Death by Chocolate - Clandestine Cake Club

WOW, our little cake club has grown! It started out as just 5 people who like to bake, and now look at it! We've been featured in a bunch of magazines, newspapers and websites, and our numbers are growing! We have some exciting new developments coming up as well, so keep your eyes peeled for announcements!

These were the kind of memories this theme evoked! Dress up party! I was a rockstar! But I look like a drag queen...

Our last meeting had a theme that everyone got excited about! Retro and childhood cakes had a lot of people reaching for the old Womans Weekly Birthday cookbook, myself included! We had some gorgeous cakes that so many people pointed at and shouted out "Hey I had that cake!!", it was so nice to bring back so many memories! I had quite a few cakes from that cook, the most memorable being for my 2nd birthday (though not sure HOW I remembered it, must be one of my earliest memories!) I had the train cake, with the coloured popcorn cargo! I loved it! My Mum went to so much effort for that cake... I was proud as punch, until Andrew Monk came and ripped the smoke stack off it and shoved it in his mouth! I cried, he got in trouble, and cried... I don't remember much past that though! Great party!

I decided not to do a cake from that book though, and do chocolate. That seems to be my forte - cakes never mess up when they're chocolate in my house! I remember my friend Jemma having sleepovers when we were a bit older, and she always had a death by chocolate cake from the local bakery. We thought it was just the height of over the top amazing cakes, and it was hands down the most delicious option for a cake, ever. Everyone kept peeking under the cardboard lid at it, wondering when we could have at it. This was the cake I would recreate!

I went with my old favourite, the chocolate red wine cake. I made 2, and sandwiched them together with Rachel Khoo's chocolate mousse. I then covered it in ganache, piped mousse, cream, and cocoa nibs. Death by chocolate indeed.

The recipe for the chocolate red wine cake can be found here.

The recipe for the chocolate mousse can be found here.

Here is what I ended up with! A little wonky with the piping, but a decent result!

We were really lucky to have the venue offered to us by Gregory Bruyer, who also happens to be a photographer! He took some gorgeous pics of all our cakes, including the one above.

Have a look at what our awesome bakers came up with!
*NOTE* The following photos are mine, not Gregory's - his are much better!

A short tale of Kuihs - Red Hot Spatula

As most of you are aware, Carolanne and I organise the Perth Clandestine Cake Club (CCC), and last months theme was gluten free. To see the awesome range we got from our talented bakers, have a look at THIS post. It was a day of cake heaven! One of the cakes that was a real standout was the one that broke the rules of the CCC - ONLY CAKE ALLOWED! These were mini cakes, and as Yvonne from Red Hot Spatula explained, thats just how they are served in Singapore, where they originated. So it was totally fine with us when Yvonne showed up with these renegade cakes. They had a really unique texture, a subtle flavour and loads of fresh coconut mixed with a bit of salt on top. They were really something special!

So you guys are all lucky enough to get the recipe, and this guest post from Yvonne of Red Hot Spatula!

A short tale of Kuihs

Growing up in Singapore, I was always spoilt for choice when it came to food. The absolute favourite time of day –especially weekends- was afternoon tea. In Asia there are dedicated shops selling all manner of savory or sweet delicious bites. 
One huge thing I took for granted was all the gluten free options we had. Back when I was little, gluten was not even thought of as a meal definer. Now, practically every other person you meet wants to have some sort of gluten free option available.

The local bakery – which is now a huge baking franchise in South East Asia – had more than just one or 2 things on their menu which I now know is gluten free. So, feeling nostalgic for tastes of the yesteryear and wanting to create a gluten free option for the Clandestine Cake Club I decided to bring out the Kuih Kosui – a fabulous bite sized cake made with rice flour, green pea flour and tapioca flour with the added plus of being dairy free, as well as using coconut sugar. I did not even know it, but I had hit the motherload of the holy trinity of what a percentage of people are now learning to use (to think I was brought up on this)!
Kuih – the Malay/Bahasa name for cake- is always served in small individual serves and in a variety, being, of course, the spice of life, in comparison to western cakes which are whole and often shared as such.

Now, the story behind the Kuih Kosui is quite interesting – it is a cross culture cake brought in from Indonesia, loved in Singapore and greatly duplicated by everyone.

Asian Kuih’s are mostly steamed, not baked, and always using natural colourings to bring forth a variety of festive colours. Some Kuihs are made traditionally to celebrate weddings, birthdays and even 1 month anniversaries of a baby’s birth. 
I can go on at length and wax lyrical about the history of the Kuihs – because there are heaps and heaps of tasty options, some savoury and some sweet. It’s more interesting to talk about the recipe though!

Ingredients

(A)
180 gm wet rice flour* (knead 105g rice flour with 75ml water and knead it)
50 gm green peas flour
30 gm tapioca flour
240 ml water
1 tsp alkaline water (lye/ki water - from asian shops)

(B)
240 gm dark coconut sugar
540 ml water

To serve
200g fresh desiccated coconut
1/2 tsp salt

Method
Boiled ingredients (B), set aside.

