Pigs in a mud spa

It’s my partner’s birthday tomorrow so I made cake for him and, apparently, his workmates.  It’s very cute so I thought I’d share it.

 

The power of this is in the decoration.  I made chocolate beetroot cake, one of my favourite chocolate cakes.  You could make anything you like.  Any chocolate or vanilla or lemon cake, even fruit cake if you’re into landfill, would work.  The construction is the impressive part.

 

I based the bits beyond the actual cake on the one on this site: fine craft guild with personal adaptations. 

 

I’ll give you my Beetroot Chocolate Cake recipe to use if you want to.  Because of the beetroot, this is a moist cake which gets better with (a little bit of) age. 

 

Line one large or two medium sized cake tins with cooking paper and oil spray.  This is a big cake, so you can make two if you want to.  If you do that, for this particular decoration you can stack them one on top of the other, filled with ganache or something else.  I made one cake. 

 

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

 

Take a huge bowl and sift into it:

2 ½ c plain flour

2 t baking soda

½ c cocoa (use the good stuff)

1 t salt

 

Drain an 850g can of beetroot.  Set aside. 

 

In a food processor, mix together:

4 eggs

2 c sugar

1 ½ c cooking oil (I use canola)

2 t vanilla essence

 

Mix that into the flour.  In the meantime, and don’t mess abut as you don’t want the soda to get too excited before the whole thing goes in the oven, blend the beetroot to a fine slush in the food processor (don’t bother to clean the bowl of the food processor). 

 

Mix that into the flour and sugar mixture and pour into the tin(s).  Cook for 45-50 minutes for 2 tins, longer for one large one.  It’s cooked when a skewer comes out clean when poked all the way through.  Cool completely before decorating.  I cut the very top off the cake to make it a bit flatter before decorating. 

 

So for the fun, impressive decorating bit.

 

Pour 1 ½ cups of cream into a clean saucepan.  When it’s hot but not boiling, take it off the heat and stir 200g of dark chocolate into it until it’s all melted together.  This is called ganache.  Set aside until it cools. 

 

To make the pigs I used white pre-made fondant mixed with a tiny amount of pink food colouring.  The fondant needs playing with to make it pliable and mouldable.  Mould into pig shapes – anything you like.  I used these shapes:

 

 

Make sure that they’re cool and hard before you place them on the cake.

 

Once the ganache is set and spreadable, which may take a while (I chilled it in the fridge for a bit) and when the cake is cool.  Spread some ganache around the edge of the cake and and stick chocolate fingers around it to resemble a fence.  Other recipes use Kitkats.  I wonder if twix would work?  Tie a ribbon around the ‘fence’ to keep it all there.  Clearly a pink one is the best idea.

 

 

Pour/spread the rest of the ganache on the top of the cake.  The ganache needs to be quite thick at this point to ensure that it doesn’t slip through the fence.  Gently park the pigs in the most elegant poses possible and chill for an hour before serving. 

 

 

Please send me photos of yours.  I like the idea of it with frogs instead of pigs.  Are you game?

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Festival Round Up

I went choco-mad at the inaugural NZ Chocolate Festival last weekend.  Here are some of my personal highlights.

Super chocolate

A couple of the chocolate companies are now making what they say is chocolate that's even better for your then we all think chocolate is already. Schoc's offering is called Active and they tell me it's cold pressed and made in a vacuum to make sure that it retains as many of the flavonoids (a type of anti-oxidant) as possible. They say that you only need two squares a day to get your daily suggested anti-oxidant dosage. No explanation of what happens if you don't stop at 2 pieces. Schoc also suggest you eat it before exercise to increase the benefits of exercise. Gets the blood pumping apparently. They make it in both dark and milk and, surprisingly for me, I think the milk was better. To me the dark had an aftertaste I didn't like.

Bull Rush do a couple too called Fix72 and Fix Cacao Nib. They reckon theirs lower stress and have aphrodisiac properties. Even more reasons to eat chocolate! 

