MINI BAKED CHEESECAKE WITH FRESH MANGO 

I am not a big fan of cheesecakes – I would rather eat cheese on its own – but out of the blue, I had a craving for cheesecake. Maybe because I saw this recipe at taste.com.au. I tell myself I am not influenced by pretty pictures, but in this case I was. For shame!

But upon reading the recipe, I saw that it wasn't complicated, there was no long baking in a water bath, and, best of all, I could scale the recipe down to make only three mini cakes.

For the biscuit base, the original recipe uses an actual biscuit (cookie) – Arnott's Granita biscuit. A whole biscuit is placed in the base of the muffin mould and the cheese mixture is spooned on top before baking. The biscuit softens in the heat of the oven. 

I just happened to have leftover crumbs from a homemade digestive biscuit dough (recipe below) and used that instead. These digestives taste just like the commercial type although mine didn't look like those. But The Little Loaf, where I got help with the recipe, managed to replicate it quite well and even added an interesting design.

Chilled and ready for the fruit garnish

With these mini cheesecakes, it's important to pay attention to the baking time. As soon as the tops start to dome and crack a little, the cakes should come out of the oven. The filling will be a little jiggly, but it will firm up as the cakes cool. The top will flatten out as well and provide a level surface to pile on the fruit. I've used mango and a little bit of passion fruit pulp plus a sprinkling of more digestive crumbs.

For my personal taste, I thought the cheese was a little too rich and I could only manage half the cake. Perhaps that richness needed to be balanced with a more tart fruit, or more lemon juice can be added. I'll consider that next time.

Rich and creamy

Mini Baked Cheesecakes
Based on a recipe at taste.com.au
Makes 3

125g cream cheese, at room temperature
55g caster sugar
¼ tsp vanilla extract
½ tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 egg
½ cup Wholemeal Digestive Biscuit crumbs (recipe follows)
Fruit and icing sugar, to serve

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 3 ramekins each with 2 paper cases.

Use an electric beater to beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice until light and creamy. Beat in the egg just until combined.

Divide the biscuit crumbs between the paper cups. Tamp down with the base of a drinking glass. Top with the cream cheese mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until slightly risen and just beginning to crack a little on the surface.

Set aside for 10 minutes, before removing the cheesecakes from the ramekins (leave the paper cases on) and placing on a wire rack to cool completely. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until chilled. Top with fresh fruit (sliced if large) and dust with icing sugar just before serving. If there are leftover digestive biscuits, crumble them on top of the fruit for crunch. 

Digestive biscuits

Wholemeal Digestive Biscuits

From a recipe at The Little Loaf

100g rolled oats, lightly toasted
100g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g soft brown sugar
Pinch salt
100g salted butter, cubed
1-2 tbsp milk

Process the oats to a fine powder in a food processor. Add wholemeal flour, baking powder, brown sugar and salt to the food processor and pulse to mix. Add the cubes of butter. Pulse several times until mixture is crumbly. While the motor is running, add the milk a little at a time until a smooth dough forms.

Use ½ cup crumbs for the base of the 3 Mini Baked Cheesecakes.

If making digestives, proceed to wrapping the dough in cling film; refrigerate it until firm, about 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180°C. There are two ways to shape the cookies:

1. Place the dough between two pieces of cling film. It will be very crumbly. Press or roll to around 3mm thickness. Take off the top piece of cling film and cut out circles using a cookie cutter or drinking glass (about 6cm in diameter). 
2. Because the dough is crumbly, I prefer this second way of shaping. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Place a 6cm cookie cutter on the sheet. Place a heaped tablespoon of biscuit dough in the centre of the cutter. Using the base of a glass, tamp down the dough to flatten and compress it into a biscuit. Remove the cookie cutter carefully and repeat with the rest of the dough.

Carefully arrange on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake in the middle of the oven for about 15 minutes. When lightly golden, remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container. If desired, spread one side of the cookies with melted chocolate for chocolate digestives.

THEY CRACK ME UP: CHICKPEA AND RICE CRACKERS  

Our July 2012 Daring Bakers’ Host was Dana McFarland and she challenged us to make homemade crackers! Dana showed us some techniques for making crackers and encouraged to use our creativity to make each cracker our own by using ingredients we love.

