• Home Grown

Displaying items by tag: truffles

Tuesday, 30 April 2013 00:00

Meet Cheryl - our Chocoholic Dish of the Day

Cheryl creates a wonderful range of chocolates, scrumptious cakes and brownies at Artistry in Cocoa. Newmarket which we mentioned earlier.  And here is her recipe:

Chocolate Cake with Ganache topping and Chocolate Dipped Strawberries.

For the Chocolate Victoria sandwich:
4 eggs
Softened Butter or margarine or a mixture of both
Sugar (granulated)
Plain Flour
Cocoa powder
Baking powder
Milk or water

Weigh the eggs.

Weigh out the same weight of butter/margarine and place in your mixing bowl.
Weigh out the same weight of sugar and add to the mixing bowl.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Weigh out the same weight of flour, then remove a tablespoon and replace this with cocoa powder. 

Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and a teaspoon of baking powder together.
Break the eggs into a cup or jug and beat into the creamed mixture one at a time, adding a little of the flour mixture to prevent curdling as necessary. 

Fold in the rest of the flour with a metal spoon. 

Add a tablespoon of water or milk and mix in gently.  Dip your spoon in the mix and hold it above the bowl. The mixture should drop off your spoon to a slow count of 3.  If it takes too long add another spoon of liquid.  If you have accidentally put in a little too much liquid add a small spoon of sieved flour/cocoa.
Bake in greased and lined or greased and floured tins at   190C/fan 170C/gas 5   until the cake springs back to the touch.
Remove from the oven, run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake from the tin if necessary and invert onto a wire rack to cool.   

For the chocolate ganache coating :

200g- 300g milk or dark chocolate and an equal amount of cream.

Break up the chocolate into small pieces, bring the cream to boiling point and pour over the chocolate. 

Allow to rest for about 5 minutes to soften the chocolate then whisk until the mixture is smooth and glossy.  If the ganache is very runny you may wish to leave it to cool further before you cover the cake with it.  This can be done by pouring or spreading. Do not cover your cake until the cake itself is cold.

Melt some extra chocolate gently until it is almost, but not entirely, liquid and stir well to melt out any lumps until the chocolate looks smooth. 

Dip your strawberries holding by the stalks and place directly on the cake.  Please note that the strawberries should be dry or the chocolate will not stick.  If you wish to dip your strawberries in advance then place them onto greaseproof paper so that you will be able to remove them once set.

If you wish to pipe on the cake with the ganache you can make it with a little less cream so it will be thicker and whip it before use.  You can fill the cake with a layer of ganache or you could use sliced strawberries and whipped cream and top with ganache.

Published in Dish of the Day