I added the exclamation mark, it's fair to say that it wasn't in the recipe as I think it would have placed too much of a burden on the surprise to be really fabulous. It's not really, it's mildly interesting.
The first part of the this recipe extravaganza starts in K-Mart - just me and a four year old. We were both recovering from an almighty tantrum back at home, his, not mine, and so things were a bit delicate. His little face was still a bit wet from tears and I still had tufts of hair knotted through my fingers, mine, not his.
K-Mart - I was there to find some bulbs for the garden, globes for the lighting fixtures and an art folio for Gabe's collected works. Gabriel has passed through his "yellow period" and we are now entering a more Escher-like technical phase. Subject matter is generally ladders and guns.
We left K-Mart with bulbs (yay), globes (yay), three cake tins (triple yay) and a phone (what the?). I thought we didn't do too badly. Vast general stores like this are usually bad places for me, so I felt that the toll - three cake tins and a phone - was light. One of the cake tins was a special request - in fact two of them were, but this one is the important one... I had long been thinking of making the surprise cake - but it needed a bundt tin. What is that, you ask - it is a round tin with a hole in the middle. Anyway, I don't have one - but the castle cake tin is basically a square with a hole in the middle. What could go wrong? (The other cake tins that I bought were a bundt tin, so my argument has no logic, and a group of smaller dinosaur shapes.. which I loved and Gabe was so-so about).
Surprise Raspberry Chocolate Cake - from the Masterchef magazine.
Serves 8-10 apparently. Which is news to me as I think that it could serve a freaking army.
40g butter melted (or you can use spray)
1 cup Dutch Cocoa
1 cup buttermilk
3 eggs
1 cup mayonnaise SURPRISE!
2 cups castor sugar
1 1/2 cups of SR flour
1 cup ground almonds
1 tsp bicarb
150g frozen raspberries
100g dark chocolate finely chopped
1 pomegranate
175g icing sugar
Pre - heat the oven to 160c.
The mayonnaise makes it more moist. That's the surprise. I'll let you know what I thought of that at the end. That's the real surprise...
The first step is to grease the tin that you are using - as I was greasing parapets I decided to use a spray - this meant that the next step - taking some of the cocoa and dusting the inside of the tin wasn't quite the raging success that I'd hoped. More of clumpy failure. I stared at it for a while with a sense of foreboding deep in myloins stomach. I don't like things not being perfect.
Beat all the wet stuff together in a bowl - I used an electric mixed - but wished that I had a fancy standalone mixer. I banged on about that last post, so I'll let it go.... for now. Buttermilk, eggs, mayo and 200mls of water. Now, here's my first issue, I think that's too much water - this is a wet mix and yes the cake did cook and set, but I think that if I ever made it again and I won't, ever, I would change that to 100ml. Just saying.
Sift the cocoa, cater sugar, flour, almond meal and bicarb together until they are soft and free flowing. Get rid of all the lumpy misshapen freaks that were living with them. I put them in the bin, that's what I do with freaks around here. Then mix the dry with the wet or the wet with the dry whichever bowl is bigger folks, that's how I determine that type of thing.
Stir them. Don't beat them, it's not their fault. Fold in the berries and the chopped chocky until they are all one, at peace, finding a place of inner calm.
Pour into your novelty pan. Try and ignore that growing sense of unease at the the fiddly little shapes that your really, really wet batter is flowing into and instead think about Ryan Gosling. Mmm Ryan Gosling.
Place gingerly in the oven and bake for an hour - or if you're me, about 50 mins.
Try and prevent Darth Vader from jumping around near your cooking cake - cakes don't like that shit.
And neither do mothers.
I was running late for a meet up with my Mum and so had to do one of those cake reveals that Masterchef has made famous - it's therefore appropriate that this is one of their recipes. I took the cake with me "en novelty tin" and unsheathed it at the park. The whole process was fraught.
Did I mention that the tin is silicone - and a bit on the bendy side. Perhaps not. Anyway, it was touch and go getting it out.
It doesn't look that great does it? It had a certain ruined castle charm to it, mainly because of all the air bubbles, but I was hoping for... um... I really don't know.
Then I iced it and made it worse I think.
