Monday 14 March 2011

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

21 comments:

  1. Oh Sarah! the LOVE cakes are beautiful. Topped with teh chocolate letters they looks so professional!

    Oliver is certainly set to finish all those heart shaped cupcakes. He has a firm grip on the plate :P Hope they had a good time at the tree climbing expedition What fun. I went on those once years ago...it was frightening! lol

    I must try mud cake one day. Sounds so sinful. Im busy with the wedding cake now. Its just a simple one round cake but Im getting a lttle nervous. I always do when im about to decorate it. I never know how it'll turn out. I still have pink roses to do cos pink fades so I have top leave it till last. Making some today n tomorrow. the cakes due on saturday. I realy hope it will be pretty. otherwise Im done for.

    hugs
    zurin

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  2. Hi sarah! Loved what you've done... I have a suggestion you might like though with regards to doodling, I've done it before to design a cake and it's really pretty.

    Rather than doodle white chocolate on the hardened milk chocolate, I doodled ON the BOTTOM of the mold directly, hardened it in the refrigerator a bit THEN poured the milk chocolate.. THat way when you pop it out, its a smooth finish that resembles chocolate transfers. =) I love doing dots and zig zags.

    that's what i did on this cake. http://krazekitch.multiply.com/photos/album/5/Cakes_Pies#photo=5

    But yours is awesome as it is anyway!

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  3. WOW! Absolutely beautiful!

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  4. Such a beautiful cake!
    I bet it tastes divine as well:)
    The cupcakes look scrumptious too.

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  5. I have that mini chocolate bar mould and love it, we use it oftenn. Your chocolate love cake is stunning! x

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  6. That is an insanely cute cake! I'm comforted that someone else's kitchen looks like that after they've baked. :-)

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  7. Those mini chocolate moulds are AMZING, and not to mention that your cake ideas have made my eyeballs gain at least a pound or two just looking at them ;-)

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  8. Hello Sarrah-Jane, Thank you for stopping by my blog. Yours is absolutely delightful! I'm having fun catching up with it. Cheers! ~ your most recent follower. :)

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  9. Looks like i had been missing lot loved all the pic here and had been searching for mud cake recipes, yay found one :)

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  10. All of the cakes and cupcakes look amazing! You've done such a lovely job and what a nice gesture for your friends!

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  11. Oliver and Emma are absolutely adorable. I love anything that says LOVE. So creative and fun, probably could use these for lots of things. Hope you are having a lovely weekend.
    -Gina-

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  12. Hey ! I left everyone a comment back a few days ago... thne my pc timed out and lost the lot. Doh. Don't you just hate that ?

    Thank you all for taking the time to stop by and leave a comment.

    Zurin - those cakes Oliver had were anything but stable. He started wiggling, giggling and dancing a moment or two after. THat boy never stands still. That shot was pure luck and nothing else. Your sugar roses are to die for and your sugarcraft is always awe inspiring my dear :-)

    Kraze Kitch - I already had a go at that after I finished with the letter E you see. I think it woudl work great on top of a shet or in a bigger tray / mold - but the letters are quite tight to manouver the piping bag inside of and I kinda just made a big mess ! lol. I'll maybe have a go another day or leave it to those who are good at it like you ;-)

    Erin and Prarie Rose - thank you :-)

    Astral - fab- isn't it ? I love the cutesy little bars. So unbelievably easy too !

    Baby Wilt - glad almost all were given away. The calorific value would have been extreme to say the least.

    Mari - how lovely of you to visit. I lvoe nothing more than a coffee and surfing other's blogs whenever I get two free minutes !

    Ananda - great to see you back. Hope your holiday with your mum was fabulous.

    Susi - Thanks. TBH - I wasn't that happy with the photographs. I'm rubbish at food styling ! I keep meaning to email you. Goodness knows, I've started so many times... but I never seem to finish anything these days. As soon as I clear down the big project I'm working on, I'll be in touch ;-)

    Gina - congrat on your new blog. It's looking good. I'll do my best not to get your name wrong again. I'm a scatter brain atm. You remind me of a friend of mine called Gloria... Honest - that's a good thing. Take care

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  13. Oh, my gosh, how wonderful! I love every detail..so lovely. And your kiddos are DARLING!

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  14. OMG i am literally drooling at all that chocolate. And what a lovely post! Thanks for sharing, never apologise for "getting carried away" hehe all the more fun for us! :)

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  15. Oh this cake is just stunning, I now need to find a good excuse to buy some letters from you and make some pretty cakes too! x

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  16. I have visited your blog a couple of times now from your ebay shop, I wish I had an infinate amount of money so I could buy all your moulds, they are all FAB ~ ILOVE them. Will continue to keep looking and am going to try the mud cake. Have decided rather than getting myself tied up making a large cake for my son's 4th birthday, I am going to make them a cup cake each for in thier party bags.Idea nicked from a recent party my son went to, then I don't have to worry about getting the cake cut up on time etc and it can all be done before hand. Keep up the good work. It seems I've got carried away typing now! Want your moulds!!!!!

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  17. thank you. We're working on loads of stuff we are putting online and about to launch as our 2012 collection.

    You could make the chocolate mud cake as birthday cupcakes. It's a moist cake, dense and very fine crumb. If you prefer something with a serious chocolate hit, the recipe in the link below is now my no. 1 chocolate cake / cupcake recipe (with the frosting recipe here). It's fudgy and intense chocolate. My 3yo picked it for his birthday in October - there are pictures. It's the one that never fails to get comments. Everyone tasting it for the first time asks for the recipe.

    I'll be making chocolate cupcakes again this week using some chocolate moulds we'll be launching shortly to make toppers....so it'll be on the blog again very soon

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  18. Thank you will try and find it.

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  19. Just wondering aprox how much weight wise did you use for each chocolate letter, i am doing them as gifts for my guests at my wedding and have 130 to make so am trying to figure out how much chocolate i will need in total.
    Regards Jacqui

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  20. Hello

    I'm sorry - I really don't remember. It was 2011 when I made those... IT will vary on the letter as some hold more volume than others. I can only guess approx 80 > 100g....

    Hope that helps

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  21. awesome thanks for your help its a great start

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