Before I begin, I have a question I'd like to ask: Is anyone on a diet? If you answered "yes, jerk, I am on a diet" then this just may not be quite the thing for you at this point in time. Unless you're way up in the cold arctic, and then it's ok. We all know you need loads of calories just to stay warm, let alone jogging, skijoring and mushing with the huskies in an Interior winter.
DISCLAIMER:I do not profess to take good food pictures. The food looks way better than is depicted from my lame, indoor photo skills. I do, however, take really really good outdoor parrot pics so have a look at my other blog if you wanna see good pics... cus you won't see 'em 'ere!
First, you need to make the biscuit dough (and cook it). You don't want it to be too flaky, so for this I use softened butter instead of cold butter or even *gasp* shortening.
Biscuit dough
2 cups flour
1 tbsp raw sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup SOFTENED butter
2/3 cups of milk with one egg beaten into the milk
To make the biscuit
This is easy. Add the first 4 ingredients to a bowl. Mix it together. Plop in the softened butter (it's easy to soften butter in Aus; just leave it on the counter for a bit) and mash it all together with the tines of a fork. Pour in the milk/egg mixture and stir together with a wooden spoon.
The dough will seem a bit sticky, that's ok. Turn it out onto a well floured surface and knead it a few times till it's not a soft and not sticky anymore. Take half the dough and form it into a round about 6 inches in diameter. Do the same with the other half. Stack one on top of the other and toss it in an oven. 375 for 25 to 30 mins should do the trick.
The two halves will separate easily when you take them out of the oven. Note: if it's not done when you pull the halves apart, just put them back together and back in the oven for a few more mins, no worries.
Once it's done, take it out of the oven, pop the top and bottom apart and let them cool. Why, look! Here's the top half cooling:
While the top and bottom are cooling, you get to make your whipped cream.
What you need:
450 mls whipping cream (1 2/3 cups)
2 to 3 tbsp raw sugar
What you do:
Combine the two ingredients in a bowl. Get out your electric mixer and beat the heck out of it till it's whipped. Takes about 5 mins. If you cheat and get a can of that spray cream not only will you be missing out on some great flavors, but you'll also be putting an obscene amount of gunk into you.
Once your cream in whipped, you get to hollow out the top and bottom. Just use a small spoon and start scrapping. Little bit at a time now... what's done can't be undone, ya know!
Here's the bottom scrapped:
Notice the bag with the scrapped stuff in it? Yeah, KEEP IT! It freezes nicely, no worries. The next time you are making stuffing you'll be thankfull you kept it...
Here's both bottom and top hollowed out:
Spoon the cream in both halves:
Slice up four or five fresh strawberries. Layer them in the cream of the bottom half:
Top now goes on TOP of the bottom:
Got 3 mins? Good, time to make the chocolate sauce.
What you need
200 grams dark cooking chocolate
2 or 3 tbsp butter
100 mls (1/3 cup) cream
What you do
Put it all in a saucepan. Low heat. Whisking consantly. A couple of mins later you've got chocolate sauce!
Now let it cool for 15 or 20 mins. Go read a book... I'll be here when you get back.
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Ok, sauce is cool but still pourable? Right? Right! It should look something like this:
So pour the sauce on! Here's what it'll look like now:
Get some more fresh strawberries. 5 or 6 should be fine. Slice em up. Put the strawberries on the top and around the sides of the cake.
But wait! Oh no! I didn't let the chocolate sauce cool enough before I put the strawberries on! Gaaaaackkkk! Sliding strawberries:
I did put everything in the fridge to set after I put the strawberry slices on, should had it in the fridge for about five mins and THEN put the slices on...
I'm a failure...
But hey, it'll still taste good!
Almost forgot; you'll have a bit of whipped cream left over. So when you slice this sucker, just put a dollup of the leftover whipped cream on, no worries.
4 comments:
Ooooohhh!
*scrapes jaw off floor*
Strawberries in Winter, though? Hmmm... how about blueberry sauce? I still have blueberries in the freezer!
Oh, right... If you don't have your own greenhouse in squarebanks it'll be hard to get strawberries.
Feel free to use blueberries, no worries.
Here's a suggestion: uses whole (thawed) blueberries on the cream in the middle of the two halves, and then perhaps make up a blueberry sauce to drizzle over the top after the choc sauce has cooled?
For extra flavour for the choc sauce: halve the amount of cream and substitute blueberry sauce! That'd be darned tasty I think.
I don't think you'd want to use the blueberry sauce in the middle, otherwise the whipped cream may not look so, ummm, appetizing.
The four of us polished off this whole thing in one night as one dessert... Good tucka!
Here's something to remember when slicing: the biscuit halves are crusty. So use a serrated knifed straight down the top and GENTLY saw wedges off of it. There'll be plenty of fudgey-strawberry(blueberry) goodness on the side of the plate to just pile onto the top of each slice. And don't forget the rest of the cream!
I just need to fix the presentation a wee bit... But hey, it was a total experiment. It worked. We were happy.
D R O O L
SV Meerkat: I'll bet you could make this in the galley on board. One burner, one small oven, one mixing bowl, one small cutting board... and champagne...
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