My fab easter bake

Easter is probably normally one of the best holidays EVER. No work and you are allowed to eat as much chocolate and as many Hot Cross Buns as you can stomach. I do feel the need to add though I am a little bit upset with the full moon, because normally the whole Easter business falls in the school term, which means extra time off. This year it is smack bang in the middle of my Vacation.

I have been a good girl- please let there be a cadbury creme egg for me for easter.

Or a bottle of Mumm. Which ever is cool.

We have a few traditions in my family. One used to be the we went down to the beach house about an hour South from Perth. ( To be honest it is actually the suburbs now, but when we got it it wasn't. OK?)  We no longer have that little house, so the only tradition left is we go to my mums on Good Friday and have her amazing fish stew (or bouillabaisse if you are feeling fancy). And let me tell you- it is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. The kids however have not yet discovered it's amazement, so they have chilli mussels. I hate chilli mussels. I got food poisoning from a dodgy mussel about 20 years ago and have never been able to look them in the eye since. And I have a cast iron stomach.

My job is always desserts. I love cooking desserts almost as much as I love eating them. I did say almost. This year I thought I would do something a little different from the normal, and I decided upon a Chocolate Meringue Cake. Donna Hays' Chocolate Meringue Cake. Let me explain why this is fraught with danger.

Donna Hay and I have a very complex relationship. I think her savoury stuff looks fab, tastes fab and always works. Her desserts...not so sure. I reflect back to the salted caramel tart debacle of 2012. I followed the recipe to the letter. And the bloody thing didn't work. Being the cook I am, I actually knew from the moment I started that the ingredient measurement were wrong. But I persisted and sure enough. It was a Donna Fay-L. She was on the radio later that week and someone rang in saying they tried and it didn't work either. Well young Donna dropped her refined Eastern Suburbs Sydney Accent faster than you can say home brand and got quite defensive and told poor old Sharon from Malaga that she must have done something wrong. ( She wasn't called that, but lets face it those who call into the radio are usually a Sharon or a Carlene) Well by this stage I was yelling at the radio like there was no tomorrow. " It was your bloody recipe  Donna!!!" I was in my car on the way to work. You can imagine the looks on the faces of the people in the car next to me. You expect to see people picking their nose, or squeezing their pimples. Hell one day I even saw a couple smoking a joint on their way to work. But yelling frantically to the radio was probably a novelty.

So it was a hard decision. We broke up. It was difficult for a while. I kept thinking about her and her beautiful Donna Hay blue ( I would so love my own colour- it would of course be Emma pink) her spoonulas (thats a mix between a spoon and a spatula), and her beautiful pasta swirls. So I decided to give our relationship another go. I bought her magazine and when mum said " Are you making something fab?" I said " For Sure."

This my friends is a spoonula. In Donna Hay blue.

No one swirls a pasta like Donna.

                                                     


So I have just finished baking. It smells ok. I think it may be a little undercooked because it is not all that crisp- well apart from the bit that got burnt, but I thought I would take you through it step by step.

Melt some dark chocolate and some butter.

Stir until it is mixed ( I did this over a bain marie because I am fancy like that)

Mix some egg yolks, and some whole eggs, some brown sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy

Meanwhile sift flour, baking powder and almond meal 

Mix the melted chocolate with the eggs and the dry stuff

Pour it in a pan and bake for 30 mins

Make a meringue with 4 egg whites, sugar, vinegar and cornflour. And cocoa.

Put this mixture on top of the cake which has just finished cooking and bake for 25 minutes

Ta-da! It is done. ignore that bit missing from the middle. I burnt it and then I ate it.

I will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Side note- just took it out of the tin. The motherf*%#$r was burnt. I have cut of the outside so it is smaller. It is looking ummm rustic at best. I have some homemade Ice cream I shall dollop on the top and some cocoa.

DAMN YOU DONNA HAY!!!! This would never happen with Nigella.