Chocolate Fudge Cake with Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting

The first ever fudge cake that i had was my mum's and i absolutely fell for it! So so yummy that whenever she makes it, it wouldn't last longer than a couple of hours after being cut :D I've never made choc fudge cake myself because i know i'v got mum to do that. I used to think no one could ever beat my mum's fudge cake... Until i came across Sara Phillips's Chocolate fudge cake and had this strong urge to try it out! My mum's recipe had all the ingredients but strong espresso. Guess that was the secret ingredient behind this cake being uniquely fudgy even without the fudge icing.

Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting - stabilized

Whipped cream is something so very easy to make. Of, course you don't need any recipe for whipped cream - it is so simple and beautiful and completely refines pretty much any dessert paired with it! One of the best uses of whipped cream is to frost cakes as you can unbelievably vary it's flavors yet keeping its airy and fluffy texture intact. For example, if you add strawberry puree, you get strawberry flavored whipped cream.. If you add choc ganache, you get chocolate whipped cream... If you add orange juice, you get orange flavored whipped cream and so many more flavors to play with!

Lining a Cake Pan

In most cake recipes, you would have noticed the step (usually after preheating your oven to the desired temperature) that tells you to prepare your cake pan - line your pan with parchment paper/grease your pan, etc.

Some recipes would want you to prepare your cake pan even before you start to measure your ingredients and some recipes include that step after the batter is prepared. But i would say it's best to prepare your cake pan before hand because once a batter is mixed, a lot of chemical reactions take place that could reduce its leavening power and hence produce less rise, so why delay baking?

Chocolate Decorations - chocolate plates

You can make many beautiful decorations with chocolate that you can use for any dessert or cake.
In the video posted in this post, i teach you how to make chocolate plates (and this is the easiest) and i will keep adding more choc decorations in the future...

I have used chocolate plates to decorate my triple chocolate mousse cake as shown below :)

Eggless Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate Glaze

I kept surfing the net looking for a different type of frosting for my cake barring the typical butter cream frosting and when i came across a 'Peanut Butter' frosting for a 'Chocolate Cake' topped with a glossy 'Chocolate Glaze' on smitten kitchen, it made me wonder if CHOCOLATE would pair perfectly with PEANUT BUTTER?

Peanut Butter Frosting

Well, for a peanut butter frosting, you could use either crunchy or smooth peanut butter. I used crunchy natural peanut butter since i always like to engage in a bit of crunch during my eating experience :D I think food with a little crunchy goodness always tastes better as it gives your palate a variety of textures to play with

Eggless Chocolate Cake

Eggs act as the backbone of a cake. The yolks help to combine the batter making the baked cake sleek and creamy, whereas the whites help to strengthen the cake. Sometimes eggs contribute to giving the cake its rise.

Many people avoid eggs in many recipes for endless reasons, be it health, culture, etc. Hence, there are now cake recipes sans eggs for people with such liking. Although adding eggs to cakes makes the final good much better, omitting eggs will still give you a rich and decadent cake.

Churros con chocolate

Churros con chocolate is a traditional Spanish dessert developed by Spanish shepherds many centuries ago. It is also popular in Latin America and France.

Churros are long/spiraled Spanish doughnuts that are deep fried and dipped in hot chocolate sauce or café con leche (Spanish for coffee with milk). They are usually eaten for breakfast or served as a snack.

The chocolate sauce is very succulent and has a consistency somewhere between hot chocolate and chocolate pudding. You can alter the quantity of cornflour added according to how thick you want your sauce to be. The churros are very light and crispy on the outside but so tender on the inside! So you can see how the two elements of this dessert perfectly complement each other.

Panna Cotta dessert

Panna cotta is an Italian dessert which literally means 'cooked cream.' I learnt to make this dessert at Keikos-Cakes and tried it out last week and trust me it is amazingly easy to prepare! It's all just a matter of simmering heavy cream, sugar and vanilla and finally dissolving soaked gelatin and refrigerating it overnight to work its magic.

Tiramisu!

Tiramisu is an Italian layered desert which literally means ‘pick me up’ and metaphorically ‘make me happy’ referring to the caffeine in the espresso and the effect of cocoa used in the recipe. This dessert consists of alternating layers of coffee-soaked ladyfingers (soft biscuits) and a sweet mixture of mascarpone cheese, eggs and sugar.

You must be wondering what I mean by ‘ladyfingers’. Well they are sweet little fairly dry finger-shaped sponge cakes. They are more commonly used in trifles, charlottes and tiramisu.

How to become a perfect Baker - Measuring Ingredients

Cake baking is not a difficult task. Most of us have the misconception that baking perfect cakes is very toilsome. But, it is not! You just have to make sure you have on the dot measurements and follow the procedure precisely. In this post we are going to aim attention at measuring ingredients.