Posts from the ‘Cakes’ Category

Cadbury Chocolate

As a child, one looks forward to many events throughout the year – birthdays, Easter, Christmas, to name a few.  I looked forward to all of those myself!  In fact, Easter is memorable for me because it meant that Cadbury Creme Eggs would be in season (oh, and for some reason, the Wizard of Oz would always air on TV each year just before Easter; I love that movie!).  Of course, candy isn’t the point of Easter, but I was a kid and couldn’t think past the chocolate!

In the US, or at least in my little pocket of Indiana, Cadbury chocolate only comes out once per year – at Easter.  While I spent the vast majority of my life in the US, I didn’t even know Cadbury made anything else but Creme Eggs.  The realization that Cadbury makes other chocolates came during a class trip to Europe, where I saw Cadbury-everything.  Wow!

Now living in Australia, it is obvious that Cadbury is one of the most popular – if not the most popular – brand of chocolate.  Cadbury chocolate comes in all different varieties, from the good old Dairy Milk milk chocolate block, to Turkish Delight, to Mousse chocolate blocks.

Recently, Cadbury Australia offered to send me products from their new range of baking chocolate to try at home, of which I was super excited about.  It didn’t take long to choose some recipes to make with the chocolate; I took one look at the milk chocolate cheesecake on the front of one of the packages and knew I’d be making it!  Another recipe I chose came from Cadbury Kitchen, where each recipe has been tested to ensure your success at home.

There is nothing like a big box of chocolate to make you happy!  In the box was each product from Cadbury Australia’s new baking chocolate range.  I think the packaging looks fantastic – I just love that dark purple!  They also included a beautiful large tea-towel, which is pictured underneath the chocolate, above.

First, I made the milk chocolate cheesecake, which is pictured on the front of the big milk chocolate baking block.  If you’re a little timid about baking cheesecakes, you can relax with this one – it doesn’t need to be baked!  The list of ingredients is easy and simple, and the preparation is a breeze.  I did have one relatively minor issue with the recipe, however.  The base of the cheesecake is a chocolate biscuit/cookie-crumb base (I used Arnott’s Ripple biscuits).  The recipe says to grease the springform pan, and I did that.  I briefly considered placing some baking paper on the bottom though in case the base would stick, but in the end, I just followed the recipe.  When it came time to slice the cake, I found that the base stuck solidly to the pan.  I nearly had to transfer the slice of cheesecake to the plate, then pick the biscuit base off the bottom of the pan with a fork and place it on the plate next to the cheesecake!  Next time, I will definitely use that baking paper, and I recommend that you do as well.

So how did the no-bake cheesecake taste?  Amazing!  It was a hot day that I made the cake, and I thought it was perfect to cool off with for dessert.  The texture was smooth and velvety, almost mousse-like.  It’s a very impressive cake that would work for dinner parties as well, and because it’s so quick and easy it’s no problem to make at the last minute (but mind the 2-hour setting time in the refrigerator).

Inspired by the picture on the front of the packaging, I also made some (rather large) chocolate curls to decorate the slices.

Luckily, I was able to get most of the biscuit base on this slice for the photo!

You can find the recipe for this Milk Chocolate Cheesecake at Cadbury Kitchen, as well as on the package of the milk chocolate baking block.

The second recipe I chose was for peanut butter fudge.  Only 3 ingredients to this recipe!  It probably can’t be considered real “fudge” because of these ingredients, but it does have a smooth, creamy texture that definitely resembles fudge.  I’m actually very excited about this recipe and can’t wait to share it with you!

You’ll need two products from Cadbury Australia’s baking chocolate range:

And one other ingredient that is probably in your pantry right now – peanut butter (unless you’re allergic, and if so, why not try another type of nut butter?).  Okay, listen to this.  All you need to do to make this fudge, is melt the melts separately in the microwave (or double-boiler, if you prefer), mix peanut butter into both the dark and white melts, pour them into the pan, swirl with a knife and let it set in the refrigerator.  A very short time later, you’ll have something that looks like this:

Well, if you use the right size pan, you will probably have a thicker fudge, but how pretty is that?  I don’t have the size of pan used in the recipe, so I used the closest I had, which was longer and made the fudge very skinny!