Dana provides several recipes for crackers, all of which inspired variations for my own two. And she inspired the other Daring Bakers as well, as evidenced by the slide show at The Daring Kitchen.

It was mandatory to prepare two different crackers using two different methods of forming. Both of my crackers are formed by hand, but one is rolled out with a rolling pin, and the other is shaped into a ball and then flattened with the base of a glass into disks. I hope those two methods are sufficiently different and meet the spirit of the challenge.

I am not gluten-intolerant, but decided to make some Japanese-style rice crackers called senbei, and some seeded chickpea crackers inspired by Indian papadums that have a cheese flavouring thanks to nutritional yeast.

I only made a small number of each, but the recipes are easily scaled up. They're nice to eat on their own and go well with dips too: rice crackers with edamame pesto, and chickpea crackers with mango chutney. Switching them is an option, though I'd personally stick to the original pairings. 

(I have to admit though that I made the dips primarily because the crackers looked so sad on their own. The dips are easy to make and online recipes abound. I actually ate most of the chutney – the sourness comes from tamarind paste – on its own!)

These crackers will make good TV-watching snacks during the Olympics. Go-o-o-o-o Teams!

Rice crackers with edamame pesto

Japanese Rice Crackers (Senbei)

Makes 12. Easily scaled up.

50g white rice flour (not glutinous)

30g cooked sushi rice

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Pinch of salt

2-3 tbsp warm water

Cracker topping

½ tbsp shoyu (Japanese soya sauce)

½ tbsp honey

Black sesame seeds

In a (mini) food processor, blend the rice flour, cooked rice, oil and salt together until fine. Add water a little at a time until the mixture comes together into a soft dough. Place in a mixing bowl and knead until smooth and elastic, about 2 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Divide the dough into 12 portions. Roll each one into a ball. Place a ball of dough in between cling film. Using the base of a glass, flatten the ball into a thin disk. The edges may be a little uneven. Place the disks on a lightly greased baking tray. Bake for 5 minutes, then flip with a spatula and bake the other side until the edges look dry (the crackers may start to brown too), another 4-5 minutes. Turn off the oven.

Meanwhile, combine the shoyu and honey. Remove the crackers from the oven and brush one side with the sauce. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and return to the turned-off oven to dry, 5-7 minutes (not too long or the crackers will get too hard!). Cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container.

Chickpea crackers with mango chutney

Chickpea 'Cheese' Crackers

Makes about 20 medium crackers. Easily scaled up.

50g chickpea flour, sifted

50g rice flour

15g nutritional yeast (tastes like cheese!)

½ tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

¼ tsp chilli powder

2 tsp vegetable oil

3-4 tbsp hot water

Cracker topping

Nigella seeds

Stir all the dry ingredients together. Stir in the oil. Add water a tablespoon at a time until the mixture comes together into a soft dough. Knead gently for a minute until the dough is smooth and firm. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Roll out the dough on a thick piece of aluminium foil into a rough rectangle or square about 1.5mm thick. Sprinkle the seeds on and press them down lightly into the dough. Score the dough into squares or rectangles with a pastry scraper, crinkle cutter or the blunt edge of a knife. Place the whole sheet of foil with the crackers onto the baking tray and place in the oven. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the tops are brown. Cool and separate along the scored lines. Store in an airtight container.

STOVE-TOP PIZZA ... WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THE OVEN 

Sourdough Surprises decided on pizza as the theme for its fifth month of the sourdough adventure and boy, was I eager to again use the latest technique I had learnt.

Some time ago, I made a pseudo pizza Margherita in the style of the Neapolitan (pictured right) for the newspaper column, and I was delighted with the result. By adapting recipes (from Peter Reinhart and Cook's Illustrated Cookbook) and instructions (primarily from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's excellent tutorial at Serious Eats), I managed to produce a pizza that was as close to one cooked in a 400-degree Celsius wood oven: the bottom was crisp and chewy, the crumb was airy and the edges were charred in spots (perhaps a little too charred!). It wasn't a perfect representation, of course, but to be able to make a pizza like this at home was a revelation to me.

Sourdough Surprises recommended the recipe from Sourdough Home but I tweaked it slightly to include some cake flour. Italian '00' flour, which is the best kind of flour for pizza, is apparently softer than normal bread flour and to get that same kind of consistency, America's Test Kitchen suggests the addition of softer cake flour.

