Chocolate Celebration Cake

So this has been a busy week of baking and not much time to blog post so I am definitely playing catch-up - and we’re only half-way through January! I don’t often blog about my celebration cakes but I had lots of fun with different techniques for this cake so I thought I would share some of the elements that went into making it.

This was made for the husband of a dear friend and I usually make cakes covered in fondant for them. But this time we decided to go for something a bit different and this chocolate ganache drip cake was born. I made a 7 inch Chocolate Truffle Torte, split it into 3 layers and then filled and covered it with Chocolate Ganache Buttercream before adding a Chocolate Ganache drip. This is not for the chocolate faint-hearted as within its celebratory exterior, 725g dark chocolate lurks within – but I’m a firm believer that birthday cake calories definitely don’t count ;-)

Katherine Sabbath is the queen of these drip cakes with an array of fabulous colours. There is a great blog post of Katherine’s tips for styling these drip cakes from Delish here including some mini video footage that I love referring to when making these cakes.

So when you come to decorate the cake, you can use whatever comes to hand. Maracons, chocolate bark, sweeties and chocolates you have in the house, pretzels – the list goes on. As this was a special birthday cake, I wanted to make three decorations that were in keeping with the brown and gold theme. Sugar Glass, Meringue Bark and Honeycomb.

Sugar Glass

The glass is made from sugar and cocoa nibs. It’s very easy to make with just these two ingredients.

Ingredients

• 200G CASTER SUGAR
• 2 TBSP COCOA NIBS (or any other toppings you think would look good in the glass)

Method

1.  Melt 200g caster sugar in a saucepan over a low heat
2. By the time all this sugar has melted, it should have turned a lovely caramel colour and be time to take it off the stove
3. Poured this on a baking tray lined with silpat and spread it out with a spatula - this is the time to create swirly edges that will be really interesting when you come to break it into shards
4.  Pop it in the fridge and let it set
5. Once set, break it into different shaped shards

Note: once set and out of the fridge, it can go a bit sticky in room temperature so break it up straight from the fridge and store it covered and in a cool place.

Honeycomb

Crunchies remain one of my favourite chocolate bars - and I was so excited the first time I made honeycomb. I've had my share of misses now with the temperature of honeycomb (making delicious toffee in the process!) so now I always use a thermometer and don't chance getting the state of readiness wrong by the colour alone.

I usually make a block of honeycomb and then break it up and coat it with chocolate. This time I wanted to see if I could made shaped honeycomb sweets by pouring it into molds. Due to the speed of the stage when the bicarb is added and then getting it into the tin, I had time to take 6 teaspoons of the honeycomb and get them into the molds. By the time I got the remaining mix into the bigger tin, it was deflated. It still tasted good when it was set but had lost its volume. I wasn't too concerned about this as I wanted to blitz the honeycomb to make a fine crumb that could be sprinkled across the cake.

Ingredients

• 200G CASTER SUGAR
• 100G GOLDEN SYRUP
• 2 TSP BICARBONATE OF SODA

Method

1. Grease the tin and line it with baking parchment
2. Heat the caster sugar and golden syrup over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved (around 10 minutes) - it can be stirred at this stage but no stirring as soon as the sugar has dissolved!
3. Pop in a candy thermometer and heat the sugar to 160 degrees celcius
4. When the temperature's reached , remove it from the heat and quickly stir in the bicarb until it's fully mixed in
5. At this stage, I scooped out 6 teaspoons of the honeycomb and put them into a silicone candy mold (each cavity had 1 teaspoon) - if you're just making one block, then pour it all into the prepared baking tin
6. Leave to set at room temperature
7. Once set, this can be broken up into pieces
8. To cover with chocolate, melt the chocolate in the microwave, removing it when the chocolate is almost but not quite melted and then stir until melted completely
9. Dip the honeycomb pieces into the honeycomb or fully immerse them using a fork and then leave to set on a piece of baking parchment
10. To make the honeycomb dust to sprinkle on the top of the cake, take some honeycomb (without chocolate) and blitz it in the food processor until you reach your desired level of consistency

Meringue Bark

from the Meringue Girls Everything Sweet

I love meringue. My very favourite treat is macarons but I love how versatile meringue is in creating edible prettiness. I saw this in the Meringue Girls Everything Sweet and wanted to try Meringue Bark rather than Chocolate Bark. It’s the same recipe as their kisses, just treated a little differently.

Ingredients

• 150G CASTER SUGAR
• 75G EGG WHITES (I use Two Chicks)
• DECORATION (these can be customised to your favourite sweeties and toppings)
  • For example, Cocoa Powder, Pearl Balls, Silver Nonpareils, Chocolate Covered Popping Candy, Melted Dark Chocolate

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees (fan)
2. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and spread out the sugar evening across it
3. Bake for 7 minutes in the oven
4. In the meantime, whisk the egg whites in a standalone mixer, slowly at first and then increasing the speed – you want the egg whites to reach stiff peak at the same time as the sugar’s 7 minutes in the oven is up
5. Put the mixer on full speed and add the hot sugar a spoonful at a time, allowing each spoonful to be fully incorporated and return to stiff peak before adding the next one
6. When all the sugar has been added, mix for at least 5 minutes until you can rub a little of the meringue between your thumb and forefinger and it no longer feels grainy
7. Turn the oven down to 100 degrees (fan)
8. If you’re making meringue kisses, put your mixture into a piping bag and pipe rounds onto a lined baking tray, pulling up at the end to create a little peak
9. These should take around 40 minutes in the oven and are ready when the meringue can be removed cleanly from the baking paper
10. If you’re making meringue bark, spread the meringue out over a lined baking tray until it’s 0.5cm deep.
11. Add any decorations you like right now – I used a sprinkling of cocoa powder, pearl balls, silver nonpareils and chocolate covered popping candy
12. Bake for 1 hour until the meringue bark can be lifted cleanly from the baking tray
13. When it’s cool, drizzle melted dark chocolate across the bark
14. When the chocolate has set, break the meringue into shards of different sizes

Rainbow Meringue Cake

It feels like a week where a bit of colour is needed to brighten up the day. Nothing shouts colour more than this stunning Rainbow Meringue Cake with its rainbow layers, gorgeous vanilla mascarpone cream and topped with strawberries, raspberries and pomegranate seeds. 

