Momma's Special Chocolate Birthday Cake

Momma's Special Chocolate Birthday Cake

Sunday 22 February 2015

Here we are again with a brand new recipe! We can't believe we are almost at the end of February already; where is the time going? However, the end of February means that it is time for our mom's birthday! To celebrate this Caitlin has made the most awesome dairy free cake we have ever tasted, a delicious chocolate fudge cake!



Birthday chocolate fudge cake

The sponge here is incredibly moist, and is enclosed in a deliciously thick and super rich icing which is so fudgy the smallest slice is needed for maximum impact! There are no pictorial instructions for this cake as we were too excited to get this in the oven and bake it before we remembered, so the post is just littered with scrumptious photos of the finished cake instead! This one is for you momma, happy birthday xxx

Ingredients:

For the cake:

-200g dark chocolate-

-200g dairy free butter-

-4 eggs-

-1 tsp  vanilla extract- 

-325g caster sugar-

-175g self raising flour-

-1 tsp baking powder-

45g cocoa powder-

For the icing and filling:

-300g icing sugar-

-150g dark chocolate-

-150g dairy free butter-

-15g cocoa powder-

-1 tsp vanilla extract-

Method:

For the sponge:

1) Grease and line two cake tins and preheat the oven to 180°C.

3) Sieve the cake's dry ingredients together and set aside.

2) Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a bowl over a double boiler and leave to cool slightly.

3) Whisk the eggs and vanilla together until frothy, add the sugar and whisk again until thick. The mixture should leave ribbons.

4) Fold the chocolate and butter mixture into the whisked eggs, then fold in the sieved dry ingredients until fully combined.

5) Pour the mixture evenly between your two tins and bake for 25 minutes until light and springy, or when a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin.

6) When cool, take the cakes out onto a cooling rack and peel off the liner paper.

For the icing and filling:

1) Pop the icing sugar and butter into a bowl.

2) Melt the chocolate over a double boiler and then pour over the butter and icing and mix until combined.

3) Add in the cocoa powder and vanilla and again mix until fully combined.

4) Spread a thick, even layer over the top of one of the sponges and sandwich the other sponge on top.

5) Spread the rest of the icing over the cake and down the sides until fully covered and looking glorious!

We hope you enjoy this ridiculously delicious cake as much as we do and enjoy baking it in a slightly different style to normal!

Happy Baking!

xoxox

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Genius Gluten Free Pains Au Chocolat Review

Genius Gluten Free Pains Au Chocolat Review

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Since becoming dairy free, continental style breakfasts have gone out of the window. Traditional croissants contain huge amounts of butter so they are completely out of the window. So coming off a massive fail of trying to make croissants (the dough wouldn't stop rising for 2 days and we ended up with bread...) seeing these pains au chocolats peaked our interest. The pains au chocolats, as they are Genius are predominatly made for the gluten free market. This comes as no suprise to us as pretty much everything on the shelves that are dairy free are gluten free too (why would you only make one if you can cater to both markets?). The packaging doesn't claim to be dairy free (is produced in a factory that handles milk so cannot guarantee milk free) but as long as you do not have an allergy or an intense intolerance you should be fine. The taste test was from me (Heather) and our little brother Joe, who is also dairy intolerant.



Pains Au Chocolat Packaging

The pain au chocolats had the same size as normal pain au chocolats, and also had the same appearance. The pain au chocolats required 10 minutes in the oven at 190°C, to cook through and melt the chocolate in the middle.  

Before baking out of packaging

So after 10 minutes we took the pains au chocolats out of the oven. They had become darker in colour and more golden brown, like you would expect from a traditional pain au chocolat. The size was the same still and was piping hot throughout.

Out of the oven and cooked through

So here we get to the actual tasting. The pains au chocolats tasted nice but there was a few bits that both me and Joe were slightly disappointed with. The amount of chocolate inside was pretty dismal. As you can see from the photo below there was a thin layer of chocolate at the bottom of the pain, which considering there was alot of pastry inside the pain I for one found this dissapointing, yet Joe still loved this regardless as chocolate is chocolate! The other thing that disappointed me as a person who eats gluten was the texture. I completely understand that gluten free products will have a completely different texture, but this was quite claggy and sometimes hard to chew. For the product in hand and actually being able to eat a pain au chocolat again it was something I could and can live with, but I would just love some normal textured replacement food soon! This was a treat for me on New Years Day after a heavy New Years Eve and did help to quell the slushy stomach I had at the time. Joe enjoyed this product alot, he had never really eaten anything along the lines of croissant/ pain au chocolat before as these were unavailable when he was younger, and I think he enjoyed the aspect of something new to try that wasn't going to make him ill.



Pain au chocolate cut through the middle

For the sake of eating something that resembles normality, I did enjoy the pains au chocolats, as sometimes, as im sure quite a few of you will agree that you just want to feel a bit normal and not sat on the restricted diet train! These pains are not exactly healthy, but you can't really expect something with that much pastry, gluten free or not to be healthy! These pack a punch at 388kcals per pain, so would be a once in a while breakfast treat (I'm thinking Sunday morning in bed!). I feel like I struggle with the texture more than my brother as up until last year I was eating regular food and regular croissants! If you are gluten and dairy free however these are a good alternative to pains au chocolats and the only ones I have seen on the supermarket shelves. I would repurchase these again and would urge you to try the croissants in the brand (We have tried these and preferred them, liberal dairy free chocolate hazelnut spread applied!) As they are the best alternative you can get at the moment to normal all butter croissants that we know about! We bought these in Sainsburys and currently cost £2.49 which is pretty steep, but Genius products tend to be on the more expensive side in our experience. 

Pain au chocolat layer peeled apart

Overall I would rate this a 7/10, with more chocolate and a better gluten free texture would bump up the score further.

We hope this has been useful for you and opened your eyes to some other options available on the market for the dairy free crowd!

Happy Baking!

xoxox

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