The swirling is easy.  I just spooned alternate chocolates into the pan, so I ended up with a sort-of checkerboard pattern.  For the next layer, I just reversed the checkerboard pattern.  When all the chocolate was used up, I banged the pan on the countertop to level it, then took a butter knife and gently swirled the chocolates together.  You only need to swirl once – don’t keep swirling, or you’ll just end up mixing the chocolates together and it won’t look so pretty.

This fudge is delicious, and tastes even better on the next day.  And here’s the best part – if you love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, then hold onto your hats, because the taste of this fudge is very similar to Reese’s.  It is so delicious!

It keeps very well in the refrigerator.  I made this fudge 4 days ago and I still have some left, which tastes as good as the day I made it.  I’d say it’ll keep for at least a week in the refrigerator.

You can find the recipe for Easy Peanut Butter Fudge at Cadbury Kitchen.

Overall, the new baking chocolate range is fabulous and I can’t wait to use the rest of the chocolate.  I love how smooth the chocolate is when it’s melted and it’s got that lovely glossy look to it.  Regarding the chocolate melts, I have never liked the taste of any particular brand’s melts on their own, but I will honestly say that Cadbury’s melts taste better than any previous melts I have tasted.  What is great about the baking chocolate is that it’s all real, delicious chocolate – even the white chocolate contains at least 23% cocoa butter.  If the white chocolate you use does not contain cocoa butter, then it is not real white chocolate (this is one of my biggest pet peeves!).

So there you have it, a glowing, positive review on Cadbury Australia’s new baking chocolate range!  I would, without a doubt, recommend the products to you to try yourself.  And if you can’t decide on what to make with it, check out Cadbury Kitchen and I’m sure you’ll find something delicious there (this chocolate mud cake with baked pears is what I’m making next!)!

Julia Child’s Queen Of Sheba Cake

For a while there, I was wondering if I was ever going to bake anything again.  I had the best ingredients on hand (Van Houten cocao, various Beanilla products) but no idea what to do with them. Read more

Easy, Eggless Tiramisu

I realize that I have not updated here with a new recipe for a while!  Although I have a few things to get done today (including making egg salad and cooking the honey-mustard chicken that’s been marinating overnight, picking up my daughter from school and taking my 3-year-old son to an ear, nose and throat specialist to consider having his tonsils taken out) I really want to update with a lovely, delicious recipe for eggless tiramisu. Read more

The Madderneine Cake

I am extremely happy to be showing you this cake.  This cake is the product of my 5-year-old daughter’s imagination. Read more

Cocoa And Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake

I have not had the oven on for days – it has been so hot here in Sydney!  Unfortunately, we don’t have air-conditioning like some other lucky people, so having the oven on just makes it worse (especially in the kitchen, of course). Read more

Neapolitan Layer Cake

As I was planning for my daughter’s 5th birthday party, I was eagerly awaiting the release of Donna Hay magazine’s annual kids’ issue.  Judging by the cover of the magazine, I would surely find something beautiful inside to make for my daughter’s birthday.  On the morning of the magazine’s release, I bought my copy and started flipping through the pages.  There were so many neat things, including the cover recipe for chocolate cups.  But I found what I wanted on page 115.  It was called a rainbow layer cake, but it looked more like neapolitan cake, with chocolate, pink and white layers, rather than a rainbow.  There was what looked to be a fluffy, white frosting in between the layers and all over the cake.  Dotting the frosting in 3 rings around the cake were pink and white mini marshmallows that had been cut in half.  It looked really beautiful and it looked exactly like something my daughter would love.  There’s a picture of the cake in the magazine at the bottom of this post.