The icing was pomegranate juice and icing sugar together. The pomegranate is a volatile little fruit. I have never dealt with one before today! The seeds are simply gorgeous - little brilliant scarlet gemstones. They explode and go everywhere tho...
There was something Shakespearean about the cake after the icing - melodramatic. Reminded me of Macbeth for some reason.
The first part of the this recipe extravaganza starts in K-Mart - just me and a four year old. We were both recovering from an almighty tantrum back at home, his, not mine, and so things were a bit delicate. His little face was still a bit wet from tears and I still had tufts of hair knotted through my fingers, mine, not his.
K-Mart - I was there to find some bulbs for the garden, globes for the lighting fixtures and an art folio for Gabe's collected works. Gabriel has passed through his "yellow period" and we are now entering a more Escher-like technical phase. Subject matter is generally ladders and guns.
 |
| Holy flaming castles Batman! |
Surprise Raspberry Chocolate Cake - from the Masterchef magazine.
Serves 8-10 apparently. Which is news to me as I think that it could serve a freaking army.
40g butter melted (or you can use spray)
1 cup Dutch Cocoa
1 cup buttermilk
3 eggs
1 cup mayonnaise SURPRISE!
2 cups castor sugar
1 1/2 cups of SR flour
1 cup ground almonds
1 tsp bicarb
150g frozen raspberries
100g dark chocolate finely chopped
1 pomegranate
175g icing sugar
Pre - heat the oven to 160c.
The mayonnaise makes it more moist. That's the surprise. I'll let you know what I thought of that at the end. That's the real surprise...
The first step is to grease the tin that you are using - as I was greasing parapets I decided to use a spray - this meant that the next step - taking some of the cocoa and dusting the inside of the tin wasn't quite the raging success that I'd hoped. More of clumpy failure. I stared at it for a while with a sense of foreboding deep in my
Beat all the wet stuff together in a bowl - I used an electric mixed - but wished that I had a fancy standalone mixer. I banged on about that last post, so I'll let it go.... for now. Buttermilk, eggs, mayo and 200mls of water. Now, here's my first issue, I think that's too much water - this is a wet mix and yes the cake did cook and set, but I think that if I ever made it again and I won't, ever, I would change that to 100ml. Just saying.
 |
| So, so wet... |
 |
| Dutch Cocoa - almost forgotten |
Sift the cocoa, cater sugar, flour, almond meal and bicarb together until they are soft and free flowing. Get rid of all the lumpy misshapen freaks that were living with them. I put them in the bin, that's what I do with freaks around here. Then mix the dry with the wet or the wet with the dry whichever bowl is bigger folks, that's how I determine that type of thing.
Stir them. Don't beat them, it's not their fault. Fold in the berries and the chopped chocky until they are all one, at peace, finding a place of inner calm.
 |
| Jesus - look at those crags! |
Pour into your novelty pan. Try and ignore that growing sense of unease at the the fiddly little shapes that your really, really wet batter is flowing into and instead think about Ryan Gosling. Mmm Ryan Gosling.
Place gingerly in the oven and bake for an hour - or if you're me, about 50 mins.
 |
| I am going to chop you in half Mummy |
Try and prevent Darth Vader from jumping around near your cooking cake - cakes don't like that shit.
And neither do mothers.
I was running late for a meet up with my Mum and so had to do one of those cake reveals that Masterchef has made famous - it's therefore appropriate that this is one of their recipes. I took the cake with me "en novelty tin" and unsheathed it at the park. The whole process was fraught.
Did I mention that the tin is silicone - and a bit on the bendy side. Perhaps not. Anyway, it was touch and go getting it out.
 |
| ex novelty tin |
 |
| "en novelty tin" |
It doesn't look that great does it? It had a certain ruined castle charm to it, mainly because of all the air bubbles, but I was hoping for... um... I really don't know.
Then I iced it and made it worse I think.
 |
| You... killed... me... |
There was something Shakespearean about the cake after the icing - melodramatic. Reminded me of Macbeth for some reason.
 |
| And the walls ran with blood and entrails... |
| Anyway - it tastes fucking weird with the mayo and it's not worth the bother. So there you go. Case closed. |
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