We Should Cocoa ~ Rose Scented Indulgent Chocolate Cake

When Choclette announced that this month's We Should Cocoa Challenge was to use rose alongside chocolate, I will admit to being slightly perplexed.  Rose isn't an ingredient I am use to baking with and after quite a bit some consultation with my ever expanding stash of recipes nothing really came up trumps for me and inspiration was sparse to say the least!  I was an unhappy little teapot ;0(


Then Mr JS rode in to my rescue ... without even knowing it!  He has returned from Australia for a short stay and comes to at dinner with Hubby and I once a week.  It was during this weeks meal that he asked me if I could make a chocolate birthday cake for another one of our friend's (the birthday bash being last night ... slightly worse for wear today!)


It was a eureka moment for me.  I knew the exact cake to bake, and with a small amount of tweaking I could get it to fit in with this month's theme, resulting in a happy little teapot once more ;0)

Rose Scented Indulgent Chocolate Cake
175g SR flour, sifted
3 tbsp 70% cocoa powder
1 tsp rose water
175g butter, completely softened, plus extra for lining the tin
175g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1-2 tbsp milk
100g 70% dark chocolate, melted and cooled
Icing
500ml double cream
500g milk chocolate, chopped
Rose Scented Mascarpone Filling
500g mascarpone
2 tsp icing sugar
1-2 tsp rose water, depending on taste


Make the icing first (it takes a while to cool and thicken).  Put the chocolate into a bowl.  Pour the cream into a pan and heat until simmering.  Take off the heat and pour it over the chocolate.  Stir until the mixture is smooth.  Cool, then chill until really thick but spreadable.


Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C.  Butter and base line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment.  Take 3 tbsp flour from the full flour amount and put them back in the flour bag - the cocoa powder will make up the difference.


Put all the cake ingredients except the chocolate in a large bowl.  Beat them together with an electric whisk (or whizz in a food processor) until you have a creamy mixture, then fold in the melted chocolate.  Add a little more milk if the mix is too stiff - it should fall easily from a spoon.


Divide the mixture between the 2 tins and level.  Bake on the same shelf in the oven for 20-25 mins or until the sponge springs back when pressed.  Cool for 5 mins, turn out onto a wire rack, peel off the paper and cool completely.

While the cakes are cooling make the filling.  Mix together the mascarpone, icing sugar and rose water in a bowl until well combined and smooth.  When the cakes are cool sandwich the layers together with the rose scented mascarpone and then with some of the chocolate icing.  Use the rest of the chocolate icing to spread over the rest of the cake in a nice thick layer.


Serves 10
Adapted from a recipe in Olive Magazine, April 11

I should have decorated the cake some crystallised rose petals of course, but I didn't have any so white chocolate stars it had to be!  Its a very much a home-made looking cake but it didn't detract from the taste one little bit.  Purely indulgent with every mouthful!  If I had one criticism, its that the rose maybe wasn't as strong as I thought it would have been.  I did err on the side of caution with the amounts of rose water added because I didn't want the cake to end up tasting like a bar of soap!  I would add more next time, both to the cake and the mascarpone.  On the up side, after the small mishap of the chocolate icing not really firming up last time, I gave the mixture a good whip before letting it set in the fridge overnight which seems to be the trick, it was lovely and thick and smooth and everyone seemed to enjoy their slice!

A Birthday Cake Fit For A Golfer

Last week we celebrated my Father In Law's 75th birthday with a family dinner at his favourite golf club.  The boys had spent the day on the course and we all meet up in the evening for a meal.  No birthday is complete without a birthday cake and in keeping with the golfing theme here is the cake I made!

Apparently the cake was very apt for that day's play, with the 15th hole costing many Nike golf balls and threatened at least one members golf club!

