Chocolate Christmas Cake

This Christmas I have made two special Christmas cakes using this recipe below. It has quickly become our family favourite. The one above, I made for the teachers at my son's school, as a thank you and well done for getting through a very long Autumn term.  The other one, I made for my own school's Festive Fair, for a 'Guess the Weight of the Cake' competition. (It was 3.7kg in case you were wondering!)

The same recipe for both cakes, but presented very differently. The bundt cake is topped with a simple icing sugar and water glaze, and then vanilla cookies on top (recipe for those here) and the triple layer has vanilla buttercream inside and around and a chocolate ganache drip on top. The biscuits on that are gingerbread (recipe found here).

In my opinion, it's worth making the biscuits too, as they are sooo delicious, and can be kept in airtight containers for a couple of weeks.

Chocolate Indulgence Cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:
2 cups self raising flour (300g)
2 cups caster sugar (460g)
3/4 cup cocoa (90g)
1 teaspoon bi-carb soda (baking soda)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon coffee powder
1 cup milk (250ml)
1/2 cup sunflower oil (125ml)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (10ml)
1 cup boiling water (250ml)

For the frosting:
250 g softened butter
500g icing sugar
2 Tablespoons milk (30ml)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

For the cake:
1. Preheat the oven to 170C fan (350F) and line the base and sides of two 20cm (8 inch) cake tins, or one bundt tin.
2. Add flour, sugar, cocoa, bi-carb soda, coffee powder and salt and mix together in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer.
3. Whisk together to combine fully.
4. Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to the flour mixture. Mix on a medium speed until fully combined. Carefully add the boiling water, and mix on high speed for 1 minute to add air to the mixture.
5. Split the mixture evenly between the two cake tins and bake for 35-40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Bake for 45 mins in the bundt tin.
6. Leave the cakes in the tins for 15 mins and then turn out into wire racks to cool fully.
7. To get a flat top on the cake, once it is out of the oven, using your whole palm, press very gently on a clean tea towel on the top of the cake, and this slowly flattens it and saves you having to trim.

For the frosting:
1. Mix the butter, vanilla and icing sugar in a large bowl until the buttercream is silky. Add the milk to loosen it up.
2. Use some of the buttercream between the cake layers and then do a layer to crumb coat the cake. Chill in the fridge for 30 mins or until set.
3. Add another layer of the buttercream to the cake, smoothing the sides.
4. Decorate as you wish. I added a ganache drip and then put the biscuits on top.

It's a very indulgent cake, but for a chocolate lover, perfect!

Koala Macaron Vanilla Yoghurt Cake

My lovely friends, Sarah and Lee are having a baby very soon and yesterday was their baby shower. I wanted to make two things, a cake that reminds them of their Australian roots, and a nappy cake full of essential goodies for a newborn baby.

This is the story of the Koala Macaron Cake....and perhaps a mention of the nappy cake too!

I was looking for a different vanilla cake to use for this cake. I wanted one with some good structure and considered making a madeira cake - one of my all time favourites and a good one for layering. But instead, I decided to try one I had been hearing about recently, from a fellow food blogger, Jo from Every Nook & Cranny.  Jo's Vanilla Yoghurt Cake turned out to be one of the most delicious vanilla cakes I have eaten. I made double the mixture to get four layers, but only used three, which left a whole layer for my husband and I to gorge on! We ate it plain, no deorations....and it was sooooo yummy!

The macarons are one of my favourites to make. I haven't made any macs for ages, but it's like learning to ride, once you have the technique you always remember it. I was really happy with how they turned out. I won't repeat the process for making them here, but if you'd like to give them a go, you can find the recipe here.

I filled half of them with a chocolate ganache and caramel combination and the rest I left plain to go around the cake. I needed 15 for the bottom of the cake - I had originally miscalculated 12, so I had to prise open 3 extra filled macarons to complete the circle!

 

I love this condensed milk caramel so, so much. And I have been known to eat it straight out of the tin with a spoon. On more than one occasion. :)

Anyway I made the macarons on Thursday night - they can be made in advanced, in fact they are better if made in advance and stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

On Friday night I made the vanilla and yoghurt cake. As I said, I doubled the recipe to get the height I wanted, but I will give you the original recipe here. I believe Jo has adapted her original recipe now, which I didn't realise so here is the original and here is the updated version.