Not being an expert pizza-maker – or pizza eater, for that matter! – I couldn't really tell the difference if all bread flour was used, but in terms of look and texture, this was miles ahead of any chain-store pizza. And I didn't even have to try tossing the pizza dough over my head.

Place pizza base in a very hot cast-iron pan on the stove to cook the bottom

So what does one need to achieve that? For a start, good pizza dough of course, and everyone has their own. The other important element is a heavy-based frying pan. I use a a 20cm (8-inch) cast iron pan so my pizza is on the small side. From the amount of dough I make (recipe below), I get three pizzas.

When ready to make the pizza, crank up the oven grill and put the pan on the stove to heat up. Form the dough into a disk to fit the base of the pan. Sprinkle flour on the base of the pan and shake out the excess. Place dough circle into pan and wait a few minutes for it to puff up a little.

Now, depending on the pan that is used, the bottom of the dough will have cooked and turned brown and will not be sticking to the pan. If this happens, then the stove can be turned off. Otherwise, keep the fire on low as you move to the next stage of the cooking.

Put on the toppings, then into the oven to crisp the top

Put on the toppings (but not the fresh leaves – like the basil here), and place the pan under the oven grill. The cheese will start to melt and brown and the edges of the dough will char in spots.

When the top is cooked, place the pan back on the stove to brown the bottom of the pizza. If this had happened earlier, then the pizza is already done. If using fresh basil, for example, sprinkle the leaves on the pizza. Remove it from the pan onto a cutting board, slice and eat.

For this sourdough pizza, I think I may have left the crust on the stove for too long so the bottom was a little burnt. Although it was puffed, the crumb wasn't as open as the commercially yeasted pizza dough I had made before, but I think that was also because it had remained too long on the stove. 

This stove-and-grill method is more involved than baking completely in the oven, but I think the effort is worth it.

See who else went on the sourdough pizza adventure:

The bottom is a little burnt but none the worse for taste

Sourdough Pizza Crust

280g strong bread flour
40g cake (superfine) flour
1 tsp salt
210g (1 cup) fed sourdough starter
1 tbsp olive oil
120g tepid water

In a mixing bowl, combine the bread and cake flours and salt together well. Add the starter, olive oil and water and stir everything together with a large wooden spoon until well blended. The dough should be shaggy (coarse) and a little sticky. Rest for 5 minutes.

If using a mixer, use the dough hook and mix on medium-low speed, or continue mixing with the wooden spoon for 2-3 minutes until the dough is smoother but still soft and supple. It will be tacky but not sticky. If it is still crumbly, add a little more water; if it is sticky, add a little more flour. Rest for 5 minutes.

Continue kneading in the mixer, or if kneading by hand, spread a little oil on a work surface and on your hands. Transfer the dough to the oiled surface. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. 

Form into a ball and place in a lightly oiled mixing bowl. Cover and leave to double in size. 

Alternatively, divide dough into 2 or 3 portions and place each portion in a separate bowl. Place bowls in large plastic bags and refrigerate overnight. Remove dough from the refrigerator 1½-2 hours before making the pizzas.

Pizza with Feta, Sun-dried Tomatoes and Basil Leaves

3 balls Sourdough Pizza Crust Dough

1 block of feta, crumbled

3-4 slices bottled sun-dried tomatoes (sliced into slivers) + oil
Flaky salt

1 bunch fresh basil, leaves picked

Plain or bread flour, for dusting

Put about a handful of flour in a bowl. Use some to dust the work surface. Working with one portion of dough, form it into a ball and dip the bottom into the flour. Place on the work surface and gently stretch it with your fingers to form a disk large enough to fit the fit of your pan, leaving the outer 2.5cm edge slightly thicker than the centre. It doesn’t have to be a perfect circle.

Have all the ingredients ready next to the stove top. Preheat the oven’s overhead grill to high and arrange an oven rack so that you can just fit a cast iron or heavy-bottomed oven-proof stainless steel frying pan (with metal handle) on top of it.

Heat the frying pan on the stove over high heat until lightly smoking, about 3 minutes. Dust the frying pan with flour, tap out excess (remember, the pan is hot). Transfer the dough round to the pan. It should fill up the entire bottom surface. The dough should start puffing up after about 30 seconds. Working quickly, spread some feta and sliced sun-dried tomatoes over the centre of the dough. Season with salt and drizzle with the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes. Transfer frying pan to the oven and grill until pizza is puffed and darkly charred in spots (2-4 minutes). Return the pan to the stove top and scatter a few basil leaves over the surface. Cook until the bottom is darkly charred in spots.