The sand trap is simply some shaping in the cake which was then topped with crushed shortbread biscuit crumbs.  The golf ball and broken club are made out of fondant.  I would have loved to have got some pictures of my Father In Law's face when the cake was presented to him but unfortunately the staff brought it out when none of us were expecting it so none of us had our camera's ready.  I can confirm that it was greatly enjoyed by all though ;0)

A Chocoholic's Chocolate Cake

This rather unassuming looking cake was made at the beginning of the week for one of my work friend's birthday's (he has more of a sweet tooth than even me, shocking I know).  I was surprised at the reaction it got ... people I have never even met before were coming up to me all day to tell me how fantastic this cake tasted and even the non-chocoholics wanted seconds!  Being packed full of chocolate in both the cake and icing it was a hard task to decline the offer of a slice I can tell you.  The recipe is actually featured on the front cover of this month's Olive Magazine and called for 2 x 18cm cake pans to make the sponges.  The smallest pans I have are 20cm so I adapted the recipe to suit and made it into a sandwich cake rather than a 4 layer chocolate masterpiece!

A Chocoholics Chocolate Cake
175g SR flour, sifted
3 tbsp 70% cocoa powder
1 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)
175g butter, completely softened, plus extra for lining the tin
175g golden caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1-2 tbsp milk
100g 70% dark chocolate, melted and cooled
Icing
500ml double cream
500g milk chocolate, chopped

Make the icing first (it takes a while to cool and thicken).  Put the chocolate into a bowl.  Pour the cream into a pan and heat until simmering.  Take off the heat and pour it over the chocolate.  Stir until the mixture is smooth.  Cool, then chill, until really thick but spreadable.

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C.  Butter and base line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment.  Take 3 tbsp flour from the full flour amount and put them back in the flour bag - the cocoa powder will make up the difference.

Put all the cake ingredients except the chocolate in a large bowl.  Beat them together with an electric whisk (or whizz in a food processor) until you have a creamy mixture, then fold in the melted chocolate.  Add a little more milk if the mix is too stiff - it should fall easily from a spoon.

Divide the mixture between the 2 tins and level.  Bake on the same shelf in the oven for 20-25 mins or until the sponge springs back when pressed.  Cool for 5 mins, turn out onto a wire rack, peel off the paper and cool completely.

Sandwich the layers together with a little icing, then spread the rest on top thickly.

Serves 10
Adapted from Olive Magazine, April 11

If I have one complaint it is that the icing didn't firm up as much as I would have liked.  Everyone who ate the cake felt it was the perfect consistency but I would have liked it to be a wee more truffle like in consistency.  Not sure if I should try adding butter (as in a proper chocolate truffle recipe) or if the mixture just needs a really good whisking before popping it in the fridge.  Watch this space for trial and error updates!

The Birthday Banoffee

Today is Miss SD's 23rd birthday (she'll kill me for telling you that!)

Every year, instead of a birthday cake she asks for a Banoffee Pie, hence the Birthday Banoffee was born.

Banoffee Pie

400g tin condensed milk

150g Hob Nobs

75g butter

3 large bananas

284ml double cream

Chocolate, to decorate

Put the can of condensed milk, unopened, in a large pan, covered with water, bring to the boil for 4 hours, topping up with water from the kettle as needed. Remove and leave to cool.

Put the digestives in a clean plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. Melt the butter in a small pan, add the biscuits, mix and press into the base of a 20cm flan tin. Chill in the fridge for 30 mins.

Open the can of condensed milk, which will have turned to toffee. Spread this over the biscuit layer. Peel and thinly slice the banana' and arrange in a layer over the toffee. Finally, whip the cream until thick and spread over the banana's. Decorate with grated chocolate, or melted chocolate drizzled over the top.

Serves 6-8

No idea where I got this one from, but it is a no fail recipe that always gets a good reaction so many thanks to the creator!

My preferred method of decoration is a crumbled up Flake bar sprinkled over the top.

We Should Cocoa ~ My Birthday Cake

When Choclette announced that this months challenge for We Should Cocoa was to be tea I was pretty excited, I'm a tea kind of a girl.  I knew just the book to head to for inspiration, imaginatively enough called the Tea Cookbook, which I'd picked it up in the Borders sale when they closed up shop (a dark day in my book loving history!!)

The Green Tea Cake with Green Tea and Lime Buttercream looked just the ticket but I've never tried green tea before and I wasn't sure I'd like it so I took matters in to my own hands and created my own version, a White Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Tea Infused Sugar Syrup and Vanilla Buttercream.  Sounds pretty decadent huh?  That was when I decided to make it for my birthday cake and based the decoration on this cake that I had seen previously on foodgawker.

