Last week it was Halloween. A few days before that it was also our Wedding Anniversary. * years! The idea to combine George's love for weird creepy crawly looking fossils and my love of chocolate just came naturally.
This was my first attempt at making a decorative cake, and I have to say, George and I did a rather good job. He drew the template of the trilobite and drew the skeleton of the trilobite on the cake with white chocolate. I baked the chocolate cake, shaped it and covered the cake with marzipan and chocolate ganache.
The chocolate cake wasn't too sweet, and extremely chocolate-y. It was moist and rather fluffy because of the meringue mix. Please do try this recipe, it is from Keiko Ishida's Okashi cookbook.
Ingredients:
Batter
35g of good pastry flour or top flour
50g of unsweetened cocoa powder
100g of dark chocolate pieces (55% cocoa and above)
80g of unsalted butter
40g of castor sugar
4 egg yolks
50g of whipping cream (that has about 35% of fat)
Meringue
4 egg whites
100g of castor sugar
Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C. Prepare your baking/cake pan of your choice. Line the sides with parchment paper. I used my silicone cake tin so no additional preparation was needed.
2. Sift the cocoa powder and the flour together, twice.
3. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water (bain marie). Once the chocolate and butter has melted, add the sugar, egg yolks and cream and mix well until smooth. Set aside.
4. Make the meringue. Beat egg whites until foamy. Add half the sugar and continue beating for a few more minutes. Then add the remaining sugar and beat until the egg whites are glossy and stiff peaks form.
5. Add 1/3 of the meringue mix into the chocolate mixture and fold with a whisk until smooth. Add the flour and cocoa powder and fold in thoroughly. Add in the remaining meringue and fold in gently until just incorporated. You don't want to lose the lovely air in the meringue - this will make the cake moist and fluffy.
6. Pour the batter into your cake pan and bake for about 45-50 minutes. Its best to check the check with a toothpick in the centre - if the toothpick comes out clean, then the cake is ready.
7. Remove from oven, unmould from pan and leave to cool on a wire rack.
8. Dust cake with icing sugar, slice and serve with some whipped cream or garnish as desired.
Trilobite Genesis:
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| I used the template that George drew to shape the cake. |
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| I covered the cake with marzipan and made the tail and ridges. |
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| I covered it with chocolate ganache and left it in the fridge to cool. |
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| George made the outlines with piped white chocolate details of the trilobite. |
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