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What can I say?? I just love to bake!! Ever since I would go to Grandma's house as a little girl and bake highlight cakes or help Ninny make her famous vanilla cookies, I've been obsessed with baking! Not only from recipe books, but freestyle too! With a father as a chef, i suppose it is in my genes! Some of my favourite memories from growing up were those moments after dinner when my dad would get his sweet tooth pang and have me help him whip up a batch of toffee fruit kebabs, or irish caramels! I used to love how he never followed recipes, he always just knew what ingredients worked with one another and how to play with quantities. So, from an early age, i had learnt from the master and i was well on my way to bake on my own! When i was 7 years old, i used to bake chocoloate cakes to sell to the mothers of my friends when they came to watch our Saturday morning minkey hockey games! Before i knew it, i was being commissioned from my school teachers to bake cakes for them at $2 a pop! This blog holds just a few of my favourite tried and tested recipes which I've thoroughly enjoyed both baking and eating! So enjoy!!

Saturday, 23 April 2011

Chocolate Mud Cake

This cake is the ultimate for chocolate lovers!  It's such rich, dense, moist chocolate cake and a little goes a long way!  I made this recently for an Easter dinner party and everyone was blown away by it's moist 'muddiness' and the fact that it's gluten free, yeast free and wheat free!  It would be lovely decorated with strawberries, however i stuck to the Easter theme with mine by throwing an entire bag of mini eggs all over it!  


Ingredients:
 - ½ cup (50g) cocoa powder
 - ½ cup (125ml) hot water
 - 1½ cups (330g) firmly packed brown sugar
 - 220g unsalted butter, chopped coarsely
 - 200g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
 - 1½ cups (150g) hazelnut meal
 - 6 eggs, beaten lightly
 - 250g strawberries, sliced thinly (to serve, optional)

chocolate ganache
 - 3/4 cup (180ml) cream
 - 300g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely


Method:
1)  Preheat oven to 170°C/150°C fan-forced. Grease 25cm-round springform tin; line base and side with baking paper.

2)  Blend cocoa with the water in medium saucepan until smooth. Add sugar, butter and chocolate; stir over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat.

3)  Stand chocolate mixture about 15 minutes or until barely warm. Stir in meal and egg. Pour mixture into tin.

4)  Bake cake about 1 hour 40 minutes. Cool cake in tin. Refrigerate, covered, 3 hours or overnight.

5)  Meanwhile, make chocolate ganache.

6)  Place cake onto serving plate. Cover with ganache, decorate with strawberries.

Chocolate ganache


Bring cream to the boil in small saucepan. Remove from heat, add chocolate; stir until smooth. Stand 20 minutes before using.



**  This cake will keep for 1 week (undecorated) or frozen for up to 2 months.

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