Vanilla Yoghurt Cake

Adapted From Every Nook & Cranny

Ingredients:
Cake
150g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
125g plain flour
250g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bi-carb soda (baking soda)
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
250g greek yoghurt

Buttercream
250g butter, softened
500g icing sugar, sifted
2-3 Tablespoons milk to loosen the mixture
1 tsp vanilla essence

Ganache
100g dark chocolate
80ml double cream

Condensed milk caramel for filling.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160 deg C and then line the bases of 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy - this will take about 10 minutes so that it is very pale. This adds essential air into the mixture. Sift the flours, baking powder and bi-carb of soda together into another bowl
3. Add the eggs, one at a time into the mixture, beating well after each one. Adding a spoonful of the flour mixture helps prevent curdling.
4. Once all the eggs are incorporated, add the rest of the flour and mix gently until it is all just combined.
5. Pour in the yoghurt and vanilla and mix slowly until it forms a batter consistency.
6. Gently measure equal amounts into the two tins, flatten it out very carefully and then cook for 30-35 mins. Check they are cooked by lightly touching the top- it should spring back. You can also insert a probe - if it comes out clean your cake is cooked.
7. Remove cakes from the oven and allow to cool slightly in the tins. Tip out onto a baking rack to cool completely.

8. While the cakes are cooling, make the buttercream by combining the softened butter and icing sugar in an electric mixer until it is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence and milk as required to make it a soft buttercream.
9. Once the cakes are cooked, layer buttercream between the layers - I also added a drizzle of condensed milk caramel to each layer too. Next time I would add more - a full layer of the caramel.

10. Once filled, I did a crumb coat on the outside and the refrigerated it for an hour or over night (I do most of my baking at night time!)
11. To complete the cake I made another amount of the buttercream and iced the outside. Keep a small amount of buttercream left over to use as 'glue' to stick the macarons on with.
12. Make the ganache by finely chopping the chocolate and placing it into a heat proof bowl. Warm the cream up in a small saucepan over a medium heat until it is bubbling but not boiling. Pour it over the chocolate, mix gently and leave it to melt for a few minutes.
13. Mix to combine the chocolate and cream. If there are any lumps left, put a small amount of water in the saucepan, heat it on the hob/stove and place the heat proof bowl over the top and stir until the remaining lumps of chocolate have melted. If the ganache is looking quite thick and not drizzly enough, you can add a small amount of cream to it at this stage to thin it down a bit more.
14. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a small nozzle or just snip the end off the piping bag (small hole) and drizzle the ganache around the edge first to create the drip effect. Then fill the top.
15. Add the macarons to the top and set into the ganache. Then using the left over buttercream, place a small amount on the back of the plain koala macarons and stick them around the bottom.
16. Put the cake in the fridge to set everything well.
17. Serve and enjoy!

Notes: I am not actually a huge fan of buttercream (it's too sweet for me) so if I was making this for a more casual occasion, I would just fill it with jam and whipped cream.

And to finish off, here is the completely different cake I made this weekend! This nappy cake is full of nappies (obviously) plus all sorts of other goodies and essentials for the arrival of a newborn baby.

With the very happy 'Mums-to-Be'! Not long now, girls!

Caramel Koala Macarons

 

Happy Australia Day 2015!
To celebrate my national day, even though I don't live there anymore, I have done some Aussie baking. I made some lamingtons (which I will post on here soon) and these little koala macarons. I can't claim to have invented these - they come from one of my favourite Sydney bloggers, Steph at Raspberri Cupcakes. Click the link to see her original ones. I use a slightly different macaron recipe, but by all means try hers out - I used to use it, but found it didn't suit my oven as much as my current one does. This is the second time I have made these - the first time was right at the beginning of my macaron journey and compared to these they looks pretty rough. But the word 'journey' is apt here, as it truly has been a journey to 'perfect' them.

Steph, in her original made the caramel filling, but I always cheat and use the Carnation Condensed Milk ready made Caramel. I simply love it. And combined with the chocolate ganache, it's absolutely delicious, giving a little 'surprise inside' experience.

Piped out and ready to 'rest'.

 

This is not a great photo, but you get the idea of the template I use. I'm not professional enough to get them all consistent without something like this.

 

Caramel Koala Macarons (or Caramello Koala Macarons)

If you are new to macarons, Brave Tart has a lot of good advice on how to make them. I did a lot of reading before I started, and I have made a lot of batches to perfect them. I also did a short course one day to be taught in a practical way. But reading lots of blogs, really does help.

