Divine By Name, Divine By Nature

I must begin by saying a massive thank you to Tina, a forum friend of mine for sending me the wonderful book Divine Heavenly Chocolate Recipes with a Heartby Linda Collister.  

Divine Heavenly Chocolate Recipes with a Heart is a celebration of ethical chocolate - Fairtrade chocolate produced by the Divine Chocolate Company.  Fairtrade is something I am passionate about, believing that we all have a duty to each other to have a social conscience.

The four main standards that producers must abide to in order to have ‘Fairtrade’ products are:

More information on fairtrade can be found here.

The book is split into various chapters including, cakes, savory, drinks, desserts etc but one of the most interesting elements it is the introductory chapter discussing how and where Divine chocolate is produced.

What better way to say thank you than cooking from the book?  That is exactly what I did, albeit in an adapted version.  I decided to bake the “Old-Fashioned Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake” with a couple of alterations. Why? Well simply because I had a carton of buttermilk lurking in the fridge and the idea of simple cake which could be decorated any which way I wanted was certainly appealing.

As Collister states the buttermilk leads to a moist crumb and gives a slight tang to the cake.  I worked on this by adding a sour cream chocolate ganache topping and instead of baking the cake in one 23cm spring-clip tin as directed I baked it in two 20cm sandwich tins, layering them with a little of the ganache and homemade cranberry preserve.  Although cranberries are more usually associated with white chocolate, their slight sharpness and shimmering ruby colour really lends itself to the bitterness of dark chocolate.

I then scattered the top of the cake with chocolate sprinkles, which were sent to me by my friend Het in The Netherlends. I assumed they were a cake topping, I was rather mistaken though as apparently they are normally used as a sandwhich filling – cake topping suits them well though and placed a sugarpaste rose in the centre to offset the finished cake.

The Recipes:

Cake:

• 200 g plain flour
• 50 g Divine cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• a good pinch of salt
• 175 g unsalted butter, softened
• 225 g caster sugar
• 3 large free range eggs, separated
• 2 teaspoons instant coffee (powder or granules) – I omitted this adding 2 teaspoons of cranberry liqueur instead.
• 250 ml buttermilk

1. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Sift the flour with the cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt three times onto a sheet of greaseproof paper. Set aside until needed.
3. Put the soft butter into the bowl of a food mixer. Using the whisk attachment beat for a minute until creamy then add three-quarters of the sugar and beat until very light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Stir the coffee powder or granules into the buttermilk, until dissolved. Fold the flour and buttermilk alternately in batches into the creamed mixture. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form then whisk in the remaining sugar. Fold the whites into the mixture in three batches. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin(s) and spread evenly.
5. Bake in the heated oven for 55-60 minutes (30-35 if using two tins) or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Set the tin on a wire rack and run a round bladed knife around the inside of the tin to loosen the cake then unclip the tin. Leave until cold then serve dusted with icing sugar (or decorate as described above).
6. Store in an airtight container and eat within 5 days.

My Sour Cream Ganache:

• 200 g white chocolate
• 50 g unsalted butter
• 200 ml sour cream
• 100 g icing sugar

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl suspended over a bowl of barely simmering water.
2. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.
3. Whisk in the sour cream and sift in the icing sugar.
4. Put in the fridge to cool a while so it sets before you want to use it.

My Cranberry Preserve:

• 200g fresh cranberries
• 2 tbsp demerara sugar
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1-2 tbsp port
• 50 ml water

1. Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and heat gently. 
2. Cook for 10-15 minutes until the cranberries are soft and the mixture thickened.

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