Tuesday 30 March 2010

Mireille Guiliano's Chocolate Cake

Because my sisters were asking me to give this recipe, I thought of typing it here now as well, both in Finnish and English! I don't have a picture of it, although I have been making it many times, mostly for guests, as it is rather heavey stuff to eat alone :D It's from Mireille Guiliano's French Women For All Seasons that followed the bestseller French Women Don't Get Fat. Well, despite the message of these books, everything enjoyed moderately is good for you, share this cake with other gourmands!

Jauhoton suklaakakku (8 annosta)
225g tummaa suklaata
225g huoneenlämpöistä suolatonta voita
4 isoa munaa
2,5 dl sokeria
1 dl Grand Marnieria tai muuta (appelsiininmakuista) likööriä
6 rkl maissitärkkelystä

Kuumenna uuni 175C. Voitele rengasvuoka tai 20-senttinen pitkulainen vuoka.
Paloittele suklaa ja sulata se vesihauteessa. Anna jäähtyä ja vaahdota sillä aikaa voi. Kaada jäähtynyt suklaa voin sekaan ja vatkaa kaksi minuuttia. Seoksen pitää olla sakeaa
Vaahdota munat eri kulhossa. Lisää sokeri vähitellen, koko ajan vatkaten, kunnes seos on vaaleaa ja sakeaa (n. 6-8 minuutin ajan).
Vatkaa suklaa-voiseos muna-sokerivaahdon sekaan ja lisää Grand Marnier. Vatkaa vielä minuutin ajan. Siivilöi maissitärkkelys taikinan joukkoon ja sekoita varovasti nostelemalla.
Kaada taikina vuokaan ja täytä se piripintaan. Peitä leivinpaperilla. Nosta vuoka uunivuokaan, joka on täytetty miltei kiehuvalla vedellä kakkuvuoan reunaan asti. Laita kuumaan uuniin 45-50 minuutiksi. Anna kakun jäähtyä ennen tarjoilua. Kumoa se tarjoiluvadille ja tarjoa sokeroimattoman kermavaahdon kanssa. Kakku on parhaimmillaan valmistamista seuraavana päivänä.

Itse olen tehnyt tavalliseen pyöreään kakkuvuokaan, enkä ole koskaan laittanut sitä vesihauteeseen. Joskus voisi kyllä kokeilla sitäkin vaihtoehtoa, ehkä kakusta tulisi silloin vieläkin parempi :) Koska ostin Grand Marnier -pullon vasta hiljattain, olen laittanut kakkuun myös lakkalikööriä ja marsalaviiniä, molemmat toimivat hyvin kakun maustajana. Onnistumisen takaamiseksi kannattaa ostaa mahdollisimman tummaa suklaata (min. 70%) ja oikeaa voita, lisäksi raakaruokosokeri, kuten Mascobado sopii suklaakakkuihin ihan loistavasti :)

And the same recipe in English!

Flourless Chocolate Cake (8 servings)

8 ounces (225g) dark chocolate
8 ounces (225g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for buttering pan
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar (around 2,5 dl)
1⁄4 cup Grand Marnier or orange-flavored liqueur
6 tablespoons cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush a 4-cup ring mold or a 9-inch springform pan with butter.

Chop the chocolate and melt it in a bowl set above a simmering pan of water. Remove and let cool. While the chocolate is cooling, cream the butter in a mixing bowl.

Pour the cooled, melted chocolate into the mixing bowl with the butter and beat for 2 minutes. The mixture should be thick. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs. Start adding the sugar, beating at high speed, until the eggs are thick and very pale yellow (6 to 8 minutes). Both the egg-sugar and chocolate-butter mixtures should have a similar consistency.

Beat the chocolate-butter mixture into the egg-sugar mixture and add the Grand Marnier. Beat another minute to mix. Sift the cornstarch into the batter and gently fold in.

Pour the batter into the prepared mold. Tap the mold on the counter to level and cover with buttered waxed paper. Put the mold in a baking dish and fill the dish with near-boiling water, almost up to the top of the mold. Put the baking dish with the mold in the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool. Turn upside down on a serving platter, but wait 30 minutes to remove the mold.

Serve with unsugared whipped cream.


I have never prepared this cake in a water-filled baking dish, but maybe I'll try once, maybe it makes this cake even better! Because I bought my first bottle of Grand Marnier only recently, I have baked this cake also with Finnish berry liquor and Italian Marsala wine, both versions were tasty alike. I think it's worth using good ingredients for this cake, so choose dark chocolate (min. 70%) and real butter, not margarine. Cane sugar, like Mascobado, works fine especially in chocolate pastries.

