I am so sorry that I missed this

The world's first chocolate billboard.

Greedy Londoners devoured the whole thing within hours. Way to leave some for me, jerks.

Creamy Berry Shortcake

Lately I've been cooking things in a futile attempt to will spring into existence. I found a recipe for this shortcake, adapted from a recipe in a baking supplement that came with a recent issue of BBC Good Food magazine, my favourite mag in this genre. The photo was so gorgeous and rich and fruity looking that I was sure it would calm the nasty winds plaguing Oxford. I was wrong about that, but the cake did not disappoint on any other front. Thanks to the various layers of shortbread dough! clotted cream! berries! chocolate! it tastes really interesting in the best possible meaning of the word.

I stuck pretty close to the Good Food recipe, with three major changes. First, I forgot to put sugar in the dough (ha!) but actually preferred it that way--the berries are so sweet, it was nice not too have too much sugar in other parts of the cake or else it might be sickly. Second, I brushed the bottom layer of cake with some melted dark chocolate, just because I was, well, in the mood for chocolate. The bitterness of the chocolate added a fantastic tangyness to the cake and I actually can't imagine what it would taste like without it. So while I suppose you could make the cake without my addition of a chocolate layer, I don't recommend--everyone who had a piece agreed that it was key to what made the cake awesome. My last change was that I used a frozen fruit mix of blackberries, dark cherries, black currants, and red grapes, instead of just blackberries which is what the recipe called for. This is mostly because I don't tend to buy fresh berries out of season, and this was the closest frozen mix I could find. But in any case, it was lovely.

On to the recipe. I think it will be even tastier once fresh berries are in season!

The Recipe:

Creamy Berry Shortcake (adapted from the BBC Good Food recipe)

For the cake:
300g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
140g butter, chilled and cut into teeny tiny pieces
75mL buttermilk
1 egg, beaten

For the filling:
500g blackberries and other forest-fruits
3 tbsp caster sugar
200g clotted cream
75g chocolate (dark! 70% cocoa at least!), melted

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.

To make the dough, combine the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add the butter, and work it into the flower until it's an even, crumbly, mixture. Make a well in the middle of it, and then add the buttermilk and egg, and work it until it becomes a soft, sticky, dough. Knead the dough on a floured surface very briefly and mould it into a nice big round. Back it for 30 minutes or so until it's all golden and risen. Cool, then slice in half to create two layers.

Put your fruit into a big bowl and mash them slightly, then mix in the sugar.

To assemble the cake: First, brush the bottom cake layer with your melted chocolate so that it's thoroughly covered, but not too thick. Cover that with a layer of your clotted cream (if you're outside the UK and can't find clotted cream, I suppose whipped cream could be an ok subsitute? It sadly doesn't have the awesome dense body that clotted cream has). Cover the cream with your berries, and top it off with the second layer of cake. Voila! Gigantic cake sandwich!



What is healthy about this recipe: Fruit?

What is seasonal in this recipe: Not much--but this is a recipe to keep in mind for summer when the berries are a-plenty.

What I learned from this recipe: This was my first ever layered cake! I have always been fearful of the layer cake as slicing through a cake seems perilous, but it turns out that no! Slicing is easy!

What I will change next time: I don't think too many improvements are necessary, but it'd be worth experimenting with different fruit and berries.

Mint and Chunky Chocolate Brownies

This is a modified version of a brownie recipe that originally came to me through my dear friend Kate. I met Kate when we did our masters degrees together. During the lead-up to our exams, a group of close girlfriends from the course started a study group together, and we very intelligently deligated people not only to lead each session, but also to cook for each session. Good food makes studying for masters degrees so much more bearable. During this time, we all got to know Kate's brownies very well. And when Kate left Oxford and returned to America, and secured her recipe, because no other one will do.

I've made two major changes to it since. First, I ran into a problem with her original recipe, which calls for chocolate chips, when I was living in Bosnia--they do not have this "chocolate chips" thing there. So I had to resort to chopping up blocks of chocolate, which it turns out adds an amazing touch to dishes like this. It's nice partially because the chocolate in chocolate chips is often not quite as impressive as that of other baking chocolate (and you'll see that the key to this recipe is A Lot of Chocolate), and second because the chunks are big enough that they don't totally melt and so while biting into a piece of brownie that is already incredibly chocolaty, you get this surprise of rich chunks of chocolate, making the whole thing that much more decadent. My second change is that one day I randomly decided to add in a splash of peppermint extract, and it turned out fantastic! I almost always make it with peppermint extract now--again, this dish is rich enough that it can handle it, and the peppermint is actually quite subtle, and not at all overpowering, in flavour. It just gives it a little kick.

Brownies may seem like a lame recipe to put up on a food blog--I mean everyone already has a brownie recipe, right? And I know that everyone claims that theirs are the best. But everyone is wrong and you should try these brownies. These guys have won over my housemates (even the one who was allergic to chocolate!), have helped me through masters exams, have cheered up a bunch of women's helpline volunteers after a tough training session, and are one of the dishes my friends ask for the most. I love them.


The recipe:

Mint and Chunky Chocolate Brownies

3/4 cup unsifted flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter (I use a butter substitute that works just fine)
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons water
350g chocolate
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 325/160.
Combine flour, soda, and salt.
Throw butter, sugar, and water into a pot and cook until melted and combined. Remove the pot from the heat, add half of the chocolate, the vanilla and peppermint extracts, and stir until smooth. Transfer this mixture into a bowl and the eggs one at a time, beating well. Then add the flour mixture to all of this gradually.
Stir in the remaining chocolate.
Spread into a greased 9" square baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

What is healthy about this recipe: It's not that bad as far as desserts are concerned, if you use dark chocolate and a healthier butter alternative. But they're brownies, so I'm not really willing to care that much about their nutritional value! They're healthy because they make people so happy.

What is seasonal in this recipe: Chocolate is always in season in my heart.

What I learned from this recipe: I now almost always cut up bars of chocolate instead of using chocolate chips in baking. I'm convinced that the giant chunks add so much to these recipes.

What I will change next time: I keep wanting to try these brownies with dried cherries instead of the pepppermint. As for this version of the brownies, it does not need to change one bit.