Chocoholic Birthday Cake with Cadbury Twirl

My fiancé is a total chocoholic so for his birthday this month I wanted to make him an awesome chocolate cake. I have a lot of baking books and they pretty much all have chocolate cake recipes - so where to start?

I realised I hadn't baked anything from my Outsider Tart book, Baked in America, for a little while. Outsider Tart is a bakery in Chiswick that is meant to be amazing, though I've never actually been there (even though I live in a different London borough it would take me about an hour and a half to get there - but I'm starting to think it might be worth the trip!). The bakery is run by two Americans who have brought a lot of new techniques to their baking and new ideas to 'bridge the culinary divide'. What they have also done is provide some amazingly decadent, delicious recipes that approach baking in ways that you wouldn't necessarily have thought of.

The cake I made is called "Coke layers" and is on p175 of their book Baked in America. I know that it's possible to reproduce a recipe on a blog, because the original author can copyright the ingredients but not the way they have described the method, but in a way this cake is as much about the method as the ingredients so I wouldn't feel quite right reproducing it without their permission (if I get around to asking and getting permission I will update this post!). After all, have you ever made a chocolate cake using buttermilk, oil, AND butter and 5 eggs.... but more to the point, using marshmallows and Coca-Cola?

I'm going to share with you some of the process I went through. The recipe makes three layers of cake, and half way through adding the ingredients I realised I was going to end up with a LOT of cake -far too much in fact as I was only catering for a meal with my fiancé's parents, not a huge party (that will come next year, when he's 40!).

Starting off by melting butter with the Coca Cola

adding marshmallows and chocolate

Mixing the sugar, oil and vanilla

Here it is after adding the eggs - all 5 of them

Now adding in the cooled chocolate mixture

Two layers about to go in the oven

After baking - three giant layers of cake!

I made a ganache from melted chocolate and sour cream and spread it between two layers

I spread more on top and decorated the top with Twirl Bites

I then decided it needed ganache around the side and more Twirl Bites on top!

I actually ended up with all three layers of the cake baked and decided it was just too big and put one layer in the freezer! I also used self-raising flour rather than plain flour and raising agents, and milk chocolate rather than plain - which would have made the cake sweeter but actually it wasn't an incredibly sweet cake in itself, but the icing was. Mmm, the icing....

I made the chocolate sour cream fudge frosting from the same book to spread in between the layers and on the to, then ran out of sour cream so made a chocolate ganache with double cream which I spread around the sides. I then decorated the top with Cadbury Twirl bites as they were the perfect little chunks of chocolate - slightly unevenly shaped and 'rock' like which appealed to me for this cake.

My fiancé absolutely loved the cake and said it was one of the best I've ever made and I'm inclined to agree. It was light and moist; the cake itself wasn't too sweet but the icing was deliciously decadent.

As I used Twirl on top I'm sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker as the letter I've chosen is T.

I'm also sharing this with Love Cake, hosted by Ness at JibberJabberUK. Her chosen ingredient this month is things you can drink, and this cake includes Coca-Cola.

Mom's Apple Cake

I made this cake a little while ago as a thank you for my neighbours for feeding my cat while I was away on holiday. The recipe is from Outsider Tart's Baked In America (and "mom's apple cake" is the name they gave it - it's not from my mum!) but I adapted it a little and have written the recipe out in my own words according to the method I used.

You need:
For the apple layer:

6 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
6 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
grated zest of one orange
For the cake:
450g plain flour
450g granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
240ml vegetable oil
4 eggs
60ml orange juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 190C. Grease and/or line a 10 inch round cake tin depending on preference.
Slice the apples

Mix the apples, sugar, cinnamon and orange zest in a bowl and leave to rest.

In another bowl, mix all the dry ingredients for the cake. In a separate bowl, combine the oil, eggs, orange juice and vanilla. Slowly mix into the dry ingredients and stir well.

Spoon half the cake mixture into the tin and arrange the sliced apples over the top.

Then spoon the rest of the cake mixture over the top and bake for 60-90 minutes. After about 45 minutes cover the tin with foil to stop the top from burning, and test regularly after 60 minutes to determine when the cake is cooked.

I didn't try any of this cake as I gave it to my neighbours but it looked like a sort of fruit cake texture-the kind of cake that tastes better a day or two later. I might have to make it again so I can try it myself!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has randomly chosen this month is A.

