Chocolate Mud Cake - Three Ways with Silicone !

Well - it's been a busy weekend.

I started baking on the Friday night with just one batch of Chocolate Mud Cake. Lets jut say, one batch went a long long way - and there was more cake than any of us knew what to do with.....

A very very good friend of mine Victoria - got engaged to her long term partner, Maurice last week. I did not get a chance to see Victoria last week as her little girl Emma (Oliver's best friend) had been rather poorly.

Since I have a short work day on a Saturday, I decided to make Victoria and Maurice a pretty cake to take them on Saturday. I just did not realise what an obscene amount of mix the recipe would produce !

There was enough to make the LOVE cake below, 12 standard sized cupcakes plus 6 of the heart shaped ones you see Oliver holding and another 8 in another shape ! I reckon if you were only making cupcakes, this would produce 28 to 30 !

First up was the LOVE cake. I used tempered Belgian chocolate in the SAY IT WITH CAKE alphabet lettersilicone bakeware moulds and poured it in approx 1cm deep. With our letter moulds, you can literally say anything you like in cake. Use them with soap, chocolate, cake, plaster and many other materials. All of our molds are made from food grade silicone.

You'll find if you use these, that they are thinner and more flexible than many other styles in our bakeware range. As the letters can be intricate, this flexibility is required to make release much easier.

Once the chocolate letters were set, I put them aside to use later as toppers for the cake. You can see from this (out of focus) photo that I can literally turn it inside out if I have to.

Having no experience with writing with icing, I then had a go doodling on greaseproof paper with molten chocolate - as suggested by my neighbour. This proved to be not too hard..... so The chocolate letters got "attacked" with doodles too :-)

On to making the cake. Funny stuff this is. I swear - the batter is the consistency of hot chocolate ! I was convinced I'd done something wrong and really did not believe it was going to make a cake .... The batter was so runny, after a nightmare trying to spoon it - I opted to pour into a measuring jug instead.

HONESTLY - it really was that runny !

Chocolate Mud Cake - adapted from here - by Kel11 - as below.

Chocolate Mud Cake

350g dark chocolate pieces
4  tablespoons of cocoa powder

225g butter

600 ml water

3 eggs

400g sugar

400g self raising flour
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170deg C (fan)

Melt chocolate, butter and water together in a large pot over a low heat stirring until just melted and combined. Remove from heat

Beat the eggs and whisk into the chocolate mixure (chocolate mixure should be only luke warm and not hot enough to cook eggs !)

Add in cocoa, sugar, flour (sifted) and vanilla and combine with the whisk. It'll look really really runny - almost like hot chocoalte. 

Definately pour into a measuring jug before putting into cake moulds. Seemingly, this fills a 9" tin.

Grease and flour moulds well or line with paper (if possible). When cooked, this makes a really moist cake and it's not easy to get out. NOTE - don't use this mix in silicone moulds if you are a beginner. It's not that easy to work with !

I had to cook the letter moulds and cupcakes for about 20mins in the oven until skewer came out clean.

I left them to cool, but these cakes are fragile. I had to shove them in the fridge overnight to firm up. By that time, they didn't want to release from the letter moulds without some persuasion.... though they were pretty easy in the silicone baking cups I used.

I therefore carefully ran a blunt table knife aount the inside of the mould and carefully released. The broke a little tiny bit on the edges on the top. Very little - but the edges were raggy. This really did not matter though as the plan was to put some chocolate buttercream on top and then solid chocolate toppers.

There was so much mix there, that I made 12 standard sized cupcakes as well as the LOVE cake and still had a load more mix left. These little mini chocolate / tablet bars are a new chocolate mould form. THey make lovely little chocolates and ultra-cute toppers too !

You can see how easy they are to release in the video clip. Excuse the video - I was filming with one hand and releasing chocolates with the other !

The chocolate skulls were made in another new chocolate mould.... and my cupcakes are in a 12 standard muffin / cupcake mould in hot pink. We also do a good selection of cupcake paper liners. My chocolate buttercream did 12 cupcakes with loads of frosting and 6 of Oliver's heart shaped cupcakes which were in silicone baking cups, plus another 10 round ones !

Frosting Recipe

115g soft butter (I use salted)

3.1/2 cups sifted icing / confectioners sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup maltesers hot chocolate type drink

1/4 cup milk

Basically, add the whole lot together, combine and mix with a stand mizer if you have one for 5 > 10 mins at a medium speed.

This made a rich and decadent chocolately frosting....

All the frosted cupcakes went to work on Saturday. Most of the ones in Oliver's cases went to a friend (apart from the purple ones with sprinkles which were ALL for Oliver ! Cake monkey he is....)

Time to do some run around after work on Saturday. We went and saw the ponies. You can see Creme here on the left, followed by Cocoa (Oliver's miniature donkey) and Digger our cob foal who has just turned 2 months old. Digger is the big one at the front - he's growing fast !

I then collected Oliver's best friend Emma and took the two of them for an afternoon out at Bewilderwood. Oliver's favourite place.

Starts with a boat ride across the marshes to get into the tree top climbs and tree houses.

That's one way to use up those calories from eating chocolate cake !

Sorry this is such a long post - I think I got a bit carried away ....

Sarrah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/  - March 2011