Cherry – AMCARMEN'S KITCHEN

Hello Everyone! A thousand apologies as this recipe was meant to go up a couple of days ago – but I haven’t been home at a decent hour for the past few nights to be able to write and get this up as planned. But, please bear with me for a moment as I attempt to absorb the fact that we’re 2 days away to the end of the month. All I can hint at this moment is that the upcoming month for me will say a final goodbye to a lifelong chapter – or should I say book? I feel like it’s more than an end to a chapter, but rather a book that I will be closing. To be able to open up a new story and at the same time revisit more chapters to one that was on hold for the past 3 years. One that I knew I will have the opportunity to continue writing. I know, I know, this all sounds very vague right now but in due time…

Tangent aside and moving on, this recipe is pretty much open for you to get your creative juices flowing. Pair your favourite fruits together, add an element of crunch, and drizzle with your desired spread. What you can also do is play around with colour – I chose my fruits based on what colours will pop next to a beautiful deep purple sweet potato. This will make it look oh so aesthetically pleasing to the eye and (of course) taste even better in your tummy.

Before we dive into tonight’s recipe, be sure to check out where I drew inspiration for this beautiful breakfast dish over on Food with Feeling by Brita. Also, please make sure to read the end of this post to find out what’s happening on Amcarmen’s Kitchen for the month of August!

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 80-95 MINS* | SERVES 2**

*Baking time time will vary depending on the size of your sweet potato.
**Half of a sweet potato for breakfast is already pretty filling, but the recipe can easily be doubled, tripled, and so on if you’re feeding more than 1-2 people at the table.

INGREDIENTS***

1 medium-sized sweet potato, washed and scrubbed clean
1 large banana, sliced
Chia seeds
Handful of fresh cherries, halved and pitted
Heaped spoonful of peanut butter
Granola

***Other optional toppings just to get your mind flowing: an array of mixed berries such as blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, hemp seeds, pepitas, nut butter, nutella, and many other choices for you to have fun with it!

METHOD

Preheat oven 200C (400F or gas mark 6).
Bake the sweet potato**** directly on the rack for about 40 to 50 minutes. Baking times may vary depending on the size of the potato. So to know if they’re done, stab it with a fork and if it easily pierces into the centre of the potato, the inside is most definitely tender.
Once tender, cut a slit down the centre of the sweet potato about two thirds of the way down. Optional: slighty mush the inside of the potato.
Top with your favourite breakfast toppings and don’t forget to make it look pretty on the plate too!
Serve and enjoy!

****Here’s a tip: you can bake extra potatoes at the same time (I actually baked these together with my from week 2 of July), so that you can chuck them in the fridge and heat them up the next morning or two for another super easy and quick breakfast! It only takes less than 5 minutes to throw something together with your pre-baked potato.

Before I end tonight’s post, I’d like to share a little introduction to what’s coming as I won’t have the chance to when the next wave of recipes hit. If you have been following my blog since the beginning, or have been a frequent follower for more than a year or so, you’ll already know what August (or should I say, Auguest) means for Amcarmen’s Kitchen. Every year since 2015 I have been rounding up a couple of food bloggers and foodies alike to share their recipes in relation to the set theme. This year I have been able to round up some new faces, as well as familiar and recurring guests on Amcarmen’s Kitchen!

Stay tuned for an enticing array of delectably sweet and savoury breakfast dishes! If you want to read more on how this all started, click on the ‘Auguest’ tab above and there should be a link to take you to an introductory post that I wrote back in 2015.

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

Hello Everyone! Yes, I know it is a Sunday which for those of you who are new to my blog, I don’t normally post on a Sunday – but I wanted to get all the Noche Buena recipes up before the New Year because I’ll probably have another batch of recipes to post from a New Years Day Lunch (maybe dinner depending on how energised I am to cook after a long day/night out the previous night) that I am planning to host – a small one though with probably 2-3 dishes maximum. Noche Buena was hectic and I don’t want to have a repeat that’s a week apart from each other. I won’t be doing Media Noche because I will most likely be camping out the whole day/night for a good spot by the harbour to view the Harbour Bridge Fireworks at midnight.

