Chocolate fudge birthday cake

It is Mr CC’s birthday and time for one of his ‘challenges’ that only serve to prove what a hopeless cake decorator I am!  This year he wanted a chocolate cake (hurrah!  I can do that!) in the shape of Domo (shi....I mean sugar!).  Now Domo is quite a straightforward looking chap...but it’s always the simple characters that are the hardest to get right as there’s nowhere to hide.

Carving is not my forte:

Domo is an international phenomenon with a range of merchandise to rival Hello Kitty.  He is the mascot for a Japanese television station.  If you haven’t come across him, this is what he looks like:

I chose a rich chocolate sponge and this recipe in particular interested me because of the sheer amount of chocolate and cocoa it contains.  It is quite dense almost like a sponge/brownie hybrid – a heavy, but very flavoursome cake.  The addition of sour cream works well and adds a tang to the flavour and stops the whole texture being too cloying.

The chocolate fudge icing couldn’t be simpler – only three ingredients!  Not that you can see much of it, because Mr CC hinted that chocolate sprinkles might replicate Domo’s fur...hence the whole tube of chocolate sprinkles covering the cake!  The icing is a little unconventional and I need to point out how ugly it is when cooled.  Here it is just made and needing to cool (nice):

Here it is cooled and rather icky looking:

Here it is lovely and beaten and ready to spread on the cake.  What I’m trying to convey is don’t lose heart and think you’ve done anything wrong when it’s cooled:

This cake is rich – I’d recommend serving it with some cream to lighten it.  It is also more chocolatey than chocolate; a boast I don’t make lightly (I’d hate you to take me at my word and then be disappointed).  Serve in small slices...this is one to savour!

As it was a cake for Mr CC’s birthday, I didn’t want him to see it before it was finished.  I therefore had to delegate the final inspection to Domo Nerd:

If you don’t want a Domo cake (why wouldn’t you?????) then simply make this cake in a traybake tin and serve that way.  If you are making it like that then maybe halve the icing amounts, as I needed extra to cover the sides of Domo!

Happy birthday Mr CC

Ingredients

For the cake:
300g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
300g unsalted butter
300g light muscovado sugar
150ml hot water i.e. not just boiled but still hot
150ml soured cream
3 eggs, beaten
300g self raising flour
110g cocoa powder

For the icing (this is what I used; if you’re making a traybake consider halving it):
200g dark chocolate
340g condensed milk
200g unsalted butter

To decorate: chocolate sprinkles, fondant icing and maltesers (for the eyes)
To serve: cream

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C/fan oven 140°C/320°F/Gas mark 3.

Grease a 30cm x 20cm traybake tin.  I actually used a 27cm square disposable foil tin as, once I cut a strip of cake off to make the arms, it left me with a better Domo shape!

Put the chocolate, butter, sugar and hot water into a large saucepan and gently melt together, stirring frequently.

Once melted and combined remove from the heat and leave to cool for 5-10 minutes.

Stir in the soured cream and the eggs.

Transfer the mix to a stand mixer, or a bowl suitable to use an electric whisk in, and add the flour and cocoa.

Beat just until the ingredients are combined.  (NB.  I tried to incorporate the flour and cocoa in the pan using a balloon whisk but it was just too heavy and clumpy for my feeble arms to manage – hence the stand mixer)

Pour into the prepared tin – it will be runny – and bake for approximately an hour or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out almost clean.  I’d check the cake after 50 minutes as all ovens are different.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

When the cake is cool you can make the icing: Place all the ingredients in a bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water.

Leave the ingredients to melt, stirring occasionally.

Remove from the saucepan and leave to cool; you may need to chill it to get it to a spreadable consistency.

If your icing looks a bit gloopy and unspreadable, put it in your stand mixer and beat it for a couple of minutes – this gets the texture just right for spreading.

Either spread the icing over the top of your traybake, or use to completely cover your Domo!

Decorate as required.

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

Eat.

Cheesecake fortress – a birthday cake

As my nephew, The Boy Wonder, is what I admiringly term ‘a cheesecake hoover’, he warmly received my idea of a cheesecake fortress for his 14^th birthday cake. This idea developed from his initial request of “the biggest cheesecake you have ever made”.

Raspberry:

These cheesecakes are all made from the same “no bake” cheesecake recipe. It’s quick and easy to make and you end up with a light, delicious cheesecake that can hold its own alongside any fancier recipes.

Blackberry:

The recipe below sets out the basic quantities to make a 20cm cheesecake, but I doubled those to make the base, a 27cm beast! I then made a double batch and divided it up before adding different flavours to make the turrets – I simply made foil rings to keep them in shape. I toyed with using food rings but couldn’t face all the washing up when the cheesecakes were freed!

