Mud Cake Recipes

I’m not even going to start apologising for how long it’s been since I’ve posted!  No amount of apology can cover it.  So, I’ll just get right into this post.

To say I’ve been busy with birthday cakes is an understatement!  I thought I would use this post to share some of my discoveries, especially in the world of mud cakes.  This is as much about sharing with others as it is about reminding myself of what I did and how I did it.

This was the cake for my daughter’s birthday party.  Excuse the fact that Elsa looks like she’s swallowed Cinderella’s pumpking carriage.  It was my first time using fondant and I realised belatedly that there was condensation on the buttercream, hence the fondant stuck to the buttercream in a rather unbecoming way.  I will do a different post on the Frozen party.  This one is more about the cake under the fondant.

I used a caramel mud cake for both cakes.  I multiplied the quantities several times over. I used a simple, yet effective recipe from taste.com.au.  What I love most about this recipe – other than the taste – is that it was easy to manage with a little one about. You can do it in stages quite easily.  Here is the original recipe, but I have also copied it down here, with my own minor edits.  Credit to Kerrie Sun*.

Caramel Mud Cake Recipe

• 200g butter, cubed
• 200g white chocolate, chopped
• 200g (1 cup, firmly packed) dark brown sugar
• 180ml (3/4 cup) hot water
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 150g (1 cup) plain flour
• 150g (1 cup) self-raising flour

Method

• Preheat oven to 160°C. Brush a round 22cm (base measurement) cake pan with melted butter (or spray-on oil). Line base and side with non-stick baking paper.
• Place butter, chocolate, sugar, water, golden syrup and vanilla essence in a heavy-based saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat with a wooden spoon for 5 mins or until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Set aside for 20 mins to cool.
  I actually did this in the microwave, starting with 1 minute bursts, agitating the bowl or stirring with a wooden spoon, then 30 second bursts until it’s melted and incorporated.  I have left it for longer than 20 minutes, but I think if you leave it for too long it alters the texture of the cake.  Depending on the weather, you might need to leave it for longer than 20 minutes. I basically leave it until the bowl is cool to touch.  That can easily take an hour.  I usually do this first step earlier in the day, then do the rest later.  At the end of the day, you just want to prevent creating scrambled eggs when you move on to the next step!
• Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. (I have done this with both a hand mixer and a wooden spoon. The former creates better aeration, so I would recommend it). Sift combined flours over chocolate mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.
• Pour mixture into pan and bake in preheated oven for 50-60 mins or until a skewer comes out almost clean. Depending on the dimensions of the tin you are using, you will adjust the temperature and baking time accordingly.  Stand cake for 20 mins before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

I adapted the above recipe to create a chocolate mud cake for the cake I made for her actual birthday, pictured below.

Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe

• 200g butter, cubed
• 200g dark chocolate/milk chocolate/mix of both, chopped
• 200g (1 cup, firmly packed) dark brown sugar
• 200ml hot water
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 150g (1 cup) plain flour
• 150g (1 cup) self-raising flour
• 60g cocoa powder

Method

• Preheat oven to 160°C. Brush a round 22cm (base measurement) cake pan with melted butter (or spray-on oil). Line base and side with non-stick baking paper.
• Place butter, chocolate, sugar, water, and vanilla essence in a heavy-based saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat with a wooden spoon for 5 mins or until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Set aside for 20 mins to cool.
  I actually did this in the microwave, starting with 1 minute bursts, agitating the bowl or stirring with a wooden spoon, then 30 second bursts until it’s melted and incorporated.  I have left it for longer than 20 minutes, but I think if you leave it for too long it alters the texture of the cake.  Depending on the weather, you might need to leave it for longer than 20 minutes. I basically leave it until the bowl is cool to touch.  That can easily take an hour.  I usually do this first step earlier in the day, then do the rest later.  At the end of the day, you just want to prevent creating scrambled eggs when you move on to the next step!
• Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. (I have done this with both a hand mixer and a wooden spoon. The former creates better aeration, so I would recommend it). Sift combined flours over chocolate mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.
• Pour mixture into pan and bake in preheated oven for 50-60 mins or until a skewer comes out almost clean. Depending on the dimensions of the tin you are using, you will adjust the temperature and baking time accordingly.  Stand cake for 20 mins before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

Both these recipes are great for using under fondant, especially with a chocolate ganache.  This is the recipe I used for the ganache on the above cake.  For the caramel mud cake, I used a Swiss Meringue Buttercream from Pink Cake Princess, who has her own YouTube channel.  I would recommend subscribing.  It’s a great channel!

