Chocolate Birthday Cake

Have spent a couple of evenings making this cake, hopefully it has turned out ok!

It is a real chocolate feast with three different types of chocolate cake all layered up, covered with a chocolate ganache and decorated with even more Chocolate! 

The first thing I did was to make the patterned chocolate for the letters and the crumbled chocolate around the sides of the cake. The pattern was added to the chocolate with chocolate transfer sheets. This was the first time I have used them, and they pattern transferred very well, but you mustn't let the chocolate completely harden before you try to cut it or it will break. Here is a link to a video explaining how to use chocolate transfer sheets .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcHSqgIH4No

I cut out my letters then left them to harden further, then removed from sheet and left in the fridge overnight.

Today I got to work on my cakes. The bottom layer is a chocolate coca cola cake and this is the recipe

Ingredients
250g/9oz self-raising flour
300g/10½oz golden caster sugar
3 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
generous pinch bicarbonate of soda
250g/9oz butter
200ml of cola drink
75ml/4¼fl oz milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4. and grease a 24cm loose bottomed cake tin
2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Melt
the butter and cola drink gently in a pan then add to the dry
ingredients, together with the milk, eggs and vanilla. Mix gently but thoroughly
3. Tip into the cake tin and bake for about 40 minutes or until a
skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove
from the oven and leave for about 15 minutes. 

The other layers are a recipe split in two to make two different flavour cakes : 

• 175g butter , softened, plus extra for greasing
• 100g white chocolate (we like M & S or Green & Black's with real vanilla)
• 100g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
• 3 eggs
• 100ml whole or semi-skimmed milk
• 175g caster sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200g self-raising flour
• 2 tbsp very strong coffee (instant is fine)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and bottom-line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins. For the cake, break the white and dark chocolate into two small bowls, then melt in the microwave on High for 1 min or over a pan of simmering water. Put everything else, except the coffee and vanilla, into a large bowl, then beat until creamy.
• Divide the mixture in two, then add the coffee and melted dark chocolate to one bowl, and the vanilla and melted white chocolate to the other. Stir until mixed through, then tip into the tins. Bake for 20-25 mins until risen and slightly shrunk from the sides of the tins. Cool in the tins for a few mins, then turn onto a wire rack.
• When the cakes were cooled I used a smaller tin to trim a rim of about 1cm off them as I felt they were a little big as they were.
• The next job was to make the ganache.
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• Ingredients
• 430ml double cream
• 300g dark chocolate
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• For the ganache, heat the cream in a pan, then break the dark chocolate into a large bowl. Once the cream is just boiling, pour it onto the chocolate, then leave for 5 mins. Stir until smooth, then leave until thickened and cool. 
• I then started to assemble the cake. I used the cola cake for the bottom layer and topped the whole cake with ganache smmothing with a palette knife. The next layer was the white chocolate cake and Again I covered with ganache and smoothed out and finally did the same with the dark chocolate cake finishing with a final layer of ganache, I then used 5 boxes (!!) of chocolate fingers to encircle the inner and outer cakes, starting with the inner one - and I was very good because I only ate one or two :) I then filled the gap between the two with crumbled transfer decorated chocolate and crumbled flake. I then decorated the top with Maltesers (It took a full large bag) and stuck on the letters / numbers with some of the left over ganache. I added a ribbon to give a bit more stability to the chocolate fingers although it was not strictly neccesary
• Sorry blog is a funny layout today, am good with cakes, rubbish with computers : (
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Vanilla Cupcakes

A very simple recipe - that makes oh so cute cupcakes!!

4 med eggs
250g butter at room temperature
250g caster sugar
250g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
seeds from  half a vanilla pod, or 1tsp vanilla extract


Mix all the above together until smooth and creamy. Fill muffin cases 2/3rds full with mixture, smooth tops and bake at 180 for 12-14 mins until golden and a skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Leave to cool.

For Icing, mix 500g of sifted icing sugar with 160g butter and 2 tbsp of milk and seeds from other half of vanilla pod or vanilla extract. Beat until smooth, then add colouring if required, and pipe or smooth onto cakes and decorate!

Jammie Dodgers and Custard Creams

Treats needed to go in Packed Lunches this week, so it's biscuits today,  2 of my favourite kinds too 

I used the same basic dough for each biscuit which is really easy to make and very pliable to easy to work with.

Ingredients for dough

170g butter
85g icing sugar (sifted)
170g pln flour (sifted)
55g custard powder (sifted)

Cream together the butter and icing sugar - I start doing this with a wooden spoon before using the mixer so that I  don't get covered in icing sugar when turning the mixer on. add flour and custard powder and using a K beater if using a food processor or a spoon and then your hands if you are not, work together until you have a nice ball of dough. The dough should feel lovely and soft and a bit like playdoh!

Roll out the dough and cut into whatever shapes you like. I Did stars for my Jammie dodgers, using the round end of a piping nozzle to cut out a small circle in half of the stars. I cut out the hole whilst the dough was still in the star shaped cutter so that it wouldn't cause the dough to spread out. For the custard creams I used a standard cutter, but for some of the tops I pushed a mesh shape into the dough before cutting out to give some of the tops a more interesting texture. Bake for about 10-12 mins then leave to cool on trays.

For the Jammie Dodgers I just sandwiched them together with the jam using slightly more in the middle so it would come up through the hole, and then sprinkled with caster sugar.

For the custard creams I made a custard flavoured buttercream icing.

