Glenna of A Fridge Full of Food is hosting this week’s WHB, and I’ve got cranberries on my mind. Not the Dolores kind, more the dried fruit sort. As one of my favourite pantry items, I’ve used them pretty frequently over the week, and thought I’d share one my recent recipe discoveries.

There are two explanations for the origin of the name, cranberry. These berries are apparently a favourite food of cranes, and the flower from the cranberry plant is also said to resemble the upper body of a crane. Being unique to the Northern Hemisphere, I have yet to see fresh cranberries being sold here. I’ve heard that these red berries are also nicknamed “bounceberries” because when fresh, they should be firm enough to bounce if dropped!

Here in Sydney, you can get frozen ones from some supermarkets or speciality stores, or processed versions such as cranberry juice and sauce. The dried version is wonderful because they have a condensed sweetness, offset by a slight natural sourness, which pairs well with buttery, creamy foods such as cheesecake. I love adding them to home made muesli bars, little butter cakes, muffins, chocolate puddings and chewy biscuits. Rich in antioxidants and purportedly useful in fighting against tooth decay, you could almost say that adding cranberries to your cakes could reverse the negative effects of eating sugar-laden baked goods! Well, not quite, but making a batch of Julie Le Clerc’s lovely couscous cakes would certainly put a smile in your day.

Instead of the suggested rum or brandy, I have used whisky which I think goes rather nicely with the orange juice. The cakes are chewy from the dried cranberries that dot the interior, and fluffy with some texture from the couscous that turns crunchy around the edges of the cake during the baking process.

Couscous Cakes :

1/4 cup whisky
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
finely grated zest and juice of 2 oranges
1 cup couscous
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour, sifted
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 170’C. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin.

In a saucepan heat whisky, oil, orange zest and juice. Place couscous in a bowl and pour over hot liquid. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to steam for 10 minutes. Uncover and fluff up couscous with a fork.

Whisk eggs and sugar together until thick and pale. Fold this mixture into couscous along with remaining dry ingredients and cranberries.

Spoon into prepared tins and bake for 15 minutes or until cakes spring back when touched.

Even though it’s now officially autumn, it still feels a bit in-between seasons to me. The ever changing weather means a jumper gets stuffed into my bag each morning as I walk out the door, “just in case” it’s cold, but I rarely use it. In fact, the major stores started advertising winter wear at least two months ago, and I wondered how many people could actually contemplate purchasing thick, long coats while still in their singlet tops and shorts. Despite what the fashionably inclined might say (and some might argue however that it’s not so much a need, as a want), Sydney to me just never seems to get cold enough to warrant wearing trenchcoats or knee length boots. And this is coming from someone who loves shoes. Although, like the seasons, my interest in shoes have waxed and waned of late. The last pair of shoes I bought were some gorgeous lollipop striped Marc Jacobs pumps. These could quite possibly have been obtained as far back as a year ago.

Several things have always remained a constant though : music and cookbooks. The two seem to feed off each other. This week’s kitchen soundtracks of choice have been Beirut’s Gulag Orkestar and the Black Sheep Boy album by Okkervil River. I especially like the track A Stone:

…And I think I believe that, if stones could dream, they’d dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they’re unable to know. And when that queen’s daughter came of age, I think she’d be lovely and stubborn and brave, and suitors would journey from kingdoms away to make themselves known. And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day when she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago…

Which brings us (not really), in a sort of round about way to the subject of brownies. Brownies : one of those easy-to-whip-up yet decadent treats; a dark chocolate hit disguised in the form of a small, unassuming brown square of cake. The ones I like best usually have a crusty top and a nicely fudgey interior, occasionally flecked with walnuts or macadamias. Brownies are a constant because chocolate is a constant in my life. Sometimes, an unavoidable one. Last week I walked into Tiffanys on Castlereagh St on my way home to browse for a present. The store was very busy, so I didn’t get so much as a raised eyebrow in my direction despite actually wanting a bit of help. Could have been the way I was dressed, or perhaps the streaks of chocolate I realised were stuck to the undersides of my arms when I propped them up to study a display case chock full of glitter. Never mind that I had been working with chocolate all day, it’s a bit like missing a spot behind your ear when you wash.

This brownie recipe, from Julie Le Clerc’s Little Cafe Cakes, is a triumph of simplicity. It’s one of those recipes where you seem to just dump everything into a bowl, stir, and everything turns out alright in the end, with nary a smudge of chocolate to be found in any place it shouldn’t be on. I baked these as part of Myriam’s BrownieBabe event, but really, who ever needs an excuse to whip up a batch of brownies! Some will certainly say, it’s not so much a need, as a want.

Little chocolate brownie cakes :
(the original recipe says this mix is enough for 12 brownies, but I’ve found that it makes 9 of what I deem to be adequately sized brownies)

100g butter
200g quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup flour, sifted
1/2 cup white chocolate bits (I substituted with walnuts)

Preheat oven to 180’C. Grease and base line a muffin tray. Melt butter and chocolate together in a double boiler; or microwave for 2 minutes. Cool a little then stir in the beaten eggs and sugar.

Stir in the flour and beat to combine. Stir in the white chocolate bits. Spoon mixture into prepared tins and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Helen’s choice of Mousse as a theme for HHDD #11 had me thinking about all the many and varied types of mousses (meese?) there are out there. From lemon to salmon, and beyond. Despite the myriad possibilities, what I really felt like having (because I’m boring and also because I haven’t eaten it in awhile) was some good old fashioned chocolate mousse. Not chocolate moose, mind you, like the Swedish Chef would have you make.

Most of the chocolate mousses I’ve made in the past involve a considerable amount of whipped cream being folded into the chocolate base to lighten it. This time, I thought I would try a new recipe and adapted one by Gabriel Gate, so that aside from the dark chocolate which doesn’t have much lactose anyway, this mousse is as dairy-free as possible (thereby rendering it more edible for the other member of this household). The resulting velvety and airy cushion of chocolate doesn’t suffer one bit from the lack of cream. In fact, if you wanted to dress up this sumptuous spoonful of pure chocolate, you could serve it as a generous quenelle on a plate, with trailing ribbons of dark chocolate sauce, surrounded perhaps by a little blobble or two of Pedro Ximenez jelly and for that crunch factor, glassy sails of coffee bean nougatine perched atop the mousse.

Or, you could do like I did, and have the chocolate mousse straight from the glass as it is. Now.

Chocolate Mousse :

200g dark chocolate
2 tablespoons lactose-free milk
4 yolks
1 tablespoon espresso coffee
1 tablespoon Kahlua (or other liqueur)
6 eggwhites, at room temperature
small pinch cream of tartar
1 teaspoon caster sugar

Melt the chocolate and milk in a bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Remove from the heat. Add the yolks, coffee and Kahlua, and whisk until smooth.

In a separate clean bowl, whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add the sugar and continue whisking until stiff peaks form. Gently combine in a quarter of the eggwhites with the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remaining eggwhites.

Divide the mousse between serving glasses. Refrigerate for 3-4 hours or until set and well chilled.