*If anyone knows whether I am infringing on anyone’s copyright by having the recipe here, please let me know.

Paul Hollywood’s Chocolate Brownies

Wow, I cannot believe how long it’s been since I’ve posted!  I’ve made this brownie four times since my last post!  At least it should give my comments some weight.  We’re changing tack here, but retaining the GBBO focus.  This time it is the turn of the imitable Mr Hollywood.

My husband’s colleague asked for a brownie that contained both fruit and nuts.  It just so happens that the brownie recipe in Paul Hollywood’s How to Bake fits the bill perfectly, as it calls for walnuts and cranberries.  This is the first brownie I’ve ever baked from scratch, and it has received rave reviews from all four audiences.  I might have sampled a piece or two myself!

Here are my comments on the recipe:

• Any dark chocolate would do instead of the Bourneville chocolate.
• Buy the walnuts whole and roughly chop them yourself.  It’s so much cheaper!
• Go through the cranberries before you add them into the mix.  They tend to clump together.
• I was never sure if I got the consistency of the egg and sugar mixture right; it never held a trail particularly well.  I just beat it for a long time until it was light and frothy.
• I could also not be sure when the brownie was fully cooked, but as it’s a brownie it doesn’t really matter that much!  You want it to be moist inside.
• Definitely have it with cream.  It’s quite a rich dessert and needs the cream to mellow it somewhat.

I would definitely recommend that you try this recipe.  It will be my go-to dessert to take along on visits.

There might be some silence from me again over the coming weeks as I prepare for our little girl’s birthday party.  There should be some good recipes to share as a result of it, though.

Mary Berry’s Cherry Cake

Apologies for the delay in posting.  No real reason; time just ran away with me!  And, yes, it’s another of the great MB’s recipes.  And another GBBO one at that!  This cake looked great on the show, and I was keen to try my hand at overcoming the technical challenges of this, uhm, technical challenge recipe.

I took the recipe straight from Mary Berry’s website here.  Instead of making it as a single cake, I did it as mini-cakes.  I used silicone muffin moulds to make it easier to get out.  They came out a treat!  They were really sweet, though, so I would definitely go with less sugar next time.

Also, it can be quite easy to burn the almonds.  Despite seeing one of the GBBO contestants make this mistake, I still made it too!  It can go from very lightly toasted to burned in a matter of seconds.  Don’t just remove it from the heat but remove it from the pan as soon as possible, as it will continue to cook with the residual heat.

For those in Australia, if you are considering homebrand glace cherries, please stick to the Coles ones – they are heaps better, and cheaper, if memory serves.  These pictures should make the difference clear!

  Woolworths Homebrand Glace Cherries

Coles Homebrand Glace Cherries

Mary Berry’s American Carrot Cake

In case anyone is wondering… Yes, I do bake recipes other than Mary Berry’s!  Hers are just the ones I choose to feature as they are publicly available and taste to so good!  The Carrot Cake recipe I used was straight from her website.

This was my first attempt at a carrot cake and it got rave reviews from my husband and his colleagues.  Carrot cake isn’t my husband’s favourite kind of cake and he thinks it’s the best one he’s ever tasted and the best cake I’ve made recently.  That’s saying a lot given how much he loved the Whole Spiced Orange Cake.

Similar to the other recipes where I’ve used MB’s all-in-one method, I made the following adjustments:

• For those in Australia, i used extra large eggs.  I.e. those that are 700g to a dozen.
• I sifted the self-raising flour and baking powder.
• I used a spatula/palette knife to smooth my batter in the cake tins.
• I also used a 22cm square tin rather than a round one.

I didn’t use the mascarpone icing as per MB’s recipe, instead I beat together the following with electric beaters:

Alternative icing:
75g cream cheese
25g thickened cream
25g sour cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
300g icing sugar, sifted

According to my husband, this icing was a perfect complement to the cake.  I left it out in the Queensland summer while the cake cooled.  Even at night time, the icing melted a bit and I thought it might run down the cake.  I didn’t spread it all the way to the edge and refrigerated the cake immediately after I did.  So, I would make the icing just before you are ready to use it.

