Dark Chocolate Layer Cake for Two

 

There is something about chocolate baked goods that makes them very difficult to photograph.  I have never been able to crack the secret to being able to do this successfully, but then again I am not the best at photographing anything anyways!

 

I think I am far too impatient. I could probably spend hours setting up shots and things, planning them, etc.  But me . . .  impatient.  I just want to photograph them so that we can eat them. 

 

I have a very narrow window of opportunity when the daylight is in my favour and it differs  all year round, changing with the seasons. I am usually just getting it sorted and then it changes and I have to fiddle with it all over again.

 

I have never really promised my readers the best food photographs anyways, I don't know why I stress over them as much as I do.  I have only ever promised you great recipes that work and that are delicious.

 

I think I deliver on that most of the time. Anything else is down purely to individual tastes and preferences.  One man's meat being another man's poison and all that.

 

For instance Todd loves chocolate candy but hates chocolate bakes.  I very rarely bake anything chocolate because I know only I am going to be eating it and I don't need to be . . . this cake is the perfect size for such an occasion.  Because it only feeds two.

 

I adapted the recipe from America's Test Kitchen, Complete Cooking for Two.  So you know this recipe is good. Its been triple tested, and tested again.

 

The cake layers are rich and very chocolatey.  I did cut the icing in half. I decided it was enough to just frost the top and the middle, and I added a layer of cherry jam in the middle . . .

 

An homage to my mother who always filled her cakes with jam  . . .  a cake is not a proper cake to me without jam in the middle  . . . even chocolate cake.

 

Cherry jam because  . . .  chocolate and cherries are the quintessential combination.  A marriage of moreishly good flavours . . .

 

This cake is moist and delicious . . .  soft light brown sugar and sour cream make sure of that  . . .

 

 Two kinds of chocolate, a dark baking chocolate with a high cocoa content and unsweetened cocoa powder . . . and just a hint of coffee powder, which we all know intensifies the flavour of chocolate!

   

It may not be the prettiest crayon in the box, but from where I am sitting, this cake gets Five stars all round.  If you like chocolate cake. You are going to love this.

Dark Chocolate Layer Cake

Yield: 2

Author: Marie Rayner

A frosted dark chocolate layer cake built just for two, filled with cherry jam and adorned with  with a rich vanilla buttercream.

Ingredients:

• 45g dark chocolate with a high cocoa count (1 1/2 ounces)
• 3 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder (not chocolate drink mix)
• 1/4 tsp instant coffee granules
• 120ml boiling water (1/2 cup)
• 60g sour cream (1/4 cup)
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 70g plain flour (1/2 cup)
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 4 TBS unsalted butter, softened
• 100g soft light brown sugar (1/2 cup packed)
• 1 large free range egg at room temperature

For the frosting and filling:

• dark cherry jam
• 1 TBS heavy cream
• 3/4 tsp vanilla
• pinch salt
• 8 TBS butter softened
• 130g confectioners sugar (1 cup) sifted

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.  Butter two six inch layer cake tins. Line the bottoms with baking paper. Dust lightly with flour, tapping out any excess.
2. Chop the chocolate and put into a small bowl along with the cocoa powder and coffee powder.  Add the boiling water. Set aside to melt the chocolate and then whisk together until smooth.
3. Sift together the flour, soda and baking powder.
4. Cream the butter with the brown sugar until light and fluffy with an electric whisk.  Beat in the egg.
5. Whisk the vanilla and sour cream into the chocolate mixture.  Add the chocolate mixture to the creamed mixture alternating with the flour mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
6. Divide the batter between the two layer cake tins.  Smooth the tops.  Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.  Leave the tins to rest on a wire rack for 10 minutes before tipping out to cool completely and peeling off the paper.
7. Put all ingredients for the icing into a bowl and beat with an elecric whisk until light and fluffy.
8. Place one cake layer on a cake plate.  Cover with half of the icing. Spoon over some cherry jam to cover. Place the top cake layer on top of the jam.  Spread the remaining frosting on the top of the cake.
9. Cut into wedges to serve.

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @marierayner5530 on instagram and hashtag it #EnglishKitchen

Created using The Recipes Generator

 

Todd makes me laugh.  He sits there eating a huge piece of this cake, saying "You know I don't like chocolate."  But he still eats it and seems to enjoy it. Men!  If I didn't like something there is no way I would be eating it!  Nobody forced him.  😕  Happy Saturday. 

