Monday 31 December 2012

How to decorate your New Year's Eve cake


I'm not sure where I got the idea to turn a normal chocolate mud cake into something more boozy with the edition of mulled wine, but it has been floating around in my head for a while now! So I decided to give it a whirl for New Year's Eve and, even if  I to say so myself, it is a triumph, the wine isn't too overpowering and the boozy sultanas are deliciously squidgy. 

Mulled wine chocolate mud cake

Ingredients


Mulled wine:

  • 600ml red wine
  • 100g sugar
  • 60g sultanas
  • 6 cardamon pods
  • 6 cloves
  • 1 stick cinnamon
  • freshly squeezed juice of an orange

Cake:

  • 230g good quality dark chocolate
  • 150g unsalted butter
  • 400 ml mulled wine
  • 2 large eggs
  • 160g sugar
  • 260g self raising flour

Ganache:

  • 200ml mulled wine
  • 400g good quality dark chocolate

Method:

  • Add all the mulled wine ingredients into a saucepan and gently simmer for 30 mins. Strain the wine keeping the sultanas but discarding the cloves, cardamons and cinnamon.
  • Grease and line a 7" cake tin.
  • Preheat the oven to 170C/325F
  • Place 400ml of the mulled wine, the chocolate and the butter into a saucepan and gently heat until the chocolate and butter have melted. Leave to cool slightly.
  • In a bowl lightly beat the eggs, slowly add the melted chocolate mixture beating well.
  • Beat in the flour and sugar.
  • Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 40-45 mins until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin.
  • Melt the chocolate and beat it as you slowly pour in the wine, (which should also be hot.) Beat until they are combined.
  • Take half the ganache and stir in the sultanas.
  • Cut the cake in half and pour over the ganache with the sultanas. Put it into the fridge to harden.
  • Place the other half of the cake on top (I turn the cake upside down so the top becomes the bottom as you may find it cracks a little) and pour over the rest of the ganache.
  • Decorate by splashing the cake with edible gold paint.






















I wanted to decorate the cake in quite a simple manner, as you want to be able to spend most of the day primping and preening yourself and not a cake. Fortunately I always have some spare cookie dough in the freezer, so I decided to use that rather than messing about with fondant. You will need to use a fairly stiff dough so that it keeps it shape, of course you could spell out the new date rather than a countdown, or even make a Valentine's Day version with your initials.

Decorating




























I hope you have a lovely celebration tonight and that there is a wonderful, cake filled year to come for you.
You can download a pdf of the recipe here.


xxx

7 comments:

  1. That looks like a very yummy cake - I might try it for my birthday. Wishing you a very happy New Year. Betty x

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  2. Very good. Have a nice New Year.

    Kisses.

    Olga

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  3. What a fun cake for the new year! Happy New Year Natasha and keep posting those lovely creations!

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  4. That's a super cute cake! I love your photography.

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  5. That looks divine! ^_^ xx
    http://rainingcakeandcookies.blogspot.co.uk/

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  6. Looks and sounds so yummy!
    Happy New Year! May all your dreams come true...

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  7. Thanks - these are some ideas I hadn't thought of before: using mulled wine in a baked item and decorating with counting down numbers. Very clever.

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