chocolate cake

Great British Bake Off Halloween Special.

October 31, 2016 by Anne Sweet 3 Comments

Last week we saw the final of the Great British Bake Off 2016.

They made meringue, Victoria Sandwich and a picnic showstopper including a chocolate cake.

I did feel a little disappointed at the skill set needed for the final. Surely it could have been more difficult? The things they made for their picnics I’ve made loads of times for parties, meringues are not difficult so long as you are careful not to break them and my nine year old daughter knows how to make a Victoria Sandwich without instructions.

The winner was Candice and I believe she deserved it as she seemed the only one who really put any effort into making something unique. I still remember her gingerbread pub, and her marzipan peacock was fantastic. Going back to my run down of week one I had Candice and Jane, two of the finalists, as my favourites to do well. I wish I’d put a bet on now!

My girls really wanted to make meringue so I let them make some and they made little meringue ghosts for Halloween. I decided that a chocolate cake would be nice to make so in keeping with the Halloween theme I dressed it up as a trick or treat cake.

We like our meringue crispy so we always bake it in the oven. The eyes were piped on with a little melted chocolate.

little ghost shaped meringues with chocolate eyes

My chocolate cake is a favourite in our house and I make it frequently. I don’t always cover it in chocolate but I decided to do it this time, only I wish I’d left myself a little more time to do it a bit more neatly.

Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients:

225g caster sugar
225g soft butter
200g self raising flour
25g cocoa powder
4 eggs

for butter cream:

125g soft butter
240g icing sugar
10g cocoa powder

topping:

200g chocolate
assorted sweets to decorate.

Method:

heat oven to 180C

grease and line a 20cm cake tin

mix the sugar and butter together in a large bowl

mix in the eggs one by one

sift in the flour and the cocoa powder

fold in until you have a smooth batter

pour batter into cake tin

bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean

leave to cool

make the butter cream by creaming the butter with sifted icing sugar and cocoa powder

fill cake with half the butter cream then smooth the rest around outside of the cake as a crumb coat

melt chocolate in the microwave or in a bowl over a pan of hot water

pour over cake

drop sweets over cake

To finish my Halloween theme here are the pumpkins designed by my three children

Kids in the Kitchen

August 17, 2015 by Anne Sweet Leave a Comment

Welcome to this weeks Kids in the Kitchen.
We have been really really busy the last couple of weeks with our Bake With Bake Off Challenges. It’s not very often that I bake without the kids so they have been in the kitchen with me a lot. Not only that but we also had a birthday party for the Little Man and the kids helped me to make sandwiches, sausage rolls and three different types of cookies.

rolling cookie dough

We even made a scrummy chocolate cake together using Bee Berries All in One Cake recipe.

Today, I caved in and bought the Little Man a boxed cake mix for Peppa Pig cupcakes. We have all the ingredients at home to make cupcakes but there is something about these boxed kits that are so appealing to little ones.

Last week we were joined by All Past Midnight who linked a fabulous post with lots of tips of baking with small children. It is really worth a look.

I’ve already pinned the post to my Kids in the Kitchen Pinterest board as I do with everyone that links up.

Follow Anne’s board Kids In The Kitchen on Pinterest.

I also share posts that link up wherever I can so do come and join us if you have a recipe for children or have been cooking with your children.

Bee Berries All in One Cake

Ingredients:

225g self raising flour

225g caster sugar

225g softened butter

4 eggs

we added 1 tbs cocoa powder and decorated the cake with chocolate butter cream made with 100g soft butter with 200g icing sugar and 1 tbs cocoa powder.

Method:

Put the flour, butter, sugar and eggs into a big bowl and mix thoroughly. We like to use a wooden spoon, but you can use a mixer if you wish.

divide the mixture into two 8inch cake tins

bake at 180c for about 25 minutes until springy to the touch. (you can use a skewer to check that cake is cooked if you wish)

mix the cocoa powder, butter and icing sugar together in a bowl and use to decorate the cake when it has cooled.

