We Should Cocoa again! This month’s challenge is hosted by Elizabeth, and the theme is chocolates and truffles. I was looking forward to trying a recipe for rum-flavoured chocolate balls that were based on grated chocolate (not melted!) and ground almonds (not crushed cookies!), but unfortunately the recipe was quite disastrous, and I had to turn said balls into cupcakes instead (fragile texture but great taste, so hurrah!). So, that was that. I had no plan B and no special ingredients in the cupboard. What can one do? Well, one can almost always find the ingredients to make Swedish chocolate balls, chokladbollar, the coconut covered delights. Except now, as I had no coconut. Then again, I thought, chokladbollar are not strictly speaking a chocolate confection: they contain cocoa powder. What if I go ahead and chocolefy them a little? Ta-da: this recipe. I really like these. I adore the chewy texture provided by the oats, and more chocolate can only make chokladbollar better.




Chocolate Oat Balls




150 g butter, at room temperature
200 ml caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
350 ml rolled oats
2 tablespoons strong brewed coffee
30 g dark chocolate, melted




grated chocolate, for rolling the balls in (In my frenzy I forgot to take note of how much chocolate I grated! My educated guess is around 50 g.)




Beat butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy.
Add vanilla sugar and cocoa powder; beat until well combined.
Add oats and mix well.
Add coffee and melted chocolate; mix. If the mixture is too wet, add a little oats; if the mixture is too dry, add a touch of coffee.
Form into balls and roll balls in grated chocolate. Keep refrigerated.




 

 

Our purple gooseberries are quite tart and strong-tasting this year, so I’m thinking they’ll make a particularly wonderful and flavourful gooseberry liqueur. However, as I obviously needed to bake something too, I figured their tart side might fare well in a recipe that originally calls for rhubarb. So, I took the rhubarb dream bar recipe and ran with it! (How boring am I?! It’s the previous post, for Pete’s sake!) I defend myself by saying that these are really good. Really.




I used a potato masher to break the berries for the filling – chopping them would be ideal (less juice!), but I was altogether too lazy to chop up 750 ml of gooseberries, having already topped’n'tailed the whole lot. I think chopping the berries will translate to a “drier” filling which might consequently bake a little faster- when I get around trying it, I will let you know what happens.




Very Gooseberry Squares




Crust:
225 ml all-purpose flour
75 ml powdered sugar
80 g butter




Filling:
2 eggs
250 ml caster sugar
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
750 ml gooseberries




If you want to use chopped gooseberries, start by chopping ‘em up.
Preheat oven to 175 C.
Line a 23 cm (9”) square pan with foil and grease.
In food processor or using a hand mixer, mix together the crust ingredients.
Press mixture into the prepared pan.
Bake crust for 10 minutes.
Prepare filling: Beat together the eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla and salt. Fold in chopped gooseberries – or add whole gooseberries in the batter and mush them up a little with either a potato masher (making sure you don’t make jam – just break each berry a little) or your hands (messy but you have more control).
Spread filling mixture on the hot crust. Return the cake to oven and continue to bake until done and golden on top, about 50 minutes.




One more rhubarby thing for the summer of ’13! I actually made this about a month ago, but never got around posting it – but better late than never, eh?

Unlike my usual, tarter, TLSO-friendly rhubarb recipes, this one is quite sweet. A simple sugar cake-like batter enveloping rhubarb slices on a delicate, crumbly crust – dreamy, dreamy indeed! Eat the bars within a day or two of baking them: the moisture from the rhubarb slices begins to change the texture of the bars over time.

 

Rhubarb Dream Bars




Crust:
225 ml all-purpose flour
100 ml powdered sugar
120 g butter, softened




Filling:
2 large eggs
225 ml sugar
50 ml flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
400-500 ml thinly sliced rhubarb




Preheat oven to 175 C. Lightly oil a 23 cm (9”) square pan.
In food processor or using a hand mixer, mix together the crust ingredients.
Press mixture into the prepared pan.
Bake crust for 12-15 minutes (it should still be quite pale).
Meanwhile, beat together eggs, sugar, flour and salt.
Fold in rhubarb.
Spread filling mixture on the hot crust. Return the cake to oven and bake 35 minutes longer.
Let cool before cutting into bars.




Next up, blackcurrants! One of our blackcurrant bushes produced particularly big and tasty berries this year; the other one apparently decided to take the year off.

 

I decided that the almondy yumminess that is tosca topping would likely work with a blackcurrant pie too, and it does. Nom. I didn’t add any sugar into the filling as I wanted this to be very-berry’y, and I think that the slightly tart and delish berries worked really well with the sweet topping (not to mention the accompanying vanilla sauce!). Do feel free to add sugar, if you like things sweeter!

 

Tosca Blackcurrant Pie




Crust:
250 ml all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
100 g butter, softened
1 egg yolk




Filling:
500 ml fresh blackcurrants
2 tablespoons blackcurrant liqueur (crème de cassis)
2 teaspoons potato starch
(sugar, if you like – you will also need to use more potato starch as sugar means more liquid!)




Tosca topping:
100 g butter
75 ml sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
50 ml milk
100 g flaked almonds




Grease a 24 cm pie plate.
To make crust: Combine flour and sugar in a bowl. Mix in butter until crumbly. Add egg yolk and mix well. Press into the bottom and sides of the pie plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 200 C. Bake the crust for 12-15 minutes or until just beginning to turn golden around the edges.
Increase oven temperature to 225 C.
To make filling: Combine blackcurrants, blackcurrant liqueur and potato starch (and sugar, if using) in a bowl. Pour mixture into the pre-baked pie crust.
To make topping: Melt butter in a saucepan over low-medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add sugar, flour, milk and flaked almonds. Bring the mixture gently to boil, stirring every now and then. Remove from the heat as soon as the first boiling bubbles appear!
Immediately spread topping over the berries.
Bake at 225 C for 10-15 minutes, or until the topping begins to turn golden.
Serve lukewarm with ice cream or vanilla sauce.