Chocolate rum and raisin cake....and a prize giveaway

 

When the nice people at Mustard, the incredibly funky online homewares store, asked me if I’d like to select something from their site to review on my blog – and be given a second one to giveaway as a competition prize – I felt that Christmas had come early!  But what to pick?  I wanted everything on the site!

I eventually chose the choc-a-bloc cake mould.  It had stiff competition from the house brick cake mould (which must've sold out now, as it's not on the site anymore) but I felt there were more occasions perhaps where one could bake a bar of chocolate cake, than a house brick.  It sells for £8 and details of how you can win one are at the end of this post.

Much as I like to be contrary, for the first use of this mould it had to be a chocolate cake.  The CCD (Caked Crusader’s Da) has always had a soft spot for rum and raisin.  As luck would have it my copy of Eric Lanlard’s latest book had just arrived and I noticed a very nice chocolate rum and raisin loaf cake.  I’ve tweaked the recipe (i.e. put the rum and raisins in the cake, rather than the ganache) and played around with the quantities to suit this mould.  The raisins pop in your mouth with a hint of rum, which adds pleasing depth to the chocolate cake. 

Please note my comments in the recipe on the ganache – I found its looks a little disappointing but it tasted lovely (beyond chocolate - so intense).  It set firm, quickly – look!  I hardly had time to spread it:

So, how can you win a fantastic choc-a-bloc cake mould?  Simply leave a comment to this post telling me about your favourite chocolate bar – it could be something that isn’t made anymore, it could be something that’s in every supermarket across the country, it might not even exist but in your dreams!  But it has to be your favourite!  For me, nothing can ever beat a four finger kitkat – particularly if you get one of the ‘faulty’ ones where one stick is solid chocolate.

The prize is open to any readers in the UK, sorry to everyone else.  Competition closes 7pm Friday 26^th April and the winner (chosen by lucky dip!  I know rafflecopter etc is all the rage these days but – for a blogger – I am actually rather old school!) will be announced on the blog shortly after.  Good luck!

Ingredients

For the cake:

100g raisins
4 tablespoons rum – I used spiced rum
100g unsalted butter
150g dark chocolate, broken into squares
4 eggs – separated
200g golden caster sugar
50g ground almonds
100g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

For the ganache: (NB.  I found this far too much and recommend you halve it.  I also was concerned that it was too thick – there’s soooo much chocolate in it - so I thinned it with more cream.  If you have a reliable ganache recipe maybe use it instead of this one)

175m single cream, plus extra if needed (about 2 tablespoons)
25g golden caster sugar
350g dark chocolate – broken into squares
25g unsalted butter, at room temperature

Method

A day in advance of making the cake soak the raisins and rum and leave in a covered bowl.  Stir occasionally.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Line a 900g loaf tin with baking paper.  If using a silicone mould (as I did) use cake release spray.  As my mould was smaller, I used a 450g loaf tin to bake the leftover batter i.e. I got 2 cakes out of it!

Start by making the cake: melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl over a pan of simmering water – taking care that the bowl does not touch the water.

Leave to cool.

Beat together the egg yolks and sugar until they are pale and creamy.

Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture and the ground almonds.

Beat in the flour and baking powder.

Stir in the rum and raisins, making sure you don’t leave any rum in the bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.

Take a spoonful of egg white and stir it into the chocolate mix to slacken it.

Gently fold in the remaining egg whites.

Spoon into the prepared tin(s) and level the surface.

If using the 900g tin, bake for approximately 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.  If using two 450g moulds, bake for about 30 minutes before checking.

Leave to cool in the tin(s) for about 10 minutes before turning out and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

Now make the ganache: heat the cream and sugar in a saucepan until very hot but not boiling (i.e. what used to be called scalding point).

Remove from the heat and add the chocolate.

Stir until thick and glossy.

Stir in the butter.  Now I might be getting old and puny but I couldn’t do this by hand so used my kitchenaid.  The mix was very thick so I added some extra cream.

Let the ganache cool –but not set - before finishing the cake.

Place the cake on the serving plate and carefully spread the ganache over it.  Let it run down the sides a little.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.