The Sinfulness of Chocolate ⋆ Our Growing Paynes

Chocolate is a veg, right? I mean it starts as a plant so it should count as part of our five a day. Just like wine is fruit because it comes from grapes. Hands up from those that are with me on this. Anyone?

Because I completely forgot to do a birthday cake for our daughter earlier in the year I decided to make up for it when we celebrated a bunch of family birthdays a few weeks ago. You know, she never said a word. Once the lightbulb went off I felt really guilty. A familiar feeling, I’m sure, for many parents. Our daughter is a massive fan of chocolate, particularly dark chocolate I decided to go for a chocolate cake with ganache and raspberries. Unsurprisingly, she was on board with this idea.

After doing a bit of research online and realising the recipes are pretty basic, making me wonder why I haven’t made it before, I used this guide from Add a Pinch to create my dessert. I also made a chocolate cake as a base for this. The difference between the glaze and the filling are the ratio between the cream and chocolate. This is not a low calorie treat!

I did the filling first. In a saucepan, gently heat a 1 cup/8oz of heavy or double cream with 2 tablespoons/1oz of butter. Don’t boil or scald but heat until the butter is melted.

In a large bowl add 2 cups/11oz of white chocolate. Pour the cream mixture over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate has melted and everything has blended together. If you would like you can also add a couple of tablespoons of flavouring, I didn’t to this stage because of the other flavours that I was putting together.

Chill until it has a thick spreadable consistency. Spread on the first layer of the cake and add a layer of fresh raspberries.

For the glaze, redo the cream and butter. Pour it over a cup/6oz of dark chocolate along with 2 tablespoons/1-2oz of spiced rum and a pinch of salt. Mix well. This will be very liquid so it will need to be chilled a bit so it doesn’t completely run off the cake when you pour it on.