Mary Berry's chocolate fudge cake

Ingredients
For the divine chocolate birthday cake:

    6 large eggs, 5 of them separated
    215g (7½oz) caster sugar
    265g (9½oz) plain chocolate (39 per cent cocoa solids)
    1 level tsp instant coffee granules
    1tsp hot water
    150g (5oz) ground almonds

For the chocolate icing:

    4tbsp apricot jam
    225g (8oz) plain chocolate (39 per cent cocoa solids)
    100g (4 z) unsalted butter

    This is a very close-textured ‘fudgy’ cake that needs no filling. There is no flour in this recipe; ground almonds give the flavour and texture. Decorate the cake with crystallized flowers and candles, if you like.

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Method

    Pre-heat the oven to 190°C/Fan 170°C/Gas 5. Grease a 23 cm (9 in) deep round cake tin then line the base with baking parchment.
    Place the egg yolks and whole egg in a large bowl with the sugar and beat together until thick and light in colour. Melt the chocolate gently in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally. Dissolve the coffee granules in the water and add to the melted chocolate. Cool slightly, then stir into the egg mixture along with the ground almonds.
    In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Carefully fold into the egg and chocolate mixture. Turn into the prepared tin and gently level the surface.
    Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 50 minutes or until well risen, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack.
    Measure the apricot jam into a small saucepan and allow to melt over a low heat. Brush over the cake. To make the icing, melt the chocolate gently in a bowl set over a pan of hot water, stirring occasionally. Add the butter and stir until the icing has the consistency of thick pouring cream, cooling if necessary.
    Stand the wire rack on a baking tray to catch any drips, then pour the icing over the cake smoothing it over the top and sides with a palette knife. Allow to set, then decorate if you like.

Orange Flower Water Cake

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups All-purpose flour, plus some for flouring the pan
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
• 1 cup packed light brown or granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon orange flower water or vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• Butter for greasing the pan
• confectioners sugar for dusting

Citrus Glaze:

• Scant 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 176 c

2. Butter and flour a 9-inch cake pan.

3. Sift together 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 3/8 teaspoon salt. Beat 2 large eggs with 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest and 1 cup packed light brown or granulated sugar until light and frothy.

4. Whisk in the flour mixture until almost incorporated, then whisk in 1/2 cup buttermilk mixed with 1 teaspoon orange flower water or vanilla extract and 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted.

5. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes.

6. Cool the cake on a rack 5 minutes, then invert to cool completely. Transfer to a platter and sift confectioners sugar over the top.

Or, to glaze and soak the cake, cool the cake in the pan 5 minutes while you make the citrus glaze.

Citrus Glaze

1. Combine a scant 1/4 cup orange juice and 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar in a saucepan.

2. Stir over low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Invert the cake onto a cooling rack; with a toothpick, poke holes into the top of the cake.

3. Spoon the glaze over the cake, letting it soak in before adding more.

Chocolate orange cake

Chocolate and Orange Cake

Ingredients:

135 gms. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
60 gms. cocoa
135 gms. brown sugar (I used demerara)
150 gms. butter
3 eggs
1 1/2 tbsp. orange marmalade
Juice of 1 orange, freshly squeezed
100 gms. good quality dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup cream

Method:

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy.Add the eggs and beat again until smooth and frothy.Add the marmalade and beat again, very briefly, just to combine.Sieve in the flour, baking powder, and cocoa. Fold in light movements.Add the orange juice to adjust the consistency. The batter should be thick but easy to pour.Pour into a greased and lined baking tin of choice. (I used an 8-inch round, loose-bottomed tin) and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees centigrade for about 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.Invert the cake onto a serving dish and leave to cool.Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a microwave or on a double boiler. Add the cream and mix to obtain a smooth and glossy ganache.

Madeleines

Makes 30

INGREDIENTS:
3 eggs
2/3 cup (130 g) sugar (110 gm)
1 1/2 (7.5 ml) tsp orange zest OR 1 tsp lemon peel cut into small pieces and 3 tsp orange flower water
1 cup (120 g) flour
1 tsp (5 ml) baking powder
¼ tsp (1.25 ml) salt
6 tbsp (60 ml) melted butter (I used oil)
1 tbsp (7 g) powdered sugar

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 350F/(176C).

Beat eggs with sugar until pale yellow. Add zest.

Whisk together dry ingredients add to the egg mixture gently, until just combined. Then add melted butter.

Refrigerate the batter at least 1 hour! Or overnight. This is really critical for getting the “hump” of a Madeleine, the traditional mark of this classic French cookie.

Lightly coat a non-stick, Madeleine pan with baking spray using this technique. Spray the baking spray into a small bowl and with a pastry brush lightly grease each well. Dust with a flour-icing sugar mix. This is crucial, helps the Madeleines pop out of the pan. 

Spoon 1 tbsp (15 ml) of batter into the center of the well and don’t touch it. It will spread out by itself and keep a more uniform shape that way.

Bake 7-8 mins until slightly golden around edges and centers look set and slight hump has appeared. Allow to cool slightly and remove from the tin and allow to cool.

Once cooled completely and dust with powdered sugar and serve!

Batter can be made 2 days ahead of time.