So now it’s over to you, get in the kitchen with your kids and come and share what you’ve cooked,

I’d also be mighty grateful if you included my badge in your post so others can see it and come along and join in. (although adding the badge is not compulsory to joining in)

Kids in the Kitchen – Chocolate Overload Cake

April 8, 2015 by Anne Sweet 1 Comment

Welcome to this weeks Kids in the Kitchen. I hope you all had a happy Easter. We had a lovely time. We made our own chocolate treats and Hot Cross Buns as well as a Simnel Cake. We had an egg hunt on Sunday morning and after the Littlies had found all the little eggs the Easter bunny had hidden they were given one last clue to the hoard of eggs hiding in the kitchen.

We love it when you share you recipes with us or even just tell us about what you have been up to in the kitchen with your kids. All post that join the linky will be shared on my Pinterest Board and on Twitter and I will give you a mention here on Kids in the Kitchen.

Last week Tickle Fingers shared some fantastic 3D Dinosaur biscuits with us, they really are amazing, do go and look.

Chocolate Overload Cake

This week I’m cheating a little as I made a chocolate cake, (just a basic chocolate sponge cake recipe) but I had Boo help to decorate it.

First we filled and covered the cake in chocolate butter cream.

Then Boo very carefully stuck on chocolate fingers all around the outside. We used two packets but we still had gaps so maybe we should have used three? It was an 8 inch round cake. The on the top we used a large packet of Maltesers, again we didn’t quite have enough to completely fill the top. It still made a pretty impressive chocolate cake though, Boo was pleased anyway.

So now it’s over to you, get in the kitchen with your kids and come and share what you’ve cooked,

I’d also be mighty grateful if you included my badge in your post so others can see it and come along and join in. (although adding the badge is not compulsory to joining in)

Kids in the Kitchen – Chocolate Cake

August 25, 2014 by Anne Sweet 1 Comment

Today I’m going to share with you my recipe for chocolate cake, it’s the most asked for cake that I bake and I often use the recipe for my decorated cakes. For this one I had the help of Little Man, who was so thrilled to get his hands on the mixer 🙂

Thank you to those that joined in last weeks linky, I truly appreciate everyone who links up and it’s so nice to have my regulars *big smile*

The Brilliant Chef (he really is) linked up an old post which is fine, old posts or new are always welcome. Anyway, I’m so glad he linked up his Seasonal Summer Frittata because I tried it myself and it’s yummy.

And Autism Mumma linked up with another of my favourites, Cheese Scones. Take a look, they will make your mouth water.

Do come and join us with your cooking posts this week, lets see what your kids have been up to in the kitchen.

Chocolate Cake

When I make a cake to decorate I generally make it BIG! However, not everyone wants or needs a cake to feed 16 party guests so I’ve reduced this recipe down to make a regular cake. Don’t worry, I have made it so I know the measurements are right, just don’t expect it to turn out as big as my finished cake.

Ingredients:

185g of unsalted butter

185g of caster sugar

170g of self- raising flour

15g of cocoa powder

3 eggs

Method:

I’m a big fan of my wooden spoon for making cakes but as the Little Man was helping me I decided to add some fun and used the mixer, he feels so grown up being in charge of switching it on and off.

We put the butter and sugar in the mixer and mixed until smooth.

Then we added the eggs one at a time mixing between each.

Then we took the bowl from the mixer and the Little Man sifted in the flour and cocoa powder and we folded them into the batter gently.

We put the cake batter into a 7 inch cake tin. We like to use silicone for smaller cakes, but a loose bottom tin which has been smeared with a little butter and lined with baking paper is just as good.

Bake at 180C/gas mark 5 for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

If you are unfamiliar with baking cakes may I give you some tips;

Do not open the oven during at least the first half of the cooking. I would leave this cake at least 25 minutes until checking.