I was a little skeptical about the cake to begin with.  One reason is because I have never had a good result from any recipe I’ve tried from Donna Hay.  I think the reason for this is that Donna Hay is a food stylist, not a chef!  Another reason I was skeptical about this cake is because the entire thing contains 750 grams, or 1.7 pounds, of butter.  That is a lot of butter.  Unfortunately, I still wanted to make it and my reasoning was that it was just a birthday cake, we don’t eat that much butter all the time!

I was also skeptical because the way this cake is made involves a method I have never used before.  Donna Hay calls it “melt and mix”.  250 grams of butter is melted, then the entire list of ingredients is dumped together into the mixing bowl at once and then mixed.  This is not the normal way to make cake.  This method is used in most of the birthday cake/cupcake recipes in Donna Hay’s kids’ magazine.  I want to say right now that I will never make a cake this way again!  There are definitely other things I want to try in the magazine, but I will be using my own favorite cake recipes instead of Donna Hay’s.

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Chocolate Malteser Cake

We celebrated my son’s 3rd birthday over the weekend.  It wasn’t anything special, as I’m not that great of a party planner!  We just invited nana over, had a picnic and cake outside and opened presents.  I didn’t even make the cake from scratch (I can hear your sounds of disgust at that statement!).  I used Green’s Really Good Chocolate Cake mix and got a lovely, dense, chocolatey cake that I decorated with crushed Maltesers (the Australian version of Whoppers in the US).

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Chocolate Raspberry Cream Cake

My current favorite show on TV is MasterChef Australia. I watch it almost religiously each night (except Saturdays, which is the only day of the week that it isn’t on).  It’s gotten to the point where, anytime I’m actually cooking or baking something from a recipe it feels like Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston are looking over my shoulders, probably getting ready to play some mind games with me and ask if I think what I’m doing will turn out okay, or if I’ll finish in time.

I can’t say that watching MasterChef has made me any better in the kitchen.  I have learned a couple of tricks and gained an ounce or two of knowledge about something or other.  For instance, I don’t use a garlic crusher anymore; I use a knife and finely chop the garlic instead (Matt Moran is apparently disgusted with garlic crushers as they bruise the garlic). And if I need mayonnaise again, I’ll be making my own (Gary, George and Matt were obviously disgusted when one contestant used a jar of pre-made mayonnaise).  Just things like that, I’ve learned.  Nothing too life-changing.

My favorite parts of MasterChef are the Invention Tests (where the contestants have to make a dish based on one theme ingredient) and the Pressure Tests (where the 3 contestants of the least-liked dishes from the Invention Tests have to face off and one will be eliminated).  One week, at one of these Pressure Tests, the dish they had to prepare was a black forest cake (recipe & photo here).  This cake was 5 layers of sponge cake, chocolate ganache, mascarpone, hazelnut praline mousse, cherries, shaved chocolate, more cherries, it was like the black forest cake to end all black forest cakes.

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Bourke Street Bakery Carrot Cake

As we were planning on moving back to Sydney last year, I made a list of bakeries that I wanted to visit once we returned.  One of them was Bourke Street Bakery in Surry Hills.  I haven’t made it there yet, but have heard only the best things about the bakery.

Coincidentally, one of the delicious. magazines I borrowed from the library recently had a handful of recipes straight from Bourke Street Bakery.  I copied them all down before returning the magazine, but wasn’t sure which I’d try first.  After seeing a post on FoodGawker from Eat Well Eat Green, I knew my first recipe to try from Bourke Street Bakery would be the carrot cake.

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Microwave Chocolate Mug Cake

I was a huge skeptic of the microwave mug cake when I first heard about it, well over a year ago now.  How could a microwave produce a good cake?  I tried out the recipe soon and discovered that the microwave could not produce a good cake!  I believe I overcooked it, as it was super rubbery and barely edible.

I gave it one more chance earlier this year, and cooked it for less time.  I even added chocolate chips that time.  But no, I still didn’t consider it to be edible.  I gave up on it and decided to never “bake” a cake in the microwave again.

