Chocolate and Liquorice Cake with Fennel

Every so often I see or read something and think that it will be worth trying.
I'm thinking this is one of those recipes...
So it's being put on this blog in order that I can find it easily.
Thanks to Cuisine magazine, Issue 206, July 2021 page 118
I'll be back to update once I've had a chance to give it a go.
I still haven't got a conclusion on the correct way to spell licorice/liquorice

Chocolate and Licorice Cake 
This makes 1 cake that can serve 4 to 6 people

150g caster sugar
130g plain flour
40g brown sugar
7g baking powder
3g baking soda
1g salt
1g powdered star anise
100ml molasses
100ml vegetable oil
100ml orange juice
90ml licorice water
1 egg
1 egg yolk

Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius
In a bowl, sift the dry ingredients.
In another bowl, whisk the wet ingredients and eggs.
Pour this into the dry ingredients bowl 
and mix gently with the whisk  until smooth.
Pour this batter into a lined 24x15cm cake tin.
Bake for 45 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.
Cool cake in the tin before turning it out.
Trim the top of the cake with a serrated knife to make it flat.
Place cake on a cake rack set over a tray.

Warm the ganache gently in a saucepan stirring constantly.
Pour over the cake to cover the entire surface.
Place in the fridge to set.
Once set, trim away the edges to make it squared up
so the delineation between cake and ganache can be seen.
Garnish with macerated fennel and fronds, if desired.

Licorice Water
1 bag hard aniseed candy
500ml water

Bring candy and water to a gentle simmer over low heat.
Stir occasionally until candy is completely melted.
Set aside in the fridge.

Chocolate Licorice Ganache
260g soft organic licorice
400ml water
100g 70% dark chocolate (broken into pieces)

Finely chop the licorice and combine with water
in a saucepan over a low heat on the stove.
Stir often until nearly melted.
Pour into a blender and blitz until smooth.
While the mixture is still hot, add the chocolate
and mix until the ganache forms.
pour into a container and set aside.

Garnish (optional)
80g sugar
80ml water
30ml white vermouth
half fennel bulb
fennel fronds

Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan.
Heat until sugar is dissolved.
Take it off the heat to cool.
When cool, add the vermouth.
Peel the outside of the fennel bulb.
Shave it thinly with a mandolin.
Macerate the fennel in the vermouth syrup
and keep it in the fridge to serve cold.
Garnish with fennel fronds. 

So, there you have it - and me for future reference.

Turkish Delight as Irish Moss - recipe

Did I already tell you I like sweet things? Yeah?
And on those rare occasions when I'm allowed to have free reign in the kitchen - I make sweet treats - and according to the top chef of the kitchen - a mighty BIG mess too. But we get there...

Since my attempt at making pink Turkish Delight was successful, I decided to try mixing things up a bit and make Irish Moss. Well, it's what we call it in this corner of the world - not a piece of seaweed was used...

home made Irish Moss - liquorice jube

This is what you need:
* 400g sugar - 2 cups
* 35g (75ml) cornflour - 2 Tbl spoons/¼ cup
* 1ml (a pinch) of citric acid
* 200ml water

* 125g licorice - chopped
* 1 or 2 tots black Sambuca (optional)

* 6 teaspons powdered gelatine sprinkled onto 50mls water (or if you have leaf gelatine, use 12 sheets soaked in 400mls of water for 5 minutes before squeezing out the water)
black food colouring
50g cornflour (105mls)
50g icing sugar (95mls)


This is how you do it:
Rub/spray some rice bran oil (or canola/sunflower oil - you want an oil with very little flavour/taste) around a 12x12cm pan/dish/tin. Make sure your dish is at least 5cm deep...

Mix 400g sugar, 35g cornflour, pinch of citric acid and the chopped up licorice in 200mls of water and stir over a LOW heat until the sugar has dissolved. Sadly, you will never get the licorice to completely melt
Then cook this for 7 minutes (no need to use a temperature gauge - nice!)

boil for 7 minutes

Add the Sambuca (if you've chosen this. The alcohol content will boil away and leave you with just the essence,) and prepared gelatin
Mix this in and stir until the gelatine has melted
Then add some black food colouring until you have the desired shade of night (I've tried it with and without food coloring... and in this case, my preference is eating with my eyes first... it HAS to be black)
Simply pour this mix into your oil smeared pan and let it set/ cool down for a bit
(BUT - if you prefer a perfectly smooth jube without little bits of licorice, then push this mixture through a sieve first. And remember, this stuff is like molten lava at this stage, so be careful)

molten licorice jelly 

Slam it in the fridge for 4 hours at least (on a breadboard worked well for us - to absorb any residual heat and also keep the mix level)
prepare the 50g cornflour and 50g icing sugar by sifting it into a flat bottomed bowl (or into a plastic bag)
Sprinkle some over your breadboard
When you're ready to serve/package: dunk the underside of your pan in hot water for literally a few seconds so that it comes loose easily and goes straight onto your dusted breadboard - ready to be sliced into small blocks or cut into whatever shapes you desire
Roll these blocks of sweet goodness into your cornflour/icing sugar mix
Then enjoy


Turkish Delight as Irish Moss

Liquorice Licorice Ice Cream

Liquorice ice cream

500ml (2 cups) each full-cream milk and fresh cream

250ml (1 cup) soft liquorice, sliced

8 medium egg yolks

30ml (2 tsbp) soft brown sugar

Pinch salt

Makes 1 litre (4 cups)

Place milk and liquorice in a large saucepan and heat, stirring gently, until liquorice melts (about 15 minutes).  

Remove from stove and add cream. 

Beat egg yolks with sugar until thick and creamy. 

Add salt and whisk into milk. 

Return to stove and cook, stirring constantly over low heat, until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. 

Strain into a clean bowl. 

Cool, and then freeze until partly frozen. 

Remove from freezer, beat well and return to freezer. 

Repeat process 3 times. Freeze until hard.


Ice Cream Recipe 

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