Friday, October 24, 2008

Reji's Birthday Cake






OK! so heres a fantastic cake I had made for my bro's birthday.

I cannot understand why many slave for hours and make great looking cakes with fondant, that people aren't really gonna eat!I need my cakes to look fantastic and taste phenomenal...

This is a Rich Super Deluxe Chocolate Cake soaked in syrup and brandy and enrobed in dark chocolate ganache.

Looked prreeeety goooood too!

Swirls of the deepest, darkest, most luscious chocolate with fondant flowers, buds n leaves in white, beige n chocolate....
KNOCKOUT! (-:


Here's how to make the magic!

Ingredients

Cake:

4 oz sweet/semisweet dark chocolate
5 eggs
¾ cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons water
For the Soak :
2 tablespoons brandy
1 tablespoon strawberry syrup
1 tablespoon icing sugar
6 tablespoons water

Method :
  1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C and line a 12 inch cake tin.
  2. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and melt it with the water in a double boiler.
  3. Separate the eggs. With an electric mixer whisk the eggs whites until forming stiff peaks, add gradually half of the sugar while mixing.
  4. In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar for one minute using the electric mixer. Add gradually the vegetable oil, one tablespoon at a time, whisking well between each time oil has been added. Add the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly. Transfer to the bowl containing the whisked egg whites.
  5. Sift in the flour and baking powder, add vanilla extract and fold everything carefully together using a spoon or a rubber spatula.
  6. Transfer to the cake tin and bake for about 45 minutes until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
  7. Remove cake from tin when cool and brush over with a mix of brandy, icing sugar, strawberry syrup and water.
  8. Cover with Chocolate Ganache and decorate with fondant or chocolate dipped strawberries.

Frosting - Ganache:
8 oz cream
1 tablespoon butter (optional but makes it stay really shiny even after refrigerating)
1 oz sugar
12 oz chocolate
  1. Break chocolate into 1/2 oz pieces and place in stainless steel bowl.
  2. Heat cream, butter and sugar to boiling. Pour over chocolate and let stand 5 minutes. Stir from center out until smooth.
After refrigerating 1 hour, use to ice your cake by spreading (allow to cool to room temp first).

This is an amazing cake, not my own recipe, both these I found on the net and tweak them every once in a while. Credits :Chocolate Cake- http://www.cacaoweb.net/ Chocolate Ganache- http://cakecentral.com/

4 comments:

Y said...

The flowers you made for that cake are so beautiful. Love the colour contrasts.

jenna b said...

trying to impress my boyfriend with a chocolate cake and I love how you iced the top ... I'm not much of a baker so just curious how did you style the frosting in such a way?? or at least what is that technique called so i can google it? Thanks, Jenna

marieen said...

thanks Y! twas my first adventure with fondant (-:

jenna, its called feather icing and usually its done in 2 colors...real simple..i've done it with only the base, the simplest!

marieen said...

..and jenna, if ur not used to baking, i'd say make a real simple chocolate wacky cake and soak it with brandy/rum n syrup and frost with chocolate ganache and do the feather icing thing and stick a few choc-dipped strawberries into it (-: