Lemon soufflés

Me with my lemon soufflé

Am I brave or just plain foolhardy?!

At an unknown time too early on a Saturday morning (past midday) I attempted to make lemon soufflés.

I used the Mary Berry's recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mary_berrys_lovely_lemon_73914

I had to slightly improvise on the recipe as I didn't have enough cream or a measuring jug. (This is what happens in the recession.)

They appeared to look soufflé like, but tasted slightly like lemony scrambled egg which was surprisingly edible, and dare I say,TASTY?!

Smoothies

I absolutely adore smoothies and they are just so easy to make. Here is my favourite recipe at the moment.

Banana and mandarin smoothie (Sunshine Smoothie?!)

-a drained tin of mandarins (the juice is too good to not have by itself)

-1 or 2 bananas

-any juice you have (I used sainsburys multi-vitamin juice)

Put the mandarins and bananas in a blender and blend.

Then add as much juice as you want to make it thin or thick.

Slurp away!

My favourite meals and foods (at the moment!)

Starters

Deep-fried breadcrumbed camembert

Bruschetta

Pumpkin soup

Mains

Pan-fried duck breast (rare), creamy herb mash, roasted cherry tomatoes, red wine jus

Desserts

ALL

Petit-fours

Macarrons

Florentines

My guilty pleasure

My gulity pleasure (or one of them a least) is a hash brown. Fried, crispy, hot, tasty, this is the formula for an evil food.

This is my recipe for a healthier hash-brown which to be honest tastes more like a rosti. Either way it's a delicious treat.

Rosti/ healthy hash brown
For every 4 large potatoes, have 1 chunkily sliced white onion and 2 cloves of pressed garlic.
Boil the potatoes until they are half-cooked.
Put the potatoes under cold water to stop them cooking.
Grate the potatoes into a large mixing bowl.
Mix the grated potatoes with the sliced onion and garlic.
Either make into small patties, or cook as a whole like a Spanish tortilla in a large pan.
Fry until the sides are crispy and all of the potato is cooked.
This serves 4 greedy people, or 6 respectable sized portions.

Alterations
Add your favourite herb mixes to change the flavour of the rosti.
Fry in goose-fat for an indulgent version- but if you were to do this, you might as well go the whole haul and deep-fry.
Add grated carrots and courgettes for a slight bubble'n'squeak style.

The great thing(s) about this recipe...
All the basic ingredients for this recipe are essential dry store-cupboard ingredients.
It doesn't take long to make this guilty-free classic British dish.

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CAKE

The godfather of all cakes, it doesn't get any better than a 3-layered multiple chocolate cake. This is one of those recipes that it is worth slaving away in the kitchen for hours for. Are you ready? Take a deep breath.

Triple Chocolate Cake- serves 12. (Or 1 depending on how you look at it...)

Ingredients:
450g self-raising flour
300g light brown sugar or 350g caster sugar- light brown sugar is sweeter, creamier, and richer
9 eggs- separated
450g butter- softened
150g white chocolate
150g milk chocolate
450g dark chocolate
300ml double cream

Steps:
-Firstly, preheat the oven to 180degrees celsius.
-Next, cream together your sugar and softened butter. You could take a shortcut and melt the butter, but then the cake tastes more oily.
-Add the yolks and flour to the butter-sugar mixture. For a lighter cake, sieve the flour.
-Whisk the whites of the egg until soft peaks are formed, and beat into the mixture. It is not necessary to be gentle, because you're not making a meringue, so you don't want all of the air.
-Leave the cake mixture aside, and in three separate bowls melt the white chocolate, the milk chocolate, and 150g of the dark chocolate.
-It is preferable to melt the chocolate in a bain-marie, because the chocolate is extremely unlikely to burn. Remember that if you use a microwave to melt the chocolate, put it on in 10 second blasts. Also, white chocolate takes shorter to melt, and shorter to burn as it contains much more cocoa butter.
-Put a third of the mixture into each of the bowls of melted chocolate and mix. You don't have to makle sure they're the same colour throughout as it can be quite nice if is has a marble effect.
-Into 3 greased 23cm tins, put the chocolate cake mixtures. The cake mixtures should cook in the oven for 20 minutes, and they should then be skewered to see how much longer they need.
-When a few crumbs come out on the skewer, the cake is ready to be taken out.
-Put some sheet on top of a plate, ready to assemble the cakes.
-Boil the cream on the hob, and when it has boiled, pour over the remaining dark chocolate.
-Continuously mix until all the chocolate has melted and the mixture is one colour throughout.
-If you want, add 25g unsalted butter to the chocolate-cream mixture- this makes the ganache glossy.
-Pour some of the ganache generously over the bottom base. I tend to put dark on the bottom, milk in the middle, and white on the top. Make sure that all the sides are covered in ganache and you cannot see any sponge. Repeat this stage with the middle base and then the top base. You will most likely not use up all of the ganache- you can have leftover ganache with chocolate for a tasty treat.
-Chill the cake in the fridge until the chocolate has set. The coldness of the fridge should not affect the texture of the cake if it has been fully covered with ganache.
-Devour!


Alterations:
Add coffee to the mixture, or orange zest to the mixture and orange liqueur to the ganache.

Tips:
Whenever you make a ganche, remember to always use equal quantities of chocolate and cream.
Never use milk chocolate for a ganache, because there is not enough cocoa in it. The chocolate ganache would turn out being extrememly creamy with no taste of chocolate.




Remember, copyright of Chloé Koura.

Apologies!

Sorry for not posting for ages- i've had lots of exams, honest! As a forgiveness, I will tell you how to make my signature recipe. Look at the following post!