Barley cake


During some really busy weeks I haven't really had time for cooking, but I wanted to post something that I tried some weeks ago for the first time at home, a barley cake or a barley ring! In my childhood memories barley equals to barley porridge, sticky, sweet, oven-cooked yellowish mass of something unidentified extra-terrestial material, which I didn't like to eat even if I saw how my daddy carefully prepared it! However, now it's time to get rid of my barley fears, so I picked a recipe which I had seen being prepared on a climate-friendly vegetarian cooking course in January.

It seems that there's a growing interest in eating healthily, but also take other point of views into consideration: fair trade, organic, demeter, vegan-friendly and so on seem to be already widespread terms. Climate-friendly (or maybe in a broader sense environmentally friendly) food is considered to be vegetarian, simple, following the natural cycle of seasons, locally near your home grown, organic...in fact we should look at the whole process: less processed and overpacked food with tons of plastic, cooking big quantities at the same time, using all the stuff you have grown or bought etc. So that has an impact not only on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions, but aims to more sustainable, environmentally-friendly food production.

Here are some good links to read more about climate-friendly kitchen and labelling climate-friendly food in Sweden and about global picnic (in Finnish).

And here's the recipe. It's translated from the notes I got from the teacher of the cooking course, Päivi Mattila, an author of climate-friendly vegan cookbook (available in Finnish only: Härkäpapua sarvista)

2 tbsp oil
1 onion
0,5 tsp sugar
1 tsp paprika powder
0,25 tsp turmeric
100g piece of swede turnip
3 dl barley grits
1 vegetarian stock cube or 1 tbsp of vegetarian stock powder
8 dl water
1 tbsp dried basil
(0,5 dl roasterd hemp seed)

Peel and chop the onion, cut the swede turnip into small cubes.
Heat the oil in a kettle and fry the onion lightly. Add swede turnip cubes, paprika powder, turmeric and sugar. Cook for some minutes.
Add barley grits, vegetable stock and water, cook on a low heat for around 35 minutes. Stir every now and then, in the end swich off hotplate and let it cook without the lid for some five more minutes. Add basil and hemp seeds.
Rinse a round, deep cake mould with cold water and pour the barley mass into it. Press it tighly to the mould and let it cool for 5-10 minutes. Turn the cake out of mould on a plate and serve e.g. with vegetarian patties.

Tips: if you like spicy food, double the amount of spices and add some chili and cumin :) I used brown mascobado sugar and other organic ingredients. Wholegrain barley grits were ready in around 35 minutes, as mentioned in the recipe, but check the cooking time on the barley package.

Thursday 18 March 2010

Raspberry and blueberry pie


Where to begin? I have a head full of tasty things I want to share, but this first recipe ever is an old favourite..when I became a vegetarian around 10 years ago, the first cook book I bought was a Finnish veggie classic, Vegaanin Kasviskeittokirja (Vegans' cook book). I carefully read information about beans and protein, how to make tofu and replace eggs. Some of those recipes I have learnt by heart, like carrot-lentil soup with grated coconut. This is my favourite pie recipe, which I made yesterday with raspberries and blueberries:

150 g margarine
2 dl sugar
3 dl fine wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
some soy milk (or water)

3-4 dl blueberries and raspberries (frozen or fresh)
2-3 tbsp potato starch
2-3 tbsp sugar

Heat the oven to 200 C. Beat margarine and sugar together in a bowl. Mix the dry ingredients and add to sugar and margarine. Add also a drop of soy milk or water to form a solid dough. Place the dough in a prepared pie shell and prebake for 10 minutes, if you like. You can also add the filling right away: toss together the berries, starch and sugar, place evenly on the dough. Bake alltogether for 20-25 minutes until the crust is golden. Enjoy with a scoop of soy ice cream :)

I like to improvise in the kitchen and thus I followed the recipe otherwise, but I tossed also a can of curd (200 g) on it before baking. It's also a good variation, but not so vegan!

I usually bake with cane sugar (Mascobado) and like to replace some of the wheat flour with wholewheat flour, so all the bakings are a little bit browner than if you use white sugar & fine wheat flour.

Eventually...


Yes, I grew tired of listening to my friends nagging at me: why don't you have a food blog? You should have a food blog and share there those recipes you tell us about! SO, you won, and here I am, a fresh owner of a blog!
I wished to call it "happybean", mainly because it sounded childish enough and also because I am cooking vegetarian or vegan :) When I noticed that that name is taken, I was thinking what would describe my new blog in a proper way...even if I live in Finland, I plan to write in English (for my non-Finnish speaking friends) and most of the recipes are international, literally from all around the world. As I love travelling, but can't be on the road all the time, cooking is one way of experiencing those cultures that are far away, and to relive memories from places where I have been. So, this is the beginning...