Woooh! My favourite time of the week! Blogging time. I honestly hang out for these hours, I spend on my bed with a hot cup of honey ginger tea, a warm wheat pack and some music.
I was so happy and so amazed at the way this cake turned out! At the end of the day I stood back and admired my creation. I gave myself a little high five, thinking you nailed this one Linz!
This cake was an order for 2 little girls who are twins. Their mother was my hockey coach in my junior days at high school.
She wanted something with caramel and chocolate and wanted it decorated with butterflies. So with many days thinking, dreaming, creating and designing this cake. I think my best cakes are the ones I have a long time, to think about the cake.
I also love the food photography shoot! Who would think that vibrant blue would pair so well with the green butterflies. I thought to myself go bold or go home.
This cake is a caramel mud cake, filled with dulce de leche filling, frosted with salted caramel vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, drizzling caramel and lime curd. Garnished with lime segments, green and blue sprinkles, chocolate and green butterflies crawling along the cake and then over the lace chocolate tunnel.
I look at my original design and back then when I was designing it, I was like man this one is going to be challenging. But with good patience and good attention to detail, this turned out perfect!
I love how the Lacey butterflies make it look very sophisticated and technical, they were actually a lot of fun to make, but very time consuming!
I love the green butterflies crawling up the chocolate lace tunnel, the green really stands out from the tunnel and helps define they are butterflies.
Sweet, so I have two recipes for you today! Woooh!
Recipe:
Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
You can find the tutorial for this icing in this blog entry,
Lime Curd:
You can use your traditional lemon curd recipe if you have one, just substitute the lemon juice and rind for lime juice and rind.
3 free range egg yolks
3 free range eggs
1 cup caster sugar
3 Tablespoons lemon zest
100g unsalted butter, cubed (cold)
Method:
Combine the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice and zest in a heatproof bowl (preferably glass because you can see your mixture)over a double boiler.
(over simmering water not boiling).
Heat the egg mixture stirring constantly so the eggs don't scramble. When the mixture is fully incoperated (you know when it is ready when you can draw a line down the back of the spoon) That is a good mum's trick!
Add a small amount of butter to the mixture and whisk constantly adding one cube of butter at a time. Mix until the mixture starts to thicken up and the butter is all used up!
Caramel Mud Cake
This cake is very dense and very rich, so pair it with a light frosting or a fruit compote to lift it up a bit.
Makes: 2 shallow 15cm cakes
250g butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup milk
200g white chocolate
2 cups plain flour (sifted)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tsp salt
3 eggs lightly beaten
Method:
Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Put butter & sugar and milk over heat and cook until the butter has melted.
-Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. (DO NOT BOIL)
-Transfer to a new bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.
-Sift the flour, baking powder and salt over the cooled white chocolate mixture.
-Add vanilla and eggs.
-Grease 2x 15cm cake tins. Pour half the mixture into each tin. Weigh as you pour the mixture into the tin for accurate size cakes.
-Bake for 1 hour. Then loosely cover with tinfoil (this prevents the crust from burning) and continue to cook until a skewer comes out clean.
-Once its cooked, place the cakes on wire racks and allow to cool before you assemble.
Till next time lovelies..
LINZ x x
