Pigs In Mud Cake - Mississippi Mud Pie with KitKats

Pigs In Mud - Mississippi Mud Pie with Chocolate Ganache and Kit-Kats

Lucy of The KitchenMaid challenged us to make a chocolate cake connected with the idea of ‘fame’ for this month’s We Should Cocoa. Some people have baked the recipe they are most known (or famous) for; others have looked at recipes by celebrity chefs or famous people. My first thought was a section in one of Nigella’s cookery books called the ‘chocolate cake hall of fame’ but while I was thinking about what to make, I kept seeing the same cake pop up on Facebook and couldn’t get it out of my head…. I’m not entirely sure where it started – apparently a Dutch company or website called Taartjes but I can’t find a direct link -  but there seemed to be a snowball effect of people sharing this photo, and almost every day it popped up on someone’s news feed. And that got me thinking, the cake had very quickly become famous. I wanted to have a go at making it so decided to make it for the bake sale at work we were holding to raise money for Comic Relief.

The cake looked pretty simple to assemble in principle - but I didn't think mine would look as good! I decided to go with the theme of pigs in mud for the cake itself and found a recipe for Mississippi Mud Cake from United Cakes of America.

I adapted the quantities slightly and ended up doubling this to make two cakes.

You need:
For one cake: (I doubled this)
1.5 cups flour
0.75 cup cocoa powder
2 tbsp double cream
200g melted dark chocolate
250g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
2 eggs

For the buttercream:
About 100g softened butter or marg
enough icing sugar and cocoa powder to make a stiff chocolate buttercream

For the chocolate ganache:
250ml double cream
200g dark chocolate

To decorate:
About 20 kitkats (i.e. 40 fingers) depending on the size of your cake. I bought three big multipacks and had a few left over.

Weigh out the butter and the sugar and cream together

Add the eggs and mix

Add the flour and mix again

And the cocoa powder... you get the drill.

Melt the chocolate - I did this in the microwave, then mix in to the cake mixture

Spoon into a cake tin and level off

 Bake at 180C for about 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. I decided one of these cakes wasn't anywhere near deep enough so I did the whole recipe again and made another.

I made some chocolate buttercream and spread half of it onto the cake

I spread the rest around the sides of the cake as you need something for the Kit Kats to stick to.

The Kit Kats fit perfectly around the side of the cake and worked almost better than I had hoped. Unfortunately one of the three packs I had bought was cookies and cream flavour - they were dark chocolate on the outside, so they are the same colour as the others, but on the inside they are white chocolate. Still, you won't be able to see the white parts when the cake is finished.

To make the ganache, bring the cream to the boil in a pan and add the broken up chocolate. Stir until the chocolate melts and the mixture thickens.

You then have a thick chocolate ganache. Leave to cool.

I spread the ganache on top of the cake - this is the mud that the pigs are wallowing in!

Next make the pigs - it really isn't as hard as it looks. I have learnt how to make cows and sheep at evening classes before so just applied the same principles. I coloured some roll-out fondant with pink food colouring (I always use gel rather than liquid colours, they are easier to work with and you get a better colour).

I wish I could take credit for this but I copied the design I had seen on the internet exactly. First I made a pig who will look like he is floating in a mud bath, so you can only see parts of his body. I used a modelling tool to make the indents on the hooves and nose and eyes and another rounded tool to shape the ears.

This is the top half of a pig who will be sitting upright in the mud

And finally the rear end of a pig who is diving in!

While the chocolate ganache was still soft I placed my pigs in their mud bath. Don't they look cute?

As a final touch I tied a pink ribbon around the sides and tied it in a bow.

I am really very pleased with this cake, it took a while but the actual decoration wasn't too complex and it definitely has the wow factor. I hope it goes down well at the Comic Relief bake sale!

I'm sending this to We Should Cocoa, the blog challenge started by Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog and Chele from Chocolate Teapot. This month the challenge, chosen by Lucy of The KitchenMaid, was fame - and as I said earlier, this is a famous cake that is all over the internet at the moment!

I am also sending this to Bookmarked Recipes, hosted by Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes, as when I saw this cake I bookmarked it immediately, even though I found my own recipe. Well done to whoever originally came up with the idea for this cake!

Cherryade Bundt Cake for Comic Relief

A red cake for Red Nose Day!

A massive hat tip to Rachel from DollyBakes for this cake who graciously allowed me to use her idea and recipe - and I think hers looks better than mine too (I need that bundt tin!).

As soon as I saw this on Rachel's website I knew it would be perfect for Comic Relief - a charity event that is also known as Red Nose Day. We are having a bake sale at work and I've made two cakes - I kind of felt I had to, as I'm now on the social committee and responsible for organising the bake sales now!

This cake uses Cherryade which is a lovely retro idea, though the colour does also come from food colouring. It's really easy to make.

I did make just over half the quantity given in Rachel's recipe as I had a feeling her bundt tin was a lot bigger than mine. In the end there was space for the cake to rise more - so I could have used a greater quantity of mixture - and if you do use the full quantities and have some left over, you could also make cupcakes.

Please visit Dollybakes for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Here's what I did:

Weigh out the butter and sugar (I used butter alone rather than vegetable fat as well)

Cream together and add the eggs

Add the vanilla and the dry ingredients

Cherryade! I did wonder if perhaps I shouldn't have bought the sugar-free variety as it seemed somehow thinner, but the cake turned out fine in the end.

Mix in the cherryade, which goes all frothy

Here's my trusty ruby red food colouring

It seemed to turn the batter a hot pink rather than ruby red...

... so I added some more until I was happy with the colour. I spooned it into my silicon bundt case.

As mine was half the quantity of Rachel's it needed less than half the time to bake. I think ovens can be temperamental anyway so the best thing to do is keep an eye on it and test with a skewer until it's done.

I was impressed the cake kept its lovely red colour! Here it is after turning out of the bundt case.

To make the glaze, mix icing sugar, cherryade and red food colouring. It needs to be runny but still reasonably thick.

Pour over the cake and allow the icing to drip down the sides.

I decorated it with Haribo cherry sweets

The cake is a lovely red colour when you cut into it which is really cool.

I am sending this to Bookmarked Recipes, hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes. The idea is to encourage food bloggers to revisit recipes they have bookmarked on websites, in books or magazines.