Well, my sweet tooth got the best of me last week and there were no sweets in the house.  I decided to try out the microwave mug cake just one last time.  But this time I’d add frosting.

I only cooked the cake for 2 minutes and 30 seconds, but ended up taking it out with only 10 seconds remaining – I did not want to overcook it this time and have it turn into yet another rubber bouncy cake ball.  I cut the mug cake into four slices and made two cakes out of them.  I layered the inside of each one with chocolate sour cream frosting and then completely frosted the outside of each one, complete with a ring of white sprinkles.

And you know, it wasn’t quite as bad as my previous attempts at this cake.  I did try a different recipe this time, but I think it was just the fact that I didn’t overcook it this time that made it taste slightly better (it wasn’t too rubbery this time!).  My chocolate sour cream frosting was just a thrown together made-up mix of melted semisweet chocolate, sour cream and vanilla.  It made the end result taste more like bittersweet chocolate.

I stored one of the tiny cakes in the refrigerator and I have to say that the refrigerated cake was much, much better.  The cake and frosting both firmed up and reminded me of a mud cake.  I was pleasantly surprised.

I’m still not a fan of the microwave mug cake.  If one had the time to prepare the ingredients, as well as frosting as I did, you may as well just do it the real way and bake up a small batch of cupcakes in a real oven!

What’s your take on the microwave chocolate mug cake?

Find the recipe for this particular mug cake at Recipezaar.  Note that I did not use the full amount of sugar, I reduced it to about 3 or 3.5 tablespoons, and I used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa.

Ghirardelli Devil's Food Cake & Mocha Buttercream

Yesterday was my birthday, so I just had to bake a cake.  It took a while for me to decide what kind of cake I wanted and I ended up with a couple of recipes inside of a Ghirardelli 100% Cocao baking bar (that’s an unsweetened chocolate baking bar, in case you weren’t sure).  It was for a one-bowl devil’s food cake and mocha buttercream.

This was going to be a bit of a dare, however, as the recipe asked for shortening – 1) I don’t have any shortening because 2) I don’t like shortening.  I had read many comments from people who always substitute butter for shortening with minimal or barely noticeable differences, so I took a chance and substituted unsalted butter for the shortening.

What I thought would happen though, ended up happening.  The recipe tells you to sift a flour mixture into a large mixing bowl, then put all the wet ingredients on top of that and mix for 2 minutes.  That’s a really strange way to make cake batter, in my opinion.  I thought that the butter wouldn’t mix in thoroughly and would leave butter chunks in the batter.  And, well, I was right.

I didn’t want to keep beating the batter so I wouldn’t overbeat it, so I poured it into a pan and sat it on the stove over gentle heat for just enough time to melt the butter.  I kept thinking I should have went with a different recipe, because this one would end up a disaster and I would have wasted a whole bar of that 100% cocao!

However, the cake ended up baking just fine, much to my surprise!

Note, number of candles not relative to my age (although some could argue that)

The buttercream was very strange to make as well, even though I did have all the required ingredients for that.  The recipe says to melt a bar of 100% cocao.  Then dissolve two teaspoons of instant coffee in 2 tablespoons of boiling water, and stir it into the melted chocolate.  This turned the melted chocolate into a sticky clump of chocolate and my first thought was that this would not be able to mix into the frosting without clumping.  And, well, I was right again.

I beat the frosting for quite a while (maybe two minutes?) at medium-high speed just to work out the clumps and this did actually work.  It’s a very light and creamy buttercream with a strong mocha taste.  I didn’t need to add all of the milk  the recipe asked for, I left about 2 teaspoons (give or take) of the milk out.  If I added more it would have been to wet to stick on the cake, I think!

So, how did this cake end up, overall?  First I will say that I will not be making this cake again, even with using shortening.  I personally don’t think this cake tastes all that great, but it isn’t bad.  I feel like I wasted my nice unsweetened chocolate on this cake, though.

View printer-friendly PDF recipes here.