A couple of recent baking experiments…
I made this chocolate ginger cake from the Green and Black Unwrapped cookbook. The recipe is available online here, and I substituted Rochester Ginger for the ginger syrup. Pete describes it as cake topped with a ginger chocolate bar! One tip – the mixture might curdle before the addition of flour, but don’t panic, it all comes together in the end…
And here are some photos of tapenade scrolls I made using the olive, anchovy and fig tapenade from last week. I used my shaping dough recipe and made two dozen rolls – half Kalamata olive and King Island cheddar for Small Man’s school lunches, and half tapenade…
If you’d like to give these a go, the dough recipe is here, and there are some basic instructions on shaping scrolls here.
Hope you’re all having a great week!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I love the idea of large chunks of ginger in the icing on the ginger cake!
Sorry – meant to write chocolate cake, obviously!
Suelle, you’re right both times, there’s a lot of ginger mixed in with the chocolate cake too! :)
MMMMMM,…Your chocolate & ginger cake looks so huge, pretty & ooh so appetizing too, Celia!!
You used up your tasty fig tapenade spread well! I must try that recipe! Yummie!
Sophie, the fig tapenade is a winner – we’ve been smearing it on everything of late!
Inspired by both of these but especially the cake. Not that I’m into sweet things that much but my girls always ask for chocolate cake and I would like ginger over choc anyday. This way we’d both be happy.
Sally, it’s quite gingery – there’s crystallised or stem ginger in both the cake and the icing. Like you though, I tend to prefer savoury things over sweet too..
Wow, two completely different recipes, awesome! That cake is one of the prettiest I’ve seen in a long time, I think it’s the thick layer of fluffy icing… yummy!
Actually, when I make this cake again, I’m going to rework the icing – it set solid like a bit chocolate bar on top. Not a problem if it’s eaten straight away, but I think next time I’ll make a butter cream icing or something, so that it stays a little softer!
Oh, Celia, chocolate and ginger is one of my all time favourite combos. And that icing looks simply fabulous – those chunks of ginger look like chocolate ginger heaven! I must get round to making that cake!
I’d love a couple of rolls too please – my latest bread has turned out like a house brick…. not sure what I did wrong as I just did what I usually do but it just wouldn’t move. I must have sulky yeast. Perhaps my yeast is feeling unloved – I’m on a soda bread kick at the moment and so it’s a little neglected and abandoned!
Thanks C! I’ve never had much success with soda bread – I must try again. The cake is quite interesting, and went down well, but as I said above, the icing is a bit solid, so I think I’d rework it next time.
Love the tapenade scrolls!
Lizzy, they’ve all been frozen, and they’ve been defrosting beautifully!
I make a standard tapenade with olives etc and then wrap them in puff pastry and cut into bit sizes before cooking, so I’ll be adding this tapenade to my to cook list. Thanks :)
Oooh, wrapping the tapenade in puff pastry is interesting, thank you for the suggestion!
Oooh I love ginger so much! When we visit my parents we always go to the Buderim ginger factory and I stock up on bulk products. The cake looks gorgeous!
Just a thought on some of the comments-
Re. Tapenade in puff pastry- I make these for cocktail parties, rolled the same way as palmiers. They look very cute this way.
Re. The icing setting too hard, I think if you made it into buttercream it would be too soft to support the chunks of ginger, maybe add in a bit of cream to the chocolate to make a thick ganache instead. It would taste like a ginger truffle filling – yumm..
Becca, that’s great advice re the icing, thank you. The original recipe said to melt the chocolate, add ginger and pour it over the cake, which is fine if you’re eating it straight away, but once the chocolate sets, it’s rocky hard to cut! Buderim ginger really is the best in the world!
My husband Tony is a huge ginger fan so he is going to think he’s in heaven when I try this out on the weekend. Thanks for the link Celia.
Hope he enjoys it, Rose ! :)
I’ve not thought to put chocolate and ginger together, but I had a tub of gorgeous crystallised ginger in the pantry just waiting for the right recipe. Love the idea of using the tapenade in scrolls, too – they’d freeze well for lunchboxes, wouldn’t they?
Amanda, they’ve frozen really well – we’ve been defrosting them for lunch all week! And chocolate and ginger are one of those magic combinations! :)
I don’t have to choose a favorite, do I?
