With Summer well underway, are you looking for an easy veggie dish to complement outdoor grilling or score “best cottage guest” award?

If so, Karen McCleave, amateur cook and professional eater, has a suggestion. Today, we’re sharing one of her favourite recipes, inspired after diving into Italian cuisine on a wine tour of central and northern Italy.

Not familiar with spaghetti squash? It is easily prepared. Its unique texture and taste will convert you. Oven roasting softens the flesh into strands resembling spaghetti; hence, the name. It naturally marries with parmesan cheese and garlic, and pairs easily with a range of wines, from sauvignon blanc to pinot noir.

Here is what you will need:

• 1 spaghetti squash, about 3 pounds
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 to 4 large garlic cloves, green shoots removed, minced
• 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs (Karen uses Panko)
• Chopped parsley and/or other fresh herbs like basil
•  Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
•  Freshly grated Parmesan—as much as you want

Here is how to make it:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
• Pierce the squash in several places with a sharp knife. Place the squash on a foil-lined baking sheet. (Alternatively, you can cut it in half, lengthwise and bake them side by side.)
• Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the squash is soft. 
• If you baked it whole, cut it in half lengthwise and remove the seeds.
• Scoop out the flesh with a fork, creating the “spaghetti strands”. Place them into a bowl. (You should have about 4 cups)
• Heat oil in a large, non-stick skillet over medium heat, adding the garlic and bread crumbs. Stir for a couple of minutes, until the garlic softens and bread crumbs become  crispy.
• Add the squash and fresh herbs. Season with salt and pepper. Toss until blended.
• Place spaghetti in a warm serving dish and generously top with freshly grated Parmesan. Add a garnish of parsley or basil, and serve.

Variations: You can also toss the spaghetti squash with 1 cup of tomato or marinara sauce. Grilled chicken is delicious with it.

Image from Creative Commons

Ciao bellos e bellas!

Bundt cakes are timeless classics. Along with other traditional goodies, like chocolate wedding favours and holiday bakes, the bund cake has a special significance — they take all of us to our fondest memories!

How is it that the crown-shaped Bundt mould changed the way we see cakes? The sponginess, the subtle sweetness and the deliciously soft texture in Bundt cakes is the golden standard for any home baked good.

Let’s make a fudgy chocolate Bundt cake from scratch, a real treat and a crowd-pleaser. This cake is ideal for engagement parties and bridal showers. By the way, don’t forget to explore Lily O’Brien’s chocolate wedding favours and hamper boxes for an extra sweet touch. Let’s get started!

What is Exactly a Bundt Cake?

The Bundt cake is a speciality going back for centuries in Europe, mainly in Alsace, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The unique bake became madly popular in Ireland in the 1950s, from where it travelled to the Americas and every other corner of the earth.

What makes Bundt cakes special is the cast aluminium pan that gives it its lovely shape, and the sponge-like texture really takes the cake to another level. The best part? You can flavour a Bundt cake with anything, from cranberries and nuts to decadent chocolate, so let’s do just that!

What do You Need to Make a Chocolate Bundt Cake?

What makes Bundt cakes so deliciously smooth, is the butter. We’re combining a bit less than three butter sticks with equal parts of all-purpose wheat flour and a few pinches of baking soda, salt and bicarbonate soda. That’s the base right there.

Then you’ll need 100 grams of premium chocolate; I love Lily O’Brien’s Mega Milk Share Bag — it’s perfectly balanced between milky sweetness and chocolatey bitterness. A dash of vanilla extract adds warmth, while cocoa powder will give the Bundt cake some extra chocolate bliss.

Finally, there’s the soured cream for the moisture, three eggs and granulated sugar. That’s it. I bet you already have everything you need at home! Oh, and you need a Bundt cake pan, of course.

Our little secret will the blood orange icing, which totally transforms the cake! For this one, you’ll need blood orange juice and icing sugar.

