Chocolate and cherry roulade

To celebrate Chocolate Week here's one of my favourite recipes for a chocolate and cherry roulade which comes from my book An Appetite for Ale. Unusually it contains two different types of beer! You can obviously leave one of them out though a cherry beer is the perfect pairing with it.

Making a roulade might sound daunting but is actually no more difficult than making a chocolate mousse providing you have the right kit (see below)

For the roulade

175g Belgian dark luxury chocolate*

2 tbsp stout, porter or black coffee

5 large eggs, separated

125g caster sugar

For the filling

350g pitted morello cherries or stoned fresh, black cherries

2 tbsp Kriek or other cherry beer or cherry juice

1 tbsp kirsch (optional)

284ml carton double cream

1-2 tbsp caster sugar

To assemble

Icing sugar

You will need a 33cm x 23cm shallow rectangular ‘swiss roll’ tin, some non-stick baking parchment, several large bowls and an electric hand whisk

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Lightly grease the baking tin and line with a piece of non-stick baking parchment.

Break up the chocolate and put it in a bowl with the stout, porter or coffee. Set the bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the base of the pan doesn’t touch the water. Leave to melt, stir once to amalgamate and take off the heat.

Put the eggs and sugar in another bowl and whisk together for a couple of minutes until light and moussey. Fold in the chocolate mixture with a large spoon.

In another bowl - and a clean whisk - whisk the egg whites until they just hold their shape. Add a couple of tablespoons of the egg whites to the chocolate mixture to lighten it then fold in the rest of the egg whites lightly without overmixing.

Tip the chocolate mixture gently into the baking tin and lightly and evenly spread it over the base of the tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until the top is risen and firm to the touch.

Leave the roulade in the tin, cover with another sheet of baking parchment and lay a damp teatowel over the top. Leave for at least 3 hours. Meanwhile drain the cherries, if bottled or stone them if fresh, halving or quartering them if they’re particularly large. Put them in a bowl, with the kriek and a few drops of kirsch and refrigerate.

To assemble the roulade lay a large piece of baking parchment on your work surface and dust it with sifted icing sugar. Carefully tip the roulade onto the paper. Peel away the baking parchment off the base of the roulade and trim the edges.

Strain the cherries, reserving the juice. Lightly whip the cream until just holding its shape, fold in the kriek or cherry juice and sweeten to taste. Spread the cream over the roulade leaving a space round the edges and scatter the cherries on top. Using the paper roll the roulade up like a Swiss roll (don’t worry if it cracks), carefully transfer to a serving plate and sift over a little extra icing sugar.

* you don’t want chocolate that is too high in cocoa solids for this recipe. Choose one of about 55-60% cocoa solids (available in the baking section of supermarkets)

What to drink: As I said this was originally intended to go with cherry beer but a chocolate stout or a sweet red wine like a Recioto della Valpolicella would work well too. Serve the cherry beer in a champagne flute - it looks amazing!

Photos © Vanessa Courtier

Oktoberfest potato salad

The key element to this typically Bavarian recipe, which comes from my book An Appetite for Ale, is the addition of hot stock which gives it a consistency half way between a conventional potato salad and mashed potato. It also has the most delicious sweet-sour flavour.

Serves 4-6

1 kg of waxy new potatoes, peeled and cut into even-sized pieces
1 tsp vegetable bouillon powder
4 tbsp white malt vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp caster sugar
1/4 tsp white pepper
2 tbsp sunflower or grapeseed oil
1 medium-sized mild or sweet onion, peeled and finely chopped
40g butter
Fresh chives or dill

Put the potatoes in a pan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer until tender - about 12-15 minutes. Drain, reserving the cooking water. Pour 150ml of the cooking water over the vegetable bouillon powder and stir. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle (about 5 minutes), slice them roughly into a bowl.

Put the vinegar in a small saucepan. Add the salt, caster sugar and pepper and stir to dissolve. Add the oil and the onion, bring to the boil then pour the hot dressing over the sliced potatoes and stir vigorously.

Melt the butter, add to the salad and stir again. Add a little more of the potato cooking water to give you a slightly sloppy consistency, a bit like lumpy mashed potato. Leave to cool and stand for about 2 hours for the flavours to develop. Sprinkle with snipped chives or finely chopped dill and serve with cold sliced sausage and ham, frankfurters or grilled bratwrst

* Sometimes the locals add cucumber. Take half a cucumber, peel it, halve it and scoop out the seeds with the tip of a teaspoon. Cut into slices, put in a shallow plate, sprinkle with salt and put another weighted plate on the top. Leave for about 20 minutes then rinse the cucumber and pat dry. Dress with a little white vinegar seasoned with salt and sugar and a splash of sunflower oil and mix in with the potato. (Or you could serve it on its own sprinkled with a little fresh dill)

What to drink: Given this is a typical Munich salad you should drink an authentic Munchener helles or Marzen lager with it - or a Czech golden lager, at a pinch.

