CHOCOLATE BIRTHDAY CAKE for children

 

The second cake for the little girl's birthday party was fun to make and decorate.

It's a version of something similar I made many years ago.

I fancied using a different recipe this time so spent a happy hour browsing through my cook books for one that would make a cake big enough for a party. I found one for a "classic tearoom chocolate Victoria sponge" in Annie Bell's wonderful Baking Bible.  This cake is made in one deep tin then sliced into two to be filled.  It’s also made using the “all-in-one” method in a food processor which makes the job simpler and quicker.

Slicing a cake into two is always a nervous moment for me but I got through it (literally) and instead of the buttercream filling in the recipe I just used a generous layer of raspberry jam as there was going to be a lot of buttercream on the outside!

The outside didn't need to look too tidy as it was going to be covered in chocolate fingers and sweets.

For the buttercream I used a chocolate fudge cake recipe from a book called "I love to bake" by Tana Ramsay.  It looked like it would make plenty of it and enough to cover the top and sides of the cake.  It also used melted chocolate rather than cocoa powder for the chocolate flavour.  That turned out to be rather good.

My friend Rachel (the birthday girl's grandmother) helped with the decorating.

It took two whole packets of chocolate fingers to cover the cake.

Then almost two packets of m&ms to fill the top.

The cake stand is an eBay purchase from many years ago.  

I knew it would come in handy one day and it set the cake off perfectly. 

I didn't get to taste the cake (other than the trimmings) but "feedback" from the party was very positive!

Ingredients

For the cake

225g unsalted butter, diced

225g golden caster sugar

175g self raising flour

50g cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt  

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

100ml whole milk (mine was semi skimmed)

For the filling

½ a jar of raspberry jam (or cherry, strawberry or apricot as you prefer)

For the buttercream and decoration

200g unsalted butter, softened

200g icing sugar

200g plain dark chocolate (I used Cadbury's Bournville which has a fairly low cocoa content)

2 packs of chocolate finger biscuits

2 packs of m&ms or other sweets such as Smarties or Jelly Tots

Birthday candles and any other decorations of your choice

Method

For the cake

Grease/butter the base and sides of a deep 20cm springform tin and line the base with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into the bowl of a food processor.  Blitz briefly to combine.

Add all the other cake ingredients and process until smooth, scraping down a couple of times.  Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, level the top and tap the tin on the worktop a few times to settle the mixture.  

Bake for 45-55 minutes until done then remove from the oven.  After a few minutes run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it and leave to cool in the tin.

When the cake is cold, remove from the tin, remove the paper from the bottom and place it on a board.  Use a bread knife to level the top of the cake if there is a significant dome.  Slice the cake in two horizontally using the bread knife.

For the buttercream

Break the chocolate into squares and place them in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.  Allow the chocolate to melt, stirring occasionally.  Remove from the heat as soon as it has melted and set aside.

Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl (or blitz it in a food processor to remove any lumps).

Add the butter and beat together with a hand held electric whisk until smooth and well combined.  Beat in the cooled chocolate until evenly incorporated.

To assemble the cake

Put the bottom half of the cake onto a cake plate or cake stand and spread it with the jam.

Place the other half of the cake on top and use the buttercream to cover the top and sides.  It doesn't have to be too neat but it's best if the top is level.

Press chocolate finger biscuits into the buttercream all the way around the sides.

Scatter the sweets over the top of the cake.  The chocolate fingers should sit just above the top of the cake and therefore prevent them all from rolling off!

Add a birthday candle and any other decorations you like.

Cuts into 16-20 slices.

CHOCONANA BIRTHDAY CAKE

The little girl that I made the pink castle birthday cake for her fourth birthday last year is now five years old.  (It was quite an undertaking and you can read about it here.)

This year a more modest cake was requested, in fact I offered to make two of them.

One for a family gathering on the actual birthday and a second for a birthday party a few days later.

For cake number one I made a choconana cake.

This is a variation of the mocha banana cake that I have made many, many times and which you can read about here.  It's essentially a chocolate banana bake and for a little girl's birthday I omitted the coffee, added some chocolate chips and some chocolate butter icing, plus decorations.

The lovely cake stand was gifted to me by a friend who is selling her second home in France and moving back to the UK.  She bought it some years ago at a French street market and I had admired it many times.  The little pig decorations were given to me by another friend after a recent visit back to the UK.  They are Percy Pig sweets that come from M & S.  The little girl's grandmother helped with the decorating and although I had lots of other decorations she thought the pigs would be fun.

Ingredients

For the cake

8oz self raising flour

4oz softened butter or baking spread (I used Le Fleurier unsalted spread)

4oz caster sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced

2 large eggs, beaten

1 tblsp milk chocolate chips (optional)

a splash of milk if needed

For the topping

2oz softened butter

6oz icing sugar

1 tblsp cocoa powder

1 tblsp warm water

a splash of milk if needed

Method

Butter and line the base of a 20cm (8") round springform cake tin.  Preheat the oven to 180° C / 160° fan.

