Chocolate Cake with Olive Oil and Sea Salt

This cake is amazing. Moist, chocolatey, with a hint of the olive oil and sea salt that just brings it to another level and makes it a very indulgent, adult cake.

Ingredients

200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
175g unsalted butter
4 eggs
150g caster sugar
60g plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

For the ganache -

400ml double cream
200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Grease and line a 19 cm round springform cake tin with parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate and butter together in saucepan on a low heat, stirring constantly until completely melted.

In a large bowl, beat the sugar and eggs until pale and fluffy. Add in the flour, a tablespoonful at a time, along with the baking powder and sea salt.

Fold in the melted chocolate and butter mixture and the olive oil until no streaks of flour are visible.

Bake cake for 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes away cleanly. Cool on a wire rack before removing from the cake tin.

While the cake is cooking you can prepare the ganache.

Place the cream in a saucepan and heat it just to a simmer, don't let the cream boil. Then, remove from heat and add the chocolate but don't stir it until the chocolate has melted. It will help the chocolate melt if you break it up into pieces first.

Place in the fridge for an hour or so to cool and thicken.

When the cake and the ganache have cooled, cut the cake horizontally so you have two equal discs.

Put half of the ganache on the bottom half, spreading carefully with a palette knife to make it even, and place the other half cake on top.

Put the rest of the ganache on top of the cake and spread evenly down the cake’s top and sides.

Keep the cake in the fridge, taking it out about an hour before you want to serve it.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are what I think of as grown-up chocolate chip cookies. They have a lovely, rich flavour from the browned butter and the sea salt stops them from being too sweet.

Ingredients

250g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp sea salt
200g butter
220g soft dark brown sugar
50g granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
200g dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 160C.

In a saucepan, melt the butter and continue to cook until it has gone a nutty brown colour and has a toasted caramel smell. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Beat together the sugars and the melted butter in a large mixing bowl. Add in the vanilla and the egg and egg yolk and beat until well mixed.

To this mixture, add the flour and bicarbonate of soda and mix until just combined. Sprinkle the sea salt and chocolate chips into the cookie dough and mix again.

Place the cookie dough mixture into the fridge for 5 minutes to cool.

When you're ready to bake the cookies, take about 3 tbsp worth and form into a ball in your hands. Place on a cool, ungreased baking sheet. Keep the cookies 3 inches apart as they will spread.

Bake for 13-15 minutes in the oven until the edges are crisp but the middle is still slightly soft.

Carefully transfer them while hot to a wire rack to cool.

Millionaire's Shortbread

This is a typically Scottish treat in that it has far more sugar than is at all necessary! It's delicious but very rich so make sure to cut it into small squares.

The key to Millionaire's Shortbread is in the thickness of the layers. You want a decent sized layer of quite dry shortbread on the bottom to give structure, followed by a layer of caramel twice the height of the base. Then a thin layer of chocolate on top - not too thick or the caramel will squidge out the sides when you bite into it.

Ingredients

225g plain flour
75g caster sugar
375g salted butter
1 (379g) can sweetened condensed milk
4 tablespoons golden syrup
250g chocolate ( I usually use 1/2 milk and 1/2 dark so the chocolate isn't too sweet)

Preheat oven to 170C.

Put the flour and sugar into a mixing bowl and rub in 175g of butter, until the mixture looks like damp sand.

Press the shortbread mixture down firmly into the base of a buttered 8 x 8 square cake tin and make sure it's even. Prick the surface with a fork and cook for five minutes, then lower the temperature to 150C, and cook for a further 30 minutes until pale golden and no longer doughy.

Allow the crust to cool in the tin.

Melt the remaining butter in a heavy bottomed pan, then add the condensed milk and golden syrup. Whisk the mixture well until the butter is thoroughly incorporated.

Heat on medium 6-7 minutes until boiling, stirring constantly. The mixture may bubble up when it's boiling, just lift the pan off the heat until it goes down. The caramel is ready when it's thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon and turned a light golden brown.

Pour the caramel over the shortbread and leave to cool at room temperature and then place in the fridge for 1 hr.

Melt chocolate and pour over the set and chilled caramel mixture and leave to cool again.

Once set, cut the caramel shortbread into squares. You should get at least 24 from this.

Brownies

I have mixed feelings about brownies. When they're good, they can be an easy crowd-pleasing snack. When they're bad they can be either rock hard or so gooey that they feel uncooked.

This recipe satisfies everything that I want in a brownie; rich and chewy.

If you don't like coffee you can replace it with extra flour as it does give the brownies quite the caffeine kick! Use as fine a grind of coffee as you can.

Ingredients

200g 70% cocoa chocolate
115g butter
40g cocoa powder
3 large eggs
285g granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
200g plain flour
28g ground coffee


Preheat oven to 170C.

Melt both chocolate and butter together in pan on the hob, stirring frequently and removing from heat as soon as it's melted. Stir in cocoa powder.

Whisk eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt together in a mixing bowl.

Add the melted chocolate mixture and beat well.

Add the flour and stir until just blended.

Pour into an 8 inch square buttered pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes away with a couple of just-moist crumbs attached. You want the centre to be cooked, but not over-cooked.

Cool on a wire rack and cut. You can easily get 16 brownies from this.

Chocolate Beetroot Cake

This cake was inspired by a dream I had where Stephen Fry made a chocolate and beetroot cake for me. I had never heard of that combination before, but a little digging came up with this recipe. Sadly, Stephen Fry didn't serve it to me when I made it!

It's not for the fainthearted as the uncooked beetroot has quite a strong, earthy taste but it makes a change from plain chocolate cake.

Ingredients

250g butter, softened
325g dark muscavado sugar
4 medium eggs
250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa
300g fresh beetroot, finely shredded
115g 70% cocoa chocolate, grated
1/2 tsp vanilla essence


Preheat oven to 180C.

In a bowl, mix together the softened butter and muscovado sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat the eggs and add them to the butter mixture gradually, mixing well.

Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into the cake batter and stir well.

Add the grated beetroot to the cake mix together with the grated chocolate. Stir well to combine and add the vanilla essence.

Transfer the mixture to a buttered 23cm round cake tin and bake for 50-65 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes away cleanly.

This is quite a moist cake so depending on your oven, it may take a bit longer - don't worry, just cover the top of the cake loosely with foil to prevent it from burning.

Ho-Ho-Hot Chocolate

I had never thought of making my own hot chocolate mix before. Which is crazy as I love the spiced hot chocolates that come out at Christmas time and have panic-bought loads of packets in the past so that I have enough to take me through January!

This is so easy as to almost not be a recipe. You do need a food processor to make it otherwise the chocolate would be a nightmare to grind finely enough.

Ingredients

150g good-quality 70% cocoa chocolate
125g Green and Blacks cocoa powder
140g granulated sugar
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground clove

Break up the chocolate into individual squares.

Place all ingredients in a food processor fitted with a metal blade and process until mixture is powdery.

Be careful not to overprocess as the mixture will get hot and begin to melt!

Store in an airtight container for up to 6 months. To turn it into hot chocolate, add 2 tbsp of the mix to a mug of hot milk.