Transfer the pizza to a cutting board and serve immediately. Make two more pizzas the same way.

* * *

Here's the recipe for the tomato sauce I used in the Pizza "Margherita".

No-Cook Tomato Sauce

1 (400g) can whole peeled Italian tomatoes
A few grinds of freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp dried oregano
1 large clove garlic, finely minced
1 tbsp red wine vinegar or freshly squeezed
lemon juice
Salt to taste

Place tomatoes in a sieve over a bowl and drain the juice. Squeeze the tomatoes to crush them. Use the juice for another dish. Place the crushed tomatoes in a bowl with the remaining ingredients. If not using immediately, store in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

KEEP THE SOURDOUGH ALIVE: CRANBERRY CHOCOLATE BREAD  

Since I have been working with sourdough breads quite a lot in the past few weeks, I thought I would give it a bit of a rest. But like Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III, just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

This cranberry chocolate bread is one of the most recent loaves I've made with my starter. After nearly two years, I think the leaven has taken on another level of flavour, which I can't quite place but it's exciting to see the development. I was just reading about this man in America who mixed up a batch of flour and water, travelled to San Francisco and drove around the wharf with the open jar outside the car for an hour to capture the yeast over there. The story doesn't say where he visited from but it would be fun to see how this genuine "dough nut" fares!

Perhaps my sister, who lives half an hour from SF, could do that for me *hint hint* ;-)

Make the dough

The recipe includes a tiny amount of commercial dried yeast in the mix. Because of the chocolate chunks and cranberries, the starter needs some extra help, I suppose, to get the dough to rise. 

Shape, proof and bake the bread

In hindsight, I probably should have dusted the top of the dough with cocoa powder instead of flour before baking it. Or I should have dusted the flour more evenly. Then the crust would have looked more appealing.

No complaints about the taste though. I just need to be braver with scoring the top. The slash is definitely too shallow.

Studded with cranberries and chocolate chips

Sourdough Cranberry Chocolate Bread 

Based on a recipe from Azelia's Kitchen and instructions from Peter Reinhart

Makes 1 loaf, 10-12 servings

200g white bread flour

50g high-extraction flour (use wholemeal and sieve out the coarse bran)

25g cocoa powder, sifted

Large pinch dried instant yeast

110g sourdough starter (white flour levain at 100% hydration)

150g water, approximate

½ tsp table salt

35g dried cranberries

65g dark chocolate, chopped or chips

Stir the flours, cocoa and yeast in a large mixing bowl until well combined. Incorporate the levain and water just until a shaggy dough forms. Set aside for 5 minutes to hydrate the flour.

After 5 minutes, sprinkle the salt over the mixture and then stir it together. If mixture is dry, add a little leftover starter or water, a tablespoon at a time. Bring it all together into a soft dough. Cover the mixing bowl with a tea towel and set aside for 10 minutes.

Spread out the dough slightly with your fingers and add the cranberries and chocolate bits. Fold them gently into the dough until everything is well distributed. Set aside for 10 minutes.

This next step can be done in the mixing bowl or on a lightly oiled work surface. Stretch and fold the dough, and form into a ball. Cover and leave to rest for 10 minutes. Repeat the stretch and fold two more times at 10-minute intervals. The dough will already have puffed up slightly at the last stretch-and-fold.

Cover the mixing bowl with a tea towel and set aside until dough has doubled in size. This may take 45 minutes or 2 hours, depending on room temperature. Alternatively, if you have no time to bake on the same day, place the bowl in a large food-grade plastic bag (or cover with cling film) and refrigerate overnight. If baking the next day, remove dough from the refrigerator 2 hours before baking.

Shape the loaf – either into a freestanding baton on a baking tray heavily sprinkled with semolina or in a lightly greased loaf pan – and place in a large food-grade plastic bag to rise.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220°C. Just before baking, dust the top of the loaf with flour (or cocoa powder) and score the freestanding loaf. Bake until top is brown and loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom, 30-40 minutes. The internal temperature should be 85°C.

EGG-FREE YOGHURT CAKE... BY ACCIDENT 

It's official: I'm a dunderhead.