I am very lucky to have a fab foodie friend, the wonderful Miz Ratti who brought me back a most welcome gift from Germany – Philadelphia cream cheese mixed with Milka chocolate. Why isn’t this available in the UK? Why????? The task of making a chocolate cheesecake suddenly becomes laughably easy!

Chocolate:

Along with the chocolate ‘turret’ cheesecakes, I also made smooth peanut butter flavoured (with chocolate covered peanuts mixed in), blackberry, pineapple (simply a small tin of crushed pineapple) and raspberry flavours. The base (aka the 27cm beast) was a classic vanilla.

Peanut butter:

Pineapple:

You never have to worry about making too much cheesecake (is that even possible? I almost hate myself for typing that!) as it freezes well. To make it even easier, cut the slices and wrap them individually then you only need defrost what you want and the rest is safe for another day.

Happy 14^th birthday Boy Wonder!

Ingredients

For the basic cheesecake mixture (this will make a 20cm round cheesecake, or 5 of the mini's I've made here):

250g digestive biscuits
100g unsalted butter
600g cream cheese – I used Philadelphia
100g icing sugar
284ml double cream

Suggested flavourings: Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod, 3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter, 3 tablespoons fruit puree, small tin of strained crushed pineapple.

Method

Place the ring from a 20cm round springform tin on the plate you’ll server the cheesecake from. Wrap the ring in either clingfilm or greaseproof paper to ensure that you can free the cheesecake easily.

Butter and bics in the food processor - pulse it until the butter is distributed.

Use the crumbs to line the base of the cheesecake. Press them down onto the plate but not so hard that you create biscuity concrete!

Refrigerate while making the cheesecake.

Slice the vanilla pod in half and remove the seeds. (if you are using any other flavourings this is the time to add them)

Place seeds in a bowl along with the cream cheese and icing sugar and beat until smooth and well combined.

Pour in the cream and beat until the mixture is completely combined.

Spoon over the biscuit base and level.

Leave to set overnight in the refrigerator.

Walnut and date cake with walnut buttercream

If I was sponsored for every time I typed the word “birthday”, then by the end of May I could retire! This cake, for Mr CC’s birthday, concludes the birthday season amongst my nearest and dearest!

Mr CC is most fond of date and walnut cakes and I didn’t struggle to find a recipe. But then he dealt a curve ball and requested walnut buttercream. There are not many recipes for such a thing so I adapted a recipe. Any buttercream with chopped nuts, no matter how finely you chop them, will not be smooth but however much I tried to deter Mr CC from this request he stood firm.

The cake was stunning – it had similar flavour to sticky toffee pudding but was far less sweet, thanks to the walnuts, and had a light texture punctuated with crunchy nuggets of walnut. A big hit.

As predicted, the buttercream was a little gritty (not in an unpleasant way and barely noticeable when eaten with the cake) but the flavour was heavenly. The first hit of flavour was typical buttercream i.e. whippy sugary butter, but then the nut came through and cut away a lot of the sweetness. As with anything containing nuts, the flavour deepened over time.

Happy birthday Mr CC...enjoy this new decade!

Fairy Hobmother update: I’m sure many of you will have seen mentions of the Fairy Hobmother on other blogs. He (yes, confusing isn’t it!) is from Appliances Online [http://www.appliancesonline.co.uk/cookers/cookers.aspx], a major online white goods and appliances retailer, and visits bloggers with lovely gifts. I’m delighted with my Amazon voucher and can proudly state that I do believe in fairies! The Fairy Hobmother is a benevolent fairy (are there evil fairies?) and has promised to pick one person from anyone commenting on this post with an offer of a lovely gift...it could be you!

Ingredients

For the cake:
265g stoned dates, chopped
300ml boiling water
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
90g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g light muscovado sugar
2 eggs
375g self raising flour
100g walnuts, chopped

For the buttercream:
375g icing sugar
170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
40g walnuts, finely chopped
1-2 tablespoons milk

To decorate: walnut halves.

Method

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

Line two 20cm round sandwich tins with baking paper ensuring that the paper comes up above the edge of the tin.

Place the water in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the chopped dates and leave for 10 minutes.

Stir in the bicarbonate of soda and put to one side.

Beat together the butter and sugar until well combined. As it is brown sugar, it won’t go whippy as if you were using caster sugar and also, as there’s not much butter it won’t go creamy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Stir in the dates and their liquid.

Fold in the flour and walnuts and make sure that the ingredients are well combined.

Spoon into the prepared tins and level the surface.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean. Mine took 30 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tins, on a wire rack. The cake will be very soft and trying to de-tin it too early may cause heartache!

You can make the sponges a day or two in advance as long as you store them in an airtight container.

When you are ready to compile the finished cake make the buttercream: Place the icing sugar in a bowl and, with the mixer on a slow speed, start to beat in the butter. (Once the butter is mixed in a bit you can up the speed on the mixer).