Put all of the cake ingredients except for the chocolate chips and milk into a large bowl and beat well by hand or with an electric hand held whisk, until well blended.  

If the mixture seems rather stiff, add the milk and beat it in.  Add the chocolate chips if using and stir in.

Pour or spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes until done.  

Remove from the oven and cool in the tin.

When the cake is cool, make the buttercream topping.

Beat the butter in a medium bowl with a wooden spoon until soft and sift in the icing sugar a spoonful at a time, beating well after each addition.  

Mix the cocoa powder with the warm water to a smooth paste in a small bowl or cup.  Add to the buttercream and beat in until evenly coloured.  If it seems rather stiff, beat in a splash of milk.

Remove the cold cake from the tin, remove the paper from the bottom and sit the cake on a serving plate or cake stand.

Spread or swirl the topping over the cake evenly and decorate with candles, sprinkles and any decorations of your choice.

Serves 8-12 slices.

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My mum always said, in fact firmly believed, that all things come in threes.  This cake was number three in a string of almost baking disasters, all within a single week!

Number one was when making the cream cheese topping for a carrot cake.  I beat the butter and icing sugar together, added the cream cheese and on beating it in was horrified to see the whole thing turn to liquid within moments.  More about that in another post.

Number two was when making a caramelised apple clafoutis (see here).  The pudding had been in the oven for a good five minutes when I noticed the beaten eggs still in a bowl on the worktop.  I whipped it out of the oven sharpish, stirred the eggs as evenly as possible into the pudding and put it back in the oven.  It was fine.

Number three was when making this birthday cake.  The mixture was in the tin ready to go into the oven when I adopted my usual practice of licking the spoon.  It didn't taste very sweet but I wasn't sure as bananas are quite sweet anyway.  A quick glance around the kitchen and I spotted nothing untoward so put the cake in the oven.  As I turned to do the washing up I spotted the weighed out sugar still in a bowl next to the sink.  I whipped the cake out of the oven sharpish, tipped the mixture back into the mixing bowl and beat the sugar in.  After washing and re-lining the tin I got the cake back in the oven to bake and, as far as I know, it was fine!

Let's hope my mum's theory was right and, after three near disasters, that's it for now! 

AFTERNOON TEA

With all the Queen's Jubilee celebrations for being on the throne for 70 years there has been much talk of street parties and afternoon teas.  In fact in our part of France friends held their own afternoon tea party to celebrate but unfortunately I was unable to attend.  I'm back home in the UK because my father is in hospital and his future care is again under debate.  

So instead I decided it was time I posted about the afternoon tea I held for a friend's birthday just a couple of months ago.  That was in France too.

I used my three tier glass cake stand which I acquired at a brocante a couple of years ago for just 2€.  It matches some dessert plates and a regular one tier cake stand that were also collected for next to nothing from brocantes over the years.  My best white tablecloth doesn't come out very often but with that and real cups and saucers the table looked the business, even if I say so myself! 

The bottom layer was a selection of sandwiches with the crusts cut off (of course!).  There were home made egg mayonnaise and rocket on brown bread, smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber on brown and smoked ham with tomato and cucumber on white.

You can see the recipe for egg mayonnaise here.  I have never seen cress for sale in France so opted for rocket instead.  It was a good substitute.

Being in France, the sliced bread available is not quite like in the UK.  Generally the texture is nice but it always seems to me to be slightly sweet.  We toyed with the idea of making our own bread but as it was only a few days after we had arrived and we were still dealing with all the usual problems of being away from the house for so long decided it was a step too far.

The middle layer was Victoria scones.  For such an important occasion I didn't trust myself to make ordinary scones, my success with those being variable.  The Victoria scones are easy to make from the Be-Ro book recipe and for me they work every time.  They looked cute on the stand although someone who saw the pictures on Facebook said they looked like fat rascals!  

I can't say I've ever eaten a fat rascal so wouldn't know but they sound like fun so will add them to my ever lengthening bucket list of thing to bake!  You can see the recipe for Victoria scones here or look it up in the Be-Ro book - it's in all the recent editions.

The top layer, the crowning glory, was of small cakes.  The raspberry sponges were cut from a traybake recipe for a jam and coconut sponge, otherwise known as "school cake" and which I have been hankering after making for some time!  I used a recipe on the Asda website which you can see here.  It is very quick and easy and the little squares looked very pretty when topped with fresh raspberries.  You can also see the recipe here.

The little chocolate cakes were to a recipe from one of the collection of slim volumes that Delia Smith put out many years ago called "Baking".  They are chocolate, prune and Armagnac mini muffins and I topped them with an excellent chocolate icing from Lynn Hill's website Traditional Home Baking.  You can see the icing recipe here and I added a few decorations including halved glacé cherries, halved chocolate covered raisins and choclate vermicelli.  They were delicious!