Combine all ingredients (A) and mix well.

Mix in the ingredient (B)in the flour mixture and strain.

Use LOW heat to cook the batter until slightly thick.

Pour into a small tart mould and steam on a high heat for about 15 minutes until cooked.

Steam the coconut for 10 minutes after you remove the Kuihs from the steamer. Mix in the salt and toss well.

Once the Kuihs are cooled, roll them in the dessicated coconut.

Ready to serve!
Check out Red Hot Spatula on their facebook page, as well as at Subiaco Farmers Market where they sell their delicious range of spice pastes! See also this post from Col Panna with a special deal on her products!
 

June Clandestine Cake Club - Gluten free!

What an awesome spread our talented bakers bought to the June Clandestine Cake Club, Perth! The theme was gluten free, which gave us an amazing range of cakes! We expected almond/hazelnut meal cakes but we had a range of cakes made with all kinds of different flours, as well as an espresso roulade made with no flour or nut meal at all, and a raw cake! Big thanks go out to Liv, who hosted this months event - she was the hostess with the mostess!

Our cake club numbers jumped significantly when Renee Bergere of Great About Perth, Agenda City and Scoop featured a write up about us, and we were stoked when there were so many people interested!

What is kinda funny is... you'd expect the organisers of cake club to be fab bakers right? Well, Carolanne is, but of course, my cake didn't work! I made a baked cheesecake with roast pineapple in it, but it WOULD NOT set! ARGH! I learned something though, so now I know for next time to add a lot less pineapple! It goes to show that you do NOT have to be an amazing baker to come to cake club! You just have to have a love for baking and a want to socialise!

We're going to try and get a collection of the recipes, so if you're reading this and you attended, please get in touch if you'd like to include your recipe!

Have a look at the amazing range of gluten free cakes below!

For the recipe for Martines' delicious coffee pecan bundt cake, check her awesome blog Chomp Chomp!

If you're interested in attending the next cake club, then please check in HERE for updates!

Fondant au Mocha

The Clandestine Cake Club of Perth recently had its 2nd meeting, about 6 weeks after we recovered from the first one! We started our cake club with the theme of autumnal fruits, but this time we went as far away as possible from anything remotely healthy. This time, the theme was decadence! What a rich, over the top afternoon! There was some bubbles to start out with, and as an antidote for sugar overdoses, we had some salted nuts and chips stashed away, just in case!

But the stars of the show were obviously the cakes. We had some awesome creations, but the best thing about it was everyones' interpretation of the theme! It was a really impressive display of baking, exactly what the theme demanded! It turns out that our interpretation of decadence has something to do with chocolate and booze!

We had a delicious bourbon chocolate cake, with bourbon cream cheese icing and a bourbon cider jelly on top from Ai-Ling, the brains behind Food Endeavours of the Blue Apocalypse! This was so impressive and such an original idea... The cake was Nigellas' Chocolate Guinness cake, but used bourbon instead! This cake is a go to fave of mine, so I was pretty much sold as soon as I tried it. I was really surprised how well the cider and bourbon went together! Such a great cake! We couldn't help but wobble it every now and again!

Bri of the fabulous blog Eat Meets West made a ridiculously impressive crepe cake, with something like SIXTEEN crepes! WOMAN! You crazy! But it was SO NICE. I thought it would be a bit sickly, as crepes have never agreed with me, but the swiss meringue buttercream between each layer did something to my cakey soul. It was so nice. We needed some teamwork to get the first slice out, but after that it was pretty special. Did I mention the chocolate icing that had been poured all over it? Bitch please.

To follow that was Liv's creation from Col Panna - Caprioska cake! She explained that to her, decadence meant cocktails, so she designed a cake to fit her favourite cocktail! There was lime, vodka in the cake, icing AND a glaze, as well as a coating of sugar with the vodka syrup, to replicate the crunch of the sugar in the cocktail. It was another really creative cake, as well as obviously being delicious! It was a nice change from all the chocolate too!

Then there was fellow organiser Carolanne, of Carolannes Kitchen, who, inspired by a recent trip to see Heston Blumenthal live, replicated one of his recipes - the exploding gateaux! Pop rocks in the base, and she used a water gun to squirt the top of the cake with chocolate! Very cool!

Then finally, my cake, which was a pimped up version of Trish Deseines Fondant au Chocolat. This, along with the choc guinness cake by Nigella is one of my go to choc cakes (along with the choc red wine cake I made last meeting!), because it is so simple, has few ingredients and is totally decadent! It is very rich, which is why its perfect for a Parisienne lady, as she only wants a tiny slice! I changed the recipe, but only slightly. I used almond meal rather than flour to make it gluten free, and to make it a bit more decadent I used espresso in the glaze rather than water. I made a coffee almond praline, blitzed it up and crumbled it on top for some crunch against the fudgy cake!


Here it is below...