  

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Triple Chocolate Fudge Brownies

 

Raise your hand if you are a big fan of brownies!  I thought so  . . .  me too!  I simply adore brownies of any kind.  I make really good brownies.  When I worked at the manor the Mr liked for me to bake him a pan of brownies at least once every couple of weeks.  I am sure that missed my brownies when I finished working there. 

 

My brownie recipe produces dense, fudgy brownies, depending on how long you cook them for. You can cook them a bit longer if you want cakey brownies, but  . . .  come on  . . .  fudge . . .  

 

I remember attending a cooking show when I lived down South.  The Celebrity Chefs on it were the Tanner Brothers and Paul Rankin, with guest star Vanessa Phelps.  They did a  Brownie Challenge and what they made were not Brownies in my opinion  . . . .  

  

They were wet and gloopy.  You should be able to hold a good brownie in your hands to eat it. It would have been impossible to hold those.  I was most disappointed.  Most disappointed . . . I guess I expected more from Celebrity Chefs than that.

 

What you see here today is my regular brownie recipe amped up with the addition of three kinds of chocolate chips.  Well, semi sweet chocolate chunks, white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. You could use butterscotch chips if you can find them and if you can't find either butterscotch or peanut butter chips, add milk chocolate chips in their place.

 

They get stirred into the batter prior to baking and then when the brownies are finished, you melt a few more and flick them melted  . . .  one at a time over the top . . .  decoratively like  . . .

I wanted to bake something nice for my next door neighbour and her son.  She has been ever so kind to us throughout this pandemic.

 

Whenever she is getting a grocery order, or her friend Julie is going to the shops for her, she always messages me on facebook  to ask me can she get me anything.  That has been a real gift to me.  Milk, bread . . . prune juice, butter, whatever I am in need of.

 

It is really thoughtful of her and I so appreciate it.  Because she has fibromyalgia and diabetes she is on the ultra vulnerable  list and gets delivery slots for things much easier.

 

I would have thought with Todd's age, his cancer, radiotheraphy combined with my diabetes and high blood pressure we would have been on the list as well, but nope! We are not.

 

It doesn't make sense but it is what it is.  In any case Max and Cory have been really good to us and so today I baked these brownies for them to show them just how appreciate we truly are.

  

I hope that they like them!  I confess, I did keep a few back for me, but only a few because one . . .  I am a diabetic and shouldn't eat stuff like this and two, Todd hates chocolate bakes.

Triple Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Yield: 16

Author: Marie Rayner

Moist and delicious with full on chocolate flavour, these are everything a good brownie should be, with three different chocolate chips inside and a glaze of the same after baking!

Ingredients:

For the brownies:

• 240g (1 cup) butter
• 140g (1 cup) plain flour
• 4 ounces good quality bitter chocolate
• 4 large free range eggs
• 400g (2 cups) sugar
• 1 TBS vanilla essence (YES 1TBS)
• Pinch salt
• 45g white chocolate chips (1/4 cup)
• 45g semi sweet chocolate chunks (1/4 cup)
• 45g peanut butter chips (1/4 cup) (if you can't get those, use milk chocolate chips)

To glaze:

• 2 TBS chocolate chips, melted
• 2 TBS  semi sweet chocolate , melted
• 2 TBS peanut butter chips, melted (if you can't get those, use milk chocolate chips)

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/350*F. Grease and flour the bottom of an 9-inch square  baking tin. Tap out any extra flour.
2. Melt the butter along with the chocolate over low heat in a large pot. Allow to cool, then stir in the sugar, eggs (one at a time) vanilla, flour and salt, mixing with a wooden spoon and being careful not to over mix, no more than 50 strokes! Fold in all of the chocolate chips
3. Pour batter evenly into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out a little wet if you want fudgy brownies. Bake until it comes out cleaner if you want cake type brownies, about 40 to 45 minutes for the fudgy ones.
4. Flick the melted chocolates one at a time over the top of the brownies and then place them in the refrigerator to cool completely before cutting into squares to serve.

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @marierayner5530 on instagram and hashtag it #EnglishKitchen

Created using The Recipes Generator

 

If you wanted to, and you had brownie mix in the house, you could just make that and stir the three chocolate chips into them and then melt some to drizzle on the top afterwards.  Not quite as good as these I am sure, but whatever floats your boat! 

 

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