How to Make Chocolate Bundt Cake with Blood Orange Glaze?

You’ll find the complete recipe for a fantastic chocolate Bundt cake at the end of this post, but here’s a quick rundown of what we’re doing. 

Preheat the oven and grease the Bundt cake pan. That’s the basics. We’re then combining the dry ingredients: the sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

The next step is melting the chocolate, and for that, you can just use the microwave. The cocoa powder, vanilla extract and soured cream come together with the chocolate in the same bowl. 

As with all cakes, you must whisk the butter and sugar until fluffy and creamy, and then you add the eggs. So far, this is easy, right? 

Then we’re bringing it all together and straight into the Bundt pan. Baking the cake (a 2.4-litre tin) usually takes 45 minutes. The glaze is the easiest to put together. Just whisk the blood orange juice with the sugar. 

Decorate the cake with the blood orange glaze and serve it with a side of chocolate wedding favours. A special touch to show your loved ones how much you care!

Tips for the Perfect Chocolate Bundt Cake

• Use high-quality ingredients, including fresh blood orange juice and premium chocolate. 
• Make sure the Bundt cake is cooked through by sticking a fork or a wood pick in the thickest part. It should come out dry. 
• Don’t try to unmould the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. Let it sit for a while, and it will be easier to unmould. 
• Let the cake cool down before pouring the icing, or it will be too runny! You want the glaze thick enough to form nice tears along the cake’s sides. 

For All Your Chocolate Needs, Visit Lily O’Brien’s Chocolate Collections

Whether you’re looking for chocolate for a Bundt cake or are looking for a lovely chocolate hamper, Lily O’Brien’s has you covered. Browse our online store and explore our exclusive collections, chocolate bars and chocolate wedding favours. Now, let’s make ourselves a Bundt cake!

Chocolate Bundt Cake with Blood Orange Glaze Recipe

Ingredients for the cake:

200g unsalted butter (plus more for greasing the tin)

300g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

100g Lily O’Brien’s Mega Milk Share Bag (just under 1 bag) roughly chopped

1 tsp vanilla extract

160ml soured cream

55g cocoa powder (plus more for dusting the tin)

400g granulated sugar

3 medium eggs, at room temperature

Ingredients for the blood orange glaze:

250g icing sugar

2-3 tbsp freshly squeezed blood orange juice

Method

1. Heat the oven to 170°C/fan 150°C. Thoroughly grease your Bundt tin (we used a 2.4-litre tin) with butter, then dust with an even coating of cocoa powder and set to one side. Make sure you take time with this step, as this is vital to the cake turning out properly.
2. Combine the sifted flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large bowl.
3. Melt the chocolate in a suitable bowl in the microwave in 20-second bursts until just melted. Once melted, sift in the cocoa powder, add the vanilla extract, soured cream and 80ml boiling water, then stir into a thick paste.
4. In a separate large bowl, using an electric whisk or stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after each, then stir in the chocolate mixture until just combined. Carefully fold in the flour mixture using a metal spoon.
5. Pour the mixture into your greased Bundt tin and smooth the top; give the tin a few gentle taps on your work surface to make sure the mixture sits into all the crevices of your tin.
6. Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes then turn the cake out onto a wire rack and leave to cool.
7. While your cake is cooling, make your blood orange glaze. Sift the icing sugar into a medium-sized bowl. Add 2 tablespoons blood orange juice and stir to combine. Add 1/4 teaspoon blood orange juice at a time as needed and whisk until your glaze is smooth but still very thick. When you pick up your whisk, you want a drizzle of glaze to stay on the surface for about 10 seconds before it starts to melt back into the rest of the mixture. If your glaze is too thin, add more icing sugar. If it’s too thick, add more blood orange juice until you get the ideal consistency.
8. Generously drizzle the blood orange glaze over the cooled cake, allowing it to drip down the sides. Once this is set, cut into pieces and serve.