Firms up after a day, tastes best fresh out of the oven or after a day or two. 

Hazelnut and strawberry Gâteau Breton

YIELD: Makes 12 servings

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups vanilla sugar , divided ( or sugar and 2 tsp vanilla)
• 1/2 cup hazelnuts, lightly toasted, husked
• 6 large egg yolks (preferably organic)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, melted ( or 3/4 tsp salt for unsalted butter)
• 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 2 teaspoons water (for glaze)
• Whole strawberries with stems attached or warm strawberry jam

Preparation

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 325°F. Butter and flour 9-inch-diameter springform pan. Combine 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar and hazelnuts in processor; blend until nuts are finely ground but not pasty. Combine 6 egg yolks and remaining 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar in large bowl; whisk until well blended and slightly thicker, about 2 minutes (do not use electric mixer). Whisk in hazelnut mixture. Gradually whisk in melted butter. Sift flour over batter; stir just until blended (batter will be thick; do not overmix or cake may be tough).
Transfer batter to prepared pan; smooth top with offset spatula (layer will be thin). Brush top generously with egg glaze. Using back of tines of fork, deeply mark crisscross pattern atop cake, marking 3 times across in 1 direction and 3 times in opposite direction. Bake cake until deep golden on top and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool in pan on rack 15 minutes, then remove pan sides and cool cake completely. DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Wrap in foil and store at room temperature.
Cut cake into wedges and serve with whole strawberries or with warm strawberry jam.

Chocolate-date-hazelnut Gâteau Breton

For the filling:
     100 g chopped dates
     140 ml water
     1 tbsp dark brown soft sugar
     25 grams butter
     20 g plain chocolate, broken into small pieces

Half cup ground hazelnut 
For the gateau:
     225 g salted butter, softened and cut into pieces
     280 g golden caster sugar
     300 g plain flour, sieved
         5 egg yolks
     1 egg white

First, make the filling. Put the dates, water, and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently with plenty of stirring until the mixture starts to look like a paste (a spoon dragged through it should leave a clear trail on the bottom of the pan). Take off the heat and stir in the butter and chocolate. Keep stirring until both have dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Thoroughly grease a 20 cm/8 inch cake tin (it needs to be about 5 cm deep). If you happen to have a mixer with a paddle attachment standing round doing nothing then it will make the following gateau-beating process a lot easier.

Cream the butter and sugar thoroughly. Lightly beat the egg yolks, remove a scant tablespoonful and set this aside for glazing the top of the gateau. Add half of the remaining egg yolks to the butter and sugar and beat in, then do the same with the other half of the yolks. Finally add the flour and beat in until everything looks nice and smooth.

Put half of the mixture into the prepared tin and spread it out as flat as reasonably possible – a combination of a palette knife and fingers works best for me. Spread the filling over the mixture evenly but avoid going right up to the edges. Cover with the other half of the mixture making the top as flat and smooth as possible. Lightly beat the egg white and paint over the top of the gateau – you probably won't need it all. Now paint with the reserved egg yolk – add a tiny amount of water if the yolk is too thick to spread. At this point, it's traditional to mark the top of the gateau with a pattern using the tines of a fork.

Bake for 40 – 45 minutes – the top should be a deep golden brown. Allow to cool a fair bit before removing carefully from the tin. Quite small slices are probably the order of the day – this is pretty rich.

2 bases of 150-150 gram each

So, to make your base, start with 250g of strong white flour, best of all the Italian Tipo 00 variety sold specially for pizza dough.

Mix it with 160ml of water, about 20ml of olive oil (Italian again!) and add 5g of fast-acting yeast and 5g of salt. Blend it all together and then knead it for five minutes.

The best food takes time – another inconvenient but vital detail – so try to leave the dough in a bowl to rise from morning to evening before you plan to use it. When you do, take the wonderful, risen cloud of dough and split it into 120g-150g balls. Again, if you’ve got time, you can leave them for up to three hours in a plastic bag to rise.

Next comes the show-stopping bit. Spread them out, first with your fingers and then with a rolling pin, into 6in or 7in circles until they are the same thickness all over. Now you’re going to throw them in the air, spinning them as they go to make sure the weight works its way out of the centre to the edges. Catch them not on your fingers – they’ll go through – but on your knuckles. You want the dough to be thinner in the middle and thicker on the edges.

Dust your pizza peel – the long-handled disc used for inserting and removing pizzas from the oven, which you can get easily online – with a 50-50 mix of semolina and flour. Semolina is grittier, makes the pizza slide better and adds an extra crispness.

Now add the topping.

If I’m doing this at home, I go for tomato passata, some olives and buffalo mozzarella. I also like to add a little bit of pouring cream, which blends very well with the mozzarella. Then sprinkle lightly with some dried oregano.

If you are using a wood-fired oven, two or three minutes should be enough. I like my pizzas slightly darker, with a crispier bite, but it’s down to individual taste.

If you are using a conventional oven – most of us probably aren’t yet quite up to depending on an outdoor oven like my beehives in Cyprus – put the dial up to maximum and make sure that it is fully heated before you start. That can take up to 15-20 minutes, so make sure you get the preparations right, or you’ll end up with a soggy bottom that tastes more like a cracker than a pizza.