Friday, April 28, 2006

Chocolate Waldorf Squares



As promised to various cakeaters (delightful ones, I hasten to add) yesterday, I rootled around in my boxes somewhat earlier than anticipated and the recipe was where I thought and I am therefore able to reproduce it in glorious technicolor for your digestive delight.


The recipe was taken from an Essentials Magazine from circa 1991 as part of their Creative Cook Series and is by Rowena King



Makes 24
Cals per portion 310
Keeps for upto 5 days (yeah, right)

For the Cake

Oil for greasing
4 oz/125g of butter
5 oz/150g plain chocolate broken into pieces
1 lb/450g of caster sugar
8 floz/225ml of cold water
1tsp of vanilla essence
8 oz/225g of plain flour
2 oz/50g of self raising flour
2 oz/50g of cocoa powder
8 oz/225g of mayonnaise

For the Glaze

4 oz/125g of plain chocolate broken into pieces
1 1/2 oz/40g of butter
24 walnut halves dusted with icing sugar (so eighties)

Preheat the oven to Mark 3/325°F/170°C
Brush shallow 11"x7" (28x18cm) cake tin with oil and line with greasproof paper.

Place the butter, chocolate, caster sugar and water in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring until the chocalate is melted - do not boil. Stir in the vanilla essence.
Sift the flours and the cocoa powder in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Ad the mayonnaise and a litle of the chocolate mixture and beat until smooth. Gradually beat in the rest of the chocolate mixture.

Pour into the prepared tin then bake in the centre of the oven for 1 hour until risen and firm to the touch.

Cool in the tin and lift out and peel away the lining paper.

For the glaze, put the butter and chocolate in a small pan with 1 tbsp of cold water then heat gently, stirring until smoth - do not boil. Spread the glaze over the cake and then chill for 5 minutes. Mark [and cut] into 24 squares and top each square with a halved walnut. Store in an airtight tin.

Bon appetit!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

*reaches for the smelling salts*

*passes out*

Imperatrix said...

Oooooo. Thank you She Weevil, Thank you.

Now, is plain chocolate what we call semi-sweet chocolate (i.e., you can eat it straight) or unsweetened (i.e., you can eat it straight, but only if you stuff a spoonful of sugar in your mouth at the same time [not that I've ever done this, you understand, it's just an educated guess -- I swear!])

Ally said...

*wafts smelling salts at KW and then subsides gently to floor alongside*

Greg said...

I'll never get this done over the weekend with Younger Daughter running about but just wait until next week!
*sighs deeply in anticipation* Thank you, She Weevil, thankyouthankyouthankyou!

She Weevil said...

Imperatrix: "Many American recipes call for unsweetened or baker's chocolate. This is exactly what it says: no sugar added. (Many an American child has memories of sneaking a piece, only to discover how horribly bitter it is.) If you can find 99% cocoa chocolate, this works nicely. If not, an easy substitute is 3 tbsp cocoa + 1 tbsp oil for each ounce of chocolate.

For semisweet chocolate, use the bittersweet/plain chocolate of your choice. Semisweet baking chocolate is available in the United States, but I prefer a good eating chocolate"

Sorry to be so British and thick but I think you want the semi sweet. If it's any help genrally we'd probably use a 70% cocoa fat chocolate.

Steggy - bless!! actually very easy and not time consuming and despite what I just said to Imperatrix when I first made it, it was with tesco value plain choc and TV mayonnaise (obviously their flour too). So if your like me and have to feed the Mountain with Mohammed jrs income it's great.

Unknown said...

Heya She Weevil: sorry to intrude on your delicious-looking (and, I'm sure, tasting) recipe post, but I thought you'd like to see this. Like the frame? I've put a link to the Painter's site using the link code from your site (assumming/hoping you might get some kind of credit?). All for now. Rantz