Tea plantation - the wee blobs are women picking the tea leaves

The view whiel we were tea taste testing

Packaging the tea

The Vanilla Tea came from Mauritius.  While we were there we drank it every morning at breakfast and most afternoons with our afternoon tea too.  Mauritius isn't famous for its tea production which is a shame, but they produce enough to keep themselves going and to supply the thirsty tourists who pass through.  I took a tour of their tea production plant while I was there ... seems a weird thing to do while on honeymoon but I am a food geek through and through.  We got to see the tea production from plantation right through to the packaging in the factory and then we got to take part in a tea taste test ... gotta love a taste test!!  Vanilla was my fave but I also really liked the Dodo Tea which is coconut flavored and not Dodo flavoured!!!

So for this cake, and to fit in with the challenge, I made a half batch of the White Chocolate Cake and then spooned over some very generous quantities of the Vanilla Tea Infused Sugar Syrup.  I then made a double batch of vanilla buttercream which I used to layer the cake and also used it as a crumb coat.  I gave it two crumb coats just to be on the safe side.  Then I made another two batches to make the roses.  I takes a while to do as the buttercream needs to firm up in the fridge once applied to the cake and this has the knock on effect of drying the cake out but this is where the syrup helped enormously.  I can't say the flavour of the tea really shone through, far too much buttercream for that to happen, but it was there in the background giving a subtle hint to something else than the normal cake.

Vanilla Tea Infused Sugar Syrup
1 cup water
4 vanilla tea bags
1 cup sugar

On stove top, heat water to boiling in a saucepan. Remove from heat, add tea bags and allow to infuse for 5 minutes.

Remove tea bags. Return saucepan to stove top and bring to a slow boil. Stir in sugar, stirring constantly.

Continue stirring until sugar is completely dissolved, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Simple Syrup can be stored in a sealed glass container and refrigerated for up to 1 month

Found on the Republic Of Tea website
Only thing is that there is masses of this cake left, we can't get through it all as it is so rich ... any takers?

The 'Mack' Cake

Wednesday was my Mother In Laws birthday and to celebrate we all went out for dinner last night.  No birthday meal is complete without a birthday cake, I made her a 'Mack' cake - Mack being the name of her most beloved wee Westie ... remember the bog loving white dog from this post?

I used the white chocolate cake recipe (with added lemon juice and zest as before) and baked it in two 23cm cake pans.  When the cakes were cooked and fresh out of the oven they got doused in lemon and limoncello syrup and then once they were cooled I sliced each cake in half and sandwiched two of the layers with lemon curd and the middle layer with buttercream and clementine curd.

The cake and cake board were then covered in black fondant icing and decorated with wee Mack's.  These little guys were made out of white fondant that I pushed into an ice cube tray in the shape of a Westie Dog.  When they had dried out a bit I used a black icing pen to add eyes and a red one to match the real dog's collar.

This is the first time I've every actually tried a piece of a cake that I have decorated.  It was yummy ... but its hard to go wrong with a white chocolate cake ;0)

My Mother In Law was chuffed to bits with her surprise cake, nobody was allowed to eat a Mack!

St Clement's Cake

Yesterday was my Mother-In-Laws birthday. As I said in my previous post, Sunday was the day that the whole family gathered to celebrate. Now in my book a birthday just isn't a birthday until there is a cake thrown in for good measure. MIL is a HUGE St Clement's fan and last year I made her a St Clement's Cake, a Hairy Bikers recipe so you can imagine how bad it is for your hips but not so tough on the taste buds!

Last year I followed the instructions to a tee and ended up with two very thick sponge cakes sandwiched with a thick layer of butter icing and topped off with even more butter icing. There were no complaints on the taste but the presentation wasn't that fantastic, it just didn't look especially 'finished'. So this year I sliced each sponge in half and then used thinner layers of the butter icing to sandwich them altogether. Not quite so sure that the presentation was improved any but it certainly didn't effect the taste so it was declared a winner again.

St Clement's Cake

500g unsalted butter, softened

400g caster sugar

8 eggs

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

2 heaped tsp baking powder

100g ground almonds

560g plain flour

Juice of a lemon

Zest of 2 lemons

3 tbsp orange juice

1 tsp orange extract

For the Topping

250g unsalted butter, softened

500g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

1 dessert spoon hot water

Zest of a lemon

2 tsp lemon juice

Zest of an orange

1 tsp orange extract

Cream together the butter and the sugar until it goes white (very important top tip). Beat in the vanilla bean paste and the eggs one by one.

