On Monday, boy no1 asked me, "Papa, why haven't you used the peppermint essence that you bought?". Considering the essence was bought like 6 months ago, I am amazed that he remembers it even exists. Coincidentally, my mother overheard the conversation, and said she too had a "craving" for mint chocolate cake.
So, following the recipe in Australian Women's Weekly, here it goes.
Firstly, looking at the recipe, I couldn't figure out if the quantities were correct, coz a mental calculation told me it sounded way not enough. This quantity is for 2 loaf pans of 26 x 8 cm. I used a 26 x 12 cm pan, and the cake was very small. Shallow.
So, I recommend either doubling or 1 ½ ing the quantities.
Cake:
125gm butter
100 gm dark/cooking choc
3/4 cup castor sugar (got sugar shortage in Malaysia at the moment, so might want to reduce further)
1 cup water
1. Melt the above ingredients together in a saucepan over low to medium heat, until all combined. Should be quite a fast process. I suspect you can do it in the microwave as well.
3/4 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 beaten egg
2. Unbelievably simple as this may sound, whisk together the melted stuff with the above combination of dried sifted stuff, plus the egg. When all combined, poured into the prepared loaf pans (or in my case, pan).
3. Bake on low oven (i set it at 160C) for 30-40 mins.
Peppermint Cream
Now, oddly enough, I had to HALVE this recipe. Quantities below are already halved.
65 gm butter
1 ½ cups sifted icing sugar
1 table spoon milk
1/2 teaspoon peppermint essence
Beat the butter until pale and creamy. Add in icing sugar and milk, and beat until creamy. Add in essence as well. Now, don't be like me, and try to be smart. As it was my first time handling peppermint essence, I thought, huh? ½ teaspoon? Where got kick!!!!
So I put in 1 teaspoon instead, and as it turns out, it was BITTER and HOT. So, stick with 1/2 teaspoon. Had to redo the whole thing.
Chocolate ganache - Melt 150gms chocolate with 1/2 cup cream, and dash of peppermint as well.
When cake is cooled, slice halfway horizontally, to get two layers. Spread 2/3rds of peppermint cream in between, like a sandwich, and another strip along the top. Pour ganache over the whole thing.
Verdict: Initially I thought it was going to be a disaster, but it turned out really well. Sorry about the crappy picture, aesthetically one could do loads more to make it look better. But taste wise, yummy.
10 comments:
Ah, this is the one from the Wicked cookbook. Looks really yummy.
By the way, I was thinking you should try to add durian cream/custard to yr puffs, am sure the kids will love it.
yar you're right, the wicked indulgences one i think. but aitelyu ah, these women weekly sometimes replicate their recipes. i actually got this one out of the mini chocolate cookbook. (AWW one la). the other publisher that really pisses me off in terms of replicating is H&H series. they're all different permutations of the same thing.
as for durian cream, yar, its crossed my mind many times to do that, but the kids not big fans of durian though.
slurp! looks yummy! wanna try this tonight! malangnya, my peppermint essence is in another house, so no access to it for some time... must KIV this.
as for the cream puffs (yes i know should comment there, but malaslah, sorry), my recipe's exactly the same as yours, except it uses almost double the qty of butter. so unhealthy hor. I make mini ones, and stuff a canned longan in there together with the custard. assuming you like longans, it's yummy!
yar, snowie, the cake wasnt bad at all. imagine, my kid complained it was too chocalatey.
actually, choux pastry is so versatile, its almost the jeans of the pastry world...can fit almost anything into it. i've served them with savoury salmon mousse before oso, as starters. not that size la.
by the way, that hand isnt my hand. it's my 3½ old's hand, lest u think its so gigantic, the puff.
teehee... i DID think it was yours! was trying to compute how you got 10 puffs, cos like i said, my recipe is the same and i get about 30 mini ones. patut-lah... it's a baby hand!!
salmon mousse! yum! must add that to list of possible dishes for mum's birthday high tea.
HAHA, wonder who else thought it was MY hand.
wicked indulgence! yeah i have this one. I've been meaning to make this but never remembers to buy the pepermint essence.. Now, I'll quickly go grab it!!
swee, let me know how you fared with the quantities. coz i am SURE the quantities in the cook book are a bit dodgy.
spot and i made this last night!
did 1 recipe in a 20x20cm cake tin, it WAS quite flat, so i panicked and instead of cutting into 2 like i intended, i cut into 3 and stacked them up, so ended up with a TALL 3-layer cake! but small lah, only about 7x19cm. i think the proportions are probably ok, cos it's not meant to be a super high cake? looking at your cake tin, it's 1.5 times the size of the recipe's, maybe that's why your cake was very shallow? dunno lah, what does the pic in the cookbook look like?
anyway, i LOVE the peppermint cream, so simple but so yummy! the cake i thought was a bit too rich (agree with your kid there!), probably didn't help that i used good 70% cocoa chocolate from italy... i think my tastebuds are more used to cheap malaysian cooking chocolate with questionable ingredients!
anyway, all in all a good cake i think, and one i would definitely make again (with cheepo chocolate). thanks very much for the recipe! :)
spot and snowdrop, glad you liked the recipe. yar, i was also gonna do it in a 8inch sq pan....then i found my virgin loaf pan, so i had to use it. yarrrr, the peppermint cream so simple and so nice hor. i never knew a dash of peppermint essence could make so much difference. glad u liked it.
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