We love our cookbooks and food blogs here at the Brampton Inn.  We love trying new recipes on our unsuspecting guests!  We love eating all the experimental meals and yes, even the mistakes.  Let’s face it: WE LOVE FOOD!  Most innkeepers do.  In fact,  that’s what drew Danielle and the other 7 “broads” together in the first place (well, that and the fact that they are all innkeepers…).   Their blog is full of bed and breakfast recipes from all 8 inns, so it should come as no surprise that they are working on a cookbook!

Yes, the Eight Broads in the Kitchen are putting together a cookbook, as we have mentioned before.  This means they are sending each other recipes to have someone else try it out to see how it translates.  (One person’s “pinch” might be another’s 1/4 teaspoon).  We have been testing a lot of recipes lately and it’s been very interesting.    Sometimes when writing out a recipe you’ve made a thousand times without even thinking about it, it becomes really difficult to break it down into steps that will make sense to everyone.

The broads are hoping to have the cookbook out in the fall.  If you just can’t wait that long, then you’ll have to start visiting all of the inns…And in fact, the broads have a special incentive for you:  For anyone who visits at all 8 inns, the reward is  a free 2-night  stay at any one of them!  Pretty cool, isn’t it?

If you’re more likely to stay at home, then here’s your chance to step into our test kitchen from afar.  Here is a recipe we recently tested.  We made sure to ask our guests at tea time what they thought and we got  good reviews, but everyone has a different take on lemon and chocolate together.   One woman said it was the best angel food cake she’d ever had.  Someone else said they would have preferred orange to lemon.  But most folks did indeed enjoy it.

So if you’d like to try something a little different, feel free to post your results and your opinions on our Facebook page.  We would absolutely love to hear what you think!  Then, when the cookbook comes out, you just might see this recipe in it!

 Lemon – Chocolate  Angel Food Cake

Lemon and chocolate together is pretty amazing.  The idea from one of Danielle’s  favorite Swiss chocolate bars.

1 ½      cups    egg whites (about 1 dozen egg whites), at room temperature

1 ¼      tsp.      cream of tartar

½         tsp.      salt

1 ½      cups    sugar

1          cup     sifted unbleached flour

⅛         cup     corn starch

1          tsp.      pure vanilla extract

2          tsp.      pure lemon extract

The zest of two lemons

1          cup     dark chocolate (good quality), chopped into small pieces

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Whip the egg whites in the bowl of a stand up mixer with the whisk attachment until foamy.
3. Add cream of tartar and salt and keep whipping until soft peaks form.
4. With the mixer running, gradually add 1 cup of the sugar and continue whipping until stiff and the sugar has dissolved. This will take about another 45 seconds.
5. Sift the remaining ½ cup sugar with the flour and corn starch 3 times.
6. Carefully fold flour into the egg whites. You want to do this very gently. Towards the end add the vanilla and lemon extracts, lemon zest, and chopped chocolate until the chocolate bits are evenly distributed. Don’t overdo it.
7. Carefully spoon the batter into an ungreased angel food pan.
8. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until light brown on top.
9. Cool the cake in the pan by putting it upside down on your counter if your pan has “feet” if not put it upside down around the neck of a bottle until it cools to room temperature.
10. Run a long, sharp knife blade between the cake and the pan and loosen the cake out onto a plate.
11. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before cutting into slices with a serrated knife.