The Honey & Co. Baking Book - Chocolate and Hazlenut Krantz Loaf

I AM NOW 23

Chocolate and Hazelnut krantz loaf

When did this happen? I have no idea. I woke up and I was 23 and now I need to look up how to pay taxes and buy houses. This is terrifying. I am....ADULTING.

Naturally the only reasonable response to this is to not acknowledge it's happening. So I'm just going to retreat into the kitchen and not give any notice to this strange maturation process. Come get me when I'm 99 and in need of an old folks home where once again I won't have to make my own decisions, and will instead allow people to push me along in a wheelchair while I mumble over recipe books.

Speaking of recipe books, a HUGE shoutout to everyone who got me a cooking related item (which was basically all of you) as a birthday gift. I am now in possession of a teal soup ladle that's been modeled after Nessie, the Great British Bake-Off cook book, a cook book by Mary Berry, a multipurpose grinder to make curry pastes and powders, and a truly fantastic cleaver. You all know me so well, thank you so very much.

Anyways! Today's post is the first recipe review of the Honey&Co. Baking book. The first of many I assure you. Every single dish in that book is screaming to be made and I can barely wait to try them all. I started with this one, because I was looking for an appropriate gift to thank my neighbours for being so nice after a little unpleasant encounter I had.

Last week while I was walking home two guys driving a van pulled up in front of me and asked me to get in with them. And in a fairly skeevy manner too. I gave them a very firm "um no thank you" and walked off, and as they drove ahead the guy in the passenger's seat gave me a sleazy grin and a wave. It was all very creepy, and as I was walking home, Kate (the lady who lives next door) was out in the garden and I told her what happened. She was very disturbed on my behalf and said I was free to come over if I wanted to. I got home, called the police, settled everything...but after they left I was pretty creeped out and not in the mood to be alone. So I went next door and Kate and David (her husband) were lovely. They offered to put me up for the night so I wouldn't be sleeping alone and I accepted.

Prove prove prove!

I was extremely grateful and wanted something nice to thank them. This chocolate and hazlenut krantz loaf really fit the bill.

This loaf is one of the three babka recipes listed in the book. And guys...it's beautiful.

You don't even understand. This is Cinnabon on crack. This is grown up nutella on toast. This is moist, buttery, cinnamony, chocolatey, nutty, chewy, soft heaven. It is rich. It is lush.

It might induce a sugar headache. Be sensible. Eat small slices.

Now...a quick side note. The posts that I do on the Honey&Co. baking book will not include corresponding recipes. They'll be more of...recipe reviews. How I found making the thing... any drawbacks or kinks... and tips I found helped me. Reason being, I don't feel very comfortable posting recipes from cook books. If (by some miracle) Sarit and Itamar read this post and say "Yeah, sure, go ahead, share our recipes", then I absolutely will because this is a recipe worth sharing. But till then, it's just going to be my experience baking the thing.

We cool?
Cool.


This was an amazing recipe to follow from start to finish. However, I will say one of the drawbacks right off the cuff is that it is time consuming. But not a bad sort of time consuming. There isn't hours and hours of intense labour, just a lot of waiting time in between. For starters, after making the dough you have to let it rest for atleast 6 hours in the fridge. Bottom line, plan ahead with this one. You will have to start the day before you want to eat it.

There is a basic babka dough recipe that Sarit and Itamar use, that is then filled and molded to make the various buns. This dough is very easy to work with. Like...EXTREMELY easy. I have made a lot of bread, from a lot of different recipes. There have been times where I have kneaded a 'dough' for 3 hours to have nothing but gloop on my counter. There was one time that the 'dough' I was working on was so tough, that by the time it was properly kneaded my wrist was sprained and stayed swollen for a week after.

This isn't at all the case here. Maybe because it's so intense on the butter, this dough comes together like a dream. All you need is about 5 minutes of kneading before you get a smooth elastic ball of putty in your hands. ALSO your hands come out super soft. I am not even kidding, your skin becomes a kind of soft no moisturizer will achieve. I could wax lyrical all day, but bottom line is that this is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful dough to work with. Don't be scared, just get in there.

Rolled out and filled

I made the dough the night before, then had a nice lie in before waking up to make the filling. More butter goes into this, along with very dark chocolate, some ground cinnamon and a fair bit of sugar. Now, because I used granulated instead of caster sugar the filling came out quite grainy. Personally I liked it, cause it added a sugary crunch along with the nuts. You then roast a handful of hazelnuts and roughly chop them up to be sprinkled on top of the filling.

