Double Chocolate Loaf Cake with Whipped Caramelised White Ganache

THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY DOVES FARM

Easter and Chocolate, it is a match made in heaven, or maybe just an excuse to enjoy more chocolate. Either way I couldn’t let the holiday pass without a very special chocolate recipe for you all. I wasn’t in the mood for anything too complicated but I did want a big hit of flavour, high impact, low effort. This bakery style loaf is dense but tender and has a rich chocolate flavour backed up with some Doves Farm Organic White Rye Flour. Wholemeal rye flour, which you may have seen me use many times before, especially paired with chocolate, has a strong tangy rye flavour and the added texture that comes with wholemeal flours. For this cake I wanted something that backed up the chocolate flavour but didn’t add as much of its own flavour, more of a team player than the star of the show if you will. For the frosting I went with a very simple whipped caramelised white chocolate ganache, topped with chopped mini eggs (it’s easter, they’re mandatory). If you’ve never made this type of chocolate before you can learn how to make it here, or you could just buy it.

Doves Farm Organic White Rye has a creamy off-white colour and a mild tangy flavour that is amazing in this cake. I call it a bakery style loaf, partly because it’s a large loaf but also because it’s a dense but tender loaf, it’s like if a British tea shop cake met an American pound cake and had loaf shaped baby. The rye flour adds a subtle tang which helps intensify the chocolate flavour and also helps gives this cake its characteristic texture. When you bake with rye, especially if you are substituting it for regular wheat flour, you’ll notice it absorbs more liquid than wheat flour. In this cake for example I have made versions with regular plain flour and a rye version and the latter was a noticeably thicker batter when made to the exact same recipe. To compensate for this, I have included a little more moisture than if making it with plain flour. As a general piece of advice, when it comes to alternative/ancient grains such as rye, when adding them into your baking it’s a good idea to start with a smaller amount and see how it affects your recipe. Generally if I am adding some to an existing recipe I would sub in 25% of the grain and this normally adds a new depth of flavour without changing the texture of the finished bake in any dramatic way. After that point you can add more of the grain should you think you’d like more of the flavour and if it hasn’t affected the texture in any negative way. In this cake for example I ended up using a 50% wheat flour cocoa powder mix and 50% Doves Farm Organic White Rye Flour for the perfect balance of flavour and texture. 

Doves Farm are a family owned British organic flour and food company, founded in 1978. Their Organic White Rye Flour is available direct from www.dovesfarm.co.uk or from Ocado, Sainsbury’s or Tesco. 

Double Chocolate Loaf Cake with Whipped Caramelised White Ganache
Serves 10-12

125g unsalted butter, diced
150g caster sugar
150g light brown sugar
5 large eggs
125ml sour cream
75ml strong black coffee
100g plain flour
50g cocoa powder (dutched/black)
150g Doves Farm Organic White Rye Flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
150g dark chocolate chips

Whipped Caramelised White Chocolate Ganache
150g caramelised white chocolate, finely chopped
75ml double cream
Chocolate mini eggs, roughly chopped, for decoration

@theboywhobakes When caramel meets chocolate #caramelizedwhitechocolate #caramel #bakinghacks #SixNationsRugby #JDAirMaxMode #GameTok #fypシ #tiktokbaker #chocolatelover #chocolaterecipe ♬ Why Are There Boundaries - FKJ

@theboywhobakes Whipped caramelised white chocolate ganache #caramelizedwhitechocolate #whippedganache #SixNationsRugby #JDAirMaxMode #caramel #fypシ #tiktokbaker #chocolatelover #chocolaterecipe #ganache ♬ Orange Juice - Tomppabeats

To make the cake you’ll need a loaf pan that measures 9x4x4 (the type I prefer is known as a small Pullman pan and is available here). If you only have a traditional 1lb loaf pan (the type normally called for in a loaf recipe) you can make a batter 3/5’s of the above recipe and bake for about 45 mins.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160ºC Fan) and lightly grease your loaf pan and line with a strip of parchment paper that overhangs the long sides of the tin, securing in place with metal binder clips.

Place the butter in a small saucepan and place over low/medium heat and cook until the butter is fully melted. Remove from the heat and set aside for the moment. 

