Cake thirty-four - Black Sand Castle

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This is a cake which is good for breakfast or a tea break. I love Bundt cakes and don’t know why I associate them with castles... You’ll discover why I’ve called it black sand castle while making and then eating it, anyway it's black for the chocolate, sand ‘cause it melts in your mouth just like a sand castle does when the sea water covers it and castle for the hole in the middle and the secrets it hides - it’s a red marble cake, with chocolate chips, strawberry jam and poppy seeds.

150 g poppy seeds

200 ml milk 

250 g butter or margarine

200 g sugar

4 eggs

1 lemon - grated rind

375 g flour 

75 g starch

125 ml milk

60 g marzipan or almond meal

1 packet baking powder

150 g chocolate chips

1 teaspoon red food coloring

150 g strawberry jam

200 g dark chocolate

Bring 200 ml milk to a boil and leave to soak for 10-15 minutes. Cream butter or margarine wi

th an electric mixer, then add eggs, lemon rind, flour starch, baking powder and chocolate chips and .stir in 125 ml milk alternately.

Grease a 20cm Bundt cake pan, then dust with fine, dry bread crumbs as Bundt cakes tend to stick to these pans. Pour in 2/3 of dough. 

Mix the remaining dough with the poppy seed milk mixture, the strawberry jam, and the marzipan/almond meal until all ingredients are well combined. Then add the red food coloring and mix well until color is homogeneous. Pour dough into the pan and with a fork make spiral movements to slightly mix the two doughs.

Bake at 180° for about 60/70 minutes. 

Turn cake pan upside down onto a serving plate, wrap a wet tea towel around it and leave to cool. Remove cake from pan. Melt the dark chocolate over a bain marie and cover cake with a thick layer of chocolate.

also visit: http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2014/02/cake-thirty-four.html

Cake twenty-nine Symphony in red, black and white

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This time my task was not easy: cupcakes which had to be ready one day ahead and needed to be transported for about 200 km. and, to make things more complicated, we'd have to eat them in the university courtyard with no tables or seats available. We went on for weeks talking about the right size of the cupcakes, the right recipe, the type of icing or frosting and, of course, of decoration that would resist a three-hour drive. We also needed a tray or something similar to transport them safely to destination, something nice of course that’d suit a graduation ceremony.

After some wandering in town I found a plexiglass tray that looked perfect for this purpose, but I still didn’t know how to keep the cupcakes well separated one from the other: I was afraid they’d be all messed up and the decoration would be destroyed. Coffee beans was the answer! And it did work well! The cupcakes arrived in a perfect state and what’s more they had an unexpected aftertaste of coffee that made them special!

We chose to make two different tastes with different decorations and decided on the smaller size for the cupcakes  The colours would be red and white for one type (red is the  typical colour for graduation here) and black and white for the other type. 

Symphony in red and white

250 g butter

250 g flour

250 g sugar

3 eggs

150 g choco chips

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time (don’t forget to beat in some flour between additions) and then the flour. Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour mixture into cupcake cases and bake at 180° for about 15 minutes. 

White chocolate frosting

100 g white chocolate, chopped

3 tbs milk 

175 g icing sugar 

Put the chocolate and the milk in a heatproof bowl and rest the bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Leave until the chocolate has melted, stirring frequently.

Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the icing sugar until smooth. Use freshly made. 

Decoration

red food coloring

chocolate sprinkles

red sugar sprinkles

Divide the white chocolate frosting and put them into two bowls. Beat some red food coloring into one bowl until the desired shade is reached. Put the red frosting into a pastry bag and pipe generous swirls of frosting over the cupcakes and decorate with chocolate sprinkles. Repeat same operation with the white chocolate frosting.

Symphony in black and white

250 g butter, chopped

150 g white chocolate, chopped coarsely

225 g flour

75 g self-raising flour

440  g sugar

250 ml milk

2 eggs, beaten lightly

150 g choco chips

Combine butter, white chocolate, sugar and milk in medium saucepan. Stir over heat, without boiling, until smooth. Cool 15 minutes. Whisk flours into white chocolate mixture then whisk in eggs. Pour mixture into prepared cupcake cases and bake at 150° for about 20 minutes. 

White Chocolate frosting

see above

Dark Chocolate Frosting

100 g dark  chocolate, chopped

2 tbs milk 

50 g butter

150 g icing sugar 

Put the chocolate, the milk and the butter in a heatproof bowl, stirring frequently until the chocolate and butter have melted. 

Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the icing sugar until smooth and shiny.

Decoration

red sugar sprinkles 

chocolate sprinkles

Put the white frosting into a pastry bag and pipe generous swirls of frosting over the cupcakes and decorate with chocolate 

sprinkles. Repeat same operation with the dark frosting.

also visit: 

http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/08/cake-twenty-nine.html