Anyway, tonight’s recipe is from our Noche Buena dinner that Jialing and I hosted on the Eve of Christmas. This Cherry Ripple Black Forest Cake is one of the many desserts we had on the menu for the night. When deciding on a cake to make for the festive dinner, we found it difficult to decide on a cake that felt festive – besides a Yule Log. Even though I wasn’t too fond of a Black Forest cake, that is what we decided on. The reason why I am not fond of it is because every time I indulged in a store bought Black Forest cake, they ALWAYS use those horrible canned/tinned/jarred Maraschino Cherries that I absolutely hate. Not for our Black Forest cake NO! I was determined to use fresh cherries and if I had to use cherries from a can, at least not the maraschino ones!

Before Jialing and I went to do our groceries for the dinner, we talked about how we haven’t been seeing any fresh cherries at the local supermarkets. But when we got to Coles, we saw that cherries were on special and looking very fresh! I was so happy! Also, please do check out the original recipe over on Taste. Like how I’ve probably been describing over and over again in my previous posts, the recipe says to use a little more than 1/4 cup of Jim Beam Black Cherry Bourbon, but I didn’t want to buy a 700ml bottle for $30 for that amount. So from the leftover vodka I had from the East Orange Frosting I made for my Gingerbread Men, Jialing had the idea of infusing that into the cherry syrup for that boozy touch. Also, our sponge didn’t rise that much to be able to cut it into three layers, so we ended up having a two layer cake.

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 1 HOUR 20 MINS | SERVES 8-10

INGREDIENTS

For the chocolate sponge

1 & 1/4 cup self-raising flour
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cocoa powder
200g dark cooking chocolate, melted and cooled
200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large free range eggs

For the cream-jam filling

1 can (425g) pitted black cherries in syrup, drain and reserve syrup
300ml double cream
250ml thickened cream
1/2 cup black cherry jam

For the choc-cherry ganache

100g dark cooking chocolate, chopped
60ml thickened cream
Vodka-infused cherry syrup*

Fresh cherries
Chocolate curls

*Add the reserved syrup to a small sauce pan together with about a tablespoon of vodka to the reserved syrup and bring to a simmer to infuse the flavours. Use this to brush onto the sponge cake layers and in the chocolate ganache.

METHOD

Preheat oven to 160C. Grease the sides of a 20cm round springform cake pan with melted butter and line the base with baking paper.
Chocolate Sponge Cake: Sift the flour, almond meal, and cocoa powder into a medium sized bowl. Whisk until combined and set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar using an electric handheld mixer until pale and creamy. Beat in the melted chocolate and eggs, and fold in the dry ingredients and buttermilk until well combined. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set aside to cool slightly before transferring the cake to a wire rack to cool completely.
Choc-cherry Ganache: While the cake is baking in the oven, stir all the ingredients (leaving about 1/4 cup of the vodka-infused syrup for brushing) for the choc-cherry ganache in a small saucepan over low heat for 5 minutes or until the chocolate has melted and is smooth. Set aside cool slightly.
Cream-jam Filling: Using an electric mixer, beat the double and thickened cream in a large bowl until firm peaks form. Then fold in the jam to create a swirled effect.
Assembly: Cut the cake horizontally into 2 (or 3 if you can) even layers. Place the cake base on a round cake board and brush the cut surface with half of the vodka-infused syrup and spoon over the cream-jam mixture. Dip each pitted black cherry into the ganache and place on top of the cream filling. Brush the vodka-infused syrup on the cut surface with the other half of the cake layer and top over the base. Pour the choc-cherry ganache over the cake and decorate with fresh cherries and chocolate curls. Sprinkle with a bit a icing sugar for a Christmasy finish.