No afternoon tea would be complete without an actual slice of cake so for that I made a lemon layer cake filled with lemon curd to another Delia recipe from the same book.  You can see that here.  I didn't make my own lemon curd but used a Bon Maman jar which I brought over from the UK.  Bizarrely you can buy lemon curd in France but not the Bon Maman one!

I had never made this cake before but had eaten it several times as it's a family favourite of Nick's sisters.  It was easy to make and, of course, yummy!

Our birthday guests enjoyed the afternoon tea and so did we.  Being Americans they had only ever had afternoon tea a couple of times before when in London.  It was fun to make and fun to eat.  It does involve a lot of preparation and baking with all the different elements but it's well worth the effort.

You can see my lemon curd layer cake here.

The prune and chocolate mini muffins are here.

The little raspberry cakes are here.

The egg mayonnaise recipe is here.

PILCHARDS ON TOAST, NEW CAKE STANDS AND SOME SAD NEWS

Now I know this may be an odd thing to post about but bear with me.

The recipe, if you can call it that, popped up in my FB feed and I was instantly compelled to make it for lunch!  We had it that day.

I was brought up on pilchards.  Not sardines*, but tinned pilchards in tomato sauce, warmed in a saucepan or in the oven and served on thick slices of toasted wholemeal bread.  Proper Hovis bread that had that delicious and unique aroma that Hovis doesn't have any more.

We usually keep in stock those very small tins of Glenryck pilchards in tomato sauce and at around 50p a tin they are just the right size for lunch for two.  The tins usually contain two plump pilchards that when split open and served with hard boiled egg make one of our favourite salads.

However, this particular recipe is a bit more sophisticated than just pilchards on toast!  It includes crushed avocado and rocket.  So, late to the party as usual, I have finally discovered that crushed avocados can be quite nice - how exciting that you can do more with an avocado than just serve it in wedges in a salad or prawn cocktail!

On the day I spotted the recipe I happened to have both a packet of ready washed rocket and two avocados in the house.  We also had a home made wholemeal loaf that Nick had made the day before.  You can see the toast recipe here, although it is actually for sardines and includes a sprinkling of chilli seeds which I omitted.

Ingredients

2 slices wholemeal bread

1 avocado

1 155g tin Glenryck pilchards in tomato sauce

a handful of rocket.

Method

Empty the can of sardines carefully into a dish or plate and split them into two along the back and open out.  If like me you are not partial to the larger bones remove the spines.  Transfer carefully to a small saucepan so that they don't break up into pieces and heat gently.

While the sardines are warming through toast the bread.  Halve the avocado and remove the stone then the flesh with a dessert spoon.  Put the flesh into a small bowl and mash with a fork.

Spread the mashed avocado on the toast, top with the rocket then the sardines and serve warm straight away.

Serves 2.

*A sardine is a small pilchard.  In other words, pilchards are bigger and plumper than sardines.

Now for the cake stands.  I had a couple of Ebay successes recently and added to my collection.  This one is a Clarice Cliffe creation by Wedgwood and I was thrilled when it arrived.  I was not so lucky with the next one.

I often see cabbage leaf pottery on sale at French brocantes (a brocante is like a flea market) and it is usually quite pricey.  Most of it is also quite hideous.  I spotted this cake stand on Ebay just after I had already bid on the Clarice Cliffe one and it also came with two fairly large plates.  I was not fussed about having the plates but coveted the cake stand.  I turned out to be the only bidder and got the lot for £15.

Unfortunately the seller made the double error of not wrapping it very well and sending it via Hermes.  Over the last few years we've been doing a dog walk that begins at a small car park on the edge of town.  It's used by Hermes to decant parcels from their huge lorry to the cars and vans that deliver them to people's homes.  I have seen the way the parcels are handled and personally I would never use them to send anything even vaguely fragile or more valuable than a cheese sandwich. 

The seller has refunded my money and the three items are now in the bin.  Such a shame.  It will be a long time before I ever see another one like it I expect.

Lastly, the sad news as mentioned in the title is that the cake stall that we held at my place of work every year is no longer going to take place.  Not just this year (for obvious reasons) but not ever.  The owners of the business have decided that the Children in Need charity is already cash rich and any funds should be raised a different way and given to a different charity. 

 

So, no more huge baking sessions to supply the cakes.  

The first time we did it in 2003 we raised £130.  Last year we raised £2,113 and the grand total over the years is well over £15,000.  That's an awful lot of cake and I shall miss doing it.  It's what renewed my interest in baking and extended my repertoire beyond the annual Christmas cake and the occasional birthday chocolate cake.

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I have done a bit of research and discovered that the "lettuce leaf" plates and cake stand are quite sought after and can be obtained elsewhere for quite large sums of money.  The design is actually "geranium leaves" and now I look at the pictures they do look like geranium leaves.  I can get a cake stand for £52 and the plates for £35 each.  What a shame that the seller did not pack them more carefully.