In a large bowl add the sugars and eggs and using an electric mixer whisk together for a minute or two until fully combined. Add the sour cream, and coffee and whisk briefly to combine. In a separate bowl whisk together the plain flour, cocoa powder, Doves Farm Organic White Rye Flour, baking powder and salt. As we are using both light brown sugar and cocoa powder it is advisable to sieve this mixture as both of these ingredients have a nasty habit of clumping. Add the dry goods to the egg mixture and use a balloon whisk to gently stir the batter together. Pour in the cooled melted butter and fold with the whisk until combined. Add the chocolate chips and very briefly mix into the batter. Be careful to only mix as needed, cakes with rye flour can become gummy if mixed for too long. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake in the preheated oven for about 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven and set aside for 20 minutes before carefully unfolding and setting onto a wire rack to cool completely. To ensure the crust of the cake is tender and hasn’t dried out, whilst the cake is still warm cover with a clean kitchen towel. The warmth of the cake is caught by the towel and slightly steams the outside of the cake helping ensure it stays tender.

For the ganache place the chocolate and the cream into a small bowl and place over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate has fully melted. Remove from the heat and stir until you have a smooth silky ganache. Refrigerate for up to 30 minutes or until the ganache has thickened up but is still spreadable. Remove from the fridge and using an electric mixer whisk the ganache until it turns into a pale and fluffy cream like texture. Spread this over the top of the cake and decorate with the chopped mini eggs.

Kept covered this cake will keep for at least 3 days.

Sour Cherry Pie

Sour Cherry Pie with Rye Flour Pastry
Sponsored by Doves Farm

Pie season is well and truly here, and nothing quite beats a slice of warm pie made with a super flaky crust. One of my all-time favourites is a sour cherry pie but, here in the UK, finding fresh sour cherries is nigh on impossible but thankfully there is a solution, frozen berries. One of my favourite ingredients to have in the freezer is bags of frozen sour cherries which you can buy from many organic or eastern European supermarkets (this is the brand I buy). The difference between a pie made with sweet cherries versus a pie made with sour cherries is huge, the sour cherries have that tang, that brightness, that almost Bakewell flavour with just a hint of almond to them. Sweet cherries can be amazing but I find a pie made with them can be a little one dimensional. Thankfully this recipe is pretty adaptive, and should cherries not be your thing, it would be equally delicious made with a bag of frozen black forest fruits or any other favourite frozen berry. The only thing to remember is that sour cherries are particularly tart and with other berries, you may want to reduce the sugar slightly to avoid overpowering the flavour of the fruit.

The method below works great for frozen berries because as they defrost they tend to release a lot of juice and we all know that a soggy pastry is not what we are looking for. By pre-cooking the filling, you lessen the chances of a soggy bottom. It also happens to be a great element to prepare ahead. 

You’ve got a delicious filling, the next step is a flaky and fully flavoured pie crust. Flaky, we will get to, but fully flavoured is easy. You can make amazing pastry with plain flour, especially when made with good quality organic flour, like Doves Farm. Buying organic flour can make a big difference to your baking and it doesn’t just have to be for the month of Organic September, the flavour improvements alone can be more than enough but one of the main reasons I prefer to use organic flour is it’s better for us. In the UK over 300 pesticides can be used in non-organic farming but only 15 are licensed for organic farming. Defra found that 60% of supermarket wholemeal bread had traces of 3 of the UK’s leading pesticides. Buying organic flour and baking your own bread means you know exactly what you are eating. Talking of bread organic flour is also better for making sourdough as the microbial activity needed for sourdough starters is much higher in organic flour, it’s a no brainer as far as I am concerned. In pie crust, the flavour will often come mainly from the butter, but to add another layer of flavour and make a much more interesting pastry I love to add some Doves Farm Organic Wholemeal Rye Flour. Rye has such a wonderful depth of flavour that makes a rich nutty pastry that is a great foil to the fruit filling. For the flour I use 2/3 plain flour and 1/3 rye flour, this ratio makes for a pastry that is easy to handle but has all the benefits of flavour that comes with using rye flour.

