Hi peeps,

Back on the horse, so-to-speak this week.  Bit of a horror weekend last weekend actually…  Had a GREAT Saturday night out celebrating a good friend’s 40th on the Sunny Coast whilst poor old Troy was left at home with gastro.  I did feel sorry for him…  he looked so pale and miserable…. BUT SOMEONE had to fall on their sword and represent the family didn’t they? And that person had to be me!

Unfortunately however, the dreaded V’s and D’s hit me on Sunday morning and I had a good 48 hours of my own personal form of hell. Will spare you the gory details, but let’s just say, superimposed upon a bacterial chest infection, I really wasn’t the world’s nicest, nor most attractive person at the time (and THAT is being kind). Having said all of that, funny how mums (and I shouldn’t really generalise, but it is mainly mums that I talk to) can be so weak from illness that they can barely hold up their own head, but they know in their heart if they “don’t get sh*t done, it just doesn’t get done.”  So off we went Monday morning, got Gwennie’s new preppy school uniforms, booked doctor’s appointments, arranged for the vet to come see the dog (who was less sick than me), cleaned up the yard (a daily chore when you have a big dog and little kids that run around a lot outside), watered the garden, emptied the bins and the compost (feeding the worm farm residents in the process), did an online grocery shop, baked some muffins, vacuumed, AND managed to get a little admin done in amongst my frequenting of the bathroom (face palm).  Oh it was bad. Having said this, something had to give – and for the first time I MISSED A BLOG!!!  I posted on the P&F FB page at 7.30pm with my apology and collapsed into unconsciousness a few seconds later.

Sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  But I did have a good sleep that night, waking up feeling just a bit better in time for work on Tuesday!

SO, this Friday’s food post I thought I’d post the recipe (that is NOT mine!!) that I use to make some of the kid’s very special birthday cakes.

This recipe is a BBC Good Food Cake – (rich dark chocolate cake).  It is moist, delicious, holds it shape really well, freezes, cuts easily into layers… really the only thing it doesn’t do is make you lunch.

 

To make it I must admit I used the BIGGEST pot (because I didn’t own a bowl big enough) that I owned.  The quantities in this recipe make ONE TIER of what they propose to be a 3 TIER cake, however, I made 1.5x this recipe and divided it up into 2 batches, which I then sliced to make a 4 layer cake (see gallery with pic of naked cake above).  I am not an accomplished baker at ALL – Nick’s 1st birthday cake was my first attempt at a fondant cake and I did a LOT of covering of poor fondant application-skills with pretty decorations over the cracked/ripped bits.  I must admit it was time consuming, but totally worth it. In the end I was really chuffed!  I think with the benefit of hindsight, I would have just baked it all in one big cake, then sliced THAT into 4 layers (less waste of 2 cake tops then when you level the cakes).

I used straight forward chocolate buttercream icing in between the layers, and then vanilla buttercream (with a good crumb layer first, then refrigerate and then RE-frost) under the fondant.  But you can do whatever you like.

You don’t have to do fondant to decorate, you can just do buttercream, you can make it a drip cake, WHATEVS!!  But this is an awesome cake for any kind of special occasion.

I MUST NOTE THOUGH:  The absolutely jaw-dropping, epic, aeroplane drip cake (seen in the gallery above next to my little cake) was made by my beautiful and awesome friend Sarah who is just the most talented cake maker around (and is based on the Gold Coast if anyone is interested).  I think we did really well to match the cakes actually!!  I wanted so much to try to make Nick a special cake but since I had never done it before, I had NO IDEA if I could do it.  Sarah guaranteed Nick an epic real cake, just in case mine didn’t work!

 

INGREDIENTS

650g unsalted butter

650g plain chocolate (70% cocoa)

100mL very strong coffee (ideally esspresso) – don’t worry if you hate coffee (I do), you don’t really taste the coffee, but it adds depth and richness to the chocolate flavour

3 tsp vanilla essence (I used vanilla bean paste)

650g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp bicarb soda

950g light soft brown sugar (yes you read that right, better part of a kilo… hey! I said it was an awesome, delicious cake!  I didn’t say it was healthy or low in sugar!!)

10 eggs

2x 284 mL sour cream

 

 METHOD

1. Heat oven to 160 degrees (fan forced)
2. Butter, line and wrap the sides of a 30cm deep round tin
3. Put the butter and chocolate into a medium saucepan and heat over a low heat until melted and smooth.   Add the coffee and the vanilla
4. Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarb into the biggest bowl you have, add the sugar (and break down the lumps with your fingers).
5. beat the eggs and sour cream together, pour into the flour mix
6. Pour in the melted chocolate as well and stir until smooth and think
7. Pour into prepared tin and back for 2.5 hours  ***DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR BEFORE 2 HOURS  or the cake will sink
8. Leave in tin to cool completely

Keeps for 4 days or frozen for 1 month

I made mine a week or two in advance, and made the cake toppers early too (so they had time to dry and harden – several of my cake toppers cracked and broke; I had to experiment).

I keep this recipe in my special book and will drag it out at special birthday times, anniversaries and hopefully a graduation or two 😉

 

I hope you find an occasion to give this recipe a go – and be sure to let me know!

 

Happy baking!

xxDr Megs