Makes about 20  whole

Ingredients:

 

100 grams ground almonds (I actually use about 110g to then allow for large bits that can't be sieved)
100-110g egg whites (about 3 egg whites)
185g icing (powdered) sugar
4 tablespoons caster sugar
black food colouring

 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 140° C.
2. Push the ground almond through a sieve to get rid of any large pieces or lumps.
3. Mix the icing sugar together with the ground almonds in a food processor. I do this twice - sieve, food processor, sieve, food processor.
4. In a large bowl, whip the egg whites with a hand- or stand mixer. As the egg whites start foaming, add the sugar one tablespoon at a time and continue whipping until the mixture is glossy and stiff - this takes about 9 mins. Add any colour at this stage and mix for a further minute. You should be able to hold the bowl upside down without the meringue sliding out.
5. Fold the dry mix carefully and slowly into the meringue, use a spatula. You need to ensure the wet and dry ingredients are well incorporated at this stage, and that most of the air has been squashed out. Don't overmix! You want the mixture to fall off the spatula like lava. At this stage I took a couple of spoonfuls out, added a lot of extra black colouring to make the nose and put that into its own piping bag with a very narrow nozzle.
6. Fill your main piping bag plus a smaller one, narrow nozzle (for the ears) and pipe the macarons onto a baking sheet. I use a template I made up as a guideline under the baking paper - it has the circle for the head and smaller round ears. See photo above.
7. Tap the tray firmly but carefully a couple of times on a solid surface to let any air bubbles escape. Add the nose to each koala then carefully add the ear decoration. I could only find stars, so I used those.
8. Let them set for 60 minutes to form a dry skin.
9. Bake for about 14-16 minutes. Let cool completely, then fill with piped chocolate ganache and caramel and sandwich them together.
10.  Remember to put your filled macarons into the fridge in a sealed container for 24 hours; this process helps the flavours to develop. Macarons are best eaten after being out of the fridge for about an hour.

Ganache:

1. Finely chop the chocolate.
2. Heat the double cream in a small saucepan on a low to medium heat until it begins to bubble and steam. You want it to be hot enough to melt the chocolate easily.
3. Pour the cream over the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, stir slightly and allow to sit for a few minutes.
4. Whisk the chocolate and cream mixture until it becomes smooth and silky. If there are still lumps of chocolate you can place the bowl over a saucepan is simmering water to reheat and melt further.
5. Pour the melted mixture into a flat pan and place in the fridge to chill. Cover with cling film to avoid a skin forming. It is ready to pipe into the macarons when it has set. If it is too hard, leave on your bench for a few minutes, but remember, just by piping it, it will warm up in your hands anyway.

Out of the oven, cooled and decorated. I use a black edible pen to draw the facial features. Ready to fill.

 

I use this caramel, but if you don't have access to it in this form, you can make your own dulce de leche ( recipe here again from Raspberri Cupcakes). My grandma used to make it this way....ooohhhh the memories...)

I pipe a ring of the chocolate ganache first, as the caramel is too runny to hold in on its own.

 

All snuggled up together

 

Cute little fellas, aren't they?

 

Enjoy!

Pink Lemonade Macarons

"Love is in the Air!" 
I'm really excited to be taking part in a product and blog challenge using Sugar and Crumb's flavoured icing sugars. This one is a Valentine's and meringue theme. I have actually used these products before and I knew they worked well with macarons, as a way of adding flavour to the shell, rather than the filling.

For these macarons, I used the Pink Lemonade icing sugar and a dark chocolate ganache filling. It was a lovely light and fairly subtle flavour. I took them into my work for Friday treats - I'm a teacher by day, and let's face it, teachers love treats, so I knew they would be well received.

I asked for honest opinions on them. These were some of the comments:

"I love getting the flavour in the first mouthful"

"It's subtle, but I like it"

"It almost pops in your mouth!"

"I think a lighter buttercream filling would enhance the favour even more"

"I love it with the chocolate ganache filling, the flavours compliment each other"

 

 

Pink Lemonade Macarons

 

If you are new to macarons, Brave Tart has a lot of good advice on how to make them. I did a lot of reading before I started, and I have made a lot of batches to perfect them. I also did a short course one day to be taught in a practical way. But reading lots of blogs, really does help.

 

Ingredients:

 

100 grams ground almonds (I actually use about 110g to then allow for large bits that can't be sieved)

100-110g egg whites (about 3 egg whites)

185g icing (powdered) sugar

4 tablespoons caster sugar

Ganache:
200g dark chocolate, finely chopped
150mls double cream

 Method:

 Preheat the oven to 140° C.

