I'm loving chocolate a lot more lately. Only the good stuff makes it into my baking cupboard, bars from small organic shops and anything injected with orange essence or zest. Dangerously in love with Green and Black's sea salt bar, have you tapped into it? It's the big sister of their collection, each square has the perfect amount of salt. Normally I consume chocolate in a few seconds but with this bar I let each segment sit on my tongue and let the magic happen.
The power of chocolate over a women is pretty special. I always re iterate this message....
BUY GOOD QUALITY!
Why you say?
1. Dark chocolate is known to reduce stress levels.
2. Hot chocolate is great as cough medicine!
3. High cocoa in chocolate can lead to better focus for a few hours.
4. Ladies you know spending a bit more on decent chocolate beats a cheap block and the difference is in the taste.
Here is a delectable cake that's easy to assemble and extremely tasty. Try to make sponges the night before, I find they are easier to handle. This chocolate cake recipe makes three even sponges in sandwich tins, which is better than baking the whole mixture then slicing it into three. Each sponge takes 20 minutes to bake.
Ingredients for sponges:
225g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
200g self raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
25g cocoa powder
4 medium eggs
1 tsp cola essence
1 tsp cola essence
100ml milk
Filling:
Cherry jam
250ml double cream
Ganache:
200g dark chocolate
284ml double cream
2 tbsp caster sugar
Topping:
2 large figs
Manuka honey
Yellow edible glitter
Dr Oetker gold lustre spray
Method:
Preheat oven 180°c
Put all the cake ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk.
Grease and line two sandwich tins with removable bases (if you already have three then great!)
Fill each tin with even amounts of mixture and bake for 20 minutes each on the top shelf.
Keep out of tin and let them cool completely.
Meanwhile make ganache by boiling cream and sugar then pouring over cold chocolate. Stir well and leave to cool until spreadable.
Decide on which sponges will be best to go at the bottom and top, maybe slice a bit off the top if the rise wasn't even.
Whip double cream until stiff.
Spread cherry jam on top of one sponge and whipped cream underneath the middle sponge. Sandwich these two and do the same again but instead of cream use a bit of ganache underneath top sponge.
Cover the whole cake in ganache, leaving a tablespoon's worth in a bowl for the figs to sit on.
Lightly spray the top gold.
Before you serve:
Cut figs in quarters and roast them (15 mins) or grill (8 minutes) with a drizzle of Manuka honey. Sprinkle a bit of gold glitter on each one.
Add figs in the middle, using ganache as glue.
Thank you Zest magazine for chocolate facts.
This weekends special song and entering my running playlist...
ROAR by Katy Perry
