dinner

My brother and his boyfriend are coming over for dinner tonight. I have spent the morning preparing a lovely meal for us. I have decided that it was time to try my 70s menu. We are having prawn cocktail, boeuf à la bourguignonne, and finishing with probably the best chocolate cake ever made, my version of black forest gâteau. The recipe for the beef comes from Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham's book The Prawn Cocktail Years, which is probably one of the best, and most entertaining, cook books that I have ever bought. There is hardly anything in it, apart from the tripe recipes, that I don't fancy cooking. I think you should all rush out and buy a copy. You will not be disappointed.

The cake looks so fantastic that I had to take it outside to photograph. The secret I think is in the proper chocolate sponge cake. For some reason most chocolate sponges rarely taste of chocolate. You will not find a measly few gms of cocoa powder in this sponge. No, there is 300gms of the finest dark chocolate, five eggs, 250gms of butter and 300 gms of light muscovado sugar. The filling is whipped double cream and cherries soaked in kirsch. The whole thing has then been covered in a ganache made from equal measures of more dark chocolate, another 300gms, and double cream. With ingredients like that, I do admit it is hard to go wrong.

I'll let you all know how it tastes. Better still, I'm sure there will be tons to go around, why don't you pop in tomorrow around 11am and we can have a slice with some coffee?

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I have also made some ginger vodka. It involves a big chunk of ginger, finely sliced, being soaked in vodka for three weeks. Of course, I had to sample it as soon as it was ready, and I am pleased to be able to tell you it tastes great.