This one was for my Grandad's 70th Birthday party
Black Bottom Cake
Ingredients
- 225g cream cheese
- 1 egg
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- pinch of salt
- 175g dark chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 cup cocoa
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 100g butter, melted
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp vinegar
Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celcius
Lightly grease 20cm tin
Beat together cream cheese, egg, 1/2 cup of the sugar and the pinch of salt.
Stir in choc chips.
In another bowl sift flour, soda, cocoa and salt then add the remaining sugar, melted butter, water, vanilla extract and vinegar.
Pour flour and cocoa mixture into tin then cream cheese mixture on top.
Bake for 45 mins
Allow to cool before removing from tin.
Ice with chocolate ganache.
The chocolate decorations on top was one of the most fun things I've done with chocolate. First to get the heart shape I folded a piece of paper in half and drew half of a heart and cut it out so when I unfolded it the heart was symmetrical. A trick I learnt in Primary school!!! Then I melted the chocolate and spread it out quite thick (maybe 5mm) on some baking paper. Then waited until it was mostly dry (the chocolate goes shiny and glossy) and lay the heat cutout on top and cut around with a knife. Use a small heart cutter and cut into the shape some around the top left and then I put it in the fridge to set.
The small hearts are slightly thicker. But follow the same process and use the small heart cutter. When they are set use some melted chocolate to attached thick wire to the back. Melt some white chocolate and flick it over the big heart however you wish.
We kept everything refrigerated right up until the last minute because I was paranoid it was going to melt and the heart was going to break. As you can kind of see in the photo below we used a piping nozzle to get the right lean on the heart and then pushed the wired hearts through the hole.
And voila.
