This cake is rich. Super rich. Don't say I didn't warn you! It also makes a dramatic wedding or birthday and is easy to assemble even for the most inartistic and uncoordinated chefs. My general rule for cake decoration is: If you make a mess, cover it up with candy. Works every time. This cake serves about 10 people, for a larger wedding you could make several cakes and cluster them together on different height serving platters. Get a platter larger than your cake tin so you have space to put fresh flowers, fruit or tea lite candles around the edge of the cakes.
DIY Wedding Cake: Chocoholic Style
Beat it, Bake it, Eat it Chocolate Cake Recipe
This is out of Mum's yellow book, I have no idea where it originated. This recipe is so my mum, she never measures anything even when baking and throws it all in together (creaming ingredients is not in her vocabulary!), it goes in a pan and comes out the oven smelling and tasting like heaven...
1 2/3 cups of white flour
1 1/4 cups of white sugar
2/3 cup of cocoa (I like Dutch cocoa, choose a good quality brand)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
4 ounces butter (ummm...that's about 125grams)
2 eggs (free range of course)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla (or almond) essence
- Throw all the ingredients into your mixer bowl and beat with an electric beater for at least 5 minutes or until the ingredients are blended and have gone a pale colour
- Chuck into a greased tin and bake at 180 degrees Celsius (fan bake) for about 55 mins or until your entire house smells like chocolate cake...test with a skewer etc.
- Told you it was easy
Cool the cake and cut in half, mix your favourite jam (I like Barker's Morello Cherry Jam and I use half a jar per cake) with 1-2 tablespoons of brandy or sherry (or a teaspoon of vanilla) and spread over the cut cake. Leave the cake in the fridge overnight because it tastes waaaay better the next day!
Chocolate Butter Cream Icing Recipe
3 1/2 cups of icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)
1/3 cup of cocoa
250 grams margarine or butter
2 tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla (or peppermint or almond) essence
Beat like crazy with an electric mixer until the ingredients are blended and fluffy. If the mixture is a little runny add more icing sugar 2 tablespoons at a time or if the mixture is stiff add more milk 1 tablespoon at a time.
NOTE: I prefer to use margarine instead of butter because it gives a softer finish on the icing and is easier to mix. If you're a butter purist, use unsalted butter and half melt it first, just allow the icing to solidify a little before you spread it on the cake.
How to Assemble the Chocolate Wedding Cake
2 packets of chocolate finger biscuits
1 packet of scorched almonds
1 small bag of chocolate peanuts or raisins
Assorted decorations (flowers, berries, ribbon...)
- Put 1/3 of the icing between the layers of the cake and stick together.
- Ice the top and sides of the cake, the icing gets covered so be as messy as you like...
- Stick the chocolate finger biscuits to the side of the cake - they should be a little higher than the top of the cake
- Fill the top of the cake with the chocolate nuts and fruit, you could also add fresh berries or glace cherries (like in the picture)
- Put a ribbon around the edge of the cake and fasten with two long pins at the back (pin between the biscuits) and remember to remove the pins when you cut the cake
- I put the cake above on an oval platter and surrounded it with tea lites for a great effect. Most tea lites burn for hours but they will eventually melt the chocolate on the cake
To Make the Toffee Decorations
These are fiddly but cheap to make and super impressive. Basically you make a lot of long tadpole shapes out of toffee then sit them around the edge of the cake leaning onto each other like tee pee poles. It gives the cake great height.
Castor sugar (finer than white sugar)
Water
- Put a layer of Castor sugar about 1cm (1/4 inch) thick in the bottom of a saucepan
- Top up with water so the water just reaches the top of the sugar layer
- Place on the stove top on full and bring to boil DO NOT STIR EVER!
- Leave to boil until you can see the sugar change colour in the centre of the pan from white to a pale brown, as the brown colour spreads over half the pan quickly remove it from the stove and stir the toffee with a metal spoon
- Keep stirring the toffee until it thickens.
To make the squiggles
- If you have a big stainless steel bench just lightly oil the entire bench with a mild vegetable oil (think canola or sunflower not olive oil) or oil up a cookie sheet
- Take a spoonful of the toffee mixture and drop half onto the surface and drizzle the rest in a long wiggly line on the bench
- Leave to set and carefully remove from the bench
- Make three times as many as you need so there's no worry about breakages
- The toffee is best made and assembled within a couple hours of serving the cake as it gets sticky in warm weather.
