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.
