The Perfect Chocolate Mud Cake - dense, moist and delicious

After attending the Melbourne Cake Bake and Sweets Show and sampling some truly life-changing chocolate mud cake, I was determined to find the perfect recipe I could make myself.  I'm glad to say that I think I've found it!

This cake is beautifully chocolatey, dense and decadent, is moist all the way throughout and keeps very well.  Topped off with some ganache, it is even more delicious.

Recipe adapted from: Family Circle via Through My Kitchen Window
Ingredients (large 23 cm (9 inch) round cake or 21 x 31 cm (8 x 12 inch) sheet cake)
2 tbsp instant coffee granules
185mL hot water
250g butter
250g dark chocolate
550g caster sugar
300g flour
2 tsp baking powder
60g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
4 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
125mL milk

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 140 - 150C (280 - 300F).  Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin with baking paper, ensuring that the baking paper extends above the top of the tin.  Alternatively, you can use multiple cake tins if you're making a layer cake, or brownie tins if you're making a sheet cake.  I have used the full amount of this recipe in two square brownie tins which worked really well!

Greasing the tin before lining it will make the baking paper stick to the tin and cooperate for you

2. Dissolve the coffee granules in the hot water.

3. Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave until all parts are melted.  Add the sugar and coffee, stir until combined.  Set aside to cool.

4. In your mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and bicarb soda.  Make sure to sift the cocoa for a lump-free batter!

5. Add the eggs, oil and milk to the flour mixture and mix until combined.  I used the paddle on my Kitchenaid for this part.  You should end up with a pretty thick batter after this step.

6. Add half the chocolate mixture to the batter and mix until smooth and combined.

7. Add the remaining chocolate mixture to the batter and mix until completely smooth.  The batter should be of a pouring consistency.

8. Pour the batter into the lined baking tin/s you are using, and bake in the preheated oven for about 1 3/4 hours.  Depending on the thickness of your cake, this can be a shorter time - but will most likely be over 1 hour.  Make sure that you check using a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake.  It should come out with some crumbs on it - you want this mud cake to be very moist inside!

9. Let the cake cool in the tin.  Once cool, take it out of the tin and remove all the baking paper lining.

10. Using a serrated knife, level the cake to your satisfaction.
The first time I made this cake, I made half a batch of the recipe and baked it in a 20cm round tin for about 1 1/4 hours - it turned out beautifully but a bit sunken in the middle, so there were lots of off-cuts.  (I'm not complaining!)

11. Serve the cake as desired.  I recommend using a healthy amount of ganache (2:1 chocolate to cream ratio by weight).

Here are some snaps of the sheet cake version I made, again topped with ganache - kind of like brownies but more cakey and a little more, dare I say, sophisticated.  Props for the strawberry stacking arrangement go to my Mum!

Enjoy!

Shortbread + Cake Bake & Sweets Show

This shortbread recipe is so simple, so versatile and so delicious.  There's something very satisfying about making the fork-tine pattern on the tops of the biscuits, and snacking on them with some hot tea.

The recipe can be jazzed up easily in a number of ways - you could add some essences/extracts, and even a bit of lemon zest would give these a great twist!  I added some Mayan Chilli Chocolate Powder from Gewurzhaus (cocoa powder, chilli, cinnamon and cayenne pepper) to some of the dough for chocolate shortbread with a bit of a bite.  I also love to add matcha powder for green tea shortbread!

Recipe adapted from: my great aunt Gladys
Ingredients
5.5 oz (155g) butter
2 oz (55g) icing sugar
7 oz (200g) flour + some extra if needed

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 150 - 160 C (65 - 70 F).

2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Fold in the flour until combined.  The dough will be very soft, but if it's too sticky, add some more flour (just a little bit at a time!) until it can be rolled into a ball in your hands without sticking to everything.

4. You can roll the dough out into a sheet and cut shapes out (make sure you chill the dough in the freezer after it's cut to make it easier to handle and transfer to your baking trays), but another simple way to make the cookies is to roll the dough into logs, cover them in cling wrap, chill them for a while and then slice them into pieces.

These cookies don't spread too much so you can put them quite close together on your baking tray.  Create some texture and interest on your cookies by pressing into the cookies with the flat of a fork, or by poking holes in the top.

You can also add chocolate chips, or even cachous.  Just make sure that whatever you add won't melt everywhere!

5. Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are lightly golden.

I got some adorable cookie cutters from Cutter Craft recently, at the Melbourne Cake Bake and Sweets Show, and I was eager to try them out.

I absolutely love the stegosaurus.  It makes one of the cutest cookies I've ever seen!

Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na BATMAN!

A little more on the Cake Bake and Sweets Show - it was fantastic, with so many different stalls and presentations.  There was a lot of sampling of delicious and moist mud cake from the Wedding Chapel Made Of Cake.  I particularly enjoyed Tim Clark's (of Cacao) presentation on eclairs, and Janet O'Sullivan's (of The Cupcake Lady) fantastic and informative presentation on ganache.  I've come away with some great tips to try out!

Tim Clark's Cocoa Pop eclairs

The Savour Chocolate School chocolate rainforest was also very impressive.

My mission post-show: to find a dependable dense, moist chocolate mud cake...