7 Borovan-Flavoured Desserts You Need To Try This!

     Every winter, as the frost starts to descend and the days start to dwindle, Neopians everywhere begin to look forward to that most magical of days. A day when they can gather together with loved ones, round a warm fire, and reminisce about the year gone by, think of hopes for the future, and drink a delicious hot beverage. Borovan day. But the perennial issue is always: what dessert should you serve with your steaming hot cup of Borovan? Worry not, with this essential guide to Borovan-flavoured cakes, brownies, cookies and more, you’ll have plenty of options to choose from. You might even discover your new favourite.

     1. Iced Borovan Cake

     Chocolate, Borovan, icing and even more chocolate mix to form a fattening, yet tempting treat.

     This three-tiered Borovan cake heaped with delicious icing might look difficult at first, but with a few simple bits of kit, it’s achievable for the most inexperienced of bakers. First, you’ll need three circular cake tins in different sizes. I recommend 4, 6 and 8 inch diameter tins, and pre-cut circles of parchment paper to make life easy. For perfect results, make the cake in advance and chill. You need to cut each cake in half evenly, which is much easier with a cold cake. First, cream your butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. In another bowl, sift together the Borovan powder, cocoa, flour and raising agent. Then add your eggs one at a time to the first bowl. If you find the mixture curdles a little, add some of your flour mixture.

     Gradually add the dry ingredients until you have a smooth mixture with no pockets of unmixed dry ingredients. Divide the mixture between the three lined cake tins and bake until a skewer comes out clean. For this cake, you need two kinds of icing. The middle is a simple buttercream with Borovan paste added for flavour. The top is a water icing, made with just confectioners sugar and water, to allow it to drip gracefully down the edges. For added impact, add freeze-dried chopped asparagus to the top of your cake.

     2. Borovan Layered Cake

     Artistically decorated by the finest chefs in Neopia, each cake is a masterpiece in its own right.

     A much bigger challenge than the simple sponge above, this beautifully decorated cake is a worthy challenge for a more experienced baker. It features layers of delicately flavoured Genoise sponge, chocolate and Borovan Ganache and Italian meringue buttercream. When making your Genoise, whisk together the salt, flour and Borovan powder first. Then put your sugar, eggs and yolks in a separate, large metal bowl and place over a pan of boiling water. Make sure your bowl is not touching the water. Whisk this mixture over the heat until it’s nice and warm, and the sugar is completely dissolved. Take off the heat and whisk on a high speed with an electric beater until your mixture is pale, thick and really fluffy. Get as much air into it as you can! Gently fold in your dry ingredients then add your melted butter slowly. The key is not to lose too much air. Divide between your three cake tins (rectangles are recommended here but circles would also do fine), then bake until springy to the touch.

     For the Ganache, you need to get your cream very nearly boiling or just starting to boil, then add in your chocolate and Borovan, and stir. The cream should melt the chocolate on its own. Stir until smooth and glossy, then chill. For your Italian meringue buttercream, you first make an Italian meringue by heating sugar and water to make a sugar syrup, then use this instead of sugar to make a meringue. Once you have a stiff, glossy meringue, add in softened butter a little at a time until you have a delicious mixture. Try piping some fancy swirls around the cakes to impress your friends.

     3. Borovan Brownies

     The distinctive taste of Borovan, mixed with chocolate brownies!

     Who doesn’t love a chocolate brownie? If you ask me these should be served instead of cake at most events. For this recipe you’ll need a relatively shallow square or rectangular tin. Top tip: never try to divide up this recipe. Brownies need to be baked in a big batch in order to get that lovely gooey middle. You’ll never get the results you want if you make smaller batches. Grease and line your tin well, then carefully melt your chocolate and butter in a pan. Add your sugar and Borovan, and mix well until you have a smooth mixture. Sieve your flour and raising agent into another bowl, make a well in the centre then pour in your melted mixture and stir until well combined.

     Pour your delicious batter into the lined and greased tin. The trick with baking these is to take them out when they’re nearly done, but not quite, as they continue to cook slightly as they cool. So when your skewer is not quite clean, but the centre feels springy and nearly cooked, and the top is cracked and crispy, take them out. Dust liberally with icing sugar and serve hot with Borovan ice cream!

