I am now blogging as a mummy :) My little girl is 14 weeks old and very cute - just look!
I baked a cake recently in honour of her 6 week birthday (that was a while ago now) and thought I'd better blog about it before she turns 1! I've used Stephanie Alexander's recipe for Red Devil's Cake from The Cook's Companion. It's one of my favourite cookbooks as it's not littered with pretty pictures and recipes which don't live up to it's appearances (sometimes). I like how instructions are given and every recipe I've tried from the book has turned out successfully. Also, recipes are grouped by food type so if I've got some chicken about to go off in my fridge, I whip out this book and look under Chicken and try to find a workable recipe.
Anyway, back to the cake. It's a gorgeous chocolate cake that I had baked several times before but this is the first time I took photos of each process. Here goes:
Recipe:
125g softened unsalted butter
200g brown sugar (i reduced this amount by 50g as I don't like my cakes too sweet... and there's already some more sugar going in the chocolate mixture)
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup milk
250g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (i didn't have this, so I used baking powder instead.. didn't turn out to be quite so fluffy) :(
1 T warm water
chocolate mixture:
150g bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk or buttermilk
few drops of pure vanilla (i don't have pure vanilla because it's expensive! So I use vanilla essence - 1 tsp would do or if you really like vanilla, you can add a bit more?)
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
Look at my teddy bear mould! The chocolate is from Aldi. I usually get Lindt 75% cocoa but this is a bit cheaper and Lindt wasn't on special. In terms of taste I think it's comparable to Lindt. I'd still use Lindt though next time... need to stock up when it's on special! :D
Method:
1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius and butter a 24cm round springform or square cake tin (or in my case, a teddy bear mould)
2) To make the chocolate mixture, gently melt chocolate with sugar, milk and vanilla in a saucepan. When smooth, add egg yolk and cook over gentle heat until mixture thickens slightly. Pour through a strainer (i don't usually do this) and allow to cool.
3) Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy
4) Beat egg yolks lightly and mix with milk, then add to butter mixture alternately with flour
5) Add cooled chocolate mixture and combine well
5) Dissolve bicarbonate of soda in warm water and stir into mixture. (I used baking powder instead and the cake didn't rise as high as when I used bicarb of soda) Whisk egg whites until creamy, then fold into mixture.
6) Pour into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour or until cake tests clean. Cool cake completely before cutting.
Obviously I overcooked my poor bear... next time, don't bake as long! (and use bicarb of soda!)