Add the chopped nuts and enough milk to attain a soft, spreadable consistency.

Place one sponge on the serving plate and spread about 1/3 of the buttercream over the top.

Place the other sponge on top and gently press down to fix in place.

Spread the remaining buttercream over the top and sides of the cake.

Decorate with walnut halves, if desired.

Serve in generous slices.

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

Eat.

Chocolate sticky toffee pudding cake

Birthday season in the Caked Crusader family is well upon us; this week marks the halfway point and it’s the turn of the CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma). I asked her what flavour she would like her cake to feature and was surprised to hear the reply of “chocolate or toffee”. I would’ve bet anything on lemon!

Being a good daughter I know the importance of keeping the CCM happy so hunted for a recipe featuring both chocolate and toffee – and here it is! However good you think chocolate sticky toffee pudding cake will be, multiply that expectation by 10... and you’re still nowhere close!

The flavours are clean and identifiable which pleased me; often, when you combine robust ingredients they get lost and the overall taste is indistinct. On a blind tasting you would guess that this was a chocolate sticky toffee pudding. I have to keep typing that – it’s a wonderful collection of words!

I put the toffee sauce in the fridge - this is how thick it became:

Then, I whisked some of the toffee sauce into some whipped cream and piped it on top of the cake to add an extra element of naughty luxury to the dish. It worked really well – I feel that’s somewhat a redundant statement...like anyone would read that sentence and say, “well that must’ve been a disaster”!

I had to take a photo of the elaborate candle I got for the cake. You light the centre and a plume of sparklers shoot up and out lighting all the candles on the flower petals which open, and then rotate playing “happy birthday”. Classy? Perhaps not. Crowd pleasing? Oh yes! I think this photo really captures the speed of the rotating candles:

Happy birthday CCM

Footnote: anyone interested in acquiring their own "showstopper" candle can order it from the Talkingtables website.

Ingredients

For the cake:
300ml boiling water
150g stoned dates, chopped
150g dark chocolate – I used Green & Blacks 70%
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g light brown sugar
3 eggs
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder

For the toffee sauce:
275g golden syrup
275g light brown sugar
100g unsalted butter
225ml double cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

To serve: whipped cream

Method

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

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Place the water in a saucepan and reduce to a simmer.

Add the chopped dates and leave for 10 minutes – still on a low simmer.

Melt the chocolate – I used a microwave – and put to one side.

Beat together the butter and sugar until paler and lighter. As it is brown sugar, it won’t go as whippy as if you were using caster sugar but you should notice the texture lightening.

Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Stir in the melted chocolate.

Fold in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder.

Stir in the dates and their liquid.

Pour the mixture (it will be runny) into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Mine took 55 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tin, on a wire rack. The cake will be very soft and trying to de-tin it too early may cause heartache!

Now make the toffee sauce: place all the ingredients into a saucepan (use a bigger saucepan than you think you’ll need as the sauce increases significantly in volume while it’s bubbling away) and heat, over a high heat, until the mixture comes to the boil. Stir regularly.

Let the mixture boil for approximately 5 minutes (still stirring) until the sauce is glossy.

Place the warm cake on the serving plate and pour some of the toffee sauce over the cake, putting the rest in a jug for people to serve themselves.

Alternatively, you can serve the cake at room temperature, also with some toffee sauce poured over the cake, and some whipped up with cream as a decadent extra treat!

Serve in generous slices.

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

Eat.

Mocha (chocolate coffee) torte

It is the CCD (Caked Crusader’s Da) and CCU’s (Caked Crusader’s Uncle) birthday; I have mentioned in the past they are twins...and they still are! Recently, the CCD has discovered a love of mocha coffee – the sort that’s more like a dessert with cream and chocolate and a small dash of coffee. So I thought I’d use those flavours for a dessert.

This is the type of recipe that looks intimidating; firstly because I always think tortes seem difficult – even though they’re not; maybe it’s because we’re used to seeing them in patisserie windows that we assume they must be hard work. Secondly, there are three distinct stages to making the dish and, while not remotely taxing, you do have to plan ahead to allow appropriate cooling/setting time between each stage. I broke the dish down into stages and made the biscuit base one evening, the chocolate baked mousse layer the next morning and the coffee cream layer that same evening.

I didn’t taste this one as my loathing for coffee is only equalled by my loathing for lemon, but the feedback was positive with one eater rating it as an all time great bake! A recurring comment was that it tasted like something you’d buy from a high end patisserie.

The hazelnut biscuit base was crisp and crumbly and surprised me by being reasonably easy to cut though: it didn’t shatter all over the work top and stayed in one piece!

The rich chocolate baked ganache middle layer was the most commented on for it’s intense flavour and smooth, velvety texture.

The top layer of set coffee cream was a big hit with the CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma). It has a strong punch of coffee but is light and whippy in texture.

