Chocolate M & M Cake

Ooh! Hello!

I'm good, thank you :) I'm assuming you're great too? Well, if you aren't, I'm pretty sure that this cake will make you feel jolly again.

I'm feeling sort of jolly right now. Tomorrow, school goes back, and it will by my last term of school EVER in the history of the world! It's extremely exciting, but also kind of scary and a teensy bit sad. But I think I'm ready for life outside of school. There's a whole big world out there waiting for me, and now I can contribute to it. Yay!

But then there's the HSC exams to think about, which occur before any of this exciting stuff happens. Maybe, if I close my eyes and cover my ears, and hum nice songs for the next three months, it will go away? Here's hoping!

In any case, there's always baking therapy to get me through.

Now that I think of it, keeping this blog, and baking for people, making them happy, has been one of the things that have kept me motivated throughout this rigorous period of school. Baking really does have an impact on your emotions. I think I've dealt really well with all the adversities of my final school year.

I mean, who wouldn't be happy looking at this cake? I definitely had a fun time making it, the rainbow-ness of it all put a smile on my dial :)

The "heART" word on the top of the cake is there because I made this cake for my art class last week, when we had an art workshop for the day. I think it went over rather well, very colourful for the bright, bubbly artists! And I can never resist a pun...

I first saw the M & M technique used on Sprinkle Bakes, but the technique is a well-known and well-loved one! It does take a bit of time, separating all the lollies into their colours, putting them individually on the cake etc. But it's impressive, and if you need some baking therapy, this is it my friends!

You could most definitely use Skittles instead of M & Ms, or some other miniature coloured lolly,  but since I was making a chocolate cake, I thought M & Ms were highly appropriate. The cake itself is gorgeous and soft, and the coffee in it brings out the chocolate flavour even more!

I have a large cake tin, but if yours are quite small or shallow, you could divide the mixture into three pans for a layer cake. You could fill it with some chocolate ganache, or the buttercream used as the icing here - you could even be adventurous and sprinkle some extra M & Ms in there, if you aren't convinced there's enough already!

Happy baking folks!

Chocolate M & M Cake

Makes one glorious, jolly cake (serves about 30)

Recipe adapted from the Sprinkle Bakes Cookbook, by Heather Baird

Ingredients:

Cake:

200g dark chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 cups strong black coffee, fresh and hot

2 1/2 cups plain flour

2 cups caster sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 eggs

3/4 cup canola oil

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Vanilla Buttercream:

250g unsalted butter, softened

2 1/2 cups icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

Milk, if necessary

3 packets M & Ms

Method:

To make the cake, preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease and line a large (or 3 shallow) 20cm cake tins.

Put the chocolate and hot coffee in a heatproof bowl and stir until fully melted. When smooth, set aside to cool. Sift together flour, cocoapowder, soda, powder and salt. Stir in sugar until combined.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a mixer until thickened and light. Add the canola oil and cooled coffee-chocolate mixture. Beat again until combined.

Add flour mixture and beat on medium until just combined. Pour batter into cake tins and bake for 1 hour, until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Let cake cool completely in tins before turning out onto a wire rack. Ice when completely cooled.

For the icing, with an electric mixer, beat together the butter and icing sugar. Mix on low speed until mixture is crumbly. Increase to high and beat for 3 minutes.

Add vanilla extract and beat for another minute, until light and fluffy. If too stiff, add a little milk until consistency is firm, but spreadable.

Spread evenly over cake with an offset spatula. Separate M & Ms into separate colours, and order M & Ms into colour gradient (eg. red, orange, yellow etc.). Starting at the base, press M & Ms individually into butter cream, making your way around the cake. For the next row, above the bottom, position the M & M of the corresponding colour slightly to the right of the first one, and continue around. Decorate the top however you please!

Vanilla Bean Bundt with Strawberry Glaze

Bonjour mes amis.

