Cakes for the School Fair

We have had a great weekend, with the highlight being yesterday's long awaited school fair. Little Miss 5 and her school buddies were positively bursting with excitement at all the fun fair activities on offer. With both of us busy helping out, our little blossom got to spend some quality time with Nana; then later some close friends of ours took over, so she had twice the fun of the fair! 

I made some cakes to go with the Devonshire Tea tent's bill of fair. This Chocolate Mud cake is always a favourite! For this one I made a chocolate butter cream, instead of the Toffee icing. The Passion fruit and fresh cream sponge roll sold out. With so much to do prior to the fair, the tutorial for this one will be coming later! 

I actually sold the Gluten Free Spiced Apple Cake in the first picture as a whole cake. The lady that brought it was so impressed with the piece of GF Chocolate Mud Cake she had, that she got the other cake as well. I left the walnuts out of the one for the fair: always worried about the nut allergy thing.

 My food class at school helped out by making these Chocolate truffles. 

This is the Gluten Free Chocolate Mud Cake. This cake received high praise from the people who tried it. I was so pleased they liked it. It's always a pleasure to make great cakes for the gluten free among us. No one should miss out on good cake. I used the GF Chocolate Mud Cup Cake recipe, but baked in a round tin at 170deg. C for 1 1/2 hours. Worth the wait, as the texture is amazing. I frosted it with the Toffee Frosting boiled to only 135deg so it stayed white. The Carrot Cake in the back ground is a good old classic standby recipe that I make all the time for so many occasions. It works just as well as cupcakes. 

Needless to say today has been a quiet day in our house! Thanks so much to all the amazing people that worked so hard to make the fair happen, and all the people who helped me out on the day. You were all stars! xx 

Chocolate Banana Mud Cake for Brenna's Birthday

Last weekend we were lucky enough to help Brenna celebrate her big three zero birthday. Unfortunately for me 30 is but a distant memory, but a memory all the same, and worth a celebration. Being her normal rushed-off-her-feet self, Charmaine commissioned me to make a cake. Only instructions: she likes bananas, and she liked the look of that mud cake. The solution was simple:

Chocolate Banana Mud Cake with Toffee Frosting

Preheat the oven to 170deg. C and line a line a 22cm loose bottom dish with as much foil as it takes to make it batter tight. The mixture is quite liquid, so I put a length of foil over the round base, then slid the base into the collar, therefore making it watertight.

1/2 cup vegetable oil
250ml cream
50ml espresso
1 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs, beaten
3 bananas - mashed
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 3/4 cups flour

Sift the flour and cocoa together. Mash the banana.
Place oil in a large mixing bowl and with a whisk stir in the following ingredients one at a time: cream, espresso, water vanilla, eggs, sugar, salt and lastly baking powder. Mix in the banana.

Add the sifted flour and cocoa to the wet mixture and mix well until combined.
Pour into the lined tin. 

Bake for 1 and a half hours, then check by inserting a skewer into the cake to see if it comes out clean. 
Mine required an additional 10 minutes. Cool the cake in the tin. 

Remove the cake from the tin and put onto a serving plate before starting to make the frosting.

Toffee Frosting - a toffee sugar style Italian meringue frosting

175g sugar
1 tablespoon liquid glucose
40ml water
3 egg whites

Separate the eggs. Reserve the egg yolks for another recipe. Beat the egg whites until firm peaks form. Not so much as the whites start to look dry, just stiff enough to stand up when the beater head is raised out of the mixture.

Place sugar, glucose and water into a small saucepan and heat until it reaches 135deg. C. on the sweet thermometer. Don't stir it once it starts to boil or the syrup will turn grainy. It should look a golden toffee colour. 









With the beater motor running, add the toffee to the egg whites a drop at a time. The eggs will form a smooth glossy toffee coloured frosting. The heat cooks the egg whites so no further cooking is needed.
Don't worry if little toffee bits stay in the frosting. It just adds to the affect.

Mum's trusty and very old - like 40 years - Kenwood mixer didn't miss a beat.

With no time to waste, spread the frosting onto the cake before it sets. The recipe makes plenty so you can afford to be generous. 

We didn't have 30 candles, so settled for bananas instead. I tossed them in lemon juice so they wouldn't go brown. 

Brenna getting extra help with her birthday candles.

Happy birthday Brenna. Thanks for sharing your birthday with us. Happy days up at the farm!

The best Chocolate Mud Cake with Toffee Frosting

I'm literally not sure where this recipe came from; I found it scribbled out on a piece of paper in my recipe folder; written down who knows when, just waiting to be rediscovered.
Anyway, on the prowl for a new and delicious recipe to make for my lovely faculty's shared lunch, it surfaced from the paper clippings and popped into my hand. It is literally the best chocolate mud cake I have made to date. Be prepared for the very long cooking time; note to self, do not start baking this at 9pm unless you can arrange a sleep in the next day. 

Chocolate Mud Cake with Toffee Frosting

Preheat the oven to 170deg. C and line a line a 22cm loose bottom dish with as much foil as it takes to make it batter tight. The mixture is quite liquid, so I put a length of foil over the round base, then slid the base into the collar, therefore making it watertight.

1/2 cup vegetable oil
250ml cream
50ml espresso
1 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 3/4 cups flour

Sift the flour and cocoa together.
Place oil in a large mixing bowl and with a whisk stir in the following ingredients one at a time: cream, espresso, water vanilla, eggs, sugar, salt and lastly baking powder.

Add the sifted flour and cocoa to the wet mixture and mix well until combined.

Pour into the lined tin. 

Bake for 1 and a half hours, then check by inserting a skewer into the cake to see if it comes out clean. 

Mine required an additional 10 minutes. Cool the cake in the tin. 

I left mine to cool overnight. 

Remove the cake from the tin and put onto a serving plate before starting to make the frosting.

Toffee Frosting - a toffee sugar style Italian meringue frosting

175g sugar
1 tablespoon liquid glucose
40ml water
3 egg whites

Separate the eggs. Reserve the egg yolks for another recipe. Beat the egg whites until firm peaks form. Not so much as the whites start to look dry, just stiff enough to stand up when the beater head is raised out of the mixture.

Place sugar, glucose and water into a small saucepan and heat until it reaches 135deg. C. on the sweet thermometer. Don't stir it once it starts to boil or the syrup will turn grainy. It should look a golden toffee colour.

With the beater running, very slowly add the toffee to the egg whites a few drops at a time. 

The eggs will form a smooth glossy toffee coloured frosting. The heat cooks the egg whites so no further cooking is needed.
Don't worry if little toffee bits stay in the frosting. It just adds to the affect.

Immediately cover the cake in the frosting. 

The meringue will set in no time so needs to be spread on the cake straight away.

I piped some chocolate run-outs to decorate the cake top. 

Make a piping bag by folding over a triangle of baking paper as shown, then fold the other side around the cone and tuck the points inside to stop it unfurling. 

Pipe the melted chocolate onto baking paper and leave to set before gently sitting on the cake.

Happy days! And the perfect antidote to the busy conclusion to the school year.