Because I want to make them both.
Maybe the savoury rolls first- I’m in Chincoteague and there aren’t enough people here yet to eat that cake. But I can freeze the scrolls, yes?
You inspire me, Celia.
Heidi, absolutely you can freeze the scrolls – we did – and they’re perfect defrosted at lunch with a hot bowl of soup! Thanks for the kind words, love, you know the feeling is mutual! :)
I love the combination of ginger and dark chocolate as well…so this cake is definitely going on my “to try” list. Yum!
Tapenade already on that list….
Must cook more, work less…. :)
Work is over-rated, life is short, spend more time cooking! :)
I am going to make some rolly scrolly things for Brian, I am sure he would love them. And your cake looks so beautiful I might just have to have a slice of that for me !
Jo, if you make the cake, do fiddle with the topping a bit – just melting chocolate and pouring it over the top was delicious, but it was hard to cut once it had set firm. Everyone loved it though!
I’ll have to keep that cake in mind when I next see my dad. he would be a very happy man with all that ginger… actually so would I… just not the man bit.
Brydie, it’s a nice cake to bake for a ginger fan! :)
Yum! Just so YUM! What a treat, I love working with ginger, something about the taste makes me think it’s just so dang healthy. :) I really need to do some cooking, your recipes are piling up on my desktop.
Anna love, you’re cooking all the time! I don’t know how you find the time to fit everything in! :)
what a great result from all your baking :)
Thanks Tandy! I really like making scrolls – a little bit of time fills my freezer with lunches for a couple of weeks!
Those scrolls look/sound fantastic Celia (cake looks pretty good too! Love ginger in baking …….!
Craig
Thanks Craig, they were delicious too. Small Man’s really happy with the olive and cheese scrolls made with the reworked ciabatta dough!
Wow the chocolate cake looks so yummy :)
Thanks Tes! Hope you’re all well.. x
Haha well that description of the cake would have sold it into Mr NQN! ;)
Oh yes, that fella of yours would have loved this, Lorraine! :)
I love the look of those tapenade rolls, and tell Pete “step away from the chocolate bar topped cake!!, move along, move along, nothing to see here!!!” c
Hahaha…it was hard to keep him away from it! :)
I’ve never tried anything where chocolate is paired w/ ginger. Might have to give this cake a try some time if I find some ginger syrup. Was the cake moist?
Love the rolls, they are so fancy looking. Hubby would love the ones with cheddar cheese. He loves it when the cheese oozes out a bit and then starts to brown and get kind of crusty. Mmmmm!
Mel, it wasn’t particularly moist – I think because of the reasonably small quantity of butter – but it was very tasty and quite gingery!
Your Hubby would get on well with my Small Man – he takes olive and cheese rolls to school every day. He never seems to tire of them!
wowee! I adore the green and black cookbook. I have a few things to make from it at the moment! this cake looks simply divine.
It’s a great read, isn’t it? The chocolate stout cake is the best thing I’ve ever made from it – we make it with Guinness! :)
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/11/01/chocolate-guinness-cake/
That melted ginger chocolate looks so seductive. I thought I’d made this, but don’t remember chocolate bars on the top of mine, so might just have to try it again ;-) And your tapanade scrolls look completely delicious too.
Choc, you were actually my inspiration for making this cake! You posted a recipe from the G&B cookbook recently, and I remembered that I had the book on the shelf, so I pulled it out and ended up making this cake! Thank you! :)
He he, that pleased me Celia. You are such a huge inspiration, it’s nice if I cast the odd idea your way from time to time ;-)
Chocolate and ginger is an exotic combo! Everything looks heavenly here :-)
Thanks for stopping by, Christy! :) Chocolate and ginger are one of our faves – we’re going to dip ginger in tempered chocolate as well, for Christmas…
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/08/26/ginger-chocolates/
May I have a slice of that chocolate cake, please? Mmmmmm :D
Misk, of course! :)
Two of my favourite things! Shame no one else in the house likes ginger. Tapenade rolls are a great idea too. A friend does a similar thing with bought puff pastry.
Anna, Small Man is just starting to develop a taste for it!
Wow that icing looks pretty amazing