Ingredients

80g butter at room temperature

250g sifted icing sugar 

2 tbsp whole milk

50g custard powder

beat the icing sugar and butter together after initially combining using a spoon. add the milk and the custard powder. Taste and add more sugar or custard powder if required. Then use to sandwich biscuits together. You can be quite generous with it.

Chocolate Mousse and Tuile biscuits

After a stressful day with a broken washing machine, some chocolate was required!

This Mousse recipe is from a little book I received today from Sarah Moss - Thank you Sarah x

The Tuile biscuits are a Leiths recipe and this is the first time I have made them.

Mousse Ingredients

100g of milk chocolate 
2 eggs (separated)
70 ml double cream

Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water then stir in the egg yolks and allow to cool slightly.

Whip the cream in one bowl to soft peaks, and beat the egg yolk in another bowl until stiff.

Fold the cream into the chocolate, and then fold in the egg whites. spooon into Ramekin dishes or other suitable dish / glass and chill for 2 - 4 hours. This is a lovely light bubbly mousse and the amounts above gave me enough for 6 ramekin sized mousses.

Next job was the tuiles, and for something so simple looking they were very fiddly!

Ingredients 

55g of butter (melted)
2 egg white
115g caster sugar
55g plain flour

1. Heat oven to 190/ 170 fan/ Gas 5
2. Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment each cut into 4 squares - don't be tempted to use greaseproof because some brands of that still stick to the tuiles.
3. allow butter to cool to room temp, beat the egg whites with a fork to break them up a little then stir in the sugar. Stir in the butter and finally add the flour. This will give you a batter type mixture.
4. Spread the batter into very thin rounds or thin strips on the baking paper ( I did strips, dropped a half teaspoon of batter on to the baking sheet then spread it down with a palette knife.)
5. Bake for 5 - 7 mins or until lightly browned. lift the biscuits using the  paper and drape over a rolling pin to give a curved shape. Leave to cool then gently remove baking parchment.

and Enjoy!!

Chocolate Macaroons

This is a lovely biscuit, Much simpler than the french style Macaroons, but just as tasty!

Can't remember where this recipe came from as I have it scrawled on a piece of paper in my recipe book.

Preheat oven to 180/ 160 fan/ gas 4

Line a large baking sheet with baking paper

Weigh 100g of ground almonds into a bowl then sift in 125g icing sugar and 1 Tbsp Cocoa powder and stir.
Whisk 2 egg whites until stiff then fold gently into other ingredients. If you have a pipng bag fill it with the mixture with a plain nozzle fitted or if you don't have a pipng bag, fill a food bag and snip off the corner. Pipe 24 small blolbs about 3cm across, leaving a little space between each for them to spread. Wet your finger then use it to gently smooth the surface of each blob, and then leave to dry out for 15 minutes.

Bake for 15-20 mins until Macaroons feel firm and peel easily from the paper. Leave to cool on the paper and then peel off.

For the filling gently melt 50g dark chocolate until smooth, then stir in 2 tbsp of warm milk.leave to cool slightly then use to sandwich 2 macaroons together.

Vanilla Shortbread

I love this recipe, maybe a little bit too much!!

The recipe comes from BBC Good Food, and always turns out a good result.


http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1172/vanilla-shortbread-dough

They have neglected to include cooking times and temperatures though, but I bake at 180/gas  4/fan 160 for about 11 mins.

A tip I have for ensuring an even thickness for all biscuits, and therefore a good bake  is to roll out the dough using guides at the side, I use 2 hard plastic drinking straws, and rolling the rolling pin along these with the dough in between works very well.

Here is a picture of my Shortbread, with my usual liberal dusting of icing sugar!

A great use for this Shortbread is as a gift, who wouldn't want to receive a jar of delicious Shortbread? Yum!

Starting with the basics - Victoria Sandwich

If you can make a good Victoria sandwich you can always have a recipe to fall back on as it is a real crowd pleaser. A Victoria sandwich can also be adapted with different flavour combinations, but following the same simple method.

The method I use is the all in one method shown to me by my Mother-in-law. I find it quick and easy to use and I seem to get great results.

The first thing I do is decide on the size of cake I want, if I am using  20cm sandwich tins I use four eggs.

from this point it is very easy!

1. Heat oven to 180/ fan 160, gas mark 4
2. Weigh the eggs in their shells and remember the weight ( for cake below mine were 216g)
3. Weigh out the same amount of butter (at room temp), same amount of self raising flour and the same amount of Caster sugar. Add 1 tsp of baking powder. You can then decide if you'd like to add a little flavour, I would usually add either 1 tsp Vanilla extract or the grated zest of a lemon.
4. Place all ingredients in a bowl and beat until smooth
5. I grease my 2 sandwich tins with butter and then shake flour over the surface to make them extra non stick.  If I can give you a tip about your tins, never use them for anything other than baking, I have had many tins ruined by making Sausagemeat stuffing in them!
6. Split the mix between the 2 tins and smooth out tops with a palette knife.
7. Bake for about 20 mins until golden. You can test if they are ready by either seeing if cake springs back when pressed lightly or insert a skewer or cocktail stick and if it comes out clean, the cake is done. Turn out on to a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.
8. For the filling gently warm 3-4 tbsps of Strawberry jam,adding 6 strawberries which have been sliced. spread this onto bottom layer of cake and leave to cool.  You can then use a buttercream icing, but I prefer fresh cream, so I whip 200 mls of double cream until it holds its shape well, then I pipe it on to give a nice finish. Place top layer of cake gently on top and then finish with a dusting of icing sugar, and Enjoy!