounds a bit strange, the magic does work every time and the results are fantastic. 
The sponge is light and the sauce rich...with a dollop of fresh cream, I can assure it will blow your mind away!

Ingredients  
(for 4 larg-ish individual puddings or 1 big pudding for 4 to 6 people) 

3/4 cup muscovado sugar
1 1/4 cups (190g) self-raising flour
100g butter, melted
1 egg
1/2 cup (125ml) milk
4 tablespoons golden syrup
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 1/2 cups (375ml) boiling water
Double cream, whipped to soft peaks, to serve

Method to make the self-saucing butterscotch / golden syrup pudding

1/ Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 1.5 litre ovenproof dish or 4 large individual pudding moulds. Combine 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and all of the flour in a bowl. Add the melted butter, egg, milk and 2 tablespoons of the golden syrup and stir until combined. Spoon into greased dish(es). 

2/ Combine the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and cornflour. Sprinkle over the pudding mixture.

3/ Combine boiling water with the remaining 2 tablespoons of golden syrup. Pour over the top of the pudding mixture and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Serve warm with a good dollop of unsweetened cold whipped cream.

Tip: if you don't eat the pudding straight out of the oven, plan to re-heat it for 15-20min in the oven at 120deg C before serving. Cold, the sauce could set and that's not what you're looking for!

  

Recipe adapted from http://www.taste.com.au

Caramel Pretzel Brownies

This is a message in a bottle.
Call it a cathartic blog post.

I have to put it out there: Great Britain has plug socket issues. 

Firstly, for sure on/off switches on the sockets are great at preventing any toddlers from getting hurt if they stick their tiny fingers in the plug holes. But, as long as you don't have a child at home, what's the point of turning the plugs off everytime you leave the room?

"It's hazard protection" says the British Man. 

Well, surprisingly in my country, we don't have switches on our plug sockets and hardly anybody dies from sticking their fingers or being electrocuted by their TV by accident.

Secondly, how are we ladies, supposed to dry our hair in a country where it's considered highly dangerous to equip bathrooms with plug sockets?
"Of course nobody would build a house with sockets in a room that has a bath and sink" says the Man, looking at me like I'm some kind of lunatic.

As hard as it is to believe, my people tend to remember to step out of their bath before drying their hair (apart from a certain Claude François, maybe).
 

Great Britain, I love you, I truly do, but your plug sockets (or absence of them), drives me insane.

Salted Caramel Pretzel 

Brownies

I adapted this recipe from the How sweet it is, one of my favourite blogs, which I admire because Jessica's recipes look both evil and delicious, and also because of her beautiful photos.
The brownies are so good they would be amazing on their own, but the pretzel crust (which I adapted to caramelise it) takes them one step further, much further.

Sweet and salty sounds like one of the biggest trends of the moment in baking, and lots of US bloggers add pretzels to cakes and biscuits these days, and I have to say that it totally does it for me. The sprinkles of salt on the pretzels works wonderfully at enhancing the flavours of both the caramel and the chocolate. 

If I had to choose to only eat one chocolate cake for the rest of my life, it could very well be this one.


Ingredient
makes about 12 bars
 
For the brownies: 
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup caster sugar + 1/2 cup light muscovado sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
 
For the pretzel crust:
1 3/4 cups crushed pretzel pieces
2 tbsp golden syrup 
40g unsalted butter melted

Preparation of the salted caramel bretzel brownies

1/ Preheat oven to 180degC. 

2/ Grease and flour rectangular/ square baking dish and set aside.

3/ Melt the butter and the golden dyrup in a small pan over low heat or a bowl in the microwave and mix to combine. 

4/ Combine melted butter, golden syrup and pretzel crumbs in a bowl until moistened. With the back of a spoon, press pretzels into the cake tin pan making a crust. If pretzels seem loose, drizzle some additional melted butter over the top.

5/ In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla. Add in cocoa, flour and salt, mixing until combined. Using a spatula sprayed with non-stick spray, evenly spread brownies dough on top of the pretzel crust. 

6/ Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until brownies are baked through.

7/ Refrigerate brownies for 1-2 hours, then cut into bars and serve. 

Brownies will keep in an airtight container for up to 4 days