Petits carrés au chocolat

Ne nous reposons donc pas sur nos lauriers, il y  encore du gâteau de Noël (sans laurier, d'ailleurs) à publier ! Pour changer, c'est plutôt une recette à manger rapidement, du moelleux plutôt que du sec. Une fournée me fait un moule à gratin très grand format du grand suédois, si vous êtes peu nombreux ou de petits mangeurs je vous conseille de ne faire que la moitié.
La recette d'origine était plus compliquée et comportait plus de beurre. Je l'ai dernièrement adaptée et simplifiée pour qu'elle ne soit pas trop longue à faire pour la capacité de concentration d'une enfant de deux ans, et le résultat est super ! Je l'ai aussi faite cuire plus longtemps que préconisé, la dernière fois ils n'étaient pas assez secs et se sont très mal gardés.

There's not time to rest, there are more Christmas cookies recipes to blog about ! For a change, here's one that should be eaten relatively quickly and does not need to be stored.

One batch fills one of my extra-large oven dishes from Ikea - if you don't want to make too much of this, I would advise you to halve the proportions.
 The original recipe includes quite a lot more butter and is more complicated. I simplified this time (so that baking time does not exceed one toddler's attention span) and left it longer in the oven - last year it was too moist and didn't store well as a result.

Petits carrés au chocolat - Small chocolate bites

250g de sucre - 9 oz sugar
125g de beurre - 4,5 oz butter
250g de chocolat noir - 9 oz dark chocolate
6 œufs - 6 eggs
250g de noisettes en poudre - 9 oz ground hazelnuts
100g de farine - 3,5 oz flour
1 cs de quatre-épices - 1tbsp mixed spices (ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, ground clove...)
4 cs de cédrat confit coupé en (petits) dés - 4 tbsp finely diced succade (candied citron)

Faire fondre au micro-ondes le beurre avec le chocolat (ça prend quelques minutes à moyenne puissance). Bien mélanger. Ajouter les épices, la poudre de noisette, le sucre, mélanger encore. Incorporer les œufs, puis la farine. Pour finir ajouter les fruits confits.
Verser dans un grand moule recouvert de papier cuisson. La pâte doit faire un centimètre à un centimètre et demi d'épaisseur environ. Enfourner à 180°C pour 30 à 40 minutes. Une fois refroidi, sortir du plat et découper en cubes.

Place the butter and roughly chopped chocolate in a bowl an dmicrowave on medium-heat for a few minutes, until the chocolate is melted. Stir. Add the spices, sugar and ground hazelnuts, stir some more. Add the eggs, then the flour, and lastly the candied citron.

Pour into a large dish lined with baking paper - the batter should be no more than half an inch high. Bake at 360°F for 30 to 40 minutes. Once it had cooled down, take the cake out of the dish and cut it into dices.

To each their own...

... chocolate mousse recipe !
Every person I've met had their particular recipe. Some had tried half a dozen before they found the one they claimed was THE recipe. Well, I'm no exception, I have my own recipe as well, combined for my own taste from several others.
Actually, this is not just a chocolate mousse recipe. This is one of my staple recipes to use leftover egg whites. Because one can get tired of meringue and still want to have some home-made mayonnaise.

Spiced chocolate mousse with only egg whites
9oz dark chocolate
4 egg whites
1 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch ginger
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup almond cream

Beat the egg whites until they are very stiff (they are when you can turn the bowl upside down and nothing moves). Still beating, add the sugar.
Cut the chocolate into small pieces, add 2 spoons of water and slowly melt it in the microwave. Add the spices and the cream. Gently fold the chocolate into the egg whites (not the other way round !) and place the mousse in the fridge for at least 6 hours.

This one has to sit in the cold for quite some time to set. It stays a little creamy (especially at the end of the bowl), but very light. As a good rule of thumb, one egg white makes for one portion, so this should serve four guests.

Easy peasy chocolate cake

This is the recipe that started it all, one I wanted to keep track of : just a simple chocolate cake. Not too chocolatey, quickly made and errr... well, quickly eaten, I have to admit. It didn't last 24 hours between just my husband and me. Oopsie ! But hey, chocolate + cake ? It can't be a bad start for a cooking blog !

A few words beforehand : this is unnecessarily complicated. If you want to make vanilla sugar, take a vanilla bean (if it has already been used, let it dry a little before using it. No, it doesn’t have to be brand new), put it in an air-tight container with sugar for a few weeks. That's all it takes. In most cases, you can substitute a small dash of vanilla extract.

Easy peasy chocolate cake

5 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon vanilla sugar (or a dash of vanilla extract)

7 oz dark, unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup vegetal butter substitute

In a large bowl, mix the eggs and sugar, add the flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar or vanilla extract. Put the butter and chocolate in a small bowl and melt them in the microwave - use the lowest possible heat and only microwave in short spurs, mixing thoroughly in between. Add the chocolate mix to the rest of the batter. You should now have a chocolatey creamy mix. don't eat it right away ! :)

Grease and flour a pan, pour the batter in, bake for 25 minutes at 355°F. Try to wait until you can touch it to eat it (we had trouble with that last point)