The track below was my musical inspiration for this beautiful cake/dessert
Fearless - Indra Cooking creative music
Reading through my journal, I came across a list of affirmations I wrote a few years just before my Samhain ritual. Blessings and energies I wanted to welcome into my life, along with a list of all aspects, beliefs and habits I wished to release. All to be released through fire and to welcome in the new energies through the beautiful scented smoke of Bay leaves, and applewood from the fire in the garden.
Coming to 2011 Samhain I came across a recipe originally from Nigella Lawson before it went through the alchemical, magical process of creation, manifestation and energetic process that resulted in this cake.
Clementines
Thinner skinned than oranges, sweeter and juicier, were calling from the fruit bowl - destined for a superior goal than squeezed for juice, wishing for chocolate - always a good theme for Samhain.
Chocolate - always my cupboards have a store of chocolate - bought by the box wholesale - ready for use. Strong dark Green & Black's 85% Cocoa solids chocolate. Rich, intense, beautifully scented. An abundance of free range eggs beg to be used. Reading through the recipe as is often the way, I discover that the cake ingredient tin does not hold ready ground almonds, fresh from the supermarket, but the pantry does hold a jar of toasted flaked almonds from a previous foray into florentines. So I toasted my almonds a wee while more, and ground them in the, Goddess sent, food processor. Almonds will never grind as fine as those you buy, but the rougher texture enhances the cake, and allows this ingredient to shine within the cake.
CHOCOLATE CLEMENTINE CAKE
4-5 clementines (weight between 375 -400g) - I had 440g.
6 eggs
1 heaped teaspoon GF baking powder (leave it out if you wish, I did)
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (don't leave this out)
220g Ground almonds
250g caster sugar (You can used granulated if necessary )
50g Cocoa powder (Green & Blacks unsweetened)
Pre-heat oven to 190 C, or 180 C for a fan assisted oven.
METHOD
1. Put whole clementines into a pan and cover with water, and bring to the boil, and simmer for 1 hour until the fruits are soft and squishy. Do not peel them, skin and all is boiled.
Leave to cool and then process to a pulp in the food processor. Set aside.
2. Butter 20cm springform tin and line with greaseproof or baking parchment.
3. Place sugar and eggs into bowl and mix. Do not whisk until soft and fluffy because this is a fudgy cake, not a souffle cake. You can use a whisk if you wish but not for longer than 2 minutes. Add rest of ingredients, adding clementine pulp last. Mix thoroughly with each addition.
4. Pour into the lined tin and bake for 35-45 minutes in the oven. You may need to cover the top with a round of greaseproof to prevent the top burning. When you check the cake, it will come out slightly sticky, and that's perfectly fine.
5. Allow to cool in tin and then remove outer ring, leaving to fully cook on cake rack, on base, until cold. Then you can remove it and put onto to a cake stand or plate.
As you can see it's a bit rough and ready in appearance, but it is soft, moist and absolutely delicious. I will serve it with a little heated orange liquer and honey syrup, and a mix of lowfat creme fraiche and cream. The clementines were almost marmalade like in their texture and the toasted ground almonds added another level to this cake. A resounding success to be remade for Samhain and no doubt tweaked once more.
The decorating and serving process was enhanced by this beautiful track I'm listening to at the moment - Indra - The Other World. I have no idea how to get hold of this music, and I wish I did, so if you have any ideas let me know.
Wow! I will try to use more or less the same ingredients in a vegan version of Clementine. Thanks for sharing the recipe, Urs - it sounds really delicious!
ReplyDelete