One-armed baking

Well, I’ve been a bit quiet because unfortunately I managed to break my wrist a month ago. Not only is it slightly awkward looking after a small child but it also makes baking a little tricky. I have managed however to make three test bases for Dan and Fran’s wedding cake! I was struggling with the white chocolate mud cake base – it’s so huge that the centre really did seem to turn to mud, or perhaps more the texture of clay. I seemed to have cracked this though by reverting to the fan assisted oven. I’d decided a while ago that a conventional oven cooked cakes more evenly – this is of course true with your average sized cake but not the beasts I’d been working with.

I couldn’t resist having a go at Mary Berry’s American wedding cake just in case it was a better base. Unfortunately again I didn’t use the fan and the centre was more like a Warm chocolate pudding! Still, it had a great reception from our builders – Dougie said ‘it just melts in the mouth’ – hmmm, perhaps that’s not the desired effect but it still tasted good.

I only made the base which took a whopping 22 eggs.

Ingredients:

17 eggs, separated
5 whole eggs
1 lb 9 oz (700g) Caster sugar
2 lb (900g) good plain chocolate, broken and melted
1 lb 1 oz (475g) ground almonds
4 1/2 teaspoons black coffee (I left this out as Dan doesn’t like coffee)

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees, lightly grease and line a 30cm tin.
Measure yolks, whole eggs and sugar into a large bowl and whisk until thick and light. Add slightly cooled chocolate and coffee (or not).
In a separate bowl which the egg whites until stiff, not dry and fold carefully into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about 1 1/2 hours.

I didn’t bother icing the cake as it was just a test but here’s the ingredients for the three tiers (you need huge bowls):

30 eggs, separated
8 whole eggs
2 lb 13 oz (1.27 kg) Caster sugar
3 lb 9 oz (1.6 kg) good plain chocolate, broken and melted
1 lb 14 oz (840 g) ground almonds
7 1/2 teaspoons black coffee
8 oz (225 g) apricot jam, sieved

Divide the mixture between 15cm, 23cm and 30cm deep round cake tins, lined with greaseproof paper. the large cake will bake for 1 1/2 hours (cover loosely with foil for an hour), the medium for about an hour and the small for about 45 minutes. They can all go in the oven at once – the large on the middle shelf and the other two on the top (depending on how big your oven is of course!)

Icing:
2 1/2 lb (1.25 kg) plain chocolate, broken
1 lb (450 g) unsalted butter
Melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl over boiling water add the butter and stir until melted. Place each cake on a cooling rack and pour over the icing, smoothing with a palette knife.

Well that’s enough awkward typing for me, the next post should be Dan and Fran’s successful wedding cake in a week or two!