 

 

Bacon, Isle of Mull cheddar and Thornbridge beer bread rolls

I don't normally run commercial recipes but this comes from an enterprising new cookbook from a brewery I really like called Thornbridge with recipes from chef Richard Smith.

It's called Craft Union and includes a useful section on matching beer with food.

If you've never baked with beer before you'll be amazed how good the results are. You could, of course, substitute another pale ale for the Kipling.

Makes approx. 30 small rolls

Ingredients

Bread

500g granary flour

500g white bread flour

10g salt

50g fresh baker’s yeast

200ml Thornbridge Kipling beer (or other pale ale) plus a little for brushing

350ml water

140g smoked bacon, diced and cooked

100g Isle of Mull (or other) cheddar cheese, finely grated

Glaze

25ml Thornbridge Kipling beer (or other pale ale)

25g sugar

Method

For the bread

Mix both the flours and yeast in a bowl. Add the beer and water and bring together. Cover with a wet cloth and leave to prove somewhere warm until it doubles in size.

Cut the dough in half and roll it out into a rectangle 5mm thick. Add the cheese, bacon and salt and knead. Brush the rectangle with beer and roll up like a Swiss roll.

Cut the roll into portions 3cm thick and place them on greaseproof paper on a tray

Now prove again for about 30 minutes somewhere warm until they double in size.

Pre-heat the oven to 210°C.

When the bread has proved, put the tray into the oven and cook for roughly ten minutes or until golden brown (when tapped on the bottom the rolls should make a hollow sound)

Turn the rolls onto a wire rack until cool

For the glaze

Pour the remaining beer into a pan with the sugar. Warm until the sugar is dissolved then reduce it on a medium heat until a syrup is formed. Brush the glaze over the rolls.

Warm the bread in the oven for a couple of minutes before eating.

This recipe comes from Craft Union: Matching Beer with Food. You can buy the book from the Thornbridge shop for £14.95.

 

Rustle up a Red Nose Pudding!

If you’re organising a Red Nose Day tasting tonight here’s a zany idea for a pudding that I devised for a Sainsbury’s magazine feature a couple of years ago when I interviewed TV presenter Phillip Schofield for Comic Relief.

It’s based on the classic French cherry dessert Clafoutis, a crisp sweet batter with cherries - or rather, red noses . . .

serves 8-10

2 x 425g cans of black cherries
3 tbsp of kirsch, cherry brandy or brandy (optional but good!)
4 medium eggs
60g (2 1/2 oz) caster sugar
110g (4 oz) plain flour
A pinch of salt
400ml(14 fl oz) whole milk (i.e. not skimmed or semi-skimmed)
Finely grated rind of one medium unwaxed lemon
A little flavourless oil for the tin
Icing sugar to serve

You will need a shallow rectangular cast iron dish or baking tin about 30cm x 20 cm or 1.5 litres (2 1/2 pints) in capacity

Get the cherries and batter ready two to three hours before making the pudding. Drain the cherries and place in a bowl with the kirsch or cherry brandy, if using. Mix lightly together with a metal spoon and leave to macerate, stirring the cherries into the juice a couple of times. To make the batter put the eggs in a food processor or liquidiser with the sugar, flour, salt and half the milk. Whizz together until smooth then gradually add the rest of the milk. Add the lemon rind and whizz again then pour the batter into a large jug, cover, and leave in the fridge until ready to use.

To bake the pudding preheat oven to 190°C/375° F/Gas 5. Brush the baking dish or tin lightly with the oil and put in the oven for 5 minutes to heat up. Drain the cherries (reserving the juice - a treat for the cook!) and tip into the base of the dish. Give the batter a final stir, pour over the cherries and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until nicely puffed up and brown. (Check after 20 minutes and if it seems to be browning too quickly turn down the heat to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.) Sift icing sugar over the pudding and serve with pouring cream or vanilla ice cream.

Recommended match: A cool cherry-flavoured fruit beer (Kriek) would be the perfect match with this although you could drink a southern French Muscat or other dessert wine.

Don't forget a number of retailers are selling wine in aid of Wine Relief which is contributing to the Red Nose Day charities. You can find my pick of what's on offer in the Guardian though some are no longer available as part of the promotion.

The photograph which is not of my recipe but one very like it is © Lilyana Vynogradova - Fotolia.com