Sometime this time last week, I sauntered to the kitchen and decided that I was going to bake. I wanted to make a chocolate cake and I wanted to give a new recipe a go. I topped that with a generous ladle of urge to make the cake with mean mint.
OK. I lied.
I didn’t just saunter to the kitchen! I have actually walked into the kitchen with a purpose: To make a birthday cake for an adult and one that’s a little bit more adult in taste and less of the colours of the rainbows. (The rest of what I said above still hold true)
Give or take 1.5 hours, a mean Mint Chocolate (Truffle) Cake was born right out of my kitchen:
Oh how I love the aroma of freshly baked chocolate cake! Let it cool for a little while and then a slab of light, creamy frosting was smothered in between the cake and all around it.
Once that was done, the kids took it upon themselves to decorate the cake. I had to remind them that they are not to use all the sugary rainbow sprinklers (they were about to when they raided my baking drawers) because this cake was for an adult, not for kids.
They duly complied without any arguments. They were excited that they got to decorate the cake for their Papa who blew the candles off the cake the next day. They did pretty well with the decoration of the cake that was meant for an adult, I must say!
Decorations aside, this chocolate cake recipe is almost fail proof. A little dense (and so should all chocolate cakes be) but turned out to still be quite light (no egg white!), flavourful and most important: super moist. Silver Bullet should be so happy.
For the chocolatey taste, I used a mix of Dutch cocoa and half a bar of truffled-chocolate. I used fresh mint leaves with a touch of mint essence for the mint frosting and I used a long strand of dental floss as well.
What were you thinking I would be doing with the floss? To slice the cake into half, of course. Sheesh!
This is one recipe for keeps:
- 1 cup self-raising flour
- 1 tspn salt
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Droste Dutch Cocoa)
- 55g truffled-flavoured chocolate, chopped up
- 15g dark chocolate chips
- 1/3 cup boiling water
- 227g butter, softened
- 1 1/4 cup lightr brown sugar
- 5 eggs
- 250g mascarpone cheese
- 250ml whipping cream
- A bunch (about 15-20 pieces) of fresh mint leaves, pureed/blended fine
- 1/2 tspn mint extract
- Half cup fine sugar
- Colouring and decorations of choice
- Pre-heat oven to 160-165 degree celsius
- Grease a circular pan with baking paper
- Mix flour and salt together in a mixing bowl. Set aside for later.
- Pour the boiling water over the chopped chocolate and melt them. The stir the cocoa powder and set aside cool
- In a mixer, mix together butter and sugar until it's fluffy. Then add the melted chocolate mixture, chocolate chips and mix well
- Add in eggs, one at a time ensuring that each egg is mixed well after every single addition
- Slowly mix in the flour and salt mixture.
- Stir well
- Pour the batter in the pan. Tap a few time to remove bubbles
- Bake for 60 minutes or do a toothpick test to make sure it comes out clean.
- While the cake is baking, start making the frosting by whisk cream cheese into a mixing bowl
- Add sugar, slowly until it becomes creamy
- Add in the pureed mint leaves and mint extract. Mix well
- Then add in the whipping cream and a few drops of greencolouring. Whisk till it appears light.
- Store it in the fridge until it is ready to be used
- Once the cake is baked, cool and set aside
- Use a long strand of dental floss to slice through the cake tinto two
- Lather the frosting on top of one slice (about half an inch thick of cream) then cover the cream with the other slice of cake
- Cover the rest of the cake with as much and as thick a frosting as you desire.
- Decorate at will!
- Remember not to over-beat the whipping cream or it'll be too lumpy and you'd have to make another batch.
What do you think? How likely would you give this a go? What would you substitute and what other flavours would you make this with?
