The Ultimate time-saving Chocolate Cake (with the perfect Chocolate Frosting)

I have eaten more than my fair share of chocolate cake over the years. I love to cook them almost as much as I like to eat them. Here's my check list for the perfect chocolate cake:

• it must taste of chocolate - not cocoa
• it must be moist
• it must not be too flat
• soft chocolate icing, not bitter and hard icing
• it must be easy and quick to make
• it must make people smile

So, after much experimentation I have found what, for me, is the ultimate chocolate cake and icing recipe combo.

My favourite cake recipe is by Nigella Lawson but I have altered the recipe slightly (due to personal taste and the need to make it as easy as possible using things you are more likely to actually have in your fridge).

Using 25cm tins x2. This will serve 8-10 people:

300g plain flour

300g caster sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

60g best-quality cocoa

260g soft unsalted butter

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons real vanilla extract

225ml sour cream

200ml natural yoghurt

25-50ml milk (start with 25ml and add the extra if the mixture looks too thick)

Here's the good part. I have tried the recipe the hard way (i.e. "cream together the butter and sugar, then...") and I have tried it the easy way (i.e. bung it all in together) and here's what I discovered

IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!

None at all.

So, carefully measure out the ingredients. Put all the ingredients into a blender or food mixer together, and blitz! Just make sure that you don't over mix it. Turn off the mixer as soon as everything looks well combined. The mixture should be quite loose.

Bake at 180°C  for around 30 minutes (but keep checking).

Once your cake is perfectly cooked, leave them to cool in the tins for about 5 minutes and then turn out to cool completely. The cake should be very springy and light.

If you have time and would like to ice your cake too...

The best icing recipe I have found to go with this kind of cake does not come from Ms Lawson. I prefer Lorraine Pascale's chocolate frosting. It is simpler and more tasty in my opinion.

Beat 300g butter and 225g icing sugar together. Then mix in 150g melted and cooled dark chocolate. This should make gorgeous, soft, buttery icing that is easy to use.

Use about a third of this in the middle.

Then use a knife or palette knife to smooth the remaining icing all over the outside of the cake.

And there you have it. This is the fastest and tastiest chocolate cake that I can make! 

I challenge you to find a faster one!

...and if you do, I'd love to steal the recipe :-)

Halloween: wicked web cakes

Halloween: originally a Celtic Festival – Samhain, meaning summers end, is a time to acknowledge a change in season, weather and light.

Crucially for us foodies, it is also a feast day. In medieval times it was a time when the poor would go ‘souling’ (the original Trick-or-Treating) in which they would beg door to door for food. In return they offered to say prayers for the dead.

So, let’s not make them beg this Hallows Eve, whip-up these simple spidersweb cakes – they’re great for little trick-or-treaters.

You will need:

• to make vanilla flavoured buns or cupcakes using your favourite recipe. The buns will need to be flat, so if yours rise into a peak as mine did, let them cool and then cut off the tops.
• white icing (mix a few drops of water at a time into icing sugar until you get a smooth medium/thick mixture)
• green icing - made as above. This will need to be slightly thicker.
• a piping bag (or make a simple cone from baking paper and snip off the end)
• a cocktail stick (the point of a knife would do if you don't have any)

The important thing when icing these, is to only do one or two at a time otherwise you wont get the same effect if the icing goes too hard.

Put a teaspoon of white icing onto the middle of a cake. Tilt the cake gently to encourage the icing to spread evenly until it looks like this:

Next comes the piping. Put the green icing into the bag and squeeze it down to the end. Fold over the top. 

Pipe a small circle of green icing in the center of the bun. 

Then pipe 2 larger circles around the first.

Then take your cocktail stick and, starting from the middle of the bun, drag it lightly out to the edge. Wipe off any excess icing and repeat several more times to create around 5 spokes. 

And there you have it! 

Spiders web cakes that will make any little ghosty, vampire or goblin happy. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

P.S. You could try these with pale orange icing and pipe on a black spiders webs. Either way, they'll taste ghoulishly good.

Baking Button Biscuits

I have a confession - I love buttons. I do.

My Grandmother had/has a button jar that I used to play with as a child. They were beautiful and made excellent counters for Ludo or Snakes and Ladders. Nowadays, they make an excellent way to keep my earrings safe!  (Using those spare buttons you get with clothes, you can put one earring through each hole so that you can always find a pair and making it less likely to loose one).

I was given a lovely icing set for my Birthday (thank you Jean!) and I have been wanting an excuse to try it out. I have no experience whatsoever at icing - except with the ready rolled stuff so here is
Project 1: button biscuits.

I used the simplest biscuit recipe I know. Here it is. 

Rub together: 150g butter, 75g sugar and 225g plain flour.

That's it!

Once it has become a dough, wrap it in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for about 15mins - otherwise you will find it difficult to roll out.

Roll the dough out to about 1/2 cm thick and then cut out circles. I also marked mine with a smaller cutter to help me with the icing later on.

Bake these at about 170 for 15-30 minutes. 

They will be nicest if you only let them get slightly golden, rather than brown. They turn very quickly and go hard if left to go brown, so keep an eye!smaller circular cutter to help with my icing later.

Once they are done leave them to cool fully - otherwise your icing will run.

Ok, the fun part. Now, as I've said I am no icing expert. To do this well I should really have made Royal icing. However, I just didn't have time. So I just made my icing with icing sugar, water and vanilla extract. 

First, you need to ice an outer circle as close to the edge of the biscuit as possible. You can also pipe an inner circle.

Then you need to pipe 4 small circles in the middle for the button holes. Alternatively, you can do 2 figures of eight that link.

You then need to let this icing set. Obviously, you can experiment with the icing colours. I  found that you get a completely different effect if you match the outline colour with the fill colour compared to a contrasting colour with white piping. Your call!

Next, make a new batch of icing that is slightly more runny.
You can use a larger nozzle to fill in and use the tip to move the icing into the gaps.

Finally, make a small amount of thicker icing to make the 'thread'. Pipe a cross in the middle, going from one of the 4 holes that you left to another.

Leave the icing to set fully over night. 

And there you have it. My very own button jar. 

But this time I am allowed to eat them. :-)

 

Cupcakes go electric!

Recently, the cupcake has seen a well deserved revival – one that has brought a smile to many a cake lover’s face (mine included)! The simple cupcake is now one of the most fashionable of all afternoon tea treats.



But hold onto your hats – this Spring, cupcakes have gone electric!
No more the prim and proper pastel shades. Bring on electric blue, shocking pink and spring greens.  Fun!

This is one food fashion that I cannot ignore! So, after some brief research I will try out a simple cupcake recipe next week - to brighten up the office and cheer up the folks at work. 

Recapturing Memories of Traditional Chocolate Cake

 So, this morning I woke up and realised that tomorrow is Mother's Day. Don't get me wrong, I've made a card and sent the flowers, my duty is done! But Mothers Day always makes me think about my childhood and all the lovely memories my Mum helped to give me. 

My first ever birthday cake was teddy bear shaped and chocolate. Fantastic.

Like may children, chocolate cake quickly became a firm favourite of mine and many subsequent Birthday cakes have been chocolatey and all of them baked lovingly by my Mum. Now that I live away from her I have to bake my own cake - I know - it's tragic! 

I haven't managed to recapture the same taste. I have had some successes and some failures but none of them have that same taste. Today I did some research to try and get a good but not too complicated recipe to make in honour of Mothers Day. 

I came across this recipe by Nigella Lawson http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/old-fashioned-chocolate-cake-119 for 'Old-fashioned Chocolate Cake' and I though, yup that sounds good!  Here goes.