Sarit and Itamar tell you to leave the dough in the fridge till the last possible minute and I can see why. While it doesn't rise much (which I'm guessing happens because the dough uses all milk and no water), it's also very soft from all the butter. I would not be able to roll this out back home. Not without putting the slab in the freezer every 2 minutes, or working in an air conditioned room. You may think you won't be able to roll out the 50cm x 30cm rectangle specified. Don't worry, you will. Just keep at it. Again it's a very easy dough to work with, but just needs a little patience to be rolled out that thin. The amount of filling specified is perfect. You then sprinkle the hazelnuts over, roll up, then put it back in the fridge for 10 minutes before shaping.

Split in half to twist

It's a little fiddly splitting the log in half and twisting it, but don't worry. YOU are the boss of this dough. Just be firm, and pat any loose filling back into place.

This is the point where you leave it to prove for two hours....and I forgot about it. :p I wandered off to do some cleaning and came back about 3 hours later. Again, don't be surprised if it hasn't proved up alot. It will still feel soft and fluffy to the touch. Bake it and I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.
USE
THE
SUGAR
SYRUP

Guys do it. don't worry about the loaf having too much sugar in it. Again, just have a small slice. The syrup makes this so so SO moist and gives it a lovely shine...just do it, ok? Promise me you'll do it.
Do it.

So yes, I don't have to tell you anything else about this loaf, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. Please. Please. I'm begging you. Buy the book. Make this babka.

BOOM

Well done Honey&Co.

The Honey & Co. Baking Book launch

So I went for something fantastic that I can't wait to tell you all about. 

After spending a really great week in Newcastle with Sulekha (who I am missing already :( ) I got back into the bubble yesterday just in time to freshen up and head to an event hosted by Toppings book shop on Bell street. 

Toppings has a whole host of events going on in conjunction with the Open, a massive golf tournament that's being held in St. Andrews right now. Last night, they were hosting Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich the power couple behind Honey & Co. a middle eastern inspired restaurant in London. Sarit and Itamar came up by train to hold a live cooking demo centered around their newly released cook book, 'Honey & Co. The Baking Book'

Chilled orange blossom and earl grey tea

Arriving just before the event was about to start, I was greeted at the door with a glass of chilled orange blossom and earl grey tea (which I would like to drink for the rest of my life thank you very much). The shop was already fairly full, and I would've had to take a seat at the back if one of the owners hadn't taken pity on my tiny Asian stature and ushered me up front. A massive tray filled with bites of buttered fruit tea loaf was already floating around the store, hinting at the many tidbits we were to be treated to that night. 

Sarit and Itamar were absolutely adorable. Clearly very much in love with their work, they showed us a few quick things they make in store; an herb frittata, sesame halva, and a fresh kanafeh. 

Cutie patooties Sarit and Itamar

Knafe.
Guys I got SO excited. This is a beautiful middle eastern dessert made by sandwiching a mix of cheeses (Sarit used feta, goats cheese and cream cheese) with two butter coated layers of a nest like phyllo dough called kadaif. You then soak the whole thing in orange blossom syrup and top it with pistachios and rose petals. It's an incredibly lush and fragrant dessert that presents so many wonderful tastes and textures to enjoy. Crispy, creamy, nutty, salty, sweet, perfumey...just AAAHHHH!!!!!! Having seen it being made I am now SO determined to whip it up myself at home.  Anyone know where I can get a hold of kadaif pastry in Scotland?

Clockwise from top right; herb frittata, chickpea shortbread, carrot walnut cake, knafe.

Throughout the night they kept bringing out trays of baked goodies that had been featured in the book. There was an incredibly moist carrot walnut cake, some really fudgy chocolate pistachio cookies, and my personal favourite a gluten free chickpea shortbread.

I bought the book the minute the cooking demo was over and got it signed by Sarit and Itamar. We had a little chat about what halva referred to in our respective cultures (When you say halva in Malaysia you're usually referring to a firm jelly-like sweet made with semolina, as opposed to the sesame fudge we were served last night). I know it sounds obvious, I mean they are chefs and all, but their love for good food was palpable and rolled off the couple in waves. This infectious enthusiasm glows from the pages of The Baking Book, with each recipe accompanied by it's own little anecdote.

When you leave home to start somewhere new, you very quickly identify pockets of familiarity to take refuge in when the 'newness' becomes too much to handle. While reading Sarit and Itamar's writing, I had the overwhelming feeling of being back in my grandmother's kitchen where she tried to teach me how to make my favourite vadai. This book, with it's bright yellow cover and beautiful photography beckons to you. It invites you to look inside, to thumb through the pages, to laugh at the stories and try the recipes within. I have never been anywhere in the middle east (YET) and I can't say I share the same cultural identity as Sarit and Itamar, but for some reason having this book feels like holding a part of home in my hands.