In a separate bowl blend together the flour, almonds, salt and baking powder then fold into the butter and sugar mixture. This is the basic cake mix.

Divide the cake mixture evenly into two bowls.

In the first bowl - lets make the lemon cake. To the cake mix add the juice of one lemon and the zest of two lemons.

In the second bowl - let's make the orange cake. To the cake mix add the orange juice, orange extract and the zest of an orange.

Butter the two cake tins and line with silicon baking parchment. Pour the cake mixtures into the two cake tins.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 40 mins. To test whether the cake is cooked test by pushing a metal skewer into the centre of the cake and if the skewer comes out clean then the cake is cooked.

Leave to cool in the tins.

Meanwhile, make the toppings. Cream together the butter, icing sugar and hot water and fold in the vanilla bean paste.

Divide the mixture equally into two separate bowls.

To the first bowl add the lemon zest and the lemon juice mix thoroughly and this makes the lemon butter icing.

To the other bowl add the orange zest and the orange juice mix thoroughly and this is the orange butter icing.

Cut the top off the lemon cake until it is level then spread generously with the lemon butter icing.

Sandwich the orange sponge on top of this. Coat the top of the cake with the orange butter icing.

Arrange decorations on top. (The Hairy Bikers used crystallised fruit, I used jelly sweets!!)

Serves lots of people

Now I am the first to admit that my attention was not fully on the cake by the time it came to he slicing and decorating ... those rotten scones were taking up far too much of my time. Its not an excuse, just the truth, but the end result is a cake that I am not all that proud of. In fact if this had been my first attempt I probably wouldn't have made it a second time. Next time, I'm going to slice the lumpy bumpy tops off as well as slicing the cakes in half. Come to think of it, next time I might actually use cutters to make small individual layered cakes ....

Lemonade Scones - CBC 3

Ever have one of those days in the kitchen where everything you attempt turns into a complete mess? That's how my attempts to make scones always end up ... so you can imagine my horror when my brother-in-law requested some scones and jam for afternoon tea yesterday. Eek!

Tomorrow is my Mother-In-Laws birthday. She got given some bad news by the hospital last week when her test results from before Christmas finally got delivered so the whole family pulled out all the stops to help her celebrate yesterday. My brother-in-law flew up from London for the weekend and all the grand kids and their girlfriends turned up for a surprise lunch and she was given a present of a trip to Dublin at Easter, she has always wanted to visit Dublin but never managed to get there. She had a good day ;0)

After lunch we all went back to Sis-In-Laws house for dessert / afternoon tea. I was mortified when she told everyone that I was 'pastry chef' for the day. The scones were lopsided and didn't look at all scone like, the brownies burnt (while I was faffing about with the rotten scones!) and the birthday cake dried up! Grrrrr. At least there was still some jam in the fridge and the Passionfruit Curd didn't curdle!

I thought I would try a 'foolproof' recipe for the scones and kill two birds with the one stone, the recipe came from Belinda Jeffery cook book Hubby gave me for Christmas and has now officially become my Cook Book Challenge number 3. Don't get me wrong, the scones tasted just fine, everyone seemed to like them and the boys didn't leave very many spare out of two batches.

Lemonade Scones

375g SR flour

160g stone ground wholemeal SR flour

75g caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

100g dried currants or natural sultanas

250ml cream

250ml lemonade

Plain flour or milk, for topping

Jam or curd and clotted cream to serve

Preheat your oven to 200C. Line a baking tray with two layers of baking paper and set it aside.

Put both of the flours, the sugar and salt into a large bowl and whisk them with a balloon whisk so they're really well mixed together. Tip in the currants and toss them about so they're well coated in the flour. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the cream and lemonade. Stir everything together with a wooden spoon until it gets a bit too awkward and sticky to stir, then forget about the spoon and use your hands to bring the dough together. Although you have to make sure the dough is mixed, try not to overdo this as scones are better for a light touch (some cooks are such show offs!)

Tip the dough out onto a chopping board and just bring it together. Put it out into a 5cm thick rectangle - no less if you want good high scones. Dip a scone cutter or tumbler into some flour then stamp out the scones, dipping the cutter into the flour between each one.

