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Sunday, 29 April 2012

Chocolate and Amaretti Slice



Dom is celebrating the second birthday of Belleau Kitchen, his superb food and cooking blog.  So Random Recipes #15 has gone all cakey- bakey in a birthday kind of way! 
 



I piled up a selection of my baking books, praying that the macaron book would not be the one picked, anyway I needn't have worried because the random number picker chose #1 which is The Best of Cadbury Chocolate Cooking.

Opening the book it fell open at a page 77 with a choice of four delicious recipes.  I chose to make 'Bournville and Amaretti Slice' but as I didn't use Bournville chocolate but a generic brand which is why I have called it  

Chocolate and Amaretti Slice

175g Amaretti biscuits
3 tablespoons Amaretto Di Saronno liqueur
275g plain dark chocolate, broken into pieces
300ml double cream
75g unsalted butter, softened
50g caster sugar

1. Line a 500g loaf tin with clingfilm.  Crush the biscuits into small pieces.  Put them in a bowl and pour over the liqueur.
2. Melt the chocolate and half the cream.  Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Stir in the chocolate and cream mixture, then the remaining cream.
3. Spoon about one third of the chocolate mixture into the tin.  Scatter half of the biscuit pieces over the top. Spread half of the remaining mixture, then add the remaining biscuits. Finish with the remaining chocolate mixture.
4. Chill the chocolate cake over night until set.  Invert on to a plate and peel off the film.
5.  You can decorate by creating scribbly lines with melted chocolate piped across the top. Or you can just slice and serve because it's quite rich enough as it is!

This is totally indulgent, rich and needs to be served in very small slices.  If I made it again, I think I would simply mix the biscuits into the chocolate, because it does tend to crumble a bit when you cut it.  The liqueur comes through strongly so it's a grown up slice, but you could use orange juice and if you don't like almond flavours at all, then other crunchy biscuits like gingersnaps would probably work just as well. 

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posted by Janice @ 19:05 17 Comments

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

Chocolate Dipped Cannoli


I was thrown a little by the theme for this month's 'We should Cocoa', (the blogger challenge run by Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog and Chele at Chocolate Teapot) it's Chocolate and Cheese!  I've been mulling this over since it was announced, trying to think what I could make.  Then I remembered the ricotta and chocolate filled cannoli that my SIL used to bring to us from a Sicilian Bakery in Edinburgh.

I did a bit of research online, but decided that, rather than making the biscuit shells, I would use filo pastry.  I bought the pastry and then it occurred to me that I had no idea what I would use to create the tubes...but you will see that I did manage to come up with something.

Chocolate Dipped Cannoli
1 pack Filo pastry
25g butter, melted
Tub of Ricotta cheese
50g dark chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp Amaretto liqueur
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp icing sugar

You can get two large cannoli from two sheets of filo pastry, they did come out quite large but would be quite fiddly to make smaller.


Heat the oven to 200C or 180C (fan).  Lay out one sheet of filo, brush with melted butter and lay another sheet on top.  


Using a small plate, cut out two circles per sheet, or more if you are making them smaller.  Brush them with more butter.


So here is my solution for making the cannoli tubes, rolled up aluminium foil! Roll the circle round the foil with the butter side out and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes until the tubes are golden brown. Leave to cool then carefully remove the foil.


Mix the ricotta, 25g of the chocolate, the Amaretto and the sugar.  Fill a disposable piping bag without a nozzle and snip off the end. Fill from both ends with the cheese mixture.


Melt the rest of chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water and dip the end of the cannoli into the melted chocolate.  Place onto a plate covered with baking paper and place in the fridge for about an hour until the chocolate and filling are set. Dust with icing sugar.



I was really pleased with the way the Cannoli turned out, they were totally delicious, the crunch of the filo and the soft sweetness of the ricotta mixture with a hit of dark chocolate.  These ones were a little on the big size, so I may try and make some smaller ones in future.


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posted by Janice @ 20:24 23 Comments