I've never been much of a tiffin/refrigerator cake fan, having always found it vaguely disappointing compared to pretty much anything else I might havecwith a cup of coffee. Still, this one called for dried sour cherries and toasted almonds both of which I had left from Christmas baking, and both of which needed using. It was something to do with a packet of shortbread fingers lurking at the back of the cupboard as well, and a whole lot of mini bars of green and blacks chocolate I was given too.
Maybe it's the toasted almonds and sour cherries, possibly it's the unorthodox use of an egg (I've been looking at other recipes, they don't seem to use eggs) doing something for the texture, it could be the proper grown up dark chocolate - there's no messing about with cocoa powder here, and I'm not ruling out the influence of the vanilla extract either - but whatever it is - this tiffin is amazing.
Stopping at a slice is proving difficult. The texture is the perfect combination of crunchy biscuit, dark velvety chocolate, chewy fruit, and nuts (how do you describe what a toasted nut does when you bite it?). The flavours have the same exceptionally satisfying balance between chocolate richness and berry tartness with all the nice things the nuts and biscuit bring with them too. I'm wondering if dried blueberries would have sufficient tartness to sub for the cherries in future versions (actually I'm just wondering what dried blueberries taste like since I saw a massive packet of them in Costco- my fear is oversweet like cranberries, but they continue to tempt me.)
The tiffin recipe is Here along with one for croque Madame in a Pool article where Johansen talks more about the book. It's my favourite sweet thing since the Sunken Apple Cake from Classic German Baking - and that cake is brilliant.
I'd bookmarked The Pool piece because of the tiffin and am glad to hear it's as good as it looks. I'd already been looking forward to Solo but with you comparing recipe quality to Luisa Weiss' now I'm really excited!
ReplyDeleteJohansen is really good, the Tiffin particularly nice, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
DeleteI thought tiffin was a meal, I had no idea it could be a cake as well. I've just read through the recipe, and it sounds delicious.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s also some sort of egg dish too. The Tiffin (cake) I’ve been unimpressed by in the past has been either over crumbly or rock hard, and to sweet for me. The darker chocolate and sour cherries fix that here, and it’s just generally really good. There are hundreds of variations on the theme though so it’s worth exploring for your favourite version. I’m also craving the chocolate cornflake cakes we made as children now.
DeleteThis sounds delicious -- I have an enormous bag of dried cranberries leftover from Christmas baking for the airmen's cookie drive. I wonder if those would work as well. And I do own Luisa Weiss' book, I haven't made that apple cake but I made the sour cherry streusel cake and it was delicious. Must try the apple cake, that's quite a recommendation.
ReplyDeleteI love apple cake, and particularly love that apple cake :) I don’t see why you couldn’t use pretty much any dried fruit you like, I do particularly like sour cherries though (my mouth is watering as I think about this).
DeleteI am still in pursuit of a good Tiffin recipe I will certainly try this one.
ReplyDeleteI've never been much of a fan, but this recipe has changed my mind. I made some for a leaving do at work and they all loved it too, so it has to be worth a try.
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