Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Kiwicakes 6th Birthday competition

Today our beautiful 6th birthday cake arrived courtesy of Sonya Brown the winner of our 6th birthday cake competition. You remember Sonya's design concept.

Well here is the cake....................................


The little Kiwi's are having so much fun.



This poor fellow got stuck in the chocolate pot.








Sonya's cakes tasted exquisite. The texture was great. Karina my parcel packer was beside herself. The white chocolate mud cake, is quite possibly one of the best I have tasted, you could actually taste white chocolate. The peppermint chocolate was divine. I am a huge fan of peppermint chocolate and this rates right up there. The chocolate ganache was super smooth and expertly applied. Karina declared the White Chocolate the best. Jenny & I declared them a tie. Poor Grandma Kiwicakes won't sample these until tomorrow.


Sonya tells me, she has only been making cakes seriously for a year. I am so proud of her achievements. You can follow her on facebook here 

I asked Sonya to take a photo of herself with the cake, before it left Palmerston North



We're very lucky as Sonya has agreed to share her recipes with us. 

WHITE CHOCOCLATE MUD CAKE

300g white chocolate
200g butter
1 cup milk
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs, lightly beaten (or 3 small eggs)
100g (2/3 cup) self-raising flour
150g (1 cup) plain flour

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius (145 degrees Celsius fan-forced).

Grease a 20cm square cake pan and line the base and sides of the pan with baking paper.

Place chocolate, butter, milk and sugar in a large saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently.  Remove from heat when chocolate and butter have melted, and stir mixture until completely smooth. Allow mixture to cool at room temperature for 15+ minutes.

Add vanilla and eggs to chocolate mixture and stir until well combined.

Stir flours together in a large bowl. Add one cup of chocolate mixture to the flour and stir until a smooth paste forms. Repeat with another cup of the chocolate mixture.  Add remaining chocolate mixture and stir until mixture is smooth. This gradual method of combining the wet and dry ingredients helps prevent lumps.

Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes. When the cake is ready, a fine-bladed knife inserted into the centre of the cake should come out without any batter attached.

Loosely cover cake with greaseproof paper or a clean tea towel and allow it to cool to room temperature in pan.

The cooled cake can be iced with the white chocolate ganache immediately or stored and then iced on the day of serving.

Store cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before serving. The cake is suitable to freeze


Cooks notes: I basically hit the jackpot with this recipe and didn’t need to make any alterations, I did try a few different recipes before I stopped at this one and it is my husbands favourite to date.  The white choc is subtle and I find the cake a bit drier than my dark choc but the sweet  ganache compliments it.  I had considered substituting the butter in the cake for oil as in dark choc mud but think the buttery flavour compliments the white choc. Nom nom nom.


PEPPERMINT CHOCOLATE MUD CAKE

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup milk
3/4 cup oil
250g dark chocolate, broken up or roughly chopped
1 tsp coffee dissolved in..
3/4 cup Hot Water
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
2 eggs
2tsp Peppermint essence

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Line the base of a 22 - 23 cm spring-form tin with non-stick baking paper.
Mix the lemon juice with the milk and set aside for it to sour the milk.
Place oil, chocolate and hot coffee in a microwave bowl or small saucepan and heat gently, stirring often, until
chocolate is melted and the mixture smooth. Cool.

In a large bowl, mix the flour
baking soda, baking powder, sugar and cocoa.
Mix the
eggs, peppermint essence and soured milk into the cooled chocolate mixture, combine thoroughly, and then whisk into the dry ingredients.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour.
Soooo easy but sooooooooooo yum J

Cooks notes:
The initial recipe called for only ½ C oil and 1 C strong black coffee.  I found it a tad dry for my liking so substituted ¼ C of the coffee for another ¼ C of oil and found it much better.
The original recipe asked for 1 C Chelsea low GI sugar, I heard that brown sugar can give it a lovely flavour so substituted that too J 
It also called for ‘strong black coffee, and dark choc.  I used 70% chocolate and 3tsp coffee in the hot water and I found it waaaaay too strong and bitter.  I reduced coffee to 1 tsp and used standard dark cooking chocolate and found it tasted alot better.  Some people may like it that way so could option for the original method.  The peppermint essence was an add in on my part to make a choc mud a lil more interesting and thought it would be good as a after dinner dessert (or for breakfast, why not? Go nuts!)  Ive tried a few different recipes and like my alterations to an already good recipe.

1 comment:

  1. What an amazing cake. Love all the details. Just wish I could have tried it.....Will definitely be making both recipes.

    ReplyDelete

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