Fondant au Mocha


Cake
200g Dark chocolate (minimum 65%)
200g butter (softened)
200g Sugar
1 tbsp hot espresso coffee
5 eggs
2 heaped tbsp almond meal


Glaze
100g Chocolate (minimum 65%)
50g butter
2 tbsp espresso coffee


Praline
1 Cup sugar
1/2 chopped almonds
Rest of the espresso (1-2 tbsp)


Method

1) Preheat the oven to 180C, and prepare a 25cm round cake tin.

2) Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a mixing bowl, set over barely simmering water and pour on the hot coffee.

3) Let it sit until the chocolate is mostly melted, then add the butter. Again, leave it until it has melted then give it a quick, gentle stir to incorporate everything together.

4) Add the sugar and stir well, then break the eggs into the mixture one at a time mixing well after each egg has been added. Finally mix in the almond meal.

5) Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 20-25 minutes, you'll find the cake very moist in the middle - it shouldn't wobble still, but if it does, a couple more minutes and it'll be done! Just keep an eye on it. Note this is not a cake that rises much, and any rise that DOES occur, it falls back pretty flat once its out - don't worry, that's normal!

6) Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin/mould, and if you can, leave it overnight before serving.

7) While its cooling (or while its cooking!) put the sugar and coffee into a pan on a medium heat, and watch it bubble up and thicken into a caramel - DO NOT STIR!

8) Once its thickened, add the almonds and swirl the pan to combine. Pour it out onto grease proof paper and let set.

9) Crack the disc of caramel up, and put it into your blitzing device and blitz away! You decide how fine/chunky you'd like it, but don't go too far with it or it'll feel like you're eating sand!

This is also my entry to the We Should Cocoa challenge! This month the challenge is to pair chocolate with coffee, which is a pretty easy task as I LOVE it together! We Should Cocoa was started by Chocolate Log Blog and Chocolate Teapot but this month is hosted by The Kitchen Maid! 

Pimped chocolate red wine cake

If there are 2 things in life that are meant to be together, it's chocolate and red wine. How many bad days are sorted out by a combination of these 2 magical things? Cake can sometimes fix a crap day too. If you know a monumentally shit day is coming up, then you'd better stock up on red wine and chocolate. and cake. 

Or better yet...

Make chocolate red wine cake!!

It is REALLY good. Moist, not too sweet and rich enough to feel good, but not too rich to make you feel sick. It's fab with ganache. Its just fab. 

This was my contribution to the first meeting of the Clandestine Cake Club. I had read about this cake club on facebook and other blogs, and thought well, why can't we be the first CCC in Australia? So I put it to my dear friend Carolanne, and we held our first meeting in April. Basically, people come bearing cake, and it very specifically states it must be CAKE - not cupcakes or brownies or tray bakes or pies. Cake. The Clandestine Cake Club started small - but its quality not quantity, and that, we had in spades! All the cakes were fabulous, Liv from Col Panna made a BRILLIANT apple pie cheese cake (which S devoured when he got home!), which was layered with caramel, pecans, cheesecake, and stewed apples. It was a OMG moment. Bri from Eat Meets West made a caramalised pear and apple semolina cake, which I had never had before. I loved the texture of the semolina, and found that it was even better the next day! Carolanne from Carolannes Kitchen made a bit of a layer cake extravaganza! Olive oil sponge with orange blossom water, coconut sugar, persimmon cream and delicious ganache. WOOAAH!

The other cakey contributions!

Each meeting has a theme and ours was autumnal fruits, as we wanted to be seasonal and take advantage of all the wonderful fruit we have at the markets at the moment. I chose to adorn my cake with pear and glaze it with the Maggies Place fig jam I got from my Urban Locavore box, being that pears and figs are at their peak right now!

This recipe will make one roughly inch high cake. Considering this was the Clandestine Cake Club, I upped the cake a notch and made the recipe twice, and sandwiched the 2 cakes together with dark chocolate ganache. It was a delicious tweak! I used the ganache recipe from Maggie Beers Harvest book, that goes along with the chocolate fig cake.

This recipe was adapted from the one I found at Smitten Kitchen. There are a few recipes floating around on the net, all pretty similar, so far, all great!

Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup red wine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 generous cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method 
1) Preheat the oven to 160°C, and non stick your tin (I just gave my silicon mould a spray with canola oil). 

2) In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until it forms ribbons. Add the egg and yolk and beat well, then the red wine and vanilla. At this point, the cake will look a little split, but its all good, it'll come together!

3) Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and cinnamon together, and add to the wet ingredients. Mix gently until combined, then spread batter into the greased tin/mould. 

4) Slice up a pear into half cm slices, and arrange them gently on top of the batter in any pattern you like.

5) Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a skewer  comes out clean. Cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then flip out of pan and cool the rest of the way on a cooling rack. If you're using a silicon mould, wait until its completely cooled before turning the cake out.

6) Warm up a couple of tablespoons of fig jam in a small saucepan, and brush it over the cooled cake.

If you wish to add ganache just make sure the cake is fully cooled! The cake does not rise a huge amount, so I would make 2 cakes if you're looking to layer them - however would love to know how you go if you just cut one in half!