Well, Easter is over. Boo. I love the colours and happiness of everybody at Easter time. I wish everybody was in such good spirits all of the time. Easter certainly says one thing:

CHOCOLATE MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER.

But, I don't know about you lovely folk, but I am a teeny bit over it. GASP! Now don't be like that. It's just that it's been everywhere and supposedly Australians are the biggest chocolate-consumers at Easter in the world and I JUST NEED A BREAK OK?!

So with that in mind, I have decided to steer away from the chocolate until I have recovered somewhat from the mayhem that has encapsulated the citizens of the world.

So in order to escape the Easter craziness, I turned back to Christmas (such logic!). Most of my Christmas presents, I admit, were to do with baking. Cupcake cases, an icing bag set, cookbooks, and... A bundt tin!

I have never made a bundt cake before, but looking at different blogs around the place, they photography beautifully, and the possibilites are endless! So I knew that I had to have one. I had a bit of bundt fever.

Even the word 'bundt' is addictive. Go on, say it.

...'bundt'.

Bundt bundt bundt.

The word is looking extremely strange to me as I type now.

Anyway, my grandparents' birthday's are about a week apart from each other, so I made them a Birthday Bundt! It was the first opportunity I had to use my new tin, so I was a bit nervous. But the cake turned out pretty well, I think! I pinched the recipe from Always With Butter, one of my favourite blogs, except I eliminated the almond flavouring because I don't really like that distinct almond essence flavouring. I replaced it with vanilla essence, which, combined with the vanilla bean paste, made for a simple and utterly delicious cake. I did, however, want to reproduce the design of Julie's cake, because the photos were just stunning. The vanilla, the pink of the glaze, and the contrast of the blueberries just took my breath away. If it ain't broke, don't fix it,  right?

Right!

I think I'm in Bundt-Love. That's a thing, I'll have you know. Expect more bundts coming your way from FBC!

Vanilla Bean Bundt with Strawberry Glaze

{Recipe adapted from Always With Butter}

Ingredients:

3 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt

250g unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 cups caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp vanilla bean paste

4 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

3 strawberries

Icing sugar

Blueberries

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. In a bundt pan, grease the inside surface evenly with butter, and then dust with flour.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence and vanilla bean paste and mix until well-incorporated.Add the eggs in, one at a time, mixing well.

In alternating batches, gradually pour the flour mixture and buttermilk into the butter-sugar mixture bowl. Pour the batter into the bundt pan, smooth the top, and bake in the oven for 1 hour.

Wait to cool completely, then invert onto a wire rack.

Strawberry Glaze:

In a food processor, puree the strawberries until smooth. Gradually add sifted icing sugar until the glaze comes to the desired consistency (thicker will make it run nicely down the cake). Process until smooth, and pour over the cooled cake. Sprinkle with blueberries.

Lamington Icecreams

Happy Almost Australia Day everybody!

Well, my life has been pretty boring of late. It's pretty much been a case of rowing and napping, repeated a billion times. Oh, and baking of course :)

As I'm writing there are angry clouds in the sky, and gusts of wind rattling the poor trees, who are sick and tired of being pushed around. They've had to endure the less-than-lovely climatic conditions for the past few days (and let's face it, most of the summer), and it looks like they will have to put up with the mean, wild weather for another week or more!

 This doesn't bode well for Australia Day, which is this Thursday for all you non-Australians out there. Australia Day is usually a time of hot, sunny, clear days, so most people would have had barbecues planned, or spending a nice, peaceful day out on the lake or at the beach...  But perhaps not this year!

Perhaps a 'Christmas in July'-type event would be more appropriate. Australia Day-in-July?

Maybe I'll create a sandy beach inside my house, and turn all the lights and heaters in the house on, and play backyard cricket indoors, with all Mum's breakable vases around. Sounds good, right?

I thought I was being really clever by making these chilled-icy-treat versions of the traditional Australian lamington. I thought they could be enjoyed on an ideally sunny, outdoorsy kind of Australia Day.

