Category: Vegetarian

Visinata chocolate cherry ice cream

Chocolate and cherries – the adult version.

Sozzled boozy cherries, whipped cream and chocolate – can anything go wrong? Well no not really. This is a recipe that can be made with a machine or without, with or without a blender too.  I used a damson ice cream recipe from the ever inspirational pink ice cream book “Lola’s” by Morfudd Richards.  Its one of those really great cookbooks – quirky, focused and full of information and inspiration. 

Ingredients

450g visinata leftover cherries ie the cherries that have been used to make Romanian visinata liqueur

100g apple or agave nectar or honey (a liquid helps the texture of the ice cream)

600ml 35% cream (“smantana dulce” if you are Romania, whipping cream if you are British and heavy cream if you are North American) 

A bar of dark chocolate (100g) chopped into chunks

How To

Squish the cherries a bit by blitzing on pulse.  Do be careful not to create a puree.  Alternatively chop them finely. 

If you do not have an ice cream machine whip the cream to soft peak stage and fold in the cherries, chocolate chunks and sweetener so you do not lose the peaks and air.  Now freeze this “mousse” in a plastic container and according to Morfudd, always with grease proof paper on top of the ice cream (its an amazing tip). 

If using a machine you don’t need to whip the cream just mix the ingredients in a bowl and place in your ice cream maker and churn according to the instructions. 

Serve with sour cherries just for excess. Don’t eat this alone. 

Brownie with “Visinata” cherries

Old school, chocolately, sticky and moist – and did I tell you that you only need one bowl to make it in? Chocolate love it is.  Add handfuls of your favourite things like tipsy cherries, nuts or bits of biscuit to create your “signature brownie” – this has has sozzled cherries in it which are left from the making of “Visinata” the traditional Romanian cherry licqueur.

Gizmos

1 deepish tin – work out the volume math thing – lined with baking paper and brushed with melted butter

1 heavy base very large saucepan – a Le Creuset is absoluetly perfect – preferably with curved edges

Ingredients for a 14×9 x 1.5 inch tin

200g dark chocolate 70% cocoa min

250g butter

5 eggs (4 very large ones)

2 tsp vanilla extract

200g plain flour (or gluten free mix – Brownies are very good made with GF flour)

30g cocoa

400g sugar

1tsp salt (I never put salt in my baking but here I do)

How To

If your cake batters usually turn out like glue then Brownies are your thing because “glue” is what is needed here

Melt the butter and chocolate in your saucepan very gently and now remove that saucepan from the heat

Quickly add the eggs and whisk them in with a fork

Add all the dry ingredients until everything is incorporated and the mixture is like glue

Arrange any ingredients you want to add in the tray eg sozzled cherries and pour over the batter. Let it settle.  You can help it by spreading it with a knife dipped in hot water (so it does not stick as you spread it).

Bake at 170C (160C if you have a fierce fan assisted oven) until a toothpick comes out clean – approx 25-30 minutes

Best eaten 1 day later if you can resist.

The Steve Cake – banana loaf all snazzled up

 

This is my go to banana loaf or banana muffin recipe.  It uses up the sad little brown bananas you cant quite bring yourself to eat on account of them turning brown (dont even think about making it with un ripe ones because you will be making a cake with starch not fruit sugar). Because of the over ripe bananas not much sugar is needed and it is made with oil not butter so overall a pretty virtuous affair.  The method is a one bowl minimal mixing one so simplicity itself.  I always find chocolate and banana irresistible so I sometimes drizzle chocolate over the cake or put chocolate chunks inside. 

Ingredients for 12-16 muffins or 1 loaf cake (Double for the bundt cake)

  • 300g wholemeal flour
  • 3 bananas very ripe  (I freeze them) mashed or blended
  • 2 eggs
  • 75ml olive oil or sunflower oil
  • 100g sugar or 75g fructose
  • 250ml buttermilk or “kefir” or Romanian “lapte batut” 
  • 15g (3 tsp) baking powder
  • 5g (1tsp) baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) 
  • optional 200g walnut pieces/ chopped chunks of dark chocolate
  • if you must…a pinch of cinnamon 

To decorate the above cake, the quantities were doubled and 200g of dark chocolate melted with 2 tablespoons of olive oil to drizzle over, 200g almonds were toasted and chopped to sprinkle over

How To

Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl

Carefully add the wet ingredients

Mix (I use a metal spoon) until the mix just comes together but do not over mix as this creates a tough leathery like cake

Spoon the fairly liquid batter/ mix into your tin/ mould

I bake this cake fairly gently at 160C as I don’t want the crust forming too fast and then blocking the rise. So for the muffins 16-18 mins and the bigger cakes 30-45 mins – until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Tips and Improvs

It is close to a bread so freezes brilliantly. Take out of the freezer and eat the muffins as breakfast on the run.