The idea for the rainbow meringue layers was taken from the Meringue Girls Cookbook. I am a HUGE fan of meringue, particularly macarons, and their little meringue kisses which I recently turned into little ghosts for a kids' birthday party, are the loveliest treats. 

The meringue is straightforward using the Meringue Girls process. You need a couple of batches of their meringue mixture which is also the base of their kisses. It's simply oven-heated sugar added a spoonful at a time to egg white whipped to stiff peaks and then whisked for around 5 minutes until the sugar has dissolved.

The more fiddly bit is preparing the piping bags for the mixture and these need to be coated with thick food paste in the different rainbow colours. Did you ever use an acronym to remember the rainbow order? I can still be found muttering Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain!! To achieve the different hues, I used Sugarflair Spectral Paste in these colours: Velvet Red, Yellow/Cream, Yellow Extra, Holly Green, Ice Blue and Purple. To apply them, the way that's easiest for me is to turn the piping bag inside out (I don't worry about the very tip of the icing bag as it will be snipped off and also gives us a little tag to hold onto when pulling the bag back through the right way). Once your bag is turned inside out, pop it over a wine bottle and then take your chosen food colour paste, painting the inside from tip to half-way down the bag with a thick coating of colour. If you leave the bag for too long after painting, you'll notice that the colour may start to separate so it's worth giving the bag a quick brush with a pastry brush to distribute the colour just before adding the meringue.

Then pull the bag back the right way so the food colour is on the inside. I then pop my bag into a measuring jug and fill it with a couple of scoops (I used an ice cream scoop) of meringue. Squidge the food colour into the meringue with your fingers and then snip off the end. Pipe the mixture onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper starting at the outside and working in. I found that I didn't have generous amount of meringue mixture for each one so had to use a spatula to smooth it and cover the whole circle. Be careful not to smooth the very outside of the circle with the deepest colour as this will show on the outside of your cake so you want a really vibrant colour.

After baking and cooling, you're ready to assemble your cake. The cream does make the inside of the meringue soften and disintegrate a little, so it's best to assemble this as close to serving as you can. I decided to fill my cake with a vanilla mascarpone cream and then top it with beautiful strawberries, raspberries and pomegranate seed and a light dusting of icing sugar.

This cake is sweet and delicious and the cream is lovely and light.

It does take a little preparation but looks so bright and colourful, it would be a welcome addition to any party, dinner affair or just for fun.

Ours is just for fun. Can't wait to show the kids what they're having for pudding tonight :)

Rainbow Meringue Cake

Rainbow Meringue (from Meringue Girls Cookbook)

• 300G EGG WHITES (I use Two Chicks egg whites but you could also use around 10 medium eggs)
• 600G CASTER SUGAR

Vanilla Mascarpone Cream

• 500G MASCARPONE
• 460ML WHIPPING CREAM
• 4 TSP VANILLA EXTRACT (to taste)
• 140G CASTER SUGAR (to taste)

Topping

• PUNNET OF STRAWBERRIES
• PUNNET OF RASPBERRIES
• 1 POMEGRANATE
• ICING SUGAR (to dust)

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees
2. The meringue is made in 2 batches so the first batch will make 3 meringue discs
3. Line 3 baking trays with greaseproof paper and draw a 10 inch circle as a guide
4. Line a roasting tray with greaseproof paper and then pour in 300g sugar, smoothing it to get it spread as evenly as possible
5. Put the sugar in the oven for 5 mins
6. Measure 150g egg white in a standing mixer and start by whisking is slowly
7. Then increase the speed to medium for a couple of minutes and then increase it again to high speed until it's formed stiff peaks
8. The sugar should be ready to come out of the oven and with the mixer turned up to high speed, it should be added a spoonful at a time to the egg white (around 30 seconds between each addition)
9. When the sugar is all added, keep mixing for another 5 mins - it's ready when you can rub a bit of meringue between 2 fingers and can't feel the grains of sugar
10. Prepare 3 icing bags by turning them inside out and popping each one over a wine bottle (or similar shape)
11. Paint the icing bags thickly with food colour paste, ensuring a heavy coating from the tip down to half-way
12. Turn the bags the right way around and then add 2 scoopfuls of meringue into each bag, squidging the colour into the meringue with your fingers
13. Snip off the end and then pipe a 10cm circle on the prepared baking tray
14. Bake for around 1 hour until the meringue lifts off the baking tray
15. Leave to cool on the tray
16. Repeat this process with the other half of the meringue ingredients and the remaining 3 colours
17. When you're ready to assemble the cake, prepare the mascarpone cream
18. Put all the cream ingredients into a bowl and mix for a couple of minutes until the cream is smooth and has soft peaks
19. Spread the cream over each of the layers and then assemble in rainbow order
20. Top with your favourite fruit and dust with a sprinkling of icing sugar :)