Oh there is a bandwagon...Let me jump upon it! The drip cake...to be fair I have been making these for some time, I just haven't documented about it. So now I will join the masses and write about them.
When your bestie hints that she might like a ‘Kinder’ cake for her birthday you gotta at least try give the girl what she wants!
First up I have to apologise for the lack of photos along the different steps for this recipe – I was functioning on 90minutes sleep after being over in England to film the last in the series of Extra Slice so, to be honest I was doing well to get the cake finished at all!
To try to compensate, I have tried to add as much detail in to the recipe as possible. I will find another excuse to make this cake again pretty soon and I promise to take photos and upload them here as soon as I can!
A few wee notes as always…
· If you don’t have a stand mixer, well hells bells don’t give in just yet, you can have your cake and eat it! (#sorrynotsorry)…just use a large mixing bowl and an electric hand mixer.
· It is advisable to have a sugar thermometer for making the Swiss meringue buttercream. If you don’t have one or frankly are just a bit too scared to try to Swiss meringue buttercream, then by all means just make the standard English butter cream (alternative recipe added at the end).
The cake recipe that I use for this is based on Peggy Porshen’s original recipe. If you make a lot of cake I would highly recommend getting a copy of her ‘Love Layer Cakes’ book. I constantly refer back to it for really reliable recipes and advise!
Also please, www.handletheheat.com do a perfect article on different buttercreams.
Where is the point in me saying the same things in a different way (e.g. she says “wipe the bowl of an electric mixer with paper towel” I’d just be writing “use a paper towel to wipe the bowl of an electric mixer”!!...uni days anyone?!) Anyway, (turns out I shouldn’t do blog work when I was out the night before. I just talk too much sh1t!) go read handletheheat.com’s blog on buttercream. Don’t forget to come back and do this cake though yea?!
OK, rambled on enough. Hope you have as much fun eating the left over sweets as I did! As always, do let me know how you get on. I love hearing from you fellow bakers!
Big love xx
Chocolate cake (4x7” cakes)
130g proper butter (salted)
442g of light brown sugar
130g Dairy Milk chocolate / Callebut milk chocolate chips
180ml milk
4 medium eggs
290g plain flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
¾ teaspoon bicarbonate soda
¾ teaspoon baking powder
Swiss meringue Nutella buttercream
4 egg whites (better to weigh these out, should weigh 150g)
250g granulated sugar
340g butter (unsalted) kept at room temperature
5 tablespoons of Nutella (or similar)
Ganache
100g milk chocolate
70ml whipping cream
Method
1. Grease and line 4no. 7” cake tins using butter and greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 160oC
2. Place the butter and 221g of the sugar into an electric stand mixer (see notes above), leave to beat on medium speed until the sugar and butter are nice and fluffy and a nice pale colour
3. Meanwhile, place the other 221g of sugar, milk and chocolate into a heavy based saucepan and heat under a low heat until the sugar and chocolate have melted. This won’t look overly appealing but trust the process! Promise! (Once this has melted leave it off the heat to cool as you don’t want to add it to the cake mix when it is too hot)
4. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, bicarb and baking powder. Crack the eggs into a jug and mix lightly with a fork
5. Alternate between adding the eggs and flour mix, bit by bit to the butter and sugar mix in the stand mixer until everything is added and mixed well together
6. At this stage it is good to use a spatula to scrape the side of the bowl to ensure all the ingredients are being incorporated well together
7. Run the mixer on a low/medium heat and pour in the melted chocolate mix until the cake batter is combined. Watch for the splashing back!
8. Carefully pour the cake batter evenly between the four tins and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the sponge is well risen and springy to touch. Using a skewer, insert it into the middle of the cake and it should come out with a little bit of crumb to it.
9. Once the cakes are cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10minutes before removing from their tins and placing on a cooling rack to cool down completely
While the cakes are cooling, make the buttercream
10. Place a few centimeters of hot water into a medium sized pan and place over a low heat
11. Making sure the bowl of your stand mixer is scrupulously clean and dry, weigh the egg whites into the bowl and place the bowl over the saucepan ensuring the water is not touching the base of the bowl
12. Add the sugar and mix with an electric hand mixer until the sugar has dissolved and the meringue is hot. The egg whites should be heated to 60oC. This will take anywhere up to around 10minutes or more. Just be careful not to have the water too hot, and keep mixing the meringue constantly or you will end up with cooked egg whites in itty bitty lumps!
13. When the required temperature has been reached, place the bowl back onto the stand mixer, fit with the whisk attachment and whisk at a high speed for 7-10minutes again until the egg whites have cooled
14. Meanwhile, weigh the butter. Once the egg whites have cooled, change from the whisk to paddle attachment and run the mixer on a medium speed. Pinch off small bits of the butter and add one at a time to the mixer, ensuring that the pieces of butter are well mixed before adding the next. Once all the butter has been combined, add in the tablespoons of Nutella, one at a time again ensuring each one is fully mixed before adding the next. (If the buttercream starts to split/curdle keep mixing and it should come back together again)
Assembly
15. Using a sharp bread knife, trim the top crust off each sponge. Aim to make all the sponges the same depth and level!
16. Spread a cake board with a thin layer or butter cream to act as a glue for the cake. Stick the first cake layer on top of the buttercream. Use a palette knife and spread the buttercream filling over the bottom layer. Place the next sponge on top and repeat the layer process with cake and buttercream until the cake has four layers. (To get a nicer finish on the cake, place the top layer of the cake with the trimmed edge facing down)
17. Using a palette knife, pile a decent amount of buttercream onto the top of the cake. Working from the centre, spread the mixture towards the edges of the cake and down the sides.
18. Using a cake scrapper, place it on the far side of the cake with the long straight edge against the cake and the bottom side of the scraper sitting flat on the bench (or cake turntable if you are using one)
19. Pull the scraper towards you, will pushing the cake in the opposite direction, smoothing the frosting until the buttercream is smooth. You’ll probably need to repeat this process a few times to get the cake fully and evenly covered. Once finished leave in a cool place, or the fridge if you have room until you make the ganache for the drip coating
I’m so sorry I don’t have photos of this, I will promise to get them up asap but in the meantime have a wee flick through google / youtube there are loads of vids and pictorials on how to properly cover a cake with buttercream!
Ganache
20. Add the cream to a small milk saucepan and heat under a gentle heat. Meanwhile using a sharp knife cut up the chocolate into small pieces and place into a small mixing bowl
21. Once the cream starts to gently bubble, remove from the heat and pour over the cream. Using a whisk, gently stir the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate has fully melted (If the chocolate doesn’t fully melt, add in a few inches of hot water into your saucepan and heat under a gentle heat. Place the bowl with the chocolate and cream over the water, ensuring the water isn’t touching the base of the bowl. Stir gently until chocolate has melted).
22. Leave the ganache to cool slightly and then take the cake from the fridge. Pour a small amount of the ganache in the centre of the top of the cake and using the back of a metal spoon, coax the ganache out the edge gently and force it to drip over the edge of the cake.
23. Next, take any array Kinder sweets that so tickles your fancy and layer them on top of the ganache. Place some of the left over buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe sporadic spots of the buttercream to build the look on top of the cake. Piping little bits of buttercream on top of the sweets is also useful if you want to use it as a glue to stick numerous layers of sweets on top of each other or just to fill little gaps that look out of place!
Now, devour!
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