Monday 15 February 2010

Chocolate all-in-one cake

In the end I decided to make this for Dee’s birthday. I want to make some cupcakes soon, but they’re so difficult to transport without ruining, so I went for a normal sponge cake.

The ingredients and method are exactly the same as for the Victoria sponge. The only difference is that you replace 1-2 ounces of the flour with cocoa (and you don’t need vanilla extract). I also added about half teaspoon of baking powder to compensate for the fact that there would be less raising agent.

For the topping I used ganache, which is similar to making truffles. Break 200g chocolate (dark or milk, depending on your taste) into small pieces in a bowl. Heat 200ml of double cream in a saucepan, very gently, stirring occasionally, until it is just at boiling point. Then simply pour it over the chocolate and stir until mixed. You will need to completely cool this until it is the right sort of consistency to spread onto the cake. This time, I actually beat it with the electric whisk once it was cold, and this made it a really nice, more creamy texture (but it isn't essential). There should be enough to put in the middle and on the top, but if you want to be more restrained you could just do the middle and sieve a little bit of icing sugar on the top instead.

I also attempted some icing... My Tala icing syringe is brilliant, but I haven't used it much, so the results were rather dubious! I used some silver balls and little sugar flowers as well.



An alternative chocolate topping, which I also like, is from Delia's Complete Illustrated Cookery Course again. It has a nice fudgey consistency.

3 oz granulated/caster sugar (75 g)
3 fl oz evaporated milk (75 ml)
4 oz plain chocolate (110 g)
1 1/2 oz butter or margarine (40 g)
2 drops vanilla essence

Mix the sugar and evaporated milk together in a saucepan, then put it on a low heat and stir frequently until the sugar dissolves. Then bring the mixture to the boil and simmer very gently for 6 minutes, without stirring.

Take off the heat and stir in the chocolate, broken into small pieces. Keep stirring until the chocolate is melted and then stir in the butter and vanilla essence.

Transfer to a bowl and cool, then cover with clingfilm and chill in the fridge, until is a spreadable consistency.

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