Ovens do vary so you may need a little longer, do first check that the cake looks ‘springy’ before taking it out of the oven.

If it is springy then test it with a skewer, it will come out clean if the cake is ready, but if it isn’t pop it back in for a little longer.

If you don’t cook the cake long enough it will sink in the middle and be soggy.

If you cook it too long it will dry out and lose it’s yummy moistness.

Here is the Little Man in action.

Here is my lovely little kitchen helper modelling my new oven gloves 😉

Here is a little video (only 11 seconds) of how I decorated the cake once cooked. In case you have no idea, it’s the Pokemon Fennekin.

If you would like to join then please link up your posts old or new below.

I’d also be mighty grateful if you included my badge in your post so others can see it and come along and join in. (although adding the badge is not compulsory to joining in)

Kids in The Kitchen – Chocolate Cake

February 24, 2014 by Anne Sweet 8 Comments

Welcome to this weeks Kids in the Kitchen. It’s been half term for us and we’ve had plenty of chances to help out in the kitchen so we’ve lots to share. It was also Daddy’s birthday so, of course, there was birthday cake. Silly Daddy wanted a cake with big hard nuts which Mummy made for him, but don’t worry, the kids didn’t miss out because they made their very own chocolate birthday cake and decorated it all by themselves.

More of that in a bit, first I’d like to say thank you to last weeks linkers. Mummy Zen and her son linked up their yummy Apple and Cinnamon Muffins. EatsAmazing cooked up some delicious looking Chicken Kebabs with Small Child, we are so going to try these! Miss T from the Beesley Buzz cooked up a favourite of ours, Toad in the Hole. And Baked Potato Mummy and little Potato treated us to Yoghurt Pot Muffins, with all ingredients measured in a yoghurt pot, how clever is that?

If you’d like to join in this week, it’s easy. Just cook with your kids and link up your post. Kids in the Kitchen has it’s own special page with further details, if you want to know more.

Half Term Cooking:

We had lots of time in the kitchen this week. The littlies love sandwiches so I thought it was about time they learnt how to make their own. Buttering bread is a great task to learn and the littlies loved making their own lunch.

The Little Man loves to measure out his pasta for his lunch, he could live on pasta, I swear he’s addicted. Then every time I had something to mix together there was at least one willing pair of hands to help out.

Then there was the birthday cake. I decided to let them make a basic chocolate cake.

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

175 grams butter
175 grams caster sugar
2 eggs
160 grams self raising flour
15 grams of cocoa powder

for the filling:

60 grams butter
110 grams icing sugar
10 grams cocoa powder

To decorate:

500grams ready to roll icing
a little blue food colouring
star stampers

Method:

Put butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. We like to use a wooden spoon because it’s good fun.
beat the eggs in another bowl then add half at at time to the butter and sugar mixture.
(Boo always says the mixture looks like baby food)
The we sift in the flour and the cocoa powder, trying very hard to get most of it in the bowl and not all over the work top, or our clothes. ( We rarely succeed!)
Then we slowly mix in the flour to make our cake batter.

For this cake we split the mixture between two 7″ cake tins and baked for 30 mins at Gas mark 4 or 180C

When I had removed the cake from the oven and allowed it to cool, we began the filling.

We put the butter, icing sugar and cocoa powder in the food mixer and the Little Man was the proud switcher on. When the mixture was smooth we split it into two. half we put in the middle of the cake and the other half we covered the outside of the cake.

The decorating was most fun. I let the littlies take turns in rolling out the icing, then I helped them place it on the cake and smooth it out.

The left over bits we dyed blue with a little food colouring. Then we rolled it out again and the littlies cut out lots of little stars with my star stampers. You can use cutters, but the littlies enjoyed stamping the icing and then pressing the button to release the stars. When we had lots and lots of stars Boo decorated the cake with them.
To finish off I made them some icing in a piping bag and helped them pipe Happy Birthday Daddy around the edge of the cake.