Chocolate Crunch Torte

Proper chocolate...  Delia wrote this recipe years ago and I made it for the first time too many years ago.  Let's not get into how many years I'm talking about but it's a classic recipe.  We have a similar recipe in the family since I was a child.  It is very easy to make, simply because there is no baking.  It can be easily done the night before if you have limited time on the day.  If you take out the rum, it's a perfect cake for a kids party.   You just need to find very good quality chocolate that has about 70% cocoa solids.
However, I have to warn you, it's a very rich chocolate cake so you may want to have small slices.

Chocolate Crunch Torte
(Serves about 12)

400 g dark chocolate with about 70-75% cocoa solids - broken into little pieces

150 g chopped or sliced almonds

100 g tinned sour cherries

60 g raisin- soaked in water a day before

1 tablespoon of rum

100 g butter

250 ml double cream - lightly whipped

250 g oat biscuits chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla sugar

about 1-2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to dust

In a non-stick pan, roast the almonds for few minutes over medium heat.  Stir them often, otherwise they will burn really quickly.  When they are done, leave them to cool.

Start melting the chocolate and butter in a bowl that sits over a saucepan filled with simmering water.  Melt the chocolate with the butter until it's smooth. After that remove the chocolate bowl and set it aside to cool down for few minutes.  If the chocolate starts to get hard and not so glossy anymore, don't worry.  Next step will make it smooth again. 

Add the double cream, rum and vanilla sugar to the melted chocolate-butter mix and stir very well. 

Next, add the raisins, cherries, chopped biscuits and almonds into the mixture.

The best is to use a cake tin with a loose base (20 cm - 8''), that is lightly greased with butter.  Pour the cake mixture into the cake tin as evenly as possible.  

Cover it with a folio and put it in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours, preferable over the night. 

Take it out 15-20 minutes before you serve.  Dust over it with some cocoa powder.  

This rich cake is even more delicious when served with whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Fudge Cake

So here is why I almost didn't sleep this past week.  I had to bake, bake and bake. There wasn't much cooking other than fixing some easy meals but a lot of baking.   My daughter and husband have their birthdays in the same week, so I really had to bake.  Ok, if I had to be honest, I could have just bought the stuff, but that would be too easy.  Instead, I decided to challenge myself and bake it all.  First, I had to bake some muffins for my daughter's playgroup and I have followed a muffin recipe from Delia for the muffins.  As usual, me being me, ended up changing it slightly and made it a chocolate muffin with Smarties on top.   My little girl has ordered it like that, so there had to be smarties involved.  I also had to double the amount of all the ingredients that were given in the recipe, because the original is for mini muffins.  In the end the muffins looked like these in the picture below.  I definitely recommend this recipe as it's very chocolate rich and very light at the same time.

Then I had to make a cake for my daughter's birthday.  She wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate on it and in it and over it.   My nightmare was that it would turn out to be a disaster as it happens in most of my baking cake attempts.  I looked up all my recipe books for all kinds of chocolate cake recipes.  I searched the internet for all sorts of chocolate cakes.  Although I was very determined to follow the recipe this time, I couldn't find anything that I can follow from the beginning to the end. In the end I decided to try something out by taking something from each recipe that I thought might work.  It was a little risky but well...  In the end it was probably the best cake I have ever baked.  The cake photo you see above was taken at one o'clock in the morning.  It took me almost 5 hours to do it and most of that was waiting for things to cool down, but it was all worth it in the end.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

For the cake:

4 eggs

200 g butter  ( a little less than a cup of butter)

175 g sugar (makes a little less than a cup of sugar)

a pinch of salt

3 tablespoons of cocoa powder

1 teaspoon of baking powder

300 ml milk (about 1,5 cup of milk)

350 g flour ( about 3 cups of flour)

For the frosting:

400 g dark chocolate - roughly chopped (70% cocoa chocolate) (makes about 2,5 cups)

300 g crème fraîche - (about 1,5 cups)

150 g butter (about 1/2 cup)

The cake:

Start with melting the butter in a sauce pan and leave it to cool down.  Whisk the eggs for about 2-3 minutes then add the sugar.  When the mixture gets thick and creamy, whisk in the butter very slowly, then add the milk.  In another large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and the cocoa powder.   Afterwards add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and stir.  Put this mixture in a 24 cm (9¨) cake pan and put it in a pre-heated oven at 180° (350° F - gas mark 4) for about 45 minutes.   Afterwards leave it to cool for a while before you slice it into 3 horizontal pieces to make your 3 layers. 

The frosting:

First, you need to melt the chocolate in a bowl, that is sitting on a saucepan of simmering water.   The bowl shouldn't touch the water.  Allow the chocolate melt slowly and once it's all melted remove it from the heat and stir in the butter.  Butter will melt with the heat of the chocolate.  When the butter is all melted, add the crème fraîche to the mixture and stir it really well.  Allow the sauce to cool down a little until it's creamy enough to spread. 

When you are ready to finish the cake, spread some of the chocolate sauce on the first layer, put the second slice of the cake then spread that one also with some of the chocolate sauce.  Finally put the last slice on top and spread the rest of the sauce on the cake with the help of a palette knife or a spatula.  

Leave it to cool for few hours before you serve.  You can also add some other decorating items on top of the chocolate sauce, such as crushed walnuts, almonds or coconuts, etc.  I had to put some candy animal figures for my daughter on this one (which are not pictured here). 

You can keep this cake in the refrigerator up to 5 days. 

Enjoy your chocolate feast.