It’s Boo Boo’s Birthday!

 

It was my nieces first birthday a couple of weeks back for which I was asked to make a chocolate cake ‘Only’ for the adult guests.  Ooh, I love making chocolate cake.  I especially enjoy using this particular recipe, taken from a  book I bought a couple of years ago, by Tessa Kiros .  Again, like with all recipes, I only use it as a guide.  I like to experiment with the ingredients, this time  by adding dark rum! mmmmmmmm….

Strawberry Cheesecakes

The cake turned out light, fluffy and really moist.   The added extra of dark rum really worked with the Lyndtt dark chocolate and made the cake seem that  little bit more grown-up.  I split the cake and added Chantilly Creme which is a mixture of whipped double cream and icing sugar.  I covered the cake with an improvised, yet delicious, chocolate butter cream recipe of dark chocolate, cocoa powder, golden syrup, clarified butter and solid butter.

Err, is it just me, but every time I make butter cream icing, I seem to always end up with little butter specs left in the mixture!  I think people are starting to think that it is deliberate as it always happens.  Help!!!!

 

Not for the faint hearted Chocolate Cake

There is actually a cake board under all that chocolate. However I did transfer the cake onto a bigger board which wasn’t too difficult or too messy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was on a roll that night and thought that I would make a few more goodies for all to enjoy.  This included two baked strawberry cheesecakes and a big batch of chocolate and raspberry brownies.

Dangerous Chocolate and Raspberry Brownies

 

 

 

Am I really good enough!

My first real attempt at decorating a cake

OOOhhh! Ok, let me begin!

I come from a background of really good Caribbean cooks and bakers. It is their food and fusion of flavours that has helped develop my passion and appreciation of food. Hopefully I too am a good cook, I pray that I have inherited their technical prowess and it hasn’t skipped a generation.

Recently, I was asked by my mother to decorate a cake for a family function (a christening). Now, it’s great that my mother actually believes in me, but I am hardly the worlds best cake decorator. Nonetheless, I was still very much excited and agreed to do it, but as my first foray into royal icing and marzipan did not go so well, I did experience a spot of self doubt.

All doubts aside, I asked my grandmother for a royal icing recipe and away I was!

Here is my first real attempt, not perfect, but it was well received.

Let me know your thoughts:

Why is it still lumpy???

 

Here is the Royal Icing recipe that I used.

2 Egg Whites

1/2 tsp lime juice ( I actually used a little more.  Alternatively, I am sure that you could use lemon juice)

675g Royal Icing Sugar (Guide amount, I actually used 2 boxes)

1tsp Glycerine to stop the icing becoming rock hard

1tsp Almond Essence

This is just a guide, you could add or omit according to your own taste buds.