I am also sending it to the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen and Kate from Turquoise Lemons as the ingredient they are encouraging us to use up this month is fruit. This cake is a great way to use up apples that are getting past their best or that have been bruised as you can cut those parts out when you slice the apple.

Elvis cupcakes - banana, peanut butter and bacon

When this month's Alphabakes letter was announced as E, I knew I wanted to do something a bit more imaginative as I've been busy lately and my entries have been pretty standard, like double chocolate muffins for D. I was flicking through my recipe books and I found it... the perfect E.... Elvis cupcakes! Apparently the King of Rock and Roll's favourite sandwich filling was banana, peanut butter and bacon - which sounds pretty disgusting to me - but those flavours would work much better in a cupcake!

I got the idea from my Outsider Tart book Baked In America, though they don't actually give a recipe -they have a recipe for banana nut whoopie pies and mention that they serve them as an Elvis version without the nuts and a peanut butter frosting and crispy bacon on top. I decided that caramelized bacon sounded better and that I wanted to make cupcakes instead of whoopie pies, so I adapted the recipe a bit. The recipe for the caramelized bacon is taken from a new recipe book I was sent to review called Breakfast for Dinner.

For about 9 or 10 cupcakes, you need:
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
pinch of salt
65g softened butter
60g caster sugar
1 egg
generous splash of milk
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 banana

For the frosting:
quantities are approximate:
100g soft cheese
75g peanut butter
enough icing sugar to mix to a stiff paste

For the topping:
2 rashers bacon
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, bicarb of soda, salt, sugar) and cream with the butter

Mix in the egg

It's probably best to mash the banana and add it, but mine was too firm so I sliced it very finely then mixed again with my hand mixer, which broke the pieces up.

Add a generous splash of milk to make the mixture a bit wetter

Spoon into cake cases. I used gold cases as I thought that was appropriate for the King!

Bake for about 15-20 minutes

To make the frosting, beat the soft cheese and icing sugar

Add the peanut butter and beat in

This tastes delicious!

Pipe onto the top of your cupcakes

Now for the unusual part.... Breakfast for Dinner is a great book full of ideas for breakfast that are far more interesting than just cereal or toast. In fact, some of them are whole meals in themselves that you could have for dinner, or brunch. I'll be reviewing the book in more detail later (and cooking something from it), but for the moment I'll tell you about their caramelized bacon recipe. It's part of their recipe for maple syrup cupcakes and is very easy to make.

Mix the brown sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl

Dip in a rasher of bacon so it is coated on both sides, then put on a grill pan - you oven cook these rather than grill but they need to be on a rack where the fat can drip through.

Lovely and crisp and caramelized!

Finally, I crumbled the bacon and sprinkled it over the cupcakes. Don't these look fit for a King?

I also made some without the bacon and added Dr. Oetker gold balls which I think go very nicely with the colour of the peanut butter frosting and give an elegant touch.

Thanks to PG UK for the review copy of Breakfast for Dinner.

I am sending these to Alphabakes, hosted by Ros from TheMoreThanOccasionalBaker (it's my turn to host again next month).

I am also sending this to the How To Cook Good Food's One Ingredient Challenge, as this month's ingredient is banana. This month the challenge is hosted by Franglais Kitchen.

Toffee walnut blondies

I wanted to make something for my dad for Father's Day but it had to be suitable for carrying on a train, and also I knew my sister was planning to make a cake (which was delicious, by the way!). I was flicking through a recipe book I got for my birthday in April, Baked in America - there's something about this book that really appeals to me. I came across a recipe for Toffee Walnut Blondies and as I love brownies but haven't made blondies before, I wanted to give these a go.

You start by creaming butter, sugar, instant coffee granules and vanilla flavouring, then add some eggs. 

Melt some white chocolate and add to the mixture

Weighing out flour

The mixture coming together... finally fold in some chopped walnuts and some more chopped white chocolate.

Pour into a pan and bake in the oven for 20-30 mins

I think I left it in slightly too long!

Trim off any slightly burnt edges (ahem) and cut into squares

If you want the full recipe, it's on page 34 of Baked in America by Outsider Tart :-) I promise next time I bake from this book, I'll give you the full recipe (with the publisher's permission of course).

This recipe contains both chocolate and coffee, which is the theme for this month's We Should Cocoa challenge, guest hosted this month by The Kitchenmaid. The challenge is the brainchild of Choclette and Chele.