Mary Berry’s Chocolate Cake

Continuing along the Mary Berry theme, I thought I should try amongst the most popular of cakes – a chocolate cake.

I used this basic recipe.

The recipe follows a variation of her all-in-one Victoria Sponge (as used in my Lamington-Inspired Victoria Sponge).  Here is what I did differently or where I went wrong and would recommend you don’t repeat my mistakes!

• After mixing the cocoa powder paste, I didn’t add all the other ingredients at once.  I first added the sugar, then the eggs, then the rest of the ingredients in one go.
• For those in Australia, i used extra large eggs.  I.e. those that are 700g to a dozen.
• I sifted the self-raising flour and baking powder.
• My cakes dipped every so slightly in the middle, which leads me to believe that I used slightly too much baking powder.  It says to use a rounded teaspoon, so not heaped, and really only slightly rounded.  Err on the side of less.
• I used a spatula/palette knife to smooth my batter in the cake tins.
• I have seen other version of this recipe that says to pour the hot cream over the chocolate, and I have seen Mary use that method in the GBBO master classes.  I would definitely try this the next time I make a ganache (this was my first time), as it the method of melting it together took ages to cool.  If you do put the chocolate and cream over the heat together, put it in the fridge to cool.  I made the icing while the cake was in the oven and by the time the cake was stone cold, the icing was still runny.  As you can see from the photo, the ganache was still not quite firm enough to spread when I applied it but it was late and I needed to go to bed!  It actually made it look scrumptious, and only pooled a little in one spot because the cake wasn’t completely level on top.
• I used a simple butter cream mix that I had left over from one of the Aldi packet mix chocolate cakes, which I used to fill the cake and pipe little swirls on top, into which I pressed some glacé cherries.  I used all the ganache for the top of the cake.
• If you want to get home brand glacé cherries, I would recommend the Coles ones – they are much better looking.  I used ones from Woolworths from this recipe and the remainder will be going into Mary Berry’s Cherry Cake from the first technical challenge of GBBO Season 5.  I would usually shop at Coles for what Aldi doesn’t have, but had to go to Woolworth on that occasion…

Mary Berry’s Whole Spiced Orange Cake (and Cupcakes)

Now why this recipe isn’t called Spiced Whole Orange Cake, as you use a whole orange and that orange itself isn’t spiced, I don’t know.  All I know is that it tastes fantastic, and is quite easy.  The recipe is available here.

I first did it as per the recipe – as a cake.  After removing much of the rind of one of the two oranges I had for the candied orange decoration, I boiled that orange along with the one that was still in tact. I used the rindless one in to make cupcakes from the same recipe.  Here are my tips from making this recipe twice:

• Use a thicker skinned orange for the decorations.  The thinner skinned one was quite difficult to peel with the canelle knife.  If you don’t have one, I found the cheapest one at David Jones, surprisingly – $6.95 for a zester and canelle knife in one.
• Weigh your eggs in their shells.  After having had less than satisfactory results at my first attempt at making Mary Berry’s all-in-one sponge cake for my Lamington-inspired Victoria Sponge, I read a lot on what might have gone wrong.  I concluded that my eggs were too small.  My four eggs for this recipe, weighed in their shells, amounted to 250g, whereas they were 200g for the Victoria Sponge version.  Even with the larger eggs, my batter still didn’t quite reach that “drop consistency”, so I would err on the side of large (mine were extra large) eggs.
• Sift the flour. In my bid to find out what went wrong with my Victoria Sponge, I found that Delia Smith’s version was virtually identical to Mary Berry’s, except for the fact that she instructs to sift the flour from a high height.
• Substitute the mascarpone in the icing with a mix of cream cheese, cream and sour cream.  Not only is this cheaper, but it made for a less watery icing, and a tastier one, in my opinion.  The difference is visible in the photos – the icing on the cupcake looks much more attractive and is made with the mascarpone substitute.  There are various combinations suggested online.  I opted for 250g spreadable cream cheese, 3 heaped tablespoons sour cream and 2 tablespoon thick cream.  This also makes for more icing, and I found the icing made with the mascarpone only just enough for four layers.