There I was, eager and all ready to try out this recipe for a French Yogurt Cake (yoghurt without the 'h' from Bon Appetit). I had all the ingredients laid out and even took the eggs out from the fridge so they would come to room temperature before I mixed up the batter.

The cake came together easily. I did everything by hand: whisked this, blended that, poured the batter into the greased tin and into the preheated oven it went.

It started rising soon after (it's a ritual for me to sit in front of the oven, peering through the glass door to see what's happening inside) and I was pleased.

Then I started cleaning up and what do I see? Two eggs still in their shells with condensed beads of water on them on the kitchen counter.

My first thought was to take the cake tin out of the oven, pour the batter into a mixing bowl and beat in the eggs, and then back into the tin. It wouldn't have worked, would it? So for the next 40 minutes or so, I just brooded over my stupidity.

But then, the cake rose some more to just under the lip of the baking tin. When the cooking time was up and the top was brown, I stuck a skewer in the centre and it came out clean.

It took a lot of restraint to keep myself from immediately removing the cake from the tin, but I let it cool. When I finally cut into it, it didn't look like any mistake had been made. The crumb did not resemble the slice of cake in Bon Appetit – it was tighter, not at all translucent – but in terms of taste, there was nothing horrible about it. 

I'll be honest, I actually made this cake only to use up leftover frosting from the Sourdough Chocolate Cake of a couple of posts ago. Despite having a tinge of coffee flavour in it, it didn't jar with the tang of the yoghurt cake. I can't say I wasn't pleased with that.

I may make this cake again and leave out the eggs consciously next time.

Egg-free yoghurt cake

BRONZED CHICKEN WITH RED, GREEN AND BROWN RICE 

Every cook is advised to have a bag of tricks with recipes for simple but impressive dishes that they know will work every time and can be whipped up at a moment's notice.

Knowing how to roast chicken is a good skill to have. Even in a rice-eater's heaven like Malaysia, a good roast chicken gets most people's approval and it can be seasoned or marinated in many ways.

My roast chicken seasoning is a Cajun spice rub. If I want leftovers, I'll get a whole chicken, butterfly it and apply the spice rub, then put it in the oven. That takes no effort at all. But with only two of us in the household, I usually just get cuts and instead of heating up the oven for the few pieces, I'll cook the chicken on the stove.

I've made "blackened chicken" many times, and just a few days ago, I saw a similar recipe by American chef  Paul Prudhomme who called it "bronzed" chicken. This is what he says about the process:

"My advice to people at home is bronzing rather that blackening. This avoids the smoke and the risk of handling a red-hot skillet while still achieving an excellent result... The coat of this bronzed chicken breast is golden and caramelized from the cooking method. The secret to bronzing is to keep the skillet at the right temperature. The chicken should take 6 to 7 minutes to cook. If it takes much longer, the skillet is not hot enough." 

Prudhomme's chicken was served with a tomato and spinach pilaf, which was called Red, Green and Brown Rice. The link to the recipe seems to have been disabled but putting a similar dish together isn't difficult. I'm borrowing the name of the dish because of the colour but have changed practically everything else.

Now, about the Cajun spice seasoning for the chicken: I have made my own before, but I have also used a ready-made variety. The Husband can't tell the difference but I have a feeling he favours the store-bought seasoning since it's saltier. I feel a bit of a fraud when I use the ready-made mix and receive compliments for the tasty chicken. I don't always pass it off as my own, but at other times I just say thank you and throw my conscience out the door.

Bronzed Chicken Breasts

Makes 2 servings

2-3 tbsp Cajun spice rub (ready-made or homemade, recipe follows)
2 boneless chicken breasts or thighs, about 400g, skin off

1-2 tbsp cooking oil

Spread spice rub on a plate. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Press chicken into spice rub, coating both sides well. Cover and set aside at room temperature for no more than 30 minutes or in the fridge for up to 8 hours.

Heat a medium-sized nonstick skillet over high heat and add oil. When it is very hot, add the chicken pieces. Immediately turn down heat to medium. Cook until the underside is blackened and the meat does not stick to the pan, about 5 minutes. Cook second side 5-6 minutes or until cooked through.

Cajun/Creole Seasoning/Spice Rub

Makes about ¼ cup

2½ tsp paprika

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried thyme

Salt to taste

Combine all ingredients thoroughly and store in an airtight container.

