Jo’s birthday cake ’08

Well, a year seems to have passed since Jo’s 30th, and the cakery that got this website started.

This one isn’t quite so big as last year’s birthday cake. It’s even missing the middle, thanks to the deployment of a ring tin. Might have been better in a bundt tin, but I ain’t got one. Will have to invest, maybe for your next birthday cake Jo.

This was basically the Marbled Chocolate Ring Cake recipe from Mary Berry’s Ultimate Cake Book, but replacing her nonsense margarine with butter. (Seriously Mary, you’re a star, but marg? We might be in a recession, but there’s no need for such WWII rationing-esque culinary barbarism.)

Her mix is a nice reliable all-in-one sponge, then divvied up, with cocoa added to one half. I also added vanilla essence and finely grated white choc to the white mix, and finely grated dark choc to the brown mix. Her icing is a nice simple 150g plain choc/1T water/100g butter mix, slowly melted then poured over. Her recipe then has milk choc melted and piped over the dark icing, but I used white choc. I was hoping to drizzle it, but white choc is hard to melt without it seizing, and I didn’t want to push it. It didn’t get runny enough to drizzle, so my haphazard piping skills came into play. Hence the slightly random white comedy decoration. Some sugared violets, a bit of grated milk choc (posh Earl Grey-flavoured stuff Fran got from a chocolaterie in Paris), then naff candles to finish. All quite jolly, if I do say so myself.