Making a flaky pastry isn’t hard but you do need to keep some simple things in mind, mainly the temperature and size of the butter pieces. If you are someone that worries about hot hands you can make a great head start by chilling everything, the flour, the butter, the bowl and the water. Also, don’t worry about throwing the mixture back in the fridge if you’re worried about it warming up, the pastry will wait for you. It is always better to take your time than to rush the process. When it comes to the butter, the key thing to remember is the bigger the butter pieces are at the start the more flaky the pastry will be at the end. When you initially add the butter, resist the urge to rub it together with the flour to make a breadcrumb texture, that will eliminate any potential flakiness and this pastry is all about the flakiness. 

Doves Farm Organic Plain White Flour is available from Sainsbury’s, Ocado and dovesfarm.co.uk and Organic Wholemeal Rye Flour is available from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Ocado and dovesfarm.co.uk.

Flaky Rye Pie Dough
200g Doves Farm Plain Flour, plus extra for dusting
100g Doves Farm Wholemeal Rye Flour
2 tbsp caster sugar 
250g unsalted butter, diced into 1cm pieces
2 tbsp vodka
1 large egg, for glazing
demerara sugar for sprinkling

Sour Cherry Filling
1kg frozen sour cherries
200g caster sugar
3 tbsp cornflour
1/2 tsp almond extract 

For the sour cherry filling place the cherries and the sugar into a large saucepan and heat over medium heat until the fruit has released its juice but the fruit is still whole. Pour the contents of the pan through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl and set aside for a few minutes until all the juice has drained into the bowl. Pour the liquid back into the pan and whisk in the cornflour. Cook on medium-high heat until the mixture is reduced and thickened to a gel-like consistency. Scrape into the bowl with the fruit and stir gently to combine. Cover the bowl and refrigerate until needed.

For the pastry place the Doves Farm Plain Flour and Doves Farm Wholemeal Rye Flour, sugar and salt into a large bowl and mix together. Add the butter and toss in the flour to coat and, using your fingers, press each piece of butter flat. Put the bowl into the freezer for 10 minutes for the butter to firm up.

Remove from the freezer and mix the vodka with 6 tbsp of ice-cold water. Pour over the dough and, using a spatula, stir gently together until a shaggy dough is formed. Tip this mixture onto the worksurface and use your hands to bring together. On a lightly floured work surface roll out into a square roughly 30x30cm. Cut into 4 smaller squares and stack them together. Flatten with a rolling pin and wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour. 

Once the dough is chilled roll into a rectangle roughly 20x40cm and roll up like a Swiss roll. Cut into two pieces, one slightly larger than the other. Press the larger piece into a rectangle and the smaller into a round, wrap both in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least an hour before using, but preferably overnight. 

Remove the smaller piece of dough from the fridge and, on a lightly floured worksurface, roll out until 2-3mm thick and about 5cm wider than the pie plate (I use a deep 9-inch plate). Roll the dough onto the rolling pin and carefully unroll it into the pie plate, trimming the overhang to about 2.5cm. Chill. Remove the second piece of dough and roll out into a rectangle as thick as before. Cut into strips (the width is up to you but I find strips about 2.5cm wide are easier to work with and look a little more modern).

Remove the pie tin from the fridge and sprinkle the ground almonds into the base of the pie, spreading so it covers the base evenly (this helps to soak up excess juices and ensure a crisp base) and scrape in the cherry filling, spreading into an even layer.

Now it’s time for the lattice crust and, thankfully, it’s easier than it looks. Lay enough strips vertically onto the pie to cover and fold every other strip back on themselves. Add a strip perpendicular to the first batch, on top of the unfolded strips. Unfold the folded strips – they should now run over the top of the piece you’ve just put in, and fold back the opposite horizontal pieces, that weren’t folded back last time. Repeat this process until the whole pie is covered.

Trim the lattice crust so the strips of pastry end sat on the rim of the pie plate. Roll up the overhanging dough into a thin sausage, that sits on the rim of the pie plate. Use the thumb and forefinger of one hand and the forefinger of the other to crimp the pie. Brush the pie with the beaten egg and sprinkle liberally with demerara sugar. Chill for 30 minutes or until the pastry is firm.

Heat the oven to 200ºC (180ºC Fan). Bake on a baking tray for 15 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180ºC (160ºC Fan) and bake for 1 hour or until the pastry is a deep golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Allow to cool fully before serving.