Red, Green and Brown Rice

Makes 2 servings

½ cup brown rice, rinsed

¾ cup water

1 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp vegetable stock powder

Pinch of cayenne pepper 

1 tsp vegetable oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch fresh basil leaves, roughly torn

Place rice in a rice cooker with water, tomato ketchup, vegetable stock powder and cayenne pepper. When cooker goes off, leave for 15 minutes, then add oil and seasonings to taste. Add basil leaves and toss well.

FROSTED SOURDOUGH CHOCOLATE CAKE 

I tasted this cake the day it was baked and frosted, and wondered what I could do with a tasteless 18cm square cake, minus a slice – perhaps crumble it up, add a few other ingredients and turn it into chocolate truffles?

I was disappointed that it had taken two days to make and turned out... dull. What a waste of time and effort.

Well, the saying good things come to those who wait was never more apt in this case. The next day, as I sliced up the cake to put it into smaller containers for freezer storage, I tasted my second piece from the slab.

Just as you can't rush a sourdough starter, time is what was needed for the flavour of this cake to emerge. And it certainly struck the right note. The cake didn't end up in the freezer, and instead was well received by everyone who tasted it so, yay!

Making the cake

For the cake, I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour, but with slight modifications. As with most things sourdough, this cake starts with a well-fed starter. After the first feeding, milk, plain flour and sugar are added and the mixture is formed into a soft dough. It only needs to be left at room temperature for a couple of hours according to the original recipe, but I didn't have time to bake that day and put it in the fridge overnight.

The next day, the dough had risen substantially. Out of the fridge, it  rested for about an hour before I combined it with the rest of the ingredients. The mixing takes a bit of effort because of the consistency of the batter. I would describe it as thicker than a creamed cake batter, but almost dough-like, although it is wetter than a high-hydration bread dough. But the two parts will come together after some folding with a rubber spatula, and then it flows out of the mixing bowl easily into the baking pan.

Making the frosting

The frosting comes from Tasty Kitchen and is called "That's The Best Frosting I've Ever Had". I must say, it is very good, and I will be using it for other cakes in the future.

Sourdough Chocolate Cake

12-16 servings

Cake

Based on a recipe from King Arthur Flour and scaled down

½ cup “fed” sourdough starter

½ cup whole milk

1 cup plain flour

¾ cup caster sugar

½ cup coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp salt

¾ tsp baking soda

6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa

½ tsp instant coffee or espresso powder

1 medium egg

Combine the “fed” starter, milk, and flour in a large mixing bowl. Cover and store in the refrigerator overnight or let rest at room temperature for 2-3 hours. It won’t necessarily bubble, but it may have expanded a bit.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Lightly grease and base line an 18cm or 21cm square pan.

In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, baking soda, cocoa and espresso powder. The mixture will be grainy.

Add the egg, beating well.

Combine the chocolate mixture with the flour mixture. Fold the two mixtures together until smooth with a rubber spatula. It may take a little effort as the flour mixture is quite thick. Make sure no chunks of starter dough remain.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the cake for 30 to 40 minutes, until it springs back when lightly pressed in the centre, and a cake tester/toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Remove the cake from the oven, and set it on a rack to cool.

Coffee Frosting

Adapted and scaled down from “That's The Best Frosting I've Ever Had” recipe at TastyKitchen. Makes about 1 cup.

½ cup whole milk

2½ tbsp plain flour

½ tsp coffee extract

110g unsalted butter, softened

½ cup caster sugar

Combine the milk and flour in a saucepan over medium heat and whisk constantly until thick. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Add the coffee extract once cooled.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Make sure the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is not at all grainy. Add the cooled milk mixture and beat very well. It may look separated – keep beating until fully combined. It should be fluffy and light, similar to whipped cream.

Chocolate Drizzle

From KingArthur Flour

⅓ cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 tbsp milk

1 tbsp corn syrup

Combine the chocolate chips, milk, and corn syrup in a microwave-safe cup. Microwave till the chips soften, then stir till smooth. Alternatively, use a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water.

Assembly

Frost the top of the cake and drizzle/drip the chocolate over the icing. The lines can also be turned into feathers: Use a toothpick or the tip of a knife to drag the lines in one direction, then alternate the direction for the next drag.