For this recipe, I also tried out my new Wiltshire cake leveler that I picked up for $6 at Big W.  I had never even seen one before – rather like a steadying saw for cutting your cake into layers or levelling the tops.  I would recommend refrigerating this cake before using a leveler.  I don’t imagine that this would be necessary for cutting with a knife.  I used the leveler without refrigeration and it worked fine, but it was just a little bit crumblier than would have been preferable.  This would also make the icing easier to spread.

For the cupcakes:

• Divide the batter into 18 muffin tray holes lined with cupcake liners.  I did 16, but I think this made the cupcakes too large and also required placing quite a lot of icing on each cupcake.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes at 160 degrees, until brown.
• Top the icing with a small heap of the chopped candied orange peel.

Lamington-inspired Victoria Sponge

In a week where the Prime Minister is being bashed for granting a knighthood to the Queen’s husband, I thought it a most prudent time to betray my monarchist leanings in this marriage of the British and the Australian. Whether Australian or New Zealander in origin, I grew up with lamingtons in South Africa, so the colonial connection is the one certain thing. Be that as it may, I made lamingtons for Australia Day. The nature of the beast is such that you need enough icing to dip the sponge in, inevitably leading to leftover icing. Most online suggestions are to use those leftovers in a lamington milkshake. I wanted to use it in baking again, though, and considered adding copious amount of icing sugar to give it a spreadable icing consistency, but decided instead to keep it in its original state and use it in an experiment – a lamington cake.

Having had something of a Great British Bake-Off marathon recently, I was itching to try Mary Berry’s all-in-one sponge recipe. This cake would give me just that opportunity. Imagine my disappointment then when the cakes developed a slight dip about 15 minutes into the bake. I have scoured the Internet in the hope to find an answer to why this had happened as I knew it was neither the obvious oven temperature nor opening the oven door too early. I could not have beat it any less than I did, so I ruled over-beating out as a possible cause too.  All I can say with any certainty is that the batter didn’t have that drop-off-the-spoon consistency.  So, I might have required a bit more egg.  I doubt that this would cause the cake to sink, though.  The other alternative, which to me seemed the most likely, is the baking powder.  Either mine is a bit old or the sheer quantity of baking powder caused my sunken cakes.  The latter, to me, seems the most likely.  I have since found a Delia Smith recipe, which is virtually identical bar the use of vanilla extract.  The only major difference is that she instructs you to sift the dry ingredients from a high height.  I will incorporate this technique upon my next attempt and let you know how I go.

Despite the slight disaster, I did proceed with my cake.  After levelling the cake with the deepest dip, I established that the cake was cooked, with even the centre seeming dry.  I decided to proceed all the same as at least 95% of it was cooked and perfectly edible.  The cake was intended for my husband’s colleagues whom I knew wouldn’t mind.

I then proceeded to reheat the leftover lamington icing on a bain marie (a saucepan of boiling water) as I had done to make it in the first place.  I had kept the rather unattractive-looking mix in the glass bowl I originally made it in, covered in cling wrap, in the fridge.

Next step was to completely cover the bottom layer of cake with the icing.

This was followed by a layer of strawberry jam, which looked decidedly gross.  I covered that with a layer of desiccated coconut, which I failed to photograph.

Then a layer of whipped cream went on, which was difficult to apply without getting bits of coconut stuck to it. (I took this picture after I had already placed the top layer on and then removed it again!)

The second layer of the cake went on top of the cream, pressing down on it a bit so the cream would ooze out slightly.

I tried to soak the top layer in as much of the leftover icing as possible.  Unfortunately, due to the sunken middle, it did pool there a fair bit.  With the cakes already compressed in this middle, this made for a rather gooey centre, which I think people actually liked!

I covered the icing with another layer of coconut, finishing it off with whipped cream.

I got very positive feedback about this bake.  I can’t tell you what it taste like as there were no leftovers for me to try!  Even my husband dearest had to eat the scraps.  Basically, the cake was cut up, he left to get some water, and came back to this:

If you give it a go, please comment and let me know how it went.