The BEST Chocolate Cake in the World...Ever

Soooo about a year ago I went through a malt phase and baked all things malt and got a bit sick of it. But after a little break I got over it and I am now back on that malty goodness. Especially after making this recipe. *I warn you* this chocolate malt cake is possibly the scrummiest thing you'll ever eat and could quite possibly make every other cake you eat after it, taste rubbish.

Where to start! There are quite a lot of stages to this recipe so I'm not going to write it all out. My friend Jo did most of mixing and weighing as I read out the instructions (team work makes the dream cake work). First you have to make a fudge sauce. Every cake that begins with making a fudge sauce has to be good.

You then make the 3 chocolate sponge layers. 

Once they're cooked you pour the fudge sauce over them whilst still warm - oh yes!

Next you make the AMAZING malt frosting. 

Look at it!! It's so yum. It's a mixture of cream cheese, double cream, butter, icing sugar and choc horlicks powder. Sporting the bowl of frosting is the lovely Jo. 

OK, so the next step was stacking and icing the cake and *ahem*, this is where things went a bit wrong. Whilst attempting to stack the 3 layers, the top cake split a bit, and then when I smothered it with super thick luscious frosting the whole cake completely split in half making an amazing mess. This is the only photo I managed to take before it happened.

Despite the cake crash, it was still eaten up and enjoyed. It's so moist and the fudge sauce makes it ever moister and the frosting is ridiculous and you're supposed to put malteasers in it too which I'm sure makes it (if possible) even more amazing. Anyway, I had a lot of frosting left over at the end so naturally, I made it into cupcakes. 

Oh, and it's a Hummingbird recipe in case you were wondering where you could find the recipe for the best chocolate cake in the world ever.

Iced Gems

 I saw these 'homemade' iced gems in a magazine and have wanted to make them ever since!

 It's a biscuit base - rolled out and cut into circles (you're supposed to use a fluted circular cutter, but I only had a petal shaped one). 

You push a thumb dent into each one (because they rise in the oven).

This is what the mini biscuits look like once cooked

The top is royal icing (made according to the packet instructions), coloured and then piped. It takes a few hours to set.

Grasshopper Slices

 It was my birthday the other week and some really good friends of mine got me the brand new 'Humming Bird Bakery Home Sweet Home' book as a gift. It was really hard to know what to bake first. But I decided on these, Grasshopper Slices.

 It's a 3 layered tray bake, brownie base, mint filling and chocolate topping. When I was at Secondary School, they used to sell something called mint cake that looked very similar and I loved it, that's why I chose this one.

The mint filling was a bit faffy to make. It's a white chocolate ganache with peppermint essence and green colouring. I haven't had a lot of experience with ganache, originally the recipe asks you to use 1kg, yes that's 1kg of white chocolate (which is ridiculous!) so I halved the recipe and used 500g (which is still pretty ridiculous but I'd set my heart on making it by this point). 

So I heated up some double cream and poured it onto chopped up milky bar and stirred and it went into the gungiest mess ever and I thought how is this ever going to turn into ganache?! So I put it in the fridge and after 30mins and a stir it did - phew! Then I stirred in the peppermint and green colouring.

I did the same thing with the chocolate topping, the original recipe asks for dark chocolate but the shop I was in didn't have any so I used galaxy.

They came out well. I think dark chocolate would have been nicer, and I need to work on my ganache skills (not pleased with the top layer!). Tim (husband) doesn't like mint in cakes and declared he refuses to eat toothpaste!! ha ha. Oh well can't please them all....

Berry Shortbread Cheesecake

I made this a few summers ago for a friend's leaving BBQ (she's now returned which is nice!). It was the front cover of the BBC Good Food magazine at the time. It was yum.

Here's the recipe...

Shortbread base - 200g shortbread biscuits and 50g butter, melted

For Cheesecake - 2x 300g tubs of Philadelphia, 1x 200g tub creme fraiche, 1tsp vanilla extract, 175g golden caster sugar, 2tbsp plain flour, 2 eggs

For the topping - 5tbsp seedless raspberry jam and 300g of summer berries (strawberries happened to be on offer!)

1. Blitz biscuits into crumbs, add melted butter mix together and press into the base of a lined loaf tin
2. Beat together philadelphia, creme fraiche, vanilla and sugar then stir in flour & egg pour into the tin 3. Put in oven for 10mins on 180 then 1 hour and 30mins on 120
4. Turn off heat and leave to cool in oven and then chill in the fridge
5. Heat jam in a pan and add enough water to make it a pouring consistency
6. Take the cheesecake out of the tin (carefully) and pour over the sauce and top with your chosen fruits

Now all we need is the summer....

Marmalade Cake

I'm not a fruit cake fan, but my husband is. It's my life long ambition to find a go between that satisfies both of our cake needs!! A friend of mine told me about a lovely Marmalade cake recipe that sounded like a good start. (I also must mention that this friend is an amazing artist you must have a look at her work www.fionachariscarswell.com). 

It's an unusual recipe, in that it has no eggs, and ingredients include lard and vinegar.

You begin by rubbing fats into flour and salt, add sugar, mixed fruit, spice and citrus rinds.

Gradually stir in milk, then the vinegar.

Add marmalade (luckily both our Mums make lots of scrummy homemade marmalade so we have plenty to use in cakes as well as on toast!).

Pour into a loaf tin and top with Demerara sugar and cook for an hour ish.

 It came out nice and moist and citrusy  - I liked it, especially the crunchy Demerara sugar on top. Unfortunatly my husband liked it less and thought it was too 'cakey' - which is probably why I found it alright!

Here's the recipe is you want to try it...

8oz SR flour sifted

4oz caster sugar

2oz butter

2oz lard – both at room temp

1 rounded tablespoon marmalade

Grated rind of half lemon

 ‘’         ‘’        ‘’ orange

Half teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon vinegar

Pinch salt

6 fluid oz milk

4oz dried fruit/sultanas

1 tablespoon Demerara sugar

Preheat oven to gas mark 4 or 180degrees

Line a loaf tin 7half’’x 3 ‘’ approx

Choc Chip Shortbread

I've never been a big biscuit eater or baker but since I've been making them at work, I'm getting into it! I use this recipe for my basic shortbread...

To make 16 I use...600g - SR Flour, 400g - Softened Butter, 200g - Caster Sugar 

I then make up a flavour (because who wants to eat plain boring shortbread?). These are choc chip with more choc drizzled over the top. You start by rubbing together the butter and the flour. I've discovered it is imperative that your butter is super super soft - verging on melted, else it's really hard work to a) rub it in and b) bring the dough together. 

Mix in the sugar and whatever else you fancy. At work I've thrown in lemon zest, almonds, cherries, cranberries etc. Then take a few handfuls of the mix and squish it into and ball, kneading it until it comes together. Flatten until it's about 1cm thick and cut out circles.

Pop in the oven (160 degrees) for anywhere between 35-50mins. 

I find it hard to tell when they're done as biscuits firm up as they are cooling. I usually wait until they're slightly darker in colour and when pressed are firm but not hard. 

I melted some milk choc and using a spoon drizzled it over the biscuits. Yum! 

Here are some other flavours I've made at work....

 Almond and Lemon

 Cranberry dipped in white chocolate

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.