some kind of wonderful

So I cooked the tamarillos. Lightly poached in water with a little pomegranate syrup (I own pomegranate syrup purely because I couldn’t walk past something that sounded so fine in the supermarket recently) and some cardamon pods. It wasn’t looking good, for a day of kitchen creativity (the man of the house was home unwell, and had proclaimed he had no appetite at all). I decided I wouldn’t let this deter me. I think I’d become a little fixated with the tamarillos, since my last post they had become a small symbol of hope in the fruit bowl. The big idea was to poach them (as above) and serve them with greek yogurt, drizzled with honey and scattered with almonds and fresh mint. Just writing it down sounds some kind of wonderful doesn’t it?

Unfortunately things didn’t quite go that way. It turned out that when the man of the house said he had no appetite he actually meant it, regardless of what kind of fancy shenanigans I pulled with a tree tomato. So I ate a couple straight from the poaching pan and put the rest to languish in a bowl in the fridge, awaiting happier times. In truth I haven’t been able to face them since then. Optimism and I aren’t very comfortable companions.

Chocolate cake, on the other hand, will always be my trusted friend. After putting the tamarillos to one side I made a quick cake with milk chocolate, prunes, blueberries and almonds. I’ve made loads of versions of this cake (just search the archives of this site under prunes – it’s pretty much the only thing I do with prunes). But I’m working on the ultimate recipe , the top of the chocolate prune cake pops. When I’ve got it, I’ll post it up on Welly Kitchen. This one was a decent port on a stormy day.

The basics of this cake (as far as I remember them : 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup prunes (poached together in a little water and then blended to a paste). 50 g melted milk chocolate (usually use dark but ran out), 70g melted butter. 3 eggs, 1 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup rice flour, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 cup yogurt and 1 tsp of baking powder. Beat the whole lot up any which way you like and bake for about half an hour at 180.

there may be trouble ahead brownies

When the going gets tough, my first instinct is to panic. Not very helpful when you are a mum of four. My second instinct is to bake something with chocolate in (although that’s not an instinct I reserve for a crisis, as you know).

Of course, as is always the case, ever since I wote my rather up-beat (totally out of character) optimistic post about sleep deprivation then things have  been falling apart around here. The six year old has a nasty case of the chicken pox (meaning his three younger brothers will have it too, within a couple of weeks) and the man of the house is feeling under the weather. So we’ve been eating lots of virtuous healthful stuff..lots of ice cream ..the odd lollypop, and absolutely no cod-liver oil (my attempt to convince B that a spoonfull of fermented fish oil would do him the world of good were spectacularly unsuccessful).

To calm the situation I made these cake/brownies, because B likes the chocolate prune combo and he has rather been calling the shots today.  Started off by stewing half a cup of prunes with half cup blueberries, a couple of spoons of chia seeds. Melted about 50g dark chocolate and 50g butter over the top. Whisked 4 eggs with 1/4 cup of raw sugar (really seeing how low I can go with the sugar now.. )  with 2 cups ground almonds and 1/2 cup cocoa powder. Blended the prunes etc and chocolate. Mixed it all together with a couple of spoons of yogurt and baked it for about 30 minutes. It’s far from being the best cake I’ve ever made (funny how a bit of stress really seeps into the baking .. or is that just me? )  but if nothing else the act of mixing the thing up, melting the chocolate, and smelling it baking, went a little way towards calming my nerves. Sadly my nerves were almost immediately shattered again by young T dropping a dozen eggs on the wooden floor (whilst attempting to lend me a hand). Eggs are no fun to try and clean off a wooden floor.

So that sums up day two of this little adventure in spots and pox and stuff. It’s going to be a long few weeks. If you’d like to cheer me up you can pop over here and give my little blog a vote. You don’t need to register on the site, you just need to scroll down and down and down until you find me.. I think I’m cruising around the 200 mark. You can vote once a day for the next few days if you’re really game. I’m not particularly a competition type of person but I impulsively registered for this and it will make me smile to see a few votes by my name amidst the chaos of the days ahead. Thanks.

skinny chocolate and prune brownies (gluten-free)

I remember the first time a followed a traditional brownie recipe I was a bit shocked at the quantities of chocolate and sugar – it was a little off-putting even for a die hard chocoholic like me. Since then I’ve been faffing around with (slightly) healthier brownie concoctions – just experimenting really. This batch rides the rather successful prune and chocolate wave.

50g melted butter beaten together with half cup soft brown sugar and a large spoon of sour cream (would normally use yogurt here but we’d run out) Meanwhile cook half a cup or so of prunes in a little water and melt some chocolate (I used about 70g dark for these) above the prunes. When the prunes are soft and the chocolate is melted blend the 2 together with the prune juice (pit the prunes first) this makes a thick chocolate paste. Beat this into the butter / sugar mix then add 2 eggs, 1 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup rice flour, 1/2 cup cocoa. Bake for about 20 mins. I made a little ganache out of some milk chocolate (melted with a lttle of the sour cream)  for the top.

chocolate, prune, chia and almond cakes with chocolate yogurt icing (gluten free).

TThis is my second chocolate and prune baking endeavor this week – partly because the kids have been asking for a repeat and partly because I had a partly used bag of really good prunes that I knew if I didn’t use would languish somewhere and get forgotten about. So after school today I had 3 kiddie helpers with egg cracking being the most popular task.

Started by stewing the prunes until soft enough to pop the stones out, meanwhile covered some chia seeds with water (maybe half a cup). The seeds kind of solidify into a thick grey paste which it doesn’t pay to look too long at. Put the prunes, juice and chia gunk into the mini-blender (this wouldn’t be that necessary a step but my kids get a bit suspicious of lumps).

Mix about 70g melted butter with 1/2 cup soft brown sugar and then add a scoop or 2 of yogurt (this part was being managed by the kids so difficult to be too precise with the measurements). Beat in the chia / prune paste. Add just over 1/2 cup of cocoa, 1 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup rice flour and 3 eggs and beat the whole lot quickly together.

Bake in muffin cases – took slightly longer than I was expecting – maybe 20 mins (checked a couple of times until the a knife came out clean).

Obviously an un-iced version of this would be the healthier choice but not quite as nice. Given there’s a ‘weather bomb’ (whatever that is  but doesn’t sound too good) heading for Wellington later then it doesn’t seem to be a moment for health to trump icing and so we melted down some chocolate and stirred in some yogurt then beat in some sieved icing sugar.