Cherry Ripe Slice

Cherry Ripes are probably my all time favourite chocolate bar and an Australian institution. If I had a ready and easy supply of the real thing I'm not sure I would make this, however, as they are hard to come by over here in the UK I thought I would look for a way to make them myself. If you have no idea what I am talking about, let me explain, Cherry Ripes are a dark chocolate dipped bar, filled with chopped glacé cherries and coconut filling. I'm not a great fan of glacé cherries, but in this, they are perfect and you simply can't substitute for fresh cherries.

There are a few variations to this recipe online, so I had a look through them all to find one that suited me. Most have a chocolate slice base, and look really nice, but I wanted to have no base so I could make some dipped in chocolate (see below), like the proper bar, and some in a slice form like this above.

This is a no bake recipe, super easy and totally delicious!

What will I change? I'll add more cherries next time, and less condensed milk. The original recipe called for copher (a uniquely Australian product), but I substituted with coconut oil. It was fine with that, and I would say much healthier.

Without further ado, here is the recipe (with adjustments to suit my changes):

Cherry Ripe Slice

Ingredients:

150-200g glacé cherries, chopped (depends on how full of cherries you would like the slice)

250g desiccated coconut

300g sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

115g coconut oil, melted (or copher if available)

few drops pink food colouring until desired colouring

200g dark chocolate, melted

Method:

Line a large 20 x 30cm tray with aluminium foil.

Put condensed milk, vanilla, coconut oil and food colouring into a large bowl. Mix to combine. The oil will stay separate at this stage but will change soon.

Add cherries and coconut, mix well and if desired, add a few more drops of food colouring.

Spoon mixture into the tray and spread out evenly and carefully. I put just under half into a smaller tray to make into the dipped bars, but if you'd prefer the slice, put it all in the tray, it will just be thicker than mine.

Smooth the top with an offset spatula and chill in the fridge for an hour or freezer for 30 mins.

For the slice, once chilled, pour the chocolate over the top, smooth it out and chill in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight. To slice it up, bring it out of the fridge for about 20 mins before cutting to avoid the chocolate cracking.

For the dipped bars, slice the coconut and cherry mixture into 4cm x 4cm squares, and dip into the melted chocolate, coating all sides. Tap off excess chocolate and then place on to a tray lined with baking paper. Allow to set and harden.

Best kept in the fridge.

Makes 20+ pieces.

Swedish Chocolate Cake

I simply HAVE to blog this recipe; it is absolutely amazing! I can't take any credit for it as I have used the recipe from one of my favourite bloggers, Linda over at Call Me Cupcake, a Swedish baker and food photographer. Go and have a look at her blog, and be prepared to be wowed!

The original recipe has no flour in it, but I did add two tablespoons of plain flour. It looks really dense in the photos, and I expected it to be very dense like a brownie, but honestly, it is as light as a feather! Truly, truly light, airy and gorgeous. It might be my new favourite...and so incredibly easy to make!

SWEDISH CHOCOLATE CAKE
Adapted from Call me Cupcake  

8-10 servings

 Ingredients

• 250 g butter
• 250 g coarsely chopped dark chocolate (70%)
• 1/3 cup + 1 1/2 tbsp (100 ml) strong coffee or espresso (or water)
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 180g sugar
• 2 tbsp plain flour (all purpose), optional
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar or 1/4 tsp vanilla powder
• pinch of salt

To serve

• Powdered sugar
• Whipped cream
• Milk chocolate curls
• Raspberries

Directions

1. Heat oven to 175° (350F). Grease a spring form pan (22-25 cm / 8-10 inches) and cover the base with baking paper.

2. Gently melt butter and chocolate in a saucepan on low heat. When mixture is melted and smooth, stir in coffee, then set aside.

3. In a large bowl, whip eggs, sugar and vanilla until very light and fluffy, about 4-5 minutes.

4. Add flour and then stir chocolate mixture into egg mixture with a spatula. Stir until smooth. Add a pinch of salt.

5. Pour batter into the prepared springform pan and bake for 40-45 minutes. Let cake cool before removing it from the pan. I prefer the cake when it's been in the fridge for a couple of hours. Dust powered sugar on top.

6. Whip cream with some powdered sugar (to taste).
7. To make the chocolate curls, put milk chocolate in a warm place for a few minutes, then use a cheese slicer to make curls.

8. Alternatively, garnish with raspberres - the classic accompaniment to chocolate.

Black Cherry Pavlova

This is the second of my Valentine's Day meringue bakes as part of the Sugar and Crumbs challenge. Once again I used a flavoured icing sugar, this time, Black Cherry. I love cherries. So I thought this would be an easy one to use.
It was very interesting as I didn't love the smell of it, but the beauty of these sugars is the subtle flavours they bring. I added it directly into the meringue to replace the caster sugar and it worked beautifully. The pavlova was topped with whipped cream, fresh cherries, a dark chocolate drizzle and some orange zest. The flavours all worked so nicely together; I did consider making a cherry syrup, but ran out of time.



Whilst my photos aren't great, I hope you can see the heart shape I made my pavlova into. I loved it! The pavlova itself was perfect, crisp on the outside and marshmallowy on the inside.  The fresh cherries complimented the flavoured sugars so well and I would always use fresh with it.


Black Cherry Pavlova
(Pavlova recipe from Raspberri Cupcakes, serves 8)

Ingredients:

• 4 eggwhites, at room temperature
• A pinch of salt
• 240g (about 1 & 1/3 cups) flavoured icing sugar (or caster sugar if making regular pavlova)
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped seeds only
• For dusting: melted butter or vegetable oil + extra cornflour
• 300ml double cream
• 100g dark chocolate
• zest of half an orange
• cherries to decorate

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 100°C. Line a large baking tray with baking paper, brush with butter/oil and dust with cornflour.
2. Whisk eggwhites and a pinch of salt in the bowl of an electric mixer until soft peaks form. With motor running, add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, whisking until sugar dissolves (5-10 minutes, you can check it by pinching a small amount of mixture between your fingers). 
3. Fold in cornflour, vinegar and vanilla seeds, then pile mixture into a 20cm-diameter circle (or heart shape) on oven tray, gently smoothing top and making a slight indentation. 
4. Bake in centre of oven until crisp but not coloured (1-1¼ hours). Turn off oven and leave to cool completely with door ajar.
5. Meringue will keep in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Topping:

1. Whip the cream, adding in a few drops of vanilla essence (optional).
2. Spread it over the pavlova.
3. Melt the dark chocolate in 30 second increments in the microwave until smooth. Drizzle over the cream. Add cherries to the top - whole and halved.
4. Top with orange zest.

This is best assembled just before serving.