Bohemein

Bohemein has shops in Hataitai and Featherston St and their little, formed, filled chocolates are a delight to explore. Best one was the Balsamic Vinegar and Honey Ganache filled dark morsel of deliciousness. Then there's the wasabi cream. Go on, you know you want to! It was certainly worth gently elbowing the other chocolate lovers aside to try. Slightly makes you want sushi afterwards, which is a bit startling. I have other flavours at home I'm still working my way through.

Damsom Bomb

The Damson Collection had their damson chocolate in attendance. The woman at the stand advised to pop the whole thing in my mouth and break it up. It was a magnificent little bomb of damson, gin and chocolate. Get you hands on one at any cost!

Hot Antidote

With any festival, by a few hours in all I want is an antidote of some sort. For Toast Martinborough, it's beer. At the chocolate festival, turns out it's cheese. The lovely man from www.firedragonchillies.com was there with his chilli chocolate, cheese and sauces. I looooovvvveeeeee chilli chocolate and these were the spiciest I've ever had! Bhuty Dark Chocolate. Available online and at various specialist stores around the country, including the beloved Moore Wilson's. 

 Another antidote to chocolate overload is beer. Andy from Renaissance Brewing was giving tastes of his artisan beers. He's a charming fellow: “I wouldn't hurt you with Porter,” and maintains that taxes and water quality have been the greatest influence on beers styles. Avoiding the first, and coping with the second.

He hosted a chocolate and beer matching session late in the day and it was eye- and tastebud-opening. Andy says that his Craftsman chocolate porter matches gorgonzola; a claim I am prepared to test. As Andy says “try this at home”, just make sure your beer is cool, but not cold. As a general rule, darker chocolate with darker beer. Try the Stonecutter Scotch Ale, made with 9 different malts, with or without chocolate! Wooop.

This festival was described as inaugural, I hope that means there will be more!

Chocolate Puddle Biscuits

Baking is one of the best things you can do with a Sunday, or indeed any day. Because Pav and I live alone, a whole batch of biscuits or cakes can be a challenge to eat before they expire. So sometimes my lucky work mates get to experience our culinary experiments.

 This one's not really an experiment as I've made it quite a lot. For me, it's one of the ones that I can make without a trip to the supermarket, as I usually have all the ingredients on hand. That's so long as there is butter. I'm not happy with the way that butter ages so fast in the fridge. It takes on a nasty dark yellow layer around the edge too quickly. Some say it's the crappy wax paper. I'm not sure as I've given up keeping it in the fridge and now we chop it into cubes and free flow freeze it. Not perfect, but better than throwing the butter out cos it's awful.

And we always have chocolate in the house. Dark Ghana from Whittaker's is our chocolate of preference. This recipe was originally passed on by a friend, but I've adapted (of course!):

Preheat oven to 175C and line trays with baking mats or baking paper. Two trays should be about right.

Beat 140g of softened butter and 175g of caster sugar until smooth. Then beat in one egg and half teaspoon of vanilla essence. Then sift in the bowl: 175g self-raising flour and 110g cocoa (yes, lots). Use a fork to work it into a firm dough. Keep going, it will be fine.

Make balls (about 20-24) in your palms.

 Arrange on baking tray (leave room for spreading) and bake for 15 minutes or so.

When you pull them out of the oven, use a teaspoon to make a dent in each biscuit. This is where the chocolate will go, so generosity is rewarded. Leave them to cool.

When the biscuits are cool, melt 85g dark chocolate, 1 tablespoon of golden syrup and 1 tablespoon of butter together. Best to do this in a double boiler – boiling water in a pot with a bowl resting on the rim of the pot. Don't let the bowl touch the water and don't let any steam get in the chocolate mixture. When the chocolate mixture is smooth, carefully drop teaspoons of it in to the dips in the biscuits.  Leave to set.

These can be adapted into the most impressive Afghan biscuits with the addition of a handful of cornflakes in the mixture and walnuts before the chocolate sets.  Over to you!

When I took these to work, even my boss broke his diet temporarily to try one. They're that good!  I hope you impress your friends and work mates too.