It won't be long before I have a crack at the recipes in this book, and I can't wait to visit Honey&Co. with my parents when we're down in London this year.

To see more about what Toppings bookstore has on, go to their events page here.

And while you're at it, you might as well check out Honey&Co. online ;)

FSC Chocolate Stout Cake...and the time I got a second chance at university.

Life is full of second chances.
It's been a little crazy lately. I didn't mean to take a break from the blog over the summer, but so many changes were taking place that I thought it'd be best to just take a step back from writing and focus on what was going on. One of the major changes that has happened is that I've had to change my degree pathway from a Bsc. Psychology, to Bsc. Biology. Well...I say 'had to' but honestly? It's working out better than I ever imagined it would.

Doing biology has been one surprise after another. The most basic one? that I actually do enjoy it. Looking back, I probably didn't hate the subject so much in first and second year. More like... I deemed it unnecessary? Because this wasn't what I planned to do with my life! I didn't plan on actually wanting to study about how bees pollinate flowers. I was supposed to be on my way to getting a psychology degree and helping children from troubled homes. I've been raised with the idea that I would choose to do something in university and that would determine the course of my entire life. Literally. Dad has been in medicine practically his whole life, starting off as a medical student and staying a doctor till this day. Mum went to nursing school, and while she's not a nurse anymore she still works in hospitals. Hell, up till about last year, she was still working in the same hospital that trained her all those years ago. At the time, doing Psychology seemed like the most sensible choice...but now I'm not so sure.

But anyways, giving Biology a second chance has been the most amazing thing that has happened to me in a while. I'm enjoying my classes, I've made new friends and rediscovered old ones and this year is really setting off with a bang. I'm not sure what this second chance in bio is going to lead to, but I hope it ends up the same way as my second chance with stout.

Dad first gave me a swig of stout when I was 16 and I ABSOLUTELY hated the stuff. Thought it was horrible and bitter...couldn't understand why anyone would like to drink it. Vowed I would never touch the stuff again. Well, I found this recipe in a cake chart being sold at the center where I did a biology field course just before classes started again this year. Saw the recipe, went meh, and left it forgotten in my bag till this week.

So I just turned in the lab report on Friday that I had to do for that course, and surprise, surprise found the cake chart I had bought in my bag. Open to the chocolate stout cake recipe. Well guess what? I'm a girl who knows a sign when she sees one. Hightailed it over to the St. Andrews Brewing Company and got myself a bottle of their oatmeal stout.

Ok...not gonna lie I haven't fallen madly in love with stout. But I'm not as repulsed by it as I was when I was 16. In fact it tasted pretty good. No where near as bitter as my first one was, very smooth and rounded. And in this cake? It works miracles. Thanks to the stout what would normally be a regular chocolate sponge becomes moist, and dense and very, very moreish. But at the same time it's light enough that you could comfortably eat a second slice without feeling too bloated.

And so I leave you with this recipe in good faith of second chances. However the cards may fall, I wish your tough decisions end like so; in acceptance, stout, and above all, chocolate.



Chocolate stout cake*
*The recipe for the cake comes by way of the Field Studies Council 70th anniversary cake chart. All proceeds from this recipe chart go towards the FSC Kids Fund, which provides financial support for groups of disadvantaged young people who would like to visit one of their centers for an FSC experience.

Cake
- 100g soft butter
- 250g dark soft brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 150g a.p. flour
- 1/4tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 50g cocoa powder
- 200ml stout

+ Preheat your oven to 180'C (160'C for a fan oven). Grease and line 2 20cm round cake tins.
+ Cream the butter and sugar together, then gradually mix in the beaten eggs.
+ Sift in the flour, baking powder, bicarb and cocoa in then fold through. Stir in the stout, and mix till well combined.
+ Divide between the two baking tins, and bake for 35 minutes, or till cake tester comes out clean from center. Allow to cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Then unmould from baking tin and allow to cool completely.

Marscapone Cream
- 250g marscapone cheese
- 1/3 cup double cream
- 1/3 cup icing sugar.
- 1/2 punnet of raspberries
- grated chocolate
+ Beat together the cheese, double cream and icing sugar till nice and thick.

To assemble
- Put down a layer of cake and top with 2/3 of the marscapone cream. Dot the raspberries over that layer, reserving the prettiest one as a topping. Cover with the second layer of cake and pipe the remaining marscapone cream on top. Finish with a raspberry in the center, and chocolate shavings.