Mention Easter and what comes to mind? Chocolate of course – in all shapes and forms – the more the better !
We have a traditional Easter Egg hunt here on Easter Sunday with competition to see who can find, and in some cases, eat the most eggs !
Thankfully the last few years have been dry so the Easter Bunny had plenty of choice when it came to hiding places in the garden.
I even found a few ‘escapees’ a few days after !
After the hunt is over there there has to be coffee and cake – to help the adults recover. And what else could it be except chocolate cake?
This cake is one of my favourites for Easter – it’s one I came up with using a mix of 3 different recipes. I think the cake is from my Ballymaloe Cookery School Course, the icing is a recipe given to me by my friend Nicola and the ‘edging’ is based on a technique that I saw one of my favourites, James Martin, use in making a black forest gateau . Put all three together and you get a little Easter magic.
Easter Chocolate Cake
| No Servings: | 10 slices |
| Oven: | 180 C/170 Fan/Gas 4 |
What you need:
- For the cake
- 110g dark chocolate
- 2 tbsp rum
- 170g butter
- 170g caster sugar
- 3 large free range eggs, separated
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 50g ground almonds
- 110g cream flour, sieved
- For the chocolate decoration
- 350g dark chocolate
- 4tbsp demarara sugar
- 1 tsp peppermint essence
- For the icing
- 170g butter
- 250g icing sugar
- 50g cocoa
- 2 tbsp rum
What you do:
- Firstly make the cake:
-
- Butter the inside of two 18 cm sandwich tins and line the bases with baking parchment
- Melt the chocolate and the rum together in a bain marie and leave the cool slightly
- Cream the butter and the sugar together until pale and fluffy.- I use my trusty Kenwood for this
- Add in your egg yolks, one at a time, making sure they are well mixed in.
- Then add in the cooled chocolate and the almonds. Finally fold in the flour.
- In a clean bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff then add in the tablespoon of sugar
- Carefully add this meringue mix into the chocolate mix using a metal spoon.
- Divide the cake mix between your two sandwich tins and bake for 20 min.
- Leave to cool in tin for 10-15 mins. Then remove from tin and cool completely on wire rack.
- Then make the chocolate shards for around the cake
- Line a baking sheet with cling film.
- Melt the chocolate. Mix the sugar and the peppermint together and stir into the melted chocolate.
- Spread the mix over the baking sheet and leave to set.
- Once the chocolate is set break into different size pieces and use to form edging of cake
- To finish the cake, make your icing:
- Combine butter, sugar and cocoa in food processor. Add enough rum to loosen the mix and give a smooth icing. (you can use milk if you’d prefer)
- Sandwich the two cakes together with the icing. Then spread over the top and sides.
- Arrange the shards around the edges before icing sets.
Decorate the top of the cake as desired – there’s a great variety of mini chickens, rabbits and eggs available at the moment. I would advise getting help from the younger members of the family for this task!
I’m off to find new hiding places….
Happy Easter Cooking!
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Hey Pesto! 