Chocolate Surprise Boxes - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

This Christmas why not serve your dessert all wrapped up. I decided to play on an After Dinner Mint idea with this moreish recipe. Our new present container candy molds make it super-simple.

Melt 125g of your favourite chocolate slowly over a bowl of hot water until it's lump-free (I used 72% cocoa Dark Ghana from Whittakers). Fill the box base and lid molds half way up. Tap on the bench to remove any air bubbles and snap in the mold insert. Leave to harden in the fridge for 15mins or so. This mold makes 3 complete boxes, so a 250g block of chocolate will yield 6 dessert boxes.

 

 

When the chocolate has set, trim any excess away with a sharp knife to make a clean edge.

 

Repeat the process to complete 6 boxes. Now it's time to make your...

Minty White Chocolate Mousse

180g milky bar chocolate, sliced up finely
1c cream
2tsp meringue powder dissolved in 2T water (this is equivalent to 1 egg white)
2 drops Loranns peppermint oil measured with a dropper

Melt chocolate and leave to cool for a while so it's a similar temperature to the other ingredients. Whip the cream and other ingredients gradually until soft peaks just form (no more). Stir a dollop of cream into the melted chocolate and then pour all the chocolate mix back into the cream mixture to incorporate.

Paint ribbon and bow features onto the boxes with edible light silver metallic paint.

Pipe mousse into prepared chocolate boxes and serve with small teaspoons. The minty white centre is a refreshing and surprising treat!

Otherwise make red and green mini M&M filled boxes - how festive does this look with the features painted in metallic red food paint? 

Chai Buttercream (recipe in an earlier blog) and grated dark chocolate make another nice adult option.

Numerical Birthday Cake & My Dreamy Dairy-free Recipe - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Recently we held my daughters 5th birthday party, complete with a disco light machine, glow-bracelets and coloured hair extensions for the party girls. They had a great time dancing and running around! 

I thought long and hard about how to produce some kind of 'dance' themed cake and really didn't come up with anything that grabbed me. So since turning five is such a huge milestone, my thoughts came full circle to produce a numeral 5 cake. I started by baking my favourite moist chocolate cake recipe 2 days in advance of the party.

I cooked a 9" round cake (with an upturned greased ramekin in the centre to make a ring cake) and an 8" square cake to achieve my number 5. I knew I was going to need two cakes to sculpt so I doubled the quantities in the recipie that follows...

Dreamy Dairy-free Chocolate Cake

Sift dry ingredients together in a big bowl:

2 c flour

2 c sugar

1 c cocoa

2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

Whisk wet ingredients together:

2 eggs

1/3 c oil

2 c tap water

2 t vanilla essence

Pour wet ingredients into dry mix and keep whisking until mixture is completely combined and lump-free. Pour into a greased and lined cake tin and bake at 150degrees C for 45 - 60 minutes. Cool completely before starting to decorate.

This mixture fills a 9" round tin and will serve 12-15 people. I often use this exact recipe for two dozen+ cupcakes and they come out soft and dreamy too, obviously they will cook a lot quicker though.

The dairy-free part of my cake stops right here! Again for this huge cake I doubled the butter cream icing quantities listed. 

Dreamy Butter cream

Whip together in your stand mixer for up to 5mins until pale and fluffy:

100g butter (softened but not melted)

100g sno creme vegetable shortening

1t meringue powder

40g milk

400g icing sugar

Colouring and flavouring to suit

Fill your large piping bag fitted with any large star-like tip. 

Place your carved cake pieces onto the board one at a time (this will save trying to pipe into teeny spaces!) I started from the bottom and piped individual swirls all over the sides and top of the cake. As long as they are consistent, any design will look nice!

Use buttercream to join the cake pieces together. If you're left with small holes between any of your swirls simply pipe a wee star into the gap. The addition of the meringue powder means your swirls will hold their shape nicely.

The result is a delectable moist cake that looks pretty and way more technical than it really is. Here is the finished product...

You may recognise the speckly white chocolate hairdressing set from an earlier blogpost. And finally here are my two favourite little people in the whole wide world (from a proud mummy!) Happy birthday and happy school-days darling X