Happy birthday CCD and CCU!

Ingredients

For the biscuit base:
100g chopped hazelnuts – I bought ready chopped
125g unsalted butter, diced
25g light brown sugar
40g caster sugar
125g plain flour
1 ½ tablespoons cornflour

For the chocolate filling:
400ml double cream
100ml single cream
300g dark chocolate, broken up into squares – I used Green & Blacks
100g milk chocolate, broken up into squares – I used Green & Blacks
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon very strong black coffee (I made up some espresso and used it for this stage and the coffee cream)

For the coffee cream:
2 leaves gelatine
250ml whipping cream
4 tablespoons icing sugar
5 tablespoons very strong black coffee

To decorate:
200ml double cream
75g chopped hazelnuts
Flaked chocolate – however much you choose!

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan oven 150°C/340°F/Gas mark 3.

Line the inside of a 23cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Place all the ingredients for the base into a food processor and blitz until combined into a crumbly texture.

Pat into the base of the cake tin and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the base is golden. Mine took 20 minutes.

Leave to cool on a wire rack. You can make this a day ahead of the other two stages.

Reduce the oven to 160°C/fan oven 140°C/320°F/Gas mark 2.5

Now make the chocolate filling: pour the double and single creams into a saucepan and bring just to the boil.

Remove from the heat and tip in the chocolate.

Stir until melted – I used a silicon whisk to do this as I find it is quicker and produces a lovely thick, glossy chocolate.

Whisk in the eggs, vanilla and coffee.

Pour the filling over the biscuit base and level.

Bake for at least 20 minutes or until the chocolate is set but still has a wobble in the centre. Mine took much longer – about 45 minutes so don’t worry if yours needs longer; once it’s had 30 minutes check it every 5-7 minutes.

Leave to cool completely, still in the tin, on a wire rack.

Now make the coffee cream: Place the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water.

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks and fold in the icing sugar.

Heat the coffee until it feels hot but don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat.

Squeeze all the water out of the gelatine leaves and whisk into the coffee.

Whisk the coffee mixture into the cream.

Spread over the top of the chocolate layer and refrigerate to set, ideally overnight.

On the day you will be serving the torte, whip the cream and pipe a border around the top of the torte.

Scatter over the hazelnuts and chocolate.

Serve in generous slices.

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

Eat.

Pineapple, ginger and chocolate birthday cake

To celebrate completing another trip around the sun I chose this recipe for my birthday cake. The lure was that, while I love these ingredients individually, I had never considered combining them in one cake and I was curious as to how all those flavours would taste in one bite.

This is the sort of cake that could go either way –divine or horrible. I would never gamble with someone else’s birthday cake but felt happy to do so with my own. Luckily the cake was divine...fortune favours the brave!

The flavours work really well together and don’t compete for attention. The tropical cream filling lightened the richness of the chocolaty sponge; the ginger lurked in the background perhaps a little too subtly – I would add more next time.

I would never have thought of putting chocolate with pineapple but it was a revelation – we all loved it and, surprisingly, the cake wasn’t overly sweet or sickly; it was actually rather refreshing. Having pineapple, chocolate, cream, sponge in one cake was food (if not calorie) heaven – but then one only has to think of the famous Erma Bombeck quote to lose any notion of guilt: “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.”

Ingredients

For the cake:

175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
275g soft light brown sugar
3 eggs
250g self raising flour
25g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
50g milk chocolate chips
150g Greek yoghurt

For the filling:

425g tin of pineapple rings
300ml double cream
2 teaspoons caster sugar (optional depending on the sweetness of the pineapple)

Method

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

Line a 20cm springform round tin with baking paper.

Beat together the butter and brown sugar until soft, creamy and well combined. The mixture won’t turn fluffy as it would if you were using caster sugar.

Beat in the eggs one at a time; add a little of the flour if the mixture starts to curdle.

Fold in the flour, cocoa and ginger.

Fold in the chocolate chips.
Fold in the yoghurt.
Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin until you can safely handle, then remove the tin and leave the cake to cool completely on a wire rack.

You can make the cake a day in advance of serving and store it overnight in an airtight tin.

Now make the filling: drain the tin of pineapple and reserve some for decorations. I only reserved one to put in the centre of the cake.

Chop the pineapple into small pieces.

Whip the cream and sugar lightly – you want it of medium firmness so it doesn’t collapse when you add the juicy pineapple.

Fold the chopped pineapple into the cream and refrigerate for 10 minutes so it firms up a little.

Cut the cake in half horizontally and place the bottom half on the serving plate.

Spread virtually all of the pineapple cream over the sponge then place the top half of the sponge onto the cream. Avoid pressing down too hard.

Use the reserved pineapple cream to place the reserved pineapple ring on top for decoration.

Dust the cake with sifted icing sugar, if desired.

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

Eat.