But aargh damn you unpredictable 2012 weather! It would seem that you have tried to rain on my parade again! (See what I did there? With the weather pun? Hm?)

But nay! These will taste just as yummy inside my house, on my fake beach.

But seriously, people, I am pretty proud of my little Aussie invention here. Lamingtons (for those of you who are not Australian) are traditionally a small cake made out of two layers of vanilla sponge, sandwiched together with a layer of strawberry jam in the middle, and coated with a layer of chocolate icing and dessicated coconut. So I thought, hey, this could taste super good in icecream-form!

I made two types of ice cream - vanilla, and strawberry jam, and they taste just like the traditional cake, except smooth and creamy and cold! I put them on paddlepop sticks and coated them in the chocolate and coconut, and then WOW THEY LOOK REALLY SIMILAR TO

LAMINGTONS!

I was extremely happy with the way they turned out. They look so similar to the real thing on the outside, and then you bite into the middle and get the surprise layered hit of vanilla and strawberry jam and it's so delicious and fun to eat and gah I love them so much!

Yay for foods that look like other foods!

I hope you make them and enjoy them, whatever the weather.

{Vanilla Icecream and Strawberry Jam Icecream recipes adapted from David Lebovitz' Vanilla Icecream}

Lamington Icecreams

Makes about 12

Ingredients:

 2 cups full cream milk

A pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

4 cups thickened cream

8 large egg yolks

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup strawberry jam

About 12 paddlepop sticks

350g dark chocolate

150g unsalted butter

3 tbsp milk

1 cup dessicated coconut

Method:

Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a medium saucepan.When the sugar is dissolved, and the mixture is starting the bubble at the edges, add the vanilla bean paste and stir. Take off the heat.

Let's make a little ice bath! Place a big (2-litre capacity) bowl inside an even bigger bowl that is partially filled with iced water. Pour the cream into the top bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Pour a little of the warm milk mixture into the yolks, and whisk to combine. Then add the egg mixture back into the original milk mixture in the saucepan, and combine again.

Cook over low heat, stirring  and scraping the bottom of the saucepan constantly, until the mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a metal spoon.

Through a seive placed over the top of the bowl on top of the ice bath , strain through the custard mixture. Stir over the ice bath until cool, add the vanilla extract, and then divide into two smaller bowls 3/4 of one mixture in one, and 1/4 in another. Cover the larger portion of the two with cling wrap, and chill in the fridge for minimum 2 hours.

In the smaller portion bowl, mix in the strawberry jam until evenly distributed throughout the mixture. Cover and chill, minimum 2 hours.

After 2 hours, remove the vanilla mixture from the fridge and churn in an icecream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Once frozen, but still soft, pour half of the icecream into a lined (cling or baking paper) rectangular or square slice pan, of about 25x20cm dimensions. Even out with a spatula, and freeze until hard. Freeze the remaining vanilla portion in a bowl or airtight container until ready for use.

Remove the strawberry jam icecream from the fridge, and churn in the icecream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. (You will need either a second, fully frozen freeze bowl to do this immediately, or you will have to fully refreeze the first one.) Spread a thin layer of the strawberry jam icecream over the frozen vanilla layer in the tray, and freeze again.

About 10 minutes before bringing out the layered icecream, allow the remaining vanilla portion to soften. Then, spread evenly over the strawberry layer and refreeze, minimum 1 hour.

Once frozen, take the icecream layers out of the tray, and, using a sharp knife, divide into 4x4cm squares. Work quickly! Stick a paddlepop stick into the middle of each one (as below), place back on lined trays or containers, and refreeze.

In a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water on the stove, melt the chocolate and butter until shiny. Let cool for a bit, stir in the milk until combined and thinned out, and transfer to a tall and wide glass or jug. Line a baking tray, and shae out the coconut into a thin layer.

Again working quickly, remove the pops from the freezer, dip in the melted chocolate mixture, and then in the coconut, coating all sides. Place back onto the tray, and then quickly back into the freezer.