Chocolate Orange Cake

It was a friend's birthday last month, it was that really sunny weekend in June, so he had a BBQ. I offered to make any cake of his choice (because what's a party without a cake?). I thought he'd just say 'coffee' or 'chocolate', but I got a list of 4 possibilities with links to the recipes ha ha - love it. 

The choices were - Mary Berry Chocolate Orange Cake  http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/mary-berrys-very-best-chocolate-and-orange-cake

Chocolate Rum and Raisin Torte http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/chocolate-rum-and-raisin-torte

Date & Ginger Cake with Caramel Glaze http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/date-and-ginger-cake-with-caramel-glaze

Classic Victoria Sponge http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1997/classic-victoria-sandwich

After umming and ahhing, as you can see, I chose Chocolate Orange cake (and a Victoria Sponge - I went for 2!). I knew I could make these nice and big and feed a large group of people.

 I've never made chocolate curls before, they were very easy, so I'll definitely be using them again. You just melt chocolate and spread it out onto a marble block (which we happen to have) leave it to set and then scrape with a knife. Boom! 

Yummy cake! Can't beat choc and orange. And the BBQ was fun too...

(I stole this photo from his facebook page so umm copyright David Irwin?)

Speckled Easter Egg Cake

I 'spotted' this rather unique looking cake on a blog I follow and loved it. I'm tempted not to put the link on here because then you'll see how much better the original is, but I will, because that's the nice thing to do, seeing as though I copied it! http://thecakeblog.com/2013/02/speckled-egg-cake.html

Make 3 sponges. I chose chocolate (because why wouldn't you?!). I used a 7" cake tin. 

Make a batch of fluffy buttercream (the longer you beat it the lighter it will be - also adding a bit of milk helps) and make it a pastel blue. If you look very closely in the bowl, you'll see my legs! Lucky you...

Stack the cakes using the buttercream.

Smother the rest of the buttercream on the top and sides. You'll need to do a 'crumb coat' first.

 Now for the speckles! Mix together 1 tsp of cocoa powder with 1 and a half tsp of vanilla essence. 

Using a paint brush (a new one!) or a pastry brush flick it over the cake. It gets everywhere. 

And then top with mini eggs.

I made this cake to share with some friends at Church, at an Alpha course. Another friend had made some yummy marble cupcakes to match. 

Later on in the week, I turned them into cupcakes at work.

Pistachio & Milk Chocolate Cake

I've had my eye on this recipe for a while now. I really love the colour of Pistachios and the idea of the sponge being made from them sounded kinda cool. So here's how it turned out...

First you have to crush lots of pistachios and milk chocolate in the food processor - weird ay?

Then you beat them together with all the cakey batter bits

 Then you cook it in the oven and it comes out a lovely greeny/brown speckled sponge like this...

It really does taste like pistachios, it's a strange but really nice taste and it's really moist. The icing is made from melted chocolate and soured cream, it's really sweet but balences out the fairly savoury sponge. 

It's not my new favourite cake ever but I'm glad I tried it!  You can find the recipe here http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1161643/pistachio-and-milk-chocolate-squares

Fire Engine Cake

Two years in a row have my little friends wanted a Fireman Sam cake for their birthday. Last year I did a normal round cake and made a flat fire engine on top (I would show a photo but my hard drive died and I lost it boo). But this year I felt a bit more adventurous so went 3D!

I made an 8" square chocolate cake and chopped it up into a rectangle with an extra square of sponge to make the raised top front. Then I smothered it in the red fondant then stuck on fondant fire engine parts.

I haven't done a lot of models before so I was quite pleased with my fire fighter! He'd just put out a fire so he's having a rest.

Challenge #4 Cappuccino Cake

I haven't got a lot to say about this cake - it was nice. The sponge was really light and moist and chocolate flavoured. It was one of those recipes that involved a lot of water which is really nice but the batter ends of up so liquidy that it sometimes seeps out of the tin and burns onto the bottom of the oven!

The icing was whipped double cream with coffee. I'm not a fan of cream so probably won't make it again. 

3 Layer Chocolate Cake

I've had some (girl) friends staying with me this week whilst my husband is away in Italy, so I thought it was only polite to make a massive chocolate cake with some pretty sprinkles.

It was a really light sponge using milk and sunflower oil instead of butter. Very moist but airy. Then I loaded it with buttercream mixed in with melted dark chocolate.

Just what the doctor ordered!

Pre sprinkles...

Stripy 40th Birthday Cake

I've always wanted to have a go at the stripes thing. It looks really effective but I thought it looked a bit technical. I've finally had a go and actually it's quite straight forward.

The brief was a 40th birthday cake for a not very girly girl who likes chocolate, so I went for a chocolate cake covered in chocolate fondant. I've always loved the chocolate brown and light blue colour combination and thought it worked well as a girly but not girly girl colour theme.