Sit the scones fairly closely together on the prepared tray. You'll have some scraps of dough left, so gently knead them together, pat them out, and cut out more scones from this. When they're all done, either dust the tops lightly with flour or brush them with a little milk.

Bake for 20 mins or until the scones are golden. When the scones are ready, cool them briefly on a wire rack then bundle them up in a basket lined with a clean tea towel.

Makes about 18

Taken from Belinda Jeffery's 'Mix and Bake'

I found the dough to be very wet and difficult to work with. I made the first batch with sultanas and then decided to make a second batch without, the second time I dumped quite bit more flour into the mix but the end result was still very sticky and uncooperative. I didn't have any wholemeal SR flour to hand so I made both batches with ordinary SR flour. Not sure if that contributed to the difficulties or not. I will have to try this recipe again I guess ... but it will be in a little while once my self esteem has recovered lol.

A Girly Girl Birthday Cake

I made this cake at the request of one of my friends as she needed a cake for her Mum's 80th birthday today.  My remit was pretty open, it just needed to be pink and flowery, along the same lines as Miss SP's birthday cake, and because the Birthday Girl doesn't really have a sweet tooth it needed to be more on the lemony side. Oh, and it needed to be gluten free too!  Apart from that I could do whatever I wanted.

I started off by making a sponge cake that was in a cake decorating book I got for Christmas.  Only problem was it sunk in the middle owing to some over zealous batter dipping in the centre on my part.  The book instructed that sponges tend to peak in the middle so to prevent this you should make a dip in the batter in the centre.  The cake itself is fine, I just couldn't face trying to 'pad out' the dip, so I've popped it in the freezer and I'll make it into a trifle one day soon.

After this I returned to my new 'old faithful' cake recipe. To make it more lemony I added the zest and juice of 2 lemons and then just evened out the amount of cream required once the lemon juice was in.  In hindsight though I should have just kept the cream amount the same, gluten free cakes do tend to be dry and crumbly even after soaked with a limoncello syrup.

The cake has a lemon curd (shhhhhhhhhh - don't tell Hubby where all his lemon curd went to!) and buttercream centre and was then 'dirty iced' with more buttercream before being covered with fondant icing.  I then used pale pink flower paste to make the flowers and stuck them on to the cake with some royal icing.  The centres are also made with royal icing.  The cake design is based on one in Eric Lanlard's book, Glamour Cakes (that I also got for Christmas!)

My friend came around to pick the cake up last night and seemed very pleased with it ... fingers crossed it tastes OK!

Belated Birthday Chocolate Cupcakes

Remember that 1st birthday of this little ol' blog of mine?  No?  Well that's because it was back in August and I was on the infirm list and unable to celebrate in style.  I'm hoping that these cupcakes go some way to righting that wrong?

White Chocolate Cupcakes

180g butter, at room temperature
155g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
225g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
95g white chocolate, chopped
White Chocolate Truffle Frosting
240g white chocolate, coarsely chopped
125ml thickened (double) cream
60g butter

Preheat oven to 160°C. Line twelve 80ml capacity muffin pans with paper cases.

Use an electric beater to beat the butter, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition until just combined.

Sift in the flour and baking powder over the mixture. Add the choc bits and gently fold to combine. Divide among the lined muffin pans and smooth the surface. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Turn onto a wire rack and set aside to cool completely.

White chocolate, butter and cream~ what dreams are made of!

Meanwhile, to make the frosting, place the chocolate, cream and butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and stir with a metal spoon until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth. Transfer to a bowl. Place in the fridge for 1 hour to chill. Use an electric beater to beat the chocolate mixture until pale and creamy.

Spread frosting over the cupcakes and decorate with chocolate roses and leaves (or whatever decoration you have to hand).

Makes 12
Taste Website
 

 
I decorated mine with rose buds made from white, milk and dark modelling chocolate, the leaves are also made from dark chocolate modelling paste.  The cupcakes themselves are OK, nothing to write home about, I think I over baked them just a touch, but that frosting!!!  The frosting is to die for!  I would have liked a smoother finish, next time I'll opt for piping the frosting on I think.  Whoever it was that said cupcakes are the vehicle for the frosting must of had these little guys in mind, and this disappoints me not ;0)