Piece of Cake: How to Cheat at Baking

So you've had a few people over for dinner and you haven't made a pudding. It would normally take at least half an hour to make a chocolate sponge, but I have managed to get it down to less than 16mins and make a party piece out of the process.

Some may say that this isn't really baking, to them I say, 'move with the times.' Using a microwave, the main time saving device in this recipe, is no different than using a modern oven would be to traditional bakers of the past.

This recipe incorporates a simple chocolate sauce because one of the disadvantages of this technique is that the cake can be a little dry. The other disadvantage (or you could look at it as an advantage, depending on your point of view) is that it doesn't keep at all and will need to be eaten immediately after 'baking'. Don't worry, get this out at the tea table and there will not be any left for the birds, I assure you.

So if you thought that baking was a long and complicated process try this one, I challenge you to do a sub 16min cake!

Brevity in baking.

Saturday Baking

Saturday is a busy time in the kitchen, mainly because once the oven is on I have time to throw a few other things in too. Today I made a simple roll (these simple breads just keep on coming) based on pizza dough and popular in Italian bakeries on Saturdays due to their good shelf-life; they'll still taste fresh on Sundays when the bakeries are closed. For this reason, and because I made up the recipe myself before my wife informed me of this fact, I shall call it Saturday Bread and shall not provide an overnight recipe; you can adapt it yourself if necessary. To make the knotted rolls when shaping the dough, just roll out a piece of dough into a sausage shape about 30cm long and tie into a knot, as it proves it will fill out into a roll.



While I had the oven on I thought I would also do a simple vanilla sponge cake, especially as I had brought some vanilla essence back from Zanzibar the like of which I had never smelt before. As it turned out I could have used a little more vanilla, but filled with strawberry jam the cake itself was nice enough.





This evening I also provided pizzas for a few friends. I have included a photo here due to popular demand (Frutti di Mare, or seafood to you and me) and I shall also provide a link to the recipe as I have finally managed to write one rather than just keeping it in my head. Notes on the details of cooking and handling pizza can be found here.

So a busy day in the kitchen for the baker, but the products were well worth the small amount of effort involved!

Bake big.

Cake

From my posts it may look as if I haven't been doing any baking recently, but don't let that fool you. On Thursday I baked the focaccia mentioned in my previous post, Friday is pizza day like last week, closely followed by Saturday's ciabatta. These all kept me busy, but as I had already posted on them there wasn't much point duplicating them.

While I had the oven on baking ciabatta on Saturday morning I thought I should get some cake in. The ginger cake mentioned previously had all but disappeared into the black hole known as my stomach and so I set my hands to a chocolate sponge to see me through at least the start of the working week.

I have recently adapted my sponge recipe since I found a way to make it even more moist and delicious than it used to be. The trick is in weighing the eggs and making them up to the same weight as the other ingredients with milk (or more egg if you can split it). This makes for a good sponge and adding 25g / 1oz cocoa (not drinking chocolate! Look at the ingredients if you're not sure, cocoa only has one: cocoa) in place of the equivalent of the flour makes it chocolatey and, if I'd had some oranges, the grated rind of one added with the marge and sugar makes my favourite yet: chocolate orange, mmmmmmmm.

Treat your taste-buds.