1. Push the ground almond through a sieve to get rid of any large pieces or lumps.
2. Mix the flavoured icing sugar together with the ground almonds in a food processor. I do this twice - sieve, food processor, sieve, food processor.
3. In a large bowl, whip the egg whites with a hand- or stand mixer. As the egg whites start foaming, add the sugar one tablespoon at a time and continue whipping until the mixture is glossy and stiff - this takes about 9 mins. Add any colour at this stage and mix for a further minute. You should be able to hold the bowl upside down without the meringue sliding out.
4. Fold the dry mix carefully and slowly into the meringue, use a spatula. Don't over mix! You want the mixture to fall off the spatula like lava.
5. Fill your piping bag and pipe the macarons onto a baking sheet. Carefully tap the baking sheet on a hard surface such as a table to get all the air bubbles out.  Add the heart decorations to the top of each macaron. Let them set for 60 minutes to form a dry skin.
6. Bake for about 14-16 minutes. Let cool completely, then fill with piped chocolate ganache and sandwich them together.
7. Place in an airtight container in the fridge for 24 hours to let the flavours develop.

Ganache:

1. Finely chop the chocolate.
2. Heat the double cream in a small saucepan on a low to medium heat until it begins to bubble and steam. You want it to be hot enough to melt the chocolate easily.
3. Pour the cream over the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, stir slightly and allow to sit for a few minutes.
4. Whisk the chocolate and cream mixture until it becomes smooth and silky. If there are still lumps of chocolate you can place the bowl over a saucepan is simmering water to reheat and melt further.
5. Pour the melted mixture into a flat pan and place in the fridge to chill. Cover with cling film to avoid a skin forming. It is ready to pipe into the macarons when it has set. If it is too hard, leave on your bench for a few minutes, but remember, just by piping it, it will warm up in your hands anyway.

 

 

You can get these icing sugars direct through the Sugar and Crumbs shop, or I have also bought them through Iced Jems.  There are a number of retailers in Australia who are stocking them now too (even one in Canberra!). Click here to search for your local stockist.

 

I'd love to know your thoughts.....

 

Kris

 



 

Chocolate Bundt Cake

It's been a while since I blogged some of my recipes properly, so you my be inundated as I have been doing a lot of baking lately. This cake is one I made for my son's 6th birthday yesterday. I wanted something simple, but fun, that I could transport to a restaurant in London (on the train!) So it needed to be robust, but tasty.

This is the second time I have made this cake now, the first being for Halloween last month.

My bundt tins are new, my first from the Nordic Ware range and I've really enjoyed using them. For this type of tin, I think you need a fairly stable cake. This recipe, I have to say, is just delicious. It's a Martha Stewart one, and I know I will use it again and again.

Just a few notes for when you are using this recipe and this style of tin. For the Halloween 'pumpkin' cake, I made two cakes separately, trimmed the tops on both to make them flat and the 'sandwiched' them together with a simple orange buttercream in between. I topped that one with some passionfruit icing. The green 'stalk' is just an icecream cone painted with slightly watered down food colouring - I popped it back into a low temp oven to dry out. This is the 12 cup sized tin.

For the blue birthday cake, I used the smaller tin so I also had spare mixture which I used to make some cupcakes with. I didn't trim the top on this one, just turned it over and let it cool. The icing is just very simple, icing sugar and water and I tried out my new gel colours from ProGel. This was turquoise, although looks sky blue really. Still, it's nice to use the tubes to control the amount you use. You let it dry for a few minutes before sprinkling on the 100s & 1000s. This is the 6 cup sized tin.

This really is a delicious chocolate cake, not too sweet and if making it for a more grown up occasion, drizzling chocolate ganache over the top would be perfect.

Chocolate Bundt Cake

Ingredients:

•  1 cup (220g) unsalted butter, plus more for pan      
• 2 1/4 cups (320g) self-raising flour
• 3/4 cup (75g) unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1  1/2c (375mls)  milk (or milk alternative)
• 1 1/2 cups (350g) caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:                 

1. Make the cake: Preheat oven to 180degrees C. Butter and flour (or use a cake release) a 12-cup Bundt pan.
2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, and salt. 
3. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition; add vanilla. If the egg mixture looks like it is having trouble combining properly, you can add a tablespoon of the flour mix to help it come together.
4. Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour; beat until just combined.
5. Transfer batter to prepared pan; smooth top with an offset spatula.
6. Bake until a cake tester comes out clean, about 50-55 minutes. (40 mins is using the smaller 6 cup tin).
7. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool for about 10 mins in the tin, before tipping the cake onto the cooling rack. (Cake can be stored at room temperature, in an air tight container up to 7 days).

Give it a try and let me know if you make the cake!

Kris

UPDATE - May 2023: I quickly make this with King Charles III Coronation sprinkles tonight. Covered in a delicious chocolate ganache made with dark chocolate and Emlie Plant cream. This is just for my family.