Bake-a-thon [Part 3 of 5]

I needed a cake recipe that would hold up under the weight of the fondant, that would be able to be carved into shape, but also taste good :) after some searching online, found a Chocolate Mud Cake recipe that would work. I made two cakes, the one shown below, which became the base, and a smaller but thicker one for carving the shapes.

 Ingredients

200g Chocolate

250g Unsalted Butter

1 1/3 cup Warm Water

1 cup Golden Caster Sugar

1 tbsp Instant Coffee

1/4 cup Cocoa

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 1/2 cup Self Raising Flour

Method

01. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

02. Add chocolate, butter, water, cocoa and coffee to a saucepan.

 

 

 

 

03. Heat over low heat and stir until the mix is smooth.

   

04. Leave to cool for 15 minutes. 

05. Add in the sugar and dissolve.

   

06. Beat the eggs with the vanilla while the mix cools.

 

07. Transfer the mix to a bowl.

08. Add the flour and beat until smooth.

 

09. Add in egg mix and beat until smooth again.

10. Line a baking tin in greaseproof or parchment paper and pour in the mix.

12. Bake for 60 – 90 minutes until cooked through.

13. Leave to cool, then place in the fridge overnight.

Fudge-tastic [Part 4 of 5]

So a buttercream was needed to adhere the cake and fondant, and chocolate seemed like the perfect option! This recipe is straightforward and delicious! The recipe below is enough for a 20cm / 8 inch round cake, I made 2.5 times the recipe to be sure I didn’t run out!

 

Ingredients

50g Butter

3 tbsp Cream

1 tsp Vanilla

50g Chocolate

225g Icing Sugar

Method

01. Put all ingredients into a saucepan together.

02. Melt over a low heat until the butter melts completely.

 

03. Beat until smooth.

Make sure to make this icing at the very last minute, and that it’s still warm when spreading as it goes hard very quickly!

Part 5 : http://statisticalbaking.blogspot.com/2010/09/cake-to-remember-part-5-of-5.html

A Cake To Remember [Part 5 of 5]

My hopes for the cake were at a 10, my expectations of how I’d do were at a 2, and I think the outcome was about a 6 :)So everything is set and ready to go, and I’m praying that it all comes together as planned…

The base layer (the carving layer was twice as thick and just slightly smaller)

Made up 3 batches of fondant in total, one pink (above), one white and one chocolate.

The chocolate fudge butter-cream (above) used to stick the fondant to the cake

Carving was fairly straightforward as I had the sketch to go on (see post 1!). I carved out the basic sizes for the hard drive, screen, keyboard, mouse and tea-cup.

It was all a case of putting it together, covering in the fondant and getting the shapes right.

After that, it was all about the finishing touches. I added mini keys to the keyboard using a spatula to indent “keys” and dots of white chocolate to give the appearance of letters. I added a mix of milk and white chocolate to the mug to give the appearance of tea, and of course a birthday message for the BFF in question!

Two days of very hard work was well worth it for the happiness on my BFFs face :D