     4. Borovan Pavlova

     Lashings of cream, chocolate and Borovan make up this delight!

     Pavlova is not exactly known as the queen of puddings. It can be exceedingly sweet, and definitely temperamental. But this is more than worth your time. Here, it really helps to have a stand mixer available. Or at least an electric hand whisk. Otherwise you’ll be standing there for days with your hand whisk and who’s got time for that during Borovan season? First, separate your eggs. Now, this might seem obvious, but i highly recommend doing this into a small bowl, then tipping the egg whites into your large bowl and doing the same for the next egg. The reason is, if on the sixth egg you manage to pierce the yolk and get it in the bowl, it’s not a big deal whereas if you do all six at once, you might well ruin all six egg whites. Whisk up your egg whites until soft peaks form, then begin to add your sugar a little at a time to avoid deflating your meringue. Once it’s thick, shiny and glossy, with stiff peaks, sift in the cocoa and Borovan powder and gently fold them in, trying not to lose too much air.

     Divide this mixture between two large baking trays lined with parchment and smooth into a rough circle. Bake in a low oven until crispy on the outside, then turn the oven off and leave them in there to dry out, with the oven door slightly ajar. Whip up some cream, and when your meringues are cool, stack one on top of the other with your cream in the middle. If you like, you can drizzle with white chocolate so it looks more like the picture!

     5. Scrumptious Borovan Cookie

     A crunchy cookie bottom with an overcooked asparagus spear on top. Yum!

     The easiest way to make these is to buy your favourite chocolate cookies, cover them with chocolate and Borovan Ganache and add your asparagus spears. But if that feels too much like cheating, a simple cookie recipe will do. Rub your butter into your flour until it looks like breadcrumbs, then stir in the sugar. Make a well in the middle, then pour in your wet ingredients. Stir to make a thick cookie dough, then chill for an hour before rolling out, cutting into circles and baking. To cook your asparagus, place in a pan of boiling water, and boil until almost all of the colour has drained out of the asparagus. Only then is it overcooked enough to enjoy with a cookie. Dry thoroughly and chill before putting them on top of your delicious cookies!

     6. Delicious Borovan Crepe

     It smells like crepe.

     Crepes are a great start to your day with a savoury filling, but they make even better desserts. You will need eggs, milk, flour, butter, Borovan, asparagus and chocolate sauce, and a non-stick skillet. Whisk together your eggs, milk and some melted butter, then sift in your flour and whisk until smooth. Or you can simply put everything in a blender. If you can stand it, chill your mixture for 30 minutes before using. Use a ladle or pour the mixture over the skillet to make a thin crepe, cook for a couple of minutes, turn it, then cook for another couple of minutes. Roll your crepe into a sausage shape, then top with chocolate sauce, Borovan and some chopped asparagus if you fancy that. Serve piping hot!

     7. Fresh Borovan And Asparagus Tart

     Eat it while it is fresh! No, seriously. We are not joking.

     To make this seriously tasty tart, you need to start with your pastry. Now, there’s nothing wrong with just opening a pack of pre-made short crust pastry. It’s a real time-saver. But if you want to make it from scratch, a food processor will help. Pulse your butter and flour until you get a breadcrumb-like mixture, then slowly add ice cold water a little at a time while the processor is on. Wait 1 minute before each addition, and stop once the mixture comes together into one ball. Pat into a flat oval and chill. Mix up your chocolate Ganache with some Borovan as described above and set aside to chill. Cook your asparagus to your taste (I prefer it crunchy in this tart). Roll out your pastry a large, thin circle, plenty bigger than your tart tin. Line your tin with the pastry, leaving some hanging over the edge. Line the pastry in baking parchment and add baking beads. Blind bake for 15 minutes, then lift out the beads and parchment and return to the oven for another 10 minutes until crisp and golden. Allow the tart case to cool, warm the Ganache enough to use it to fill the tart, then top with your asparagus.

     So now you have all the Borovan dessert recipes you could possibly need for this Borovan Day! Just stay away from anyone who tries to give you a suspicious looking Borovan creme pie. Step. Away. Happy Borovan Day!